Thanks to everyone for reviewing the first two chapters. On to chapter 3!
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Even if Minerva hadn't told Dumbledore where to find Harry, he was sure he would have figured it out on his own, as the cries of the house-elf who was minding the boy could be heard halfway across the grounds.
"No! Young Master must not! Young Master is getting dirty!"
Dumbledore passed under the brick archway that led to the herb garden and turned left at the Pegasus topiary. On the other side, he discovered the elf quivering with horror as Harry, seated on the ground beside a rosemary bush, plunged an already-grimy hand into the soft dirt and brought a clump up to his face for inspection. There was a fine dusting of the stuff on his nose and forehead, and also around his mouth. He must have been tasting it as well as examining it, thought Dumbledore, smiling inwardly at the memory of his sons doing the same thing when they were small.
"Young Master, please!" the elf begged. Harry looked at the wee creature quizzically, as if wondering what all the fuss was about, then squeezed his hand into a fist. Dirt sifted out between his chubby fingers.
"Headmaster, sir!" The elf had spied Dumbledore. "I is trying to stop him - I is telling him it is bad - but he is doing it anyway. The Deputy Headmistress will be so angry -"
"The Deputy Headmistress is not here," said Dumbledore calmly. "It's quite all right for Harry to dig in the dirt. All children do. He can be cleaned up easily."
"I is cleaning him up three times already," complained the elf, but it left off protesting and instead began trying to smooth down Harry's baby-fine black hair, which stuck up in a stubborn spray at the back. Clearly irritated by this, Harry waved his arms, spattering himself, the elf and Dumbledore with bits of earth.
Dumbledore ignored the mess and crouched down next to the boy.
"Good afternoon, Harry," he said. "I see you're enjoying our garden. It isn't as nice now as it will be in the summer, but there is still plenty of entertainment here for a curious young man, isn't there?"
"Dirt," said Harry, clutching his precious fistful tighter.
Dumbledore laughed aloud. " A fine thing, dirt. You and I will make mud-pies together one day soon, when your foster mother is busy elsewhere. In the meantime, I would like you to go for a walk with me." He straightened up and held out a hand to Harry, who frowned at it, but did not take it. After waiting a moment, he gave up, bent down again, and scooped the little boy into his arms. Harry wailed in outrage.
"Thank you for your help," Dumbledore said to the house-elf, raising his voice slightly to be heard over Harry's shrieks. "You may go back to your usual work now."
"Yes, sir!" shrilled the elf, and vanished with a look of intense relief on its dirt-speckled face.
Harry had been surprised into silence by the elf's sudden departure. Now he began crying and struggling again, drumming his tiny boots against the thick folds of Dumbledore's crushed-velvet robes. Dumbledore lifted him higher to avoid taking a kick to the groin - he wasn't so old yet that he didn't care about protecting that part of his anatomy.
"Is all this noise really necessary?" he asked. Harry appeared to think it was. "Very well, then," said Dumbledore, and began walking back to the castle entrance as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. By the time they had got halfway down the first corridor, Harry had worn himself out and stopped screaming, though he still refused to hold on to his captor. Deciding to ignore this, Dumbledore cheerfully pointed out interesting bits of architecture as he walked, warning Harry to stay away from the sliding bookcases and go around the statue of the Sphinx, which often animated without warning and demanded that the nearest passerby answer a riddle before progressing. He was just finishing the story of the fateful Battle of the Broken Broomstick, as portrayed in the stained-glass windows on the North Tower's first floor, when they reached the circular trapdoor leading to Sybill Trelawney's classroom.
Dumbledore set Harry down carefully, removed his wand from his sleeve, reached up and tapped the door twice with the wand's tip. It opened silently, releasing a silver ladder and a puff of cloying jasmine incense. Harry sneezed.
"Bless you," Dumbledore said. "Let me see, I don't think you're quite big enough to climb the ladder, and I am far from agile enough to climb it while holding you. So - Levo!!" He pointed his wand, and Harry rose into the air and disappeared through the black hole of the door. Quickly, Dumbledore scaled the ladder after him.
There were no Divination classes on Tuesdays this year, and the room was empty. It was also cooler and darker than usual - only one red-draped lamp burned in the corner, near the smoldering incense brazier. Sybill was surely here somewhere, though, Dumbledore thought. She almost never left unless she was forced. She had even arranged to have her pay deposited directly into her Gringotts account so she wouldn't have to visit the bank in person.
"Professor Trelawney?" he called. "Sybill? I would like a word with you, if you please."
Off to the side, a small door opened, and Trelawney emerged, rumpled and blinking as if she'd been napping in her office.
"Yes, yes, I'm here," she said rather grumpily. Then, realizing that her employer had come to call, she put on her best dreamy, mystical voice instead. "Good afternoon to you, Professor Dumbledore. What brings you to my tower?"
"It has been far too long since I visited my esteemed Divination professor," said Dumbledore with a wink that made Trelawney look flattered and terrified all at once. "And also, there is someone I would like you to meet. Sybill Trelawney, may I present Master Harry James Potter?"
Trelawney's large eyes went even larger. Wrapping her shawl around her skinny shoulders, she came closer and peered at the child in Dumbledore's arms. Harry, confronted by this odd-looking stranger, suddenly decided that Dumbledore was not so bad after all and hid against his chest.
"No, Harry," said Dumbledore, turning him round again. "Let Professor Trelawney look at you. She is very kind to little children, aren't you, Sybill?"
"What? Oh ... yes. I love children. Little ... little dears." Trelawney clutched the shawl tighter and managed a halfway sincere smile. "So this is the boy, is it? Ah, what an aura he has ... green ... a healer, one who brings peace and harmony ..."
Dumbledore could see Harry's aura perfectly well and knew there was not a trace of green in it, but he refrained from commenting. He was hoping that actually seeing Harry would trigger something in Sybill, perhaps inspire her to expand on the alarming prophecy she had made the night he had hired her, nearly two years ago now. Ever since he had agreed to let Minerva take Harry to raise, he had been second-guessing himself and his own ability to guard the boy. If sending Harry back to his aunt and uncle were the surest means of protecting the hope of the wizarding world, then he would do it, whatever the cost.
But he was disappointed. Trelawney talked vaguely for a while about clouds overhanging Harry's past and warned Dumbledore to keep him away from dark-haired men in the future, but not once did her voice hold a note of true prediction. She might as well have been reading from a horoscope column. Minerva would have felt vindicated, thought Dumbledore, nodding gravely as Trelawney went on and on.
"Thank you, Sybill," he said when she began to show signs of winding down. "I hate to leave so soon, but I must take Harry back down now. Professor McGonagall has him on a strict schedule, and she will be most unhappy if he is late for his dinner."
The Divination professor looked rather sour at the mention of Minerva's name - there was no love lost between the two women - but she nodded and leaned over to Harry, apparently meaning to give him a farewell pat on the head. Before she could do it, however, Harry opened his hand and let the dirt from the garden, which he'd been holding all along, fall onto her carpeted floor. Trelawney squawked and snatched up her wand from a nearby table to clean the mess away, her eyes darting around like a pair of agitated goldfish behind the thick glass of her spectacles.
"Good afternoon!" said Dumbledore hastily, and made for the trapdoor before she could see him laughing.
"Oh, Harry," he said when they were safe in the passage below. "Whatever shall I do with you, my boy?"
Harry had no reply to that. He planted his two middle fingers in his mouth and sucked them thoughtfully as Dumbledore descended the tower stairs.
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