Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters are the property of J.K Rowling, Warner Bros., Bloomsbury Publishing and Scholastic Press. Please support the official release. All other characters are the property of yours truly and will be appearing in an original work some time in the future.


Dumbledore looked at the man sitting across with him with a careful indifference, his disdain well hidden by a long, white beard. "Well, I suppose we'd get to business, shall we?"

The other man, dressed in a black, muggle suit, simply stroked his silver goatee. "Lets." Dumbledore picked up the stack of parchment on the table in front of him.

"Professor Victor Walton, is that right?"

Professor and Headmaster Victor Walton gently clasped one hand in the other, allowing his fingers to fall on his knuckles like falling dominoes. "That is right. Professor Albus Dumbledore is yours, if I'm not mistaken."

"Quite right," Dumbledore replied.

The room was quiet, a small study with a low ceiling, books lining the shelves and lit by candles which floated throughout the air. The smoke filled the air, giving the place an especially cozy and home-like feeling. Of course, neither of the two guests were feeling particularly warm and charitable at the moment, staring each other down like they were glaring at a dark looking glass.

"And his name is Davis Shepherd?" Dumbledore asked. "Was it really necessary to kidnap the boy?"

Walton balked. "Kidnap? We saved that boy."

"Saved him?" Dumbledore parroted. "You saved him by removing him from his loving family and stripping them of his memory?"

"The Dark Lord Malcidor would've killed him if they found him," Walton explained, his words cutting through the air like ice. "They would've tortured his family to find him and then what would we do?" He glared at his counterpart across the table. "An outcome that clearly never occurred to you. You sent poor Mr. Potter back to his horrific aunt and uncle year after year."

"He was safer there than he was at Hogwarts," Dumbledore replied. "The blood ward there was unassailable, Voldemort could not accost him at home."

"A luxury Davis never had." Walton sniffed. "At least our defenses caused Malcidor never to attack Atreus Academy. But your Hogwarts? Your Voldemort cursed your teaching positions, infiltrated your staff and turned your castle into his personal fortress near the end."

"That has far more to do with his activity outside of your school and much less to do with the strength of your institutions defenses," Dumbledore argued, pushing his half-moon glasses up his nose. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but he never even knew where it was, correct?"

"Yes, that's right," Walton said.

"And he didn't know about Davis until Davis had nearly accomplished his transfiguration, is that correct?" Dumbledore asked.

Walton grit his teeth. "Yes."

"Then I suppose you had a luxury Hogwarts never had," Dumbledore replied. "We rarely get to pick our enemies. Voldemort was a former student of Hogwarts, you see."

Walton simply glared. "And you brought Mr. Potter directly there? Why not hire a private tutor if teaching him was so important?"

"He needed to be able integrate into the world he had saved when all was said and done," Dumbledore repeated. "He needed friends, loved ones. A place to call his own apart from his family."

"Put him with a...what do you call them? A squib, pay for them to emigrate." Walton rested his hands on the table. "Move to America or Canada. Enroll him in magical education over there, away from Voldemort's schemes."

"And take him away from the country and people his parents died to save?" Dumbledore asked, incredulous. "Better that he stay connected to his roots."

"Roots sh-moots." Walton waved it off. "You needed him to save the world, send him off then bring him back when he's needed."

"Even you kept Davis where you could watch him." Dumbledore pointedly glared at his verbal opponent. "You took him to that Academy of yours, trained him and guided him, as I did Harry. Only Harry had a place to go in between his school years. But Davis? You isolated him there."

"I also taught Davis everything I knew about it so he could have his run of the place," Walton replied. "He was the only student exempt from curfew and knew every secret passage and room the academy had. He even found things I never knew about."

Dumbledore frowned. "Making him exempt from the rules isolated the boy from his peers even more than he already was."

"Well, he wasn't like everyone else," Walton replied. "He had a job to do. I wasn't about to force him to do it without giving him a few perks."

"You took an average student and gave them perks because they may one day defeat a dark lord," Dumbledore summarized. "Are you even an educator? Students need structure and peers and you sabotaged both. No wonder Davis was a mediocre student."

"He was an average student," Walton said through grit teeth. "He spent most of his midnight oil practicing spells and doing extra credit, I'll have you know. Not every," he made air quotes, "Chosen One", he folded his arms on the table, "can be a prodigy, now can they?"

"Harry was not prodigy," Dumbledore said.

"Oh, come off it! The boy was one of the finest Defense Against the Dark Arts practitioners that ever came out of Hogwarts and you know it," Walton said, pointing at the wizard across the table. "Davis, bless his heart, had perfectly average talent for casting spells. It's only a miracle that he took to Alchemy as well as he did."

"A transmutation to something other than human," Dumbledore said. "Harry never had to do that."

"Well, Mr. Potter was a talented person in the ways that mattered," Walton replied, squinting at the half-moon glasses. "Mr. Shepherd, I'm afraid, was not. He had to improvise, and did it extraordinarily well, if I do say so myself."

"And where is Mr. Shepherd now?" Dumbledore asked. "Your magical world has completely forgotten him."

"Well, the afterlife gives us many insights, doesn't it?" Mr. Walton replied. "He's back with his loving family, reconnecting with them after his disappearance and honestly, more power to him. Malcidor is gone and there's no more danger, so it's perfect."

"Is it wise to let someone so powerful go unchecked?" Dumbledore asked. "Harry has an entire society that he's a part of. Davis has nothing."

"Hey, we're dead," Mr. Walton said. "It's not my problem to solve and, frankly, he saved the Magical World. He can do whatever he wants."

Dumbledore withdrew a pipe from his robes and lit it, saying nothing further.

Victor Walton withdrew a time-piece from inside his suit jacket. "I'm afraid I must be going. I can't say it was a pleasure."

"No, I'm afraid it wasn't." Victor stood, and walked off, leaving Dumbledore alone with his thoughts.


Author's Note: So this is what consumed my life for the past, I don't know, few days? It's been fun. Occasionally I get a new idea and it winds up sucking me up and refusing to let me go. This is the first time I've gone and followed that urge and it was fun!

The goal was to take my original characters, which are a part of an original story I will be posting later, and contrasting them with Harry Potter because it was a huge inspiration for the story and characters itself. I hope I succeeded! Each subsequent chapter will feature one or more characters from Harry Potter and one from my own story.

This is also complete, with five chapters. I will post them over the next few days, excepting Sunday for personal reasons.

Until the next time!

~Fulcon