Disclaimer: See chapter 1
The Misplaced Potter
Chapter 19
In which Dumbledore reflects on his errors
Dumbledore kicked off his slippers as he stretched out on the couch in his office. He held a large shot glass, empty save for three rapidly melting ice cubes, to his right temple. Neither the ice nor the whiskey had any effect on his headache. He did not expect it to have one but the alcohol was relaxing his tense body.
The meeting with the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had not gone as well as he had hoped. Despite viewing tangible evidence that Lord Voldemort was still alive, the Minister stubbornly dug in his heels.
"Look man," he barked. "He's a wisp o'will, less then a ghost. You want me to create a panic in Britain when Lord Thingy is a nothing but a fog barely held together by conscience thought?"
Dumbledore struggled to keep both impatience and condescension from his voice. "Minister, Lord Voldemort is alive and still has followers. That in itself is enough to go on alert. There are means by which he can return to a corporal form. All he needs is some help."
"There are no Death Eaters left. They are all either dead or in Azkaban," Dolores Umbridge said. "He has no followers. No one will aid him."
"I would submit that Professor Quirrell's actions would prove the contrary, Madam Undersecretary." Dumbledore replied simply.
"I don't know what you hope to gain by sounding a general alarm over nothing, Dumbledore," Cornelius Fudge snapped. "Even if the explosion did not finish him off then the Dark Lord is the next best thing to dead. Let's leave him in his floating grave and be done with the entire affair."
"Minister, I found no evidence that the detonation of the mirror killed Voldemort," Dumbledore said slowly. "It destroyed the philosopher's stone and nearly killed young Mr. Porter who did not even catch the brunt of the explosion. I must also point out that Voldemort survived the rebound of his killing curse that he launched against Harry Potter. I present that it is obvious that Voldemort has created a horcrux."
Dolores Umbridge simpered. "A horcrux? That's a spell only found in bad novels. They are impossible to create."
"I doubt if you were even born when I defeated Grindelwald," Dumbledore said hoping a little flattery might help. "I managed that victory only because I discovered his horcrux. They do exist, Madam Undersecretary. They enter the realm of myth because only the darkest, most powerful of wizards would try such an obscenity."
"Who is this Porter kid?" Fudge asked shifting the subject away from any thought of how powerful a wizard Dumbledore was also.
Dumbledore gave him a small smile. "You've turned a deaf ear to one truth," he thought. "You won't hear another."
"A muggleborn," Dumbledore said aloud. "Born here in England but raised in America. Voldemort believed him to be Harry Potter, I suppose because of the similarity of names."
"He isn't the boy who lived?" Fudge asked.
"His parents raise horses," Dumbledore answered indirectly. "Neither has an atom of magic in them. Curiously, his first cousin also developed magical talent. We have several muggleborns in this year's first form."
"Too many, if you ask me," Fudge grumbled. "There may come a time when blood doesn't matter for anything."
"We've debated this subject before," Dumbledore calmly replied disgusted with Fudge's prejudices but pleased with the move away from Harry. "But the subject at hand is Voldemort."
"The subject is not at hand, sir. It is closed," Fudge loudly retorted spraying the room with drops of spittle. "Voldemort is not a threat! He cannot come back! He is gone, gone, gone and I, for one, will not have you or anyone else attempting to resurrect his memory for purposes of their own."
Dumbledore glanced up as a shadow fell across his face.
"Drinking doubles alone don't make it a party," Minerva McGonagall said as she sat down on the edge of the couch.
"What?" Albus asked.
"It's just a line from a song I heard years ago," she dismissively replied taking the empty glass from his hand and setting it on the end table. "It popped into my head."
Dumbledore swung his legs around so that she could sit fully on the couch.
"Will you take my word that it was my only one?" he asked.
Minerva laughed lightly as she rested her head against his chest. "If you were going to become a drunkard, I think that you would have managed to have done so sometime in the last one hundred odd years."
Albus wrapped an arm around her as he inhaled deeply. Her perfume and the fragrance of her hair, her mere presence in fact did what the whiskey could not. His headache drained away like an ebbing tide.
"I assume that results of your meeting with the Minister were less then what you had hoped for," she said.
Albus sighed "Less then what I had hoped for but, unfortunately, about what I had anticipated. In his heart, Fudge knows his limitations. He knows that he will be unable to rise to the occasion if events demand it so he refuses to see anything that will upset the tranquility."
"So we have Chamberlain when we need Churchill," Minerva murmured sleepily.
The allusion was an apt one and Albus chuckled lightly in appreciation. One of the many things that he found attractive about Minerva McGonagall was that she shared his deep interest in muggle history. Fortunately, Albus was able to do more then shout dire warnings from the backbenches. He would not play Cassandra to Fudge's Priam.
"I am going to reactivate the Order of the Phoenix," Albus said. "Discretely recruit some new members. We must stay vigilant. Tom will find a way to recreate his body and we must be ready to do battle on that day."
"Any other plans?" she asked.
The old wizard stayed silent so long that she thought that he had fallen asleep. It caught Minerva by surprise when he did finally speak. "There is the problem of correcting my error in handling Harry Potter. In hindsight, it would have been best if I had allowed someone in the wizarding community to raise him even with the risk of creating an egomaniac. You offered to do so. Sirius nearly drew his wand against me when I refused him the babe."
"The Porters did a wonderful job with Henry," Minerva said. "I believe that he is everything that we could have hoped that the boy who lived would become."
"He is completely unprepared to confront Voldemort," Albus replied.
"Albus," Minerva said gently. "You are even blinder then Fudge."
"What?" he said in surprise.
"That child has faced Voldemort twice already," she replied. "Discount the first encounter when he had no control over events and review the second meeting. You have an eleven-year-old boy who had just been kidnapped, tortured, and humiliated lying on a stone floor with a painfully broken ankle. Yet he looked Voldemort in the eye and defied him by throwing his offer of power and mercy back in his face. Even through the pensive, I could feel that Henry fully expected to die yet he still refused to become a servant of evil. That kid is more then prepared to fight Voldemort. All he needs is training, training beyond the Hogwarts curriculum but, first and foremost, you must convince him to return to here in September. Maggie is very worried that he may not."
Dumbledore again fell silent. With his free hand, he slowly stroked his long, white beard as he thought about the Harry Potter problem. After a while, he eased the sleeping, softly snoring Minerva to the couch. He sat down in his favorite overstuffed chair after he had tucked a pillow under her head. There Dumbledore pondered.
The shadows that moonlight gave birth to died as the rays of the morning leaped over the mountaintops and fell through the high windows of the headmaster's office. A few songbirds began to chirp as a high-flying hawk screeched its savage love of the hunt.
Minerva creaked open her eyes. The headmaster was smiling at her from his chair, a steaming mug in his hand.
"Good morning, beautiful," he said as he stood.
"It's too early for blarney," she replied as she sat up. "Even if it is much appreciated."
Albus poured her a mug of hot tea from the pot on his sideboard. He softly kissed her forehead as he handed her the mug.
"This is even more appreciated," she said after a sip. "Did you come to any conclusions or was it a wasted night watching me breathe?"
"There are far worse ways to spend a night," Albus answered as he sat back down in his chair. "But I decided that you and Voldemort were right in what you both said."
Frowning, Minerva took a sip from her mug.
"When did I agree with Voldemort?" she asked.
"You did not but I feel that you are correct about Harry needing training over and beyond his normal classes. He's a bright, hard working young man. I believe that he can handle the extra workload."
"I also mentioned that he was wavering about whether or not he was coming back to Hogwarts," Minerva reminded the headmaster. "After all that he has been through since Halloween, who could blame him if he transferred to Beauxbatons or Salem? Or turn his back on the magical community all together for that matter."
Albus nodded his head. "I have not forgotten that nor have I forgotten the taunts that Voldemort said down in the chamber of the stone."
Minerva mentally reviewed what she had seen in the pensive. She finally shook her head. "I just woke up," she said. "Connect the dots for me."
"Voldemort said that I wasted my greatest weapon by keeping Harry in the dark," Albus explained. "I have concluded that he is right. After breakfast, we shall sit him down and tell him everything."
Minerva eyed the headmaster suspiciously. Albus was a good man but he did not take people into his full confidence. After decades of fighting evil, often alone and far from help, his guarded, esoteric habits had become second nature. He was secretive even with those closest to him.
"Define everything," Minerva asked.
"Everything means everything; that he is the boy who lived, whom his parents were, why Professor Quirrell could not touch him. I will tell him that it was I who removed him from the company of wizards and left him on the wrong muggle doorstep. I will inform him of his wealth. What was prophesized about him and Voldemort. I'd tell him what his great-grandmother's favorite tea was if I knew that," Dumbledore said.
"Yes," Minerva said after a few moments thought. "That may be enough to bring him back but keep in mind one thing, Albus. Henry loves his parents and to him that means the Porters not James and Lily. If you try to turn him into Harry Potter, he will walk away without hesitation."
"I would ask that you to keep reminding me of that, Minerva," Albus said with a nod. "I have to gain and keep his trust because I believe what was prophesized by Sybill Trelawney. No one else can stop Voldemort. Harry is our only hope."
"After all that he has been though, he won't give his trust easily," Minerva replied. "If he asks a question, you best be prepared to answer it fully. If he starts believing that you are withholding information from him, you will lose him."
A small smile came to Albus' lips. "I know that I have shortcomings when it comes to being open with those whom I should take into my confidence," he admitted. "But between you and Alastor, I believe that I can overcome that tendency."
"Alastor?" Minerva asked. "Alastor Moody? What are you planning, Albus?"
"Hogwarts is short one DADA teacher," the headmaster replied. "Alastor is disgruntled with the Fudge ministry and so is about to retire."
"You want "Mad Eye" Moody to teach children?" Minerva exclaimed. "He will scare half of them into hysterics."
"Now who is underestimating the students?" Albus asked jokingly. "He will fascinate them and he has the practical knowledge that his predecessor lacked. I believe that he is capable of turning out a generation of formidable fighters against the dark arts and may be able to convince some of those who are wavering between the light and the dark to choose more wisely."
Minerva paused. The staff had often spoken of their fears that an unusual number of students were dipping their toes in the waters of darkness. Although Professor Snape vehemently denied it, most of the students of Slytherin House openly supported the principles that Voldemort stood for if not Voldemort himself. The virus of bigotry was not contained in Slytherin House, by no means. Professor McGonagall had to discipline several of her own pure blood Gryffindors for harsh words or misdeeds toward their fellow housemates that had a muggle parent or parents.
"Will Alastor accept the position?" Minerva asked.
"The opportunity to train the boy who lived right under Fudge's nose will draw him here like a bee to a blossom," Albus laughed. "Even if I could not appeal to his sense of duty and honor. Besides, Harry's eyes intrigue him. I know that he is interested as to how they can be used in combat."
"Does he dislike Fudge that much?" Minerva asked in surprise.
Albus nodded his head sadly. "I'm afraid so and it isn't limited to him. I was speaking with Arthur Weasley last week. That Umbridge woman has become Fudge's hatchet man. She's going through department after department ferreting out those who are "disloyal" to the Minister. Morale at the Ministry is quite low, which is another reason to get the Order of the Phoenix up and running again. The Ministry may not be in any shape to confront Voldemort when the time comes."
"Assuming you get Alastor to accept the job, how many of us are going to train Henry?" asked Minerva.
"You, Alastor, Hagrid, and myself," Albus answered immediately. "As few as possible but between the four of us, there should all the knowledge and skills that Harry will need."
"Hagrid?" Minerva asked in curiosity.
"The man's a ghost in the forest," Albus explained. "Alastor knows how to fight in urban environments but Hagrid knows how in the woodlands. Not all of the Death Eaters will be in London or Manchester and Harry has to be prepared. It will help Hagrid also. After the dragon episode, he has been disheartened. He feels that he has failed Hogwarts and me. Training Harry will let him know better then my words that he still has my confidence."
"That was a good idea of Ron Weasley to send the beast to his brother,"Ron's head of house said proudly.
"Yes, it was," the headmaster acknowledged. "I am glad that he asked what I was going to do with the dragon when I visited them in the infirmary. Frankly, I was at a loss as to what to do with it."
Minerva stood and stretched. "I believe that you have some good proposals, Albus, but first we must secure Henry's cooperation. By the by, you may want to acquire the habit of calling him such. Anyway, we'll see if we can convince him to stay after I take a shower."
Minerva laughed when Albus raised a rakish eyebrow.
"Do you need someone to scrub your back?" he mischievously asked.
"Is my garnet dress still up here?" she asked coyly.
"Yes, it is as well as some undergarments," he replied. "Very convenient, is it not?"
"Very convenient indeed," she replied seductively pulling him up from his chair.
Author's Note: The line quoted by Minerva McGonagall in this chapter is from the song Sleeping Single in a Double Bed written Dennis Morgan and most notable performed by Barbara Mandrell.