The house was a wizard's. Albus Dumbledore could have guessed that merely by looking at it, even without the subtle wards that he had detected as he walked up the path from the street. Muggles, in his experience, liked their houses to be neat and orderly, all of one design. This house was a hodgepodge of different architectural styles ranging from a somewhat celtic style tower jammed at one end of a tudor timber-and-plaster wing to the iron and glass conservatory sat on top of a what appeared to be a small hill, except for the windows and the front door - which was green and perfectly round.

It was, in a word, eccentric.

It was also quite new, he suspected. It would seem that the young man that he sought had been hard at work for the last few weeks. The path led directly to the green door and he reached out and applied the doorknocker to it's purpose.

After a moment there was a shuffling noise from behind the door and it swung upon to reveal a young man, still in his teens from all appearances, with tousled raven-dark hair and green eyes. He blinked. "Ah... oh, Headmaster. I wasn't expecting you." He glanced back into the house. "Wasn't expecting visitors at all, actually."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Quite an impressive building project that you have here."

Harry's face coloured. "Thank you. Please," he said, holding the door wider. "Come in. Would you like some tea?"

"That would be very nice," agreed Dumbledore, walking in. The hallway inside was quite wide, more of a round tunnel with a flattened floor than a conventional passageway and very bare, probably because Harry was not done moving in yet. The door to the left led into the kitchen, which was fully furnished although boxes of crockery were stacked in one corner, waiting to be unpacked. Harry ushered him through the open door at the other side of the kitchen into a room that for the moment housed only a single folding table and three mismatched chairs.

"So how are matters at Hogwarts?" Harry asked from the kitchen as he filled the kettle from the sink.

"Oh, very well," Dumbledore told him, pulling one of the chairs away from the table to sit down. "The usual hijinks of course, but nothing so pressing that I can't take a few hours away from my office."

"It must be so peaceful without the Weasley twins there," Harry noted absently.

"More than I would like their imitators to realise," confirmed the headmaster. "Although there was something of a fuss over the names on their diplomas - it seems that they had legally changed their names to Gred and Forge. Their mother was... vocal about her unhappiness."

"For the sake of my ears," Harry said, passing the door to fetch the teapot and two cups from the boxes, "I'm glad I didn't have to hear it."

Dumbledore steepled his fingers. "Since you've brought that up, Harry," he said, as if the question had not been the reason for his presence here the whole time, "Why is it that you elected not to return to Hogwarts for your final year?"

Harry set down the tea pot next to the kettle a little harder than was strictly necessary and walked back to the door so that he could see the headmaster. "You don't know?"

"I rather gather that there was some sort of falling out with your family," Dumbledore admitted. "I am not sure, precisely, of how the one led to the other."

Harry met Dumbledore's eyes evenly and the older wizard had to restrain the impulse to pluck the information out of the younger's thoughts. It would probably succeed but it would almost certainly be noticed and the distrust it would spark would be entirely counterproductive.

"Well, to give you the abridged version," Harry advised him, "I was disinherited and disowned. And my parents made it perfectly clear that with that being the case they weren't going to front another year's tuition at Hogwarts for me."

Dumbledore stared in unabashed dismay at Harry. "James and Lily said that?"

Harry snorted. "I was advised that I should be grateful that they did not make my 'shameful situation' public."

"But why?" Dumbledore asked him. "Why expel you from your whole family?"

"Well," Harry told him in a tightly controlled voice. "I was disinherited because that clears the way for the all important Boy-Who-Lived to become the heir primus of the Potter Family. In all fairness, that does include several fairly useful magical protections that I don't begrudge him in the least. I was disowned because I am a parselmouth, was sorted in Slytherin and destined to become a dark wizard who will reflect poorly enough on the Potter family as it is without the added burden for them of my sharing their name."

Dumbledore slumped slightly in his chair. "Oh dear. What were they thinking?"

"I'm really not sure," Harry said and went back into the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle. "To be honest, I was rather hoping not to have any visitors until I'd calmed down a little."

"I'm not sure I'll live that long, Harry," Dumbledore said a trifle wryly. "Not that I can blame you for your anger. In fact, I regret to say that I may in fact be adding to your wrathful feelings today."

"Should I put some hemlock in your tea now or wait until I can find something more painful."

"Harry, you - not your brother - are the Boy-Who-Lived."

"What!" There was the sound of a tea cup hitting the stone floor of the kitchen. "Bugger. Repairo."

"So what led you to this rather startling conclusion?" Harry asked walking back into the room and offering the tea somewhat roughly to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore sipped carefully on the tea, pondering how would be best to phrase this. "I have always known, Harry. It was evident from the magical traces in your bedroom sixteen years ago that Voldemort never went near your brother."

Harry's fists clenched. "Why?" he demanded. The rest of the question was obvious. Why had Albus Dumbledore lied?

"Allow me to answer your question with another, Harry. Do you believe that your brother can defeat Voldemort?"

Harry snorted. "Fat chance."

"And why would you say that that is so?"

"Because..." Harry hesitated. "Ah. Because he has always had everything handed to him on a platter he has never really had to work for anything. Because he's arrogant, coddled and makes Draco Malfoy look like Oliver Twist. And if he was your real hope... well, from what you say, if my parents had raised me in that manner, then... so much for your hopes."

"I apologise for your difficult childhood," Dumbledore said softly. "I knew that it would be difficult, although I must confess that James and Lily surpassed my worst imaginings in the degree to which they spoiled your brother and neglected you. However, you have born up amazingly well. Magnificently, one might say. Much as I regret your suffering, it has forged you into wizard of great skill and power."

"A great weapon," Harry said flatly.

Dumbledore hesitated.

"A weapon," repeated Harry. "A weapon to be wielded. A sword, after all, must be beaten repeatedly with a hammer during its making, something that iron ore would doubtless resent if it could."

"But the result, Harry, is perhaps the most revered of weapons."

.oOo.

"Albus!" Minerva gasped. "What happened to you."

Dumbledore straightened his somewhat battered hat. "A misunderstanding," he muttered through a toothless and less than convincing smile. He held up a handkerchief that had been knotted into an improvised bag. "I think I managed to retrieve all of my teeth. Do you think Poppy could put them back in or will I have to regrow them?"

.oOo.

Harry studied the letter he'd received minutes after Dumbledore had left. Then he consigned it to the kitchen fire, using the poker to make sure that it was burnt to ashes.

Taking a fresh scrap of paper, he sharpened his quill. and dipped it in the inkwell as he considered how to best to frame his intent.

'Lord Voldemort,' he wrote. 'Your offer is most timely...'