Chapter 70: Hogwarts, a History
Harry and Albus appeared in a whirl of flame a little ways outside the Hogwarts gates.
"So you came here and couldn't get in."
"Yes," said Albus. "I found the elves here when I came out. None of us could reenter."
"Where are they now?"
"I rented a room for them at the Hogshead until I could find a way to get back in. And I was checking on them when I found you. I took the food, here." He pulled out a little pouch with a zippered top from in his robes. Harry assumed that he'd both shrunken down the food and expanded the inside of the bag to put enough food in there to feed a castle's worth of people.
Harry nodded. "Well…I should be able to get in using the phoenix teleportation. I'll give it a go."
Harry clicked his heels three times. "There's no place like home." And then he vanished.
When he reappeared, he was about three yards from where he'd started.
"Damn."
Albus turned around and spotted Harry and his brow wrinkled in frustration.
"Albus! Harry!"
They both spun around. Up the path and inside the gates to Hogwarts was Minerva.
"Where the hell have you two been?"
"Minerva! Don't step outside the gates." Harry and Albus jogged the rest of the way to the gates to talk to Minerva.
"I can't, Albus. We're all trapped inside. There's no food. We all ate the same duplicated loaf of bread for dinner. Not to mention, the students can't get into or out of their dorms. I had to fly on broomstick up to the towers to talk to the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws through their windows, and nobody's heard from Hufflepuff or Slytherin. This is getting ridiculous. You need to get in here."
"We've been locked out, unfortunately. We have now tried everything. I cannot walk, ride a broom or thestral, climb, nor apparate. Harry also tried to teleport, and could not. "
Minerva sighed in exasperation.
"Have you tried the vaults?"
"I assure you, Minerva, we have tried every—oh." Albus's face turned a little red. He and Harry shared a glance.
"Crockett, did you do something to him? Smartest-wizard-alive my ass…" She sighed. "Well? Get moving! Starving kids! Starving me! Chop chop, lamb chop."
Harry grabbed Albus's arm and they vanished at once.
They reappeared in Diagon Alley, right outside of Gringotts. It was a Friday night, but it was cold and well after the dinner hour, so the streets were relatively empty. The few people about seemed to be in groups too tipsy and involved with each other to notice a column of fire appear in the middle of the street.
Harry and Albus hurried up the marble stairs and into the bank.
"You know, I really did rob Gringotts," muttered Harry as they made the long walk to the counter..
"Show me the memories, or it didn't happen," said Albus under his breath.
"I rode a dragon out."
Albus chuckled.
"Excuse me—I need to get into my vault," Harry said when they reached a counter.
The goblin looked up quickly.
It was difficult for Harry to tell, but he looked younger than any of the goblins Harry had seen.
"Do you have your key?" the goblin asked.
Harry nodded.
"Good. Come with me."
The goblin was definitely younger, and he seemed to be new. Whenever Harry had visited Gringotts in the past, the goblin had made a point of taking the key and opening the vault themselves. And the one time he'd visited Gringotts with the cloak, the whole workforce seemed to know within an instant. Harry much preferred the new guy.
They followed the goblin to the trolleys and got in one.
"What number is your vault?" the Goblin asked. Harry got the impression that he had forgotten about vault numbers in the first place until just then.
"The trolley will take us where we need to go." Albus had clearly picked up that the goblin must be new, and was going to use it to his advantage. "You must be new," he said.
That last remark flustered the goblin into forgetting procedure even further, and instead of challenging Albus, he turned and set the trolley in motion.
It wasn't long before the underground lake stretched out to their right, and the train jolted off the normal track and out over the water.
The goblin stiffened visibly in his seat, but didn't turn around or say anything for fear of looking like he didn't know what was going on—which he didn't.
Harry spotted that dark disk out on the water, and the disk turned into that cylinder sinking downward under the surface like a pot in a sink of water. The train approached and stopped.
"Thank you." Albus stepped out of the trolley and into the water. "We won't need a ride back."
Harry followed Albus down the stairs to the antechamber, leaving the stunned goblin behind. Harry knew that it would look to the goblin like the train had stopped in a random place in the lake and that Harry and Albus were voluntarily wading into that lake until they were completely submerged. Harry also knew that the goblin would have no qualms about turning right around and leaving them there and never telling anybody about the experience.
"Vanishing cabinets?" asked Harry when they got to the bottom of the stairs.
Albus nodded. Harry pulled his now-dry invisibility cloak out of his now-dry robes and swung it over himself and Albus. The part of the wall with the triangle on it vanished, and Harry and Albus continued on to the hallway beyond.
They reached the living room and Albus pulled off the cloak.
"My office?" he asked.
Harry opened the door of the cabinet that would take them to Albus's office. "Age before beauty."
Albus's eyes glinted and he went in, and Harry followed and closed the door behind them. A moment later, Harry pushed the door open again.
They were still in the vault.
"Damn," said Harry.
They tried again with the cabinet to Harry's room, and when that didn't work, they tried the one to Minerva's room.
Each time, they opened the doors again to the same living room in the vault.
"It's unfortunate," said Albus, "that we don't have all three Deathly Hallows with us, or we might have entered through the Fourth Vault."
"Oh! But…But we do. You have the wand and I have the cloak, and I brought the ring! I've been keeping it on me since you told me to keep it safe."
"Harry Potter, I could kiss you."
Harry tutted. "So presumptuous," he smiled mischievously. Albus grabbed Harry and swiftly kissed him. He let go (leaving Harry a little breathless) and swung the invisibility cloak over the two of them so that they could get back out into the antechamber.
Back in the antechamber, they went directly to the symbol of the Deathly Hallows in the center. The second both of them were standing on it with all three Hallows, the symbol started to descend, again, like a triangular elevator.
Down it went, just like before, accelerating. Albus lit his wand tip as it got darker and Harry twiddled his thumbs, thinking of how absurd it would be for there to be elevator music there. Then he remembered oboes and violins…
"Albus, do you remember hearing music…earlier?" He didn't have to specify when "earlier" was.
"Yes," Albus replied. "From your record. It sounded like chamber music."
Harry actually found himself giggling. Chamber music was on Albus Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog Card. That, and tenpin bowling, now that Harry thought about it. He wondered whether Albus picked those things for his card because of Harry, or whether Harry's soul had picked those objects because of the frog card.
They sank deeper than Harry remembered. It seemed to take longer, and the floor even seemed to be going down faster. Finally, the very top of a door appeared on the wall, and as the floor sank, the whole door appeared. The floor stopped moving.
But something was wrong.
There was only one door.
Before, there had been a set of grand double doors—the exact replicas of the Hogwarts front doors, themselves. This door, however, was single, normal sized, and undecorated.
Harry and Albus exchanged a worried glance, but there was nowhere else to go, so Harry seized the door handle and pushed.
On the other side of the door was a small room with a low ceiling and a door opposite them. The room was completely empty, but something about it seemed familiar to Harry, in a small sort of way…They stepped in, off the symbol elevator, and the door slammed shut behind them.
"Do you know where we are?" asked Albus looking around the room. It was really very small. Only big enough to maybe put a table in…or…
Harry frowned. "There's something about this room…I—I think I'll remember in a bit." He glanced back at the door from which they came, and then back to the one in front of them.
"Forward, I think," said Albus.
Harry nodded vaguely. The more he tried to remember, there was an odd taste coming to his tongue and a bone-deep chill. Exactly what it was, though...
Albus opened the door in front of them, and then Harry knew where they were.
"We're in Hogwarts," he whispered.
There in front of them was a dark, round room with columns all around the sides. It was the very room where Harry had faced Quirrel and Voldemort, where Dumbledore hid Nicolas Flamel's Stone in Harry's first year at Hogwarts.
"I know how to get to the main part of the castle! We just go back—"
"Harry. Look."
Harry looked at Albus and then looked where Albus was looking.
Harry's heart jolted as he spotted something he had completely missed at first in the dark—there was somebody in the middle of the room, somebody very small. The somebody looked like a little boy, no older than six, and he was sitting cross legged in the very center of the room. And he was facing them. Harry and Albus approached, and as they drew nearer, they could see the boy more clearly. His eyes were closed, and he was sickly pale with dark circles under his eyes. He was frowning in concentration, and he had a sheen of sweat on his forehead. In front of him were two books. One said "To Read," in large gold script that spanned the whole cover, and the other said "To Write."
"Hello?" said Harry.
The boy's eyes flew open, and he looked up at Albus, and then at Harry. Something about those eyes in a small boy was frightening, out of place.
"Hello. My name is Professor—"
"Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts." That voice couldn't be a child's. "And you're Harry Potter. Professor Crockett, indeed. I have been waiting for you to find me for a long time now."
"Us?" asked Harry.
"You, Harry." The boy pierced Harry with a staggering look.
"But…who are you?"
"We haven't a great deal of time. Please listen. I, too, was once Master of Death. As an old man, I happened across the three Hallows."
Harry tried to ask a question—how could he have been an old man? —but the boy kept talking.
"It was around then I decided to start a school. I took four apprentices, and when they were grown, they too wanted to pass on magic. I gave them this castle, and to each of three I gave a Hallow. I gave the cloak to Godric Gryffindor, as he was often too proud to hide and be cautious; I thought this tool might keep him alive longer. No—listen," he said as Albus tried to interrupt. He started speaking very quickly.
"To Slytherin, I gave the Stone, as he did not value life as much as he ought; I thought the stone would give him perspective. To Hufflepuff, the gentlest of the three, I bestowed the Elder Wand in hopes that she would keep it safe, and take its powers to the grave. And to the fourth, Ravenclaw, I gave another gift: a Diadem of Wisdom, as wisdom was what she treasured above all else. My mistake was in giving the wand to Hufflepuff. Slytherin overpowered and killed her for it. My mistake, my mistake."
He was babbling as if his story so far had no weight—he was just summarizing to get to the important part. Despite this, Harry's jaw was on the floor, and Albus looked like he was going to faint. Both of them wanted to ask questions, but there was no break in the boy's monolog.
"After many years of leading the school, I craved a slower paced life and I came here, and began to live through the slow movements of the castle rather than a body. I put all of my life, my magic into it."
"You're dying," said Albus suddenly.
"I am. I am no longer Master of Death, as there can only be one at a time. I have lived long enough."
"What will happen to the castle?" asked Albus.
"That is up to Harry."
"Why can't anyone get in or out of the grounds?" asked Harry.
"The safety of those in the castle was my priority. When my magic began to fail, I made sure that the last thing that would go was the protection. My magic became clumsy, and my enchantments blocked out friend and foe alike. Eventually, the way was blocked both ways. I am not sorry, however. You would not have found me had you been able to enter.
"I know you need to attend to your students, Professor," the boy said to Albus. "They are hungry and some are trapped and frightened. Now that you are back, I will let the guards down, and you may replace them with your own protections. I know you are skilled and powerful enough, especially with the aid of your faculty. You may go now."
"Yes. But I must ask again, who are you?"
"For the past thousand years, I have been the Hogwarts Castle, but if you wish, you may call me Merlin."