To whom it may concern,

By the time you read this I will be dead, my only hope is that you expose the greatest dark wizard of our time and destroy his horcrux, in the hope that he will one day meet his end.

Harry Potter thought he had learned all of Albus Dumbledore’s secrets the night before the Dark Lord fell, but the believed to be deceased wizard had shared his biggest secret with nobody, except his friend and noted dark wizard Gellert Grindlewald. The desire of the two young men to ascend to positions of ultimate power and overturn the statute of secrecy did not wane as they grew older, but rather intensified and grew in malevolence. Both men desired the Deathly Hallows in the belief that they would grant them immortality. However, they both knew that there could only be one master of death, and so Dumbledore educated Grindlewald on the subject of horcruxes. After much argument and deliberation it was decided that Gellert would have the Hallows and Albus would have horcruxes. Now all that was needed was a sacrificial victim and a vessel to contain the soul fragment. I do not know what the vessel is. I can only speculate that it may be the phoenix Fawkes, or perhaps Dumbledore made the vessel a completely random object, so that it may never be round. The identity of the horcrux aside, the choice of victim must have been an easy one.

After the funeral of Arianna Dumbledore, Grindlewald and Dumbledore went their separate ways. This was of course part of the plan but the two men were in nearly constant correspondence. The Hallows remained to be found, and it is likely that during the years they spent apart, resentment began to grow between the pair. Grindlewald’s frustration at not yet achieving immortality caused him to act rashly and eager to prove his power, he began his string of murders. Meanwhile Dumbledore was living up to his status as head boy and had secured employment at Hogwarts within a few years.  It wasn’t long before he set about concealing the horcrux books under the false pretence of protecting students from their contents. His real plan was to prevent any other student from following in his footsteps and posing a threat to his ascent to power.

The resentment between Dumbledore and Grindlewald must have reached its peak when Gellert announced himself as a dark lord and began to gather a significant 
following independent of Albus. This was not part of the plan and Dumbledore must have assumed that Grindlewald did not want to share power. Urged by the international magical community and no doubt by his own fury at Gellert for betraying him and had obtaining the Elder Wand without informing him, Dumbledore challenged and beat Grindlewald in wizard combat. Now he had a horcrux and one of the hallows, and was soon offered the post of Headmaster at Hogwarts which he gracefully accepted.

Dumbledore was offered the position of the minister of magic on many occasions and would have accepted, if it wasn’t for the one man who posed a threat to his sole dominion. Dumbledore had often suspected Tom Riddle of attempting to access the horcrux books during his time at Hogwarts but had grossly underestimated Tom’s ambition and magical prowess. Eager to maintain his favorable opinion in the eyes of his fellow wizards Dumbledore fought against Lord Voldemort as best he could, and was among those praised the highest when Voldemort was ‘defeated’ in 1981. Voldemorts downfall was not good news for Dumbledore who strongly suspected that Riddle had made horcruxes and this meant his plan to seize control was again delayed. 

You will of course be familiar with the story of Harry Potter. He was and still is a good man and righteous to the core. What made it easy for Dumbledore is that good men are predictable and easy to manipulate. It had been nearly eighty years since Dumbledore created his horcrux and his greed in obtaining the resurrection stone meant that his horcrux would be put to the test. When Harry Potter met with Dumbledore 'inside his head’ on the day Potter was 'killed’ little did he know Dumbledore had been inside him since the previous summer. When Dumbledore’s soul had been ripped from his body by Severus Snape it latched onto Harry Potter much like Voldemort’s had when he had failed to kill Harry back in 1981. When Voldemort destroyed his seventh, unintentional horcrux he did not destroy Dumbledore who was using Harry as a host body not as a horcrux, much like Voldemort used Quirrel. 

The rest of the story remains uncertain. But what I do know is that the recent strain of attacks on muggles and muggle-borns is because of the direct or indirect actions of Albus Dumbledore in whatever form he is taking. I have scoured the Forbidden Forrest for the resurrection stone but it is gone. The portrait of Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts has been vacant for ten years. It is the only portrait of Albus Dumbledore in existence which suggests to me that Dumbledore has returned to a physical body once more.

It occurred to me that these facts were not absolute proof of his return. That is why I searched Dumbledores tomb this evening. A body was there, but it’s nose was not broken and it’s hand was not withered. It was not the body of Albus Dumbledore. I can only imagine that in the time Dumbledore spent separated from his body he forgot the minor details that a historian like myself would not. There is no recorded event of the tomb being penetrated other than when Voldemort took the Elder Wand. Everyone on the wizarding world regarded Dumbledore as a hero and would have no reason to disturb his tomb. The only explanation, is that Dumbledore returned to his original body and left a doppelganger in it’s place. 

As you may not be aware the cloak of invisibility was stolen from Albus Potter during his first year at Hogwarts, and the perpetrator was never caught. Having seen his father disappearing under the cloak on many occasions I am familiar with the shimmer of the cloak as it is thrown over the body. Upton my return to Hogsmeade I witnessed this same shivering just outside of the Hogshead pub. I heard screams from the pub, I thought I heard 'he’s dead, Dumbledore’s dead’. This of course was in reference to Aberforth Dumbledore. Then I saw it, a withered black hand, as though floating in mid air, it was pointed at me. Then a face appeared, it was horrible but distinct, the eyes glowed red in the darkness, the eyes of a soul torn in two. It was Albus Dumbledore. At that moment I knew, I knew the truth of things. Before he could strike me down I disaparated to my home and began writing this letter.

I suspect I shall be murdered before the night is over. But if you are reading this then I implore you to stop Albus Dumbledore. I am sorry for the crudeness of this letter and that I could not be more helpful. Knowing Dumbledore’s ability, his ascent to power would be even more great and terrible than that of Lord Voldemort or Gellert Grindlewald. He must be stopped.

Yours in Faith,

DLM 

17th December 2017

Miracle - Snolidays 2021

Fourth entry for the fest and it’s angsty. Thank you @frenchpresswriter for your diligent beta-reading <3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35609554

Dumbledore was old and weary, and he rubbed his eyes with only one hand. The other hand might have fallen off if he dared apply such pressure to it.

“You fool,” he muttered to himself: if he had not been tempted, he might have lived to see the end of the war. He allowed the stoic facade to crack when he was alone. To see the end of the war after all these years and all this work… he deserved that much, didn’t he? He’d had nothing else to gain from making it his personal business to destroy Lord Voldemort. Then again, one way or the other, to see the end of the war would be to see Severus die. It was so unfair for the old to bury the young, and how much more of this could he take?

For the old to bury the young. Heh. Gellert would have found it deliciously funny. It wasn’t fair at all, and yet in a sense, Albus had done just that: Severus was marked for death as sure as he was, and the odds were still in Riddle’s favour. It would take another miracle, Albus realized, and his only consolation was that miracles were rarely obvious. Of course they were not obvious in the sense that one anticipated them – everybody knew that. But so often, they weren’t obvious even as they were happening, even when they already happened.

He had thought, once, that Gellert’s arrival at the house next door was a miracle. Another wizard, his equal (and really, what were the odds), and a handsome one to boot. He had seized this miracle with both hands. If you hadn’t, you might have still had them. Gellert would have found that funny too. Everyone but Albus thought Harry Potter’s survival a miracle, but Albus knew it was an experiment, and it hardly counted as a miracle when a hypothesis, based on a well-founded theory, turned out to be correct. Dumbledore had always theorized on the power of love and on the power of choice, and Harry’s survival meant evidence. That was all.

The miracle had happened much before, and it looked like nothing much at the time. That a Death Eater could be brave enough to ask his master to spare a mother, the master being the type to murder an infant? That Riddle actually tried to deliver on his promise? For all your disgust, Albus, that ended up saving the world for at least ten years.

The miracle was Severus, not Harry, and again, Albus seized that miracle and never let it go. He wanted to care but he couldn’t afford to, because before long, they would all be dead.

A miracle, that a man so corrupted could love a childhood friend more than his own life. A miracle that a man so broken could face more danger and more death and yet complain only about the dunderheads that grew dumber every year.

Albus had told Harry that the prophecy being overheard had been a tragedy, but he knew the prophecy had waited for Severus just as much as it had waited for Albus himself. Only Severus could make it come true, and only Dumbledore could divine an interpretation that would give Harry and the Wizarding World a fighting chance when all was lost. Though it had not felt like a miracle when it had happened - not at all. It felt like a nuisance. Without his Pensieve, Albus might not even have remembered what the Prophecy had said at all.

The one with the power to vanquish the Dart Lord approaches… said while Severus Snape was approaching. Even Gellert might have found thatjoke to be in poor taste. In the end, Albus, you would have lost your right hand or your right-hand man. Now your right-hand man will lose you. That is all. A minor difference in the grand scheme of things. He closed his eyes.

It would have been easier for Severus to die for not killing me. His allegiance would have been known, at least, and he would have understood why, and I would have been able to help Harry, might have lived to see the end.If I hadn’t met Gellert a century ago, we might not have needed this many miracles.

Dumbledore downed a goblet of the golden potion that kept the curse contained. It went down smooth as fine scotch and warm as hot chocolate. Were it not for all these miracles, Severus might have been a world-famous healer.

Albus sighed, cleared his mind, and prepared himself for another private lesson with Harry.

There is something quite wonderful, about Dumbledore not being as perfect as we all originally thought, about him manipulating the situation and ‘playing God’ so to speak. Although I was crushed when I found out, it does illustrate that no one is perfect, even our idols and the ones we love the most. It illustrates that everyone can improve themselves for the good, learn to be loving and caring. Every teenager will go through a selfish phase. I’m quite possibly chatting rubbish, but I think it’s beautiful. The man I admired the most (although he was fictional) was imperfect.

summer reading

i was a fool for thinking that ‘dumbledore’ only meant albus. a jester and a fool.

life isnt fair babe