The Ultimate Temptation of Albus Dumbledore
Harry, as the rest of the party followed Mr Delacour towards the building, cast a final glance over his shoulder, out over the great city of Paris, and noted that they, Liberalia, hung almost just to the side of the Eiffel Tower – he felt as though, looking at it, he could almost touch it.
Multiple groups of people, most of them families, loved ones – people who belonged in some way, thought Harry – strolled around the platform, enjoying the pleasant evening wind and the enormity of the view afforded. A few of them, Harry noted, seemed to hold on tight to their small children as the approached the railings. It was only then, as he left it behind, that he noticed they seemed to be carved out of splendid, glimmering gold – and strange markings, glittering with a dark light, danced and streaked across the surface.
Harry paused and stared, trying to make sense of the symbols, but they moved too fast. Before he could pause to think, he turned towards it and made his way back towards–
"C'mon, Harry." Someone yanked his arm back. "You're like a child in Zonko's for the first time."
"In what?" said Harry, letting Daphne pull him away from the railings and towards the entrance.
"Never you mind." She pushed her hand down hard on his head, trying to smooth out his hair. "I hate your hair – doesn't it ever lie down?"
"Nope." He pulled himself free from her grasp, stared at her, frowning in confusion. "What's the matter, anyway? You never cared about my hair before. You didn't care five minutes ago."
"I didn't know we'd be meeting him," whispered Daphne, giving a subtle nod towards Mr Delacour, for whom the crowd seemed to part before, acknowledged quite often by respectful, even reverent nods, if Harry was not mistaken. "That's the President of Magic, Harry."
Harry arched an eyebrow, laughing slightly. "President of Magic? Such a title exists?"
"He's the leader of the ICW," said Daphne.
"Wouldn't President of the ICW be more fitting then?" replied Harry.
"Doesn't sound as commanding, does it?" said Ron as he fell back beside them. He laughed heartily. "So what do you think? Surprised."
Harry nodded. "You can say that again. It's – well, it's something, isn't it? A little much perhaps."
"Yeah, dad says the same thing."
"But it's also kind of a testament, in a way, to what magic could do, right?" said Daphne, and Harry noted her awed countenance. There was a touch of frightfulness to her voice, though, and Harry knew somehow that she herself didn't understand that fear.
That it was a fear born out of instinct rather than any real knowledge. Some instinctual inception of the mind. Maybe it was even, looking back on the whole fucked up thing, somehow a heritable trait of the soul.
Who knows, eh?
"Sure is," replied Harry after a moment, keen eyes flickering back and forth between Ron and Daphne, noting the air of secrecy that still lingered. He shrugged. He had his secrets; his friends were entitled theirs. "And bloody cool."
They joined the throng earnestly, trying to catch up to Dumbledore and the rest, weaving their way through and betwixt the early evening dwellers. In front of them, looming closer for every step, stood a square-looking building that looked to be an entrance hall of some kind. The giant double doors, made of gleaming, polished wood, stood ajar, and Harry spied people squeezing in and out in an almost continually pour of people.
As they approached Harry saw that Dumbledore, along with Mr Delacour and his daughter, stood and waited for them.
"Got lost, hmm?" said Mr Delacour, tilting his head with a little smile.
"Sorry, sir," said Ron. "One of them recognized Harry and–"
"Don't lie to me, boy!" said Mr Delacour, voice suddenly paper-thin and devoid of warmth of any kind.
Ron blinked and shut his mouth like a switch had been turned off in his brain. Harry blinked, too, and looked around the group they'd just joined. There was a ghost of sadness that flashed across Dumbledore's eyes, or so Harry thought, for it was gone in less than an instant.
"Well, we better hurry on in," said Dumbledore, smiling slightly reserved, almost pensive. "After you, Harry, I think is the wisest."
"Sure sir," said Harry, glancing one last time confusedly between Delacour and Ron. Ron himself looked equally perplexed. "Ron was only trying to cover for me, sir. I was the one holding us up," he said to Delacour.
"He shouldn't lie, especially not when there is nothing to lie about."
Harry nodded curtly, still bewildered, and squeezed through the door. A small entrance hall greeted his eyes. Two men, dressed professionally in blood-red robes, stood off to the side and seemed to check everybody who entered. Astoria and her father had found a little corner of their own and seemed beset with anxiety. Their gaze, which had flicked back and forth between the guards and the door, gained some relieve upon Harry's entrance.
The two men, already somewhat on edge by the looks of them, seemed to tense up upon his entrance, however, a general state of readiness that only seemed to heighten when Ron, Daphne and Dumbledore followed him in.
But then Delacour entered and the two guards snapped at attention.
"At ease." Delacour smiled, indicated at Ron and the Greengrass family and then Harry and Dumbledore respectively. "Six people to process for you today. Two Half-bloods and four Pure-bloods."
Harry frowned.
"Is that important to specify?" asked Mr Greengrass tersely, mirroring Harry's thoughts.
Delacour either didn't hear the question or chose not to answer.
"Through here," said one of the guards, standing aside and indicating the black door they seemed to guard. "We'll have you sorted out in no time."
The door opened and admitted a wall of impenetrable darkness in which no light seemed to be able to touch. The light of the hall in which Harry stood emitted not a single speck of illumination for him to behold what was inside the room.
It was just like a wall of darkness.
"Relatives can enter together," said the other guard, looking at Astoria and Mr Greengrass. His accent was rough, like charred coal, but with little hint of difficulty. There was a sense of familiarity with the English language to be found upon his tongue. "You go first."
Harry could scarcely recall the last time he'd been this tense – the whole thing oozed of unspoken hostility. He saw Mr Greengrass and Dumbledore exchange a blink of a glance, then Dumbledore nodded ever so carefully, and the other man seemed to resign himself to some ill-fortunate fate.
"Daphne, come here," said Mr Greengrass and Daphne, who had been holding on tight to Harry's upper arm, squeezed him as she went by to her dad.
The three of them stepped over the threshold and the door closed behind them, a small sign saying Occupied flicked on above the door – and then there was nothing but infinite, deafening silence that stretched into something opaque and cruel.
Harry and Ron looked between them. Harry had seldom seen Ron paler than in that moment, as though every nook of fearful imagination in his head had come to live. It was all broadcasted for the world to see in the narrowing of his eyes, the dilation of his pupils, the…
Harry shook his head, forced himself to stop reading his friend like a fucking book, and tried to calm his thoughts into something less meaningful – less scary.
A moment later, which seemed to have stretched well passed forever, and the sign went out and the door swung open.
"You next, boy," said one of the guards, looking with cold blue eyes at Ron.
"Harry – not the biggest fan so far," said Ron, voice slightly uneven, standing completely still.
"Did they pass?" asked Harry, nodding to the room. "Whatever test you have in there – did they pass?"
"Next!" was the only reply he got.
"Sir?" said Harry, glancing at his old Professor.
Dumbledore nodded. "Go on, Mr Weasley. Daphne and her family are all fine."
Ron sighed, straightened his back. "If you say so." And then he entered the blackness, footing impressively assured, and Harry watched, horrified, as the door closed behind him.
"Zis way, gentlemen," said Mr Delacour, an easy smile curling his upper lip. In his obvious satisfaction, his control of his accent seemed to slip up momentarily. He was pointing towards the back door, at the end of the small hall. "I shall imagine your friends will be done with ze examination in a moment."
"Examination?" inquired Harry, as he fell in line with Dumbledore, following Fleur and her father.
"Oui," said Mr Delacour, smile all pleasant and open, as though he hadn't just forced Harry's friends to go through the darkened unknown. "To establish lineage." He glanced at Dumbledore and Harry in turn. "You two – for reasons that I zink are obvious – we already know – everyzing."
"Oh, I certainly hope not," said Dumbledore, tone of voice just as pleasant, just as jovial, as President Delacour's smile. "A man should be allowed his secrets."
"Not if ze secrets of the man could harm ze collective of all zis."
"And to whom falls the task of deeming which secrets are dangerous and which are not?" said Dumbledore, smile still on his lips but an edge of something else played about in his voice. "Who can boast to know all secrets that walk these halls and who can boast to possess the moral ambiguity to judge all secrets for what they are… and not be taking in by one's own temperaments and vices, when judging others for theirs."
"You haven't changed your tune one bit, have you, Professor?" said Mr Delacour. "You still find all that we have created here, without you, to be beneath you, don't you?"
"No, not at all. In fact, I find all this quite understandable, almost commendable. You found a way in which you could take your perceived victimhood and turn it into a strength. Every victim to have ever suffered under the ill-will of a tyrant has wished for your fortitude, when confronted with his or her opressor. But your strength has become a weapon, Mr President. A weapon you have since proven will fire at anything that dares so much as disagreeing on the technicalities of your ideology."
"You disappoint me," said President Delacour, and his smile was not even a ghost on his face now. Merely an old memory. As was his accent. Forgotten. He was in control of himself once more. "Rumours had that you'd changed… I thought – I believed them, even… I thought given recent escapades that you'd see different."
"I don't see eye to eye on a number of issues with my government – and there are a great deal of things I'd like to see changed, if I could do so with but a snap of my finger. But perhaps it is best that I do not posses such powers. I know the intoxication of such grand aspirations, and I know their fallacy. I know where they lead and so do you – so do you… at the end."
"I think, perhaps, with deepest respect, you underestimate yourself, Professor. I think that you, given this power, could wield it with the same poise you've always had." Delacour beheld Dumbledore for a long moment, standing now at the door to the rest of Liberalia. Harry and Fleur stood behind them now, both looking between the two men to discern what was about to happen. "Maybe you'll yet be given the chance to emit such changes."
Dumbledore still smiled that same placid, pleasant smile, and for some reason Harry couldn't quite comprehend, it only seemed to irk Delacour even more.
And then Mr Delacour swirled about, grabbed Fleur and whispered something quick.
"I'm so sorry, Albus, but my attention is needed elsewhere."
"How unfortunate."
"Quite," said Delacour. "My daughter, if you'd like, will be you and Mr Potter's guide."
"What about Ron and Daphne?" snapped Harry quickly. "And Mr Greengrass and Astoria."
"There're here, Harry," said Dumbledore calmly. "Just beyond those doors."
Harry frowned, and noted Fleur did so too.
"How do you know that?" asked Harry.
"Omnipotent as always, I see," said President Delacour. "Maybe the real issue you have with our ways is that no one is impressed with the man who can see all, when everyone knows."
Delacour kissed Fleur on the cheek and then he pushed passed Harry back the way they came.
"Oh, one more thing," said Mr Delacour, a hint of accent, and turned. "One more rumour – I know you love them, Headmaster."
"So far the rumour mill around here has been rather underwhelming, I must say."
"I insist." Delacour smiled, and for once, thought Harry, it seemed honest – and not at all pleasant. "It is, after all, yours by right of conquest."
"I'm not here as a conqueror," said Dumbledore carefully. "Only as a messenger."
Delacour appeared almost excited now. "For a long time, ze better part of ze last decade, in fact, I wondered why… why would you not just take it? You who hate our way of life so much."
"I hate a precious few things – neither you nor your… society is on that list."
Delacour stared hungrily into Dumbledore's bright blue eyes, trying to discern something. Something of which Harry knew nothing of.
"Good to know," said Delacour at last and nodded to Harry. "See you at the hearing."
And then he turned and was gone with a swish of his cloak, leaving them at the door with his beautiful and young daughter. To Harry she only seemed a couple of years older, as she stood and tripped slightly on her feet as every set of eyes in the group turned expectantly to her.
"Shall we?" asked Fleur Delacour, somewhat awkwardly, gesturing to the door. She was impossibly beautiful – even Harry could see that – but at that moment she seemed far too young to be playing host. "Your friends, I'm sure, will be worried."
"Worried?" Harry glanced at her with a furrowed brow. "More like ten minutes of relief from me."
Dumbledore chuckled heartily and gestured to Fleur. "Lead the way, miss Delacour."
In what was known as the Lobby Entrance they met up with Ron and the Greengrass family again. Slightly ruffled by their demeanour, they nonetheless looked no worse for wear.
Harry had dared asking Ron just what it was they'd been put through, but Ron only shook his head, and showed Harry a small booklet that looked quite alike a muggle passport. In it were a picture of Ron and a list of his personal information, including day of birth, heritage, and his status as a student of Hogwarts.
"Muggles have something similar," said Harry, to which Ron only gave a disgruntled grunt.
Harry focused on the Entrance Lobby instead, as they followed Fleur through the small throngs of evening dwellers, of whom most seemed to be just off work or going towards their evening shifts at work.
"Every level of Liberalia is ac… acce…"
"Accessible?" prompted Dumbledore gently.
"Oui," breathed Fleur gratefully. "Sorry, Professor, papa insists that I learn English, but it does not come easy to me."
"So no one is perfect," muttered Daphne beside Harry and Ron.
Harry and Ron shared a confused glance, but focused back on Fleur's explanation.
"Every level of Liberalia is accessible only from ze Lobby Entrance." Fleur smiled prettily at a couple of young men, who blushed and stepped aside as though burned. "Structurally, it has its shortcomings, but ze magic on which Liberalia is founded makes any alternative impossible."
"What magic is that?" asked Ron.
Fleur gave him a bemused look, then glanced fleetingly to Dumbledore. It was subtle, almost non-existent, but to Harry it might as well have been a shout from the top of the world.
Harry beheld Dumbledore curiously.
"Volatile, powerful magic," answered Fleur, gaining Harry's eyes. "Born through terrible circumstances and 'orrible intentions."
"Something from which wonders can be born… at a costly price," said Dumbledore, sighing and glancing around the Lobby. "I'd like to see the bottom floor, Miss Delacour."
"You can't." Fleur shook her head, and glanced at the ceiling. "But papa insisted that you should see the closest zing to it."
Harry beheld the Lobby Entrance, and immediately something caught his attention. The ceiling was besotted with grand, immaculate paintings that seemed to bespeak of an olden tale of war and magic – in a city that bore a striking resemblance to the city of lights below them.
Legions of wizards, the tips of their wands on fire with rage and anguish, clashed in a never-ending feud with one another. It was messy, it was cruel, and Harry couldn't tell who was who and neither, it seemed, could the combatant. Wizards lay slain and slaughtered on the grounds of the canvas, littered like forgotten trash at the feet of the conquerors.
And then some of them seemed to resurrect before his eyes, joining once more the battle of eternity – only to die moments later before his eyes. The same death, the same spot on the painting, the same resurrection. Over and over and sickeningly over.
Harry swallowed a lump in his throat, feeling perspiration coalesce on his forehead. He could almost hear their screams for it all to end, for someone to find the mercy in them and burn it all down.
Harry shook his head, and let his eyes travel onwards.
At the centre of the madness, standing proud on a hillside, utter chaos unleashed amongst them, stood two silhouettes, and they seemed to try to do nothing short of erasing the other from existence. One was encased in shadows so dark that even the shape of him seemed vague. Unreal.
The other stood in outrageous purple robes, and though his features were indistinct, his long auburn hair wavered in the wind of his might like a flame behind him.
"Professor?" said Ron, drawing Harry's attention away from the wretched ceiling. "Something wrong, sir?"
Harry looked at Dumbledore and almost took a step back. Tempestuous rage seemed to be carved in stone upon his old and hollowed features. He looked, Harry thought, more beastly than even the wretched visage of Lord Voldemort had back at Christmas. His breathing was laboured, his eyes strained, and nothing about him seemed to suggest that he was in any way aware of anything safe the painting above – on which he stared transfixed. Starving. Raving. Maddening.
There was a tear, solemn and lonely, that fell from the corner of his eye and carved a path down his cheek to be swallowed by his thick, white beard. And then there was a moment in which, quite suddenly, the hairs on Harry's arms stood on end, wherein the very air around them seemed electric with all the would-be potential of all the universe.
But it slipped away, quick as it came, like smoke in a windy night, and Dumbledore closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again with a calmness that seemed as genuine as any Harry had ever seen.
"Sir?" said Harry.
"The bottom floor, Miss Delacour – please," said Dumbledore, smiling pleasantly.
Fleur nodded. "As close as I can take you."
She led them in silence towards the other end of the long splendid hall. The floor was carved in dark-brown wood, polished to immaculate perfection. It had the sort of hollow quality, where your every step resonated with a deep clang – clang-clang-clang – that Harry found oddly satisfying.
Stepping more quickly, he joined Fleur at the front of their group. "You've grown up here, haven't you?"
Fleur glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then turned her head without answering.
Harry frowned. "Lived here all you life?"
"This iz ze way," said Fleur, pointedly ignoring Harry, as she gestured towards an oval, black door at the end of the hall.
She stepped up to it, glanced at Harry and winked, and walked right through. The blackness swallowed her whole, rippling slightly as her form passed through, and settled back, opaque and still, as though nothing had happened.
"Well, here we go. The obscure way," said Dumbledore, smiling, and bent low to fit in through the shape. He, too, vanished in the blackness.
He was quickly followed by Astoria, then Mr Greengrass, who was in vain trying to hold back his eager daughter, which left Daphne, Ron and Harry.
"Did you see how he reacted?" asked Daphne.
"Hard to miss, eh?" said Ron. "He looked afraid."
"Livid."
"What?"
"He looked livid," repeated Harry absentmindedly.
"Livid?"
"Yeah, Ron – enraged. So mad even he, with all his self-control, couldn't contain it all inside."
"What would do that to him?" said Daphne. "The paintings?"
Harry nodded. "The paintings."
"Why?"
Harry glanced between Ron and Daphne, his brow furrowed. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Obviously not!" said Ron.
"The paintings – they depict the duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. And the war. It's like a monument to that day, that fight – the greatest duel of all time."
"But why?" said Ron. "Why celebrate Dumbledore – we don't even do that."
"It's grotesque." Daphne shook her head in disgust. "It's–"
"Will you three hurry up!" said Astoria angrily, her head popping through the black sphere in the wall, which rippled like an ocean caught in a howling storm around her. "We're waiting for you, you know."
Ron, wide-eyed, stared at Astoria as though she was a dragon spitting fire six feet in front of him. Harry laughed and Daphne could only sigh.
Astoria looked shrewdly between the three of them. "Well, hurry up, would you?" Then she drew her head back and disappeared behind the black wall. A moment later there was no trace of her having been there.
"There's something off about this place," said Harry, staring at the blackness. Something at the edge of his mind slithered about, pieces from puzzles he couldn't yet fathom drawing ever closer.
"You think!" said Ron. "Did you see her head through the wall, too, or was it the creepy paintings that keyed you in? Maybe it was the fact that we had to be poked and prodded, hmm?"
"No, it's something else." Harry turned and beheld the hall, The Lobby, and contemplated the people, the way they walked, talked, the look in their eyes… something was off. He just couldn't quite put his thoughts together. Even Fleur seemed…
"What is it?"
"I dunno – French people, perhaps."
Daphne frowned. "French people?"
"Yeah – something betwixt hubris and carelessness, perchance."
Ron blinked. "Was I suppose to understand any of that? Speak bloody English, Harry."
"He said–" began Daphne.
Ron waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, I know what he bloody said. The point still stands!"
Harry grinned. "I'm trying to expand my vocabulary. You should try it."
Ron gave him a shrewd look. "You're not Dumbledore."
"Oh, so when Dumbledore uses words like betwixt and tempestuous and the like he's wise and brilliant, but when I do it I'm–"
Ron grinned. "You sound like a cock, yeah. A twat, a right uptight sort of a prick."
"Tell me how you really feel, why don't you?"
"A nob, a cauldron with only fumes left, a limp, old fuckstick–"
Harry grinned. "Yeah, yeah, thank you, Ron. Let's go."
Daphne shook her head. "You two are disgusting."
Ron nodded and smiled. His smile, however, fell to smithereens when he looked to the black hole in the wall, and, taking a steadying breath, he went straight through it like the rest of the group before he could have second thoughts.
Daphne followed quickly, muttering under her breath, "I don't like this, I really don't like this."
And for a moment, for the first time in forever, it seemed, Harry found himself standing all alone. He glanced behind him again, out over the Lobby, beheld all the citizens of Liberalia going about the remnants of their day, living out their lives in their own little world… He could almost see it, the strings that trailed their every step, the cages that all involuntarily chooses to enslave themselves in.
One young man, his step aimless and frantic, off-beat, walked with his shoulders slouched beneath the weight of a broken heart, and it was a recent thing, too. There was a cloud of misery in his eyes and rage in the subtle twitch of his upper lip. He could, if not careful, come to act upon that rage in the near future and commit something he'd come to regret.
Harry didn't know how, but he could see it clear as day, see what he had been and what he might be – and it made sense.
But then there was another boy, about the same age, and he… he was just strange. He walked normally, but it was a studied-kind-of-normal. No, that made no sense. It was a normal walk, normal posture, normal look in his eyes; everything was normal – like he'd repressed every basic impulse, every human emotion, and every nuance of personality. Every trace of history, of a life lived, that every person posses and is weighted by was just… not there.
Harry had never, to his recollection, encountered a person that was that bland. Never.
In Liberalia he'd already encountered dozens of them.
"French people," he muttered, and followed the rest of his friends through the blackness in the wall. He didn't spare a glance back again. If he had, he might have noticed that, just as he went through, every one of those he had been unable to read turned and stared at his back with cold, wet eyes.
A dark, almost black like the hole in the wall, circular room met his eyes. It sloped down a winding staircase into a precipice, a stony stage of some sort, at the bottom, wherein Harry could just about make out the flickering of white, bright lights.
Fleur, in silence, lit her wand and gestured for the party, which seemed to have been waiting rather impatiently for Harry, to follow her down the staircase. There was no railing, and the group was afforded a sickening clear view of the grounds below, and the depths they would fall.
Harry felt Daphne clamour for his hand behind him, and she gripped it tightly once she found it.
A couple of minutes spent hugging the wall later found them standing amongst thirteen silver-laden wells, which emitted a startlingly clear light like starlight upon a clear night sky.
Fleur stood in the middle of them and waited for the group to settle around her – Harry was last to join them, his curiosity immeasurable.
"This is the 'all of Origin," said Fleur, stumbling on her words a little.
"Hall of Origin?" asked Ron, leaning closer to her.
Fleur nodded. "Yes. From here, and only from here, can the rest of Liberalia be accessed."
"What – what are these?" asked Harry, his eyes caught in the starlight nearest.
Fleur smiled. "Portals."
"Portals? Truly? How marvellous. How does it work?" said Dumbledore, coming to stand beside Harry and gazing down at the clear light. It was so bright it could lit the whole hall, and yet, looking directly at it, it never blinded Harry's eyes.
"We do not know," answered Fleur slowly, as though admitting so pained her. "It came into life along with the Blackened Chasm."
Ron blinked. "The what now?"
"Please – it's easier to just show you." Fleur pulled a frown across her beautiful features. "This light stood beside the darkness at the beginning, pulling each other ever closer. You remember, Professor?"
"No, should I?" said Dumbledore, but there was a look in his eye that told Harry that something had clicked inside that brilliant mind.
Fleur blinked, genuine confusion in her eyes. "I thought… I thought you knew."
Dumbledore sighed. "Miss Delacour, I haven't seen this place, or the grounds above which it floats, since my bout with Gellert. I assure you, I am not trying to seem deliberately obtuse – it is wholly genuine."
There clung a tight moment of prolonged silence, as the information, of which Harry gathered very little, went through Fleur's thoughts.
"Merde – nobody ever told you?" said Fleur at last, wide-eyed and full of terrible disbelief.
"My dear, let's focus on what you thought I already knew and let that become common knowledge amongst us. That way, we can all share in your reverence for this… eerie place."
"Yes, of course…" Fleur seemed to gather her wits about her, running a hand through her waist-length silvery-blonde hair. "After your duel with Grindelwald – or maybe because of your duel with Grindelwald – because of ze magic that was used, your fight left behind an… imprint. A wall. A veil between us and something else."
Daphne gasped and stiffened behind Harry. "V-veil?"
Harry understood her fears at once, remembering the prophecy she told him and Ron of – the prophecy of the Boy Beyond the Veil. He saw Ron squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, and Harry sent her what he hoped was a calming smile.
Fleur nodded. "Oui. But something else came to life alongside it…"
"These lights," said Dumbledore. "And you managed to harness that light to create Liberalia."
"We manage to harness both." Fleur walked around in a circle, touching every well as she passed them. "The more we created the more lights appeared – portals to a place that only seems to exist inside the world of every portal. I am to show you, Professor, all of what you wish to see – your legacy of Liberalia."
"Wait… they're named," said Harry, finding words on top of the well closest to him. "The Lord of Magic," he read aloud.
"A place of splendour, I've been told," said Fleur, gazing intently at Dumbledore, "created for our founding father."
Harry, along with everybody else, traced her eyes to Dumbledore, who looked incurably sad and old and frail with regret.
"You, Professor," said Fleur. "Liberalia belongs to you."
There were twelve in total, twelve wells the size of a family sedan, all of which contained portals to places that seemed to all either exist in different worlds entirely, or somehow exist exactly on top of each other.
Harry didn't understand half of it as Fleur explained it, and at some point he zoomed out of her explanation and went about the room, looking at every well and committing their names to memory.
One portal was named President and Staff. Fleur explained that she lived there with her father, The President, and their family – alongside other essential workers.
"Isn't every worker essential?" asked Ron.
"Some are more essential than others, non?" said Fleur as though he'd said something particularly stupid.
Harry kept walking around, as she explained. There was the Conference and International Relation. There was the High Counsel of Liberalia and the War counsel of Liberalia, which shone brightly side by side. Magical Law Enforcement of Liberalia was next, and then came The City of Liberalia.
"That's where you'll be staying tonight," said Fleur, when she noted Harry's attention.
"Hall of Fame and International Sports," said Ron, a look of pure glee coming over his face. "Is this where the race will take place?"
Fleur nodded mutely, having seemingly taken a very personal dislike to Ron.
Harry blinked. The race? What race? He shook his head – now was not the time.
Next up was a well with the inscription The World of Time.
Harry glanced at Fleur. "World of Time?"
"I've never been there," said Fleur. "Some of what we may see tonight will be a first for me, as well."
"Really?" said Harry. "How come?"
"Are you always this… what's the word? Nosy?"
Harry smiled brightly. "Only when the source of information is so lacklustre."
Fleur huffed and muttered what sounded suspiciously like stupid leetle boy to Harry. It only made him smile all the more brightly.
He turned his attention to the last one, standing off to the side by itself, shinning just as luminously as the rest of them. But when Harry approached it and gazed into the silvery starlight, drops like tears ruined its purity as it swirled around the well – they were teardrops of pure blackness, and Harry suddenly, inexplicably, fell a sliver of fear seize his heart.
It was named The Vanguard and The Blackened Chasm, and it was like it was pulling at him – literally pulling at him. The fringe that fell just above his eyes stood on end as though gravity had ceased to exist around it.
"Stand back!" said Fleur, snarling, as she dragged him back, away from the light. "You stupid, stupid leetle boy!"
Well, she definitely said it this time.
"What's the matter?" yelled Daphne angrily, wiping her wand out. "Let go of him!"
"You don't understand!" said Fleur fiercely, shaking Harry in her fear. "The Blackened Chasm is so powerful, so heavy that it bends light and space!"
"It possess a gravity of its own," whispered Mr Greengrass.
"Oui." Fleur nodded, scowling at Harry as he wrestled himself free of her grip. "People's sense of time has fallen out of line with their bodies because they strayed too close for too long."
"Out of line?" Ron gulped audibly and gazed, horrified, at the well, as though it might just spring alive and burn them all with its dazzling light. "How the blue fu-?"
"What's the Vanguard, Miss Delacour?" asked Dumbledore quietly.
"A place created by us inside the Chasm. We observe it, the Chasm, from there without losing too much of our sense with time. But still Time is… wrong there."
"Wrong?" echoed Harry.
Fleur nodded. "You are chosen to stand guard zere for six months. It's ze greatest honour there is, and the greatest sacrifice, because Time is weird inside. Six months pass out here, but the Guards age between ten and twenty years. Normally. Two wizards, usually wizards of the High Counsel, are chosen every six months, at equinox, to stand guard together and report back on what they found when they return. It's the only way we know we can gather information about the Chasm." Fleur bit her lower lip, and glanced back towards the well as though afraid it was listening to her speak. "But that's not ze worst of it. Sometimes two men, often about the same age, enter together… and age differently. One time one man aged around fifty years while his partner got younger. Like he stole his years. Like… like the Chasm took from one of them and gave to the other."
"And there's no pattern to its viciousness?" asked Mr Greengrass. "No rhythm, no reason?"
"None that we've been able to find."
"So…" Ron glanced at Harry with a shrewd look. "I take it that's the place we keep Harry here far, far away from, right?"
Daphne nodded. "That's the one, yeah."
Ron walked as close as he dared to the well and made a show of pointing it out. "Harry – this is like You-Know-Who. We don't want any close encounter with him again."
Astoria giggled and Mr Greengrass smiled slightly at Daphne and Ron's antics.
Miss Delacour looked far from amused. "Men are down there right now, enduring hardships you'll never come close to see in your sheltered life. Show them some respect, boy."
A weight like lead clung to the heart of their little cluster after Fleur's remark, and Harry saw Ron reddened slightly – from embarrassment, anger, or something approximating remorse he couldn't tell.
"So, Miss Delacour," said Albus Dumbledore into the silence, reaching for a smile beneath the curtain of his silver beard. "Where to first?"
Fleur frowned and, looking around, narrowed her eyes. "I think we will start with the library – know that there are places I cannot take you to. Places that are off ze limits."
Dumbledore nodded. "Of course."
And so the evening went, going through the portals of Liberalia, entering what might as well have been different worlds – such was the scale of some of the places. From towering bookshelves, standing on end for what appeared to be miles upon miles, containing books in which every obscure nugget of magic could be found, to the dusty, smelly courtrooms of the High Counsel of Liberalia, in which magic and history and olden regret tinged and singed the sinews of marrows and brains of the soul.
The War Counsel was skipped, its secrets protected, as was the Hall of Fame and International Sports.
"You'll see it tomorrow," said Fleur with an air of mystery and knowledge.
Lights of brilliance sizzled at Harry's eyes, a storm ruffled the hairs on his head, and he fell once more through another portal, only to land in a heap at the feet of Dumbledore, who smiled benignly, as he stood at the threshold of their destination.
"The Room of Time," said Dumbledore, and gestured at the closed white door behind him. "Of all the secrets that lay at this place for us to uncover, Harry, none will be as wondrous, yet terrible, as that which we are about to bear witness to." He leaned close to Harry, offered his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Keep vigil, Harry. You have, I believe, already started to suspect that not all in Liberalia is as it seems. In the coming days I trust that you will, as always, follow your instincts – and your heart."
"Sir?" whispered Harry. "There's something deeply wrong with Liberalia… with its people, isn't there?"
Dumbledore nodded. "I fear we are too late to the party. One can only hope that, whatever wrongdoing has been done, we are not too late to rectify the problem."
"You know what the problem is, don't you, sir?"
"I have my suspicions. But for now, to bring it all to light, we have to go along with the schemes of our shrouded adversaries. They will show their hand in time."
"Is Fleur the enemy?" whispered Harry furiously.
Their conversation, then, was cut short before he could get an answer, as the rest of the group dropped from nowhere all around them, as was the ways of the portals. Harry took a moment, whilst the party got their bearings, to take a look around. The room was oval shaped and pristine, almost sterile white. So white, in fact, and clean was the room that Harry lifted his foot to see if he'd left behind dirt-ridden footprints on the floor.
He hadn't. For some reason that bothered him.
He glanced at the door and saw slivers of fiery orange light pouring through the cracks in the doorframe. It seemed to come through in stops and starts from the other side, as though it had a pulse, a beating, living heart that oozed not blood but fire.
"What's that light?" asked Ron, staring, like Harry, at the door.
"Time. Isn't that right, Miss Delacour?"
Fleur nodded and stepped up to the door. Harry held his breath, having no idea what to expect on the other side. His whole body had tensed suddenly, and he found that, at some point, his wand had wounded up in the palm of his hand, humming with warmth and magic and power that he barely understood – like a half-manifested thought or a dream slipping away after waking up.
And then she opened the door and stepped inside.
Dumbledore, without hesitation, followed her, and then Ron and Harry hurried after, followed swiftly by the Greengrass family.
Inside there was nothing. Or so Harry thought at first. The room wasn't particularly spacious. The walls were of unrefined black rocks. It was laden in shadows, of which flickered gloomily as it seemed to trace itself in never-ending loops of light and dark.
And then he laid eyes on the source of the light – the beating heart, if you will, of Time itself.
It was a golden medallion that hung from a gnarly, bony arm in the far wall. It swung side to side as though caught in a wind – of which there was no sign of in the room. Every now and then, like a heart, it contracted and light coalesced and filled the room for a moment.
And the warmth from which came with that light sang to Harry, to his senses, to his heart, as though connected in something deeper than that which they found themselves living through.
He shook his head, pointedly ignored Daphne's questioning, slightly concerned look, and followed in Dumbledore's trail towards the medallion.
Silence reigned supreme – every set of eyes transfixed on this small yet vast spectacle – this silent wonder of magic, of which Harry knew, almost instinctually, to be a monstrosity. An abomination.
Something that should not, must not, ever exist.
And yet here it was. In front of him. Burning. In front of him.
Dumbledore had reached it now, walking slow but purposeful through the silence, all eyes on him now. Harry had a thought, an urge, to reach out and grab him and pull him back – pull him back from the clutches of hell.
But he couldn't. Shouldn't.
Why? Why the hell not!
He mustn't touch it! Dumbledore couldn't be allowed! Every synapsis in his brain was on fire, screaming, burning, dying, laughing…
The strength in his legs slipped away and so too did his legs from right under him. He collapsed, groaned, and Dumbledore, as though coming out of a trance, gave a yelp and turned and stared at Harry.
A spell of sorts seemed to collapse around them, and the silence was broken.
"Harry…" breathed the old man, his hand, the one that had almost touched the artefact, falling limp at his side. "What – what happened?"
"I – I dunno," replied Harry, gaining his feet with the help of Ron. "What is that thing?"
"We call it a Time Turner."
Everyone whirled about, Harry pulling out his wand, towards the sound of the voice – the owner of which stood at the threshold to the room.
"Remarkable," said President Delacour, staring at Harry's pointed wand, tip alight with a red hue. "You've trained him well, Albus."
"He hasn't trained me," said Harry, frowning.
"You truly believe that?" asked Delacour, as he stepped into the room towards Harry. His face was half-shrouded in the shadows of the room, only lit every now and then by the artefact's fiery pulses of light. "Did you know, Mr Potter, that before Hogwarts there was another school on the British Isles? And, because of a lack of resources, only a finite amount of students were allowed. In order to find out who'd be allowed, they were put through a series of trials in order to determine those worthy of magic. You were the only one in here, 'Arry Potter, who drew his wand at my intrusion – I wonder what kinds of trials you've been put through to test your worth. And for what reason – do you know? Hmm, yes, I do believe you do. Fascinating. There's a vortex of fate swirling around you." He had reached Harry now and stooped down, his face inches from Harry's. "I can see the shadows of your tainted soul in the edges of your eyes, boy."
Harry's eyes widened despite his best efforts. Did he know? How could he know something so intimately like that? Not even Voldemort knew.
"Enough, Mr Delacour."
"Yes yes, you'd think so, wouldn't you, Albus?" Delacour straightened and walked past Harry. "Your care for this boy will be the death of you, Albus."
Dumbledore smiled with apparent ease. "I wouldn't die of anything else."
Delacour, incredulously, stared hard at Dumbledore for a long moment before he sighed in defeat. "You truly haven't changed a bit over the years, have you?"
"When you get to my age, Mr President, changes are often entirely unpleasant experiences you'd rather avoid." Dumbledore, still smiling pleasantly, turned his eyes to the medallion. "You call it a Time Turner. Am I correct in assuming it commands control over time."
"Control over time?" echoed Mr Greengrass, wide-eyed. "That's preposterous!"
"And it's all true," said Delacour.
"And it doesn't work, does it?" said Dumbledore.
"As astute as always, Professor," said Delacour, giving a rather bitter smile at the admission. "One of our developers tried it last night. He didn't go back physically, but he heard his own conversation with his wife from the morning. We've had this breakthrough before, but never so clearly. He heard himself speak in the past! We are this close, Albus!" He held up his thump and index finger, an inch apart. "So close we can almost taste the past!"
"And you want me to, as they say, have a crack at it. Shove you over the line," said Dumbledore, looking for a long moment at the medallion. "Alas, such powers are well and truly beyond me – as they should be, my dear Mr President."
Delacour sighed. "Think of it, Professor. Think of all the good that could be done with this power."
Dumbledore laughed. "You believe you possess the virtues that would enable you to keep your wits about you, your decency, beneath the weight of such powers? You believe yourself capable of goodness – with all of creation at your fingertips?"
"No." Delacour shook his head. "Not at all, no. Only you, Professor. Only you."
Dumbledore blinked, truly, utterly perplexed like Harry had never seen.
"Me?"
"This is untold powers, but you, Albus, you could temper it with your wisdom, with you eternal regret – imagine what you could do. What you could save? End wars before they began. Pull back from the clutches of death. Imagine how life could flourish with the benevolence of your wise judgement – every misgiving you have with us solved… with the snap of a finger."
"I could end the war," breathed Dumbledore, staring into space. "I could end it before…"
"Yes. You could do that and so much more. Think of Ariana, Albus," whispered Delacour, walking around him, coming in between him and Harry. "Not only could you save her life – you could save her from her illness. It would be easy – so easy. She'd live again. And she'd be healthy. All you have to do is fix what we cannot mend."
Albus blinked. "I…"
"And this boy…" Delacour turned and indicated to Harry. "Think of what you could spare him from. Think of the pain in front of him, agonies yet to come that you could erase. Their lives, Professor, so fleeting, so fragile… think of how lonely you've been. So lonely, so very alone… A life spent… hiding in a castle all alone. No more. No more."
"Professor…" said Harry, grimacing at the thoughts in his head, grimacing at the sheer, ugly greed he felt slither and lance through his heart, grimacing at the hunger. He could see Hagrid's Christmas present in his head, see the faces of his parents smiling back at him, reaching for him… whispering for him to save them. "Professor… no."
"Harry…" said Dumbledore, voice young and hopeful like it had never been. "Harry, think of it – your parents, the war, my… I could save them all…"
"But at what cost, sir?" said Harry, fighting with his own desires. "You wouldn't know. You might lessen your own pain, but maybe you'd just hand that pain off to someone else. Maybe – maybe you got that pain because you could carry it. Maybe you were chosen to carry that burden. Maybe you got it so another one didn't."
"But I could save them, too. With this I could save anybody. I could do anything. There would – there's nothing I cannot do. I could–"
"YOU'RE NOT GOD!" yelled Harry, shaking his head, lest his temper would run away with him. "Professor, I want to save my parents more than anything – you know that – but they're gone. Time moves on and everything ends, and it's always sad. But everything has its time. Think of how many lives my parents' sacrifice saved. Think of how many lives were saved because of your pain… Your regret…"
Dumbledore stared off into space, a ravenous, insatiable hunger in his eyes. There was an edge of madness, of hope unbound, in his soul that was twinkling in his bright, blue eyes. And Harry felt sure he was lost in his own regret, and in the possibility of impossible redemption. Of new beginnings and of things that weren't but shoulda been. It was so impossibly vast and yet Harry felt sure of himself in the face of it. This, he knew, was not the way.
"Professor… please…"
And then a thought seemed to come alit in the back of Dumbledore's eyes, because suddenly the mad, hopeful look was replaced with a self-loathingly disgust that almost rendered his features ghastly and awry. And there was rage and fury the likes of which Harry had never seen in another human being before. So much impossible rage that it could laid to waste civilisations entire and burn down the mountains of muggles.
The old Professor shook all over, raging-raging-raging, and with a violent flick of his wrist, President Delacour was flung out of his way and into the wall, where he bounced off of it and fell in a heap to the floor, groaning pitifully in agony.
There was a surge of power that carried through the room like a wind, and Harry shivered and noted that the medallion no longer swung side to side, but hung still and limp from the arm.
"I'd advise you, Mr President," said Dumbledore in a measured voice, "that you ought to be very careful, when trying to inspire hope and madness in me, how you tell me."
Harry swallowed the lump in his throat, fought mightily not to cower beneath the weight of the old man's fury, and followed Dumbledore as they exited the room and left behind the medallion – left behind the ultimate temptation, it seemed, of Albus Dumbledore.
End of Chapter
Author's note: Couple of things. As the more astute reader probably noticed, I've changed some things concerning Time Turners. Namely, that they don't really exist. I always felt it was really stupid that such an insanely powerful thing would just be given freely to a girl in her third year. And I know that criticism may seem nit-picky, and it's not to hate on the third book (it's my favourite), but I wanted an artefact that controlled time to actually have a meaning greater than allowing a girl to get to more classes than time would allow.
So this is my answer.
This and the beginning of the next chapter have been and will be more exploratory of this new world. The action, of which there will be plenty, will pick up starting from some point in the next chapter. And before long we will be back for Harry's second year, which I can't wait to write because I'm really excited about where I want it to go.
And lastly, thank you to those who took the time to review last chapter, even those who were less than impressed with my efforts. Thank you. And I like how controversial of a figure the character of Ron Weasley is. I am of a half-mind to just remove him from the description and see if I gain more readers that way. Probably won't do it, but, yeah, I like Ron obviously, and he will continue to feature in this story.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading.
Have a good one.
