MAY 1998

Harry Potter arrives in an endless expanse of white, still feeling the tingle of the Resurrection Stone against his lips. Albus Dumbledore takes one look at him and smiles, knowing that everything has gone according to plan. He gives Harry two options—either he can go back and finish his work or move on and attain peace.

Harry goes back. Before he does, though, he asks, "Is any of this real? Or is this all happening inside my head?"

Albus laughs. "Of course it's happening inside your head, Harry…but why should that mean that it's not real?"

NOVEMBER 1981

The moment Albus Dumbledore grasps the Invisibility Cloak, he realizes that this may be a problem. Gaining ownership of the Elder Wand had been problematic but tolerable—possibly because that was the first Hallow he'd ever acquired. The Invisibility Cloak, though…power sings in his veins. It's not the Cloak, not really—no, it's the Elder Wand that whispers to him every ambition he's ever had. The Elder Wand tells him that he'll be able to do anything he wants now that he has two Hallows in his possession—that he can save the world.

It's only the melodic and stubbornly unambitious melody of the Cloak that brings him back down to earth. Horrified with himself, he immediately rushes away, leaving the executor of James Potter's will standing, confused, in the middle of his office.

The thing is, who can he give it to? Lily is dead, as is Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black is a mass-murderer who's rotting in a cell in Azkaban. Harry is too young to retain ownership thoroughly enough to defend it against Albus if he ever lost his mind to his ambitions. There remains, however, Remus Lupin.

Remus refuses to take it. "If James left it to you," he rasps, "then it's meant for you."

"He left it to his son!" says Albus. "He just asked me to keep it safe until then!" Poor James Potter—he'd known that the Cloak was valuable and that others would try to get their hands on it and he'd assumed that Albus—kind, wise Albus—would keep it safe for his son. He did not know about Albus's past, about Albus's thoughts, about his deepest desires.

He looks on at Remus desperately.

Remus stubbornly says, "It's meant for you. Take it. Leave me be."

And Albus leaves, the Cloak tucked into his robes, terrified of what he might do.

The Elder Wand continues to talk to him. It tells him how powerful he is, how close he is to grasping everything he's ever wanted. It whispers sweet nothings into his ears late at night. It writes ballads of his greatness and sings them to him so frequently that he can follow along with the lyrics. He moves through the world in slow motion, hampered by his efforts to tamp down his own impulses. It eats at his sleep, at his sanity.

The only reason he hasn't given in is because the Cloak remains still and silent in his hands. It gives him no promises, administers no poisons—it is the artifact of the youngest brother and it is just as humble as he was.

Albus is not sure he would have been able to resist temptation if it was the Resurrection Stone that made its way into his grasp. He hopes that day will never come…he doesn't think he'd survive it.

Eventually, Albus has enough. He grasps the Cloak and flees the castle—but he leaves the Elder Wand behind. Instead, he carries with him his original wand, the aspen wood of his youth, and he spends a week in a cave in the middle of nowhere, crafting protections so intricate it will take him months to undo them.

When he returns to Hogwarts, the Elder Wand is silent. Finally, he has peace.

JUNE 1991

When he realizes that Harry Potter is coming to Hogwarts, he begins to set up a little game to assess how eager the boy is to go on a quest. It is, of course, in a controlled environment—there will be more than mere children's games guarding the Philosopher's Stone and ensuring that Quirrell will not be able to truly harm anyone, but the students will not know that. He nearly thinks his work his done at the end of it.

Then, the Elder Wand asks, Aren't you forgetting something?

And then Albus realizes he is. With dread, he leaves the castle again, spending three weeks to find the cave in the middle of nowhere. He curses himself for his own caution—the Cloak is under much too many spells to be able to lift them in a single session.

In the end, it takes him six months. Right on time for Christmas, at any rate, and Albus is glad to foist it off to someone else at the soonest opportunity, unwilling to listen to the Wand croon in his ear any longer.

He writes to Harry, Use it well.

Albus knows that he himself never could have.

FEBRUARY 1894

Henry Potter lets Albus touch his invisibility cloak only once. It's after Albus wins a dare and Henry backs himself into a corner, unwilling to allow the rest of their dormmates to think that he's a coward. So, the cloak comes out and Albus touches the material.

"This is fine quality," he murmurs.

Henry's chest puffs out with pride. "I know," he says. "It's been in my family for generations."

Albus looks up, incredulous. "You're having me on. Invisibility cloaks don't work for that long." He'd always known that Henry was a less intelligent sort of being, but he'd never pegged the boy as stupid. He's rapidly beginning to reassess him, though. "Are you sure that this isn't a replacement? Your parents might have done it without you noticing…"

"Sod off," hisses Henry. "This thing is older than your family name. Just because the Dumbledores don't have any impressive heirlooms doesn't mean that mine is a fake."

"I have plenty of impressive heirlooms," Albus sniffs, lying expertly, "but that has nothing to do with anything. I'm just telling you the facts—an invisibility cloak physically can't last this long."

"Well, this one does," says Henry.

"Fine—let's say you're right. This is an incredibly impressive piece of cloth…you ought to let me examine it."

"Absolutely not! I could get in trouble just for letting you touch it!"

"I'm sorry, I never took you for a coward, Henry, but I suppose I was mistaken."

Henry, who usually rises to the bait in these kinds of situations, simply glares at him before stuffing the cloak back into his case. Afterward, he storms out of the room, declaring, "You're a right bastard, Dumbledore."

Albus never does manage to nab it off of Henry—it's protected by the Potter family magic so thoroughly that even grazing it sends the muscles of his fingers into a spasm. He seethes for the rest of his Hogwarts years, upset that Henry Potter could have access to something that he doesn't.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter, does it? Albus is the one who graduates from Hogwarts with distinctions. Albus is the one who has lobbied legislation through the Wizengamot, who has published academic papers, who has nearly perfected his magic. Albus is the one who is going to depart on a grand tour of the world with Elphias. Henry is just a footnote in Albus's grand existence and his cloak is nothing.

Albus leaves Hogwarts after graduating with a head full of dreams and determination. He doesn't need Henry's filthy cloak.

LATE AUGUST 1899

He feels so stupid when he finally figures it out. Gellert has read him the story a hundred times by now, the two of them analyzing it well into the night, limbs tangled together under the cover of darkness.

Albus has only ever come across one invisibility cloak that works more than a week. It makes him sick, the knowledge that the Invisibility Cloak has been left to the likes of Henry Potter. How many times had Albus seen the boy sneak unsubtly out of their dorm room, his legs peeking out from underneath it? That's what happens when you leave a Deathly Hallow in the hands of a brash, unintelligent, muggle-loving nobody. Albus will take it from him. Albus and Gellert will use it to achieve greatness, as it's meant to be.

Gellert is sound asleep beside him and Albus snuggles closer. He won't tell Gellert just yet—he'll tell him after they leave on their quest. His birthday is a week away…if he can just hold out until then, it will be a delightful birthday present…

Three days later, Ariana is dead, Gellert is gone, and Henry Potter's cloak is the furthest thing from Albus's mind.

SEPTEMBER 1943

Tom Riddle has a ring on his finger. Albus sees it resting there, observes the way Tom caresses it softly, displays it proudly. He wonders what the damn boy is thinking—who would dare flaunt the so-called symbol of Grindelwald in public? Who would dare associate themself with a dark lord?

Ah, but this is Tom Riddle—of course he wants to foster that reputation.

More abstractly, however, Albus wonders if Tom truly knows about the mark, about the story behind it. There's a very good chance that he doesn't—it's a wizarding children's story, not the kind of thing one would hear in a muggle orphanage. Even in the wizard world, though, it's slowly fading out of fashion, no one wanting to tell their children a story associated with Grindelwald's mark.

What an awful, ignorant boy, carting around a symbol of ultimate power and not even realizing it.

EARLY NOVEMBER 1945

The moment Gellert is bound and unconscious, surrounded by Aurors, Albus passes out. Before he loses consciousness, he hears a gut-wrenchingly familiar laugh echoing in his ears.

As the weeks go by, he tries desperately to hear it again, but it doesn't come to him.

Maybe he's going insane. Maybe it's nothing.

Maybe it's the Elder Wand and it's laughing at him. That's all right—Albus laughs at himself on the daily. It would serve him right to go insane, dragging around the wretched thing that had spurned Gellert to obsession. Albus ought to get rid of it, to snap it in two and hurl it to opposite sides of the world.

Instead, he keeps it, and because he is Albus Dumbledore, no one dares question him.

JULY 1996

At first, when Albus sees the ring in the Gaunt family's hovel, he almost doesn't recognize it. Then he walks closer and the Wand sings so loudly that he nearly crashes to the floor. It's the ring, he realizes, that Tom used to wear on at Hogwarts. Of course it contains a Hallow. The entire world is so incredibly lucky that Tom never cared enough to look into the symbol emblazoned upon it.

The Wand continues to sing songs and weave speeches. It practically screeches in delight, telling him how much power is now at their disposal. He's endured this before, though, forcefully ignoring the Wand when he'd had his hands on the Cloak. He nearly succeeds, picking up the ring and making to leave—

—but then a second voice, the same as the Wand's but lower, silkier, whispers, Don't you want to bring her back?

Albus freezes, staring down at the ring. It's the Resurrection Stone, it must be. The Stone tells him that he can bring Ariana back, that he can bring his parents back, that he can bring every person that died in the wars against Tom back. The Stone promises him that everything will be all right, that he can fix things and make the world a better place.

Albus can ignore the Wand's delusions of grandeur with ease—largely because he's always ignored the voice inside his own head that has always been screeching the same things—but the Stone…Albus finds himself particularly vulnerable to it.

He puts the ring on.

Even as his hand begins to rot black, he doesn't regret it.

JUNE 1997

Harry is hiding under the Cloak. It's not silent now, instead humming softly—comforting. It knows what's coming. The Wand is screaming at him, telling him that he can kill Draco Malfoy right where he stands, that he can duel Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix Lestrange and claw his way on top. It's a lie, though—Albus's hand is necrotic and that awful potion has left him weak. The end is near and he has to keep sight of his goal.

Then Draco disarms him and the Elder Wand goes flying from his hand and everything goes suddenly, terrifyingly silent. Every second that passes with Bellatrix and Fenrir goading Draco has Albus growing tenser and tenser, terrified that they will go through with it and then descend upon the students. He needs to do something, he needs to—

Severus enters the room. Talking happens, talking that Albus is too far gone to understand. All he can do is look at him and whisper, "Severus…please…"

And Severus understands. He was always a smart one, after all.

As his vision goes up in a burst of brilliant green, he hears the Hallows one last time—but the voice isn't that of the Hallows, it never was. It was always Gellert, lips pressed against his ear, promising him that, one day, he could rule the world. As the life leaves his body and the world recedes away, Albus knows that's still the truth because—

Well. He's playing the long game now.

DATE UNKNOWN

Harry Potter meets him again. Albus is still in the in-between—Harry had called it King's Cross but Albus sees the Ministry Atrium—and he's perched peacefully on a bench. Harry observes him with a critical eye. Gone is the fire and innocence of his youth. Now, he looks like a grown man, weary of the world.

Harry sits next to him. He says, "You know what you did, don't you?"

Albus smiles. "The true magnitude of it did not strike me until I'd finally lost ownership of all three…but yes, some subconscious part of me always knew."

Harry sighs. "I don't like this. You've got too much power, as far as I'm concerned. You'll ruin yourself. You'll ruin us all."

Albus says, "No, I will make things better. I will change the world."

"You resisted temptation for so long. Why give in now?"

Albus thinks of Gellert's voice whispering out of the Hallows. He says, "Resisting brought me here. I can do better than this—you know it as well as I do."

"You're delusional."

Albus laughs softly. "They always say that about the greats."

Harry stares at him with pursed lips. Then, face twisting in a snarl, he hisses, "Know this, Albus Dumbledore—you may retain ownership of the Hallows but I am the Master of Death. You can't hide behind them forever. Your days will be numbered."

"We'll see," says Albus.

Harry turns away. Sits in silence. Raises his wand.

Albus's world whirls away for a second time.

FEBRUARY 1894 x2

Albus is running his fingers along the cloth of Henry Potter's invisibility cloak—the Invisibility Cloak. He smiles. He says, "This is fine quality."

"I know. It's been in my family for generations."

Albus says softly, "I'm sure it has." And then he grips it tighter, feeling manic.

One down, two to go.

A/N: i once read a fic where harry traveled back in time to the summer of 1991 and he was concerned that Dumbledore currently had access to two deathly hallows. then i started thinking about how Dumbledore had access to all three hallows at different points in time and...well. this monstrosity was born 3

anyway, if you liked this, please FAVORITE and REVIEW! it would really make my day!