In Memoriam

Arthur Pendergast was bleeding.

He clutched his right hand with his left, hissing and swearing under his breath, shouldering his bedroom door open and entered the landing of number four, Privet Drive and entered the bathroom to run his finger under the tap.

It was starting to annoy him that he only had four more days left till he turned seventeen, the age that he can finally perform magic outside of school. But that didn't matter right now as he had to deal with the jagged cut in his finger.

He had yet learned how to repair wounds with magic, which he thought was a serious and blatant flaw in his magical education, partly because it would be very helpful for his immediate plans. He'll make sure to ask Chrys how to do it.

Arthur then went back into his bedroom.

He spent the morning completely emptying his school trink for the first time since he packed six years ago.

Minutes earlier, he plunged his hand into the bottom layers (which were full of odd things he kept throughout the years) and felt a stabbing pain on his ring finger on his right hand, which he withdrew to see it covered in blood. With that, he proceeded cautiously.

Kneeling back down beside the trunk, he groped around in the bottom, retrieving an old badge that flickered feebly between Support CEDRIC DIGGORY and PENDERGAST STINKS, a cracked and worn out Sneakoscope from his thirteenth birthday and a gold locket, which had a note inside signed with the initials 'R.A.B.' until he finally found what had cut his finger.

Arthur recognised it instantly. A six inch long fragment of the enchanted mirror that his dead godfather, Sirius Black, gave him. He laid it aside and continued to cautiously feel around the trunk for the rest of the mirror, but all he found of his godfather's last gift was powdered glass, which clung to the deepest layer of debris.

He sat up and examined the jagged piece that had cut him, only seeing his bright green eyes reflected back at him.

Arthur placed it on top of that morning's copy of the Daily Prophet, which lay on his bed, having not been read, trying to stem the bitter memories that crept to the forefront of his mind.

It took him another hour to empty the trunk entirely, throwing away useless items and sorting what was left in piles, all according to whether or not he'd need them from this point on.

His school and Quidditch robes, cauldron, parchment, quills and most of his textbooks were piled in the farthest corner, all to be left behind. He knew that his aunt and uncle would keep them safe somewhere, like the cupboard under the stairs, for example.

His Muggle clothing, Invisibility Cloak, potion-making kit, certain books (like the annotated Advanced Potion-Making from his sixth year), the photograph album that Hagrid gave him in his first year, a stack of letters and his wand were packed into a large rucksack that once belonged to his uncle. In a front pocket was the Marauder's Map and the locket with the note signed 'R.A.B.'

The locket was there, not because of its value, but because of what it had cost to get it.

All that was left was a significant stack of newspapers that sat on his desk beside both his barn owl, Athena, and a swan sized scarlet bird with red and gold plumage, a golden tail, beak and talons and black eyes, a phoenix named Fawkes: one for each of the days Arthur spent at Privet Drive this summer.

He got up from the floor, stretched and walked to his desk.

Athena and Fawkes didn't move as he flicked through the newspapers, throwing them into the rubbish pile one by one.

When he neared the bottom of the pile, Arthur slowed down, searching for one edition that had arrived shortly after he returned to Privet Drive for the summer; he remembered that there was a small mention on the front about Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts, who resigned, which he thought was odd and concerning.

He turned to page ten and sank into his desk chair to reread the article he looked for.

ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED

by Elphias Doge

I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleve, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pockmarked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well publicised attack upon three young Muggles.

Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's actions and assumed that Albus, too, was a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: as anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed, his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent years.

In a matter of months, however, Albus' own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father. By the end of his first year, he would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.

He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist, Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian, and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his papers found their way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in Charming and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would become Minister for Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.

Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus' brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike; Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by duelling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys could do. In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus' shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother.

When Albus and I left Hogwarts, we intended to take the then traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus' mother, Kendra, died, leaving Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me.

That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey from narrow escapes from Chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists. His letters told me little of his day to day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, towards the end of my year's travels, that yet another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.

Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both her brothers. All those closest to Albus - and I count myself one of that lucky number - agree that Ariana's death and Albus' feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless) left their mark upon him forever more.

I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person's suffering. Albus was much more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift - in later years they re-established, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.

Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's innumerable contributions to the store of wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgements he made while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no other wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle. Dumbeldore's triumphs, and its consequences for the wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He Who Must Not Be Named.

Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is nothing compared to the wizarding world's. That he was the most inspiring and the best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him.

Arthur finished reading, but he kept gazing at the picture that accompanied the obituary. Dumbledore wore his familiar, kindly smile, but as he looked over the top of his half moon spectacles, he gave the impression of X-raying Arthur, whose sadness mixed with a sense of humiliation.

He knew there was more to Dumbledore than what he let on, and so to read this obituary, he never imagined the loss he experienced. He never thought of asking him about his past, like he unconsciously felt like he would tread on forbidden ground if he did.

Of course, it was common knowledge that Dumbledore partook in the legendary duel against Grindelwald, but Arthur never considered asking what it had been like, not even asking about his other achievements. All they ever discussed was Arthur's past, future and plans.

The only personal question he remembered asking Dumbledore was the one that he suspected he didn't answer honestly:

"What is it you see when you look into the Mirror?"

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."

With the knowledge from this obituary, he probably saw his family, all alive and happy without any of the tragedy and controversy.

As he moved on from these thoughts, Arthur tore the obituary from the Prophet, folding it carefully and tucked it inside the first volume of Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts. He then threw the rest of the newspaper to the rubbish pile. All that was left was today's Daily Prophet, which lay on the bed with the piece of broken mirror on top.

Arthur moved to the bed, slid the fragment off the newspaper and unfolded it.

He merely glanced at the headline when he took the paper from the delivery owl earlier that morning and threw it aside when he saw it mentioned nothing about Voldemort. He was sure that the Ministry would lean on the Prophet to suppress the news on Voldemort.

But it was now that he finally saw what he missed.

Across the bottom half of the page was a smaller headline set over the image of Dumbeldore striding along, looking harried:

DUMBLEDORE - THE TRUTH AT LAST?

Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Stripping away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded, wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the lawless youth, the lifelong feuds and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried to his grave. WHY was the man tipped to be Minister for Magic content to remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret organisation known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really meet his end?

The answers to these, and many more questions are explained in the explosive new biography The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter, exclusively interviewed by Betty Braithwaite, page 13, inside.

Arthur growled as he ripped open the paper and found said page, where the article was topped with a picture that showed an unfortunate familiar face: a woman wearing jewelled glasses with pretty elaborately curled, blonde hair, her teeth bared in what is meant to be a winning smile, wiggling her fingers up at him.

Ignoring this infuriating image, Arthur read on:

In person, Rita Skeeter is much warmer and softer than her famously ferocious quill portraits might suggest. Greeting me in the hallway of her cosy home, she leads me straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, a slice of pound cake and, it goes without saying, a steaming vat of freshest gossip.

"Well, of course, Dumbledore is a biographer's dream." says Skeeter. "Such a long, full life. I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many."

Skeeter was certainly quick off the mark. Her nine hundred page book was completed a mere four weeks after Dumbledore's mysterious death in June. I ask her how she managed this super fast feat.

"Oh, when you've been a journalist as long as I have, working to a deadline is second nature. I knew that the wizarding world was clamouring for the full story and I wanted to be the first to meet that need."

I mention the recent, widely publicised remarks of Elphias Doge, Special Advisor to the Wizengamot and long standing friend of Albus Dumbledore's, that 'Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog Card'."

Skeeter throws back her head and laughs.

"Darling Dodgy! I remember interviewing him a few years back about merpeople rights, bless him. Completely gaga, seemed to think we were sitting at the bottom of Lake Windermere, kept telling me to watch out for trout."

And yet Elphias Doge's accusations of inaccuracy have been echoed in many places. Does Skeeter really feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a full picture of Dumbledore's long and extraordinary life?

"Oh, my dear…" beams Skeeter, rapping me affectionately across the knuckles "...you know as well as I do how much information can be generated by a fat bag of Galleons, a refusal to hear the word 'no' and a nice sharp Quick Quotes Quill! People were queuing to dish the dirt on Dumbledore, anyway. Not everyone thought he was so wonderful, you know - he trod on an awful lot of important toes. But old Dodgy Doge can get off his high Hippogriff, because I've had access to a source most journalists would swap their wands for, one who has never spoken in public before and who was close to Dumbledore during the most turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth."

The advance publicity for Skeeter's biography has certainly suggested that there will be shocks in store for those who believe Dumbledore to have led a blameless life. What were the biggest surprises she uncovered, I ask.

"Now, come off it, Betty, I'm not giving away all the highlights before anybody's bought the book!" laughs Skeeter. "But I can promise that anybody who still thinks Dumbledore was white as his beard is in for a rude awakening! Let's just say that nobody hearing him rage against You Know Who would have dreamed that he dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth! And for a wizard who spent his later years pleading for tolerance, he wasn't exactly broad-minded when he was younger! Yes, Albus Dumbledore had an extremely murky past, not to mention that very fishy family, which he worked so hard to keep hushed up."

I ask whether Skeeter is referring to Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, whose conviction by the Wizengamot for misuse of magic caused a minor scandal fifteen years ago.

"Oh, Aberforth is just the tip of the dungheap." laughs Skeeter. "No, no, I'm talking about much worse than a brother with a fondness for fiddling about with goats, worse even than the Muggle-maiming father - Dumbledore couldn't keep either of them quiet, anyway, they were both charged by the Wizengamot. No, it's the mother and the sister that intrigued me, and a little digging uncovered a positive nest of nastiness - but, as I say, you'll have to wait for chapters nine to twelve for full details. All I can say now is, it's no wonder Dumbledore never talked about how his nose got broken."

Family skeletons notwithstanding, does Skeeter deny the brilliance that led to Dumbledore's many magical discoveries?

"He had brains…" she concedes, "...although many now question whether he could really take full credit for all of his supposed achievements. As I reveal in chapter sixteen, Ivor Dillonsby claims he had already discovered eight uses of dragon's blood when Dumbledore 'borrowed' his papers."

But the importance of some of Dumbledore's achievements cannot, I venture, be denied. What of his famous defeat of Grindelwald?

"Oh, now, I'm glad you mentioned Grindelwald." says Skeeter, with a tantalising smile. "I'm afraid those who go dewy eyed over Dumbledore's spectacular victory must brace themselves for a bombshell - or perhaps a Dungbomb. Very dirty business indeed. All I'll say is, don't be so sure that there really was the spectacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and came quietly!"

Skeeter refuses to give any more away on this intriguing subject, so we turn instead to the relationship that will undoubtedly fascinate her readers more than ever.

"Oh, yes." says Skeeter, nodding briskly. "I devote an entire chapter to the whole Pendergast-Dumbledore relationship. It's been called unhealthy, even sinister. Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Pendergast from the word go. Whether that was really in the boy's best interests - well, we'll see. It's certainly an open secret that Pendergast has had a most troubled adolescence."

I ask whether Skeeter is still in touch with Arthur Pendergast, whom she so famously interviewed last year: a breakthrough piece in which Pendergast spoke exclusively of his conviction that You Know Who has returned.

"Oh, yes we've developed a close bond." says Skeeter. "Poor Pendergast has few real friends, and we met at one of the most testing moments of his life - the Triwizard Tournament. I am probably one of the only people alive who can say that they know the real Arthur Pendergast."

Which leads us neatly to the many rumours still circulating about Dumbeldore's final hours. Does Skeeter believe that Pendergast was there when Dumbledore died?

"Well, I don't want to say too much - it's all in the book - but eye witnesses inside Hogwarts Castle saw Pendergast running away from the scene moments after Dumbeldore fell, jumped or was pushed. Pendergast later gave evidence against Severus Snape, a man against whom he has a notorious grudge. Is everything as it seems? That is for the wizarding community to decide - once they've read my book."

On that intriguing note I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legions of admirers, meanwhile, may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.

Arthur reached the bottom of the article and started snarling in absolute revulsion and fury.

He balled up the newspaper and threw it with all his might at the wall, where it joined the rest of the rubbish in his bin.

He then leaned his hands on the wall, his head bowed, taking deep breaths, thinking about what Skeeter said in the article, each one he thought of making him grow more and more furious.

"LIES!" He roared, causing both Fawkes and Athena to squawk in shock. Through the window, he saw the next door neighbour, who paused to restart his lawnmower, looking up rather scared.

He then sat down on his bed hard. The broken piece of mirror moved away from him. He picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, thinking about Dumbledore and the lies that Skeeter was making up to defame him -

He then dropped the piece and jumped back. The reason was because he saw a flash of the brightest blue. He didn't know whether or not he imagined it, but he could've sworn that he saw the bright blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore staring back at him.

But he realised how ridiculous that seemed, so he tried to ignore what he saw.

Skeeter really does like to stir up the hornet's nest, doesn't she?

Also, there will be a bonus chapter that would act as a summary of all that has happened between the Battle of Hogwarts and the Epilogue. There's stuff that I feel like I have to mention.