I didn't need to wait long for the opportunity to convince Dumbledore, surprisingly, since it just so happened that later that night, Madame Maxime herself came to my quarters in Beauxbaton's magically expanded carriage extending an invite from the famous wizard.

" 'E wants to meet you, mon chéri," she explained. "Dumbly-dorr was friends with your papa."

I folded away the book I had been reading—one on the laws of time that I had picked up after my conversation with Hermione—and rose to follow her out of the carriage, still dressed in my uniform from the ceremony.

"Are you joining, Madame?" I asked as she led me through the castle.

"Non, mon petit papillon. I 'ave business with the groundskeeper, 'Agrid. But do not fear, Dumbly-dorr is a good man. I can walk you in, if you like?"

I shook my head. "Non, merci."

The last thing I wanted was the most powerful wizard in the world thinking I was a needy enfant. How would I be able to convince him I could time travel on my own if I couldn't even walk into his office without my powerful guardian introducing me?

Nodding farewell to Madame, I walked up the stairs to the famous wizard's office, which opened to me on its own accord.

"Ah, Marguerite!" I heard the old man's pleasant voice shout out in greeting.

The first thing I noticed about his office was that it was chaotic, yet grand. Much like the old wizard sitting in a large, elegant desk, peering at me with twinkling eyes over his half-moon spectacles that somehow felt familiar to me.

"Hello, headmaster," I replied formally with a slight curtsy.

"Sit, sit, my dear." He gestured to the chair across from his desk. As I took a seat, I could not help but wonder how many students had been suspended while sitting in this chair. Was it my imagination or did the old wizard's eyes glint in amusement almost as if he knew what I was thinking? "Thank you for coming on such late notice, Miss Flamel. We have much to discuss."

I eyed him curiously. "About my father?"

He sounded almost business like for a man who had summoned me here merely to reminisce about a wonderful father and an old friend.

"Partly. But first, let me say what a perfect blend you are of your parents."

Albus Dumbledore surveyed me with blue eyes so piercing they nearly glowed, almost as bright as my own. Those eyes simultaneously unsettled and calmed me, making me feel as though he could see everything but maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Dumbledore looked just like he did in the chocolate frogs and history books, except all of his auburn strands had turned white and he had smile lines near his mouth and eyes that notably softened the angular, wrinkled structure of his face.

Immediately, I could see the two of them, Dumbledore and my father, as friends. Both geniuses mature in age, they carried themselves similarly: confident yet humble, brilliant yet understated. I could imagine my father sitting in the chair I sat in now joking with the headmaster about how the times have changed.

"Thank you, sir," I replied after some time. "Personally, I find it difficult to see either of them in me. By the time they had me, they were all wrinkled, and the only records of their youth were all paintings, you see."

Dumbledore chuckled. If I had any doubt the man was good-humored, it was now abated.

"Indeed, Marguerite," he replied. "Though their souls were forever young, your parents' bodies certainly evolved with age—though, might I say, admirably well. I always maintained to dear Perenelle she never looked a day over 300."

I laughed. "I bet she loved that."

"Depended on her mood." His eyes twinkled mischievously, and I decided I liked the headmaster.

"Anyway, dear Marguerite, I've called you here today not only to reminisce about your wonderful parents—your father was a dear friend of mine, after all—but to discuss your past, present, and future, preferably in that order. I want to start out by saying everything in this room is confidential, and you need not worry about your words falling into anyone's ears, even dear Madame Maxime's."

I tilted my head, at a loss of what on earth the headmaster could say that such a disclaimer would be necessary. "Understood," I replied, urging him silently to continue.

"I'll begin by addressing the elephant in the room: your parents' deaths."

I paled.

No one spoke about their deaths to me, not even Madame. Definitely not so bluntly.

"About four years ago, your father visited me unexpectedly in this very office. He informed me that a confidential source—an old friend of both of ours—had come out of the woodworks to warn him of an imminent attempt to steal the stone. The thief, as you know, was none other than Lord Voldemort."

I respected Dumbledore's use of the name, though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; my father had always said that Dumbledore had been the only one that Voldemort ever feared.

This was my first time hearing about the old-friend-turned-informant's role in any of this. I wondered who he was.

"How did he know to inform my father?" I asked.

Dumbledore gave me a strange look. "She had been tracking Voldemort's movements closely, listening for any word of his return and using her considerable resources to conduct her own private investigations." I blushed, embarrassed to assume the informant had been male. "The exact circumstance of her acquiring this knowledge had something to do with a sphinx in Egypt, if I remember correctly. I never did get the full story, but I, like your father, trust her implicitly. She is quite an extraordinary woman."

The old man watched me thoughtfully, and I started back in silence. The both of us took a moment to process our thoughts.

"Anyway," Dumbledore continued, collecting himself first. "Your father asked me to guard the stone myself, since my involvement may dissuade Voldemort from further pursuit, but alas. The man he was possessing, Quirell, broke into my Gringotts vault and nearly stole the stone that summer. Your father met with me again, at which point I offered to hide the stone in Hogwarts since the castle is nearly impenetrable."

"Nearly," I said bitterly.

"Yes, nearly," the headmaster agreed sadly. "Its enchantments protect us from outsiders, but not from the beasts that might lie within."

I stared at him blankly as the old man regressed into riddles, much like how my father used to do when he found something difficult to say outright. Then the implication of his words dawned on me.

"Who was it?" I demanded, feeling the anger begin to rush through me. "A teacher or student?"

Whoever it was, I would find them and force them to acknowledge the child who they had orphaned in their greed.

"A professor," Dumbledore replied gently, frowning at my curled fists. "He's dead, Marguerite."

I let out a hard breath through my mouth, the tiniest bit relieved that justice had been served outside of my hands. Still, the headmaster watched me carefully, as if I was a puppy about to run into traffic.

"Qu'est? Do you expect me to offer my condolences?" I asked, voice tight. "To pity the man who would have stolen my parents' life source and give it to a ruthless murderer instead? Pardon, but I believe nature served justice."

"You may be right," Dumbledore granted grimly. "Nature's justice, while less forgiving, is often far more fair than that of humanity's. As an old friend once told me, we should all learn to step aside and let nature enact justice in our stead when possible."

I liked that phrase and made a note to file it away for a later time.

"Anyway," Dumbledore continued. "I had a feeling the castle might have had a traitor in its midst and so I asked each of my most loyal teachers to create an obstacle that the thief would face on their route to the stone."

"Then how did Voldemort get past them?"

"He didn't." I blinked at the headmaster's sure tone. "Not really. By the time one of our students caught up with the thief, he was stuck at the last obstacle, one he couldn't have passed without the help of the student."

"Harry Potter," I said knowingly. Dumbledore looked surprised. "Yes, my father told me. Harry Potter chased down the thief and saved the stone from Voldemort."

"More or less," Dumbledore agreed. "As I said before, the final task was such that Voldemort wouldn't have been able to get the stone at all if Harry hadn't been there, but Harry's heart was in the right place, and he did save it in the end."

"And how did he find out about any of this?" I asked, annoyed. It sounded as though his attempt to play hero was the only thing that actually put the stone at risk.

"That was my oversight," the headmaster confessed, putting his hands up in surrender, eyes solemn. "I sent Hagrid to retrieve the stone from the vault when Harry had been school shopping with him, only for there to be an attempted robbery of that very same vault splashed across the Daily Prophet the next morning. Apparently, Harry continued searching for clues all year once he suspected that Voldemort was behind it. The professors and myself had no idea what he and his friends were up to until they put their lives at risk trying to save it themselves."

So, if I understood correctly, Harry's involvement was the only unpredictable factor in this whole ordeal, and therefore the only reason the stone was ever truly at risk.

My admiration for the boy was quickly dwindling.

Yet, I reminded myself, he wasn't the one to truly blame in this situation.

"And Voldemort?" I asked, his name tasting like acid on my lips.

Dumbledore watched me very closely again. I wondered if he was this attentive with all his students or my status as his dead friend's daughter merely earned me extra scrutiny.

"He got away," he replied slowly.

"Excuse me," I deadpanned.

"His soul, that is," Dumbledore explained hurriedly. "The soul never truly dies, as I'm sure your father's told you, and Voldemort's is tethered to this earth."

"And why is that?" I asked, anger rushing through me once more. It felt like a dangerous question, but I hardly cared; I wanted answers.

However, the way he stared back at me made me feel like a child who could be trusted with only half the story. I narrowed my eyes.

"Sir?" I pressed.

"That is a question of dark and complicated magic that we won't get into at this time," the headmaster answered unyieldingly, folding his hands together in resolution. "All that matters is that he got far too close to attaining the stone, and subsequent immortality, and your parents died as heroes in a preventative effort to avoid Voldemort's second rise and the war that would follow."

I saw my opening to talk about the time turner. "Yes, but sir. They didn't need to. Voldemort hasn't risen—"

"Precisely," the old man interrupted. "And if it hadn't been for your parent's decision to destroy the stone, who knows; we could be living in a second reign of terror."

"Yes, but surely there was another way—"

"The only way would have been for Voldemort to have been completely killed."

"Well, can't we do that? Then we can bring my parents back!" I cried, knowing I sounded desperate and childish but not caring one bit.

The old man froze, his blue eyes hard on me.

"My dear," he said slowly, firmly. "Though painful, your parents' sacrifice played a role in this world far larger than how it effected you or me. To undo it would be a tragedy, a sin against nature. You must know, their deaths were for the greater good."

His last words hurled me 3 years back into one of the last conversation I had with my father. It had been the only time I saw him cry. This is for the greater good, my little Marguerite, he had said. What good? Who's good? I had cried, but I received no real answer. Just a reiteration of that same dreadful phrase: the greater good.

Hearing it now sent ice through my veins, and as I looked into the blue eyes of the famous Albus Dumbledore, I could not help but wonder if this man who spoke so surely of 'the greater good' had planted the idea in my father's head to start with.

One thing was sure; I would not be getting that time turner willingly from him. Because even if he hadn't come up with the idea of destroying the stone on his own, he had clearly spoke to my father about it and agreed with the logic, backing his decision to kill himself for 'the greater good.' And that made Albus Dumbledore the type of man who wouldn't risk the timeline for anyone, not even his dearest friend.

With that realization, all the fight drained out of me. My hope of reuniting with my parents faded, and I felt their loss so potently, it felt as though they had died all over again. Sick to my stomach, I could no longer look at the old wizard in front of me, instead fixing my eyes on an ugly pocket watch behind his desk.

"Pardon, monsieur. I feel unwell and need to retreat for the night," I demanded in a dead, monotone voice that left no room for argument.

Dumbledore sighed, and though I did not see his face, his next words sounded sad.

"Very well, Miss Flamel. I see I've overwhelmed you enough for one night. We will finish our discussion after you've had some time to process."

I ignored his words, merely saying, "Bonsoir."

Then, without sparing another glance at the most powerful wizard of our age, I sped out of the room, flying down the twisty staircase and putting as much space as possible between me and my father's so-called friend.

The next couple of days passed by in a blur.

Each morning, my day started with intensive workouts and drills run with Fleur in order to keep her strong for the competition. Madame assigned me her personal trainer over the next few months since just about no one else could keep up with the ice queen.

By the time breakfast would come around, I would be exhausted, but only had about an hour to recuperate until my other lessons began. Afraid that I would fall behind in the standard curriculum for third years, Madame insisted that I join the Hogwarts students.

They all bored me with their curious glances and mediocre skill besides a redheaded Gryffindor girl nearly as feisty as me.

"Ginny Weasley," she introduced herself one day after narrowly missing me as she shot a hex at a Slytherin who had insulted her.

I smirked. "Marguerite."

And that was the start of just about the only friendship I made with a Hogwarts student—outside of Hermione, of course.

True to Hermione's word, I saw her nearly every day as I, too, became a frequent of the library. We would sit together, and she would talk about the books she was reading but mostly her life, ranting about her friends, who sounded like complete imbéciles most days. Most times, she would be alone, but sometimes said friends would be with her: either the redhead, who I had come to know from Hermione's rants as Ron, or Harry Potter, who really did seem far less impressive each time I got to see him.

He was a nice boy and all, but he just seemed so—normal. It was almost as if he went out of his way to be unremarkable, and the more time I spent with him, the more I suspected that was exactly his strategy: be boring and the fans will leave you alone.

And I had to admit, it wasn't a bad one. By the time my birthday, which just so happened to also be Halloween came around, my interest in him had almost entirely faded. Almost.

Something unsettled me about Harry Potter. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but a funny feeling stirred in my stomach sometimes when he would say things in a certain tone or rub the back of his neck in that unique way of his. The eyes were the worst. One look into his dark emerald eyes and my internal radar would go whirring.

Uncanny. That was the best word to describe it.

My father once told me that a muggle psychologist named Freud theorized that humans feared the uncanny, things which we knew yet at the same time didn't. Truthfully, the theory sounded like a bunch of merde to me until I met Harry Potter. Never had I met someone so at once familiar and alien, and it terrified me to think that there could be something I should know that I was missing.

The more time I spent at Hogwarts, the more real that fear became. Especially on the night of my birthday when I was walking with Fleur to the feast and a random Hogwarts student ran up to me.

"Marguerite Flamel?" the little boy called. Several people turned, and I walked hurriedly towards him to shut him up.

"This is for you," he said, flinging a small, wrapped box in my hand and running off before I got the chance to ask from who. Tied to the box was a brief, neatly written note:

For when you next wear green, it read. This was your mother's favorite piece. Happy birthday.

"What iz zat?" Fleur asked as I returned to her.

"Nothing," I said gruffly, shoving the strange note and present into my robes. From the context, I could only assume the box held jewelry, yet my mother didn't like jewelry so I felt, once again, as though I was missing some crucial point of information.

"Are you ready?" Fleur asked as we entered the Great Hall. The extra lanterns and decorations added for the feast made it warmer and grander and honestly downright overwhelming.

"Am I ready?" I stared at her in bewilderment as she met my gaze with a blinding smile, her shiny blonde hair looking more perfect than usual. "Féerie, êtes-vous fou? I am not the one about to be called into a competition that could mean certain death."

"Yes, but you wish you were," she said, her smile stretching even wider. Perhaps that was the best part of all of this for her; it wasn't often she got something I didn't. I was spoiled, I'd admit it. "Are you ready to muster all your strength to force a polite smile and a clap?"

I rolled my eyes. "Excuse-toi, pixie brains." Not even my insults shook her smile. "I've pulled off much harder acting feats under far more duress. I'll do just fine."

In response, Fleur giggled—actually giggled, like an energetic little girl. That's how excited she was.

As the ceremony started, I admit I was impressed with the imperious way Dumbledore held himself. I had not spoken to him since that night in his office, mostly because I was avoiding him, giving one excuse after the other why I could not meet up with him again when he summoned me. I planned to speak to him again eventually out of curiosity, but not now—I was still too angry.

However, the Dumbledore hosting the ceremony tonight was a far cry for the man I spoke to in that office. This was not someone you could look away from, much less ignore.

I supposed the suspense of wanting to know the champions also lent itself to that. And as the first name spit itself out of the fire, fluttering down into Dumbledore's hand, all fell deathly silent, looking on with rapt attention.

"The champion for Durmstrang," Dumbledore read, in a strong, clear voice, "will be Viktor Krum."

Cheers broke out around the hall, and I shrugged at Fleur, neither of us in the least bit surprised. Viktor, a celebrity seeker who we had actually watched earlier that summer, was Durmstrang's clear choice.

Judging by his shamelessly loud cheers, Durmstrang's headmaster, Karkaroff, certainly agreed.

A second piece of parchment shot out, and all grew silent once again. Fleur paled, looking nervous for the first time as her wide, light eyes followed the trail of the parchment as it fell into Dumbledore's hands.

"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "is Fleur Delacour!"

She immediately screeched, jumping up and looking down at me with a smile so bright that it nearly made my eyes squint. Surprisingly, I felt genuine elation too as I rose to my feet, clapping for her adamantly as she glided towards the center stage.

A couple of the younger girls cried in jealousy, and I rolled my eyes. So much for appearing untouchable. We would get an earful from Madame later.

Silence fell once more as the last parchment flew out of the goblet.

"The Hogwarts champion is," Dumbledore announced, "Cedric Diggory!"

Cedric stood and began to walk down; he was a good looking boy with dirty blonde hair and a tall, lean frame. He had a friendly, wide smile that was pleasant to look at. If he wasn't the competition, I might have been interested.

However, although the Hufflepuff table roared in triumph, most of the other houses clapped only with tame politeness, except Gryffindor, where a few people sat in outright protest. Among them was Ron. I would have to ask Hermione later about the Hogwarts gossip.

Reaching down into my robe pocket, I took out the little box that had been given to me, opening it as Dumbledore gave a speech. Not listening, I lifted the box's lid to reveal a delicate golden chain. At its center, a small string of diamonds fell perpendicularly with a stunning emerald flower at its edge.

A strange feeling overtook me. Uncanny.

Just as the girl next to me leaned over to admire it, the chatter in the hall hushed once more. I looked up, amazed to see a fourth parchment floating down into Dumbledore's hand. Necklace forgotten, I watched with rapt attention, waiting for Dumbledore to read the name.

"Harry Potter."

Merde.

I didn't know whether to protest or laugh.