Albus Dumbledore and the Everlasting Flame

by Grandson of Dumbledore

Albus Dumbledore returns to Hogwarts for his second year. A major competition is going on at Hogwarts this year and Albus finds himself embroiled in another mystery. But will his growing magical abilities be enough to see him through?

10. The Portrait Gatekeeper

Albus Dumbledore and the Everlasting Flame

Disclaimer: this work is a fan fiction based on the worlds created by JK Rowling

Author's Note: I am disappointed! I put a lot of effort into Chapter 9 and then I got a mere 3 reviews! Ironically some of the chapters that I don't work as hard at get over a dozen reviews. I would like to ask anonymous readers to please review once in a while. Your reviews can be anonymous, and all I ask is that you give me tips on how to improve the story for you. I can never please everyone, but I do my best.

"In the dark of the night we are one with our fear"

Chapter 10 – The Portrait Gatekeeper

Albus revealed the secret of the Orb of Duality to his friends and their anger with him was quickly dissipated by the excitement of being able to ask it questions. Alabastor took great delight in asking the Orb 'how ugly is William?' To which it would either reply, 'that he is not' or 'his face would mortify even the hardiest of souls' or both. The girls asked questions like 'am I pretty?' and none were happy when the Orb of Duality responded with statements like 'no' or 'in a manner of speaking'. Mars was a little more daring and asked the Orb what Professor Rookwood would ask in their upcoming Potions test. The Orb responded with, 'a variety of questions taken from the textbook'. There was no doubting that this was the truth, albeit a very unhelpful one.

The Orb of Duality created more problems than it solved, however, and one quarrel in particular led to Albus deciding to ban his friends from using it and locking it away. The dispute had arisen after Alabastor asked the Orb, 'am I the best wizard in second year?' The Orb had replied, 'indisputable', and this had set off a storm of controversy. First William had hotly contested Alabastor's conclusion that this was the truth. Thereafter Victoria had tried to argue that 'indisputable' was not a satisfactory answer to the question he had asked and therefore he could not claim to be the best. A shouting match between the second years had resulted, and before Albus could calm the riot himself, Thomas Jones had come storming over to the second year corner of the common room.

'Will you rabble please keep your voices down?' Thomas implored. 'It is bad enough having to listen to Aberforth's perpetual burping spell without you lot screaming the walls down. What is it you are fighting about anyway?'

'Alabastor thinks that the Orb truthfully said he was the best second year wizard,' William said in a snobby voice.

'Mind keeping my Orb secret, William?' Albus growled.

'I am the best second year wizard,' Alabastor snapped.

'Silencio,' Thomas said, shutting the second years up with his wand. He pointed at the glass ball on Alabastor's lap. 'Is this the Orb you are talking about, Dumbledore?'

Albus nodded. Thomas, as was a Prefect's right to do in any situation, leaned over and picked up the Orb without asking. Had he the mind to, Albus realized, Thomas could simply confiscate it and then it would be lost to him! Albus cursed himself for letting his friends play with the Orb in the common room, for the whole world to see. He resolved to lock away the Orb and his other possessions as soon as he got it back from Thomas.

'What exactly does this do?' Thomas asked. Albus noticed that Thomas' face was heavily lined, and two red bags hung underneath his normally crystal blue eyes. His blonde hair was disheveled and he had started growing a beard, apparently too preoccupied to perform a simple shaving spell. It was hardly a surprise what was keeping Thomas sleepless; the first Triwizard Tournament Task was rapidly approaching.

'It gives you two answers to every question,' Albus said plainly. Thomas' silencing spell had worn off pretty quickly; Albus surmised that his wand-work was a little off-kilter because of the stress he was under. He was quickly beginning to feel sorry for Thomas and glad that he wasn't the Champion after all.

'And would I be correct in assuming that one answer is correct and the other is incorrect?' Thomas said.

'Yes,' said Albus. 'One is the absolute truth, and the other is an absolute lie. I imagine that one has to be particularly insightful to figure out which is the truth, and which is the lie.'

'I need this,' Thomas said quickly. He was clutching the Orb with white fingers, the bones showing through his skin. His eyes had gone wide, so much so that Albus could see the red blood vessels at the edge of the whites. He looked like a man who had discovered the essence of life at the precise moment he was about to die. Thomas' voice dropped into a very low tone and he said, 'all the other Champions have Headmasters who would cheat for the sake of winning a galleon, let alone seeing their Champions win the Triwizard Tournament. Professor Prewett would no sooner help me than award Gryffindor a thousand points because she can. Dumbledore, I need to use this Orb, please.'

Albus pulled at his lower lip thoughtfully. Both his father and Professor Solstice had warned him only to use the Orb when he really needed to. He had indulged his friends for a time, and meant to put the Orb away for precisely that purpose; using it only when he really needed to. But he sensed Thomas' need, and it somehow seemed like the right thing to do to help a Gryffindor win the Triwizard Tournament.

'Yes, you may,' Albus said, 'but I have to warn you that it is unlikely to help you much. It is very difficult to figure out truth from untruth.'

'That is why you will help me,' Thomas said simply.

'What about me?' Alabastor demanded. 'Can I help you as well?'

Thomas turned to look at Alabastor with weary, dispassionate eyes.

'I do not care what the Orb of Duality said to you, Meadowes,' Thomas said crisply, 'but you are not the best second year wizard. Dumbledore is. I do not need the Pirates help; I need the Orb's help, and Albus to help me decipher it.'

Alabastor's skin went a shade of grey. He made for the boys' dormitory at once, grumbling audibly under his breath the whole way.

'Come with me, Dumbledore,' Thomas said, 'and a good night to the rest of you.'

'Goodbye until later then, Albus,' Mars said pleasantly. Albus waved goodbye at the others, receiving something slightly resembling a smile from Victoria. She was being cool with him because he had not shared the Orb with her first, but he had more pressing things to worry about all of a sudden. This Tournament was a serious business, and Thomas clearly looked like he needed help.

Thomas crossed the Gryffindor common room and headed for the portrait hole. Albus felt the tingling sensation that accompanies one when all eyes are on you. Thomas had gone from being the respected Quidditch captain and Prefect to being hero-worshipped as the School Champion. It was a status that invoked adulation from all ages, at all times, and Albus felt further sympathy for Thomas as he walked to the portrait hole with him. It was hard enough having to face up to the challenges provided by the Tournament without having to deal with the weight of everyone else's expectations.

'Where are we going?' Albus asked, once the portrait hole had let them pass through to the word 'Champion', and they were alone in the grey stone corridor.

'I have a place I go to be alone with my thoughts,' Thomas said. 'One of the privileges of being a Prefect is that I can go wherever in the castle I please. Last year I found this enclave up in a turret in one of the highest towers. I go there whenever I want to be entirely undisturbed.'

They walked along in silence for a while. Albus felt terribly uncomfortable now that he was alone with Thomas. This was a Triwizard Champion! He had been asked to help a Champion with a Task! Or more correctly, the Champion needed use of one of his possessions. Albus felt like a useless appendage, dragged along simply because he was lucky enough to be the owner of an Orb of Duality.

'When is the first Task?' Albus asked; when the silence became too oppressive, like the surrounding darkness in the corridors. A few candles burned low in their brackets, but the castle was otherwise swathed in darkness.

'Halloween night,' Thomas said with a husky voice. 'It is less than a week away! I can only imagine what they are going to make us do.'

'What, precisely, is your need of the Orb of Duality?' Albus asked. 'I must confess that I am surprised you are asking me for help. Would it not be better if you sought help from your friends in sixth and seventh year?'

'Don't you think I've already exhausted all my options?' Thomas said. 'With all due respect, Dumbledore, consulting a second year is the last thing I would do whilst preparing for a Triwizard Tournament Task. It just so happens that you are the owner of an Orb of Duality, and I need to ask it some questions.'

'What sorts of questions?' Albus asked.

Thomas turned to Albus with a face that looked terrifying in the half-light. Thomas' glowing wand threw shadows over his face, making him look gaunt and bloodless like a vampire. Albus had to fight the desire to run away.

'Questions like, what is the first Task?' Thomas hissed. 'I do not even know what I am going to be doing … and I'd wager my parents' lives that both Grundelwald and Volkova know already.'

They arrived at the top of a tower, having scaled a spiraling staircase for what seemed like hours to Albus. He arrived, breathless, and sank into the wall of the little enclave without pausing to look at the view across Hogwarts. Thomas, on the other hand, leaned against the turret windows with two outstretched arms, and gazed across the moonlit Hogwarts grounds with the look of a warrior approaching battle. Albus had the Orb of Duality in his hands.

'Orb, what is the First Task of this year's Triwizard Tournament?' he asked. Thomas immediately detached his hands from the wall and crouched down beside Albus, eyes wide with apprehension. The Orb went smoky, and then a series of words appeared through the haze.

'To navigate through the Forbidden Forest to the very heart in search of something'

'To rape, murder and pillage a Saskatchewan tribal village'

'Well that is obvious,' Thomas said, his face looking a hundred times lighter. The wrinkles had vanished and he looked happy for the first time that evening. 'No Triwizard Task has ever involved rape, murder or pillage, so I assume that is the lie. The truth must be that I have to navigate through the Forbidden Forest.'

'I wonder who the Saskatchewan people are,' Albus said. But Thomas had grown animated by the prospect that he could enter the First Task confident of victory. The answers seemed right in front of his nose, and Albus himself felt a thrill of excitement run across his skin.

'What will I be searching for?' Thomas asked. When an answer failed to materialize in the Orb, Albus realized that the question had to be asked by the holder.

'What will Thomas be searching for?' Albus asked. Again the Orb went smoky, and again golden lettering appeared after a moment or two.

'The meaning of his existence'

Thomas and Albus waited for something else to materialize, but nothing came. Thomas stared hard at the Orb, as if willing it to produce more words.

'That must be an untruth,' Albus said. 'Surely something like that is beyond a Triwizard Champion.'

'Not necessarily,' Thomas said, 'but it would be a thoroughly un-magical task, seeing as muggle thinkers are always searching for that too. No, Triwizard Tasks are sure to be magical.'

'Well then, I suppose you will have to find out what you are searching for later,' Albus said. 'Why don't you attempt to ask it something else?' Albus handed the Orb to Thomas so that he could ask the questions himself, and peered around the side of Thomas' shoulder in order to watch the Orb's response or responses.

'What will I face in the Forbidden Forest?' Thomas asked.

To which the Orb replied, 'many a veiled mystery of arcane deception' and then, 'many a veiled threat of arcane origin'.

'I am doomed to die,' Thomas said, his shoulders sagging. 'There is no deciphering those two riddles.'

'They are not riddles,' Albus said, his brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the words. 'At least we know that "arcane" means "mysterious".'

'That is a tremendous help,' Thomas said dryly. '"Many a veiled mystery of mysterious deception;" that is ridiculous! How can a veiled mystery be mysteriously deceptive?'

'Perhaps because the mystery is not a mystery at all,' Albus suggested hopefully, 'rather, it is deceptively simple.'

'Well in that case, it sounds like an untruth,' Thomas said; his old confidence back. Albus wondered whether this was just a ruse, whether Thomas was trying to make himself feel stronger by acting confidently.

'So that would mean the truth is that you have to face veiled threats of mysterious origin,' Albus said.

'That makes sense,' Thomas said, 'inside the Forbidden Forest there live some bizarre and dangerous creatures. I doubt many wizards would know where they come from.'

Albus suddenly had a terrifying thought.

'What if "mysterious origin" doesn't mean that?' Albus said.

'What do you mean?' asked Thomas.

'What if,' Albus said slowly; doing his best to articulate his words, 'instead of it meaning that it is a mystery where these threats come from, it means that it will be a mystery to you when they show up?'

'You mean to say, these veiled threats may originate … out of thin air perhaps?'

'I am only supposing,' Albus said.

Thomas looked at Albus with respect bordering on affection. He ruffled Albus' hair in a manner that was similar to the way Aberforth did it.

'You are probably correct,' Thomas said. 'You are quite brilliant.'

'No I'm not,' Albus said modestly. He played with the hem of his robe, feeling terribly embarrassed again, while Thomas went about asking further questions of the Orb.

'Orb, name the first veiled threat or mystery I will have to encounter,' said Thomas.

The Orb only responded with one answer.

'A beast of lunacy'

'Werewolf,' Thomas said at once. 'I heard something howling three weeks ago at the full moon, and given that Halloween falls on another full moon, I guessed that I might have to face a werewolf.'

'So you have been practicing spells and things to deal with one?' Albus said hopefully.

'Yes,' Thomas said. 'I have been practicing a great deal, but it is difficult trying to cover every magical jinx, counter-jinx, beast, counter-spell or potion and their antidotes when there are only so many hours in the day. If I can use this Orb to figure out roughly what I need to be working on, I might be able to get some sleep before the thirty-first.'

Albus smiled. He had chosen well in letting Thomas use the Orb. Thomas would surely die if he went into the First Task without having had any sleep.

Thomas spent hours extracting answers, potential truths and potential untruths from the Orb. Albus' eyebrows grew heavier and heavier. By the time he fell asleep against Thomas' shoulder, they had managed to figure out, approximately, that Thomas would have to face a werewolf, a hundred Dementors, a black unicorn, a horde of angry centaurs, a giant and a flesh-eating ghost. They had also worked out the exact route that he would have to take to reach the thing he was searching for, and Thomas had drawn himself a map. The only things that Albus and Thomas were not certain on were the black unicorn and the flesh-eating ghost, but these had sounded possible enough for Thomas to be sufficiently concerned about them.

Albus never knew it, but Thomas worked on until an hour before dawn, trying to extract every possible answer from the Orb about the first Task, even re-asking questions in different ways to try and clarify truth from un-truth. When he had finally satisfied his hunger for knowledge, he had gently lifted Albus over his shoulder and carried him back to Gryffindor Tower. Albus would wake up an hour later to find the Orb of Duality resting on the pillow next to his head.

Later that day Albus found out a way to kill two birds with one stone; to hide his most important belongings and to patch things up with Victoria by letting her help him do so. Aberforth's useful text Guide to Magical Secret Keeping gave Albus the perfect idea for hiding his belongings. He asked Victoria to come with him when he went to perform the necessary charms after school had finished, and in so doing broke the ice that had formed between them since Albus had attained the Orb.

'So what are we doing?' Victoria asked as Albus led her up a flight of staircases to a higher, less frequented floor of Hogwarts castle. 'You say you're hiding the Orb and some other things, but how exactly do you propose to do that?'

'I got an idea from the book Aberforth gave me,' Albus said. 'There is a charm known as the Portrait Gatekeeper Charm, whereby I make a portrait the Gatekeeper of my secret. Once I have done that, only I can enter the portrait …'

'Enter the portrait!' Victoria exclaimed. 'You mean, actually climb up into a picture?'

'Yes,' Albus said, clicking his tongue at Victoria's interruption. 'I, and only I, can enter the portrait where one of the inhabitants of the portrait can tell me where I have hidden them. I am going to hide my possessions inside my robe pockets.'

'Well that was just stupid,' Victoria said. 'You just told me where you are going to hide them, so what is the point of doing this Portrait Gatekeeper Charm.'

'It is not stupid,' Albus said, 'because once I perform the charm, you will forget where they are. I will forget where they are. I could walk up to Jannes Grundelwald and say, "I have the Orb of Duality and it could help you win the Triwizard Tournament", and he could torture me all he wanted, perform legilimency on me, give me a truth serum … and still I could not tell him where it is.'

'That sounds like very powerful magic,' Victoria said. 'I am a bit skeptical, I must confess. Are you sure you can perform this spell?'

'I am certain of it,' Albus said. 'Just yesterday I performed a charm from the fifth year textbook for Professor Rolleston and he said I did it to perfection. Besides, this is a simple charm, as are all secret-keeper charms, but they are wonderfully effective.'

'I think you are too trusting,' Victoria said. 'I could never trust a spell to keep a secret.'

'Well then,' Albus said, 'that is where you and I are different.'

Albus arrived at a portrait on the fifth floor containing an aging old man with a flowing white beard and a large nose. He was twirling a wand around in his fingers whilst snoozing into his beard. It was a portrait of Albion Dumbledore, Albus' many-greats grandfather, who had come to a worn-out old portrait frame in the boys' bedroom last year to warn Albus that sinister plans were afoot. Of all the portraits in Hogwarts, Albus felt he could trust Albion Dumbledore's.

'Ahem, excuse me, great-great-great grandfather,' Albus said politely. The portrait opened its twinkling blue eyes and gazed on Albus with mild interest as he spoke. 'I am going to make you my Gatekeeper for the secret location of some of my belongings, if you do not mind.'

'Whatever you please,' the portrait replied.

Albus opened up Guide to Magical Secret Keeping and practiced the incantation a few times in the air, mouthing the spell but not saying the words. When he felt ready, he turned his brown wand, with streaks of red in its twelve and a half inches, on Albion Dumbledore's portrait.

'Cerberus pictum,' Albus said, conducting his wand correctly. It was a tricky spell but nothing Albus had not done before.

A glow settled over Albion Dumbledore's portrait. It moved out towards Albus, fine little golden particles which surrounded him and the portrait and excluded the rest of the world, including Victoria.

'Upon this scroll write the secret you wish to hide,' Albion Dumbledore said in a solemn voice, 'then you shall be permitted entry to my portrait to place the scroll away from prying eyes.'

Albus looked at his feet and was surprised to see a scroll and a quill that had not been there before. He made sure that the items he was planning to hide were safely in the pockets of his robes, and then he picked up the scroll and the quill. He wrote, 'the Eye of Horus, the Orb of Duality and the sapphire ankh are inside Albus Dumbledore's robe pockets'.

Albus felt an irresistible tug. He was pulled head first into the portrait, landed with his feet firmly on the ground and came face to face with a very realistic painted Albion Dumbledore.

'Give me the secret, and return only when you need it,' Albion Dumbledore said. Albus handed the scroll over and …

Albus blinked three times. He was standing in the corridor next to Victoria, his robe feeling a lot lighter than it had a moment ago. His head also felt emptier, as though something had just been erased. Victoria was looking at him, confused.

'Where have you put the Orb?' she asked. 'I knew it, just an instant before, but now I have forgotten.'

'So have I,' Albus said, a little bemused. I know I put it somewhere safe, along with a few other things of mine, but I cannot remember where!'

'Go on, ask the portrait where you put them, this is bothering me.'

'Alas, Victoria,' Albus said, 'that is precisely why I will not ask the portrait. The spell has worked. My secret is hidden; even from me. Only when I need to know where they are will I come back here.'

Albus took a quibbling Victoria by the hand and led her away down the pale sun-streaked corridors of Hogwarts. The sun was fast setting, and winter was approaching. In less than a week, Thomas Jones would be attempting the first Task of the Triwizard Tournament, and Albus knew that he had done everything to ensure that Thomas could make it safely to the second Task.