CHAPTER SIX: SAY WHAT?
~~~
Rowena Ravenclaw was only slightly agitated by the fact that she couldn't get into her house common room. What she found most aggrevating about the situation was her own lack of foresight. She should have known the password would no longer be "nectarine" after all this time. Her irritation vanished completely when she realized that Godric Gryffindor wouldn't be able to get into his house, either. Perhaps she could find him over there.
Her guess was nothing short of correct. She found Gryffindor sitting with his back against the wall, next to a portrait of a very large woman in a pink dress. He smiled when he saw her and said, "Did you forget, too?"
"That the passwords change every few days?" She nodded. "Yes."
She held out her hand. He took it, and she helped him to his feet. "Shall we walk?" she asked.
They began wandering absentmindedly through the school, with no destination or purpose. Neither spoke, for both knew what the other was thinking. They were thinking about Salazar Slytherin, about his resurrection and what it would mean to face him again. Although he disagreed with what standards Hogwarts should have, that didn't change the fact that he and Gryffindor were still brothers. The bonds of blood could not be broken so easily.
After about five minutes of silence, Gryffindor vocalized his thoughts. "I can't do it, Rowena," he said. "I won't abandon these people - our descendants - to face their enemy alone, but I won't kill my brother."
"I know you won't," she replied, "but any way you look at it, we don't have much time. This Voldemort seems like someone to be feared. They never would have resurrected us if it was not a last resort." Both of them knew about the resurrection spell and how dangerous it was. No one had said anything, but logic told them that was how they had been brought back to life.
"But what about Salazar?" Gryffindor asked. "Voldemort is obviously a descendant of his. Will that be enough to persuade him to go against us?" He sighed and began rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "I couldn't save him before. How can I now?"
"No one blames you for what happened, Godric," Rowena said. "He could not be stopped."
"Maybe he could have," he said. "But then Kedelor... whatever happened to him, anyway?"
Rowena sighed, and said, "I don't know. I died before his defeat."
Gryffindor stopped walking, and a shocked look crossed his face. "You died? But how?"
She stopped as well. Tears stung her eyes, and though she tried to hold them back, she was unsuccessful. "A week after you did," she said. "I don't know how I survived the childbirth, but somehow, I did. We were all alone, and I knew that if I didn't find help, we would all die. I did the only thing I could - left to find help. I didn't get far from the cottage when I collapsed from weakness, and... and then I died." She wiped at her eyes and said, "You should not have interfered. Your sacrifice was in vain. You could have killed Kedelor then, but you chose to save me, and for nothing!"
He reached for her hands and gripped them tightly. "It was not in vain," he insisted. "I had to make a choice. It was either lose one life, mine, or lose two - yours and our child's. And even though you died so soon after, our child obviously lived because we're here now."
"Children, Godric," she corrected. "They were twin girls."
A pained look crossed his face, and tears of his own formed in the corners of his eyes. "I wish I could have seen them."
"They had your eyes," she said in a choked whisper. "I wanted to save them so badly... they were all I had left of you." She pulled her hands away and took a few steps forward. "But I failed. I failed them. I failed you. I failed everyone."
"Rowena," Gryffindor said, walking over to her and placing a hand on her arm.
She jerked away from him like he was a poisonous reptile. Her eyes were flaming. "Do you have any idea what it's like to see someone you love die right before your eyes?" she said angrily. "Do you have any idea what it's like to give birth to children who will never know their father?" Tears were streaming down her cheeks by this point. "My heart died when you did, and the rest of me caught up a week later. Why did you do it? Tell me, why?"
"Because I loved you, and if it means anything to you, I still do."
"It means everything to me, and that is why I will not give it a chance to destroy us again." Without another word, she turned and walked away.
~~~
After their conversation with Helga Hufflepuff, all that had participated in the resurrection spell went their seperate ways. Severus Snape remained in the dungeons to clean up a little before going to bed. Harry Potter, who was quite exhausted from the spell, went to bed immediately. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger accompanied their friend to their house, and then spent the rest of the night studying in the common room with some of their fellow Gryffindors. Nicolas Flamel went home. Helga went to the library to "catch up with the twentieth century", as she put it. Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall went to the staff room to discuss the day's events before calling it a night.
Madam Pomfrey had given Harry, Minerva, and Flamel some wound-cleaning solution and insisted they use it on their cuts. Minerva had it with her and was attempting to treat her injuries, but her hands were shaking, and she was unsuccessful. Her arm was throbbing, and the slightest touch was excurciating.
"Let me help you with that," Dumbledore said, taking the wound-cleaning solution from her. He asked her to sit down in a chair in front of the fireplace, and then knelt down next to her. At his request, she held out her arm. "How do you feel?" the headmaster asked, dipping a cloth into the solution.
"Tired," she answered. "Very tired."
"Probably because of the spell," he guessed. He warned her that the cleaning solution might sting, and then pressed the cloth to her skin. She flinched, but did not move away.
"What do you think will happen with the Gryffindor/Slytherin situation?" Minerva asked through clenched teeth.
"I don't know," Dumbledore answered. "It's hard to say. I can see why Gryffindor would be reluctant to help. I could not kill my own brother."
She shook her head. "Neither could I."
"You have a brother?" he asked, confused.
"Two," she replied, "and a sister - well, had, anyway. Elias was killed in a Quidditch accident forty years ago, and Toby and Estella were murdered by Grindelwald."
Dumbledore cringed at the mention of Grindelwald, and she noticed that and apologized. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It's not the first time someone's mentioned him around me, and I'm sure it won't be the last." Grindelwald was one of the two people who had ever lived that Dumbledore truly hated, and just thinking about his old nemesis was enough to send him into an irritable mood.
"Well, I should know better. I'm sorry." Minerva despised him too, of course, but Dumbledore's contempt for the evil wizard ran deeper than anyone could imagine.
She was such a perfectionist. That trait annoyed him to no end. "You don't have to do that, you know," he said, and dipped the cloth into the solution again.
"Do what?" she asked, wincing slightly when the stinging liquid touched her open wounds.
"Apologize for every little mistake you make," he replied. "No one is perfect, Minerva, even though there are those among us who come quite close."
Had she not been so exhausted, she might have caught the deeper inner hidden meaning behind his statement. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Think about it in the morning," he replied.
"I'm thinking, and I still don't understand."
Dumbledore smiled for the first time in several hours. "I said in the morning, Minerva."
"I won't be able to sleep if I'm dwelling on a thought like that."
"I don't think you'll have trouble sleeping tonight," he returned, and dabbed the cloth at the cuts that made up her first name. Some of the cuts were deep, and he feared that he might not be able to use her arm for several days. He wondered if Harry's and Flamel's cuts were as bad as hers. Probably not, because both of them were right-handed and their names were nowhere near as long as hers.
It took him about five minutes to use up all of the wound-cleaning solution, and when he was done, he was somewhat miffed to see that the cuts didn't look much better other than the fact that they had stopped bleeding. She was half-asleep by the time he was done. "That should help," he said, setting the cloth down. He looked at her, and saw that her eyes were closed and she was nearly motionless. "Minerva? Are you still with me?"
She opened her eyes and said, "Yes, Albus. I'm sorry. I'm just so tired..."
"That was a brave thing you did, all three of you," he said. "I think I see why the Sorting Hat eventually decided on putting you in Gryffindor."
"That's true, but maybe it would have been more appropriate for me to be in Ravenclaw."
"I don't think so. Ravenclaw's blood may flow in your veins, but so does Gryffindor's. I guess the hat just saw more of Gryffindor in you than Ravenclaw, although I must say that it definitely was not on the outside."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The first thought that entered my mind when I saw Ravenclaw was, 'She looks like Minerva'."
Minerva chuckled softly. "Except that she's far more beautiful than I ever was."
"I wouldn't say that." He planted a platonic kiss on her temple and then rose to his feet. "Come. It's past your bedtime."
"It's six o'clock, Albus."
He glanced at the clock on the wall. "No, it's five fifty-one, Minerva," he corrected. "I don't think you'll be conscious by the time six o'clock rolls around. Now that I think about it, I don't think you'll be conscious when it's five fifty-three."
She was about to say, "Yes, I will," but a huge yawn nearly split her head in half before she had the chance.
~~~
By the time morning came around, everyone was feeling much better. The scars on Harry's and Minerva's arms, although they would never fully go away, looked a little bit lighter, and Harry was able to use his arm without too much pain. Dumbledore thought it would be a good idea to give their resurrected friends a tour of the school; after all, even though they had laid every stone, things had moved around considerably since the thirteenth century. Minerva, Harry, Ron, and Hermione insisted on helping. All of them noticed that Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw weren't speaking to each other, but no one commented.
They decided to make the first stop Dumbledore's office. The password "chocolate frog" made the gargoyle move aside, and the party began climbing the stairs. Harry and Minerva were still feeling slightly fatigued, and as a result, the going was slower than it would have been under other circumstances.
When they reached Dumbledore's office, Gryffindor's eyes immediately fell upon a certain bird with red and gold feathers, and he let out a cry of surprise. "Fawkes?"
Fawkes turned his head in their direction and chirped. Gryffindor extended his right arm, and Fawkes spread his wings and flew over to them. He landed on Gryffindor's arm and rubbed his head against his shoulder. Gryffindor chuckled and then let out a series of chirps and clicks. Fawkes made some chirping and clicking sounds as well, and Gryffindor laughed and nodded.
Dumbledore, Minerva, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were practically blown away by what they saw. "You speak phoenix?" Ron said in amazement.
"The language is Acrosian," Gryffindor corrected, "and yes, I do speak it. All four of us were gifted with the ability to speak a rare language."
"Godric speaks Acrosian; Salazar, Parseltongue; Helga, Meclian; and I, Teyamash," Rowena said.
"Meclian and Teyamash?" Hermione repeated. "What languages are those?"
"Meclian is the language of fairies, and Teyamash is spoken by Nundus," Helga said.
"Nundus?" Harry repeated, and grimaced. "You can actually get close enough to a Nundu to speak to it without being killed?" He paused, and then said, "Wow, you ARE powerful."
"It's not easy," Rowena said. "Nundus are such vicious, bloodthirsty creatures... it's impossible to reason with them. Anyway, they're so rare that there's really no point to being able to speak the language."
"Said the only person in history who has single-handedly defeated a Nundu," Gryffindor commented, and then quickly added, "Unless it's happened since our time, of course."
Minerva shook her head. "No, it hasn't."
Rowena began to look uncomfortable. Her breathing quickened, her eyes darted around the room, and she started wringing her hands. "It was only because I distracted it long enough to make it stay in one place while the cave fell in," she said.
"But you also made the cave fall in," Gryffindor said.
Rowena closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to force an image out of her mind. "No. No more. I can't take another word of this!"
Gryffindor reached for her right hand with his left, and then whispered, "I'm sorry for all the pain that I caused you, but not for the decision I made."
"Don't touch me," she said, and pulled her hand away. She refused to look at him after that.
The others sensed the need for a change of subject, and Helga initiated the new conversation. "How did you come into the possession of Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore?"
"I didn't," Dumbledore answered. "He came to me. I don't know why."
Fawkes chirped. "Because you would not have survived otherwise, and he liked you so much that he decided to make you his new owner," Gryffindor translated, although he had no idea what the phoenix was talking about.
Dumbledore, however, did. He remembered perfectly well when he first saw Fawkes, the lengendary guardian of the school: he had been battling Grindelwald in a London subway station. Grindelwald was dead and Dumbledore badly injured. He probably would have died had it not been for the majestic bird that seemed to appear out of nowhere and mended his wounds with its tears. Up until then, he wasn't sure if Fawkes even existed. There was a legend at Hogwarts that Gryffindor had a phoenix whom he asked to watch over the school for all time and protect it from danger, but until Dumbledore and Fawkes returned after defeating Grindelwald, it was thought to be just a fairy tale.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn't help chuckling a little bit at the thought of Fawkes deciding on making Dumbledore his owner. Usually, the owner chose the pet, not the other way around.
~~~
The party left Dumbledore's office a few minutes later. As they exited the staircase, they saw something coming toward them: a house-elf. As the elf came closer, Dumbledore recognized her: Buckle, who belonged to the Flamels. She was crying and looked terribly upset. "Buckle?" Dumbledore said, just to make sure it wasn't a case of mistaken identity.
"Master Dumbledore!" the elf cried, and threw herself at Dumbledore's feet. "Buckle is sorry, but she had to come to Hogwarts. It is what Master and Mistress wanted."
A feeling of dread rose from the pit of his stomach. "Has something happened to Nicolas and Perenelle?"
"They're dead!" Buckle sobbed. "Buckle found them in their bed this morning. She thought they were asleep, but when she checked them, they were dead! Master and Mistress Flamel are dead!"
~~~
A/N: Gryffindor died a horrible death under terrible circumstances. Rowena's defeat of the Nundu is related to this event. There's also a reason why Rowena is being such a b****. More details surrounding his demise and her attitude will be revealed in upcoming chapters.
~~~
Rowena Ravenclaw was only slightly agitated by the fact that she couldn't get into her house common room. What she found most aggrevating about the situation was her own lack of foresight. She should have known the password would no longer be "nectarine" after all this time. Her irritation vanished completely when she realized that Godric Gryffindor wouldn't be able to get into his house, either. Perhaps she could find him over there.
Her guess was nothing short of correct. She found Gryffindor sitting with his back against the wall, next to a portrait of a very large woman in a pink dress. He smiled when he saw her and said, "Did you forget, too?"
"That the passwords change every few days?" She nodded. "Yes."
She held out her hand. He took it, and she helped him to his feet. "Shall we walk?" she asked.
They began wandering absentmindedly through the school, with no destination or purpose. Neither spoke, for both knew what the other was thinking. They were thinking about Salazar Slytherin, about his resurrection and what it would mean to face him again. Although he disagreed with what standards Hogwarts should have, that didn't change the fact that he and Gryffindor were still brothers. The bonds of blood could not be broken so easily.
After about five minutes of silence, Gryffindor vocalized his thoughts. "I can't do it, Rowena," he said. "I won't abandon these people - our descendants - to face their enemy alone, but I won't kill my brother."
"I know you won't," she replied, "but any way you look at it, we don't have much time. This Voldemort seems like someone to be feared. They never would have resurrected us if it was not a last resort." Both of them knew about the resurrection spell and how dangerous it was. No one had said anything, but logic told them that was how they had been brought back to life.
"But what about Salazar?" Gryffindor asked. "Voldemort is obviously a descendant of his. Will that be enough to persuade him to go against us?" He sighed and began rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "I couldn't save him before. How can I now?"
"No one blames you for what happened, Godric," Rowena said. "He could not be stopped."
"Maybe he could have," he said. "But then Kedelor... whatever happened to him, anyway?"
Rowena sighed, and said, "I don't know. I died before his defeat."
Gryffindor stopped walking, and a shocked look crossed his face. "You died? But how?"
She stopped as well. Tears stung her eyes, and though she tried to hold them back, she was unsuccessful. "A week after you did," she said. "I don't know how I survived the childbirth, but somehow, I did. We were all alone, and I knew that if I didn't find help, we would all die. I did the only thing I could - left to find help. I didn't get far from the cottage when I collapsed from weakness, and... and then I died." She wiped at her eyes and said, "You should not have interfered. Your sacrifice was in vain. You could have killed Kedelor then, but you chose to save me, and for nothing!"
He reached for her hands and gripped them tightly. "It was not in vain," he insisted. "I had to make a choice. It was either lose one life, mine, or lose two - yours and our child's. And even though you died so soon after, our child obviously lived because we're here now."
"Children, Godric," she corrected. "They were twin girls."
A pained look crossed his face, and tears of his own formed in the corners of his eyes. "I wish I could have seen them."
"They had your eyes," she said in a choked whisper. "I wanted to save them so badly... they were all I had left of you." She pulled her hands away and took a few steps forward. "But I failed. I failed them. I failed you. I failed everyone."
"Rowena," Gryffindor said, walking over to her and placing a hand on her arm.
She jerked away from him like he was a poisonous reptile. Her eyes were flaming. "Do you have any idea what it's like to see someone you love die right before your eyes?" she said angrily. "Do you have any idea what it's like to give birth to children who will never know their father?" Tears were streaming down her cheeks by this point. "My heart died when you did, and the rest of me caught up a week later. Why did you do it? Tell me, why?"
"Because I loved you, and if it means anything to you, I still do."
"It means everything to me, and that is why I will not give it a chance to destroy us again." Without another word, she turned and walked away.
~~~
After their conversation with Helga Hufflepuff, all that had participated in the resurrection spell went their seperate ways. Severus Snape remained in the dungeons to clean up a little before going to bed. Harry Potter, who was quite exhausted from the spell, went to bed immediately. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger accompanied their friend to their house, and then spent the rest of the night studying in the common room with some of their fellow Gryffindors. Nicolas Flamel went home. Helga went to the library to "catch up with the twentieth century", as she put it. Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall went to the staff room to discuss the day's events before calling it a night.
Madam Pomfrey had given Harry, Minerva, and Flamel some wound-cleaning solution and insisted they use it on their cuts. Minerva had it with her and was attempting to treat her injuries, but her hands were shaking, and she was unsuccessful. Her arm was throbbing, and the slightest touch was excurciating.
"Let me help you with that," Dumbledore said, taking the wound-cleaning solution from her. He asked her to sit down in a chair in front of the fireplace, and then knelt down next to her. At his request, she held out her arm. "How do you feel?" the headmaster asked, dipping a cloth into the solution.
"Tired," she answered. "Very tired."
"Probably because of the spell," he guessed. He warned her that the cleaning solution might sting, and then pressed the cloth to her skin. She flinched, but did not move away.
"What do you think will happen with the Gryffindor/Slytherin situation?" Minerva asked through clenched teeth.
"I don't know," Dumbledore answered. "It's hard to say. I can see why Gryffindor would be reluctant to help. I could not kill my own brother."
She shook her head. "Neither could I."
"You have a brother?" he asked, confused.
"Two," she replied, "and a sister - well, had, anyway. Elias was killed in a Quidditch accident forty years ago, and Toby and Estella were murdered by Grindelwald."
Dumbledore cringed at the mention of Grindelwald, and she noticed that and apologized. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It's not the first time someone's mentioned him around me, and I'm sure it won't be the last." Grindelwald was one of the two people who had ever lived that Dumbledore truly hated, and just thinking about his old nemesis was enough to send him into an irritable mood.
"Well, I should know better. I'm sorry." Minerva despised him too, of course, but Dumbledore's contempt for the evil wizard ran deeper than anyone could imagine.
She was such a perfectionist. That trait annoyed him to no end. "You don't have to do that, you know," he said, and dipped the cloth into the solution again.
"Do what?" she asked, wincing slightly when the stinging liquid touched her open wounds.
"Apologize for every little mistake you make," he replied. "No one is perfect, Minerva, even though there are those among us who come quite close."
Had she not been so exhausted, she might have caught the deeper inner hidden meaning behind his statement. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Think about it in the morning," he replied.
"I'm thinking, and I still don't understand."
Dumbledore smiled for the first time in several hours. "I said in the morning, Minerva."
"I won't be able to sleep if I'm dwelling on a thought like that."
"I don't think you'll have trouble sleeping tonight," he returned, and dabbed the cloth at the cuts that made up her first name. Some of the cuts were deep, and he feared that he might not be able to use her arm for several days. He wondered if Harry's and Flamel's cuts were as bad as hers. Probably not, because both of them were right-handed and their names were nowhere near as long as hers.
It took him about five minutes to use up all of the wound-cleaning solution, and when he was done, he was somewhat miffed to see that the cuts didn't look much better other than the fact that they had stopped bleeding. She was half-asleep by the time he was done. "That should help," he said, setting the cloth down. He looked at her, and saw that her eyes were closed and she was nearly motionless. "Minerva? Are you still with me?"
She opened her eyes and said, "Yes, Albus. I'm sorry. I'm just so tired..."
"That was a brave thing you did, all three of you," he said. "I think I see why the Sorting Hat eventually decided on putting you in Gryffindor."
"That's true, but maybe it would have been more appropriate for me to be in Ravenclaw."
"I don't think so. Ravenclaw's blood may flow in your veins, but so does Gryffindor's. I guess the hat just saw more of Gryffindor in you than Ravenclaw, although I must say that it definitely was not on the outside."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The first thought that entered my mind when I saw Ravenclaw was, 'She looks like Minerva'."
Minerva chuckled softly. "Except that she's far more beautiful than I ever was."
"I wouldn't say that." He planted a platonic kiss on her temple and then rose to his feet. "Come. It's past your bedtime."
"It's six o'clock, Albus."
He glanced at the clock on the wall. "No, it's five fifty-one, Minerva," he corrected. "I don't think you'll be conscious by the time six o'clock rolls around. Now that I think about it, I don't think you'll be conscious when it's five fifty-three."
She was about to say, "Yes, I will," but a huge yawn nearly split her head in half before she had the chance.
~~~
By the time morning came around, everyone was feeling much better. The scars on Harry's and Minerva's arms, although they would never fully go away, looked a little bit lighter, and Harry was able to use his arm without too much pain. Dumbledore thought it would be a good idea to give their resurrected friends a tour of the school; after all, even though they had laid every stone, things had moved around considerably since the thirteenth century. Minerva, Harry, Ron, and Hermione insisted on helping. All of them noticed that Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw weren't speaking to each other, but no one commented.
They decided to make the first stop Dumbledore's office. The password "chocolate frog" made the gargoyle move aside, and the party began climbing the stairs. Harry and Minerva were still feeling slightly fatigued, and as a result, the going was slower than it would have been under other circumstances.
When they reached Dumbledore's office, Gryffindor's eyes immediately fell upon a certain bird with red and gold feathers, and he let out a cry of surprise. "Fawkes?"
Fawkes turned his head in their direction and chirped. Gryffindor extended his right arm, and Fawkes spread his wings and flew over to them. He landed on Gryffindor's arm and rubbed his head against his shoulder. Gryffindor chuckled and then let out a series of chirps and clicks. Fawkes made some chirping and clicking sounds as well, and Gryffindor laughed and nodded.
Dumbledore, Minerva, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were practically blown away by what they saw. "You speak phoenix?" Ron said in amazement.
"The language is Acrosian," Gryffindor corrected, "and yes, I do speak it. All four of us were gifted with the ability to speak a rare language."
"Godric speaks Acrosian; Salazar, Parseltongue; Helga, Meclian; and I, Teyamash," Rowena said.
"Meclian and Teyamash?" Hermione repeated. "What languages are those?"
"Meclian is the language of fairies, and Teyamash is spoken by Nundus," Helga said.
"Nundus?" Harry repeated, and grimaced. "You can actually get close enough to a Nundu to speak to it without being killed?" He paused, and then said, "Wow, you ARE powerful."
"It's not easy," Rowena said. "Nundus are such vicious, bloodthirsty creatures... it's impossible to reason with them. Anyway, they're so rare that there's really no point to being able to speak the language."
"Said the only person in history who has single-handedly defeated a Nundu," Gryffindor commented, and then quickly added, "Unless it's happened since our time, of course."
Minerva shook her head. "No, it hasn't."
Rowena began to look uncomfortable. Her breathing quickened, her eyes darted around the room, and she started wringing her hands. "It was only because I distracted it long enough to make it stay in one place while the cave fell in," she said.
"But you also made the cave fall in," Gryffindor said.
Rowena closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to force an image out of her mind. "No. No more. I can't take another word of this!"
Gryffindor reached for her right hand with his left, and then whispered, "I'm sorry for all the pain that I caused you, but not for the decision I made."
"Don't touch me," she said, and pulled her hand away. She refused to look at him after that.
The others sensed the need for a change of subject, and Helga initiated the new conversation. "How did you come into the possession of Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore?"
"I didn't," Dumbledore answered. "He came to me. I don't know why."
Fawkes chirped. "Because you would not have survived otherwise, and he liked you so much that he decided to make you his new owner," Gryffindor translated, although he had no idea what the phoenix was talking about.
Dumbledore, however, did. He remembered perfectly well when he first saw Fawkes, the lengendary guardian of the school: he had been battling Grindelwald in a London subway station. Grindelwald was dead and Dumbledore badly injured. He probably would have died had it not been for the majestic bird that seemed to appear out of nowhere and mended his wounds with its tears. Up until then, he wasn't sure if Fawkes even existed. There was a legend at Hogwarts that Gryffindor had a phoenix whom he asked to watch over the school for all time and protect it from danger, but until Dumbledore and Fawkes returned after defeating Grindelwald, it was thought to be just a fairy tale.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn't help chuckling a little bit at the thought of Fawkes deciding on making Dumbledore his owner. Usually, the owner chose the pet, not the other way around.
~~~
The party left Dumbledore's office a few minutes later. As they exited the staircase, they saw something coming toward them: a house-elf. As the elf came closer, Dumbledore recognized her: Buckle, who belonged to the Flamels. She was crying and looked terribly upset. "Buckle?" Dumbledore said, just to make sure it wasn't a case of mistaken identity.
"Master Dumbledore!" the elf cried, and threw herself at Dumbledore's feet. "Buckle is sorry, but she had to come to Hogwarts. It is what Master and Mistress wanted."
A feeling of dread rose from the pit of his stomach. "Has something happened to Nicolas and Perenelle?"
"They're dead!" Buckle sobbed. "Buckle found them in their bed this morning. She thought they were asleep, but when she checked them, they were dead! Master and Mistress Flamel are dead!"
~~~
A/N: Gryffindor died a horrible death under terrible circumstances. Rowena's defeat of the Nundu is related to this event. There's also a reason why Rowena is being such a b****. More details surrounding his demise and her attitude will be revealed in upcoming chapters.