The Book of Admittance
It was around the end of July when his entire world—built from the ashes of that final duel with Gellert—crashed and burned.
He didn't know yet, of course. Perfectly understandable, as everything for the past ten years had been more-or-less predictable. As well as that Sybill wasn't giving him any forewarnings. Shame that.
Today, those heavy doors were pushed open and a woman rushed inside hurriedly. She slammed the doors closed behind her and stumbled onto one of the chairs before his desk.
“Something most peculiar demands your attention.”
“Minerva?” Albus watched her warily. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
More than pale, if he was being completely honest and true. The poor woman looked as though she was about to be sick.
The last time she looked so ill… it was during the war, when she was alerted that Lord Voldemort had trained young spies to infiltrate the school and find Muggleborns and Half-bloods.
He remembered the day clearly. The knowledge that the great Albus Dumbledore had been tricked— tricked by the school that he had chosen over world control, over the love of his life—stung him more than anything.
Professor Minerva McGonagall had never been as afraid since. Until today.
“Albus,” she murmured, her voice hushed, the line of her thin mouth wobbling. She blinked several times, as though a blinding light rested above her. It was an unusual sight for her. She was usually so composed. The woman in front of him barely resembled Minerva even at her weakest. “I need to tell you… oh, Merlin, Albus. Something's terribly wrong.”
Albus frowned. Nothing could ever be so wrong it couldn't be fixed, and he presumed Minerva knew such a lesson, being a Transfiguration professor herself, but alas. Sometimes people you trust will disappoint you.
He lifted his wand, performed a wordless Muffliato , and, when he was done and assured that nobody could listen in (one could never be too cautious of enemies), he let her speak.
She said, hesitant and watching for his reaction, “I believe there's an irregularity in the Book of Admittance.”
“Oh?” He barely blinked. So that was what got her so upset? It was surprising to say the least. Such a level-headed, competent witch, yet she was shaken up by a matter as simple as a shocking name for the new Hogwarts year. He smiled patiently at her. “You mean the Longbottom boy? I understand your confusion. I should have told you—”
“I do not mean Nevil—”
“—Ah, if I recall correctly, it was found by his family, who are all most happy, that he had magic at his—”
“Albus. Listen to me.” Her eyes were bloodshot, her face tight and shadowy. She looked like a nightmare come to life. “The Potter boy. He… he…”
An immediate discomfort came to Dumbledore. Charles Potter was greatly important to all his plans, even if the boy in question had not been performing well. He was the Savior, after all.
“Minerva. Dear girl, speak at once.”
She spoke in a delicate whisper, “The Potter boy. Harry.”
It took him a moment to realize what she had said. It had been ten years since that fateful night on Halloween and the Headmaster had nearly forgotten the Boy-Who-Lived had a brother at all. That Lily Potter had another child, one whom she refused to bring to Order meetings, even before everything changed.
His eyes went wide.
“Harry? What about him?” He struggled to think of any reason why the boy would be relevant. He was with his relatives. Lily’s sister.
“He's—he’s in the book,” she said.
A pause. They had both gone silent.
“The… book. Do you mean the Book?” Albus asked, baffled. He received his clarification a second later when Minerva nodded once. “That’s impossible. That must be a mistake. Harry Potter is a squib. That's why—that’s why Lily sent him with her sister.”
Not quite why, if his memory was recalled correctly, but it was a close enough reasoning.
Minerva shook her head.
“He's a wizard.”
“That cannot be.”
“It is, he is—I read his reports—strange behavior—and I can tell he’s one of us,” she explained breathlessly. She stopped herself short and let out a hoarse, sudden cry. “Albus, what have we done?”
“Minerva. Please be rational.” His mind whirled at the possibility present. A wizard? Harry Potter was a wizard? “This… this certainly changes things.” Ten years. Ten years and he knew nothing about those ten years. “He is still with his aunt, correct? Petunia Evans?”
“Dursley now,” said Minerva. She wiped quickly at her eyes. “Petunia Dursley. She has a husband, a son of her own. Everyone in the neighborhood says she's a good mother to the boys—Harry’s never been without new clothes, nice things, she defends him whenever he gets into trouble just like she does her own son—but just… I don't know, Albus…”
He ignored her judgment of Petunia Dursley’s character. An upstanding British woman, the neighbors all called her. A traditional, classy citizen. She certainly wasn't drowning people anymore.
Good.
This was good.
Everything could still be all right. Everything could remain untouched.
“Is he happy?” He asked, calculating the risks of an Obscurial.
Minerva hesitated.
“He’s… he's fine, I suppose. I watched him. Something's not right with that family, I'll tell you. None of them seem happy— truly happy.”
“You cannot judge a life you have never lived,” he told her absent-mindedly, mind far away to all the duties he would have to take on now. Harry Potter, he thought in a marveling sort of horror. A wizard. It was almost unthinkable.
He listened as she rambled about Vernon Dursley, about the Dursley son. About Petunia. (“It's all performative. Everything she does is a performance.”) He waited until she, teary-eyed and bordering hysterical, was forced to take a breath to interrupt her.
“Minerva?” He called her name calmly.
She frowned.
“Yes, Albus?”
“You're dismissed,” he said and before she could even think of speaking up again, he continued swiftly, “I have much thinking to do. You may go and stay gone.”
She looked startled at her dismissal. He was worried for a brief moment that she would fight against his order but, reasonable as she was even in this state of mind, she left from the Headmaster’s office, her head bowed, still muttering inconsolably to herself.
For a while, he allowed himself to simply sit without thinking. He let the shock pass, the small amount of necessary guilt trickle off, and be replaced by the bones of a plan.
I can save this, just like I have done before. I must act quick.
He arose from his chair. Fawkes titled its head at him, burning bright as a flame.
“We have much to do, old friend,” he told the bird, a companion who would never judge him. “I'm afraid you have a long journey to take.”
Albus Dumbledore would have some letters to write.