• Hogwarts, Great Hall •
• October 2nd, Lunchtime •
[ Bathsheda Babbling ]
Sitting at the staff table, with all kinds of food in front of her, the smell was heavenly. The deep and rich aroma of slow-roasted beef and pork glistening with juices and crusted with salt and rosemary. This scent tangled with the smell of still-sizzling sausages and the comforting fragrance of steamed potatoes, the caramelized sweetness of roasted parsnips and carrots, and the dense, savory gravy of a perfect shepherd's pie.
As new food kept appearing all over the hall, the smells began to mix: the scent of freshly baked breads and steak and kidney pies, as well as the sweetness of the puddings, pumpkin pies, and other desserts.
'Ah, the magic of Hogwarts,' she thought. 'Every day is a feast.' She smiled at the thought because it truly was. It was one of the numerous long-standing traditions of Hogwarts, dating back to when the school first opened.
This particular tradition came to be after Hogwarts began receiving waves of young children as students, back in the day when the majority of young Muggle-borns were peasants or people abandoned by their parents out of fear. These young children didn't eat much and didn't know about different foods or how they tasted. That's when Lady Helga Hufflepuff took it upon herself to ensure that every day they would eat their fill and feast like kings. Thus, the tradition was born and continued to this day.
Of course, this was only possible because Hogwarts was self-sufficient, thanks to the house-elves who oversaw everything concerning food, be it raising animals or tending crops. Those little beings were so instrumental to wizarding life that she could never imagine what would happen if they were lost one day.
'That's why Albus always thanks them, isn't it?' she asked herself. 'But then again, it was Lady Helga Hufflepuff who brought the first batch of elves into Hogwarts and made sure this place became their sanctuary.'
Bathsheda took a breath and started eating, trying to distract herself from diving headfirst into historical tangents, ancient or otherwise. She was the Professor of Ancient Runes for a reason—she loved everything ancient. She found it fascinating: the origins, how things came to be, and just everything about it. That meant she was also deeply interested in history in general.
"Hey, guys, did any of you get more information on how and what the Headmaster did to the castle?"
As Bathsheda started eating, she heard one of the Ravenclaws speak. She didn't show any reaction, though, as that was normal. The staff table was always enchanted to keep the professors' voices muffled, but the opposite was not the same. On the contrary, the staff could hear almost everything the students discussed.
Sure, the enchantments were disabled most of the time because, believe it or not, students' discussions weren't that interesting. But Dumbledore had yet to arrive and disable said function, so she was stuck hearing their voices while she ate.
'Isn't it enough to hear them in class?' she complained inwardly but didn't do anything else. Thank Merlin she could at least focus on which conversation she wanted to hear; otherwise, this would have been a nightmare.
'Thank Morgana our magic is intent-based.'
As she took a bite of her shepherd's pie, enjoying the taste, she kept her attention on the previous conversation.
"We don't know, mate. We don't have the authority to access that level of information yet."
"Ugh, what about the seventh years? They're stronger than us…"
"It doesn't work like that, mate. Almost everyone in Hogwarts is on the same rank, and even those on a higher rank thanks to their enormous magical reserves or other factors don't have the authorization to access that level of information."
"Why not? Isn't this the primary purpose of the Archive? To share knowledge?"
"Because even if you're as strong as the professors, you don't get to have Hogwarts' private information. There are tiers and different levels of access for everyone based on evaluations and everything. Didn't you read the user manual?"
"Are you crazy? Who has the time to read all of that? It's a whole book of dense information, and even if you want to download it, you have to do it chapter by chapter with a one-day break."
"So you're just lazy…"
"No, you're just weird. We only ever use it to help us in our studies, practice, and communications. Why would we want to subject ourselves to reading all that useless information? It's not like magical knowledge is censored or anything."
"True, you're the weird one, mate. All magical knowledge only requires a certain level of knowledge and power to access it. Everything else isn't really that important."
"Unbelievable."
Bathsheda smiled, amused by the conversation. She knew they weren't the only ones curious about the changes. She herself had felt the change in the middle of her sixth-year class. It was as if things had suddenly clicked for everyone. Suddenly, the lesson didn't seem hard, and the class—usually filled with students asking remedial questions—went by like a breeze.
'Though, unlike them, I actually know what happened to Hogwarts,' she thought with a smirk. She didn't know why, but it felt good to know things while others didn't.
She turned her head to the left when she heard footsteps approaching and saw Septima coming. 'What took her so long? She didn't have any class before lunch, so she should have been here before me,' she wondered. But looking at her friend's smiling face, she guessed something good must have happened.
"Hey, Bathsheda, how's your day?" Septima greeted as she sat down and started filling her plate with food.
"Great so far," she answered. "How's yours?"
"Brilliant," Septima replied, her face beaming. "You know that nullmatic system problem I kept telling you about? I solved it."
'Ah, so that's why.'
"Congratulations," she smiled softly, quite happy for her friend.
"Thanks," Septima said. "You know, Albus's new upgrades to the castle came at such a timely moment. I was just thinking if I couldn't solve the problem today, I'd go to Albus to ask for his help, and then poof—everything was solved."
"Hahah," she chuckled. "I'm happy for you. Now you can start on that hybrid system you kept chewing my ear off about."
"Hahahaha," Septima laughed sheepishly. "Yeah, I'll be starting on it after today's class. I still have to teach fourth year after this."
"Well, good luck with that. I'm done for the day and will be heading to my research right after lunch."
"Oh, right, that. What did you decide to go with? The writing magic or the pict magic?"
"Still researching both. I still haven't figured out how to get around the manifestation part of the whole thing. I mean, sure, we can write in the air, but it's not the same. So I'm still in the spell-researching and deconstruction part. After that comes the creation of the new spell, as well as optimizing the set of runes I can use. Then…" She stopped when she saw her friend looking at her amusedly while chewing her food. "Sorry, I started to ramble… but yeah, I'm still researching both and trying to come up with the best solid foundation I can before going through the promotion ritual."
"Don't worry about it, I get it," Septima assured her. "You know I get like that too when I talk about my own research. Pretty sure every one of us does the same these days."
"Yeah. It's funny how all of this happened, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it's like magic suddenly turned magical again."
She agreed. Magic truly had started to feel magical again. It stopped being just magic—something they could do, something they'd already learned how to use—and started feeling like an infinitely fascinating thing.
As Bathsheda and Septima returned to their food and thoughts, the rest of their friends and colleagues finally arrived. Most of them were smiling broadly—except for Minerva. She seemed just a few words away from becoming furious.
'So, the usual, then,' Bathsheda thought sarcastically. She could guess the reason for Minerva's sour mood without even needing to ask. 'It's Dumbledore…'
She really didn't envy Minerva one bit. Dealing with Dumbledore could be quite frustrating at times. It wasn't even his fault, per se; it was just that his way of doing things was different from everyone else's. Take this current situation, for example: if it were anyone else, they might have called a staff meeting first, informed those on a need-to-know basis what would happen, etc. But not Dumbledore. No, he just went ahead and did it, and they had to find out through the Archive—and even then, the information was incomplete.
She had no doubt that Dumbledore would answer them if they asked, but therein lay the problem: they didn't know where he was.
"I assume all of you have checked the necessary information on your own," Bathsheda heard Minerva ask, so she turned her head toward her. The rest of the staff did the same as they sat down. Almost everyone except Dumbledore was there. Even Poppy was present, and she usually only attended dinner with the rest of the staff.
"Yeah. Let's not talk about that now, Minerva."
"Agreed, let us eat first. I am still not ready to talk about Albus's apparent godhood."
"Well, it was bound to happen at some point."
"Hahaha, too true, Poppy, too true."
"That's not funny, Filius. Do you have any idea how much of a headache that information is on a political and global scale?"
"Politics, smolitics… what's bothering me is that I had to stand there in class and tell my students that I don't know why they suddenly feel energetic or why Transfiguration seems to make so much more sense now…"
"Yeah, there was that…."
Bathsheda continued to eat, enjoying the situation while chewing on a fruit pie. She knew why Minerva was angry, but she also thought that she should have learned her lesson by now. Dumbledore was just odd. Not in a disrespectful way—Merlin knows that almost everyone in the Isles respected the man to some degree.
Even they, as professors and colleagues, couldn't really say they were friends with the man, even though they had known him for years. There was this wall between them when it came to social interaction and status—a weight that came from his reputation as the strongest wizard, or from him just being a genius.
Bathsheda couldn't really tell; It was more like the gap between a parent and a grown child relationship; fond, respectful, but never quite peer-to-peer
'I mean, there's a reason we all respect Minerva the way we do and still pity her at the same time.' She shook her head, resigned about the situation. Minerva was pretty much the only one who bothered with Dumbledore at this point, and was constantly wrestling with that fine line.
'Most of us stopped trying to make sense of Dumbledore's actions long ago…'
X
• Hogwarts, Headmaster's Tower •
• October 2nd, 6:00 PM •
[ Albus Dumbledore ]
In my lab, where chaos seemed to have taken an active role in arranging everything, I stood staring into the distance…
Sigh. I sighed audibly, in quiet resignation. 'Sometimes the narrator just gets out of control.' I shrugged—a what-can-you-do moment for me.
I tore my attention away from the nonsense running through my mind these days and kept staring at the three small saplings in front of me. These small trees were my fifteenth failed experiment of the day. And that was just today.
"Haaaah." I exhaled, running my hands through my hair. "Creating Devil Fruit trees is really complicated."
I'm not even trying to create the fruits themselves—no. I'm still trying to perfect the tree itself. I don't know how the original Devil Fruits came to be, so I went with the "tree" theory, but this is proving to be a headache. I need the foundation of the tree to support the creation of multiple fruits with varying connections to different aspects of the universe, be they old or new.
The problem, however, comes down to the fact that I don't have a Creation Domain yet. I have the faintest traces of Magic, Light, and Holy domains, but the others will need more time to form. The Faith-Siphoning System is still not completely set up yet, and even then, with all the faith I'll be receiving, forming a domain while trying to keep faith's influence on my being as minimal as possible is going to be tricky.
"It's just one problem after another for me," I sighed for what felt like the umpteenth time since I'd set foot in my laboratory. "Far be it for Albus to have twenty-four hours of good time, isn't it?" I shook my head as I started to float about to cheer myself up. I don't know what it is, but there's just something therapeutic about flying unassisted.
'Still, my day wasn't all bad. I had fun with the Hogwarts fortifications, at least,' I thought, a broad smile gracing my face as I remembered how much fun I'd had.
It was safe to say that Hogwarts just became the safest place on earth, for real this time. The castle and everything in its territory is now effectively a safe zone. I layered defensive enchantments against pretty much anything and have a more-than-a-thousand-year-old, upgraded basilisk as a guard dog.
I pity the Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest… Lala is going to be responsible for keeping their population in check, along with other creatures. And even though my meeting with the overgrown snake wasn't as exciting as I had hoped, it went very well. She just bowed her head as soon as she saw me—something about me being the "Warden," which effectively made me her owner.
After that, I just healed her and blessed her with a few abilities: mind fortification and overall bodily enhancements that made her faster, stronger, and better at internalizing magic. Instead of it being used only to enhance her hide, deadly eyes, and venom, it now enhances her insides, too.
Anyway, originally the basilisk didn't have a name, so I decided to name her Lala and give her a job so she wouldn't be bored. That was it. I'll probably visit her again tomorrow; I still need to check the Chamber of Secrets more thoroughly. I didn't have time before, as I was busy extending the new protections to everything in and around Hogwarts.
I felt a ping—a familiar one. Someone had just entered my office. I cast a quick Tempus to check the time. It showed 6:04 PM.
…
'Oh, fuck. Has it been this long?' I thought as I floated out of my lab and headed up toward my office.
"Albus…" I heard Minerva say as soon as I appeared.
"Hello, Minerva. What can I do for you?" I tried to ignore her pointed stare and play the situation as if nothing had happened.
"Well, you can start by telling me what it is you did to the castle. My access level does not permit me to see anything other than the names of the new wards and enchantments you added, and I have the ability to review pretty much everything you know…." she said, her tone shifting between exasperation and that stern edge of the Gryffindor Head of House.
"Oh, right. I thought I'd forgotten something…" I scratched the back of my head awkwardly, just remembering that I'd missed lunch with my staff and hadn't updated them on the new changes. "I lost track of time in my lab, so the fact that I haven't informed you all yet kind of slipped my mind."
"Sigh. Just tell me now," she sighed and plopped down in the chair.
"Right, well, I fortified the castle and its surroundings further, making it pretty much impossible for even ten wizards of my current level to put a dent in the protections, let alone destroy them," I told her, my eyes twinkling in amusement as I saw her narrow hers, trying to calculate how strong that was.
"What else?" she asked, shaking her head and giving up on whatever she was thinking.
"Well, I blessed the place to ensure everyone inside recovers faster than they normally would. I also solved the problem of combat classes and training."
"…Right. The Room of Requirement was it? How sure are you this will help?"
"Well, you tell me. You get several rooms across the castle that simulate different environments, opponents, and battlefields. There will be a ranking system just for this alone, separate from the rest, so competition will be there, as well as rewards for those who manage to complete the pre-programmed milestones. That, along with the fact that I will be training them once a week, will guarantee this year's students become Hogwarts' finest…"
"Sigh… Well, that's good." She sighed and sagged slightly in her seat, finally relaxing.
"So, finally relaxed?"
"I would have been far more relaxed if you had told me about this beforehand. I know you know what you're doing, but sometimes your actions just don't make sense to the rest of us…"
"Relax. Everything is under control for now." I reassured her, flashing a wide smile.
She shook her head and just leaned back, staring at the ceiling for a little while as a comfortable silence fell between us. It was familiar and so very mundane. I didn't know I needed a moment like this until I felt myself relax in my chair.
"Hey, Albus…"
"Hmm?"
"I've been thinking about this all day…" she said slowly, making me hum again. "And I think I want a child of my own."
"Hmm, that's good. It will be delightful to see you be a mother," I smiled. It truly would. She hadn't wanted children before, so this was good news in my book.
"Thank you." She smiled. "And I want you to be the father…" she continued, her tone casual, as if she were discussing the weather.
I, on the other hand, had to check my mindscape and the Archive to make sure my ears weren't playing tricks on me. "You want me to be the father of your child?" I asked, still in quiet disbelief.
"Well, yes." She nodded. "I mean, I thought about it and realized the dating pool was far too small for someone my age. Even though I've regained my youthful appearance, the opposite isn't true for men my age, making them… less viable. And the eligible bachelors are too young for me to date, seeing as I taught most of them," she began explaining. "Which leaves me with either finding a husband from outside the country—which just doesn't sit well with me—going for a Muggle, which isn't realistic, or asking one of my colleagues and friends. Which is what I'm doing."
"Hmm." I hummed as I considered her points. "Fair enough," I nodded.
"So?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Sure." I agreed. Why wouldn't I? "How do you want to go about it? Do you want to go on a few dates first, or do you just want to get right to it?"
"Honestly? I haven't thought that far. There was no point in thinking ahead without knowing your answer first. But I think I would prefer to go on a date or two first, to let the situation settle in my mind…"
"Sure." I smiled softly.
"Thanks."
"No need. It is, and will always be, my pleasure."
We settled into a comfortable silence again, occasionally talking about trivial things—what happened in class today, the latest rumor she'd heard. We continued like that until it was dinner time, then went to eat. I announced the changes and the opening of the new combat class, as well as the RoR rooms in the castle, sharing the rules and everything they needed to know through the Archive.
All in all, October 2nd turned out to be a pretty normal day in the life of Albus Dumbledore.
X_