Harry and Hermione spent the rest of the hour discussion Harry's plans and ideas, she offered a suggestion for almost every project, some Harry pointed out would never work but others Harry readily accepted, eventually the alarm charm went off signalling that Harry only had five minutes to get to breakfast, Flitwick had taught him the charm when he had turned up late to his lesson as he had not kept track of the time, the two rushed to the great hall, neither noticed Dumbledore standing invisible down the corridor, he marvelled at how far Harry had gone since they had first spoken, he had kept note of the boy not just for his fame and future but because he saw himself within the boy so easily and he had promised himself that he would never let the boy go through the loss and pain that he himself had gone through.
He was impressed at the lengths Harry had gone to protect his secrets, he knew that Harry had learned little about defensive magic, focusing more on practical or visually impressive magic, so for Harry to make a defence that had managed to thwart Albus' curiosity for so long was an achievement in itself, the fact it was so simple was even more a testament to what Harry would be able to achieve with more knowledge and experience. To be truthful Albus was a fair bit humbled by the boy, he would have lacked the creativity needed to come up with such a defence without considerable planning at eleven. What people never realised was the Albus was human, he had to train hard to get to where he was, it was his ambition and cunning that had helped him become the most powerful wizard.
Of course despite Harry's defences and cunning if Albus had truly needed to force his way into Harry's workshop he would have been able to as he could sense the magic protecting the door and in states of emergency Hogwarts herself ripped down minor protections such as notice me not wards to allow students to easily escape or seek shelter, but his defences worked wonders for stopping the idly curious, it had taken Albus a while to figure out which door Harry actually went into and then more to actually find the correct door knob as he had first assumed Harry would not have used the same trick twice, once he had the correct door knob he had spent an entire day testing every single thing within the cupboard, the entire room was filled with Harry's magic so Albus couldn't just use his own mage sight to see which item Harry recently used, eventually he had realised that the secret didn't actually lie within the cupboard and he had been forced to watch and see what Harry did to enter his room and was shocked to see him open the door outwards, every other door within the school opened inwards and so Albus had assumed that Harry's workshop would also open inwards.
Where Harry had learned such magic Albus was unsure until he used his powers as Headmaster to see through the walls and saw a cleaning cupboard identical to the one Harry used exactly across from the Workshop, the door into that cupboard had been magically shrunk to a third its normal size and then the entire door was hidden behind a plate of mithril enchanted with a notice me not, the plate of mithril made the cupboard door much harder to break into and due to being so low down even Albus' magic sight glossed over it, a closer inspection revealed that there was a subtle notice me not that was focused on the external magical signature, on a normal enchantment that wouldn't work as it would give off its own external signature while hiding the first signature, however with the mithril the notice me not seemed imprinted within the metal, so that the notice me not focused on the metal hid the second notice me not that hid the signature given off by the first, it gave Albus a headache to think about.
Albus had never seen anything like it before and suspected if he were not headmaster with powers Harry would not have had any way of knowing about his trick would have gone entirely unnoticed, the doorway leading to the workshop was also lined with mithril strips with the same enchantments as the plating apart from one additional enchantment that Albus couldn't detect due to the notice me nots and he was unwilling to strip down such beautiful magic, Albus suspected that the mithril strips acted as a mix of space manipulation and illusion, he would have noticed if he was magically moved from the doorway to the cupboard even if it wasn't impossible due to Hogwarts wards, however what the wards didn't stop was the rooms moving, the entire castle was saturated with magic and it was not unheard of for entire classrooms to move locations.
If Albus were to make something such as this he would make the mithril call to the room across the hall, as Albus himself had told Harry it was always easier to cast make it there was a correlation and the broom cupboard was on the same elevation and horizontal position as the workshop, that would mean that less magic would be required meaning less magic to hide, he would then use an illusion over the cupboard to hide any inconsistencies that might show up, such a setup wouldn't stop a determined attacker though, as the workshop was still physically there behind the cupboard so by breaking through the cupboard you would be able to enter the room through the cupboard, another weakness was that the enchantments only triggered if the door was opened so if the door where to be removed before being opened then the cupboard would never be told to move in the first place.
A sudden thought occurred to Albus and he withdrew a sherbet lemon he always carried and opened the door inwards, triggering the cupboard to be summoned, he then placed the sweet inside the cupboard and closed the door then opening it outwards, the sweet was now in the workshop in exactly the same position it was within the cupboard, Albus suspected this was either an oversight or fail safe on Harry's part as once the enchantments released the cupboard it went back to its original location but only took with it what was sent over originally, so anything placed within the summoned cupboard did not get sent to the original cupboard so fell through into Harry's workshop when the cupboard disappeared around it.
Albus decided to have a little joke and transfigured the sweet into his symbol, a circle with a triangle inside it finished by a line below, he charmed it to float eye level to Harry along with a preservation charm, it would last for as long as the charm held power which for Albus meant his 'calling card' would remain for at least two months, he had overheard Hermione and Harry talking about preserving the mithril to trick it into generating magic and Albus was interested to see if it would work and felt they could do with something charmed with preservation to experiment with, returning the favour Albus felt he owed Harry for letting him experiment with the mithril.
Casting a longing glance at his symbol he shut the workshop door and left for breakfast, after Gellert Grindlewald had left him and taken the symbol of the deathly hallows for his own Albus felt it would be poor taste to keep using it himself, however he still wanted to secretly tell others he was a 'searcher' of the Hallows so he had fashioned himself the new symbol, each Hallow represented a different attribute many searched for, the wand represented power in the present, the stone represented peace for the past and the cloak was safety in the future. The deathly Hallows symbol itself showed power starting within but eventually leaving peace while both power and peace remained within safety.
Albus' own version showed safety within peace, underlined by power, for many decades now it had been his inspiration and ideal goal, to obtain safety within peace while possessing the power to ensure said peace remained, as he aged he had stopped using his symbol so much, the current generation would most likely not even recognise it was his.
The members of the Order of the Phoenix had worn necklaces with his symbol engraved upon it to show their devotion to his cause despite him despising such acts as he felt it was too much like branding like Tom had done to his own followers, however when Lily had come forth with a suggestion that the necklaces be charmed so that any member of the order could apparate to other members, it used the protean charm on each necklace to act as a channel for the magic to follow allowing the apparition to be easier and harder to block, it had saved many lives as it allowed the Order to easily get to areas they were needed, often Albus apperated through anti-apparition wards then the Order would apparate to him. Albus still wore his necklace under his robes although the various charms Lily had enchanted them with had long since died with her, when Albus had felt the charms break he had known, instantly that she was dead and that Voldemort must have gotten through their defences, he would never understand how Sirius would have betrayed James like that but as Rubeus had seen Sirius immediately after the Potters death the information had clearly not been tortured out of him and James had sworn to him that Sirius was his secret keeper… Albus shook off the depressing line of thought and walked into the great hall.
Dumbledore background, yay
The logo for the story is the symbol Dumbledore talked about. In case it wasn't clear Harry's protections would not have really stopped Dumbledore, however he was curious and wanted to play Harry's game and was impressed at the level Harry was at as an 11 year old, if Albus was 11 he probably wouldn't have been able to break in... on that note I was thinking of writing a one-shot of cannon Harry being sent back 100 years to when Albus started Hogwarts, either as a class mate or teacher, would anyone want to read that or ?