I just realized I'm not going to get as much writing time tomorrow as I thought I was, so I'm writing and posting this tonight. There will be a regular chapter up tomorrow, though.

Interlude: A Little Knowledge

October 17th, 1993

Dear Mr. Potter:

I hope you will forgive the formal means of salutation at the beginning of this letter, and the charm that I have placed on this parchment to make my handwriting unfamiliar. I do know you, I know a great deal about you, and it feels hypocritical to hide behind a mask that I have created. However, I feel I have no choice. If you knew who I was, you would question me, distrust my motives for communicating with you like this, and above all demand answers that you would not believe. Please, be patient with me, and read what I write here, and do your best to open your mind and grant that the possibility of truth is here, if not the reality of it.

I am under pressure as I write this. There are many who would like nothing better than to take away the choice I am intent on giving you—

No, those are the wrong words. The choice has always been yours, and I am not the one who will give it to you. I am the one who, if all goes well and you grant the possibility of truth to these words, will let you know it exists.

You will have read the history of the First War with the Dark Lord. You will have read other histories. I know that you are astonishingly well-versed in ancient pureblood customs, and that you have used that knowledge in the past to dance with purebloods and best them on their own territory. However, I am asking you to reconsider a very simple fact of that history:

Why has the title used always been "Lord?" (Or "Lady," as in the case of the Light Lady Calypso McGonagall, but I must admit ruefully that witches often have better sense than to become involved in games of conquest and power, preferring instead to dwell on the inner mind and develop their own control of themselves).

The title is important, Mr. Potter. It stakes a claim as well as announces what the wizard is to the whole world. The purebloods, and the Muggleborns—it is not the name I was born using for them, but I know it is the one you prefer—once they became part of the wizarding world, grant a certain recognition by using it. They acknowledge that the wizard holding it possesses power—power over them. Magic, Mr. Potter. It sings more sweetly than you can know, since you grew up with so much of your own power confined, one Lord in our world held up as a figure for you to revere, and one identified as the target of your enmity.

Dark Lords tend to conquer. Light Lords tend to rule. Both sway followers to their sides with the sheer lure of being near so much magic. And if one has to grant them the title of Lord and sometimes obey their commands, what of it? At least that immense power is not turned against them. And for many servants of the Lords, it has been about more than fear of that power, or even shared ideals. We were born to be near magic, those of us who carry it in our blood. It strengthens us, revitalizes us, cleanses our souls, works a rebirth in our perceptions of ourselves, changes our relationship to the world around us. Imagine it flowing over you like waves of an ocean that you can breathe, and which at the same time is light and sweet music and the scent of roses (or whichever flower you prefer). It is intoxicating. Not impossible to resist, especially once one is aware of it, but very convincing, very ensnaring.

Now imagine, Mr. Potter, what would happen if a wizard with such power came into our world—and did not claim the title of Lord. Imagine that he instead looked upon such compulsions as the Lords have been wont to use, and disdained them. Imagine that he worked to wield his power with such finesse and such delicacy that it would not harm the minds around it. Imagine he offered possibilities to those around him, paths for the future and hopes they could never have achieved without his magic to back them. Imagine that he was conscious, every moment, of what his power could do and what it might be used for, and weighed the hopes of those who came to him, and rejected the ones he deemed wrong instead of mindlessly obeying every wizard's wish. Imagine such power bent to defend, to protect and serve.

Many Lords have gone mad trying to be such a creature, and ended up wearing the simpler title. Others have howled in fear and denied that such a possibility existed, because that would mean they would lose followers, or have to look too long and hard at their own tendency to use compulsion unthinkingly. And in practice, Mr. Potter, there has often been little difference between the Light and the Dark Lords. Both could wield the magic of both sides, compulsion or free will. It is the allegiances they declared themselves for that made the difference, that and the strength of their magic.

I will tell you now, Mr. Potter, that I think you have a good possibility of becoming such a wizard, nameless right now, but committed both to his own freedom and that of others. I am trying to show others that that might also be your path. But I can only persuade, and that will take a long time. I will not force. I will not compel. I have used Dark magic unhesitatingly in the past, but not for this. The purpose is too high, the path too bright.

Two things you must know:

First, Dumbledore fears what you may become. He fears what it would mean if a mere boy of thirteen was able to do greater and more moral things than he can, because he fears looking too closely at the consequences of his own decisions. It is a fear all the Light Lords have had.

Second, do not trust Sirius Black.

Starborn.