Hey everybody. I know it's been forever, but I'm trying to finish my BR fanfic at the moment, and I haven't been able to write on anything else for quite some time now. I'm trying- desperately- to make room for all my stories, but it's a pain in the ass what with school starting back. They only gave us a crummy two month break... bloody bastards! (grumbles, shakes fist)
I watched the third HP movie over the weekend, and I must say, it was GREAT. Almost as good as Spider-man 2 (one of my favorite movies of all time now, might I add.) By the by- Ernie's axe is the same one as in the movie.
For those who will read this and wonder why the characters are not having a really "emotional" time with the decision to leave the school, I say this: it will all be explained. I've got a neat idea, and I don't know how it will work, but if it does work, you will all be congratulating me later.
I won't waste time here, save to say thank you to all you reviewers. You guys rock! People like you make my days better.
And, without further ado, it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 3
The Gathering
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 11:55 p.m., fourth day of classes.
The students of Hogwarts were all sitting down in their various classes, listening to their teachers and copying into their notebooks, hoping that the hard stuff would not be on the next test (as it inevitably was) and hoping that the easy stuff would be (as it inevitably was not). All the students were busy in their classes... all except nine.
These nine were sitting in their various dorimitories (or, depending on the subject, in hospital beds) waiting. They'd been told by the Heads of their houses to sit and wait until noon, when they would be given further instructions. The nine souls waited, wondering uneasily whether they had done something wrong, whether they were going to be kicked out of school for some hereto unknown infraction, or whether they would be told some great secret. Some of them even thought they might be asked to become Head Boys or Head Girls.
They were all wrong. For some, this was good. For others, this was bad. But for the world...
Was it best of all? Was it good, that these nine souls be sent out into the world? Was it for the betterment of all mankind? Was it a good thing, that these nine cast away their innocence and forge ahead into a world where others would dare not tread, that these nine be forced to fight where others would run?
Or should we not judge this action? Should we even attempt to declare this action good or evil, should we even try to fit this decision into a category? For, though the decision was bad for some, it was good for some as well, and maybe that makes this decision gray, gray in a way that cannot be pushed to black or white. Few things are gray in this world, but maybe this decision is. For everyone must lose their innocence (and that is a overvalued commodity in this world anyway) and though forced to fight, they were not forced to fight with all their heart and soul. And maybe, in the end, they weren't forced at all. Maybe, though others tried to make the decision for them, they chose of their own free will.
Maybe.... maybe they decided to live.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Godric's Hope", Secret Armory beneath Hogwarts Castle, 12:00 p.m., same day.
Dumbledore sat behind a small wooden desk, watching as they filed in. The nine students he had called, the nine he was sending out into the world to find weapons to turn the tide. In turn, each student sat down in one of the chairs that had been set up in a rough semi-circle in front of Dumbledore's desk. Malfoy, whose mouth still ached from Harry's assault, put a hand to it as he sat down in the chair that was farthest left. His air was of one who cannot believe he is enduring such incredible pain. Dumbledore hid a small smile behind his beard. Ah, the ever ephemeral pretty boy in blond. Dumbledore was a kind man, but seeing Malfoy's effeminate weakness still cheered him up. Mostly recovered from the wounds he himself had received, Harry chose a seat next to Ron and Hermione, who but for the stares of the four House Heads would have immediately asked him what had happened while they were gone. As it was, they sat fidgeting in their seats, seeming almost to jitter with the force of the questions inside them. Dumbledore's smile widened slightly, though not much. They were in the middle of the circle, three empty chairs separating them from Malfoy. To their right, Seamus Finnegan sat down, his eyes glowering with that slight smolder of hate that he always held when viewing those he thought were in authority. Next to him, trying to move as gracefully as he could, Neville Longbottom sat down with a thunk and a clud, but instead of the embarassed blush that had become so familiar to the Gryffindors over the years, a strange, helpless rage seemed to steal over his face for a second. It soon disappeared and was replaced by what looked like an attempt by Neville to be serious and grave. Instead of being serious, it looked like the mugshot glare criminals give to the camera when being photographed by the police.
Next to Malfoy, Ernie Macmillan sat down, slowly and with great ease, the exact opposite of Neville; a fat man with an air of grace and ease and almost absurd agility. He folded his hands in his lap and calmly waited with the air of a man who expects nothing but good results. Dumbledore smiled again at Ernie's pompous attitude, smiling more when he thought of how oddly it contrasted with his generally kind and benevolent nature. Dumbledore thought he looked oddly like the Pope listening to his cardinals, and this formed such an oddly incongruous picture- Ernie in a miter before the Vatican Council- that he almost did smile big enough to break through his beard. He caught himself in time and forced his smile down. He always did this, right before making a decision that might send innocent souls out to die. He always became almost madly cheerful, and it took all his willpower to push it down and push it away. He managed to resume his calm, grave expression as Parvati Patil sat down next to Ernie. She was still shaking from the force of her vision two days ago. Trelawney had pronounced it both a miracle and a curse, a sign of the most ominous portent and a sign of the greatest prosperity. " Thou hast the gift of the Sight!" she had declared to Parvati, following half-jumbled attempts to calm her. " This is a great and terrible day!" Though Parvati had explained her vision, Trelawney had said that it was telling her to beware the darkness that lurked in men's souls and that the future may be a future of war. Parvati had ever since incorrectly assumed that the Black General she had seen had been one of Voldemort's slaves, and had almost gotten to the point where she had decided that the Jester had been Voldemort himself by the time she had attended the Gathering. If she'd merely listened to her heart and not her head, she may have avoided a lot of pain and danger later. But it is not for us to judge.
The last member of the group walked in, eyes looking slightly puff but otherwise okay. Cho Chang chose the seat farthest on the right, and as she sat down she shot Harry a look filled with such mingled pain and hope that it made him physically flinch- or would have, had he been looking. Harry had been looking at Hermione with something close to amusement as she shivered in the seat and missed Cho's visual dart. Taking the blow for him, Dumbledore flinched instead. Ouch. That look had said in it all that needed to be said about Cho Chang- about her desperate need to have someone to rely on, and on the built-up image of Harry Potter in her mind.
Dumbledore shook his head and motioned for the Heads to leave. They walked out, and as the door closed and locked on this secret armory Godric had built, Dumbledore turned to them and began the most important speech in his long, long life.
" Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, " my first act is to release all of you from the constraints of Hogwarts students and free you. You are now no longer under my command, nor under the command of the school. You are free men and free women, and I shall treat you as such."
Seamus, who had been rather surlish and angry up until this point, seemed rather surprised and rose up higher in his seat. Something Dumbledore had just said had impressed him greatly, and he listened intently to everything else the old man said. It was the last time he listened to anybody for a long time.
" Have we done something bad?" Hermione asked, mind immediately going for the hidden (illegal) books in her bag.
" No," Dumbledore chuckled, " in fact, you have done something very good. You have been chosen. This is my Gathering," Dumbledore said, " a Gathering of souls. I chose all of you..." Here he stopped, as if rethinking what he had just said, then continued on anyway. " I chose all of you because of your unique talents... your unique skills... I chose all of you because you nine fit. You nine fit what I required to a T. And so, without further ado, let me explain what this is all about." Dumbledore looked at them and, before saying anything else, asked a question to which he already knew the answer. " Before I do, however, let me ask you this. Is any one of you afraid of death?"
All of them, with the exception of Harry, looked about at each other, unsure how to respond. Harry merely smiled and said, " Please. I'm rather used to it by now."
Cho's eyes trembled with tears, but she said nothing. Dumbledore nodded.
" Ah, I figured as much, Harry. You have seen far more than your classmates, and with the possible exception of myself, are the most experienced person in the room. I did not think death held any terror for you."
Standing up slowly, Dumbledore began pacing the room. As he spoke, each person in the room began nodding their heads, agreeing with various parts of his speech and the speech as a whole. It was a damn good speech, and it completely decided the answer of all those here before he ever asked the real question on his mind. Dumbledore began what would in later years be remembered as the Speech of the Gathering.
" Everyone of you, with the exception of young Mr. Potter, are afraid of death. That is alright. Fear is alright, so long as you do not let it rule you. Fear is there to warn you, to serve as a beacon to guide you to safety, as a sharpener upon which to hone one's wits when in danger. But too much fear dulls the knife, ruins our vision, makes us deaf to true warning and causes us to act with all care thrown away. Yes, fear is a double-edged sword, and all of you may very well have to contend with its nature before this is through."
" You know that the Second War has begun, I am sure. None of you are stupid, and many of you are particularly intelligent students. The Second War has begun, and the Ministry has claimed again and again that Voldemort has made no outward moves." Dumbledore heaved a sigh, then straightened up and turned to face them. " I am about to tell you a secret that would get me locked in Azkaban if it was known that I had revealed it. The secret is this: Voldemort has moved. And he is winning. Ministry forces are not trained to fight. There have been no wars in the past few centuries among Wizards. The only forces that have any real skill in combat, the Beastkeepers, are regarded as freaks by the Ministry and general public- although a man named Walter Andrews leads them now, and I can say fully, with all the weight of my years and experience behind it, that if any man in history ever possessed the power to make the Beastkeepers accepted in public, it is Walter Andrews. But that is beside the point. The truth is, the Ministry is losing- and losing badly. The Giants are marching. Half the dementors have fled Azkaban and joined Voldemort... the other half stays only because of warding spells that some far-sighted soul thought to cast on them. They are stuck on Azkaban now, and the Ministry merely drops off prisoners onto the island, never touching the ground themselves." Dumbledore smiled a bittersweet smile. " That's because the Dementors kiss every single person who gets there now. Luna Lovegood's father was right, in his last editorial before the government shut him down: "Things are breaking down. Things are falling apart." The Ministry is getting harsher in all aspects, but they are still failing. And so I am forced to act." Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and looked each of them in the eye. In each he saw shock, worry, and not a little fear.
[ Good,] he thought, [they are afraid. Not nearly scared enough, no... but maybe just scared enough to act. God grant that they are.]
" I have stayed out of the War by the express written order of the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge," Dumbledore said, smirking. " The man despises me. I don't know why... However, I have chosen to ignore him and make my move. I cannot leave Hogwarts, nor can I afford to lose my position as Headmaster. As important as my generation is, your generation is doubly important, for you are the ones who will fight this war. The Ministry is already recruiting, and many of their recruits were just starting their final year at Hogwarts at this very time last year. So I am raising the next generation of soldier. There is so much to teach them..."
Dumbledore's eyes grew misty and hazy, and Harry thought he saw tears. Hermione saw more than that, though; she saw the deep, incredible sadness that lurked inside Dumbledore. It was the first time she questioned who he was. It was not the last.
" I cannot afford to fail in my duties here. And yet neither can I fail in my duties to the world at large. In short, I am at a dilemma. I cannot leave but I must; I cannot do anything without losing everything, yet will lose everything if I do nothing. I must play by the rules but at the same time I must break them. What can I do? What is left to do?"
Dumbledore sighed and turned to Harry Potter. " Harry, you yourself know that there is a time to follow rules and a time to break them. And you also know that there are times when you can break the rules and pretend to follow them just the same."
Dumbledore smiled. " So it is that I have come to this. I have discovered ancient writings in a secret compartment of the Headmaster's Tower. I have discovered that the four Founders of this school created a new type of magic, with the sole purpose of becoming legendary wizards and witches themselves. But this magic was so dangerous that none of them would use it themselves. Harry already knows the story, and he can fill you in along the way. Suffice it to say they were hidden, and that I believe now is the time to find them."
Dumbledore heaved one last sigh. It was torn from the very life of his body, and the sigh carried in it all he had to say. It was a sad sigh that swept through all of them, even Malfoy (who had stopped caressing his cheek the instant he realized no one was looking at him) and made them listen to him. More importantly, it gave him their sympathies. The sympathetic were always easier to manipulate.
" But I cannot. And so I have chosen you nine to find them for me. I do not ask that you bring them back, for you are free men and women now, adults, if you will. I ask that you fight with them. Master their powers, and use them to drive Voldemort back to the stinking pit he came from. That is what I ask, and that is what I charge."
Dumbledore stared all of them in the eye and said, " As free men and women, whose choice is their own, I ask you this: Can you do it? Will you do it? For the road will be hard, and even with the Spirits, fighting Voldemort may very well be too much for you to handle. Which of you can do it? Which of you will?"
Each former student went through their own internal struggle as their mind whirled with all they'd just learned. Each student felt fear; felt rage; felt surprise; felt happiness; felt hope; felt dismay; felt sadness; felt release. Each student wrestled with themselves, but partially because they still felt as if Dumbledore was their leader, because they still thought of him as older and wiser, they all said, " Yes."
" Then let us begin."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Even A Serpent", notes, section three.
'The Magic of Nine Souls required a great deal of preparation before we ever attempted to create it, much less understand it. We looked and looked through human literature and through human history, looking and looking.... we hunted for the most basic instincts of man. We took every single emotion, studied it, surveyed it, and decided whether it was basic by itself or whether it was part of some greater, even more basic emotion.'
'Love we decided was Brave- and that became a category by itself. Bravery, the act of doing something higher than oneself, of giving one's life or casting away fear.... The Brave became one of the souls. Likewise, human happiness was caught up in the Dreaming... because it is in our dreams that we are happiest, and in truth happiness is but a dream that has become real in our minds and in our world. Likewise, writers and artists and creators of all kinds fit into the category of Dreaming. Those who were loyal and honorable, however, we decided were different, in some way; they were brave in the common sense, true, but not Brave in our sense of the word. Being loyal and honorable, though it often requires self-sacrifice, does not automatically require self-sacrifice, and those things are generally just in a person, in his personality, rather than outside him, in his acts. So we called them the Steadfast, and the third category was born.'
'Hatred we argued over for many a day until we realized that hatred fell before something else- not fear, but rage. That rage was a great force from which most of the uglier emotions came from, that it was rage that fueled most of the darkness in this world. So the Raging became a category. We thought about sadness, and thought how most sadness and pain and hurt can all be drawn back to one thing- wounds. And so the Wounded became a subject of our study.'
'We thought of those who were filled with helpless anger, anger that was not rage because it was undirected, those who wandered because they did not know what else to do. They were the Lost, and so they became to us as well. And just as there were those who did not know who they were because of outside actions as well as personal influences, there were those who knew what they were and yet changed it, changed it as often as a woman may change her makeup to suit the times, changed it for personal gain and for personal pleasure. They became the Changeling, not fitting in other categories and becoming a new thing themselves, rather fitting for what they were.'
'There were those who thought themselves better than others- because of skin, birth, wealth, whatever reason- and who thought themselves greater and grander somehow when they were really less than those they mocked. These we named the Proud, and made them the eight Spirit of our study.'
' The last we argued over for days, not arguing over what fit into it but what to name it. It was the truthful, and though truth is a kind of bravery, it is a different kind, not unlike honor but still separate, a thing present both in acts and in personality. It was those who hunted truth, who looked for it in the darkest places, and those who merely wished to know things, who sought out knowledge wherever it was. It was this last that made us term it the Seeking, and the final Spirit was named.'
'Then we set about creating them. And therein came the things of which I have so feared.'
'The past is past, but it still effects the future.'
-R & R please!
I watched the third HP movie over the weekend, and I must say, it was GREAT. Almost as good as Spider-man 2 (one of my favorite movies of all time now, might I add.) By the by- Ernie's axe is the same one as in the movie.
For those who will read this and wonder why the characters are not having a really "emotional" time with the decision to leave the school, I say this: it will all be explained. I've got a neat idea, and I don't know how it will work, but if it does work, you will all be congratulating me later.
I won't waste time here, save to say thank you to all you reviewers. You guys rock! People like you make my days better.
And, without further ado, it's...
"SHOWTIME!"
Chapter 3
The Gathering
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 11:55 p.m., fourth day of classes.
The students of Hogwarts were all sitting down in their various classes, listening to their teachers and copying into their notebooks, hoping that the hard stuff would not be on the next test (as it inevitably was) and hoping that the easy stuff would be (as it inevitably was not). All the students were busy in their classes... all except nine.
These nine were sitting in their various dorimitories (or, depending on the subject, in hospital beds) waiting. They'd been told by the Heads of their houses to sit and wait until noon, when they would be given further instructions. The nine souls waited, wondering uneasily whether they had done something wrong, whether they were going to be kicked out of school for some hereto unknown infraction, or whether they would be told some great secret. Some of them even thought they might be asked to become Head Boys or Head Girls.
They were all wrong. For some, this was good. For others, this was bad. But for the world...
Was it best of all? Was it good, that these nine souls be sent out into the world? Was it for the betterment of all mankind? Was it a good thing, that these nine cast away their innocence and forge ahead into a world where others would dare not tread, that these nine be forced to fight where others would run?
Or should we not judge this action? Should we even attempt to declare this action good or evil, should we even try to fit this decision into a category? For, though the decision was bad for some, it was good for some as well, and maybe that makes this decision gray, gray in a way that cannot be pushed to black or white. Few things are gray in this world, but maybe this decision is. For everyone must lose their innocence (and that is a overvalued commodity in this world anyway) and though forced to fight, they were not forced to fight with all their heart and soul. And maybe, in the end, they weren't forced at all. Maybe, though others tried to make the decision for them, they chose of their own free will.
Maybe.... maybe they decided to live.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Godric's Hope", Secret Armory beneath Hogwarts Castle, 12:00 p.m., same day.
Dumbledore sat behind a small wooden desk, watching as they filed in. The nine students he had called, the nine he was sending out into the world to find weapons to turn the tide. In turn, each student sat down in one of the chairs that had been set up in a rough semi-circle in front of Dumbledore's desk. Malfoy, whose mouth still ached from Harry's assault, put a hand to it as he sat down in the chair that was farthest left. His air was of one who cannot believe he is enduring such incredible pain. Dumbledore hid a small smile behind his beard. Ah, the ever ephemeral pretty boy in blond. Dumbledore was a kind man, but seeing Malfoy's effeminate weakness still cheered him up. Mostly recovered from the wounds he himself had received, Harry chose a seat next to Ron and Hermione, who but for the stares of the four House Heads would have immediately asked him what had happened while they were gone. As it was, they sat fidgeting in their seats, seeming almost to jitter with the force of the questions inside them. Dumbledore's smile widened slightly, though not much. They were in the middle of the circle, three empty chairs separating them from Malfoy. To their right, Seamus Finnegan sat down, his eyes glowering with that slight smolder of hate that he always held when viewing those he thought were in authority. Next to him, trying to move as gracefully as he could, Neville Longbottom sat down with a thunk and a clud, but instead of the embarassed blush that had become so familiar to the Gryffindors over the years, a strange, helpless rage seemed to steal over his face for a second. It soon disappeared and was replaced by what looked like an attempt by Neville to be serious and grave. Instead of being serious, it looked like the mugshot glare criminals give to the camera when being photographed by the police.
Next to Malfoy, Ernie Macmillan sat down, slowly and with great ease, the exact opposite of Neville; a fat man with an air of grace and ease and almost absurd agility. He folded his hands in his lap and calmly waited with the air of a man who expects nothing but good results. Dumbledore smiled again at Ernie's pompous attitude, smiling more when he thought of how oddly it contrasted with his generally kind and benevolent nature. Dumbledore thought he looked oddly like the Pope listening to his cardinals, and this formed such an oddly incongruous picture- Ernie in a miter before the Vatican Council- that he almost did smile big enough to break through his beard. He caught himself in time and forced his smile down. He always did this, right before making a decision that might send innocent souls out to die. He always became almost madly cheerful, and it took all his willpower to push it down and push it away. He managed to resume his calm, grave expression as Parvati Patil sat down next to Ernie. She was still shaking from the force of her vision two days ago. Trelawney had pronounced it both a miracle and a curse, a sign of the most ominous portent and a sign of the greatest prosperity. " Thou hast the gift of the Sight!" she had declared to Parvati, following half-jumbled attempts to calm her. " This is a great and terrible day!" Though Parvati had explained her vision, Trelawney had said that it was telling her to beware the darkness that lurked in men's souls and that the future may be a future of war. Parvati had ever since incorrectly assumed that the Black General she had seen had been one of Voldemort's slaves, and had almost gotten to the point where she had decided that the Jester had been Voldemort himself by the time she had attended the Gathering. If she'd merely listened to her heart and not her head, she may have avoided a lot of pain and danger later. But it is not for us to judge.
The last member of the group walked in, eyes looking slightly puff but otherwise okay. Cho Chang chose the seat farthest on the right, and as she sat down she shot Harry a look filled with such mingled pain and hope that it made him physically flinch- or would have, had he been looking. Harry had been looking at Hermione with something close to amusement as she shivered in the seat and missed Cho's visual dart. Taking the blow for him, Dumbledore flinched instead. Ouch. That look had said in it all that needed to be said about Cho Chang- about her desperate need to have someone to rely on, and on the built-up image of Harry Potter in her mind.
Dumbledore shook his head and motioned for the Heads to leave. They walked out, and as the door closed and locked on this secret armory Godric had built, Dumbledore turned to them and began the most important speech in his long, long life.
" Ladies and Gentlemen," he began, " my first act is to release all of you from the constraints of Hogwarts students and free you. You are now no longer under my command, nor under the command of the school. You are free men and free women, and I shall treat you as such."
Seamus, who had been rather surlish and angry up until this point, seemed rather surprised and rose up higher in his seat. Something Dumbledore had just said had impressed him greatly, and he listened intently to everything else the old man said. It was the last time he listened to anybody for a long time.
" Have we done something bad?" Hermione asked, mind immediately going for the hidden (illegal) books in her bag.
" No," Dumbledore chuckled, " in fact, you have done something very good. You have been chosen. This is my Gathering," Dumbledore said, " a Gathering of souls. I chose all of you..." Here he stopped, as if rethinking what he had just said, then continued on anyway. " I chose all of you because of your unique talents... your unique skills... I chose all of you because you nine fit. You nine fit what I required to a T. And so, without further ado, let me explain what this is all about." Dumbledore looked at them and, before saying anything else, asked a question to which he already knew the answer. " Before I do, however, let me ask you this. Is any one of you afraid of death?"
All of them, with the exception of Harry, looked about at each other, unsure how to respond. Harry merely smiled and said, " Please. I'm rather used to it by now."
Cho's eyes trembled with tears, but she said nothing. Dumbledore nodded.
" Ah, I figured as much, Harry. You have seen far more than your classmates, and with the possible exception of myself, are the most experienced person in the room. I did not think death held any terror for you."
Standing up slowly, Dumbledore began pacing the room. As he spoke, each person in the room began nodding their heads, agreeing with various parts of his speech and the speech as a whole. It was a damn good speech, and it completely decided the answer of all those here before he ever asked the real question on his mind. Dumbledore began what would in later years be remembered as the Speech of the Gathering.
" Everyone of you, with the exception of young Mr. Potter, are afraid of death. That is alright. Fear is alright, so long as you do not let it rule you. Fear is there to warn you, to serve as a beacon to guide you to safety, as a sharpener upon which to hone one's wits when in danger. But too much fear dulls the knife, ruins our vision, makes us deaf to true warning and causes us to act with all care thrown away. Yes, fear is a double-edged sword, and all of you may very well have to contend with its nature before this is through."
" You know that the Second War has begun, I am sure. None of you are stupid, and many of you are particularly intelligent students. The Second War has begun, and the Ministry has claimed again and again that Voldemort has made no outward moves." Dumbledore heaved a sigh, then straightened up and turned to face them. " I am about to tell you a secret that would get me locked in Azkaban if it was known that I had revealed it. The secret is this: Voldemort has moved. And he is winning. Ministry forces are not trained to fight. There have been no wars in the past few centuries among Wizards. The only forces that have any real skill in combat, the Beastkeepers, are regarded as freaks by the Ministry and general public- although a man named Walter Andrews leads them now, and I can say fully, with all the weight of my years and experience behind it, that if any man in history ever possessed the power to make the Beastkeepers accepted in public, it is Walter Andrews. But that is beside the point. The truth is, the Ministry is losing- and losing badly. The Giants are marching. Half the dementors have fled Azkaban and joined Voldemort... the other half stays only because of warding spells that some far-sighted soul thought to cast on them. They are stuck on Azkaban now, and the Ministry merely drops off prisoners onto the island, never touching the ground themselves." Dumbledore smiled a bittersweet smile. " That's because the Dementors kiss every single person who gets there now. Luna Lovegood's father was right, in his last editorial before the government shut him down: "Things are breaking down. Things are falling apart." The Ministry is getting harsher in all aspects, but they are still failing. And so I am forced to act." Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and looked each of them in the eye. In each he saw shock, worry, and not a little fear.
[ Good,] he thought, [they are afraid. Not nearly scared enough, no... but maybe just scared enough to act. God grant that they are.]
" I have stayed out of the War by the express written order of the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge," Dumbledore said, smirking. " The man despises me. I don't know why... However, I have chosen to ignore him and make my move. I cannot leave Hogwarts, nor can I afford to lose my position as Headmaster. As important as my generation is, your generation is doubly important, for you are the ones who will fight this war. The Ministry is already recruiting, and many of their recruits were just starting their final year at Hogwarts at this very time last year. So I am raising the next generation of soldier. There is so much to teach them..."
Dumbledore's eyes grew misty and hazy, and Harry thought he saw tears. Hermione saw more than that, though; she saw the deep, incredible sadness that lurked inside Dumbledore. It was the first time she questioned who he was. It was not the last.
" I cannot afford to fail in my duties here. And yet neither can I fail in my duties to the world at large. In short, I am at a dilemma. I cannot leave but I must; I cannot do anything without losing everything, yet will lose everything if I do nothing. I must play by the rules but at the same time I must break them. What can I do? What is left to do?"
Dumbledore sighed and turned to Harry Potter. " Harry, you yourself know that there is a time to follow rules and a time to break them. And you also know that there are times when you can break the rules and pretend to follow them just the same."
Dumbledore smiled. " So it is that I have come to this. I have discovered ancient writings in a secret compartment of the Headmaster's Tower. I have discovered that the four Founders of this school created a new type of magic, with the sole purpose of becoming legendary wizards and witches themselves. But this magic was so dangerous that none of them would use it themselves. Harry already knows the story, and he can fill you in along the way. Suffice it to say they were hidden, and that I believe now is the time to find them."
Dumbledore heaved one last sigh. It was torn from the very life of his body, and the sigh carried in it all he had to say. It was a sad sigh that swept through all of them, even Malfoy (who had stopped caressing his cheek the instant he realized no one was looking at him) and made them listen to him. More importantly, it gave him their sympathies. The sympathetic were always easier to manipulate.
" But I cannot. And so I have chosen you nine to find them for me. I do not ask that you bring them back, for you are free men and women now, adults, if you will. I ask that you fight with them. Master their powers, and use them to drive Voldemort back to the stinking pit he came from. That is what I ask, and that is what I charge."
Dumbledore stared all of them in the eye and said, " As free men and women, whose choice is their own, I ask you this: Can you do it? Will you do it? For the road will be hard, and even with the Spirits, fighting Voldemort may very well be too much for you to handle. Which of you can do it? Which of you will?"
Each former student went through their own internal struggle as their mind whirled with all they'd just learned. Each student felt fear; felt rage; felt surprise; felt happiness; felt hope; felt dismay; felt sadness; felt release. Each student wrestled with themselves, but partially because they still felt as if Dumbledore was their leader, because they still thought of him as older and wiser, they all said, " Yes."
" Then let us begin."
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"Even A Serpent", notes, section three.
'The Magic of Nine Souls required a great deal of preparation before we ever attempted to create it, much less understand it. We looked and looked through human literature and through human history, looking and looking.... we hunted for the most basic instincts of man. We took every single emotion, studied it, surveyed it, and decided whether it was basic by itself or whether it was part of some greater, even more basic emotion.'
'Love we decided was Brave- and that became a category by itself. Bravery, the act of doing something higher than oneself, of giving one's life or casting away fear.... The Brave became one of the souls. Likewise, human happiness was caught up in the Dreaming... because it is in our dreams that we are happiest, and in truth happiness is but a dream that has become real in our minds and in our world. Likewise, writers and artists and creators of all kinds fit into the category of Dreaming. Those who were loyal and honorable, however, we decided were different, in some way; they were brave in the common sense, true, but not Brave in our sense of the word. Being loyal and honorable, though it often requires self-sacrifice, does not automatically require self-sacrifice, and those things are generally just in a person, in his personality, rather than outside him, in his acts. So we called them the Steadfast, and the third category was born.'
'Hatred we argued over for many a day until we realized that hatred fell before something else- not fear, but rage. That rage was a great force from which most of the uglier emotions came from, that it was rage that fueled most of the darkness in this world. So the Raging became a category. We thought about sadness, and thought how most sadness and pain and hurt can all be drawn back to one thing- wounds. And so the Wounded became a subject of our study.'
'We thought of those who were filled with helpless anger, anger that was not rage because it was undirected, those who wandered because they did not know what else to do. They were the Lost, and so they became to us as well. And just as there were those who did not know who they were because of outside actions as well as personal influences, there were those who knew what they were and yet changed it, changed it as often as a woman may change her makeup to suit the times, changed it for personal gain and for personal pleasure. They became the Changeling, not fitting in other categories and becoming a new thing themselves, rather fitting for what they were.'
'There were those who thought themselves better than others- because of skin, birth, wealth, whatever reason- and who thought themselves greater and grander somehow when they were really less than those they mocked. These we named the Proud, and made them the eight Spirit of our study.'
' The last we argued over for days, not arguing over what fit into it but what to name it. It was the truthful, and though truth is a kind of bravery, it is a different kind, not unlike honor but still separate, a thing present both in acts and in personality. It was those who hunted truth, who looked for it in the darkest places, and those who merely wished to know things, who sought out knowledge wherever it was. It was this last that made us term it the Seeking, and the final Spirit was named.'
'Then we set about creating them. And therein came the things of which I have so feared.'
'The past is past, but it still effects the future.'
-R & R please!