Dean keeps his eyes shut tight, not wanting the intense green light to fry his retinas. The scene has gone from a cacophony of blustery winds and pouring rain to pure silence. From behind his eyelids, he can feel the light begin to diminish, eventually reaching a point where he feels he could probably open his eyes without fear of permanent damage.
He blinks a few times, as if testing the waters to see if the light has reached a tolerable level. Expecting to see the Hogwarts grounds in one condition or another, he quickly realizes that he's actually inside. Opening his eyes fully, he sees that he is in Gryffindor tower, looing as pristine and well-kept as ever. There's no sign of any structural damage whatsoever, in fact it looks as if it's been recently cleaned. A small fire crackles gently in the fireplace. He is sitting at a table in the corner of the common room, and to his astonishment – Seamus, Lavender, and Parvati are all sitting around him as well. When last he had seen them, they were covered in bruises, scratches, and dirt. But sitting before him now, they all look as healthy as can be. Dean is not the only one surprised. Seamus is looking at him as if he's got two heads. Lavender pats her face down, as if checking to make sure there are no unsightly pimples.
Looking down at the table, Dean sees the game, lying open but with the four tokens lying scattered across the board.
The same thought appears in all of their heads. And as the realization washes over them, they all break out in wide, open smiles. Lavender and Parvati lean in and hug one another, tears of joy welling up in their eyes. Seamus just starts to laugh, which infects Dean in turn.
None of it ever happened. True to its word, the game – this powerful, eldritch artifact- had rewritten the very fabric of time itself, erasing all consequences of it being played. Dean tries to run through a mental check list of all the horrible things that had happened, which didn't happen now that time had been reset. In the end though, his mind is so utterly filled with joy, that he can;t bring himself to recall everything, and just settles for the fact that the whole lot has been undone.
Hermione's ginger puffball, Crookshanks the cat, comes trotting down from the girls' dormitory, curious as to what all the noise is about. Remembering that the cat had been one of the game's victims, Dean picks him up and gives him a kiss on his forehead, something the cat clearly resents if his struggling is anything to go by.
"Should I go get Scabbers?" Seamus asks, laughing at the squirming cat.
Dean laughs with him, letting Crooshanks go. "Think I'll pass on that one."
"What happened to you!?" Lavender asks suddenly, leaning across the table. "After the volcano, I mean, what did you do?"
Dean does his best to recall the events of the last catastrophic hour, which feels as if it had taken place on a whole other planet, in an entirely different lifetime. "Well," he begins, "After the rest of the castle fell apart, I had to find a place to get away from the lava. But then, it started raining, and the rain, it…well, it cooled the lava, turned it all to rock."
"Wow," Seamus says with a grin, "that sure was lucky."
"I'll say," Dean says. "I was feeling pretty out of it, you know, from the nundu's breath. I thought I was a goner, but then Dumbledore's Phoenix, Fawkes, he showed and healed me with his tears."
Parvati nods. "Right, he came to help us too. Lavender had already passed out by the time he got there," she says, turning to Lavender, who goes slightly pink.
Dean continues. "I was about to finish the game, but then the nundu showed up again. It swatted me with its paw," he says, miming the action dramatically, "sending me flying. It pretty much had me, but then…" and he finds that he has trouble explaining what exactly happened in a way that doesn't sound utterly ridiculous.
"So," Seamus says, trying to understand, "Fawkes dropped a hat on you, and you pulled a sword out of the hat?"
"Basically, yeah," Dean says with a shrug.
Deciding to go along with the story, Seamus says, "Alright, then what happened? You didn't kill it with a sword, did you?"
Dean shakes his head, "No, but I did keep it from crushing me like a bug. It still, you know, batted me around a bit, but I could stick it in the paws at least, that made it careful."
"So then how did you survive?" Parvati asks.
"Well," Dean says, continuing, "after a while, all those rhinos and elephants and stuff showed up, and they just charged right through it!" He slams his right hand, balled in a fist, into the flat palm of his left hand to signify the power of the charge.
"How were you not trampled?" Lavender asks.
"I hid in one of the cracks in the ground," Dean says.
"Wow!" Seamus says, looking about the most impressed Dean has ever seen him. "So what happened then? Did you take your turn?"
"Yeah, I did," Dean says.
"You must have gotten a really lucky roll then," Seamus says, crossing his arms.
"I guess so," Dean says with a shrug. Now that he thinks about it, he realizes that he never actually saw what number he rolled. "I-er, I mean, my piece made it to the center, and I called out 'jumanji,' and then…and then," and he spread his arms out wide for effect. "All the things that came out of the game were all sucked back inside."
"Inside?" Lavender asks, confused. "What do you mean, 'inside?'"
"Well," Dean says, inclining his head to one side, "when my piece reached the center, I saw something on that center space. There was this green light flashing…and then, everything was all spinning around, and…and it sort of all faded into these wispy colors, which were all sucked inside here," he says, pointing to the center. "Once everything went in, there was this big flash, and then-" and he finishes by gesturing to the room. "What about you lot, what happened to you?"
"We were feeling really awful," Lavender says. "But we were found by those horrible cannibals. They chased us through the corridors until we came across the rest of the students being evacuated. I guess McGonagall and Snape had already seen them off before, so they backed off the instant they saw the others."
"We were trying to tell Professor McGonagall that we needed to keep going," Parvati says, "but we must have looked rather terrible, because she insisted we see Madam Pomfrey first. We tried to tell her that there was no time, but then Lavender passed out. After that, there was no arguing with her."
Dean chuckles a bit to himself, imagining Professor McGonagall's reaction to seeing a student faint. "Yeah, I bet. What happened then?"
"We found Madam Pomfrey, and to be honest, she looked really worried," Parvati says. "I don't remember if we got around to telling her that it was nundu breath, because shortly after that, we all wound up back here."
"Thank God," Seamus says, sitting back down in one of the comfortable arm chairs by the fire.
"Well," Lavender asks, confused. "What should we do now?"
Dean turns back to look at the board, which looks more like an ordinary board game than ever before now that the tokens are lying impotently on their sides. He is hesitant to approach it, let alone touch it, afraid that the pieces might fly back to their starting points at any second, starting a new game before they can stop it. Dean reaches out and takes the pieces in hand, stowing them in the compartment where they were stored before. This action alone makes him feel more secure, a feeling that strengthens when he grabs the flaps and closes the game for the final time, savoring the sound of it snapping shut. "We've got to take it to Dumbledore."
"What are we going to tell him?" Seamus asks.
"Let's just tell him that it's a dark artifact and should be dealt with somehow," Dean says simply.
"But what if he asks us how we know?" Seamus asks. "What are we going to say, that we activated a curse that unleashed a jungle on the school, destroyed the entire castle, only to undo it all as if nothing ever happened? He'd never believe us!"
"Well, what do you think we should do?" Dean asks.
"Just chuck it in the lake!" Seamus says, putting up his hands as if the solution is obvious.
"Seamus," Dean says, "This thing is powerful enough to rip the castle apart, and then rewrite history so it never happened in the first place. Do you really think tossing it in the lake is going to make it go away?"
"It needs to go to the Ministry of Magic!" Lavender says firmly.
"Where to?" Seamus asks with a small chuckle. "To the Department of Magical Games and Sports?"
"More like the Department of Mysteries," Parvati says, eyeing the game apprehensively.
"I don't know about you lot," Dean say sternly, "But I trust Professor Dumbledore more than I trust the Ministry."
"Oh what do you know about the Ministry," Lavender says dismissively. "You're a muggle-born, you didn't even know there was a Ministry of Magic until three years ago!"
"First of all," Dean says, rounding on her, "I may be a muggle-born, I may not be a muggle-born. My Dad left my Mum before she could find out. But, okay, fine, I've only known about the Ministry of Magic for three years. And in those three years, they've sent Hagrid to Azkaban, let a mass murder escape from prison, and put dementors at the gates to the school! So yeah, I don't trust those morons at the Ministry with anything nearly as powerful as this thing!"
"If you want to give it to Dumbledore," Seamus says, crossing his arms, "then go on, do it. But don't expect any of us to go with you."
Seamus' harsh tone strikes Dean as particularly hurtful. Just seconds ago, they were celebrating their impossible triumph, and now they're squabbling as if they hadn't just banded together to overcome insurmountable odds. But spite overcomes him as well, and he says to Seamus, "Fine!" and he picks up the game under his arm, and storms out of the portrait hole.
The instant he steps out in front of the Fat Lady, he regrets having done that. He considers briefly going back inside to apologize and work out a better solution. As he stands there thinking, the Fat Lady eyes him suspiciously and says, "Well…?"
"Nothing," Dean says, turning away and heading off toward Dumbledore's office. Walking through the corridors feels utterly surreal, like returning home after having spent a long time abroad. Passing students, enraptured with their own goings on, pay him little heed. He walks with a certain awkwardness in his gait, as if trying to hide a dark secret. A few eyes find their way to the game still clutched under his arm, some of them with a glint of confused curiosity. When one of them puts a hand to her ear, Dean can't help but wonder if she is hearing something that he cannot.
He finally reaches the gargoyle standing at the entrance to Dumbledore's office. Dean takes a moment to mentally travel back to that alternate reality to recall what password Dumbledore had used to get past the statue. "Uh… some kind of candy, I think…er, oh, uh, peppermint imps?"
The gargoyle steps to one side, allowing Dean access to the spiraling staircase leading up to the Headmaster's office like a stone escalator. Dean knocks at the door to the Headmaster's office three times. Not long after, Dumbledore's voice calls out warmly, "Enter."
Dean pushes the door open to reveal the elaborate, ornate office of Professor Dumbledore, lined with all manner of arcane, obscure magical instruments. The circular walls are covered with portraits of former Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts, all fast asleep in their frames. High up on his perch is the phoenix, Fawkes, who sits with wings folded, his vivid scarlet and golden plumage catching Deans eyes. The phoenix loos at him with silent interest. Not far below where Fawkes is perched, Albus Dumbledore sits scribbling something on a roll of parchment. He looks up at Dean through his half-moon spectacles, eyeing him with the same kind of surprised interest as Fawkes. "Ahh," he says, sitting up to look at Dean properly. "Good evening, Mr. Thomas.
"Good evening, Professor," Dean says simply.
"Might I interest you in a nice toffee? Perhaps a lemon drop?" Dumbledore says, pointing to a small tin on his desk.
"No thank you, Professor," Dean says as politely as possible.
"Suit yourself," Dumbledore says, popping a toffee in his mouth. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this evening?"
"Professor, I…" Dean begins, only to find that no words are coming to him. He soon begins to wish that he had rehearsed his opening on the way up. "I, er….hmm…"
"I don't mean to be rude," Dumbledore says, putting down his quill. "But by any chance, did you wish to tell me something regarding the object under your arm?" he says, pointing to the game.
"Er…yes, sir," Dean says, taking the game out from under his arm and showing it in full to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore surveys the game intently, his eyes running over the cover like a pair of twinkling scanners. "Curious,:" Dumbledore says. "Please, take a seat, Mr. Thomas, and if you will, pleas set this down on my desk." Dumbledore takes out his wand, waving it lazily so that many of the objects sitting on its surface clear themselves away to make room. Dean sets the game down before taking a seat in front of Dumbledore's desk. "Do tell, Mr. Thomas," Dumbledore says, sitting up and looking Dean in the eyes, "Where did you find this?"
Dean's face blushes slightly as he says, "Well…actually, Fred and George Weasley too it from Mr. Filch's office. They gave it to Seamus Finnegan and me to hide for them so they wouldn't get caught."
"I see," Dumbledore says, his expression remaining the same. "But you decided to bring it to my attention regardless. Might I ask why?"
Dean swallows as he prepares for Dumbledore's likely dismissal. "I…er, well…I, I think it might be dangerous, sir."
Dumbledore says nothing at first, instead lowering his eyes back to the game. After a few moments of observing silently, Dumbledore reaches out and strokes the surface of the game board with his hands, just as McGonagall had done. "Hmm…" Dumbledore says, his eyebrows raising slightly. "And what about it suggests to you that it is dangerous?" Dean is lost for words. Looking away from Dumbledore he struggles to think of something sensible to say. But, as if sensing his dilemma , Dumbledore adds, "Because I quite agree – this object shows signs of both great age, and immense magical power. But – and I do ask your pardon for the assumption – usually young wizards such as yourself have not yet fine-tuned their magical sense to the point where they can detect such things."
"Oh, well…" Dean says with a shrug.
But Dumbledore continues. "My apologies for badgering you with questions, Mr. Thomas, but I must also ask how it was you knew the password to enter my office. I usually reserve that information for the staff, excepting certain serious cases of course."
Dean can't help but feel as if Dumbledore is accusing him of some kind of wrong-doing. Deciding that Dumbledore probably wouldn't know either way, he lies and says, "Professor McGonagall told me."
Dumbledore smiles and shakes his head slowly. "Please, Mr. Thomas, I have appreciated your honesty thus far, do not break the streak now. If you have don't something wrong, it is always best to be truthful about your actions, lest your dishonesty lead to more trouble."
Dean sighs through his nose. "It's not that Professor, it's just…you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you…"
Dumbledore straightens up slightly and says, "Whatever you have to say, Dean, I promise that I will listen. Though I cannot guarantee that I will believe you, I can at least promise you my full attention."
Feeling much more confident than before, Dean takes a deep breath and begins. "Okay…thank you Professor. So, this thing is actually a board game," Dean says, opening it up to reveal the interior, as innocuous looking as ever.
"I see," Dumbledore says, his eyes immediately going to the rules listed on the flaps. "And I take it you decided to play a round?"
"Yes Professor," Dean says, "It was me, Seamus Finnegan, Lavender Brown, and Parvati Patil." Dumbledore nods for him to continue. "When I rolled the dice ,the token moved the number of rolls, and then…then a message appeared in the center, here," he says, pointing to the pure black middle.
"What did the message say?" Dumbledore asks, growing curious.
Dean struggles to remember that far back. "Uh…sorry Professor, I can't remember it exactly, but it was something like, 'an army's on the path…' uh..'beware something something wrath,' it was a rhyme, that's all I can remember."
"I see," Dumbledore says. "What happened nest?"
"Then, thousands of huge ants came crawling through the stone walls in Gryffindor tower and started marching through the castle, eating everything in sight!"
Dumbledore does not say anything at first. He puts the tips of his fingers together and eyes Dean curiously with one eyebrow slightly raised. "If, as you say Dean, thousands of carnivorous ants appeared in Gryffindor Tower, I would think that somebody would have noticed and brought this to the attention of everyone else in the school."
"See, that's the thing, Professor," Dean says, pointing to one of the flaps. "It says here that, once somebody wins the game, everything that cameo out of the game will vanish. And that's what happened!"
It takes a Dumbledore a few seconds to realize what Dean is saying. When he does, his eyebrows rise to their highest point, and his mouth opens in tight 'o' shape beneath his layers of facial hair. "If I am to understand you correctly, Dean," Dumbledore says, "You, Mr. Finnegan, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Patil played a game, in which various hazards were conjured for you to face. After you successfully faced them all, and somebody won, the game was able to rewrite the course of events to make it so that none of this ever happened?"
"Yes sir," Dean says. "At one point, you brought us up to your office to play. You were hoping to protect us. But that's how I knew the password to your office."
"Yes that does sound in character for me," Dumbledore says with a nod. Curious," he says, stroking the hair under his chin. "Very curious… of course, it would strain credulity to believe in a set of circumstances that never happened, and which have left little to no trace of their occurrence," Dumbledore muses aloud, causing Dean to look slightly crestfallen. "However," Dumbledore begins again, "As I said previously, this game possess highly unusual, and extraordinarily powerful magic. And given that you are unlikely to sense that at such a young age, it does beg the question of how you were able to recognize this artifact as dangerous. It would also explain why you cannot even seem to look at it for more than a few seconds without flinching."
Dean doesn't even notice this behavior, but he can very easily believe it. He smiles at Dumbledore. "So you believe me then, Professor?"
"Yes, Dean, I do," Dumbledore says, the ever present twinkling of his eyes shining brilliantly from behind his half-moon spectacles. "How long did this series of events persist before you were able to put a stop to it?"
"Uh…just about a day," Dean says tentatively.
"And what other hazards came out of the game besides flesh-eating ants?" Dumbledore asks with great interest.
With an uncomfortable feeling in his gut, Dean reaches back in his memory to beginning of the game. "After me, it was Seamus' turn," Dean says. "When he rolled, all these plants came out of the game. They grew all over the castle, on the inside and outside. The whole school looked like a jungle."
A jungle, you say," Dumbledore says, a smile twitching underneath this mustache. "A somewhat amusing thought, though excuse me, I expect the actual situation to be far more threatening."
"It was," Dean says, "Some of the plants shot poisonous barbs, and others tried to eat some of the students."
"Decidedly nasty," Dumbledore says. "Though I would thin Professor Sprout would be excited… but what else, Dean?"
"After that was the river, and the hippo," Dean says, continuing. "That's when you decided to take us to your office to protect us."
"I see," Dumbledore says. "I trust I was an able guardian."
"You were," Dean says nodding. "In fact, you were too good. After the hippo, you saved us from a pack of hyenas. That's when the game gave you sleeping sickness to keep us from helping us anymore."
"Oh dear, most unfair," Dumbledore says with a shake of his head. "I see nothing in the game's rules that forbid assistance."
"Yeah, that's what you said before," Dean says, grinning slightly. "But on that turn, the game let my piece move twice as far along the board. You said it was a trade off, the game put you out while allowing me to get closer to winning."
"Ah, a clever deduction on would-be Dumbledore's part," Dumbledore says, smiling to himself. "And after that?"
"Then there were the monkeys, who were more mischievous than dangerous…kind of like a bunch of hairy little Peeves…and then next there were the cannibals…Seamus accidentally ended up eating…"
"Please, continue," Dumbledore says pleasantly, urging him to keep going,
"Right," Dean says, "After that was….uh, the leeches, I think? Oh wait, no, then there was the stampede. All these rhinos, elephants, and stuff just came, like, charging through the castle, bursting out onto the grounds!"
"Oh dear!" Dumbledore says. "I dread to think about the damage done to the castle."
"If you think that's bad," Dean says with a chuckle, "after the leeches, there was a mudslide on the Southern part of the castle. Half of Hogwarts just collapsed into the lake!"
Dumbledore's eyes go wide. "Merlin's beard!" he says leaning forward.
"Yup," Dean says. "After that there were the camel spiders…nasty little spider, scorpion type things….they weren't so bad, but after that, there were these…well, I'm not sure what they were exactly. They were like giant, black pigs, and they could turn invisible."
"Tebos, I believe," Dumbledore says, "If my recollections of Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them are correct."
"Right," Dean says. He decides to skip over what happened to Hagrid, for Dumbledore's sake. "And speaking of Fantastic Beasts, after that, a nundu came out!"
"Yes, I was afraid that might happen," Dumbledore says somewhat gravely. "I was sensing an African theme. But you survived its attack?" Dumbledore asks, to which Dean nods. "Most extraordinary. How did you manage to avoid falling victim to its noxious breath?"
"Well, we didn't," Dean says. "It got us pretty good with that. At first, we climbed up one of the towers to escape it, but it actually climbed up the side of the tower from the outside to get at us! But when it started smashing up the top of the tower, the whole thing collapsed. We had to use levitation charms to keep from falling to our deaths."
"A most ingenious use of a simple charm," Dumbledore says with a nod.
"So, for the last thing that came out of the game," Dean says, setting the scene for the end, "was a volcano! These huge cracks in the ground opened up and lava erupted from underneath! It pretty much destroyed the entire castle!" Dean sees that Dumbledore loos grave, but he says nothing. Dean continues. "I got separated from the others, and I had to find a way to escape the lava. I climbed on top of a piece of rubble. By this point, the nundu's breath was really getting to me. I couldn't even stand, and I could barely breathe. That's when…" and he looks up at Fawes, still perched overhead, watching them.
Dumbledore loos at Fawkes as well, smiling. "Ahh, I see. Fawkes was generous enough to shed a tear for you, I imagine?"
"A few, yeah," Dean says. "I felt loads better after that. I was about to take my turn – I had the game, see – but then the nundu came back! I thought I was done for, but then.." and Dean pauses, once more afraid that this part of the story might sound silly.
"Yes, Dean?" Dumbledore says, gently urging him on.
"Well…I can't say I know how this works," Dean says, "but I think Fawkes dropped a hat over me, and I caught it. When I looked inside the hat, I pulled out…I pulled out a sword."
But far from looking confused, Dumbledore beams at Dean, folding his hands together. "I take it this was sword you pulled out?" he says, turning in his chair slightly to reveal a long, ruby-encrusted silver sword sitting in a glass case behind his desk.
Dean's eyes go wide, and he says, "Yeah, that's the one!"
Still smiling, Dumbledore says, "This is the sword of Godric Gryffindor; one of the only remaining historical artifacts belonging to him. The other one being that," and he points upward toward one of the shelves behind Dean.
When Dean looks to where Dumbledore is pointing, he sees an old, tattered-looking hat sitting beside a pile of books, looking as utterly unremarkable as can be. But Dean recognizes it instantly. "The Sorting Hat?" he asks Dumbledore.
Dumbeldore nods. "Yes, Dean. The Sorting Hat is one Hogwart's most devoted servants. Its duty is to the school, to its staff, and – or course – to its students. And should one of Gryffindor's own students find themselves facing great danger, with the daring neve and chivalry that set Gryffindors apart, then the Sorting Hat may bequeath to that student Gryffindor's own sword. Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled this sword out of that hat," he says, pointing from the sword to the hat.
Dean feels a warm sensation growing in his stomach, which causes him to lower his head slightly, as if in a bow. "Oh, I…I did not now that, Professor," he says simply.
Dumbledore gets up from his chair, and begins making his way around his desk toward Dean. "Let me tell you a little secret."
Dean's eyes grow wider. "A secret, Professor?"
Dumbledore nods. "Yes. I'm always wary of the sorting process, myself. Determining a student's core qualities at such a young age, and then reinforcing them during their time at school, it… well, let's just say that sometimes I think we sort too early," and he looks away from Dean for a moment, as if contemplating another matter. "But," he says, quickly coming back to the subject at hand, "if you're story is to be believed – which we have already established, I do - then it would seem the Sorting Hat knew exactly what it was doing when it placed you in Gryffindor."
Dean bows his head with a smile and says, "Thank you, Professor."
Dumbledore smiles at him yet again. "What happened after that?"
"Well, I couldn't kill the nundu," Dean says, "But I did keep it distracted enough for all those rhinos and elephants and zebras and stuff to come charging around crash right into it!"
"Oh dear," Dumbledore says. "No details, if you please Dean."
"Yes, Professor," Dean says. "But after that, I took my last turn, made it to the center, and everything was all, like, sucked back inside the game. After that, all four of us wound up back Gryffindor tower as if none of it had ever happened."
"And thank goodness for that," Dumbledore says, putting a hand on his chest. "Now, Dean…as much as I admire your courage, determination, and hard work – not to mention that of your fellow Gryffindors – I'm afraid there's not much I can do to reward your actions, at least not as far as House points or special services to the school are concerned, since, technically speaking, none of these things happened."
Dean looks slightly crestfallen. "Yeah, I suppose so."
Dumbledore looks sympathetic. "I suppose it must be somewhat frustrating to go through all that, save everybody, and then not receive any kind of praise or reward."
Not wanting to appear vain or juvenile, Dean shakes his head and says, "No, it's alright Professor, really! I'm just happy to have everything back to normal."
"Of course you are," Dumbledore says, "as would anyone in your situation. But it is only natural that, after all the work and danger you put yourselves through, you would like some kind of recognition. We all like to have our greatest deeds acknowledged to some degree."
"Well…" Dean begins cautiously, "It would be nice if people didn't think Seamus and I were so unremarkable…"
Dumbledore's eyebrows raise slightly. "Unremarkable?" Dumbledore says. "What makes you think that you're unremarkable?"
"Well, Fred and George Weasley for one," Dean says with a small side glance. "They said that's why they gave us the game to hide in the first place – because we just kind of 'fade into the background,'" he says, drawing quotation mars with his fingers. "And I mean, he's not wrong. Compared to people like Harry Potter, we're just sort of –"
But Dumbledore holds up his hand, and Dean stops. "I am 111 years old. I have encountered many incredible and terrible things in that time. But do you know what I have never met in over a century's worth of life?"
"What's that, Professor?"
"Somebody who was unremarkable," Dumbledore says. "You have just told me that you and three of your friends have come back from an adventure the likes of which this castle has never seen. You have faced dangers the vast majority of full grown wizards have never even dared to dream of. If I may speak on the behalf of your best self, how dare you think of yourself as unremarkable?"
Dean is nearly stunned by Dumbledore's words, which he utters with a combination of gentle warmth and deep conviction. "I…uh…" he's not at all sure of how to respond.
"This may be hard to understand, speaking as one who is famous to one who is not, but fame and 'greatness' are very overrated qualities Dean. Fame can sometimes create or reinforce the illusion that the world is divided into big things and little things; important people and unimportant people. This is perhaps the most dangerous lie human beings cling to. In reality, the world is made up of nothing but little things. Life is nothing more or less than a collection of small moments between people – a conversation over breakfast, a game of quidditch, a joke here or there. There are no big things, Dean; the little things just add up quickly.
"So what I ask you is this: what are the little things in your life?" Dumbledore asks him. "You need not tell me, but think about them."
Doing as Dumbledore tells him, he thinks about every stupid little joke he's shared with Seamus during potions class, every meat pie he's ever eaten in the great hall, every moment spent on a broom stick, practicing his chasing sills. After a few moments, he suddenly realizes how lost he would be as a person if not for all of these 'little things' as Dumbledore calls them.
Dumbledore speaks once more. "You have demonstrated courage and skill, traits that I've no doubt will be called upon again…perhaps even sooner than either of us know… but please never believe for a moment that a lack of fame makes you unremarkable or unimportant. You have already definitely proven yourself otherwise."
Dean is so taken aback by Dumbledore's kind words, that he can't bring himself to say anything. He swallows, and puts his hands together over his waist. Finally, with a dry mouth, he says, "Than you Professor."
With a smile under his beard and a twinkle in his eye, Dumbledore nods. "Now then," he says, turning back to his des. "Theirs is still the matter of what to do with this," and he points to the game.
"Seamus wanted to throw it into the lake," Dean says.
Dumbledore chuckles slightly, but shakes his head. "Oh goodness me, no. The merpeople would be quite upset with me, and I have to stay on their good side if…well, I suppose I shouldn't say anything more." Before Dean can inquire further about Dumbledore's mention of merpeople, he continues. "I must confess, this game does unnerve. Despite being immensely powerful and dangerous, it has managed to conceal itself from greater notoriety, most likely because of its ability to undo everything that it does. Ideally, I would like to examine it more thoroughly, but I am also quite anxious to get it out of the castle, away from students."
"So what will you do with it Professor?" Dean asks.
Dumbledore takes a moment to think. "I think I'm going contact a very old…well, not so much friend anymore," and for the briefest of moments, Dean thinks he sees a flicker of pain or grief in Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes, "But he is very well acquainted with the dark arts, and hopefully he might tell me more about this object in the hopes of finding a proper place for it. For now, however, I think it will be quite safe here in my office.
He picks up the game and takes it over to a wooden cabinet on one side of the room. When he opens, all Dean can see is a wide stone basin, something silvery glimmering in its center. Dumbledore stows the game under the basin, putting it out of sight from a cursory examination of the room.
"Oh, wait, Professor," Dean says, suddenly remembering. "The game, it…it makes a drumming noise."
"Drumming?" Dumbledore asks.
"Yeah," Dean says, "I don't know for sure, but I think that it does that to try and lure new people to play it."
"I see," Dumbledore says. "Well, rest assured Dean that anyone who comes to my office complaining of drums will not be playing this game any time soon. And I'm sure that I will find a way to deal with resisting the temptation myself."
"Alright," Dean says cautiously, "As long as you're sure."
"Quite sure, thank you," Dumbledore says with a smile. "Now then, is there anything else you wish to tell me?"
"I, uh…I guess there is the little matter of Fred George Weasley…not as if we can hand it back over to them," Dean says.
"Quite right," Dumbledore says. "I will deal with Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley myself, not to worry."
"Are they going to get into trouble?" Dean asks, feeling somewhat guilty.
Dumbledore considers the matter for a second. "Well, I can't say that I can condone their taking things from Mr. Filch. On the other than, they have – inadvertently of course – brought the danger of this game to our attention. It won't be anything too laborious – a few house points will probably be taken."
"Yeah, fair enough," Dean says. "Well, Professor, I think that just about covers it"
Dumbledore nods. "Very well. If there is nothing else you wish to say, then you are free to go."
"Thank you, Professor," Dean says. Turning around in place, he strides confidently out of Dumbledore's office, down the circular stone staircase, and bac to Gryffindor tower.