AND HERE'S CHAPTER 3!!!
First, I want to thank all my reviewers! You guys ROCK! Magical Magician: -beams- thank you thank you thank you! Trust me, I'm just as thrilled that I'm continuing this! XD E.: Thanks! thing is, Dumby thinks that he's so smart too... The manipulating stuff is really fun, too--and I completely agree about Manipulative!Evil!Dumbledore being unfortunate and annoying to read at times-he's easily one of my favorite characters. You also mentioned DD not buying the excuse of a duplicate wand, but remember, that was DD's suggestion, not Harry and co.'s... -evil grin- hypercell: that's the plan! huffle-bibin: thanks! wow, my last update must have been ages ago... how i hated that essay... Nosi: ooh, thanks! yeah, I've got lots of material to cover, and personally, I can't wait to write his thoughts on the prank Element's Sole Protector: yes, DD is very underpreciated-one of my fav characters, too. And I completely agree about school being stupid! bookcrzygirl: trust me, I'm most excited for that scene too! Lady Shadow of Time: thanks! yep, grandfatherly attitude and all, he's the best! Hisshou: wait till you see what jumps he makes in THIS chapter... Lolgirl: XD I'm glad! Canadian Wolf: I'm trying... "soon" is a bit of a stretch, though Corenth: thank you! actually, that part was a typo... I'll fix it soon Immortal Sailor Cosmos: thanks! and... I wish. I wish I was that motivated... lilyre: thanks! Ali-Chan et Vani-Chan: thanks!
It was a testament to the utter ferocity of the torrent of ideas whirling about in Dumbledore's mind that he failed to notice when his hands shook so badly that the newspapers rattled under his grip.
He was so far gone, however—so caught up in the intensity of his bafflement—that the absurdity did not occur to him.
There was an infinite instant, just the barest of eternal moments, during which Albus continued to stare, unseeing, at the newspapers, even as the burning curiosity seized him.
Then he rose, with a trance-like unbidden elegance, to his feet and let the papers drift lazily to the cold stone floor.
Without a word—without even a proper thought—he summoned his beloved Fawkes to him and willed him to understand.
Fawkes, it cannot be disputed, was an exceptionally clever bird, and with one glance at Albus's troubled features, he offered his tail. As Dumbledore grasped his regal golden plumage, they disappeared in a flash of fire.
There was some resistance from the wards—there always was—but in as much a frenzy as Albus was, they were naught more than a bug hitting a broomstick.
He felt solid ground beneath his boots just the barest of seconds before the dancing flames that surrounded him disappeared, and the snow beneath his feet made a soft crunching noise as his weight fell fully upon it.
Though the flames had gone, their brightness imparted a glare on his eyes, and it was a moment before he could see again.
He was on a mountain peak, his favorite place to think, and could see for hundreds of miles in every direction. Snow-covered slopes—some steep, some gradual—toppled downward into an icy valley, and another, smaller mountain rose on the opposite side. Evergreens dotted the slanted landscape below him, rocky cliffs stood out among the snow, and ice crystals glittered in the sun.
Immediately, an icy breeze swept up the incline, rattling his bones and clearing his mind.
A few deep breaths later and he could begin to make sense of his newest clues.
The newspapers did, in fact, tell the tale of a tragic attack on the primarily muggle village of Worcester—however, the mentioned attack took place a full two and a half years previously.
If the transfers' story was at all true, then why oh why would they have waited thirty months before finding something to do with themselves? Had they taken up residence elsewhere—with, perhaps, other people of unknown loyalties?
Albus was convinced that they were not Death Eaters at Hogwarts under Lord Voldemort's orders—that did not mean, however, that they were entirely outside the Dark Lord's forces or manipulation. For all he knew, Tom Riddle might be pulling the strings on these four unknowing victims.
Or, under the assumption that their story was entirely false, how had they known the name of a muggle town that had been attacked years passed? And why had they portrayed it as a recent attack? Would it not have made more sense to spend three minutes searching through the Daily Prophet, as muggle attacks now occurred almost daily, and present any one of those towns as their former residency?
Unless...
There were two fathomable reasons, if one disregarded the normal laws of physics, psychology, and magic, for such a phenomenon.
One, they had been hidden away for the past two or so years, and as such had no knowledge of what had transpired since. Simple in theory, complicated in effect—What was the motive? Where were the perpetrators? Why did the children keep it a secret? What loyalty did they have for their kidnappers? Why were they freed now?—this, although possible, held little legitimacy, and Dumbledore filed it away in the back of his mind.
And two, time travel. They would have had to somehow encounter or create a rip in the time field that hurtled them two and half years into the future. In all honesty, their story might have been entirely true—with the exception that they had only ventured to Hogwarts in search of advice, and Harry had taken the initiative and enrolled them for classes.
The theory was simple, precise, and entirely plausible—except that time travel was entirely impossible. After nearly a century of studying the mechanics of time travel, he knew quite certainly that no magic, however dark, could manipulate time. Turn it backwards, certainly, but then it always plays out as it did originally, with no deference from the normal plane of time. It was as if a string had doubled back on itself before continuing onward—the stretch of time played, went backwards, and then played again before continuing as if nothing had happened, because nothing had happened.
So how could you do that going forward? There was no anchor to pull on, no basis for summoning... There was no place for the string to go.
No, what they would have had to have done is sever their own personal strands of time completely while leaving the rest of the world as is, take out a chunk of it, and patch it again—and expect it to run as smoothly as it had, with no perceivable tears.
Else, they would have created a loop, one that they could skip over and onward, while everyone else was detained on the round-a-bout... But then why had the rest of the world not had a repeat moment where the lines had crossed?
Even as he considered both the "possible" conclusions that he had drawn, another idea—one that filled him with a terrifying despair and, at the same time, a horrid certainty as pieces of the puzzle fell into place—took hold of his mind like a poison, but the more he thought of it, the more he knew it was true.
It was wild, bizarre, insane... and yet, he was certain that there was some proverb he had heard once or twice about how, when you rule out all the impossibilities, then whatever is left, however outlandish, must be the truth.
Harry knew him well—better than anyone since Gellert Grindlewald—and although Albus couldn't claim to know Harry in return, there was a certain companionship, an equality of sorts, between them that Dumbledore's former friendships had seemed to lack—again, since Gellert.
There was understanding where no words were said, their was realization when nothing was implied. What seventeen-year-old could comprehend the emotions of the old? Words, almost certainly; memories, quite possibly. But emotions and bonds, triumphs and bitter defeats, transcended to a level above and beyond what Harry should have been able to understand when given no clues more than a tear-filled glance.
It wasn't impossible, certainly, that Harry was an Empath or Seer, and gained his comprehension that way, but those with these gifts would typically try to avoid human contact, as it overloads their systems with far too many emotions, and Harry just didn't fit that mold. Not to mention such gifts rarely set in until one has passed one hundred years of age.
But...
If Harry already wasn't who he said he was...
Then why did he have to be a teenager at all??
It had been decades since Albus had seen his old friend Grindlewald, but his memories were as sharp as ever, and unrealistically coincidental parallels could be drawn between Gellert Grindlewald and Harry Potter.
Both were adept leaders.
Both had knowledge of the dark arts that was neither widely known nor practiced.
Both could act and manipulate their emotions to come across in whatever way they pleased.
Like Gellert, Harry had far to many scars to be natural—could it be that, like Gellert, they were from various rituals, the majority of them dark and dangerous?
It was a preposterous, nonsensical idea, ludicrous to even consider.
And yet...
And yet Harry had not been surprised by his plea for a lemon drop—had, in fact, adopted both a reminiscent and a mischievous glint in his eyes.
And yet Harry practically had a battle unit ranged around him—the strategist, the genius, the novice—of which he was the leader.
And yet he seemed to be much older than he claimed.
And yet he had seemed indignant when Dumbledore had doubted his loyalty, just as Gellert had so many years ago when Dumbledore had doubted the morality of his intentions.
Albus replayed, in his mind's eye, the moment when he had first seen Harry and his friends—when he had descended from his office and found them guessing sweets outside the gargoyle.
Gellert would have known he'd chose a sweet for a password—when initially making their plans a century ago, he himself had suggested such a thing to be their codeword, as a delicious sort of irony.
Now, of course, the irony was of another thing altogether.
Then, when the four had first glimpsed him, and he them, a myriad of emotions had rushed across their faces. Harry, especially, Albus recalled. There had been recognition and shock, affection and excited expectation, icy disappointment and steely determination...
Not a typical reaction of strangers... but a perfectly plausible one if Harry had known Dumbledore years before.
How often, in his presence, had Harry acted in a way befitting old friends?
Far too often for coincidence, Dumbledore was certain.
The doubt was gone—the reality had set in.
Gellert Grindlewald was at Hogwarts, posing as a seventeen-year-old boy.
Albus Dumbledore summoned Fawkes to him once more—this time off to Nurmengard, to see who or what, precisely, had taken the place of his former friend and former foe.
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The wind whipped around him, and he clutched his favorite star-embelished hat to his head to keep it from flying off.
He nodded once to the guards, flashing the broach with the insignia of the Wizingamot their way, and watched impassively as the magnificent, iron-wrought gates creaked open.
The horrid images and memories inspired by the dank prison were the cause of far more shivers down his spine than the chill.
The corridor was dark and damp—some sort of fungus was growing on the walls.
Torches traced the corridor for as far as he could see into the darkness, but remained empty until he neared. Each flared to life when he was within twenty feet of it, and then flickered out when he had passed.
It made sense, of course—it was far easier for the guards to see where he was, and next to impossible for anyone to traverse the length of the corridor without being seen.
He passed a plethora of heavy cell doors, until he stopped at the last—the largest—the worst. It was this room whose stone walls had been stained red with the blood of its hundreds of victims, this room that had once held knives and whips and thumbscrews, this room that Gellert had both feared and adored.
Now, it was his eternal cage, within the very unbreachable prison that he had designed.
Oh, Grindlewald had loved irony!
There was the sound of hurried breathing beside Albus—he spun to face the unnamed entity.
But it was only the guard, who had, he assumed, followed him in to keep an eye out.
Dumbledore forced his heart to slow its hurried beat, and tapped the door with his wand—ignoring the guard's sudden tensing at the movement.
The heavy door faded into transparency, though just as solid as it had been before, and, despite his dread at what he might see, Albus peered inside.
His old friend—his old foe—curled into a ball on the clammy stone floor, his eyes unseeing and his expression slack.
Dumbledore's heart pounded viciously once more and he thought, distantly, that it had chosen a poor time to go into cardiac arrest. But it slowed, and he could summon just enough breath to ask of the guard, "He is alive, is he not?"
"Yes, sir," answered the guard promptly, "We ran diagnostics this morning. It's just the depression you're seeing now. He's been like this for, I don't know, five years or so."
Five years.
It fit, to a point. Grindlewald must have escaped from the prison and put a dummy in his place. He would have been weak, no doubt, and helpless... Three years, give or take, for him to recover his strength, find a wand, set up headquarters, come up with a plan, create a disguise... Two years, thereafter, to choose his new followers, few as they might be, persuade them to his cause, train them, put them in place... Where they old, trusted followers, re-inspired by his ideas and thrilled to find their old master once again? Or were they entirely new? Fresh minds, fresh hearts, fresh passion...
But what motive? To what end? Was he adopting his original plans once again—was his heart still set on dominating England and reestablishing an hierarchy of blood purity? Did he expect to find ample breeding ground for his ideals in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Or was he solely drawn to the irony of carrying out his plans in his—Albus's—domain?
"Five years is a long time," Dumbledore pointed out, glancing up at the guard. The man had dull brown eyes, scraggly hair, and a beard a few days in the making—idly, Albus imagined a family for him back home: a wife of a few years (the laid-back type who nevertheless pined for excitement), no children, cramped house, plenty of drinking buddies, dreams of hitting it big or winning the lottery. It was a game Dumbledore often played with himself, trying to create an environment to suit and mold the people around him—he found that, quite often, he was right, though his assumptions came more often from mannerisms than appearances.
"Not really," the man said, maddeningly blasé, "His last depression was almost fifteen years, I hear. He's spent more time in these bouts of mindless, droning depression than out."
Which just begged the question: Was this the first time Gellert had escaped from his confines?
Feeling rather nauseous, Albus nodded briefly and tapped the door with his wand once more. The solid oak door regained its original appearance and he turned sharply on his heel.
The guard cast a few precautionary wards on the door, which was no doubt standard procedure, but he didn't bother to wait. There was no point in more fully examining the Grindlewald replacement—Albus knew enough of his old friend that there would be no evidence.
Gellert had learned that lesson long before.