Woo hoo! Another update! Go me! XD Enjoy.
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Chapter Nineteen: In which Albus and Indira reach an understanding
- March 18, 1945 -
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Warm, gentle rays of sunlight on his eyelids woke Dumbledore the next morning. It took him a few moments to realize where he was; all the windows in his bedchambers faced west, and therefore, he was never woken up by direct sunlight. As if he wasn't usually already awake before the sun rose, anyway. He was also in a strange bed, in a very large room with a high ceiling, and every inch of his body ached. Slowly, his memory came back to him. He battled Grindelwald the night before, and passed out just inside the entrance upon his return to Hogwarts. The logical explanation was that he was in the hospital wing.
He tried to sit up, but it was too painful. However, a familiar voice made him forget the pain. "Oh, good; you're awake."
He turned his head in the direction of the voice and smiled. "Minerva…"
She was sitting in a chair next to his bed. She smiled back at him and placed her hand on his arm. "I'll tell Madam Tyburski you're awake."
Dumbledore was surprised to hear that the notoriously strict school nurse allowed anyone in the hospital wing while she had so many patients, and said so. "Tom and I are both here," Minerva explained. "Madam Tyburski wasn't about to refuse our help; I was one of the patients for a few hours, actually. Two professors are dead and three, including you, were not in good condition. Not to mention Martin, Kyle, and Arabella."
"Are they all right?" he asked, remembering that they had been Stunned.
Minerva nodded. "They'll be fine. Madam Tyburski has been giving most of her attention to Professor Dippet and Professor Nay. They… are not doing as well as we'd hoped."
"They're not?" Dumbledore said, and his brow creased with worry. "How did they get buried under those rocks, anyway?"
"Grindelwald made the wall behind them explode," she answered. "We almost lost Dippet, but Madam Tyburski has been working her magic on him. Nay wasn't much better, but she'll be all right, too."
He was glad to hear that they would live, but the point remained that it shouldn't have happened at all. Not to mention that Professor Turner and Professor Bacall hadn't been lucky enough to survive. Grindelwald's defeat raised more questions than it answered. How did he enter the school? How did Minerva know about it beforehand? And what part did a child who had been dead for twenty years play in all of this?
Minerva rose to her feet and walked over to Madam Tyburski, who was at the far end of the room, returning moments later with the nurse close behind. The younger woman stood back and allowed the nurse to work without anyone getting in the way. Dumbledore, who didn't like having people make a fuss over him, was quickly ready to insist that the nurse return to the rest of her patients. Or at least give him information on them.
"I'm fine, Laura," he said as she circled him like a vulture.
"Of course you are," Madam Tyburski said dismissively.
"May I inquire as to the status of the other patients from last night's raid?" Dumbledore asked.
"The three students were dismissed an hour ago," she answered.
"And Armando and Indira?"
She didn't answer.
"Laura?"
"Don't worry about them right now," Madam Tyburski replied. "I want you to worry about you and no one else."
Dumbledore shook his head. "You are asking the impossible. A Gryffindor cannot be expected to worry only about himself."
"Indira will have no long-term damage, but she will have quite a headache when she wakes up."
"And Armando?"
The nurse said something, but he didn't catch it, and he asked her to repeat it. Frustrated, Madam Tyburski glared at him and said, "The headmaster sustained a great amount of cranial injury. I do not yet know the full extent of it, but I will say the chances that he'll ever walk again are slim to none."
Dumbledore sat up, ignoring the pain in his aching body and the lightheadedness that happens when one sits up too quickly. "What?" he said, certain there had to be a mistake. That was impossible… wasn't it?
Minerva took a few steps toward him, then stopped.
"You heard me," Madam Tyburski said quietly, her voice wavering. "Now lie down."
He obeyed, but not willingly. He hated this helpless feeling, even though he knew there was nothing he could do. He and Minerva made eye contact, and he knew she felt the same way. It was in their nature to do anything and everything they could to help. They never felt more worthless than when they were doing nothing.
Just then, Tom Riddle appeared at Minerva's side. "Madam Tyburski," he said.
The nurse turned around. "Yes?"
"Professor Nay's awake."
"Thank you, Riddle," Madam Tyburski said. "You and Miss McGonagall may go now."
"But there's still more we can do," Minerva protested.
"The both of you have been up all night," Madam Tyburksi said. "Your efforts have been greatly appreciated, but now you need to rest."
As much as he knew Minerva would hate it, Dumbledore voiced the fact that he agreed with the nurse. The Head Boy and Girl, though they would never admit it, looked ready to fall over. Knowing it was not a battle they could win, Tom and Minerva left without any further protest. He watched them go, then gave his attention to Madam Tyburski. "I need to speak with Indira."
Madam Tyburski looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Not at once," he added quickly, "but as soon as I can." He had questions for her. Somehow, he knew she was more involved in this than she claimed.
The nurse nodded and left to tend to her other patient. She returned not long after with a weary, defeated look on her face. "She wants to speak with you, too," she reported. "Alone."
~~~
Two minutes later, the heads of Gryffindor and Slytherin were sitting in a private room off to the side with the door locked and bolted.
"All right," Indira said, massaging her temples. "Talk."
Dumbledore hadn't felt this confused since his first Arithmancy class back in his third year as a student. "Talk about what?"
She groaned and dropped her left hand. "Take a wild guess."
"Grindelwald."
"Mmm hmm," she said in a cynical tone. "Now talk."
He had no idea what to say, let alone why she wanted him to talk about Grindelwald at all. "He's dead," he said. "I killed him."
"Did you watch him die?"
"He fell off a cliff and through a foot of solid ice," Dumbledore said. "I found his wand broken and floating in the water. Even if the fall didn't kill him, the ice would long before he had time to recover his senses."
He expected an instantaneous reply. He didn't get one. Indira was silent, her thoughtful gaze fixed on the floor, and the fingers of her right hand still rubbing her temple. A large bandage covered most of her forehead, and Dumbledore remembered Minerva telling him that she had a serious cut. He could only imagine the headache she had now.
Indira stopped rubbing her head and looked at him. Gone was the fire that usually burned in her emerald eyes. "I just had to hear it from you," she said. "Thank you."
She turned her head and looked as though she was about to stand, but Dumbledore stopped her. "Not so fast," he said. "It's my turn."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I have a question as well," he replied, "a question I believe you can answer."
A spark of life appeared in her eyes. "Then ask, and I shall answer if I can."
Dumbledore pressed the tips of his long fingers together, looked her in the eyes, and said, "How do you play into all of this?"
Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What?"
"Do not take me for a fool, Indira," he said. "I know you haven't been telling us something. You've been acting strangely ever since I said Minerva McGonagall believed Grindelwald was coming here. Then at the meeting, when she told us that a name was sticking out in her mind, and that name was Madeline Rahmini, you immediately said Madeline Rahmini was dead. Later, I heard that name again – from Grindelwald himself."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Albus," Indira said.
"I believe," Dumbledore said quietly, "that if we can solve the Madeline Rahmini mystery, then we can find out how Grindelwald got into Hogwarts."
They stared at each other for a few moments, neither one daring to look away. Then Dumbledore spoke again. "Since you seem to be the authority on the subject, I thought I should ask you."
Indira's eyes broke contact with his and turned toward the wall on her left. "Who would know more about Madeline Rahmini," she said so softly he could barely hear, "than Madeline herself?"
He was about to ask her what she meant by this, and then his mind put together enough pieces for him to see the truth.
Indira Nay was Madeline Rahmini.
"You told us she was dead," he said, not knowing where else to begin.
"She is dead to me," she replied. "She is a ghost of the past that haunts me every day. He held me captive for a year – do you not think I would have rather died than endure what he did to me?"
"How did you escape?" he asked. She must have been very young at the time – eight at the most. How could a child have gotten away from the most powerful dark wizard in the world and evaded him for so long?
Indira held up her right hand, and Dumbledore noticed a faint scar that ran diagonally across her palm, and also on her fingers and thumb. "The shard of glass that took his eye cut the hand that held it, too," she answered, and pulled her hand back to her body.
Now that he knew the truth, he wasn't so sure he wanted to. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," she said. "I don't believe in sympathy."
"What about empathy?"
She studied him for a few moments, looked away, then said, "That's right; he killed your sister, didn't he?"
He nodded. "And nothing – not tears, not blood, not killing him – nothing can bring Lucy back." He sighed and looked at the floor, the memories making his heart ache like the rest of him. She and her network had been so close to stopping Grindelwald – what if they had succeeded then? He knew he had to stop thinking those sorts of thoughts. It was too late to go back now. "I miss her so much."
"I miss my family, too."
They looked up at the same time, and in each others' eyes, they saw the same grief they felt in their own hearts.
"I think," Dumbledore said, "that we are finally beginning to understand each other, Indira."
He smiled at her, and she found herself smiling back. Her smile faded, though, when she realized something. "That tells us why he – Grindelwald – wanted to get into Hogwarts, but it we still don't know how."
"You're right," he mused. "We don't." He thought back to his battle with Grindelwald, recalling something the dark wizard had said: Madeline Rahmini had a Secret-keeper. "Was there a Fidelius Charm involved in keeping your location from him for so long?"
"Yes," Indira answered. "Only a precaution, since Hogwarts is the safest place for me to be, but yes, there is a charm."
"He could not have found you unless the Secret-keeper disclosed your location," said Dumbledore. "My guess is whoever did it also helped him get in. Do you know who the Secret-keeper is?"
She gasped, half in shock, half in realization of the obvious. "Armando…"