Chapter Twelve

There's the rustle of robes, the scraping of trestle tables, the drawing back of chairs and the click click of cutlery. Hushed conversation drones through the great hall.

"Dark Lord Potter: A Life History," Trace reads. "By Rita Skeeter."

"Hear that, chaps?" I hoot to the rest of Slytherin, through a mouthful of porridge. I wave my spoon menacingly. "I'm recruiting. I demand a pint of butterbeer as tribute. So if anyone wishes to join. . ."

I am met with wary looks. Minions are not so easily canvassed, it would seem. Even dark lords are being laid off in this economy.

"Chequered past, blah blah . . . killed someone . . . blah blah blah. . . Records on father . . . blah blah. . . threat to society . . . blah, oh, here . . . perhaps instead of spreading lies about the return of He who must not be named, Neville Longbottom and Albus Dumbledore ought to confront the threat within Hogwarts first. A dark lord in training walks amongst our children."

"What does she mean, walks?" I cry, affronted. "No self respecting dark lord walks. Struts, maybe. Levitates, certainly. But I'd never stoop to mere walking."

"It is known," Tori nods, from the crook of my elbow. She's clung on like a leech since my return last night.

". . . corrupting innocent minds . . ."

"Oh yes, poor innocent Draco Malfoy. Never been the same since I corrupted him."

" . . . seducing them with the promise of dark magic . . ."

"Nonsense. Never needed magic to seduce anyone, to be honest."

" . . . silencing opposition through undue violence. But despite the threat to my own person, this brave investigative journalist—"

Tracey's voice cracks. She's crying with laughter.

"Sorry," she hiccups, holding her stomach; "Skeeter calling herself a journalist . . . but anyhow, this brave investigative journalist brings you the inside scoop."

"We should scoop out her insides," Daph urges, stabbing her fork into the table. "Or we could take her to the forbidden forest. Lure her in with an inside scoop, then feed her to that acromantula horde—"

"Or we could just . . . write her a strongly worded letter of protest?" Trace looks up from her Daily Prophet.

"Whoa, calm down there, Satan. There are lines even dark lords mustn't cross."

"I don't think Skeeter can read anyway," Daph adds.

"If she can't read, she doesn't need eyes," I reply.

"Let's scoop them out with a rusted spoon," Daph decides, rubbing her hands together.

She and I convulse with ominous glee. Truly, everything is magnified by the power of friendship, even fantasies of pre planned murder.

"Yeah, whatever." Trace rolls her eyes. She goes back to her paper.

"Go on, don't leave us in the dark," Tori whines. She tries peering over me to get a good look. Given her short stature, and given that Daph sits between me and Trace, this is a hopeless task.

"You've grown fat, Daffy," Tori huffs, poking her sister in the ribs before giving it up for a lost cause.

"Shh. The adults are talking. Go back to stuffing your face, little pig," Daph fires back.

Tori grabs a doughnut and flings it at Daph. I pluck it out of the air; I plunge it into my mouth. I tap the back of Tori's head with my other hand. Home sweet home— Hogwarts how I've missed you.

"Ow, he's killed me!" Tori cries. She dives face first into the table. I prod her neck but she stays unmoving.

Daph, meanwhile, finally reacts to the erstwhile airborne doughnut. She ducks in slow motion, then realises there's no threat. Sheepishly she comes back up.

"Impressive reflexes," she says.

Sometimes this girl still wonders why she has no talent for duelling, by the way.

"Avenge your sister, Daffy, else I'll haunt you forever," is the muffled moan from the corpse I am prodding with great gusto. I wave my half eaten doughnut under its nose. It sniffs elegantly.

Swallows its drool but stays immobile.

"Guys, listen," Trace shushes. She's rediscovered the spot where she left off.

Tori whips back up. She hisses at me like a cat.

"All ears, Trace," I say, ruffling Tori's hair. The hissing turns into purring. Melodrama, thy name is Astoria Greengrass.

"First I tracked down Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, a British law enforcement official whom Potter brutally savaged. When asked for comment, Auror Shacklebolt gave none, cowed by the dire consequences that await anyone who speaks out against this newly minted dark lord."

"Her style is awful," I idly note, taking a sip of pumpkin juice. "You need to go into the trenches and sell your readers this shit. Visceral detail. Blow by blow account of the carnage wrought. Intestines flying about like sentient spaghetti and whatnot. Leave people quaking at the thought of me— paint me into the dark lord I deserve to be. Britain's own boogeyman. Instead you get this cheap parody, this milquetoast 'brutally savaged' and 'dire consequences'. It's trite, it's cliched— it shows a regrettable lack of creativity. I rate that passage a 2/10."

"Then I went to China to locate the infamous necromancer—"

"He's not even a necromancer!" I protest. "Necromancy, like soul magic, is illegal, and Chang's entire shtick—" I see three identical glares affixed on me and recognise my commentary is not much appreciated.

"Never mind," I grumble.

"— Qiang Chang, who, on being asked about Dark Lord Potter, foamed at the mouth and chased after this reporter with a shoe. Yes, dear readers, I had to run for my life, all whilst this deranged dwarf marauded hot on my heels, snapping at me like a chihuahua and spewing obscenities in strange languages."

"Yeah, that does sound like him."

"It is quite clear that Potter has addled this once noble mind through repeated beatings (page 7 for more details; for history of heads against concrete, page 8; page 9 for Harry Potter— a muggle dark lord?). Or could it be that this dark lord in training has already obtained his first loyal servant?"

"Did Chang throw the shoe?" Daph demands.

"Did it connect?" I wonder.

Trace skims the article.

"Yes," she cackles. "To both."

Daph and I beam.

"Great man," she says, wiping a tear.

"Oh, unquestionably."

"Possibly the greatest of all time."

"Maybe if he'd thrown the other shoe as well."

"Fair enough."

"But while I was befuddled, I was not to be denied, dear reader. Last night I cornered the new duelling world champion, Alexandra Grimsditch—"

"Wait, Alex won?" There's nothing sardonic about my tone this time.

Trace flips over to the sports section. Skims through it.

"Mm hmm," she confirms. "Grimsditch 4 Lacroix 1."

"Good for her, man," I say warmly. I'm jubilant.

"Lacroix was injured," Daph reminds me.

"Yeah, but he's still hard to beat," I say. "Though not for Alex, I s'pose. But it's great anyway. That scoreline's magnificent. Poetic, even, since that's what she lost her last two finals by. At least they can't berate her for that anymore across the pond: it's taken three decades, but the United States finally has a world champion."

"Guys, do you want to listen or not?" Trace asks.

"Sorry," Daph and I chime in together.

"Madam Grimsditch is— it's three paras of description about her appearance. I can skip that, right?"

"They could've just stuck in a flippin' pic instead," Tori swears. "Soooo done with degenerate writers who pad their word counts for content. Dropped."

"Skeeter gets paid by the word," I console. "Have pity. Those extra paras keep the tap water running."

"Her tap water comes at the expense of our collective tears."

"Brain rot, Tori," Daph corrects. "Our collective brain rot. I can feel what's left of my brain dripping through my ears. Like candle wax."

"Is Skeeter the cause behind British stupidity or is she merely the byproduct of it?" I ponder. I stroke my chin. It is a fascinating question, and will no doubt require an elaborate, well thought out reply. A thesis and antithesis, if you will.

"Cause," Daph says.

I stare at her in dismay.

"You can do better than that, Daph," I cajole. "Pretend you're getting paid by the word. Be Rita— be verbose. Put more oomph into it."

She looks at me blankly.

"She's the cause," Daph insists. She stubbornly thumps her fork against the table for emphasis. I seem to have befriended a minimalistic automaton.

"Nah, byproduct," I sigh, defeated. "Quite literally, even. She sells a product, panders to a readerbase that is eager to lap up this nonsense. If it weren't her doing it, it'd be someone else. But the demand is there."

"I'm not reading anymore," Trace says crossly, folding the paper.

We are once more profuse in our apologies.

"When asked about this new threat to Britain, Madam Grimsditch had the following to say (the reporter quotes verbatim, since Ms. Grimsditch broke her quick quotes quill): 'Britain does not know what a generational talent it has in Harry Potter. He ought to be a national treasure. Everyday y'all ought to get on your knees and thank your lucky stars for his personal integrity and strength of character. Because if he were to become a Dark Lord, as you so tastelessly imply, then in a decade's time there's no one on the planet that could stop him.'"

"I'm touched," I mumble.

"I seem to have missed a lot," Trace says. "I know you're friends, but this is more than what friends say about each other. . ."

"I think you can now add her to the selective list of people I appreciate a lot and would do almost anything for."

"Huh." Trace's quizzical expression tells me she intends to wheedle the details out of me later.

She returns to the paper.

"Anyway," she continues, clearing her throat. "Mark, dear readers, the saccharine, simpering adulation in Ms. Grimsditch's tone when talking about Harry Potter. There is no doubt in this journalist's mind that Alexandra Grimsditch, known for her hedonistic ways (page 4), has partaken in crude sexual acts with— hey, I was reading that!"

Her protest is because I've flicked my wand and turned the paper to ash.

The effect is immediate. The Slytherins closest to us trip over themselves to get away. Audible gasps echo through the great hall. Unstable, Dark Wizard and Protego Diabolica all combine into one cacophonous mass of accusations.

I'm no longer laughing.

"Alex gets a bad rap," I fume, through grit teeth, "and some of it might even be deserved. But the stones on Skeeter, to suggest that Alex is a paedophile. . ."

I take a deep breath.

"You were right, Daph. Playing nice with that woman was a mistake."

"You could tell Madam Grimsditch to sue," Daph points out.

"What, a British citizen? Before Wizengamot? You must be joking."

"There's the ICW."

"National laws take precedence. And the libel laws here are non-existent. I looked it up, back when she did this shit last year. No, the only way to deal with Skeeter's motormouth is to shut it for her. The next time I see her, I'm going to kick her teeth in."

The day of my return coincides with a relatively light schedule. The classes for the day are as follows: double period for muggle studies, history of magic, double arithmancy. After that, I go through brochures for future duelling tournaments.

A tournament in Switzerland catches my eye. It is next month. And what recommends it to me is the fact that no one in the top five is likely to participate. The prize money of two fifty galleons is nothing to scoff at either.

So I decide to head to Dumbledore's office for permission.

It is evening. The door is unlocked. When I step inside the office, Dumbledore is not there. Instead, I am greeted by the apparatus lining his desk: beakers, funnels, tubes, retorts, alembics. Translucent fluids swirl in some of them while the others are lucent and gaseous. I assume these are the instruments that facilitate Dumbledore's obsession with alchemy.

I whistle. I hum. Never before have I given myself the liberty to really take this office in, but now that I do its magnificence impresses me. There is a teakwood bookshelf adjoining the wall. The wallpaper is chestnut. Granite columns flank the four corners. I am surrounded by portraits, presumably of former headmasters, all of whom stare at me with unbridled curiosity. On one of the aforementioned columns there rests a pensieve; on the other, a fully grown phoenix. It blinks at me and trills softly.

I hesitate, then step towards it. I expect some sort of warning, but it simply continues to trill, till I'm eyeball to eyeball with it. It preens and offers me its feathers. They are velvet . . . no, something smoother, something more regal.

I lose track of time, listening to the phoenix's content gurgles; my fingers have a life of their own— they brush, they pet, they stroke, they smooth.

"Good girl," I murmur.

"While some phoenixes have no gender, I believe Fawkes would be most upset at being called a girl."

I turn around. Dumbledore has emerged through a trapdoor to my left. He beams at me.

"Harry Potter," he greets. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Oh, it's just permission for—"

I stop mid-sentence. I stare.

His robes are midnight blue and star spangled; his beard, as always, is well maintained, with not a hair out of place. But that is not what catches my attention. He looks weary— there are dark circles under his eyes; he has aged almost a decade in a fortnight. And then there's the truly disturbing detail at the centre of it all.

"Your hand . . ."

I am lost for words. His right hand is withered and blackened.

"A mishap," he says pleasantly. "Pay no heed to it."

"A mishap?" I sound incredulous to my own ears. "Is that what they call a Transylvanian rotting curse these days?"

For the first time his smile fades.

"Ah," he says delicately. "I did not expect a curse so obscure to be correctly identified. But if I had to put my money on anyone in this castle except Professor Snape recognising this, then it would have been on you."

"Daphne might too," I say. "Pomfrey as well, most likely."

"No, not Madam Pomfrey. She does not specialise in the dark arts, and this curse, as you know, is quite niche. You also know what it does, I presume?"

My throat clogs. For a moment I cannot speak. For a moment I cannot breathe either.

"How long do you have left?" I mumble.

"I was most fortunate," he hums, as if discussing the weather, "to have someone of Professor Snape's expertise at my beck and call."

"How much time, professor?"

His eyes twinkle. He stretches out his cracked and flaked hand for me to examine.

"How much time would you give me?"

"I'm not a healer," I say, stepping in close and taking his hand nonetheless. From this range it looks even worse. The veins lining his hand have swollen and turned grey— that always foretells death. This is a horrid, horrid curse, punishable with the dementor's kiss in the few Eastern European provinces that know of its existence. I would honestly prefer to be ripped apart by a rampaging bull over this— this curse kills you cell by cell, and even if stymied you can only delay the inevitable: you are promised nothing less than an excruciating death. Dumbledore, despite his sedate manner, must be in debilitating pain.

"Less than a year," I say, letting go of his hand.

He claps. The gesture causes him discomfort.

"Bravo!" He beams. "That is an accurate prognosis. The world of healing lost a gem when you opted for duelling, Mister Potter."

"I'd not go that far," I mutter, lost. "Even that much time is a miracle . . . this curse usually eats through its victims in a fortnight. Snape's done an incredible job."

"It is heartening to see you look past the animosity you hold towards Professor Snape."

"I don't. I still despise the man. But I've never doubted his abilities as a Potioneer. Didn't know he had that sort of background in the dark arts, though."

"A story for another time." Dumbledore walks around me and slumps into his chair. His breathing is erratic.

"Please, take a seat," he says. "You have business with me?"

"I wanted to ask about an upcoming tournament. But damn it, sir, that's the furthest thing from my mind right now . . ."

Dumbledore puts up a hand.

"Yet it needs an answer all the same. I see you have not taken the time to keep abreast of the latest developments at Hogwarts. I no longer have the authority to hand out permissions for external tournaments."

"What?"

"Educational decree number twenty-four. By order of the Ministry, only the High Inquisitor can grant you permission to leave the school grounds. That extends to tournaments and familial emergencies."

"The High Inquisitor?"

"Professor Dolores Umbridge."

"Ah, fuck, I can't believe you've done this," I blurt out.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkle.

"Not the language I would have used," he says. "But I agree with the sentiment."

"Well then," I keep sneaking glances at his hand, "may I ask what caused that, sir?"

Dumbledore considers this.

"A cursed artefact," he says, after an uncomfortably long pause.

"It would have to be something very well disguised to hoodwink you," I venture.

"It was." His tone suggests that he'll entertain no more questions in this regard.

"All right. That's it, I think. I'll be off, then."

"Wait."

I stare at him. His blue eyes bore into me. There's something about his penetrative gaze that makes me very uncomfortable. It's not a legilimency probe — my occlumency is adequate, and not even someone of Dumbledore's calibre could break into my mind without a wand—but he has this way of X raying you. Pinning you to the spot.

"I know how things work in Slytherin," he says slowly. "And I would very much appreciate it if the details of my impending demise were to never reach the wrong ears. So I ask, what do you want in return for your silence?"

My heart starts to thump in my chest. It goes a mile a minute.

"You mean . . .?"

"Yes. You may ask for anything you want. And if it is within my power to grant, then I will see it done. In return, of course, I must ask you to share my condition with no one, not even your closest friends."

He steeples his fingers.

"So what is it you want, Harry? That apprenticeship? I do not have much time left, and even breathing has started to become a chore. But I can sure we can arrange—"

"I want the truth about my father."

For the first time I see a hint of discomfort in Dumbledore's demeanour.

"Yes," he says, stroking his beard. "Yes, I see. I thought that was a possibility."

"You can hardly blame me, sir. You've stonewalled my queries every time."

Dumbledore seems to be having some sort of mental debate. The clock on his mantlepiece ticks seconds, then minutes. Eventually he sighs and nods. He pulls out his wand, and the portraits in the room freeze. There's just me, him and the phoenix. He puts his wand on the table.

"Very well. I do not know the entire truth. Only Lord Voldemort does, I believe. But I shall tell you everything I know— everything I've never confessed to a single soul."

He places his palms on the desk.

"James Potter was the brightest student of his generation. Fillius, and Horace Slughorn, who taught potions at the time, would no doubt say Lily Evans; but as someone who worked with them, and for years was their mentor, Lily had a tendency to be short sighted and rigid— whereas James . . . James was everything anyone could wish to be. The poster child for perfection, if you will.

"When he first approached me in his seventh year, he was a bright young man— idealistic, full of hope and self-belief. There was no deception in that. He wished to fight for justice and change the world. He wished to expunge all evil, he told me. A noble ambition. To accomplish that, he offered his services to the Order of the Phoenix. I gladly accepted.

"Much as he quickly rose to the top of everything else he set his mind to, your father was able to do the same within the Order. Within twelve months, he was my second in command and my most trusted confidante, ahead of Kingsley, ahead of Minerva, ahead even of Alastor.

"I still remember the day he first brought me news that Lord Voldemort had contacted him. Voldemort, you see, much like everyone else, saw James's talent, and he was determined to acquire him. He promised a swift rise in the ranks of the newly anointed death eaters. James, of course, wanted no such thing. He wanted to reject the offer out of hand. His family— your family— has always fought for what is right, and he wished to continue that tradition.

"I convinced him otherwise."

Dumbledore's countenance contorts into an expression of utmost agony.

"An old man's hubris, nothing more. You have to understand, Harry, that this was the summer of '79. We were losing the war. All we could do was round up lowly henchmen, none of whom could impart us with anything vital. We were fighting an enemy we could not see, whose identities we did not know; an enemy who emerged from the shadows to ambush us then melted back into them. Voldemort did not just sow the seeds of discontent— where he truly excelled, where he surpassed even Grindelwald, was in his understanding of fear. Every burning cottage, every ransacked manor, every dead ministry official, every muggleborn family strung from the rafters, all mutilated, took that fear up a notch, until the entire nation was drowning in it. Then there was a clamour in some sections to invite Lord Voldemort— this terrorist, this mass murdering psychopath— to become Prime Minister.

"It is at this juncture that Voldemort made his offer to your father. I regret to say I pushed James into it— it was a blessing, a gift from mother magic herself. It gave us a highly placed informant in their camp, and that made all the difference.

"I will not bore you with trifles. War is a horrid thing; it scarred us all, but it scarred James the most. For two years, he and I partook in a bloody calculus: what lives to spare, which ones to sacrifice. Oh, yes. There were lives lost in the Order that others chalked up to misfortune or accident, but that the two of us knew were necessary: the Prewitt twins, the Mckinnons, Amelia Bones's extended family . . ."

Tears trickle down his silver beard. Behind his half-moon spectacles, his eyes are haunted.

"Thus went the butchery of give and take. In exchange, your father saved thousands of lives, even if he committed horrible atrocities by his own hand, all in the name of avoiding suspicion, all to satisfy the whims and megrims of an old man who had no business being a war leader . . .

"It broke James. Every day I watched his idealism fade, every day I watched his disgust with himself grow, every day I watched him wrestle with his conscience; yet every day I pushed him back into the welcoming embrace of Voldemort, because there were lives to save, secrets to discover, and we had no one else . . ."

"I dare say your father, by the end, saw in me as much of a monster as he did in Lord Voldemort. No, worse; because he once trusted me, revered me, and, up to that point, he had never extended Voldemort the same courtesy.

"I do not know what happened in the end. Perhaps James switched sides. Perhaps he was discovered. But a month before his death, his information became faulty. There were events— a bridge collapse in Manchester, a village massacre in Essex— that he failed to warn the Order about. Then he misled a troop of us into an ambush. I grew alarmed. I stepped back from my role, and for the first time I looked at him— truly looked at him— and I came to the harrowing conclusion that James Potter was a stranger to me. He was a shell of himself; he had grown desensitised and reclusive; there were casual cruelties in his actions, of the sort I had never noticed before. I censured him. We quarreled over that. We had a falling out. That was the last time I saw him. He left the Order, but not before blaming me for turning him into what he was. He was right— he was my creation. I provided Voldemort with his pet fiend; I alone carry the blame for that, and it is me Wizengamot should've prosecuted and sentenced, not your father."

Silence descends over us like a pall. A withered hand wipes away the tears still speckling his cheek.

My mouth is dry. Rage roils about in my chest. I wish to lash out. I wish to whip my wand and strike him down. But as I watch him sit there, like a puppet with his strings cut, all I see is a dying fossil with a lifetime of regrets.

"You disgust me, Dumbledore," I say quietly.

"It is no less than I expected."

"You're responsible for my family's tragedy. My mother's torture. Her stay at St. Mungo's. Her eventual death."

"Yes."

"There'll never be any forgiveness for that."

"I do not ask for it."

"I hope you burn in hell when that rotting curse kills you, old man."

He shuts his wrinkled eyelids and bows his head.

"It would be no less than I deserve."

"I do not wish to see your face or speak to you ever again."

"It is your right to do so."

I bite the inside of my cheek and stare sightlessly at the frozen portraits. Their grotesque expressions mirror my inner grief. Dumbledore's phoenix trills softy and the music feels like a mockery, like a cheap imitation of joy. My eyes burn, my nerves are numb. I feel like I'll never joke around or crack a smile again. I wish I could write this entire thing off as a nightmare.

"Why did you not say all this at my father's posthumous trial?"

"The last thing a post war populace requires is a loss of faith in the figureheads that are supposed to uphold the law. I said he was a spy, I admitted he was my man; to go further would have been futile, and it would have risked the fragile peace we had created, especially since I knew Lord Voldemort would return one day."

"How can you sit there and say these things so calmly? Oh gods, how can you— you repugnant, loathsome . . ."

My voice breaks. With great effort I beat down the torrent in my soul.

"It doesn't matter anymore," I say coldly. "None of it does."

I stand. I pull my wand out. He eyes it through a cloud of fatigue.

"I shall keep my word, Dumbledore, because unlike you I have a measure of class. I won't tell anyone you're dying. Would you like a vow of secrecy to that effect?"

"No. I have found, much to my regret, that magic is rarely foolproof. I take your word for it— I trust you."

"Like you trusted my father?" I mock.

"Yes." His eyes are glassy. "Yes, I suppose I did. He was like a son to me."

"Then it is our good fortune that you don't have any other sons to throw to the wolves, headmaster."

There is nothing else to be said. I stuff my wand back into my robes and head for the door.

"After what you showed at the tournament— after that spell, Protego Diabolica— the agents of Lord Voldemort will approach you," Dumbledore calls out.

I don't turn around. I grab the door handle. I have no wish to spend another minute in this man's presence.

"Maybe they will, maybe they won't. What of it?"

"When they do, I must beg you to do the right thing."

My self-control shatters. I spin and stalk towards him, my face inhumane. My wand sparks. I press its tip to his throat.

"The right thing got my father killed. The right thing turned him into the victim of a nationwide smear campaign. The right thing has turned me into a penniless orphan, you worthless sack of hippogriff dung!"

"I voted for your family to retain its place in our society," he says, not lifting a finger to defend himself. "I was outvoted. Regardless of James's allegiances, what was done to you and Lily was a great injustice."

"So you've wronged me. You admit that. And your cronies in the Ministry destroyed the life I could've had. This wretched status quo you uphold has not given me one thing I've not had to beg or scrape for. What on earth gives you the impression then, Dumbledore, that I would not just sit back and laugh when Voldemort turns Britain into rubble and ash?"

The smile Dumbledore gives me is equal parts serene and sad.

"I know you won't, because you are your father's son."

My hand twitches. I subdue the urge to break his nose.

"And more to the point, because Tom Riddle is a psychopath," Dumbledore says. "He has murdered his own followers in the past. He has extinguished entire lineages, no matter their support for him. He is charismatic; he will promise you the world, but he only cares for himself. Always remember that. Make one mistake, and you can never be certain about your loved ones' safety."

He ignores the way my grip tightens around my wand, the way the tip digs a trench into his neck. Instead, he closes his eyes.

"And that is all you care about. Is it not, Harry?" Dumbledore asks.

We both know it is a rhetorical question.

Endnotes

Finished my re-read of HBP. Work has some issues, but the last two hundred or so pages contain some of Rowling's best writing.

Dumbledore's confession regarding the Prewitt twins and the like was inspired by this throwaway line by Snape in HBP:

"The Dark Lord is satisfied with the information I have passed him on the Order. It led, as perhaps you have guessed, to the recent capture and murder of Emmeline Vance, and it certainly helped dispose of Sirius Black, though I give you full credit for finishing him off." – Snape to Bellatrix, Chapter 2, Spinner's End.

More specifically, the part about Emmeline Vance. There are two interpretations for it, once you accept Snape only ever shared information on Dumbeldore's orders:

1. He was bluffing and taking credit for something outside his control, but this is the less likely option.

2. Both Snape and Dumbledore were well aware of the burdens of war and the precarious position of double agents, and therefore reluctantly picked which Order members they were willing to sacrifice if needed, just to keep Snape's cover intact.

I myself favour the second interpretation, simply because it lends a lot of depth to both those characters. It's also, sadly, a lot more realistic and tends to be the price of information in those situations.

Albus Dumbledore is my favourite character in the HP series, and I consider it a shame I can't really explore him much in this work; but I shall try my best to do justice to the four or five scenes he has here.

I'll try and write 10k words a month from now. That's about forty hours of work, and over a thirty-day period it's doable. Anything more, and it's a bonus; anything less, and it's just life getting in the way. But I'd like to stick to at least two updates, each of 5k, or one long update that's 8-9k.

Ten minutes of your time to leave a two or three para review, lads. It'd be lovely if you could do so, because they're really encouraging and often give me food for thought.

Cheers, and see you next time!