Hi all, so I am back to this wonderful fandom with a new story! I am taking a delve into a fandom, an era and a couple that has always fascinated me and it's the James/Lily era.
This is the second part of the story that started in the Beginning of the End and these are the moments in the first Wizarding War and the build up to Harry.
This story will be twenty chapters long and some events/events that do take place might be missed.
Also spelling/grammar...not my best thing. Again keep that in mind when you read...please.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine.
Please Read and Review.
And on a side note, I like so many other Fanfiction Authors no longer receive notifications via email about reviews/PMs etc. So if you do send any it might be a while, if ever before I get back to you. Please keep that in mind for it is not intentional-If anyone has a fix please let me know
I do not receive PMs anymore, if you have a question stick it in a review and I will answer it in the chapter notes.
And ONLY FIVE MORE CHAPTERS LEFT!
The End Of The Beginning
Chapter 15-Push Comes To Shove
In which two boys are born to two wizarding parents who have thrice defied Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore decides to give an interview in his brother's bar to a new candidate for the post of Divination.
Neville Longbottom was born the day Albus Dumbledore decided that despite his better instincts he was going to have to meet Sibyl Trelawney. He kept putting off the interview to be fair and despite Minerva's mutterings there were genuine reasons why he kept doing so and it was not because of the fact that he would rather do parents evenings than have that bloody subject taught again.
Albus Dumbledore was not a fan of Divination. Couldn't you tell?
He delayed long enough for Minerva to tell him that Lily Potter had given birth to a baby boy and they had decided to call him Harry and then that had been enough. Albus might be spearheading the war but he was also a teacher and he considered running Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry his main goal. And so that meant that at times he had to focus on his school and that meant employing people to teach the future generation magic.
So said Minerva who had come to his office that morning with a stack of papers and had thrust—well not thrust—but had passed them to him very politely with an expression that he knew from experience meant that she was not going to go away until he had signed it all.
"And this" she said pointedly holding out two cards. "One is for Alice Longbottom and one for Lily Potter. The entire staff are sending them it's good manners"
He signed the cards with a little flourish of his quill that Minerva did not find amusing if the look on her face was anything to go by.
"I do not understand why you are doing this" she said ruthlessly. "I do not understand why you continue to engage in this conversation with a subject that you do not like, never have liked and you I both know will only cause hundreds of problems later down the line. There will be predictions over teenage relationships, predictions over the Quidditch matches and Merlin only knows what else. To say nothing of every teacher that we have hired in the past causes mass hysteria within the staff. Remember the last time."
Albus shuddered. He did.
"Bellows of Gillyweed smoke in the corridors, students lightheaded, half of the seventh years taking the stuff to get through their exams, you know it doesn't look good for your critics when they find out that you hired a self confessed drug dealer who smoked the stuff because the spirits told him too"
Albus winced. That was perhaps not his proudest moment in teaching. To be honest it was one of the reasons why he was so fifty fifty on allowing the thing to be taught again but he thought that he was here now and common politeness dictated he at least speak to Cassandra Trelawney's great, great something.
Also last he had heard she had taken up residence in the Hog's Head and was refusing to move until she had been seen by the Headmaster and Aberforth would come up to Hogwarts himself to pelter his windows with goat dung by hand if he thought that Albus had no matter how unintentionally given him a squatter.
He smiled and turned back to his paperwork.
"An interview is not a job my dear Professor McGonagall…now…do we really need three dozen rats for your second years to learn how to change into water goblets?"
"Have you ever seen the second years try and use magic? I'm still not wholly confident they should be learning the spell but I try. Cast your mind back to when you used to teach and how many of them used to pocket the rats"
Albus remembered.
"Indeed" he said ticking the invoice. "I shall go and see the woman and be back before dinner. Do you know what the elves are cooking today?"
"I believe it was soup"
"Soup?"
"Mushroom"
"Delicious"
It was only with sheer force of will that he knew his deputy did not roll her eyes to the heavens.
As he read over her budget reports he thought to himself that both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter were delightful additions to his school when the time came and knowing the woman next to him she had already earmarked them for her house and nobody else's.
Which reminded him. He did need to look at the candidates for Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"I want her gone by nine tomorrow" was his brother's usual way of greeting. He was wiping down a bar glass and Albus noticed with wry amusement that his own was full before he had even taken a seat at the table.
"I can have a drink first" he said quietly. "I don't like the subject as you well know. Personally it's only politeness that makes me do this"
Aberforth snorted over his drink.
"Get her out of my pub" he said finally. "I don't like the incense that burns down and that's just the stuff that I do know about."
Albus stirred his drink for a second and then he nodded.
He should have listened to his better instincts but he didn't. It happened from time to time when you got old and you trusted. He knew his brother would rather hold his hand and skip around the Hogwarts lake before he joined Voldemort, Voldemort who had built his ideology on Gel—well—you know and Aberforth was never going to join anything that thought Gellert was a God. He thought about it over his drink for a second and then stood up. Granted his brother did not actively try to serve Death Eaters but he reckoned the second he was upstairs and out of sight the black market deals that his brother did allow in his pub would begin again.
Such was his desire to be back in time for dinner and for an early night that he didn't see Severus Snape sitting in the back corner nursing a strong firewhiskey and contemplating the fact that the woman he loved had, had a baby with a man that he hated and that, according to reports, the baby had his mother's eyes.
Oh he hated when Minerva was right. Right now the woman was probably sat in her office with her lists, a warm cup of tea and a smug smile because she too knew that she was right. This was a complete and utter waste of time and he had known it going in. Aberforth was probably downstairs giggling at his misfortune.
Cassandra Trelawney's heir his left foot.
And he said that with the most respect that he could give. But there was something to be said for the view that Divination was nothing but a crock of…well…to quote one of last years more vocal seventh year students.
He was about to extradite himself from this with as much grace as one could allow he found that he was standing hand on the door knob after assuring the now rather—one hated to use the word hysterical but that was what it was—woman and then suddenly it happened.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
And on and on and on it went.
For a second he stared at her momentarily stunned into silence and then he felt…it was hard to put into words but before she could start again in her trance he waved his wand at the door and it blasted open. Severus Snape fell down the stairs and landed at a crumpled heap at his brother's feet. Aberforth looked up at him the admonishment on his face that was suddenly wiped away. Albus didn't know what his face looked like but if it was a reflection to how he was feeling then his brother despite their many, many differences knew that something was wrong.
He picked up Snape by the scruff of the neck and threw him bodily out the pub and Albus could hear the banging of the doors as Snape fell into the rain and the mud outside and he sat down on the bed feeling along the chest of draws so that he could hit. He felt suddenly very, very old and more than a little stunned.
"Professor?" came a voice and he turned up to look at the young woman who had unwittingly, unknowingly given him a clue to defeating the one wizard even he was thinking couldn't be defeated. He stared up at her for a second and then the reality hit him.
This woman had foreseen a prophecy, a prediction about the end of Voldemort that had been overheard by one of his supporters. Partially he suspected but that he was not sure of and if Tom was still the same man underneath all the acrid terror that was Voldemort then he was going to want to know the rest of it. This young woman was a young dead woman walking if Snape reported back to his master.
Which meant…
Oh dear.
He was going to have to give her the job. If only so he could think.
Sibyl went in search of a celebratory drinking leaving him in the room and Aberforth came up immediately slamming the door behind him with a clatter that made the entire wood shake and shudder in a highly alarming way. Albus was still sat on the bed and he watched the wood shavings hit the floor for a second and wondered weather he was having a breakdown.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What happened?"
Albus opened his mouth to come out with…well…he didn't know what but he knew it wasn't going to be the truth but his brother, his infinitely more admirable brother beat him to it.
"Don't lie" he said in a tone that brooked no forgiveness. "You and I don't lie to each other Albus, that's why we don't talk unless we have to. Your as white as a sheet, and while I don't want you to misconstrue this as me caring about you in any way I have to tell you that if you throw up on my sheets you are buying out the entire room for a month"
It was the most Aberforth had said to him in years.
And it was that fact that shocked him into honesty.
"I…I think I heard a prophecy on how to defeat Tom Riddle"
His brother raised one eyebrow and waited.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
"Alright" Aberforth said holding up a hand, "Alright I get the picture, actually I don't but I can get the gist. A child is going to be born who will defeat him. Please tell me that you are not putting all your dragon eggs into that basket. The woman's a basket-case, seriously I thought you weren't going to have the thing in your curriculum it's the only thing I think you've done good since you took over the role"
"That must hurt to admit" he said quietly and Aberforth raised another eyebrow.
"Do you even know a baby who was born at the end of seventh month whose parents have defied Voldemort three times?" he said his voice ladled with sarcasm.
Albus said nothing for a second and his brother sighed, apparently whatever warm and rather touching moment (for them) that they had been having was over. Shame he thought with a terrible achingly loneliness, he had never been able to get more of these moments.
"I'll have a drink for you when you get down" his brother said shortly and then he was gone.
"Actually" Albus said slowly to the empty room. "I know two"
He sat there contemplating that for a long time until he came down and he found that his hands were shaking even as he took his brother's drink in the pub that he had rapidly closed down for the night. He found that he was thinking too of Gellert and what he would make of this, Gellert who believed in this as if it was the only magic that mattered, Gellert with his quick smile, his quick responses, his quick fingers…
No.
But as he tried desperately to sort out his thoughts he found that he wanted to speak to the man again, he missed him despite it all, the hatred mixing in with the love. He wanted to speak to the man that he adored with all that he had and find out what he would do.
Because believe in the prophecy or not it was clear that something had happened here tonight.
And what frightened Albus Dumbledore the most was that he couldn't see what the consequences of this would be.
But he knew they were coming.
Oh he most certainly knew that.
I don't know if Aberforth ever did know about the prophecy but for the sake of this story and the relationship between brothers lets pretend that he did.
Next Chapter-James and Lily adjust to being parents to their baby as Dumbledore comes to see them with news that will blow their lives apart.
