Revelare - To uncover
The tumultuous clouds hung heavy and sombre above the darkened spires and towers, cloaking the classroom windows with a shroud of suspense as the fog held its breath and waited to unleash the flooding rain that had been predicted weeks ago.
Grim and stony-faced, the face of Albus Dumbledore rippled across the uneven glass of the window, an uncanny reflection of the anxious storm brewing outside. The twinkle of knowledge and contentment that he had been told was seemingly omnipresent in his pale eyes was damningly absent – the comforting wise smile he normally held firm in its seat had long since melted to the floor, abandoning its loyal post.
The orchestra of whimsical machinery was silenced, the loving glow of candlelight had been snuffed out by the billowing of pacing robes and the once magnificent phoenix that adorned his desk had begun to cough and splutter as the familiar taste of death began to seep onto its tongue.
Albus was worried, in a way that hadn’t plagued him since the dark days of Grindelwald, he had meticulously set out the red velvet carpet for the future to take yet it had pulled out one from underneath him instead.
Earlier, in the weakening evening light, as he sat comfortably in his chair digesting the delicious dinner courtesy of the Hogwarts elves, he was suddenly disturbed by the ominous grating of the stone staircase and the hurried shuffling of heels on its slabs.
As he gathered himself to be presentable, who should appear through the door but a harried Minerva and a pale-faced Arabella – kitten clutch-purse and all. Although he was admittedly a bit bemused as he sat down to listen to her prattling, he slowly felt his stomach grow heavy with the leaden realisation of what could be one of his grandest mistakes.
Harry Potter? Missing?
.
.
.
Of course, the denial didn’t last for long. He ushered the mournful and nervous widow and his hissing professor out of his office before letting the carefree and infallible façade drop like a hat and immediately apparating out from the cosy warmth of his office out into the sodden, uniform streets of Surrey to confirm the worst.
A little bit of forced entry and legilimency later, he walked back through Petunia Dursley’s perfectly manicured lawn – far wiser and far more solemn than before.
At a first cursory glance, it appeared as though the Dursley’s had never received the tragic little bundle he had left babbling to the milk on their doorstep four years ago. A bleary Petunia had simply collected the bottles, sneered at the woman at number five and retreated back inside to feed her steadily inflating son and husband. Their days were since filled with fatty meals, screaming tantrums, tea parties and droning business dealings – obviously quite absent of a curious young wizard among their ranks.
Yet, as he looked closer -desperate for a single shred of hope- he noticed the frayed edges of a tell-tale (and a very powerful) memory charm. The brief flashes of wild black hair in the corner of fading memories and the reflection of cold green eyes in the forgettable reflections as they fixed their hair or checked the wingmirror of Vernon’s fancy car.
Yes, it was a memory charm alright. Whoever had done it had been very thorough indeed. The last scrap of evidence for the young boy’s existence he found was the crouched figure of a three-year-old Harry Potter, hiding behind a wheelie bin as Petunia vaguely remembered calling in her Dudders for snack-time. After that, all three of their mundane memories slipped back into their monotonous existence.
After that revelation he promptly exited the mind of the now twitching Petunia, whispered a quiet sleeping spell to her glazed eyes and exited their perfect property – stepping over the similarly unconscious forms of her husband and son as he went.
He returned to Hogwarts in a daze, he had been completely blind-sided. He collapsed, gaping-mouthed and defeated in his solid, wing-backed chair as he tried collecting the scattered fragments of the truth.
Despite the attempted cover-up, Harry Potter had lived with the Dursleys. He had stayed on the peripherals of their lives, seemingly unimportant and possibly neglected, for at least three years before vanishing of the face of the earth.
Or, more likely, kidnapped.
He stood up at once, resuming his habitual pacing as his menagerie of weird and wonderful instruments stood still and waiting for his verdict.
Yes, everything pointed to a kidnapping. From what he had seen the Dursley’s were not particularly attentive to Harry’s wellbeing – in addition, he wasn’t even sure if Lilly’s protections extended very far beyond the Dursley’s property, or if they acted in the event Harry was tricked and lured away in what to seem to him an act of free will.
Now that he gave it serious thought, no longer clouded with the relief of the end of a brutal war, it would be pathetically easy to get around the seemingly infallible protections and snatch an unsuspecting toddler – never mind as a Deatheater. He had seen those demented men and women dancing around the battlefield - slaughtering skilled aurors and order members in droves; in comparison, kidnapping a defenceless child was as easy as pie.
He ran an aged hand down his face and let out a soul-weary sigh just as the leaden clouds broke an opened the damn of icy rain, there truly was no rest for the wicked.
Contemplating the few options he had, he continued to run his hand up and down his fatigued face and let it worry at his beard to distract him from the true implications of the situation.
He could alert the ministry, announce a call for help and rally the aurors – antsy from their continuous years stuck on desk duty – to search the country high and low. He could use the tidal wave of public anguish to break the flood gates guarding the surviving Deatheaters and gain control of their seats, their estates, their power.
But does he want to deal with Cornileus’s faffing? Good Godric, no no no. Besides, it is against his interest to agitate the public – he placed the boy with such unreliable muggles in the first place! Should that get out the media hounds will be baying for his blood!
Alternatively, he could search for the lost boy himself. He was quite the powerful wizard, if he does say so himself, in fact now that he was older and more wizardly looking than ever – people had begun heralding him as a mage! Surely he could track down a singular boy?
However, at that thought he tuned and cast a downtrodden look out the weather-beaten window to the sodden Hogwarts grounds.
He simply didn’t have the time for a wild goose chase. Such is the problem with power. With power comes expectations and with expectations, work swiftly follows. Although he was admittedly quite young for a wizard at only ninety-nine years of age, working three high profile jobs simultaneously just wasn’t as easy as it had been! Truthfully, all this time he was never one to lust after influential positions – no, that was more Gellert’s thing – he had always been more drawn to researching the fantastical, the bizarre and the dangerous. Admittedly, he had been the happiest in his life when he had been apprenticed to Nicholas Flammel – learning the fading and beautiful intricacies of alchemy and attempting to harness the spirit of life with only their wildest guesses to the true nature of mother magic.
Yet here he was. Fit for retirement - but practically leading a war-torn nation, running the only wizarding school in the country and solely responsible for the abduction and possible death of the Boy Who Lived.
He let out a deep breath in an attempt to try and return any semblance of energy to his weary body before hauling himself out of his grand chair, summoning the elder wand and thoughtlessly conjuring a beautiful and ghostly phoenix Patronus.
“Please visit Minerva and tell her to gather the old crowd, it seems some more clean up may be needed.”
Sirius hadn’t had this much fun in years, sure he had been in Azkaban for most of them, but he had truly missed this.
He had spent the last half an hour having a colourful verbal sparring match with Kreacher as the vile thing came closer and closer to straight up going feral and clawing his eyes out.
About what you ask? Harr- Corvus’s wardrobe of course.
In the wake of Aunt Cass’s threatening letter, the three adults had quite reasonably – freaked out. None of them were particularly social for good reasons, Sirius was freshly out of three years’ worth of constant mental torture, Arcturus had become a social recluse in his old age and detested the thought of abandoning his new lifestyle and Mother is … Well – mother.
It’s safe to say that in the lead up to the weekend all the etiquette handbooks containing the dust dry drivel of several ancient and snobby purebloods had been snatched from the library for some well-needed catch-up.
And now it was the big-day, Sirius had realised that there was something he had vastly overlooked.
He had stood there in the open doorway of Corvus’s room, mind blank in what must have been shock, as he processed the sight of Corvus standing in the ugliest and most out of date robes Sirius had laid his poor eyes upon. All the while that damned house elf stood smugly off to the side – as if the little wretch had anything to be proud of, mustard yellow robes with ruffles? What was that senile crumpled sock thinking??
Prompted by the little fashion disaster hovering innocently in the middle of his bedroom, completely unaware of the monstrosity he had been subjected to, Sirius tore through his wardrobe like a man possessed by the vengeful ghosts of long dead fashionistas. Because honestly, if there was one thing he learned from being a member of the House of Black - as much as he despised it – it was how to dress.
The situation was far more dire than he thought. It seemed that mother had truly reached impressive levels of hermitness and social reclusion if she ever even thought for a second that any of these clothes were in fashion. The majority he noticed had likely been pulled straight from Regulus’s room – which he neatly folded and put to the side so he could decide what to do with them later – however the rest were just straight up tacky. He felt the bony hands of Kreacher pelt his back in rebellion as he flung yet another ear-high collar into the newly dubbed “pile of destruction” by Corvus who was giggling while watching the entire scene with eyes filled with equal parts of wonder and bemusement.
A quick incendio and outfit selection later, he patted down the carefully selected and smart silver robes for dust as he surveyed his work.
It was an amazing improvement in his opinion, the silver complimented his skin and hair nicely and didn’t overwhelm the viewer as he had specifically chosen one with a classic and sleek design. His heart beat with the first scrap of exhilaration it had felt in three long years, as he watched the newly improved toddler zip around the room in his fancy little robes he vaguely noticed the ache in his cheeks from the sudden bout of smiling – once he realised that he toned it down from the strange maniacal grin that had stretched unnoticed across his face to a much less straining and what he hoped was a casual-looking smirk.
He hadn’t meant to get carried away, he casually glanced around the room – taking in the high windows letting light spill in, the ornate and cosy bed tucked away in the corner, an assortment of soft and colourful rugs completely obscured the hard-wood floors giving what surely would be an intimidating room a comfortable and cosy feeling. Then he saw the ravaged wardrobe, its ornate hazel doors hanging defeated, the piles of expensive and now crinkled robes now strewn everywhere from wall to ceiling and the fine layer of ash that was all that remained of anything particularly hideous.
He winced.
Then shrugged. Not his problem.
His problem was the hyperactive four-year-old that was standing on his feet and looking expectantly up at him with eyes as bright as the intricate detailing in his robes.
Dull pain lanced through his heart at the all too familiar inquisitive look that reflected in his face, he took a deep breath and tried to calm down in an attempt to convince the irrational part of his brain that he was over it – as much as he felt pure grief at watching what seemed to be the second death of his friends, he wasn’t about to blame the kid in front of him for abandoning the last relic of them. He had had a nice long cry in his room the night after the ritual, he wanted to get it all out of the way, empty out the well of emotions that he didn’t know what to do with, all he knew was that it had been physically painful to watch Harry shed the beloved Potter name for the house of Black of all things – it felt as if he was watching something treasured be ruined, corrupted unknowingly.
He was being selfish, he knew that. This was what was best for Harry -well Corvus- and he, Lilly and James of them always planned to temporarily hide him as Sirius’s son. It was incredibly stupid, brave and downright idiocy having a baby in the middle of a war – they knew it because every sane person within a five-mile radius had shouted it at them - and Sirius had never cared about the finer details or the worrying implications because it meant Harry had been born. He loved that giggling and drooly bundle of joy like it was his own son, and maybe that was why he was oddly okay with that whole adoption plan in the first place, as crazy and as desperate as it was – he cared for him, wanted to keep him safe, wanted to protect him. Hiding him as a snobby pure-blooded child of the house of Black was the best he could do for him, the less he was associated with tragic tale of Harry Potter the better.
So was it selfish of him to feel pure joy when he saw Lily’s ghost in his features? That even after all that he still had her cheeks? her almond eyes? her nose?
Probably. But he didn’t care.
James would undoubtedly be a bit miffed, but he would get over it.
Nudged out of his thoughts by the impatient prodding of said child, he placed his comforting smirk firmly back on his face and followed the little silver snitch of a boy out of the trashed room to make sure he didn’t throw himself down the stairs again. Harry was safe. He was free. And he had a party to get to.