CHAPTER 32: RETROSPECTIVE OF THE PAST YEAR
Summer had finally arrived, bringing with it the promise of a new calm in the tumultuous life that marked the days at Hogwarts. The students had been back home since yesterday, marking the end of the eventful school year the institution had experienced since September. Everyone was now looking forward to the two long months of freedom ahead, indulging in pleasures and leisure activities that the luckier ones could afford while the less fortunate among them would spend the coming weeks sweating in the fields to help their families or shearing sheep to produce the famous wool so vital to the country's economy. For a while, Hogwarts had become calm, silent, and almost empty, portraying an image of an uninhabited and abandoned enclosure in the heart of Scotland. Everyone had left, even the professors, and apart from Filch and Mrs. Norris, the house-elves toiling away in the kitchens, a half-mad seer secluded in her chambers, and an old man sitting peacefully behind his desk, one needed immense patience to find any signs of life in the numerous corridors of Hogwarts.
However, while the majority of the staff and students had their thoughts turned towards their summer plans, the same couldn't be said for Dumbledore. Leaning on his desk chair, he bitterly reminisced about the past year, hoping that the next one would differ in some other way.
Indeed, this year had been anything but restful for the elderly man occupying the position of Hogwarts' headmaster, absentmindedly chewing on a candy while unconsciously rereading for the fifth time a report written by his caretaker about the unsanitary state of certain bathrooms. Yet, he could only blame himself for this matter: Only he had deemed it wise to bring an extremely rare and precious magical artifact to the school, capable of granting eternal life to those who drank its elixir or becoming the wealthiest person in the world by using the same elixir to turn all metals it touched into gold. This artifact, jealously guarded by its owner and relatively unknown to the common folk, was none other than the Philosopher's Stone, crafted and used by the famous French alchemist Nicolas Flamel.
A legend retold so many times that it had ended up being recorded in magic textbooks as true due to its transmission from one wizard to another for decades claimed that Dumbledore had played a pivotal role in the creation of this stone, omitting the fact that Nicolas Flamel was currently over 476 years old while Dumbledore himself was only 113; even considering the possibility that they had collaborated on creating this stone, the age difference was too vast to entertain such an idea, especially when the average lifespan of a wizard rarely exceeded 150 years. The two protagonists never contested this, with Dumbledore seeing it as an opportunity for his name to shine in a branch of magic where his knowledge was actually quite limited, while Nicolas, a long-time friend of the Hogwarts director, preferred to laugh at the gullibility and idiocy of humans.
Yet, their friendship had shattered a year ago when Dumbledore had deemed it fit to bring the Philosopher's Stone to Hogwarts without explaining the reasons to Nicolas. Faced with his refusal to part with his creation and especially with the insistence of Pernelle Flamel to side with her husband against the Hogwarts director, Dumbledore had then had the displeasure but the obligation to use force against his former friend to achieve his goals. Nicolas, not as proficient in dueling as in alchemy, caused irreparable collateral damage due to Dumbledore's powerful spells, impacting the psychological health of both Nicolas and his wife, who had come to support him.
But at least, the stone was now in his hands.
Dumbledore's mistake that day had been not admitting to his friend that the real reason he wanted to possess the stone was not to get rich, as Nicolas mistakenly believed, but to draw to himself the one person who more than anyone needed the stone to regain the life he had lost years ago: Lord Voldemort.
"An error I deeply regret," he confessed, turning slightly towards Fawkes. "Nicolas could have been of use to us in the upcoming war..."
Shaking his head to dispel the dark thought, Dumbledore then pondered his plan further, a plan he had initially deemed perfect, serving the greater good in the best possible way. He was no fool by any means, and he was acutely aware of the dangers he was exposing his school to by attempting to lure the most powerful dark wizard of the past century. Yet, in the absence of any information about his enemy's future plans and actions, the Hogwarts director wished to take destiny into his own hands by bringing closer to him the one he had fought against for decades.
As he suspected Voldemort was likely spying on him as well, Albus had circulated a false rumor about the stone, hinting that it was kept in one of Gringott's vaults under goblin protection.
"His knowledge about me couldn't have been that accurate," he mused to himself, with a slight smile. "It's been a few years now that the goblins haven't held me in high regard, although the reason still eludes me..."
Unaware that the reason currently resided in France in the form of a powerful witch of royal descent, Dumbledore deduced it probably related to past events, possibly even linked to his legal disputes with the Ministry of Magic. He could barely secure a loan from the bank at the moment, with the exorbitant interest rates deterring him from further pursuit.
Nevertheless, his ruse had managed to lure a man, but the surprise came when he discovered that the man in question was none other than Quirinus Quirrell, an unassuming young man he would have never suspected himself. What was even more surprising was that this boy had volunteered a few weeks earlier to become the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Despite his limited talents in the field and especially his initial lack of interest in teaching, Dumbledore was willing to hire him due to the absence of other candidates. Quirrell almost begged for the position after his failed break-in, a plea Dumbledore couldn't refuse.
Thus, Voldemort had made a move in their chess game, but once the initial surprise had passed, Dumbledore pretended not to understand his enemy's little game and allowed his professor to teach under his watchful eyes for nearly a year. This explained why Quirinus had undertaken that curious trip to Albania and returned with that strange and irritating stutter. Voldemort must have been in that part of the world at the time, half-dead and without any aid from his former allies, before encountering this courageous yet distracted young man, probably winning him over with promises and perhaps threats that had shaken his determination and strength of character.
Therefore, when the new school year finally arrived, Dumbledore let events unfold while keeping an eye on his new teacher. In the meantime, he had placed the Philosopher's Stone at the heart of Hogwarts itself, enlisting a few teachers and staff members aware of his affair to create some obstacles on the path to the stone. McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Hagrid, and even Snape had participated in this, making it sufficiently difficult for anyone attempting to steal the stone.
Quirrell had made numerous blunders throughout the past year, evidence of the lack of judgment and qualifications of this young recruit of Voldemort's, and on several occasions, under Severus's supervision—personally tasked by Dumbledore to monitor this teacher—Quirrell had been spotted many times lurking near the third floor of the school, where the entrance to the stone and the various protections lay.
As for discretion, Quirinus still had much to learn.
Where the problem lay, and Severus often pointed it out to him, was that Dumbledore, although perfectly aware of Quirrell's true allegiance, made absolutely no attempt to render him harmless. He preferred to let him try unsuccessfully to obtain the stone for his master, even when, in anger and failure, Quirrell preferred to vent his frustration on a particular student whose life was repeatedly endangered. But Severus didn't share Dumbledore's perspective on the ongoing events, nor his approach or interpretation of what was happening around them. Above all, Severus didn't entertain the same idea as Dumbledore about the opportunity presented by Voldemort lurking in the school: allowing a meeting, a face-to-face encounter, and maybe even a duel between the dark wizard and the one who had officially defeated him a year ago, Matthew Potter.
Voldemort's return coincided precisely with Matthew's arrival at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore saw it as an unexpected opportunity to have both the perpetrator and his victim reunite at the same time and place, ten years after their initial encounter... Well, that is if the two protagonists didn't continuously engage in a cat-and-mouse game. It wasn't even certain that Matthew had ever thought that Voldemort was in the same building as him! And it wasn't for lack of trying to bring them together!
A long sigh escaped the dry lips of the old headmaster as he pondered the decidedly challenging nature of his apprentice and protege. If something had gone wrong in his plan, it was definitely on Matthew's side that one should look. And it only took a few seconds to figure out what was amiss: his student's laziness coupled with a lack of interest in anything other than Quidditch.
Throughout the year, Dumbledore tried in vain to pique his student's curiosity but never achieved the desired result. His warnings about the danger of the third floor of Hogwarts, the moving corridors always converging on his path toward that same corridor, the hints he left on Matthew's path to guide him to the stone, the newspaper clippings, especially the one about the attempted break-in at Gringotts to steal something from the school, the Confundus charm cast on Hagrid to give him more hints than necessary about the mysterious object hidden in the school... Nothing worked! Matthew probably didn't even know that a three-headed dog was in the school guarding the trapdoor leading to the challenges preceding the stone!
"This student is a true enigma," conceded Dumbledore absentmindedly, stroking his phoenix's head.
Something was truly amiss with him, yet no matter how long Dumbledore searched for the solution to this problem, he couldn't come up with an explanation for his student's behavior and personality, which was diametrically opposed to the heroic figure he had wanted to mold him into. He never once doubted himself, rightly thinking that he might be the cause of this thorny inconvenience. Instead, he attributed every reprimand that came to his mind to James and the failed upbringing he had given his son.
But was it James who had assigned the position of Seeker to Matthew barely a month into Hogwarts, thinking that by doing so, he could satisfy the insatiable appetite for power and gargantuan recognition of his student? Was it James who constantly awarded points to the same student for reasons as trivial as a polite greeting or a well-placed compliment to the headmaster? Was it him who continuously canceled the punishments and detentions given to Matthew when a teacher, exasperated by his behavior, saw no other solution than to give him extra hours to make up for dismal grades or a hastily done assignment? Was it still him who had gone to great lengths to increase his student's grades to allow him to advance to the second year, who had awarded him the House Cup by granting him over a hundred points for overcoming the challenges set by the teachers when Dumbledore himself had to ultimately face Professor Quirrell alone when he finally set out in search of the Philosopher's Stone?
No. All the credit belonged to Dumbledore, but he didn't see it that way. For him, pampering Matthew and favoring him in this way ensured the unwavering loyalty of the young man and his support in all his future endeavors. His image alone in the eyes of the magical world was sufficient to serve as a banner for his cause. The only downside, in his view, was that Matthew always wanted more, always sought more, preferably visible enough to show off to others and arouse their envy, without considering for a moment that all that would result from it would be jealousy, resentment, and anger.
However, with the end of the school year and Voldemort's defeat, Dumbledore might have felt satisfied and relieved to see the school holidays arrive, but that wasn't the case. Matthew remained constantly on his mind, and whenever he thought of him, a bitter taste accompanied his dark thoughts about his apprentice, like a personal failure that was difficult for the great wizard he was to swallow. Above all, he felt this failure more deeply than a dagger plunged into his body because Matthew had become what he was today through his own hands. By wanting to shape this young boy into a heroic, courageous figure and the standard-bearer of justice, he had achieved the exact opposite.
Firstly, Matthew was certainly not a role model that jealous parents would try to replicate in their own children without success. In truth, his student lacked a good upbringing, solid foundations in manners, courtesy, and kindness that could have made him agreeable to others. No, what characterized Matthew above all was his dishonesty, even his maliciousness towards others. What wouldn't Dumbledore give to hire a secretary specifically tasked to handle the day-to-day affairs of Hogwarts concerning him! The pile of misdeeds and reports against Matthew was probably immense, and all within a single school year! And the worst part was that even some professors themselves had reprimands regarding this student's behavior! At this rate, the lockers containing the detentions and reprimands made against his father and his three best friends were in danger of quickly overflowing. If this became known in the newspapers... He preferred not to think about it, but he was well aware that nothing positive would come out of it.
Clearly, nothing was going as planned. If Dumbledore had some hopes at the beginning of the year about his student's adaptation to this new school environment and the connections he could make with other students, he had to admit today that there was as much chance of seeing Matthew gather around him a horde of admirers as seeing Slytherin and Gryffindor students cordially conversing in the corridors of Hogwarts. One could even say that the young man was quite isolated from the rest of the students, almost rejected like an outcast by a large majority of the students, and his only friend turned out to be Ron Weasley, although it had to be omitted that this same Weasley struggled with Matthew's mood swings and petty remarks, demanding material compensations like a racing broom or a brand-new chess set to continue playing his role as the survivor's friend.
"How ironic to think that the only friendship Matthew has at Hogwarts is one arranged for personal gain," Dumbledore muttered darkly, unaware due to his annoyance of the monstrous quantity of lemon sherbets he was continuously eating.
Secondly, his student wasn't interested in anything except constantly provoking those who were unfortunate enough not to meet his standards or demands. Far from being a courageous and just man, Matthew was contemptuous towards the weak, towards those who didn't share his ideas, towards those who didn't share the same sense of humor as him when he unjustly targeted another student, and especially towards those who didn't submit to him and his name alone. How could he be interested in what was happening at the school when he preferred to instead sow discord and rant against almost the entire school? Even the classes didn't interest him, let alone practical exercises, except perhaps Quidditch. Therefore, it wasn't surprising that throughout this year, despite the numerous hints he dropped to guide Matthew to the Philosopher's Stone coveted by Voldemort, the latter didn't even once consider questioning it.
"Even my warning at the beginning of the year about the third-floor corridor didn't intrigue him," regretted Dumbledore as he tucked another lemon sherbet into his mouth. "I would have thought that the taste for risk was omnipresent in him, but his curiosity didn't even push him to try to discover what was hidden there."
His student was nothing but an empty shell... or at least a shell full of arrogance and cunning, very far, therefore, from what Dumbledore expected of him. As for his whims... The walls of his office still reverberated with his furious screams when faced with a refusal despite his demands. It was indeed a frequent subject of jest among the portraits of the former headmasters of the school hanging in the office and a perpetual source of shame for him, to the point that he lost his temper on a few occasions and disintegrated, out of anger, the directors and headmistresses who mocked him the most, Phineas Black having received no less than four new portraits in the last few months.
Finally, and this was what saddened Dumbledore the most, Matthew, despite his insistence to train him, was far too weak to stand against Voldemort. Even after all these years of intense training, magical and physical exercises - there was no point in trying the theory, Matthew probably never opened a book in his life - which took a considerable amount of the director's free time, his student seemed to be at the same level as he was at the beginning of his apprenticeship. The problem didn't seem to lie in his magical core; it was certainly not up to the expected level for someone officially capable, according to a prophecy, of defeating a dark lord, but it wasn't inferior to that of his peers either. Truthfully, Matthew was magically quite ordinary: His magical core remained within the norm, the power of his spells, when he managed to cast one, never surpassed that of the other students, and he never displayed anything out of the ordinary.
"It wasn't the first time Dumbledore had made this observation, but until now, he had attributed these analyses to youth, his apprentice's physical development, and the gradual construction of his magical core. But now... Finding excuses was becoming increasingly difficult to justify Matthew's lack of talent.
"Perhaps I could have been mistaken..." he muttered absentmindedly, gazing at his office door.
But quickly, he banished this idea from his mind, ashamed to have even momentarily thought he'd made such an error. Who else, after all, could match the chosen one capable of definitively defeating Voldemort if it wasn't Matthew? The only other boy meeting the criteria mentioned in the prophecy was Neville Longbottom, but like Matthew, he also had nothing extraordinary setting him apart. Except, if one excluded his talent in Herbology and the kindness that made him particularly endearing to some students. But praising Voldemort with flowers, would that defeat him? That thought alone was laughable, and Dumbledore couldn't help a slight chuckle at the idea of his worst enemy drowning in a sea of roses.
And then, didn't the prophecy state that Voldemort would mark the one who would defeat him as his equal? Matthew's scar had almost disappeared over the past ten years, leaving only a faint trace on his body, but it was still the result of the curse that had seemingly struck him.
No, indeed, all the clues seemed to point in one direction: Matthew Potter. He alone was unquestionably the person capable of defeating Voldemort, but he needed to have the capabilities. That was the point Dumbledore needed to emphasize, and the idea of rigorously training Matthew throughout all the holidays was now beginning to take root in his mind. Perhaps he could also bring out of retirement his old friend Alastor Moody? Given Mad-Eye's teaching methods, Matthew was going to have a terrible summer in his company, but the results would be worth it.
Smiling at this sudden idea, Dumbledore immediately began rummaging through the paperwork on his desk in search of a blank piece of parchment, already considering the best phrases to convince Moody to accept his offer. And if he didn't accept... Well, the incident with Nicolas Flamel might find an echo.
However, he needed to ensure Moody didn't consider Matthew too powerful; otherwise, the second part of his plan might become more complicated than anticipated. How indeed could one eliminate a young man if he could defend himself? Letting him eliminate Voldemort was one thing, but eliminating him was another, and the opportunity wouldn't present itself twice between the moment he defeated the Dark Lord and when the magical world would become aware of his feat. The margin of maneuver probably wouldn't exceed a few hours, especially if the fight occurred away from prying eyes.
"Matthew's disappearance will initially be seen as a bitter consequence of the end of the war, but people will quickly forget his contribution once I have altered the outcome of this conflict in my own way," he thought to himself, imagining himself as the hero of his story, resuming the fight against Voldemort after arriving too late to save his murdered student from the dark wizard.
Yes, as long as no one was around to contest his story, it would appear plausible enough for no one to challenge it and to give him the leading role in this tale. Defeating two dark wizards in less than a century—not even Merlin had managed it! Future generations would probably idolize his name for a long time! His honor would be preserved, just like that of the school he cherished so much.
A memory suddenly tainted this idyllic picture forming in his mind and contradicted his assertion. Hadn't the school indeed been the scene of a tragic event a few months earlier? Certainly, it could be largely attributed to Quirrell, but how could one explain that a troll had been released in a school by a wizard possessing Lord Voldemort at the back of his head without admitting to having concealed the truth of his presence for months from the magical community of this country?
The Halloween incident had been a regrettable event that had nearly cost him his position. Luckily, the matter hadn't spread in the newspapers! He would never have been able to step out without facing the unpleasant comments from the parents about the safety of their children within Hogwarts or the questioning of the school programs including potentially dangerous magical creatures. The Ministry itself had barely been informed, but sufficiently so for Cornelius to rightly consider opening an investigation into this sad affair... An investigation that ultimately led to nothing compromising for Dumbledore and lasted barely three days.
Who cared, after all, about the fate of a Muggle-born student? This Granger wasn't really born into the right world; otherwise, the investigation would have lasted much longer. Dumbledore couldn't help but thank her for that, suspecting that her birth had also had the consequence of avoiding antagonizing the purists present at the Ministry but also on the Board of Governors of the school, Lucius Malfoy foremost among them. He usually never missed an opportunity to try to tarnish his image and popularity throughout the magical community of Great Britain, and if the troll had violently attacked any other student, including a Muggle-born, it was obvious that Lucius would have seized that opportunity to cause him harm and have him expelled from Hogwarts. But so far, Lord Malfoy had maintained complete silence on this event, probably considering that a Mudblood, in his own terms, certainly wasn't worth his attention or even his time.
Oh yes, Dumbledore had narrowly escaped on that one, but one shouldn't believe that his only stroke of luck played a major role: Money and cunning had also contributed to the outcome of this affair, the former to generously pay journalists so they wouldn't spread this story, the latter concerning more of his small maneuvers to hide it from everyone's eyes, especially intercepting mail and reading it to eliminate any incriminating letters or even using the Memory Charm on the few students who knew and needed to be silenced before the rumor spread within the school.
As for his student, luckily she had survived the attack, but her parents, horrified by what had happened to their daughter, had immediately removed her from the school's records and taken her home as soon as she had awoken a few days later at St. Mungo's, preventing the healers from properly treating the young girl who would keep the marks of her aggression on her body for the rest of her life.
"Too bad for them," Dumbledore contented himself by muttering, thinking back on it.
He himself hadn't looked further into it, and not once had he visited Hermione in her hospital bed, preferring instead to downplay as much as possible what had happened in front of the curious. The memory of the girl's ravaged face from the troll's blow, the monstrous amount of blood she had lost, splattered on the bathroom floor, the wood chips lodged in her body reasonably due to being thrown against the stalls... It would probably haunt him for the rest of his life. How he regretted being the first to enter that room! At least he could pride himself on having single-handedly defeated that stupid creature and saved Hermione from a particularly painful death, but the carnage that resulted from it still gave him shivers whenever he thought about it.
Sighing yet again, trying to think of another subject, the tip of his quill still resting on the letter addressed to the persistently empty Moody, his eyes fell on the stack of papers in front of him that didn't seem to diminish. However, a carefully sealed and perfumed letter caught his attention at the top of the pile. An admirer? It wasn't exceptional, but Dumbledore had rarely received such letters. Seizing the envelope, he quickly opened it after examining the fine and elegant handwriting on it, extracting a simple sheet of parchment that he unfolded before reading, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"Goodness, I almost forgot about him!" he exclaimed, laughing heartily, startling his familiar.
Turning his head in its direction, Dumbledore showed him the letter addressed to him, and while shaking his head, the headmaster spoke again, mischief sparkling in his eyes:
"I believe we have already found our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Fawkes. I can't wait to see you in action, Gilderoy Lockhart."
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