A/N: I hope this new update finds each and every one of you happy and well! For those who have not seen my most recent bio note, I would like to send my deepest thanks to the many, many of you who have sent me encouraging messages, your thoughts about the mechanism of continuation of the story, and so much love over the past several months. I honestly cannot express how much I appreciate the support and understanding of this community. After much time and thought, I have concluded that this story is so close to my heart, I couldn't bear to part with it for another to complete. So I will be updating as I can. I hope you are having a truly wonderful summer and year and cannot wait to hear your impressions of this look back at Universe B's past - and, possibly, its future - from a definitively different perspective.
Also, I have to confess that I have become an unabashed Netherlands fan since the Football (not Quidditch) World Cup has began. Go Holland! (And my sincere condolences to Mexico; you put up a great fight today.) Hasn't this been an epic World Cup so far?
Interlude: Pensieves and Prophecies
The Sovereign had stood here a hundred times.
To unskilled eyes, the brick room was small, crumbling and nearly pitch black, hidden as it was from the bustling streets of 1985 Edinburgh within the darkness of the abandoned Scotland Street Tunnel system.
But to his eyes — the most skilled of them all — the scene before him was something different entirely: torches flared upon the walls of an enlarged room, filled with the Scottish clan leaders who opposed his rule, all talking over themselves to be heard.
And at the center of it all, beside Lucius Malfoy's platinum head and Kingsley Shacklebolt's broad shoulders, was him: one of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore's very few miscalculations, and subsequent regrets.
The meeting between these constituencies had been in the planning stages for months, Albus knew, moved from location to location and date to date to keep this very confluence from occurring.
Unfortunately for them, the Sovereign had chosen his sleeper agent well.
The approaching Phoenix Magical Law Enforcement operatives were flawlessly cloaked in Eighth Level Invisibility Charms, but Albus watched his former protege's shoulders stiffen as soon as the nonexistent dust from their Portkeys settled. Upon the eleventh viewing, he had also been pleased to notice the expression that the ageless man had swiftly exchanged ever-so-briefly with Lucius Malfoy. Indeed, it was one Albus had seen plenty over the course of his rule - oftentimes a delicate balance of respect and awe, while at other times pleasure and trepidation, or alarm and fear.
But it always said:
He is here.
Then, Tom Riddle spun. "Protego maxima incendi!" From a slash of his wand tumbled silver light, erecting a shimmering shield — with a delightfully wicked twist — between the room's inhabitants and what would appear to them to be an empty, open doorway.
Albus could not help but let out a small sigh of disappointment.
Such magnificent potential. So tragically wasted.
He had watched the scene enough that he knew by heart what followed: Immediately, chaos broke out, with every chieftan diving for various unobtrusive objects on their persons — buttons, galleons, old, worn flasks. Meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy immediately but subtly cut to the back of the room.
As agreed, young Lily Evans dropped her Invisibility Charm first. "Each of your Portkeys has been rendered inactive; if you create any now, Riddle, you'll be leaving your colluders behind," she announced, voice hard and clear yet hardly audible over the room's volume. The noise augmented exponentially when each subversive discovered her words to be true. "The tunnels are surrounded by Anti-Disapparition charms! Resistance is futile—"
"You wish it were, lassie!" Regwin Maffett shot back. The words served as a catalyst; at once, every wizard in the room wrenched their wands toward her, but Tom Riddle leapt between them before a skirmish could erupt and held out his hands. "STOP! All of you, be still! Your spells will not penetrate the shield; do none of you recall your Hogwarts education?"
Tom turned calmly back toward Lily, while begrudged mumbling rumbled through the chastised crowd of men and women.
Suddenly, he snapped his wand to his left, stunning one of his own number - Kingsley Shacklebolt - unconscious.
Surprised shouts erupted sporadically from the room.
A small smile pulled at Lily's lips. She fearlessly prowled closer until she was inches from the shield, her wand dangled loosely between her fingers. "Very good, Headmaster. A hundred points to Slytherin," she breathed with the confidence of a much older witch. "Unfortunately, you're a bit late. We've had his allegiance since this little insurgence began."
Albus was pleased to note the betrayal he himself had felt years earlier flash through Tom's eyes, though only momentarily. Then, ever true to form, Tom accepted the unspoken challenge and likewise approached the shield, the ethereal, flowing silver fluidly blurring the air between them. Though the pressed pants and shirt beneath his understated robes were worn, his features were as striking as ever.
He appeared to have not aged a day since Albus had appointed him Minister of Mysteries over twenty years earlier.
"Lily Evans. Your rapid rise through the Phoenix has been a most interesting journey to follow. I would extend my sincerest condolences for the loss of your husband, but given how quickly you abandoned him during his trial, my sympathy extends only to your son." He cocked his head, his mesmeric dark eyes penetrating Lily's deeper than Albus suspected she would like anyone to see. "James's death was very convenient for you, wasn't it?"
Her lips stretched in a thin, humorless smile, her eyes cold. "You may think you know many things, Riddle, but you have no conception of what goes on behind the doors of my own home."
A dark smile flickered across Tom's own face. "On the contrary, I would argue that after seven years straight of watching you both mature, I can hazard a rather accurate guess."
Lily's green eyes flashed dangerously, but before she could respond, he continued, "I would say I'm disappointed I'm only important enough for the MLE to send their Undersecretary, but yours was not the power I felt arrive."
"Oh?" she raised her eyebrows innocently, turning to the thin air to her right. "Perhaps you sense my colleague." Immediately, the lanky form of Nostradamus Trelawney, Director of the Agency for Conservative Management and Inspection, materialized, deftly folding an Invisibility Cloak and draping it over his left arm. "You're acquainted, I believe."
Tom stiffened immediately. "Trelawney," he practically spat, palpable hate radiating from his carefully controlled features. "Managed to make any accurate predictions lately? What about your own death?" He twirled his wand between his fingers, then raised it ever-so-slightly in Trelawney's direction. "I have a feeling it's going to be soon."
"Still sore about that nasty business two decades ago?" Trelawney sneered condescendingly, obviously threatened by Tom's superiority to him in nearly every way, Albus thought, though by this nth iteration of the scene the amusement had faded somewhat. "The same fate's coming to you, you know. That isn't a premonition. That's a fact." His nasally voice raised. "Every one of you in this room is under arrest for conspiracy against the Sovereignty—!"
"Oh, save your ramblings for someone who cares, Twitlawney, you know as well as I do you aren't the authority figure here," Tom interrupted, before his eyes snapped to the exact location Albus knew his past self was standing. "Quit your dramatics and join us, Dumbledore; we all have other things we could be doing with our time."
Trelawney spluttered. "That's Your Grace to you, you Fusty-loving insurrectionist—"
"Kindly refrain from using vulgarities in the presence of our regal monarch and Scotland's most respected chieftans, Director Trelawney; it reflects poorly on the hallowed office you represent," Tom interrupted sardonically, with all the reproach of a natural headmaster.
Despite the utter lack of deference in Riddle's tone and request, Albus remembered smiling.
The invisibility charm around him dropped. Albus had to give himself credit where it was due: The Sovereign of fourteen years prior cut a wonderfully imposing figure, cloaked in brilliant robes of scarlet and gold, tinges of white and grey skillfully peppering his (admittedly dyed) red hair, the glow of his own power casting its own illumination on the room's inhabitants. Even the torches sensed his presence, their flames blazing higher.
The faces of every man and woman in the room turned ashen.
Many stumbled backward into the far wall; others visibly tried to Disapparate despite Lily's warning, with no success. Only Tom remained as collected as ever.
"Dumbledore," he said evenly.
"Mr. Riddle," his past self serenely replied. "I'm afraid it's been far too long since our last conversation."
Tom gave him a long, measured look before he began to slowly pace in front of them. "Given that our last conversation ended with you threatening to put me in chains if I so much as stepped inside the Phoenix again, I can honestly say I would have preferred it be a bit longer."
The Sovereign smiled indulgently. "You know as well as I do that I can easily find and incarcerate you whenever I so desire."
Tom looked over at him flatly. "Don't flatter yourself; enough others do that for you."
Albus saw his past self withhold another amused smile. He knew how much he had missed the attractive challenge Tom Riddle had always presented. "Then let me ask you, Mr. Riddle: What do you hope to gain from this? These protests and clandestine meetings and this scurrying behind closed doors?"
The man who had been many things and then nothing to him threw his head back in a humorless laugh. "For your sake, I truly hope that's a rhetorical question."
The Sovereign clasped his hands behind his back, wandering closer to the shield between them. "You must realize the wants of a few are far outweighed by the needs of a nation. You are severely outnumbered and overpowered. You know as well as I do that you cannot win; you will not win." The torch flames on either side of him rose with the force of his voice as he continued, "No. You, Mr. Riddle, will be nothing but a pinpoint on the pages of history, and you, and all those who stand with you—" his piercing blue eyes shifted to the wizards who were now cowering behind Tom "—will be utterly and totally crushed on the day of my choosing."
Tom finally stopped moving directly in front of the Sovereign. "You might have a lot of strengths, Dumbledore. But last I checked, Divination wasn't one of them." His gaze flicked pointedly in Trelawney's direction. "Nor is it to your… lackeys."
Nostradamus snarled.
As Tom skillfully continued to distract them with his verbal dance, Albus stepped around the scene. He watched as Lucius Malfoy ever so subtly relayed from wizard to witch the message of how to proceed given the Portkeys were down and anti-Disapparitition charms were up. He watched as 24 wizards steadied themselves and gripped their wands.
And, as Lucius Malfoy casually dropped the slightly lifted fingers of his left hand from three… to two… to one —
Every conservative wizard present threw their wands toward the back of the room. "EXPULSO!"
The brick wall of the tunnel exploded outward, taking 15 Phoenix agents waiting on the other side with it. Light from the street beyond burst into the room like a flood lamp. Shouts erupted and spells flashed as the conservatives stampeded for the gaping hole, battling additional members of the Order blocking toward their escape.
In a split second, the Sovereign's wand had whirled. "Dispergo!"
The shield Tom had erected shuddered and heaved and a thunderclap and blinding light exploded from it; the Sovereign swiftly repeated the spell and the shield shattered. In the same motion he threw his wand again, his voice resonating through the meeting room and into the street. "IMMOBILUS!"
Utter stillness and silence instantly encapsulated the room and those fighting beyond it.
Even Lily Evans and Nostradamus Trelawney were frozen beside him, wands drawn, Trelawney's face fixed in a most unbecoming feral yell.
The only motion flowed from the silvery shield Tom Riddle had conjured around himself, still flowing from the wand he had pointed directly at the Sovereign's face.
Tom lowered the shield stiffly and stepped back and to the side of a frozen chieftain as the Sovereign stepped forward and around him. "I hope you realize all you've lost by choosing this foolish path, Tom," he said conversationally. "Your capacity to deftly balance the Light Arts with the Dark is unparalleled by any other witch or wizard I have seen. You could have been truly great, second only to me. But instead you've chosen to limit yourself by these outdated notions of what rightful magical practice should be — rather than what it actually is."
Tom's expression darkened. "I know exactly what I've lost. And it was not 'greatness.' " He twisted the word as though it were a curse.
The Sovereign shook his head in disappointment. "Truly, I expected more from such a powerfully curious and inventive mind as yours. Succumbing to your emotions for another long passed, rather than accepting the gift I am offering freely? The path I have discovered will lead to the truth of what lies within you — what lies within all of us! The fight to understand and control the full capacity of our magical ability — that is the noblest of battles, Mr. Riddle. Not this childish game of dissent to exact some passing retribution."
Tom's jaw tightened. "Childish game? My objection to your order that even unwilling men, women and children must practice the Darkest of Arts is a childish game?" he echoed in disbelief. "That mandate isn't noble, Dumbledore, that's a crime against the humanity of those people! And perhaps one day, the rest of the world will be as courageous and strong as she was to stand with me and echo the same!"
The Sovereigns's typically imperturbable expression twisted into one of growing anger. "What ignorants call oppressive, the world over hails as progressive!"
"Then the world you speak of is as complicit as you are!"
The afternoon light streaming into the destroyed wall began to dim markedly as he suddenly advanced on Riddle. "I have no time for this quixotic nonsense! The only crime I see, Mr. Riddle, is you and your followers' denial of our greatest potential as wizards! Dark Magick is as much a part of us as Light; the sooner all those of limited intellect accept this and enter into a balance between both, the sooner our country shall collectively unlock and unveil the greatest power and creations the world has ever seen!"
The room had turned all but black save the torch flames, and the walls had begun to shake, dust and brick crumbling from the musty ceilings. Yet Tom stepped into the chaos fearlessly, his dark eyes blazing with a hatred he had masterfully concealed for decades. "You selfish, conscienceless son of a bitch. Does your depraved desire for power know no bounds?"
"I - have - no - bounds!" the Sovereign thundered, a fiery Phoenix springing — in the heat of the moment perhaps even unconsciously — from the center of his chest and setting upon his longtime mentee. The torches lining the walls flared to blazing infernos; actual tongues of fire hovered above the magnificent Phoenix insignia on the Sovereign's robes. "How long will the ghost of that witch's woefully misbegotten convictions continue to poison your mind?"
Tom countered the attack with a vacuum shield that sucked the flames into an airless void. "Long enough to finish what she began and convince everyone who listens that the only one poisoning minds in this country is you!"
Stillness again descended, and they both paused for breath, only the echo of Tom's yell audible in the silence. The supernatural darkness began to fade, and the space brightened as sunlight sliced through the opaque air.
The Sovereign placidly brushed some dust from the sleeves of his robes, the only evidence that the outburst between them had ever occurred. "Well then," he said, his voice once again pleasant, "As it seems your own conscience has been irreparably deformed, I'm afraid I shall have no choice but to irreparably extinguish you and your cause from the face of this nation."
Tom must have known what was coming next; in a flash, he dropped to his knee and with his left hand wandlessly conjured a shield a millisecond before the Sovereign hurled the tip of his wand and his full might into a stunning spell. As the shield heaved but held in a brilliant flash of red, Tom gathered himself, pointed his wand straight up at the ceiling, and, channeling his power in what was perhaps one of the most impressive spontaneous displays of magic from another wizard that Albus had witnessed, bellowed, "FINITE INCANTATUM!"
Pure energy visibly pulsed up from the center of his being and exploded out through the end of his wand in a wave of silver, and the air itself seemed to shatter with an earsplitting crack!
Suddenly, sound and movement burst out around them and spells began to ricochet off the walls.
He had broken the Sovereign's Immobulus Charm.
"They're out the back; move in!" Lily exclaimed into her handheld transciever, leaping forward.
On only seven occasions in his very long life had wizards prematurely terminated a spell Albus Dumbledore had cast. Three times, it had been Gellert Grindelwald.
Four, it had been Tom Riddle.
Power and fury pulled at the Sovereign's chest; he released it toward Tom in a surge of fire that Tom matched with a torrent of water, the two forces struggling to smother the life from the other. The sides of the room shook and began to crumble while, from his outside perspective, Albus waited.
And then it happened.
As he gave a wide berth to the Sovereign and Tom's dual, Nostodamus Trelawney froze and went rigid. His eyes flashed golden.
Over the confusion he suddenly shouted in a foreign, raspy baritone, "Beware, you who hear — The day of eclipse draws near!"
Lily swiftly ripped through a chieftain with a violent curse, then twisted her head back toward her colleague with raised eyebrows, while both the Sovereign and Tom pulled apart their locked spells and stared as Trelawney continued in an otherworldly voice that was not his own, "Before you breathe your last, you will see the Ancient Ones' Magick restored to the earth, succumb to the luminous red nova at the heart of the firebird's power, witness magic stand still before your very eyes and experience death itself turned backward! The strength of the Source will manifest at the joined—"
A rogue jet of blue light slammed squarely into his chest.
A surprised shout that could have belonged to any of them cut through the air as Trelawney was hurled through the half-destroyed wall and out of sight outside.
With an unearthly roar that began deep in his belly and resonated up through his chest in an almost deafening rumble, the Sovereign threw out his arms and from his open palms unleashed a wave of energy that violently flung away both Phoenix and conservative in its path. What remained of the wall exploded outward and disintegrated into dust; as it cleared, Trelawney's still-rigid body was revealed laying sprawled, his back to them, at the feet of Lucius Malfoy.
Malfoy was staring down at Trelawney, his mouth partially agape.
Then Trelawney went limp, a gaping hole visible in his chest even at their distance from him. He was clearly dead.
In a heartbeat, the Sovereign raised his hand and yanked it back toward him in a silent Accio, his howl slicing through the heart of every witch, wizard and Muggle within hearing range."Bring that man to me!"
In the same motion, Riddle pointed his wand at Malfoy and bellowed, "Obliviate!"
Both spells struck Lucius Malfoy simultaneously.
As the conflict continued, Albus thoughtfully clasped his hands behind his back. "Manifest at the joined," he mumbled contemplatively — the same mantra over which he had ruminated for more than a decade. At the joined…
Halves of magic?
Celestial bodies?
Witches and wizards pre-selected to channel such an honor?
Magical artifacts? Pieces of a wand, a puzzle… a riddle?
"Watching it once more will make it no clearer, Your Grace."
Albus looked from the raised figures in the magnificently carved golden pensieve basin to Lily Evans, who was leaning against the doorframe of the gilded entrance to his office suite. Sleek auburn hair cascaded over her left shoulder, understanding in her eyes. "Believe me," she said, "I know all too well."
"Indeed, Viceroy Evans, I imagine you do." With a wave of his hand, he vanished the memory and wandered from the pensieve stand tucked within a corner of the vast room and into the heart of his royal chambers, perched at the head of the sprawling Phoenix complex that doubled as his winter home. These walls, lavishly bedecked in deep reds, golds and whites, had been filled with great love and passions, nearly every available surface covered with inventions, honors, gifts and exquisite treasures from his travels and allies.
The fact of the matter was that it could be any or all of those things, and until he extracted that particularly irksome memory from Lucius Malfoy's stubbornly impeded mind, Albus could not in good faith embark upon any of the hundreds of plans forward he had formulated in the days since the prophecy's making.
No. The puzzle must first be completed.
Albus again glanced toward Lily, surveying her once, briefly. "From the pleased expression you're trying to hide and early hour at which I find you at my doors, I expect the Ministry of Magical Investigation and Incident Response has completed its final report on the Hangar incident."
She inclined her head, once. "Your insight knows no bounds, Your Grace." The expected due regard of her words was a significant contrast to the sharp, calculating professionalism that cut through her every action, and Albus valued her highly for her ability to balance both.
"And I take it its conclusions do not bode well for certain members of the Weasley family."
Her lips stretched in a decidedly pleased smile. "They do not."
Albus nodded thoughtfully. "I suspect few to no additions to our original postulation were made."
"None at all." Lily strolled inside and waved her hand at the hand-carved African blackwood desk given to him by the Muggle Queen; a thick, rolled scroll appeared. "Negligence. Plain as day. Both Weasleys admit to a careless exit. Hagrid admits to an affair during his scheduled hours of employment. My people are dealing with the former. The papers are having a holiday with the latter." She crossed her arms, then added frostily, "That entire family is a joke, and their antics are literally burning a hole in our reputation, not to mention Hogwarts grounds. If this isn't reason to demand Arthur's resignation, I don't know what is."
Albus caught sight of the pair of Legilimancy-blocking spectacles on his desk beside the MIIR's report— the latest from Muggle-Magical Technological Integration; Arthur had dropped them off yesterday — and wandered over to it, lifting and examining them keenly. "Doing as you suggest would isolate our Old-Blood allies and demonstrate a blanket intolerance for a specific subgroup of our populace based on blood alone that we have assured world governments we do not have," he said placidly. "Such an act is, among many things, politically unwise."
He straightened and turned back around, leveling an even, penetrating gaze upon her. "I know the source of your hatred, Viceroy Evans, just as you know why I am one of the few men you have not felt the need to destroy nor had to power to manipulate to your will. But all are welcome in this country who accept the balance of Light and Dark. As my first-in-command, you must remember this, and I find I am growing tired of repeating it."
She pursed her lips together, clearly displeased, and nodded shortly. "Of course, Your Grace; it will not happen again."
"I am very glad to hear it." Albus expected he would have to remind her at least a dozen more times before her hostility somewhat ceased. For any other witch or wizard, he would have shown no tolerance. Lily Evans, however, was the rare, thorny flower with poisonous fruit that was a battle to cultivate and maintain but was utterly magnificent, and fully worth the difficulty, when in full bloom.
"Have you anything more?" he asked amicably, his hand creeping toward the ruby and diamond-encrusted gold tin of lemon drops on his desk, even though he'd sworn them off temporarily. The Sovereignty's grand Halloween Masquerade was that evening, and he'd been quite irked when the sovereign tailor had needed to let out his costume slightly during its final fitting the day before — "to maximize his comfort," the man had assured him hastily. "Elphias informs me I am having breakfast with Mr. Wood and the England Quidditch team at 9:00, and I must say, I'm quite looking forward to the spectacle."
Lily looked prepared to leave, before she turned abruptly. "I find I am not fully satisfied with the explanation for the Hogwarts explosion."
Albus had wondered when she would breach this topic. He raised his eyebrows. "Go on."
"Every single animal managed to escape alive. It seems to me at least one of the more dim-witted specimens should have met a fiery end."
He had briefly considered the same thing the night he'd visited his old school, before he had dismissed it. Still, he welcomed the distraction from the insidious lemon drop nearly within his grasp, and turned away from his desk.
"Beasts can be the most resourceful of creatures in the face of disaster, sensing an impending catastrophe long before even the most observant human," he said. "I would not underestimate their ability to extricate themselves to safety."
"I don't disagree with that, sir." Lily glanced behind her, making sure the doors to his chambers were closed, before she stepped closer, her voice low. "The MIIR doesn't know the true purpose of that workplace; the symbolism of the destruction of a building on Hogwarts grounds that originated in the heart of our centaur undertaking on its final night would be lost on them. Add to that the 'malfunctioning' surveillance units?" She shook her head, her green eyes darkening with the growing acid in her voice. "It smells like Riddle."
He immediately shook his head unconcernedly; he had already considered this the very day the incident occurred. "Mr. Riddle and Ms. Black are out of the question; I would know immediately. We've had no incidents since the final suppression. If we did not succeed in rooting out every sympathizer to that cause as we believe we have, which I quite doubt but would be foolish to rule out entirely, I can see no rational explanation as to what they would gain from making their first stand at a Hogwarts facilities building, no matter the symbolism. Furthermore, the brilliance and magical talent required for such a prodigious deception quite frankly narrows the pool of suspects to a most limited handful of individuals, and as Arthur reported to me yesterday, all of them have substantiated alibis."
"Which only makes the true culprit all the more dangerous if they've evaded our suspicion thus far," Lily pointed out.
Albus sighed and clasped his hands behind him pensively, descending into the ruminations of his fathomless mind as he again found himself walking through the Hangar's blackened ruins, which Shacklebolt had encased in protective enchantments until Albus arrived. When he reached the epicentre of the crater the blast had produced, he swooped down, running his hands a millimetre over the ground until he sensed it:
The subtle tingling of magical residue.
In his left hand, he scooped up a bit of charred rubble, and in his right conjured one of his most valuable creations and held it over the remains. Casting non-verbally an exquisitely balanced enchantment he had invented himself that was known only to him, the machination sprung to life and began to hungrily suck at the magic encased within the powdery debris.
When the wisp of swirling grey light emerged from the handful of rubble, rising until it hovered slightly above the instrument's pull, Shacklebolt quickly stepped beside him with a testing kit, and together they compared the residue Albus had extracted from the earth with a recent sample from the Messrs. Weasley and Weasley.
It was a match.
Weasley products had fueled the primary explosion. If the last centaur had still been alive at the time of the Weasleys' departure, then it, of course, could have been behind the ultimate ignition of said explosive materials, but that was something they could never know.
Albus made his decision and turned toward Lily. "From the evidence I have personally reviewed, I can only conclude that in this case, as is with many accidents, the obvious is indeed what truly occurred. It is my wish that the majority of our energy is thrown into ensuring that next year's World Cup is a resounding success, not chasing a shadow that very likely does not exist."
This time, Lily looked not only displeased but truly unsettled, and Albus paused. "Still, I have learned a great deal about your instincts these many years. You have my permission to channel a very limited amount of resources toward following them until you are satisfied we have no enemies hidden within Hogwarts' walls."
Her attitude changed immediately, and she nodded once, a decidedly pleased pull at the corners of her lips. "Very good, Your Grace; it will be done. I have eyes at Hogwarts. No additional resources will be needed."
"That is most excellent." Albus meandered toward the great expanse of windows set between sweeping floor-to-ceiling, deep red curtains, peering out over the London skyline. Fawkes swooped down, settling on his shoulder, and Albus's thoughts were again drawn to his preoccupation early that morning.
"Less than two months, Lily," he said. "Less than two months and we shall discover exactly how to harness the celestial power of the heavens themselves." The supreme curiosity that powered his mind quivered with barely-restrained eagerness and impatience. "Something is coming, something not even I have seen before. I do not typically put great stock in prophecies, but you and I have witnessed the eclipse of the one faction that would stand against our advancement and watched them succumb absolutely beneath our collective might. If we are proactive, as we have been, what will follow is, I must say, fairly incontrovertible. What grand discoveries await us upon channeling the raw energy of the Source? Singular control over all of magic? Victory over death?"
Lily drew up alongside him, staring calculatingly into the grey morning. "And if the prophecy leads elsewhere? If we find it is somehow inaccessible to us?"
Albus felt his attention drawn back to the pair of spectacles, and he turned away from the windows. "Why do you think I've experimented with House-Wizards as I have? Even if it is initially inaccessible, we shall know exactly who or what we need to capture and unite to manifest the Ancient Ones' power." He looked at her, smiling serenely. "And then we shall siphon from them every drop of magic they possess."