The night before had been filled with more conversation, this time more with Harry than anyone else. He's a good kid, and I really liked talking with him. There was a certain something about the boy that made me feel as though he'd seen a lot in his sixteen years.

Hermione hovered nearby. I've seen UFOs that didn't hover that well!

Ron had spent time NOT necking with Lavender, but it was a near thing.

I turned in after a few hours of chatting, and awoke refreshed in the morning.

Breakfast was uneventful, mostly because I avoided the head table like the plague. No point in tempting Snape again, unless necessary.

I bid the kids farewell, and strode off to meet Dumbledore for our next meeting.

** - HPDEB - **

The chairs appeared again and he proceeded to give me a rundown of his various positions in the wizarding world, a brief overview of his family, including his ill-fated sister, and a very generic-sounding explanation of why Harry was so important.

"I would like to know more about you, Frank. I hope you will forgive me an indelicate question. How is it that your arm is part machine?"

Of course that's his first question.

"Professor, this is not easy to explain. What I told Hermione was the simplest possible description. I knew there was a gap in understanding when Ron didn't know what a gun is."

"Do you think you could tell me more in a way I can grasp?" The old man adjusted his glasses. "I am not unlearned by any means."

"I will need you to accept some very foreign concepts as true if you want me to really get into why I'm me."

He gestured for me to begin.

"You study astronomy and astrology, right?"

"Of course."

I nodded and went on, "There are other worlds orbiting other stars, like Earth does. Some of those worlds have life, as Earth does. They even have people, unlike us, but suited for the world they live on."

"I follow you. Other worlds, peopled by beings unlike us." Dumbledore nodded. I expect he felt more at ease with that part.

"Some of those people are evil, others benign, and quite a few completely indifferent. One species of evil lifeforms decided to colonize my Earth, but needed to wipe us out first. They created Inferi to do it."

"Ah, I see!"

"Another people, single person really, from an entirely different planet, wanted to give us a chance to win our war and survive. That being is so different from you and me that there's no reasonable way to understand him."

"A God, then?"

"Very much like one, but he and his people weren't always that way. In the beginning, two billion years ago, they were just masters of machines."

"Indeed. I am still with you."

"Their machines kept getting smaller. Before long a factory could fit on the head of a pin. A thousand years later, the factory was too small to be seen. After that, those machines seemed to live, they were so complex."

"And that is what they gave to you?"

"Yes. Only this arm and my eye, or so I believed, were more advanced than the machines we made on our own to combat the Inferi. Now I'm not so sure. I am afraid to think about it for too long."

Dumbledore shook his head. I saw immense compassion, and I was glad of it. I'd never had to tell this part of what happened to anyone before.

"Young man, I am amazed by the gift you were given. I am also quite intimidated by what I have seen, and I do not feel that I will ever envy you."

I sighed. "That's because you're a learned man, Professor Dumbledore." I shrunk into the chair I sat in.

Dumbledore shook his head, half in amazement, and half in grave concern. "What you tell me is almost inconceivable. Would that I could be certain you spoke truth. I want to trust you. If the Room of Requirement set in motion the events that brought you here, for the purposes we believe it did, I need to know that Harry's life is in the right hands."

"I can understand your hesitance to trust a stranger. After all, I've only just arrived. If there was a way for you to see into my mind, I'd be willing."

"Why do you not sound surprised, or offended?"

"Professor, I have been accused of being a very cynical person, and not without reason." I gave the old man's arm a friendly pat. "I wouldn't trust an answer to a problem that dropped into my lap unasked."

"Frank, I can understand why I would feel this way at my age, but you are so young. Is the world of the future so poor of hope?"

"Sir, you have no idea. Really."

"Perhaps I could."

I sat up from my slouch. "Please explain."

"There are two possibilities, really. Legilimency would, essentially, allow me to read your mind. I would, of course, stick to surface thoughts, so you would need to think of what you want me to know. Using a Pensieve involves taking a copy of your memory and watching it. I could watch as many memories as you would let me see.

"In a Pensieve, the person viewing the memory is an observer. He cannot interact with any part of the memory, and can only access areas that the person who provided the memory took in. However, considering how resistant you are to magic, so I am uncertain if either method would work on you."

I nodded, pursed my lips, and thought about what I'd heard. From a biological perspective, it seemed rather unlikely. One of the earliest major wounds I'd suffered was a gunshot to the front of my head. The machines replaced what they couldn't rebuild, and improved on the original design. Among the improvements was perfected memory and total recall to the point of reliving any moment in my life in an immersive way...That was before my "overhaul" with alien nanotechnology.

"I would be willing to give it a try, but I don't know if you could understand my memories even if you were able to look at them."

"Are you so unlike us now? Even beyond your physical capabilities?"

I nodded. "Look at it like this. I move faster than normal people. My brain has to react faster, think faster, and process information faster to make that happen. That's just logical."

"Indeed." Dumbledore agreed.

"Then factor in my enhanced senses...I don't even use a ten percent of what I could...all that is wrapped up in my memories of any given event."

"Heavens. I wonder if you could make a simple memory, one from your past, that could be seen."

Light shown through the windows and made bright trapezoids on the ancient wood floor. I focused on those shapes and willed my mind to dumb-down some of what it stored. I have no idea if it worked.

"Let's give it a try. I'll be on my best behavior and try to be as normal as possible."

** - HPDEB - **

"Whether it succeeds or fails, I appreciate your efforts, Frank. I believe it makes the most sense to start with Legilimency. If it does not work, we can progress to securing a memory for my Pensieve." I nodded, only partially understanding him.

Dumbledore retrieved his wand from the pocket inside his robe and leaned forward.

"Legilimency works best with eye contact. I will speak the incantation, and you may or may not feel me as a presence in your mind. I ask that you actively think of the memory you want me to see. Keep in mind I will see surface thoughts, so please try to keep your mind from wandering."

"Got it. Let's give this a try, Professor."

Dumbledore pushed aside his apprehension and met Frank's gaze. "Legilimens."

** - HPDEB - **

I was in a bed, I knew it was a hospital bed, though I've never been in one like it. On the edge of the chemicals they pumped through my veins, a horrible pain was waiting. It would come and consume me, the agony of burned nerves, missing flesh, and soul-destroying anguish of failure. Friends dead. The woman I loved, wounded, and me unable to reach her.

The alien came to me, the size of Hagrid, white fur, four arms, and utterly alone in the universe. It spoke to my mind, and offered me life. I accepted his gift. It gave me the power to save the world, or to tear victory from the hands of the Progeny-the beings who sought to take over Earth.

The many-in-one being vanished.

Craving consumed me then, bent me in half with cramping, and I knew I needed to be elsewhere. I rose from the bed, barely able to walk in the first place, my sense of balance destroyed by losing an arm. Sight in only one eye, for the other had been burned.

Yet, I walked gray hallways, descended gray stairs, and entered a room of mechanical parts that had no meaning to me...except what my body desired. There was a fragment of shell that came from the objects the Progeny flew about, and it was what I needed.

My left hand touched the black material, and it began to flow into me. The missing arm began to grow, bone and flesh replaced by the dark material of the shell. Nerves were reborn, and I collapsed to the gray stone floor. The pain was unbearable until my new arm was complete.

She came then, dear Chunhua, my friend who was like me. Her bargain had been made months before my own, but for very different reasons. She held me, grieved with me for my losses, and told me that my face, burned to bones, and my lost eye, could be whole again, too.

I followed her instructions, and pain that exceeded the regeneration of my arm exploded in my head. The eye grew, sight returned, but it was utterly unlike how a man sees...New colors, heat, chemical compositions, and the motion of objects too small for normal men to see.

How I pounded the floor with my reborn limb! I crushed the concrete to dust, and my new hand changed shapes to match the pain in my soul.

A blade formed from my fingers, and slashed through a steel pipe, a physical representation of my flaming desire for revenge and mayhem.

I had traded away my humanity for the chance to win a war. I pushed those thoughts as far from me as I could. It was not the time for them, and would turn me from my only goal: revenge.

** - HPDEB - **

Dumbledore heard Frank calling his name from far away, and slowly realized that he was being shaken awake.

"Professor! Professor Dumbledore! Professor!"

Dumbledore rose up from the memory, disoriented, and deeply unsettled by the experience. As uncomfortable as he felt, he knew he had the information he needed.

"Not to worry, my boy. That was not what I was expecting. I will be quite fine. Having seen that, may I tell you a story?"

"Yes, Sir. Please do."

"This is the story of the boy who lived."

** - HPDEB - **

What followed was a litany of painful events Harry had lived through. That he was such a kind, honest, friendly individual was nothing short of a miracle. It spoke volumes to his character, and made me want to help and protect him.

I wanted to string Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin up by their ears. Cruel, vicious people. The boy didn't exactly have an easy time of things at Hogwarts either, based on what Dumbledore told me.

"He's supposed to save the world, this...little boy?" I asked. "This wounded child is your savior?"

"We believe so. He has the potential to be a wizard to rival Merlin. More powerful than I could hope to be." There was a little wistfulness in his voice.

"And who is going to help him do this? Bad guys will be streaming out of the woodwork the moment his nemesis makes his move!"

"All those who love him will stand beside him. Of course, we hope you will decide to as well."

Dumbledore pinned me with his eyes. He'd looked inside my head for more than wanting to know if he could trust me. Damn it.

"You know pain, Frank Stewart. You know loneliness, fear, and being misunderstood. You and Harry share so many feelings, but not life experiences."

"Yes."

"Will you save him more agony? Or will you leave him, another tragic lost hope to add to his memories?"

"Professor Dumbledore, emotional blackmail doesn't become you." I knew I was being led along a path to a single destination, and while I didn't like it, I did understand it.

"Excuse me. I've become quite accustomed to using a hammer when a finger will do." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Will you lend him your strength, and stand beside him in a way that I cannot?"

"Why me?" I asked.

Dumbledore explained his position, and I added my own analysis of the situation. We came to very similar conclusions.

"Will you, and I ask again only for my conscience, help the boy?"

"Yes." I replied, and I meant it. "I will do whatever is within my power to help him. I promise."

"Will you also look after Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley? They are central to his happiness and stability. They are my Golden Trio."

"Yes. He can't function if he's grieving over them."

This time, his smile set fire to his eyes. What a devious bastard!

"Would you be willing to declare your intention to protect Harry before the student body and professors?"

"How dramatic would you like me to be when I help you set the Harry Potter/Golden Trio Protection Plan in motion?"

There's nothing in the world like a devious person laughing when a plan comes together. Dumbledore had a great conspiratorial chuckle.

"Feel free to amuse your inner-thespian."

"Tomorrow morning at breakfast." I smiled. "It will be memorable."

"You are so eager!" Dumbledore laughed heartily. "I appreciate your willingness." He held out his hand and we shook on it, sealing the deal.

The moment he touched me, I knew precisely why he hid his right hand. I looked up at him, and his face fell.

"You know, don't you?" Dumbledore asked me in hushed tones.

"You're dying," I replied. "The sickness is eating you alive."

"Yes, the curse will kill me. Snape has assured me of it, and estimates that I have only months to live. Long enough, I hope, to see Harry Potter fulfill his destiny."

My estimate was more precise. "Six months, eight days, six hours, and twenty-two minutes."

His eyes widened.

"How can you know how long I will live? To the minute?"

I tried to smile, it was a thin one. "I can do much more than make my arm do tricks."

Distress was thickening the air around him, and I wished I hadn't opened my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Sir. My point of view is a little skewed."

"Yes. I imagine a person in your position has to see things differently. No matter, I will do what I can in the time I have."

I knew what I could offer him, and I was scared to suggest it, but I knew I was going to.

"There's no known cure? Nothing?"

"It is incurable, my boy." His voice held infinite sadness.

"Maybe not. Would you like me to try to heal you?"

"What did you say?" The poor man was so stunned that his glasses nearly slid off his nose.

"Most of the time, the machines colonize the body and don't leave," I narrowed my eyes and continued. "On one occasion, they were used to save a critically wounded person. She lived, and the machines were recalled from her body. I believe I can do the same for you."

Dumbledore just stared at me. "I am afraid of your solution. I would rather die as myself than take the chance that I might become—forgive me—as you are."

"It might not work. I've never really tried to heal anything that was caused by magic. Well, other than on myself. On the other hand it is a chance to keep living and doing good. The world needs men like you. Harry still needs you."

"Hope is terrifying," he said. "I believed I'd acclimated myself to the thought of dying. I was wrong."

I think he was about to weep. I knew that if he did, I would.

"Will you try?" asked Dumbledore.

"Yes. and pull the machines back whether or not it works. You have my word."

"Will it hurt?"

I shook my head, and amended the negative. "The nerves in your right hand are dead, or will be soon. That's already begun in your forearm. If this works, they will return to normal. That can be uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable" is often the nice word Doctors use instead of telling you the treatment will be agonizing. He didn't need to be more afraid, and I really didn't want him to change his mind. I was pretty fucking sure it would work.

"Frank, I will take you up on your offer. Please, help me if you are able."

I barely had to think before I flooded him with a part of myself. Instantly, I knew the nature of the curse, how it kills. It triggers a biological response—a slow-moving form of gangrene—almost as though the spell spoke directly to his cells and ordered them to die.

Dumbledore collapsed to the floor, grabbing at his right hand. It went on that way for a few minutes, and I hated to see him writhing that way...but his hand was changing from gray to healthy pink.

I pulled the machines out of him, isolated them, and destroyed them. No reason to take chances.

Dumbledore stared at his hand, and then at me when I squatted down in front of him.

"It worked," I said.

"Was that," he wheezed, "your idea of 'uncomfortable'?"

"Yes."

"That is horrible."

I helped him to his feet, right hand to right hand.

"By the way Professor," I said to him, "you might feel surprisingly energetic after this."

"Oh?" He brushed himself off. "How so?"

I shuffled my feet a bit.

"There can be positive side effects to being healed this way. I've seen this in other situations."

He righted his eyeglasses. "Dear. What are they?"

"You've probably been restored to the prime of health for your calendar age, if not better than that. I could have reversed the aging process completely, but we hadn't discussed it."

He looked somewhat taken aback by this new information.

"I certainly know how you could make your riches in the wizarding world, young man!" Dumbledore smiled. "A little extra spring in my step is not at all a bother! And thank you, of course, for not attending to anything other than the curse. Action without consent can put you right into Azkaban."

"Prison, here or elsewhere, is something I'd like to avoid. Can I make another suggestion?"

Dumbledore reached out and caressed my shoulder. Yes, it was an excellent time to tell him.

"By all means, Frank."

"You're going to want to find a lover soon, if you don't have one." I dropped the bomb as gently as I could.

The lovely gentleman blinked and said, "Oh MY!"

I removed myself as quickly as I could.