Tom woke up the next morning with leaves in his face.

After spending most of the night searching for the impostor, raging over the loss of the Sword, and vowing lethal revenge, he had finally passed out just before sunrise. It was only a few hours later that his flat's new ecosystem woke him with the earthy smell of moss and bark.

The entirety of his ceiling was covered in thick, bluish-gray roots that were growing out of a hole in the corner and stretching into the room like snakes. They extended down the walls, across the floor, and right up to his bed, and they carried with them that strange, unfamiliar magical fog that permeated the Mystery Forest.

He knew the castle was dangerous, but now it seemed as if it were intent on murdering him.

"So, there's a forest in my bedroom, now," he said casually at breakfast, hoping either Tyre or Ilania would know what to do.

Tyre looked intrigued. "Is there really? Mystery Forest must be spreading."

"Oh, are we calling it 'Mystery Forest,' now?" Ilania spat with bitter sarcasm. "If you remember, Cillian, I warned you there was a possibility the thing would spread. But no one listens to me in this castle full of useless men."

Tyre blinked at her a few times. Then he turned to Tom. "Was it still growing when you left?"

"No, it wasn't moving at all. But it must have only taken it a few hours to spread, because it certainly wasn't there last night."

"Hm."

"Perhaps I can be of assistance?" came a booming voice from further down the table.

Kettleburn stood up and walked over to them and neither Ilania nor Tyre looked happy about it.

"I've had to fend off quite an array of flora on my expeditions into the wild. All it takes is a decent severing spell and, sometimes, an exceptionally sharp knife."

"You can't cut it away, Silvanus," Ilania explained impatiently. "The Forest is magical and its properties are unknown. All we can do is try to stop it spreading."

"Oh, I'm sure we can figure something out! I'll take a look as soon as I smooth things over with the centaurs."

"Still upset about that explosion, eh?" Tyre asked him.

Kettleburn's smile faltered a bit. "Er- no, we've worked that out. I just have to fix one other… small issue."

"What small issue?" Ilania demanded.

"It's nothing, really… A slight cultural misunderstanding. Anyway, best be off."

He sauntered away and Ilania made a growling noise. "You know," she said to Tom, "I wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally killed them all while trying to 'smooth things over.' 'Things' have a tendency to blow up in his face."

"I see."

"But that's alright, because he always finds a way out of it and comes off looking like a hero."

"Aye, and writes a book about it," Tyre added.

Ilania groaned. "That's the last thing we need: for him to write another bloody book. What would this one be called? Silvanus Kettleburn Kills the Centaurs and Somehow Everything Works Out Perfectly?"

"What was his last book called?"

"Ten Safe Ways to Observe Dragon Mating Habits (and Ten Fun Ones)."

The next day, Silvanus Kettleburn killed the centaurs.

It had happened in the morning. He'd been teaching a class out on the grounds, where he had set up a makeshift paddock for, of all things, a dragon.

It was a small, black thing, relatively unintimidating as far as dragons went. Kettleburn knew full well that he was not allowed to have one on the premises, but with Dumbledore missing and Dippet being less observant than a corpse, he did it anyway.

Apparently, dragon fire was quite uncontrollable, and by the time Kettleburn had remembered that little fact, the beast had set the entire paddock ablaze, along with the lawn and a considerable amount of trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

Tom had been in the staff room at the time, making small adjustments to the study hall schedule to incorporate Cornelia's imminent return, when Ilania came in and yelled that there was an emergency out on the grounds.

They arrived to the sight of massive flames engulfing the paddock and the dragon rolling around happily in the grass nearby as Kettleburn tried in vain to rein it in. The children were evacuated as the staff made a desperate attempt to extinguish the expanding bonfire.

And it would have been fine if Kettleburn hadn't then tried to use a spell to entangle the dragon in ropes, making it horribly angry and causing it to fly off into the Forest, setting fire to every tree in sight as it went.

There was no stopping it at that point. All they could do was watch as flames and smoke filled the horizon.

Kettleburn had responded with a quiet "oh, no" before bounding into the Forest like an idiot.

"What did I tell you?" Ilania said as they attempted to save the trees closest to the grounds. "Blew up in his face."

"Literally," said Tom.

Kettleburn returned almost an hour later, showing up in the staff room where the other teachers had congregated, sporting deep cuts and burns and looking more upset than Tom had ever seen him.

"Well," he said quietly, a hint of misery in his voice, "we won't have to worry about diplomatic relations with the centaurs anymore."

Dippet frowned. "Why not?"

Ilania gave Tom a knowing look from across the room.

"Eh… Because the three that are left probably won't feel up for civilized discussion any time soon."

"Bloody hell, Silvanus!" Beery exclaimed.

He shrugged. "They're a hardy lot! They'll repopulate in no time."

Ilania looked like she wanted to slap him. "You just eradicated an entire population! And how are they supposed to repopulate with only three males?"

Kettleburn did not bother to answer.

Dippet sighed. "You've been back for one month, Silvanus. One month."

It would have been nice if all Tom had to focus on was teaching, and not also trying to find evil versions of coworkers, or retrieving priceless artefacts he'd stupidly lost, or worrying about whether the roots that had taken up residence in his flat were going to kill him in his sleep.

Or figuring out whatever the hell was going on with Minerva.

He did not need anything else occupying his time.

So, had the person screaming his name down the corridor been anyone but Dee Carson, he'd have kept walking.

"RIDDLE!"

"What?"

"Get in here and give us a hand." She was holding the door to the Great Hall open and waving for him to come in.

"I actually have quite a lot of things-"

"This won't take long."

Dee was an intimidating person, even to someone who could easily kill her. She had a loud, commanding personality that sort of forced you to pay attention lest you ended up with a black eye and a moderate sense of physical inadequacy.

He walked into the Great Hall to find it somewhat changed. The tables were moved to the back of the room, and three small chairs stood near the front, where the teachers' table had disappeared altogether, leaving a bare, raised platform.

Several students stood there, reading from papers as Beery watched them from one of the chairs.

"You'll be a big help," Dee said, sitting him down and slapping Beery on the arm to get his attention. "Herb."

"Eh?"

"Got a backup." She gestured toward Tom.

"Wonderful!"

He knew he wasn't going to like the answer if he asked what was going on, because he knew by now that questions like "what is going on?" "what happened?" and "what is that?" never seemed to have benign or pleasant answers at Hogwarts.

But he asked anyway.

"What is this?"

"What does it look like?" Dee shot back, as if the answer were obvious.

"From the top," Beery yelled to the children on the platform.

They started reading from their papers in flat, monotone voices, vaguely gesturing with their free hands and having less expression on their faces than rocks.

"Is this a play?"

Dee blinked at him. "Wow. Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"But why am I here?"

"There are some parts that require extra lines to be read," said Beery, not taking his eyes off what was apparently the stage. "It's helpful to have someone read them while the children audition."

Tom shrugged. "That's wonderful. But why am I here?"

"Because I can't stay, and Herb's got to watch," Dee explained.

Well, this was certainly not a thing he would be doing. He wanted to get up and walk out, but… There was something so infuriating about the students' atrocious performance that he could not bring himself to leave. It was as if they were committing some kind of violent crime against acting. It was painful to watch, yet impossible to look away.

Travesty. That was the word he was looking for. Travesty.

"What play is this?" he asked Beery after several minutes of unbearable pain.

"It's a little adaptation of Three Brothers I wrote last term."

"Three Brothers?"

"Yeah," said Dee. "You know The Tale of the Three Brothers, of course, don't you?"

"No."

Dee and Beery glanced at each other in surprise.

"It's a story out of The Tales of Beedle the Bard," Beery explained. "Old children's book."

The title sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn't exactly spend much of his childhood reading wizard folk tales. Or any of it, for that matter. "And what is it about?"

"Well," said Dee, "three brothers are traveling together, and they come across a deadly river. They use magic to build a bridge-"

"Which I interpret as man overcoming adversity," Beery added.

"-and Death is angry at them for cheating him-"

"A commentary on society's hatred for the unique and special."

"-and decides to trick them by offering each brother a gift."

"Or 'weapon of temptation,' as I like to call-"

"Herb, if you don't shut up, I'm going to shoot you in the head with your bloody weapon of temptation," Dee told him. "Anyway…"

She summarized the rest of the story, going through each brother's request and subsequent idiocy, finally ending with what Tom guessed was the moral of the thing: a scene of the youngest brother walking off with Death.

"I don't get it."

They stared at him.

"That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard," he stated. "Death making an all-powerful wand? A zombie stone? What kind of nonsense fairy tale is this?"

"Well," Beery said slowly, "most playwrights do tend to interpret it a bit too literally. That's why I made an adaptation for the modern era." He handed Tom a copy of the script.

It was apparent after just the first page that it was rubbish. "Why is there singing?"

"Why wouldn't there be singing? I only get one play a year, Tom. It's got to be a musical."

He wondered why he was still sitting there, entertaining the idea that any of this was worth his time. "Well," he said, standing and tossing the script onto the chair, hoping he'd never see it again, "I wish you the best of-"

"Sit down, boy," Dee commanded. "We're not done with you yet."

He sat.

After about ten minutes (or possibly an infinity) of torture, Dee disappeared to teach a flying class, and Tom was left alone with Beery.

He sat through two auditions before becoming outraged enough to start commenting on them.

"Hang on, he's supposed to be Death?" he asked, pointing to the short child standing in the middle of the stage, grinning like an idiot while reading the line "I shall take what is mine! For I am Death!"

"Er- yes," Beery whispered, "that's the role he's auditioning for."

"Then why is he smiling?"

"What?"

"He's supposed to be Death. Why on earth is he smiling?"

"I don't know. But I think he's actually doing pretty well-"

"He looks like he just got a shiny new racing broom for his birthday."

Beery thought for a moment. "You have a point…"

Luckily, he ended up not having to read any horrid lines, but that was mostly because he kept interrupting the auditions to point out how horrible the students were and how equally horrible the script was.

"What exactly are you trying to do, Selwyn?"

"His girlfriend just died, sir. I was being mopey-"

"Yes, I noticed. Just taking a guess here, but he probably felt grief, not whatever the hell slight depression you were exhibiting."

"The script says 'mopey,' sir."

"It shouldn't."

Then, minutes later…

"No singing."

"Sir, the next part is a song-"

"I don't care. No singing."

"Er- Tom," Beery cut in, "the scene doesn't really work if it's not performed as a musical number."

"Then it probably should not have been written not to make sense without being performed as a musical number," Tom said rather loudly.

It went on like that for several auditions, until he realized suddenly that Beery had stopped talking altogether and was just staring at him. But it wasn't in anger, which would have made sense, given the fact that he'd just spent the last half hour criticizing every single page of the man's unreadable script.

No, Beery was staring at Tom like he'd just discovered the secret to life.

"I think I found my assistant director," he breathed.

"No you did not."

But he was standing now, and looking particularly inspired. "Oh, yes. It will be wonderful."

"No it will not."

"Oh, it will."

"Is Dee not your assistant whatever?"

Beery shook his head. "No, she doesn't have the time. Or the patience."

"And you assume that I do?"

Beery just kept staring at him in childlike excitement.

That was the point, finally, at which he attempted to leave. But the idiot followed him the entire length of the Great Hall and out into the corridor.

"Practice is every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday," he said, walking quickly to keep up as Tom attempted to flee.

"I don't care."

"And we'll need to make sure we decide on a date for opening night as soon as possible."

"I don't care."

"Oh, and I will need your script edits to be completed by next week."

Tom stopped in the middle of the corridor and Beery nearly walked right into him. "I want nothing to do with this," he said in a moderately threatening voice.

Beery frowned. "But you were so enthusiastic-"

"I was criticizing your atrocious writing!" he yelled.

"What's going on?"

Ilania and Peggy came around the corner looking worried. "We heard shouting," said Peggy.

"Creative differences," Beery explained. "Tom is my assistant director this year. For the play."

Bloody bastard. "I am not-"

"Oh, how wonderful!" said Peggy as Ilania tried desperately not to laugh at him.

Before he could even attempt to argue, someone else rounded the corner into what was apparently the world's busiest hallway.

"Did I hear yelling?" asked Slughorn.

"Herbert says Tom's the assistant director for the play this year," Ilania told him, still trying not to laugh.

Slughorn snorted. "What? You're joking."

"It's true, apparently!"

Tom tried to contain himself as his annoyance turned to rage. He failed. "I want nothing to do with this preposterous, senseless, terribly written disaster!" he shouted.

They seemed surprised by his sudden outburst.

"Oh," Beery said, clearly crestfallen. "That's fine. I understand…"

The others looked at Tom like he'd just kicked a puppy.

He had far too many important things to worry about already without adding a ridiculous, pointless school play to the list.

But that godforsaken script was so utterly terrible…

"Give it to me," he spat, ripping the script out of Beery's hand. Without another word he stormed away from the small crowd of arseholes that had collected, fuming with rage.

"I'll need it back by next week!" Beery yelled after him, smiling.

Tom did not think much about Kettleburn's offer to help with his forest problem until the man showed up at his door one evening, carrying a massive machete and smiling like a lunatic. Out of context, he probably looked like he was about to commit a murder.

"How's it going, Tommy boy?" he greeted jovially.

"Please don't ever call me that again."

He laughed. "No, I like it. You're Tommy Boy, now," he declared, slapping Tom on the shoulder and making his way into the flat.

Silvanus Kettleburn was going to die.

"Let's see what we've got here," he said, sounding far more cheerful than one would expect him to be after having committed an accidental massacre earlier in the week. He headed for the bedroom, which was not difficult to find because the roots had, by now, grown into the hallway.

Tom did not care for people visiting him where he lived, and he liked them wandering around his bedroom even less. But if he did not accept someone's help, there was a chance he would be without a place to live soon - unless he didn't mind sleeping on roots that may or may not try to strangle him at some point.

"Ah," said Kettleburn, examining the ceiling. "This shouldn't be a problem." He started to hack at some of the largest roots and, surprisingly, he was able to cut through them. "See, those scholarly types never think to try the simplest solutions," he explained. "If they can't fix something with a wand, they think it can't be fixed!"

"Right."

"Don't get me wrong, Ilania is as bright as they come." He stopped his violent chopping for a moment and looked over at Tom. "Well, you know that, of course," he said with a chuckle.

What the hell was he talking about?

Hack hack.

"I must admit," he continued, "I am jealous." Hack hack.

"Jealous?"

Hack hack.

"Well, I was certain we were going to get married, me and her." Hack. "Wasn't meant to be, I guess." Hack Hack. "That's fine, you know." Hack. "I'm sure you two will be-" hack hack hack "-very happy."

"What are you-"

Hack.

"What are you talking about?"

"You and Ilania, of course." Hack hack. "You're together, aren't you?"

Kettleburn turned around, and all Tom saw was a large, jealous man with a giant knife in his hand.

"No," he blurted.

"What?"

"Not together."

"Really? Why would she… So you're not dating at all, then?"

"Correct."

"She's… single?"

"I would assume so."

"And you're… single?"

"Yes."

He should not have said that. That was a mistake.

"I see," Kettleburn said slowly, looking like he was contemplating something. "Still hope for me yet, then, I suppose." Then he smiled at Tom. "In the meantime…"

Well, this did not go in the direction he'd hoped it would.

"Did I ever tell you," Kettleburn said, gripping his machete tightly and pretending to examine it, "that I've made love on all seven continents?"

Jesus Christ.

"What's going to happen with the centaurs?" Tom asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

The terrifyingly suggestive look on the man's face melted away immediately. "I'm not sure," he said quietly.

"Can anything be done?"

"Only if we can get the… survivors to talk to us so that we can help them. I wanted to get Albus involved again – he always manages to make them see sense – but he didn't seem too keen on the idea."

"You spoke to him?"

"Yesterday. On the seventh floor. I was looking for Ilania but found him instead, just standing there, in front of that troll tapestry everyone hates."

Tom suddenly turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Kettleburn asked, looking extremely disappointed.

"To get my Sword back," he muttered as he walked out the door.

He had expected the Room of Requirement to look as it did when he had first found it – an indoor landfill of lost and broken and forbidden things. He did always wonder why the history books called it the Room of Requirement, though, if the things you required also required searching through a maze of rubbish to find them.

But when he entered the Room this time, it was something completely different.

It was small, about half the size of his classroom, and largely empty except for a table and two chairs. A dim light shone from some unknown source directly onto the middle of the table, and a small, square window to the outside had appeared on the wall, with metal bars set in front of the glass.

There was no sign of Dumbledore anywhere nearby. But there was no other logical reason for him to be lurking around on the seventh-floor, right in front of the entrance, other than to use the Room.

Then the door opened, and in walked Dumbledore with impeccable timing. As soon as he entered, his eyes fell over the table, the light, and then Tom, who was standing there, looking as surprised as he was.

"Well, this is inconvenient," he muttered.

He turned around to leave, but the door had disappeared.

And then it made sense. Evidently, the Room of Requirement had fashioned itself into some sort of interrogation chamber. For once, the castle was on Tom's side.

Dumbledore took a seat at the table, seemingly resigned to his fate, or not caring much about his fate, or just tired of standing. It was difficult to tell – his face showed no emotion.

"So," said Tom, taking the seat opposite, "which one are you?"

"Which one of what?"

"Which Dumbledore?"

"Oh. The fun one?"

It appeared the impostor truly did not care about making an effort to hide himself. Tom was determined to take full advantage of the circumstances, so he attempted to finally remove the disguise the man was wearing while he could not escape.

"Revelio."

Nothing.

"Finite."

Still nothing.

"Invenio Veritatem."

"Ooh," said Dumbledore, "getting old-fashioned, now."

He tried several more spells, but the only thing that happened was that the man's hair became slightly grayer.

"We all have insecurities," Dumbledore said in response to this. "I despise looking decrepit."

At that point, he was forced to consider a possibility he had not fully considered before. He had been operating under the assumption that the impostor was disguising himself as Dumbledore. But it was looking more and more likely that this lunatic was, in fact, Dumbledore.

But he could not be the same arsehole that had been the bane of Tom's existence for thirteen years. He was rude, opportunistic, and unabashedly arrogant. A very different kind of arsehole. So, either this man was disguising himself in a way magic could not reveal, or Albus Dumbledore had become senile and developed a different personality.

Or… there really were two of them.

No. The universe could not possibly be that cruel. Unless there was a secret twin that no one knew about, it didn't make sense.

"Tell me who you are."

"I am but a humble servant."

"Whose humble servant?"

"I am far too humble to say."

Tom rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Please do not make me kill you. I do not have the patience for it today."

"You don't seem to have much patience at all, friend."

There was a chance – a small chance – that this idiot was even more intolerable than the real Dumbledore.

Slowly, he got up, walked over to the man, and bent down to gaze into his eyes, determined to carry out a rather forced version of Legilimency. Dumbledore merely gave him a friendly smile in response, not bothering to look away or resist. It would be unpleasant for both of them, but Tom didn't care. He just wanted to… find…

Nothing was happening. It was like staring at a wall.

"That won't work," said Dumbledore, putting a single finger on Tom's forehead and pushing him away as if he were a pesky fly.

"Why not?"

"Because I am far cleverer, far more powerful, and far better at mind games than you."

"I doubt it. And so much for being humble."

He shrugged. "The stating of facts does not equate to braggadocio just because said facts paint me in a positive light and I happen to be the one saying them."

Tom pointed his wand directly at the man's face, ignoring the growing concern in the back of his mind that there really was an imbalance of power between them. "Who are you? Answer me."

Dumbledore sighed. "I'm not sure why 'Albus Dumbledore' is such a hard name to understand. I could say it in an accent, if you like. I do an incredibly accurate American-"

"You are not Albus Dumbledore. You're nothing like him."

"True, the other one is far too self-righteous to be as witty and cynical as me."

"So, you admit there's another one? What did you do with him?"

"Why in the name of Merlin would I tell you that? Hardly a strategic move on my part. She would not be very happy with me if I-"

"Who is 'she?'"

Dumbledore stared at him for a moment. "She likes you, you know. It's a pity. You'd have been useful."

Tom had had enough. He raised his wand, unsure of whether he was going to attempt to incapacitate the man or kill him and having no idea what he would do after either of those scenarios.

But with a casual wave, the impostor sent his wand flying out of his hand and into the air. It landed on the floor with an embarrassing clatter, several feet away.

The room responded in kind. Large, metal manacles appeared around Dumbledore's wrists and then attached themselves to the table. He was well and truly detained.

Furious, Tom picked his wand up off the floor, still choosing to ignore the nagging sense of powerlessness he was feeling. Then he took the seat across from Dumbledore and glared at him. He was determined to get something useful out of this ridiculous meeting.

"Where is the Sword?" he demanded.

"The what?"

"The Sword you stole from me."

"Oh, that. It'll show up eventually."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that it is not currently located in a place that may be considered to be in our immediate vicinity, but at some point in the future shall manifest itself to exist in a place that may be considered to be in our immediate vicinity. Most likely."

"I hate you."

"Yes, that sort of sentiment seems consistent with your character."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's alright. Not all of us have the ability to express emotions intelligently. I'm sure you excel at other-"

"STOP TALKING!"

There was one strategy he hadn't tried yet that had always served him well in the past and, at the moment, he was certainly angry enough for it.

He stood and, with overwhelming satisfaction, pointed his wand in the man's face one more time.

"Crucio."

Nothing happened.

"That's unfortunate," said Dumbledore with a smile.

He stood there for a moment, a strange and unfamiliar sense of inadequacy overwhelming him. He could not recall a time when magic had failed him like this, and it was an emotional crisis he was in no fit state to deal with at present.

Then, a very unexpected voice sounded in his head, loud and friendly and wise:

'Those scholarly types never think to try the simplest solutions. If they can't fix something with a wand, they think it can't be fixed!'

He cast a spell to remove the shackles from Dumbledore's wrists. "Stand up," he commanded as he placed his wand on the table.

Dumbledore stood, still looking unimpressed and somewhat bored by the whole situation.

And then Tom grabbed him by his robes and slammed him up against the wall.

"What did you do with the Sword?" he asked quietly, inches from the impostor's face.

Now struggling to breathe, Dumbledore looked far less bored than he did five seconds ago. "I'm- I'm imp- impressed," he spluttered.

"What did you do with the Sword?" Tom said again, tightening his grip.

"Not- not here." The man's face was turning an unpleasant shade of red now.

"What do you mean 'not here?'"

"She has it."

"Who is she?"

He would not answer, even though he appeared to be on the verge of fainting.

"WHO IS SHE?"

No response.

Tom let him go and he fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

Before he had decided whether further physical violence was too barbaric for his tastes, a considerable amount of shouting and commotion could be heard coming from outside. Through the tiny square window the room had conjured, he saw a crowd of people gathering on the grounds and looking back at the castle.

He had no idea whether the Room of Requirement would remain a prison cell if he left it. There was a chance that his not being present would remove the Room's obligation to cater to his needs, and Dumbledore would escape. But he wasn't going to be able to stay there forever anyway, so he decided to test it.

"I'll be back," he told the impostor, who was still on the ground, massaging his neck.

"Look- looking forward to it."

The corridor was empty. In fact, as he made his way down to the first floor, he did not see anyone at all. By the time he made it outside, it looked as if the entire school was standing there, in the grass, looking confused.

"What's going on?" he asked Grayson, the first teacher he came across.

"Forest," Grayson said simply, pointing at the roof.

It appeared that the Mystery Forest had done the same thing to the outside of the castle that it had done to his flat. Massive blue and purple roots had exploded out of a hole on the side of the building and were winding their way up toward the roof like monstrous, unearthly vines.

Kettleburn was standing a few feet away and looking dejectedly at the machete that he was still carrying, as if he had just realized it was woefully inadequate.

So, January ended well.