• October 2nd, 1996, Hogwarts, Headmaster's Office •
• Monday, 6:30 AM •
[ Albus Dumbledore ]
Time seems to slow down to a crawl when you are doing something you hate—that is a universal law I have come to understand after spending a whole night going through what seemed to be thousands of parchments that had been piling up since I left.
The amount of redundant, repetitive, and recycled words I have read and written in reply would be enough to give a person a seizure. "Respect the sovereignty of our nations, Master Dumbledore." "We implore you to inform us if you decide to visit next time, Sir Dumbledore." "We hope your brief stay in our country was delightful, Dumbledore; please inform us next time so that we can offer the appropriate hospitality." And so on and so forth. So much nonsense. You'd think I'd visited their bedrooms unannounced or something.
Let's not forget all the letters I received from the ICW and Unspeakables all around the world questioning me, my motives, the methods used, and the reason the Archive access steles were appearing everywhere. My amusement at their audacity faded really fast, the longer I read their letters, and all that was left was annoyance and irritation that might have seeped into my replies more than once.
They seem to have forgotten that the position of Supreme Mugwump grants me the right to enter and exit anywhere in the damn world, as long as I have a good reason for it—and the fact that I am too strong for them to question.
'No, they didn't forget. They've simply grown so used to the always-smiling, jovial old man who left them to their own devices that the new me is frightening them,' one of my parallel thoughts supplied.
"It's a good thing Gellert's waking up tomorrow, then," I muttered to myself. I knew I had been patient enough with everyone already. I am not the old me, after all. I have far more important things to focus on than babysitting them or worrying about their bruised egos—but I am also not foolish enough to leave them to their own devices.
I am wise enough to know that humanity's worst enemy is itself, and I'll be damned if I allow a few idiots to fuck up the whole world's chance of surviving and thriving.
'Peace, Albus. Peace,' I reminded myself as I leaned back and stretched slightly, my chair groaning under me as I did so.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the amazing scent of oud—a type of Arabic agarwood chip soaked in a variety of magical extracts, which smelled absolutely divine right now. This was one of the few miscellaneous things I had bought there; well, this and some perfume, but I had done the same in almost every country I visited during my little worldwide tour.
I looked around as I relaxed slightly, watching my smoking trinkets do their job. For once, the smoke coming from them was not candy-scented or odorless. Of course, I ignored the flashy lights and noise coming from the trinkets next to them, as they were not important right now.
I shook my head and returned my attention to my desk, where my self-writing quill was doing its job, writing what I needed it to write in response to my own Ministry's inquiries. I smirked as I noticed that I was almost done with all this nonsense. The mountains of paperwork and letters that had been there last night before Minerva left were almost gone, with only a few scattered envelopes and parchments remaining.
'Good job, Albus. Good job,' I mentally patted myself on the back—not for completing my task, but for the unbreakable will it had taken to resist the temptation to burn and vanish the piles of papers that were there yesterday and pretend they simply didn't exist; or for not stopping the rest of my parallel minds and thoughts from their duties and having them help me control more than one self-writing quill just to finish faster…
'Okay, there were a lot of ideas and temptations yesterday, but I powered through them, so I deserve a pat on the back,' I nodded to myself, completely ignoring how unconvinced I was by my own logic…
A slight ping came from my Archive as the screen flashed in front of me, showing me a new notification. I clicked to check what it was and smiled as I was reminded of something I had almost forgotten. The Archive had finished integrating into the Room of Requirement successfully. This was good news.
I might have been able to create a mental replica of the RoR through the Archive system, but having the real, physical thing evolved and ready to be used just solved a lot of small issues for me. Like making it possible for students and professors alike to share their mental battle records and settings with the room and train physically instead of just mentally.
I felt the grin on my face widen as I just thought of an amazing idea. Why not make the Room of Requirement into something bigger? I could connect it with several other Hogwarts wardstones for power and convert a number of the unused and abandoned classrooms into mini-RoRs. I could also make it so that there could be teams, competitions, rankings, etc.—which would solve the immediate problem of not having a qualified teacher for the kids to learn proper battle magic.
'Oooh, yes.' I stood up in excitement and quickly headed out. This was going to be a very good thing for everyone involved. As soon as I left the office, I took this chance to experiment with my divine power to see if I could use it to influence the distance I covered in my steps, making it so that every step was meters apart from the last. Sure, I can move very fast physically, but I was a little excited and needed more practice with divine power, so I decided to apply that to feed my constantly rising desire to experiment and study; because I knew the only reason I wasn't alone in my lab right now was that I had too many things to juggle and very little reliable help to delegate to.
~ Crack ~ Boom
** "..."**
Snap. 🫰
I snapped my fingers, fixing everything around and erasing the evidence of my failure from the world. I did not overreach and hit the wall face-first. That did not happen, as was apparent by how clean and undamaged the surroundings were.
I shook my head and turned right as I continued my walk to my destination, this time managing to stop about halfway down the corridor, just a few feet away from the secret entrance I would use as a shortcut. I backed up a few steps and turned toward the headless black armor that stood beneath the torch on the wall.
"Hello, Ser," I said with a smile. "I require passage through, if you would please."
The armor did its thing—a few old courtesies used by knights, I think—before taking a step to the left, raising its hand, and pulling the torch, which resulted in the rumbling sound of the hidden door opening.
"Thank you, Ser." I nodded and walked in. As the door behind me closed, the small, narrow corridor lit up while I moved through it.
I couldn't hide the wide smile that appeared on my face as I walked to my destination. These secret corridors were awesome. There are so many of them inside Hogwarts, each with a unique opening method. I am almost certain that no one who has ever walked these halls knows them all.
X
[ Harriet Potter ]
"…Harriet."
"Harriet, come on, wake up!!! You have to get ready!"
She felt herself being shaken slightly as she heard Hermione's voice.
"Ugh, five more minutes," she groaned and turned to the other side, trying futilely to return to her forgotten sweet dream.
"No can do—wake up now!!" Her best friend—the demon she was—started shaking her before stopping suddenly. Harriet thought she had given up, but no—Hermione just grasped her feet and started tickling them, sending shivers of tingling, ticklish sensation up her spine.
"Stop that…" she whined, curling her toes and trying to pry her foot out of Hermione's hand, but to no avail.
"Hahaha… stop that!" The tickling started to sober her up as she began to laugh.
"Are you going to wake up?" Hermione stopped for a second and asked. Harriet relaxed slightly, but that was a mistake; she'd taken a second too long to reply, making the demon resume her attack.
"Hahahhaah, okay! I am awake, hahahahah! I'm up, stop!" she wheezed between laughs, clumsily and shakily trying to rise, her hands wobbling as she did. She tried to pull her leg free from Hermione's grasp, but she was still waking up, and Hermione was freakishly strong for some reason. Not as strong as she was, but stronger than most girls their age. They'd checked.
The next half hour went by in a blur as she went to take a shower and get ready for a day of study and practice. It was only her love for magic that helped her power through all of this; otherwise, she'd have tried to quit. Humans were not designed to wake up this early…
Soon, she found herself walking down the stairs toward the common room to meet Hermione so they could go to the Great Hall for breakfast. She found her sitting on the couch by the fireplace, head moving left to right, staring at the three different Archive interface screens open in front of her. Harriet couldn't help but shake her head in resignation.
'Hermione and I love magic for completely different reasons. Don't we?' She thought fondly. Where she loved magic for the excitement, power, action, spells, and just everything that made magic wonderful, Hermione loved it for the theoretical aspect of it. Hermione seemed to be fascinated by how much bigger the Archive library was growing on a daily basis, wanting to know everything about it, whether it was useless to know or not.
"Come on, Hermione, let's go. You can return to whatever you're doing later," she said, taking her friend's hand and starting to drag her out, completely ignoring her retorts and complaints.
Soon they were sitting in the Great Hall, patiently waiting for breakfast to appear on the tables as others who were already there talked with each other. New arrivals injected more noise and liveliness into the hall as they arrived and took their seats at their respective tables.
She opened her own Archive interface, too, seeing as Hermione and almost everyone she talked to was busy doing the same.
As soon as the screen appeared, she noticed a red exclamation mark on the notification bell icon in the upper right corner. Curious, she tapped on it and saw it was a message from her godfather—Sirius.
She blinked once, twice, and a few more times as she read the content, then rubbed her eyes as if the words might change and looked again. It was still the same message. She clicked on the sender icon just to be sure this was his actual account, despite knowing it was impossible to receive a message from someone who didn't have your information directly, and equally impossible to create a fake identity on the Archive.
"It's true, then, huh," she murmured, her voice hitching with emotions she couldn't suppress. Her eyes blurred as tears began to well up. She tried to take a deep breath, but all that came was the sound of a runny nose. She was happy. She truly felt like she had just received the best news of her life.
Her Aunt Amelia was pregnant.
"Harriet? What happened? Are you okay?"
"Yeah, did something happen?"
"Is something bothering you?"
The few girls next to her noticed and asked with concern, but she didn't answer. Instead, she looked up toward the Hufflepuff table, searching for her childhood friend—and probably cousin, too, if she wanted to be technical. Susan was there, surrounded by friends, talking and smiling.
She quickly got up and ran toward them, causing almost everyone to turn their heads at the commotion. That included Susan Bones herself, who looked up, widened her eyes, and stood up hastily. She must have misunderstood the red eyes and tears.
"Harri! What happened?" Susan asked as she hugged her.
"Susie," her voice croaked slightly. "They succeeded," she continued, making Susan crane her head back and look at her in confusion. "Sirius and Amelia finally succeeded, they're going to have a baby," Harriet clarified, making Susan's eyes widen in surprise and shock, which then quickly turned into a huge smile.
Now it was Susan's turn to get a red face and eyes, with tears running down her cheeks. They hugged for a minute, completely ignoring and blocking out the noise of everyone else in the Great Hall.
This was shaping up to be a great day. She would finally get a baby cousin.
X
[Albus Dumbledore]
I flung myself backward into the air as the floor below me turned into scalding liquid lava. Twisting to the left to avoid a red streak of energy, I used what was left of my rotational force to flip and land lightly on the lava floor.
As soon as my now slightly glowing feet touched the ground, all that bubbling, hot red liquid froze for a second before it began to crumble and turn into butterflies that flew away.
Now here I was, standing on the only solid circular ground in a sea of lava, moving my body left and right to avoid incoming red-hot, dart-shaped steel. I crouched down quickly as an arc of pure magic flew over my head a split second later.
I shook my head, resigned at how annoying it was to fight myself—even if it was a pure data projection limited to only a few transfiguration and pure magic spells.
I brought my hands together in a clap. My magic rolled over the room in waves the moment my palms met, reversing everything around to its previous pristine condition.
I tilted my head and body slightly to the left as a vertical, sharp arc of pure magical energy passed by me, hitting the wall behind me and leaving a deep mark in the stone.
I rolled my eyes and snapped my fingers, killing my projection doppelganger in a blink by turning it into a pincushion of transparent, thin nails that seemed to appear from thin air.
Another wave of magic rolled off me, fixing the new damage, and I walked toward the newly materialized couch, sitting down. My Archive screen appeared as I did so, and I started recording the new notes.
—Log Number 4—
1. Need to reconfigure the settings and make them more adaptable when it comes to reading and translating intent—again.
2. Need to recalibrate and add more blessings to the room to ensure none of the students or professors die by accident during combat.
3. Need to post a clear warning that copies made through the room are mirrors of their real selves—meaning they will likely think of things you did not, unless intentionally limited.
4. Need to add more protective enchantments against environmental, elemental, blunt, and other kinds of damage, as well as vastly more powerful repair enchantments.
"This is going to take a lot more time to get ready than I expected," I sighed, standing up to leave. It seemed I would need to return and finish this after breakfast.
I'd thought it would be easy since the Archive was already installed—that all I had to do was check it, make some light adjustments, and connect it to the primary wardstones. I was wrong.
'Thank Merlin I decided to test it out first.' I mentally wiped nonexistent sweat from my forehead. That first fight showed me how mistaken I was—an unpleasant reminder to stop assuming things will work just because I can't imagine how they might go wrong. A face-to-face meeting with Murphy's Law, if you will.
That fight took me more than five minutes to settle, since I hadn't configured anything and just wanted to fight myself. A bad idea, since it turned out I was a very annoying pest to fight. I knew more than a fair bit about everything, and it showed. My projection used everything in its power against me, and if I didn't have divinity—as well as my Essences—I would have definitely lost.
'Losing to a projection of yourself… tsk tsk, you really moved up in the world, huh, Dumbledore?' I berated myself, feeling this was a wake-up call. Something to make me remember that I need to train, study, experiment, teach, and do things other than playing politics. I also need to make Hogwarts sturdier, as the only reason this place wasn't leveled to the ground yet was me trying to keep it safe while fighting.
'Ah, if someone from my previous world saw that, they'd laugh at me,' I thought, a little bit of shame washing over me as I remembered that I needed to manually adjust the settings for the fight beforehand; otherwise, it's automatically considered a fight to the death. Something you don't need to worry about in the simulation, but in the RoR?… 'Okay, no need to feel ashamed, sure I only remembered that when I failed to dispel the projection during the fight, but that's okay, I have fixed this issue now.'
"....."
Rumble~
The sound of my stomach protesting against hunger brought me back to reality, so I stopped thinking about useless stuff and stood up. Taking a few steps as the environment around the room changed to look like a red carpet walk—something I thought would be funny at the moment. I opened the door, turned left, and started heading toward the Great Hall.
When I arrived at my destination, I saw some bizarre scenes: students being more lively than they usually were at seven o'clock in the morning; Harriet Potter, Hermione Granger, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, as well as a few others standing together in the space between the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables, their Archive screens out in the open. I stood for a second, just watching the students go to them, talk, and then return to their tables to share whatever they had just heard.
'Let's just ignore this,' I decided as I walked toward my seat. 'I have far too many things to think about rather than figuring out why teenagers are acting strange.'
"Albus! Have you heard the news?!" Pomona Sprout excitedly asked as soon as I sat down.
'Or I can just leave it to Pomona to update me on what I missed,' I thought sarcastically.
"No, Pomona, I have been buried in paperwork since yesterday, so whatever news you have will still be news to me," I answered as I gently clapped my hands, signaling that I needed my food urgently. The house-elves didn't disappoint, as a variety of food appeared in front of me.
The smell of bacon, eggs, toast, beans, butter, cheese, potatoes, and tea hit my nose all at once. I smiled as I started eating, half-listening to Pomona reciting what had happened since Harriet arrived in the common room.
"…so we were concerned and went to ask what happened. Minerva was wearing her war face—I'm sure she'd started conjuring all kinds of scenarios in her head, though she's still denying that…" Pomona said, giving Minerva a side glance. "So there we were, waiting for the girls to finish crying in each other's arms, and that's when Filius decided it was a good time to cough awkwardly to gain their attention." She continued, smiling widely, seeming to enjoy the process of storytelling more than the story itself. "So the girls jumped in fright, finally remembering where they were, and we finally got a chance to ask them what happened, right? Now, can you guess what it was?"
"They fought and made up?" I decided to participate, throwing out the most plausible conclusion I could come up with at the time. I knew first-years were still mostly untouched by Hogwarts' dating scene—too new and busy for serious relationships—so romantic drama was unlikely. I also knew nothing unsavory could have happened inside Hogwarts, as the wards would have alerted me and we would have had a eunuch or two in the infirmary, and we did not, so that guess was out, too. That left the "we fought and made up" teenage drama as the only option, hence the guess.
'Which is a wrong guess, it seems…' I thought as I saw the flat look Pomona gave me in response.
"…Okay, I'll just tell you," she said, her voice losing some of its earlier enthusiasm. "It turned out that Harriet received a message informing her that Sirius Black and Amelia Bones finally succeeded in conceiving a baby…" she revealed, looking at me expectantly.
"Truly? That's very good news," I smiled softly and leaned back. "I should go and congratulate them later."
"That's it? Where's the shock? The happiness? The twinkling eyes??" Pomona asked, seemingly quite offended.
"Well, I was already expecting this development, seeing as I was the one to heal Sirius of his inability to sire children."
"You did what?"
"When did that happen?"
"You can do that?"
My colleagues asked at the same time, making me shake my head softly and stuff my mouth with more bacon. Flitwick was the most affected, as he turned his head toward me so fast his beard made a swoosh sound. I could feel their emotions intimately, even with most of my godly perception under tight control, so I knew precisely how shocked and overwhelmed Filius felt.
'I can't really blame him for that, either,' I thought, understanding his reaction. Filius cannot have children. He is one of the rare cases of interbreeding; being half-goblin means he is neither fully one nor the other, which also means he can't father a child with either race. It isn't just a biological issue—it's a magical one. His magic can't decide which traits to pass down, as he embodies both equally, a very rare condition.
"How?" Filius murmured, his voice muted by the emotional weight he was carrying.
"Hmm? Oh," I turned my attention to him, trying to play it cool. Not out of ignorance or any personal stake, but simply because one does not discuss such things to a man's face. "It's a trait I awakened. I can heal pretty much anything," I said before feigning confusion. "I thought everybody knew, seeing as everyone touched by the light had every ailment cured. Why else would Minerva allow young Neville to be on leave every weekend to visit his parents?…"
"Albus! Albus!" Minerva cut me off. "Albus, for the love of magic, from now on, please assume we don't know anything." She wore an exasperated look.
"But I thought all of you were checked for the effects of the magic waves before I woke up? Plus, you have a built-in scanner in the Archive that tells you if you're under the effect of anything…." I wanted to argue, but she raised her index finger and cut me off again.
"Uh, uh, uh. Just do as I told you and assume we don't know anything from now on. That way, we can get a much clearer picture. I don't want any wrinkles or stress lines on my young face again…"
"Fine," I relented. "I don't want you to age faster, either. We do age faster if we feel old, after all." I shrugged and took a bite of my toast.
"Wait a second," Pomona, Minerva, Aurora, and pretty much every woman at the table said simultaneously. They stopped, looked at each other, nodded, and then looked back at me.
"What?"
"What do you mean by that last part just now? What does 'we age faster if we feel old' mean?" Pomona asked, and I could see everyone was now focused on me again.
"It means that while we generally live longer than Muggles thanks to magic, we do age faster if we feel old inside. For example, how Minerva—before she ranked up—or Filius right now look older than Horace, despite him being much older than them. He taught them when they were students, for Merlin's sake…" I looked at their confused expressions and sighed. "This is one of those things I thought were common sense but turned out they are, in fact, not, isn't it?" I asked, making my entire staff nod at me.
Sigh.
I sighed in resignation and just looked at them. "You should try going through the Archive to see and learn everything I know at this point. It will be much easier that way."
My staff just looked at me for a few seconds and then turned their attention back to their food, ignoring me entirely.
'What did I do?' I thought as I continued eating. It's not my fault they didn't think of that—or maybe they just ignored the fact. I know for sure they've had doubts about my changes since I woke up; they just chalked it up to me being eccentric or wanting to appear young again. Some of their doubts were quelled when they witnessed the changes Minerva has been going through, be it her speech, walk, or standing habits.
'Still, to think they didn't consider simply browsing what I know using the Archive…' I wondered. I mean, I know they're aware they have the access level required to see almost everything I know, aside from my personal memories and other small things.
This begs the question, though: did they just chalk everything up to Dumbledore being Dumbledore?
…I don't know how to feel about that.
X_
A/N: Merry Christmas everyone 🎁🎄.
Enjoy.
P.s: p@treon/hunter20 has advanced chapters.