Chapter 22: Confident

Harry was puttering around his bedroom picking things up and putting them back. He tried to eat a lemon drop but the taste bothered him for some reason so he spit it out and threw it away.

The record player turned on.

"Modern love, gets me to the church on time, church on time, terrifies me, church on time, makes me party, church on time, puts my trust in God and man," sang David Bowie.

"Late?" Harry guessed.

The record player shut off.

Harry picked up his own broomstick. "Urgh!" he smacked his forehead. It was black with lightening! That broom hadn't been invented. Harry really needed to stop drawing attention to himself.

With a magical thought, he changed his broom to have the exterior or a silver arrow. It still had the same speed and agility, but now it looked just like any other silver arrow.

He picked up Albus's silver arrow and launched himself out the open window, getting his broom beneath him just in time to soar away to the stadium. Fawkes leapt off his perch and followed Harry. Harry landed lightly next to the broom closet and opened it with a spell. He levitated all of the brooms and took off again with them trailing behind him. Fawkes perched himself on a broom and rode for a while, twittering at the novelty.

They swooped over the stands and landed in front of a knot of first years. Harry banished the brooms into a line, and tossed his own and Albus' aside.

"Afternoon!" Harry called, more cheerful than he felt.

"Good afternoon Professor Crockett," chanted the class.

"Ok, now how many of you have ridden a broom?"

Andromeda Black, Amos Diggory, and the Prewett twins raised their hands. Ted Tonks, and Trelawney did not. A few Slytherins raised their hands. Umbridge raised her hand hesitantly, only after looking around and seeing who else had raised their hands.

"Ok, so everyone who has ridden a broom, please go to the end of the line over there. The others, pick the brooms over here closer to me."

Umbridge made to join the group who had ridden brooms. "Ms. Umbridge," called Harry, "I want you over here, please. You'd be more embarrassed if you fell off your broom and hurt yourself than you'll be if your classmates find out you haven't ridden a broom."

"Nobody falls off their brooms. Only idiots fall off their brooms. I'm not going to fall off my broom."

"One of the most successful wizards I know fell off his broom the first time he flew. He broke his wrist. Later in life he helped defeat a dark wizard. He got married to the keeper of a very famous inn and taught his favorite subject at a magical school. He was good looking too…Anyway, better safe than sorry.

"Right, now everyone stand over their brooms and say 'up!' Make sure you say it with confidence. This is the first test to see how well you command your broom. Go ahead."

The class walked up to their brooms with various levels of confidence. The experienced fliers had the least trouble getting their brooms to rise to their hands. Ted Tonks, a muggleborn who had never ridden a broom, made his command with enthusiasm and his broom responded by snapping quickly to his grip. Umbridge managed; her tone was one of misguided confidence and her broom rose to her waiting fist like it was traveling through syrup rather than air.

Harry walked up and down the line giving people pointers. He reached the experienced end of the line there was a small girl who had never spoken up in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Her hand rested aloft the best of the school brooms (a Silver Arrow). Her confidence and comfort stood out in this class where it did not in his other classes. Her hawk like eyes swept over the other students and focused on Harry as he approached. She waited for him to speak, knowing he could only praise her perfect poise.

"I have a feeling I'm not going to have to supervise you as much, Ms. Hooch," said Harry.

She gave him a half smile.

"Alright!" said Harry, as he strode back down towards the inexperienced end of the line. "Mount your brooms. By that, I mean put one leg on each side- Well, then you shouldn't have worn a skirt, should you Ms. Trelawney." The other girls glanced around and pulled their robes tighter around themselves.

"Professor Crockett," said Sybil Trelawney, "I prefer magic that's more grounded to earth, sir."

"Sure you do," said Harry, refraining from rolling his eyes. "But we all do things we don't like to do. Personally, I loathed the study of Divination as a child, but I had to take it anyway."

She made an offended clucking sound in the back of her throat that Harry only heard due to his enhanced hearing.

"I can change your skirt into a pair of trousers, if that would make you more comfortable."

She looked horrified. "Fifties," muttered Harry. Harry flicked his wand unnecessarily and a Hogwarts robe appeared over Trelawney's other clothes.

"One day women will begin to wear trousers, and won't want to stop."

They all laughed.

"Personally," said a deep voice from behind Harry, "I think men should start wearing skirts." The class laughed and Harry turned to see the speaker.

"Welcome to Flying 101, Albus. Thank you for coming. Would you care for a refreshment for your trouble?"

"I would like a refreshment," piped Fabian.

"Really?" asked Harry. Fabian nodded enthusiastically. "Here's a refreshment that quidditch players get a lot."

Harry pointed his wand above Fabian and cast a wandless spell. A deluge of water began dumping itself out of nowhere onto Fabian, who made a high pitched shriek and then began laughing boisterously. Gideon somehow found himself under the stream as well.

"Would you care for some hail with that, sir?" asked Harry. Harry rolled his eyes, waved his wand, and the deluge stopped. The twins' clothes were immediately dry.

"I prefer the lightening," said Albus. Harry found himself hoping he heard a trace of a twinkle in Albus's voice and that it wasn't sarcasm. He had a feeling Albus's humor transcended the use of sarcasm.

"Right, so you're going to go one at a time. I don't need you all zooming out of control in different directions. Let's start with Ms. Trelawney. Mount your broom. I'm not going to look up your skirt," he told her as she bustled to pull her robes as tight as possible. "Here," said Harry, exasperated. "Oscurro! That will make sure no one can see. Now, please. Mount your broom. Not quite. Move your hands a little higher so that you don't slip off the end. You're not going to slip off the end!"

"You said you didn't like divination," said Albus.

"I have a rather clear view of the present and past and future," said Harry offhandedly. "It has nothing to do with divination. Now, Ms. Ariana—Trelawney, sorry. Hold on with your knees."

If Harry had turned around, he would have seen Albus looking stricken. So he didn't turn around.

"Your broom's over there," Harry gestured desperately. He threw up as much occulumency as possible on his auras so that they were numb to him and anyone else who was poking around.

"Thank you," said Albus quietly.

"Why didn't I get a bloody tact aura," muttered Harry inaudibly. "Right, on my count kick off from the ground. Ready? One, two, three!"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dumbledore snatch up a broom and take off in the direction of Hogsmeade. He turned back just in time to see Trelawney slipping dangerously towards the end of her tilting broom.

"Hold on!" said Harry, reaching up to level the broom. As he helped Trelawney back to the ground, he made a mental note to deposit some of his less explainable memories in his pensive.

Once Trelawney was back on the ground (though she had only risen about four feet), Harry decided he needed to demonstrate flying first. Trial and error wasn't going to work for such inexperienced students like Trelawney and Umbridge.

"Ok, I'm going to demonstrate some of the essentials." He went to retrieve his broom. He picked it up and felt anticipation shoot through his body. He looked forward to being in the air after his interaction with Albus. He would leave his troubles on the ground.

Albus picked up the Silver Arrow and took off, hoping to find a massive glass of fire whiskey to compromise his cumbersome intellect. Generally he saved his drinking for parties where a little color on his cheeks might be fun, or for quiet evenings with a book. As a rule, he was not a stress drinker. But as a rule, Albus Dumbledore was not a stressed person. He had the job he had always wanted, he was respected among the wizarding community, and he had enough brain and magic power to solve all the problems he wanted.

But he'd come across a problem he couldn't solve, and it kept getting bigger. Every day Harry gave him more peeks at the puzzle, but it was as though he were looking at the puzzle through a microscope. And there were only three pieces. And he was ten feet away from the microscope.

As he sped along with the new powers Harry had given his broom, he tried to piece together what he knew.

Harry's soul was split into seven parts.

Harry knew Albus's past better than he'd told anyone, present oddly well, and future to an undeterminable accuracy.

Harry knew Tom Riddle.

From the minute Harry met Albus, he spoke to him with an uncanny familiarity; a lot of the time Albus felt like he was talking to someone he'd talked to but clearly didn't remember.

Harry hadn't gone to Hogwarts, but Albus suspected Harry knew more about Hogwarts than Albus did.

Harry was the most powerful wizard Albus had ever met, Gellert not withstanding.

Albus was inexplicably drawn to Harry — And that was a piece of the puzzle, too, for Albus had learned to be wary from the ease at which he had once been so seduced by charisma and power.

And then Albus nearly fell off the broom in shock.

Starting from between his legs, he felt an overwhelming sense of heady confidence. The emotion was not his own, but he felt it beginning to effect his own emotions, changing them. He felt some of his own memories of confidence slide irresistibly to the front of his mind.

He made it on the Quidditch team—the youngest player for centuries.

He was the top of his class—acing all of their mundane first year tasks, knowing he was the best, wishing one day for a companion- an equal.

He was looking at his twelve outstanding owls.

He was sending an owl off to Gellert, confident that he could make the sandy haired man appear in his bedroom only moments later.

He dove towards the ground. He leapt off his broom and landed hard on the uneven ground. His glasses fell off and shattered on a rock. He pulled out his wand and pointed it at the broom, his memories still racing. He tried to put up mental blocks and occlumency walls, but the aura was too strong.

And then Gellert was there, as Albus knew he would be, whispering in his ear. He whispered secret plans for the world that only Albus could help him achieve, and secret plans for their night, the kind he'd only share with Albus. Albus shivered at the breath on his ear, but grinned inwardly at his own cleverness.

And he pointed his wand at the broom before him and conjured to his mind the most potent spell he could think of.

"Kneel," commanded Albus.

"Yes... Sir." His companion fell to his knees.

Albus reached down and threaded his fingers deep into the back of Gellert's sandy hair. With no warning, Albus yanked back to force Gellert's face up. Gellert winced at the sudden pull, but met Albus's eyes with deference. Albus softened his grip on Gellert's hair. Gellert bit his bottom lip, and with a coy smile growing on his face, began slowly pulling apart the front of Albus's robes.

And, fearing losing himself, Albus let out a strangled cry as he cast the spell. He cried out in exasperation and pain and fear and... some all powerful emotion he didn't want to recognize.

As the broom shattered in the beam of light, Albus cried out the only puzzle piece he hadn't examined yet.

"Harry Potter!"