The paintings, however, did not. They were all watching him. They were waiting for something, he decided. Each face wore either a look of curiosity, or a highly amused smirk. And since some of these people wouldn’t have known humor if it bit them on the arse, and a fair few were even less imaginative than Harry Potter’s Muggle uncle Vernon, Albus Dumbledore counted this as a poor omen.
Albus Dumbledore was not a Seer. People sometimes thought he was, but they were incorrect. They were right in thinking that he was an excellent judge of human character, with a brilliant mind for both sorcery and logic, but he could not actually predict the future. There were no true Seers alive to Dumbledore’s knowledge, which was vast. In any event, Dumbledore didn’t have a great deal of patience for Seers of any type.
He did, however, have a fair bit of patience for prophecy. It was such that had ultimately led to Harry Potter’s placement with his aunt and uncle. Harry’s aunt Petunia was her late sister’s final living blood relation. She was the only person with whom Harry could live and be protected by the strongest shield Dumbledore could give him.
It was only after several minutes of watching the paintings that Dumbledore’s attention was caught by a plain paper envelope, sitting on the right side of his desk. It had his name on it, in an untidy scrawl.
He ripped it open and tore a piece of paper from it. He read the message on it several times, and then dropped it onto the desk. He pointed his wand at several different instruments on the desk, in a specific order. All confirmed what the message said.
The message had read, “He will be safer with the family I have given him to. Your enemy will never find him. You have my word.”
Dumbledore could not interpret the characters that made up the signature, as he didn’t know the language; but he knew, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the message was the absolute truth.
In another dimension, the infant Harry Potter rolled over in his sleep, wrapped up in a blanket in a basket, on the doorstep of that world’s greatest warrior. He clutched a letter in his hand.
~_~
About ten years later...
Harry Potter, now nearly eleven years of age, whirled about a grassy plain, engaged in a dance of death at extremely high speed. Punches and kicks were thrown, in addition to blocks of pretended-but-anticipated blows from an imagined opponent. He had been dancing for hours, occasionally focusing his power to fire off large energy blasts. Each time he fired one, it would tear across the ground or through the air, and unfailingly find its target, annihilating it.
The very air seethed with power: Harry was quite strong. Nowhere near the power of the young man who raised him, naturally, but still a force to be wary of. His energy blasts could rip a mountain apart if he chose.
Or, he could rip the mountain apart with his bare hands and feet.
Sweat poured down his face as he upped his speed. After another three hours, he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Unconsciousness followed as powerful arms lifted him from the ground and carried him into the house across the field.
Hours later, Harry was awakened by a pecking at his window. He rose from the bed, rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes, and looked out the window into the face of the most unusual bird he had ever seen in his life.
It was about the size of a swan, with bright red and gold plumage, that looked almost like living flames. Its tail feathers stretched more than a yard. It had a long beak that ended in a point. Its eyes were black and seemed to glitter.
It was a very unusual bird. Moreover, it seemed to have a scroll of paper tied to its left leg, and a large silver key tied on a string that wrapped around its neck. Harry opened the window to let the strange bird into his room.
The room seemed to warm slightly with the bird’s presence. Harry felt oddly brave just looking at it. He felt much braver still when the bird began to sing. It was the most beautiful and yet haunting sound Harry had heard in his life. After a while the song stopped, but the emotions did not.
Harry removed the key, untied the scroll from the bird’s leg, and unrolled it, finding that it was not a scroll, but three pages of parchment. Picking up the top one, he began to read.
“Dear Harry”, it read. “My name is Albus Dumbledore. You will not know that name. I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school you have been written down as a future student of since your birth. I have information of considerable importance to give you. Please read the other letter, if you have not done so. When you are ready, grasp the key in one hand, and Fawkes’ tail feathers in your other. Then clearly say the words ‘Take me home’, and Fawkes will bring you to me. I look forward to our meeting.”
Harry quickly read the other letter, and then called out, “Gohan, I’m going out for a while! I’ll be back!” The following voice said, “Fine!” Harry smiled as he grasped the key. He took hold of the strange bird’s tail feathers and said, “Take me home.” And in a blaze of fire, the pair disappeared.
Harry found himself in a large room. He saw a desk in front of him, and on the desk were many silver devices. All around the walls were portraits of men and women. The portraits, oddly enough, seemed to be watching him. And standing behind the desk was a man.
The man was tall and very thin, and clearly very old. He was wearing a dark blue robe of a sort Harry had never seen. He had a very long silver beard, and very long silver hair. His face was lined but was very warm. His nose was long and crooked, as though it had been broken and not healed quite right. His blue eyes were very bright, and twinkled behind a pair of half-moon glasses.
Harry could tell, just from looking at him, that this man was powerful. He shifted his sight to see the man’s aura, and found an energy field much like the one he saw in himself, although more defined.
“Hello, Harry”, the man said. “Please sit down.”
And Harry noticed a chair in front of the desk, one that had not been there before. He sat down.
“I am Albus Dumbledore, Harry. You are at Hogwarts. You are in my office. You arrived here with my phoenix, Fawkes. You have read the letters?”
Harry nodded.
“Then, Harry, you will know that you are a wizard. You have the ability to perform magic. You are here because you shall attend this school, for the next seven years, starting in September. Your parents attended this school also; as did every wizard and witch in your father’s line for centuries. Your parents were two of the finest students in recent memory.”
Harry’s eyes were wide. He had never heard so much about his parents. He had never, in fact, heard anything at all about them.
“You will know, of course, that they are dead.”
Harry nodded, sadly. He did know this.
“The circumstances surrounding their deaths are some of the saddest and most fantastic of the age, Harry. Those circumstances have caused you to be something of a living legend. You are famous, Harry; you are held in the highest esteem by most of our kind.”
Harry’s eyes widened even further.
“I am very careful about my choice of words, Harry. You will note that I said, ‘most of our kind’.”
Harry nodded.
“There are many, Harry, who hold much less favorable opinions of you. I shall explain. About twenty or twenty-one years ago, there was a very powerful dark wizard, who called himself Lord Voldemort. He began gathering power and followers. He gathered a great deal of both. For eleven years, he held our society in his grip.”
Here, Dumbledore paused briefly. Harry nodded in understanding.
“Naturally, as evil forces tend to be, he was opposed by forces of good. Your parents, once they had completed school, were among them.”
Dumbledore paused again, and noted that he had Harry’s full attention.
“We come to ten years ago. On a night about ten years ago, Voldemort found the place where your parents were hidden. Your father battled him to give your mother time to escape with you. Sadly, though James Potter was a great wizard, Voldemort was stronger. And so Voldemort was the victor in their duel, and James Potter was dead.”
Harry clenched his fists.
“Voldemort found your mother, who had not had time to escape. Your mother, Lily, did not wish you dead. She stood in the way of Voldemort so that he could not kill you. She valued your life above her own. Voldemort valued neither her life nor yours. He killed your mother as he killed your father.”
Here, Dumbledore paused again. He noted that Harry’s hands were bleeding. Blood was dripping to the floor, from where the skin on Harry’s hands had broken from Harry clenching his fists. Harry did not seem to notice.
A nimbus of power seemed to fill the room. The air seethed and swelled.
“And now we come to why you are famous, Harry. Voldemort turned his wand on you. He attempted to kill you as he had killed your father and as he had killed your mother. But he failed. The curse meant to kill you did not. It rebounded and struck him. Your home was destroyed, but you were alive. Your parents were killed, but you lived. Voldemort was left without a body and without power, but you were unharmed, save that scar on your forehead.”
The power seemed to dissipate. Harry was calming.
“I am very careful about my choice of words, Harry. You will note that I told you he was left ‘without a body and without power’. I did not say he was dead. He is not. He is neither truly alive nor truly dead, and as such, cannot be killed. But he will not remain that way forever. Of that I am completely certain.”
The power seemed to rise again.
“Voldemort will return to his body one day, Harry. There is ancient dark magic that will allow it. It may take years, but it will happen. He will want to kill you.”
The power rose still more. The air temperature rose also.
“His followers, many of whom were not imprisoned and many whom were, will rejoin him.”
The air became positively baking.
“You will want to fight. You will want to hurt. You will want to kill. Here you will be trained in magic. You may learn ways, if you wish, to fight and hurt and kill. You will not be taught some of them, but they are there to learn.”
The air cooled a little.
“I can give you only one piece of advice, Harry. Think carefully before you take something you cannot replace.”
The air returned to normal. The power dissipated.
“And now you have more people to meet. Fawkes...”, and Dumbledore looked to the phoenix. The phoenix vanished in a burst of flame.
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(Posted Sat, 27 Dec 2003 22:49)
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