Author's Note: Yes, new chapter is a Thing.
It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you~
I'm here. Let the waves (of reviews? ;3) come crashing down, guys.
Kaleidoscope
They sat across from one another. The younger glared fiercely and the older wore an expression of intense sadness.
"Your father and I had many disagreements, Draco, but please accept my condolences for your loss."
"Liar," Draco mouthed. "Liar!" he roared. "What did you do to him?" he half-shouted, half-begged. Dumbledore had to have killed the man. There was no one else powerful enough. No one who's blood was more pure. No one who could have wanted to kill the man.
"Your father made many enemies over the years, most of which Lord Voldemort protected him from."
Draco flinched.
"Lord Voldemort, however, has little to no knowledge of the thousands of alliances and societies that grew, rose and fell in our world's tumultuous past. All he possesses is an uncanny knack of protecting himself and those who would serve him."
Draco flinched again, then paled. "Is?" he wondered incredulously.
"I do not believe he has expired yet."
Draco stared at him in horror. "Did You-Know-Who kill my father?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "When Voldemort fell a decade ago, your father decided that he would traverse the path of the straight and narrow. You had been born recently and Narcissa's family had been gutted by a war no one truly wanted to fight but, rather, a war everyone chose to participate in. Your father fought a battle on very many fronts during that time, desperately trying to build a structure of support from within both the Death Eaters and an institution of great power known as the Mage's Association."
Draco frowned, puzzled, but Dumbledore was not finished.
"If one could be left to believe that Wizarding Britain is backward in its long preservation of traditions which harm even its oldest members-"
Draco's face hardened and Dumbledore sighed, but ignored it.
"The Association would be considered both draconian and unnecessary. It is said that to walk the path of a mage is to walk the path of death itself. Your father walked this path, gathering allies and friends alike whose combined power would be capable of protecting him from any other allies who turned on him, including Voldemort. His first priority was always his family."
A pair of teeth clenched.
"But he gave no thought to the families of other men and women. One of the final atrocities he committed to confirm an alliance was the wholesale massacre of the last line of French nobility."
Draco's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to protest.
"He killed every last member but a single young girl and left her with a thirst of vengeance so great that she had the willpower to run him through with a sword."
"Who is she?"
Dumbledore shook his head.
"Who is she?"
"We will speak more of this matter later. I shall call for you when I believe the time is correct." Dumbledore snapped his fingers and a house elf crackled into existence for the purpose of guiding Draco back to the Slytherin dormitories.
Dumbledore finished a letter he had been composing and then left his office for the Great Hall.
Beyond Right Now
It was three weeks before Dumbledore called Harry back into his office for a meeting that lasted more than just ten minutes. Dumbledore noted that the similarity between Harry and Draco Malfoy was rather pronounced, especially since the death of the elder Malfoy. But there was a certain thirst in Harry that worried Dumbledore, beyond the simple need to gain knowledge or prove himself. Harry Potter craved, if not power over others, power over his own fate much like he had in his youth.
Worse yet, Harry had inherited a certain type of intelligence from Lily - it wasn't quite the ability to memorize a huge amount of knowledge and apply it as most of the more decorated graduates of Hogwarts possessed - it was the ability to put together and test theories of dramatically fundamental (and overlooked) aspects of magic. Harry was under no bias when it came to interpreting magic, treating every spell as an equal. But he was also under no morality system taught to the children of wizards from a young age. When Dumbledore had given a rapid fire explanation of the unnaturalness of the Killing Curse's arithmancy, Harry had not been repulsed in the least.
When Dumbledore had cast it on a small transfigured chair as a demonstration, Harry had looked pensive more than hateful, his eyes ruby and midnight.
And then Harry had asked if he could attempt the spell. Dumbledore refused and Harry nodded, but Dumbledore knew that he had no intention to obey.
It didn't worry Dumbledore too much. He hadn't put much stock into the authority figures of his time when he had been young either. He just hoped that Harry wouldn't have to face the same trials he did before the boy built his morality from the remains of his fate. He tried to ignore the possibility that Harry would turn against decency.
Today, Dumbledore had prepared a special lesson - a basic introduction to alchemy. A large blackboard obscured Dumbledore's bookcases, covered with complicated symbols and equations, each of them explained to the best of his ability. He let Harry peruse them and copy them down slowly as he penned his opinion on centaur relations to the Ministry of Magic.
Finally, Harry had copied the notes and was now pondering the eight problems which Dumbledore had left on the board. He intentionally made the last three impossible to solve based on the knowledge he had provided.
Sure enough, Harry began frowning after ten minutes of work.
"Professor?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, Harry?"
"Is there a piece of information missing in problem seven? There's a no way to derive the free energy from the ley line without knowing either the speed and direction of the ambient atmospheric magic."
Dumbledore looked alarmed for a moment glanced at Harry's paper, before drawing his breath sharply.
"I'll explain it in a second. Can you tell me how you came to your conclusion on problem six?"
Harry nodded. "That one was hard, but I noticed the answer was an expansion on spell quality. I didn't know the number of runes in the Norse language, but I do know that no matter the quantity was, taking a single rune out of the alphabet would have one of two results - to decrease the ratio of the spell's quality by a unit. But since I'm unable to divide without dividing by zero, that means that the I know the quality value has to be one, and then it doesn't matter-"
"What the number of runes is. That is a rather creative way of solving the problem."
Dumbledore explained how to derive energy constants without utilizing ley lines, but his mind was on the Philosopher's Stone the entire time. There might have been no way to know how many runes were in the Flamel rune alphabet, but…
But he wouldn't waste his time on idle dreams. He was but a mortal man, doomed to die. He wasn't quite sure if he would be comfortable with the idea of owning a Philosopher's Stone anyway.
He finished explaining the seventh and eighth problem and dismissed Harry with another book - on basic Atlantean alchemical theory.
"Professor, before I go…"
Dumbledore nodded for him to continue.
"I'd like to make good on your offer for me to wander the streets of London."
Dumbledore smiled. "I'm sorry to say that I will not be providing you with transportation. But you have my blessing to procure any means you wish. Your father was a fantastic flyer and some magical beasts might not be adverse to the idea of ferrying you."
Another challenge, then.
He wandered through the corridors back to Slytherin House and waved a pass that he had gotten from Professor Dumbledore at the patrolling caretaker, who sneered at him.
"The Greatest of the Hogwarts Four," he said to a portrait.
The large stone wall opened to the damply lit common room, which was warm and cozy despite being under the lake.
Daphne and Neville were seated in front of the fire, sneaking softly. Malfoy sat alone at a small coffee table reading a book with illustrations of elements. When Harry passed the boy, he noticed the book had a nasty smell to it, as if someone had spilled something onto it.
Harry placed himself between the two and Daphne poked his stomach.
"How was your meeting with Dumbledore?"
Malfoy looked up at her sharply, then realized that she was talking to Harry and turned back to his book.
Harry shrugged. "He taught me a bit of alchemy."
Now the nearest eight or nine people looked up at him.
Daphne's eyes widened. "There's no way."
Harry nodded and showed the book to her.
"Harry?"
Harry looked up at Neville.
"That's really, really, really really, really illegal. Without a permit at least."
Harry stared. "He never mentioned that to me."
"Also, it's really difficult, at least according to mom," Daphne said. "She says that it's nearly impossible to kill an alchemist holed up in a place they've warded, because of how many options an alchemist has."
"She probably has quite a bit of experience in that," Neville said quietly. Daphne looked around, glaring at some fifth year who was still eavesdropping, then nodded mutely.
"She kills people?" Harry asked, mildly surprised.
"Only people who deserve it," Daphne said. "She's part of some organization for mages. They're supposed to be powerful, but Dumbledore's just as competent. They're part of the reason why people aren't supposed to learn alchemy. If they got wind of that, they'd try to kill you or something."
"Would you mom try to kill me?" Harry asked, alarmed.
"No. She's Dumbledore's student. She's never been really well liked at the Mage's Association anyway. But most likely they'll try to recruit you. It runs a sort of university type program for graduates of Hogwarts and people around the world who are really good at magic."
"Never heard of them," Neville said.
Harry shook his head, but in the process of doing so, he noticed that Draco's eyes were dead set on Daphne. Draco realized that Harry was looking and immediately turned back to his book.
"What's his deal?" Harry whispered.
Daphne frowned. "His father died. My mum saw. It was several weeks ago."
Harry thought it was better not to ask how.
1-800-MURDERS
There were around fifteen places in the world that you could go to get someone killed with complete reliability. The assassination business was represented heavily by Europe and the Middle East, but they were on all the continents.
Not that anyone who knew where to procure these services didn't have either the money or the power to travel across continents easily.
Today, Nicholas was in the capital city of Albania, Tirana.
Nicholas took a tentative step into the little Japanese Fusion, Umai. Everyone inside was distinctly not Japanese. He walked up to the counter. "Table for one, back rooms."
A leggy waitress led him to a campy bamboo booth and he was given a menu.
"A sashimi lunch special, please," he said, handing the menu right back.
He waited in silence for several minutes before a meal of vague freshness was plopped in front of him.
He ate quickly and left two pieces of tuna on his plate. He split the green faux-wasabi in half and left them on different sides of the plate.
The waitress ducked her head back in and collected his meal.
"Would you like anything else, sir?" she eyed the finished meal with sudden trepidation.
"Yes, another one please."
In several moments, the door opened and the owner of the restaurant slipped in and took a seat across from him. The man did a double take when he saw Nicholas, shooting to his feet and drawing a silenced pistol. His ring gleamed red on his finger, an emergency portkey about to activate, but Nicholas snapped his fingers and a blue light washed downwards, trapping the man. The gun's ammunition leaked out of its barrel as molten lead.
"What do you want, Mr. Flamel." The voice was hoarse and defeated.
Nicholas smiled. "I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here to place a hit. On Dumbledore."
The man looked even more crestfallen than before.
Half an hour later, Nicholas left the restaurant with a full stomach and a smile on his face. He walked into a back alley and winked out of existence. But if someone had been there to see him speak into his pendant, they would have very clearly caught the words, "It's done, Albus."