Chapter Thirty: I Bequeath Thee
May 29th
8:23pm
Hogwarts, Scotland
Harry
Harry Potter was perhaps the busiest he had ever been. Preparations for Voldemort's infiltration of the castle were going well, with Sirius and Remus moving into rooms above the three broomsticks and Moody and Tonks gaining extra shifts for patrols in Hogwarts in case of a freak move up of the date.
They had an action plan too, with the four Hogwarts students tasked with notifying the teachers and any students they found to stay inside their common rooms until the morning. As well as deploying order members and Harry's group near the entrance to the room of requirement on the night, they had the makings of a good ambush.
There were still things to prepare for though, like attacks on the wider wizarding world and the other entrances of the castle. Whilst he would much rather prepare for these, he was once more granting the Headmaster more time than the old man deserved.
"Good evening, Harry," the man greeted solemnly. Harry could see the slightest improvement in the headmaster's condition, even if it was just that the man seemed more content and less stressed.
"I hope so, Headmaster," Harry replied semi-petulantly. He regretted it the moment he said it, it would not do for him to be childish, not anymore. "You're looking better," he added to cover it up.
"The afterglow of a job well done Harry, nothing more," Dumbledore dismissed, "and if I might impress upon you just this, please call me Albus. If this is the last time we are to speak, I wish for it to be as equals."
"The last time?" Harry questioned. It was true that the man was nearing death but if all went well he'd live at least for another month.
"Indeed," Albus confirmed without offering more explanation. Instead he moved on to another topic, "I must compliment you on your handling of the ministry, truly cunning, all of the praise yet none of the blame."
"I've simply made the right allies," Harry diverted modestly. In truth he wasn't sure how Dumbledore truly felt about stealing his order members from him to make these alliances.
Dumbledore stared at him imperceptibly for a moment before waving his hand making a bottle of wine and two glasses appear on the desk. "Come Harry, we will be here for a while." The bottle magically poured the two a glass each and then the glasses levitated closer to each of them.
Harry picked the glass up and ran his finger along the rim, subtly checking for any nefarious curses or potions hidden in the liquid, the extent of his wandless magic so far.
"I can assure you, this one's not poisoned."
Harry flicked his eyes up to Dumbledore who simply smiled cheekily. Of course he knows, Slughorn probably spilled the beans as fast as the fat heap could make it to this very office,' Harry thought viciously before stopping himself. The whole encounter with Dumbledore was making him on edge for some reason and he remembered the effect alcohol had last time so he took a hearty sip from the glass and calmed down.
"It grows stronger?" Dumbledore asked worriedly, for his safety or the world's Harry didn't care to know.
"It," Harry began irritably, having to once again catch himself before continuing, "is well in hand."
Harry nursed his drink as Dumbledore took a sip of his before reaching into a drawer beside him and pulling a ghastly ring with a black stone in its centre out from it and placing it on the table. "Harry, might I trouble you with another history lesson?"
Harry nodded his acquiescence and Dumbledore began, "there is a story called the tale of the three brothers, a cautionary tale for some, a chance to break free from the yoke of the ordinary for others, but the tale is always the same. Three brothers cheat death and, in a sly attempt to kill them, he grants them each a boon of their choosing."
"The eldest brother, proud and vain, asked for a wand of unimaginable power and death fashioned him one. The eldest went forth from the place and killed a wizard he had once quarrelled with and, drunk with power, boasted his new found superiority. The eldest was killed in his sleep that very night, wand stolen and throat cut."
Dumbledore pulled a wand from inside his robes and placed it on the table before Harry. It was perhaps the most peculiar wand he had ever seen with knots running down the length of it and ancient runes inscribed in between.
"The middle brother, filled with longing, asked for a way to recall loved ones from the grave. The second brother went home and recalled the women he hoped to marry before her untimely death. For a time they enjoyed each other's company, until soon she grew cold and sad for she did not belong with the living. The second brother hung himself, mad with grief and pain."
Dumbledore picked up the ring and plucked a black stone from its centre and placed it close to Harry. The stone had similar carvings to the wand and only now did the significance of the wand become clearer to Harry.
"The final brother, humble and shrewd, asked Death for a way to go forth from that place unfollowed and so death reluctantly cut cloth from his own invisibility cloak to give to the brother. For many years death searched for the third brother but could not find him. It was only when the man was ready did he shed the cloak and pass it on to his son to then greet death gladly, unlike his brothers."
Dumbledore's recounting of the final brother ended with him rather pointedly staring at Harry's right pocket. Harry looked down and pulled free his invisibility cloak from his pocket and placed it on the desk in front of him.
"Death's gifts?" Harry asked, already knowing the answer Dumbledore had ready.
"I have been on this earth a very long time, Harry, too long some might say, I have never seen a cloak with a disillusionment charm lasting longer than three years. Nor cloaks weaved with demiguise hair any longer than five. Your grandfather used that very same cloak in the war against Grindelwald over fifty years ago." Dumbledore then unfolded the cloak and pointed to a corner of it, "there is also this."
Harry had to look carefully to see it but what Dumbledore was pointing to was a barely perceptible symbol with a line through a circle in the centre of a triangle. Albus further pointed to the same symbol on the stone and the wand indicating the further connection of these objects.
"It is said the person who unites these items becomes the 'master of death' immortal until death itself is gone," Dumbledore proclaimed emphatically.
Harry didn't buy it. "You don't believe that," he said simply.
"No, I do not." Dumbledore leaned back and sighed before saying, "once maybe, when I was young and full of idealism. Now, I see them as the story suggests, tools of power meant to lure in the power hungry and punish them for their hubris."
"Except the cloak?" Harry tried to assure but it came out as more of a question because he himself wasn't so sure.
Dumbledore nodded, "as far as I can see, yes. It was the only one born of humility and thus doesn't garner as much attention for death." Dumbledore picked up the wand and examined it, "you see Harry, Grindelwald had the unbeatable wand and in the end it betrayed him because he was too confident in its power. The Gaunt's had the resurrection stone, an heirloom of prestigious lineage and yet their line is all but ended."
"I understand," Harry interjected. "They're simply tools, and must be seen as much, any other way is dangerous."
"Good, I'm very glad you see them that way" Dumbledore remarked happily, "because they're yours."
Harry frowned, it was unlike Dumbledore to give up so much power, even the reputation alone he could wield by having two of these items seemed immense. But just as Harry had said before, they were simply tools, tools he did not need. "I don't want them," he refuted, declining the gifts, "if they bring as much trouble as you say then I would have them as far from me as possible."
"I was hoping you'd say that," Dumbledore admitted fondly. "You do not have to tell anyone about them, hide them if you wish, destroy them if you can but there is no one I trust more to determine the future of these hallowed artefacts than you."
The admission was a tough one to bear, for the past two years he had felt as though Dumbledore didn't trust him and in turn he couldn't trust Dumbledore. But to hear it here, now, and listen to the old headmaster proclaim him as the only person he can trust was enough to move him, despite the many issues between him.
"Fine," he agreed, "I'll take them."
Dumbledore picked up the wand and spoke calmly, "if you'll kindly disarm me to-"
The wand soared from Dumbledore's hand to Harry's own in a heartbeat. The wand felt… odd, he could feel its allegiance to Dumbledore wain the longer it was in his hand.
"Fast draw," Albus complimented, "a useful skill." Harry provided no comment to that and pocketed the wand feeling a deep satisfaction at having 'won' Dumbledore's wand. Whether it was his own or the horcrux's, he'd never know.
"I have one final gift for you, a promise fulfilled." Dumbledore reached into the same drawer from before and pulled free a book, the same book that had been on his desk months ago when he broke the knew of the horcrux inside him. "In this book I have detailed every piece of knowledge I can to help you in the fight against Tom. Knowledge on horcruxes, spells, tactics, people of interest and so much more. This I bequeath to you as my final act as the leader of the light."
Harry took the book from his hand and felt a great sense of foreboding. It all was on him now, the ministry will crumble soon, so too will Dumbledore. The last line of defence was a man destined to die, how ironic. "Thank you," he merely replied.
"In that book you will come to know me as a false brother, failed leader and fractured man but it is through this admittance of failure that I hope to allow you to avoid them," Dumbledore explained sincerely. This conversation was taking a toll on him, Harry could tell. The man was slouching in his chair and devoid of his eyes was that damned twinkle.
"If I am to die, why give me all this, why tempt me with a future I am destined to never know?" Harry asked sadly.
"Because if there is one thing that you have learned to become over the years it is a survivor. With this in mind, it is only natural for me to believe you will find a way to live, even if this old man couldn't be the one to tell you how."
'Daphne would be furious to hear how much he sounded like her just now,' Harry mused. "Only time will tell."
"Indeed, and in that time I trust you have a backup plan?" the headmaster asked curiously as if it was idle gossip and not the fate of the wizarding kind.
"I do," Harry confirmed, "find the Horcruxes, destroy them, off myself and let someone else deal with a mortal Voldemort."
Dumbledore looked at him sadly but asked anyway, "you have someone who can handle such a task?"
"I believe you've met her," Harry supplied wryly.
"Oh yes we have met, she held me at wand point for a time." Dumbledore's recounting brought a smile to Harry's face, he might've called such a move brave but considering how little she thought of Dumbledore he doubted there was any fear involved. Dumbledore continued with an odd glint in his eyes, "perhaps love is the power he knows not?"
Harry gave the man a pointed look, one that issued the order of dropping such a topic, Harry wasn't here for an 'I told you so' moment and had no desire to speak of his love life to someone nearly one hundred years his senior.
"Speaking of the horcruxes, my potion's master tells me you accosted him late last month." Dumbledore's change of topic wasn't a pleasant one, but still better than the last.
Ignoring Slughorn's complaints, Harry instead got to the important bits, "four out of seven in my possession or destroyed, including myself."
"A fortuitous turn of events," Dumbledore expressed, "you have a knack for turning a bad situation good."
"How do you mean?" Harry asked confusedly, taking a sip from his drink.
Dumbledore's eyes squinted as though he was in pain at the very thought of his meaning. "I know you've tasted death, Harry, not just on the battlefield but at this very school. Madam Umbridge was-"
"Madam Umbridge was a plague on this earth, torturing children in a wanton power play," Harry interjected hotly. "I put a stop to that when you either wouldn't or couldn't."
"Often the easy road seems right until the consequences of our actions make themselves known." Dumbledore rubbed his beard and continued, "your luck seemed to be on your side in this regard."
"Good, it was about time something went my way anyway," Harry scornfully decided. Can it really be called good luck if it took a great deal of bad luck to get him in those situations?
"Do not let your recent victories blind you, the dangers of hubris can not be understated, great men have been ensured by their own sense of superiority for centuries." Dumbledore calmed himself from the initial outburst and returned to an educative tone, "the wand, the horcruxes, your allies and your enemies will all seek to use your arrogance against you for reasons entirely their own. It is up to you to remain grounded and fortified not only for yourself but those that place their trust in you."
Dumbledore's warning rang true, already Scrimengour and Voldemort had exploited his arrogance to gain information from him. "I know," Harry agreed, "killing her, the way I did it, it felt good at the time. After though, it took some convincing that what I did was the right thing, even with the knowledge that she was a monster."
Dumbledore stared at him in a pitiful expression, "you're a stronger man than me Harry, in my long life I have taken the lives of three people, all of them in the rush of battle, yet I will always look back on those moments and try and find alternate ways I could've acted."
"I can't afford to second guess myself at every turn," Harry returned, "the moment I lose confidence in my own decisions, so will the people that follow me."
Dumbledore went to pour himself another glass but found the old bottle was empty. A snap of his fingers brought a new full bottle to the table which he used to top both glasses up.
"I am glad I got to see you grow into the remarkable young man you are today. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, your parents would be so proud of you," Dumbledore emoted sincerely as he raised his glass. "To you, Harry, and a brighter future."
Harry looked at his own glass, 'a brighter future? I think I can toast to that.' He returned his gaze to the headmaster's and rose his own glass, "to a brighter future, Albus."
June 6th
9:12pm
Hogwarts, Scotland
Harry
'The fourth skirmish in Diagon Alley was one of particular messiness, being on the eve of a new academic year, the street was full of civilians which hampered our ability to defend significantly. I had ordered people to be sheltered in the shop closest to the mouth of Diagon when the shops were set ablaze by errant, or rather calculated, fire spells from our adversaries. Two order members were killed in their attempts to put out the fires before your father and Sirius brought the front of a building down to provide cover.
Whilst I learnt a great deal from such a tragedy it was a tragedy nonetheless. When coming up against Voldemort's most depraved it is most important to think like them, their minds do not work the same as ours and the dishonourable tactics employed have…'
Harry stopped reading the passage there, the lesson was one he had learnt early on when Voldemort deemed it prudent to 'kill the spare' instead of at the very least ignoring Cedric. The book had proven somewhat useful in the past week but more in ways that Harry had to infer than outright tell him like patterns in tactics and favoured death eaters. The information on his parents was always a welcome addition and he wondered if the 'thrice defied' moments would be explained further down the line.
'There is another way to find that out…' he mused as he rested his gaze on an obsidian rock sitting on the coffee table in front of him.
He had dared not use the stone, the second brother's fate still vivid in his mind. As far as he knew, it was a rock with fancy carvings but the implications of the story were still too much for him to worry about. He had also neglected to use the elder wand, his Holly and Phoenix feather wand suited him fine for now until he could either safely test the wand or pass it on to someone else.
'There would be only one,' he concluded, a flash of blonde hair and grey eyes painting his imagination.
BOOM
The doors to the room of requirement burst open and Harry was on his feet with his wand in hand. Thoughts of death eaters and Malfoy raced through his head before he identified the bushy brown hair of his long time friend. Behind her excited half jog, Blaise strode in with an air of confidence which gave Harry the feeling this was either going to be awkward or happy news.
"Harry!" Hermione called out, running up to him and giving him a hug. He returned the hug but was smacked in the gut by her swaying book bag which could easily weigh in the tonnes. He tried to cover up the need to double over with a cough but it was unnecessary because Hermione was only focused on one thing… talking.
"Hello Hermi—"
"No need for that," she dismissed before shoving his ancient artefacts to the side and placing a stack of papers on the desk. "Look."
Harry had an idea what the papers were, having given the order for them to be made but he also recalled giving another order. "Hermione, if those are what I think they are, they should be given to Daphne, she's handling that stuff."
"We did take it to Daphne," Blaise contradicted with his arms crossed and eyes curious, "she sent us straight here to you, said you'd understand why."
He looked hesitantly at both of them, 'they can't be here if I go berserk,' he determined. "Give me the run down before I read them," he told her, hoping it would be enough to accurately assess the danger.
"Well, turns out the wizarding community in Ancient Greece didn't suffer any cultural assimilation like much of muggle Greece did. That means the Doric language is still used in wizarding Greece today. It was just a matter of finding a translated text and working backwards by cross referencing words."
Hermione's explanation had reinforced Harry's belief that there was no one more logically gifted than his friend. There was only one thing left to do, to eloquently express his thoughts to her as best he could."That's brilliant," he complimented.
Hermione lowered he head and rattled off humbly, "it's not like I learnt a new language Harry it was noth—"
Blaise stepped closer to Hermione and put a hand on her back. "No," he refuted Hermione's doubts, "I was there, it was brilliant."
Hermione looked up at Blaise and Harry could detect a pink tinge colouring her cheeks. 'Gods they aren't seriously doing this now.' They were lost in their own little world which allowed Harry to catch himself in his own thoughts. 'Gods? Since when did I start saying that? The only one I know who says that… right.'
Harry put on his best smile for the two and said, "go, take time off, both of you. That means no more ancient scrolls Hermione." Hermione seemed less perturbed than she normally would which Harry found amusing. "I'll let Daphne know you're having a break," he assured them.
The two geniuses left the room post haste, Harry had no intentions of pondering on what they were about to get up to, he was firmly focused on the stack of parchment lying in front of him. 'There's only one reason why this is sitting in front of me, Daphne thinks it's a solution. One can only hope it doesn't violently activate the horcrux and erase my very essence by merely reading about it.'
He picked up the first parchment, the ink seemed new, just dry enough to be transported. The dreaded task closing in on him, he decided a few more seconds would do him no good and flicked his eyes to the top of the page.
'My experiments have bought me the chance of true immortality, one that not even the gods enjoy. Even if I am killed, Hades will have no hold over me, my fate is to be eternal.
It started with the journey to one of the ancient palaces in the south on a forked island. Beneath the palace, a door of which only I could open, the tongue of the serpent granting me entry. The door opened to reveal a hall where the walls were lined with columns of the same unique architecture of the surface palaces and leaked molten lava. At the end of the hall lay a throne, too large for the likes of man, that is when I knew I had entered the lair of an old god.
Upon advancement into the lair I discovered many secret rooms, some even with fierce monsters that had to be killed to progress. A man with a bull's head, a feathered biped with human features and even a several-headed serpent that had the ability to grow its heads back after destruction.
I have come to see these tribulations as tests, tests to discover whether I was worthy of the forbidden knowledge in the deepest chamber. This chamber was one of particular interest from the moment I crossed its threshold. It was circular in shape, in contrast to the rough angular rooms of the rest of the palace. In the centre of the room was a thin pedestal with a swirling orb at its tip.
The orb was mesmerising, colours I have witnessed in my travels could not begin to compare to the spectacle shimmering in the artefact. It drew me in swiftly with an insatiable need to grasp it in my own hands. Many men live their whole lives asking the gods for favours without receiving an answer but I… I received the favour of a vengeful god by fate. For when my skin coupled with the orb my mind was assaulted by knowledge, ancient knowledge, forgotten knowledge… dark knowledge.
In an instant I learnt how to mutate animals to create all manner of beasts, craft spells of immense power and gained an understanding of the very fabric of the various planes of creation. With these things at my command, I challenged the natural order of things, spat in the face of mortality and created the horcrux.'
The idea that Herpo's power in the dark arts came from a god seemed more likely by the second, especially with the tale of three brothers in the forefront of his mind. The passage went on to explain the process that Herpo went through to perfect the creation of the horcrux but Harry was still wrapped up in what he figured Daphne was suggesting.
'Commit an act of pure evil… to save myself. All claim to the moral high ground would be gone, I would be no better than the enemy.'
For hours he sat in front of the magic fireplace going over the ritual, turning Daphne's suggestion. So enthralled by the depraved writings of the ancient sorcerer he failed to realise the horcrux remaining calm despite its previous fury with the very same document.
A/N: And so ends Dumbledore's arch from an unknowingly arrogant man to a humble and repentant one. I hope I've made it clear throughout the story that Dumbledore never meant to cause trouble; he had just become too used to being right that he failed to see when he was wrong. Harry's bitterness and anger towards him comes after several times Dumbledore's failures cause him pain specifically. This was never a Dumbledore bashing fic rather one that shines light on the mistakes of an inherently good man, as such, I believed he deserved a chance to redeem himself.
I want to stop everyone in their tracks if they think this is going to be a master of death OP story. One: that wouldn't make sense narratively and two: the hallows have no unified power in this fic. Dumbledore and Harry had the right of it, they're powerful tools and in the right hands they could be used for great evil or great good.
Yes, Hermione and Blaise are just that good, it took a month for them to sort out the translations but is anyone really surprised? There's more on their translations in the next chapter but I hope everyone enjoyed that snippet of Herpo's adventures. I took a class earlier this year that forced us to write from the perspective of an Ancient Greek which actually helped quite a bit here. The idea that Herpo's foul experiments derive from an ancient power came to me as I was writing this. I was going to have him talk to a spirit but then I would have to explain the spirit too. If it's not clear, there may not be a vengeful god granting him this power, it could just be an ancient way to transfer knowledge that was lost for centuries but as Ancient Greek he'd perceive this higher power as the work of gods and as a narcissist he'd perceive his luck as a choosing of fate.
Things are starting to ramp up for Harry and I'm excited to reveal more.
Next chapter in a few words: the cost of life
Hope you all enjoyed :)
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