We Are Not Ready

Halloween of 1982 promises to be different.

It’s the first anniversary of the end of the war, and, while everything is hardly solved—the trials still ongoing, victims still recovering, many witches and wizards still missing—there is a feeling of awe and joy in the air as Albus wakes up that morning.

Already, people are drinking and celebrating in the streets. Classes are cancelled for the day, and there’s a memorial ceremony for the Potters at the Ministry, followed by a Ball that, unsurprisingly, doubles as a political campaign for the next Minister.

Albus isn’t sure if Barty Crouch would be a good candidate, but he certainly was the only one who would know how to do his job. If he actually does it properly, however, is a whole different story.

Still, Albus makes sure to greet him and make small talk with Barty as they meet near the buffet. Junior, Barty’s son, looks politely bored as he stands next to his father, eyes scanning the room as if searching for an excuse to escape.

Everything is going smoothly—right up until it doesn’t.

Albus freezes gives his goodbye with the first excuse that crosses his mind—suddenly remembering his mother’s lemon cake recipe and needing to write it down before he forgets again—and rushes for the Floo. He steps out into the Three Broomsticks, dodges a few drunken bodies and skips out in the back alley, where he Disapparates.

Privet Drive is quiet at this time of the night. The wind ruffles the trees, and muggles snore in envious ignorance, but that isn’t what worries Albus. The street is quiet, whatever attack happened is over, leaving only a normal muggle town behind, not a single ward humming nearby. Which shouldn’t be the case. Even if the Blood Wards had fallen, the other, more standard wards that Albus had set on the Dursleys’ property should still be there.

Unless someone had torn them down.

He hurries, quickly unlocking the front door and taking a single step inside, before the stench of blood makes him step back.

The hallway looks like the scene of a massacre. And the house itself—or, rather, the Blood Ward—as the victim.

Blood seeps out of the walls, blackened and cursed, soaking the furniture and pooling on the floor. There, face down in a puddle of blood, is Petunia Dursley, completely unresponsive.

He makes sure that she is alive and merely unconscious—though he cannot speak for the state of her mind—and searches the rest of the house. There is a toddler sleeping upstairs, along with Petunia’s husband, and they are both covered in the same black blood that oozes out of the walls and drips from the ceiling.

Neither Harry Potter, nor his corpse, are anywhere to be found.

Albus’s feet make squishing sounds as he walks, threatening to slip. He is not a specialist in curses, isn’t a healer, has no idea what kind of dark magic this is, and does not even know where to start. The spells he casts can barely recognize the malignant magic for what it is, never mind show him which way to look for solutions. Obviously, the answer lays in Blood Magic, but it is the kind of tricky and perverse magic that never quite had rules as much as guidelines. Blood Magic is binding, until it is broken. Blood Magic is fickle, and yet one of the sturdiest form of magic to ever exist.

Albus had chosen to stay away from it after his unwise interest during his youth, and Tom hadn’t seemed to find much use in it either—understandable, since he didn’t share blood with anyone and wouldn’t get anything out of its practice outside of some potential backlash.

Albus had never understood how Lily Potter, muggleborn witch, married into a small Light family, had ever gotten access, never mind understood, the workings of Blood Magic. Severus had some basics in the subject, but nothing of the kind that would reflect a Killing Curse. The entire thing was worrying.

But Lily Potter was gone, and she had taken her gruesome knowledge with her in the grave. The only remains of her actions was her son, who, as Prophetised, would have to die along with Voldemort, taking him down for good. And thus, order would be restored.

Or so Albus had hoped.

But Harry Potter is nowhere near Privet Drive, most likely stolen away after being used to cast whatever Blood Curse is laid on the property. Petunia Dursley’s mind is a mess, and so he resigns himself to find his answers elsewhere. He cleanses the house of the blood, though he is unable to find the origin of the curse, and finally decides to leave it, having more pressing matters to take care of. He sets up new wards, casts a few more protection to hopefully diverts the worse of the curse’s influence, and then moves to track down Harry.

If Tom was back already—but no. He’d have killed the muggles not to leave any witness. So would have any intelligent Death Eaters, and those were the only type still out there at the moment. No, someone had taken Harry and cursed the muggles. The wards had fallen, so chances were that whoever it is had promised the boy a new home. If the person who had taken him was also the one who taught Lily to use Blood Magic, well, that would give them both the motive and the ability to act. And if they told Harry that they were a friend of their mother… well, why wouldn’t the boy go with them, if they asked?

Maybe he should have heeded Arabella’s warnings. Maybe he should have been more concerned by Harry’s lack of public appearances. Maybe he should have wondered about the little boy who wasn’t taken on errands and who didn’t play in the nearby park with his muggle cousin.

But he’d been so busy and, truthfully, preferred not to rock the boat too much, least Petunia’s tolerance wavered. Better to let her get attached to the boy in her own time, rather than risk upsetting the unsure balance of the Blood Magic keeping them safe.

That was no longer pertinent, however. Part of the Blood Ward’s power was that Blood Magic was an obscure piece of magic. If someone knew them well enough to manipulate them, then it was no longer secure.

Albus would not trust a casual practitioner of Blood Magic. They would have to be as bloody and perverse as the magic itself, no better than a Dark Wizard. He would have to find something else.

Resigned to a few sleepless nights until he found Harry, Albus sends a Patronus to Minerva to explain that he’d be missing for a few days.

Hopefully, he would be able to find Harry. If he doesn’t, he’ll have to call on the Order.

And he would rather not needlessly alarm anyone so soon after the end of the war.

Things seem to spiral down from there.

Albus does not find Harry, and eventually has to return to his duties at Hogwarts and in the various councils he is a part of. Severus is alerted of Harry’s disappearance, as is Alastor, and has to neglect the political scene more than he would like once Harry remains out of his reach.

Two weeks after Harry’s disappearance, Severus finds a few scrying potions and they sacrifice some of the boy’s childhood toys abandoned in the cottage in Godric’s Hollow to find him, but whatever body fluids on the toys have long degraded or whatever attachment the boy had for the toys is too far gone to track him down.

Albus is not willing to destroy Death’s Cloak to such a potion, especially as Harry most likely had never touched it for all that he is its legitimate owner, so he instead finds a ritual in a German tome that is not so Dark that he is unwilling to try it. However, it would seem that Albus’ scruples would be spared.

The Cloak is gone.

There is no sign of intrusion, no trace of the theft—it was as if the Cloak had simply ceased to be.

What if it had? What if Harry had died and is fell apart without a true owner?

The items monitoring Harry’s health were no longer working, the blood and hair collected from the boy gone in smoke. The Cloak was gone. The Blood Wards were gone.

Albus’ hopes for Harry’s continued existence laid on the Prophecy that had yet to come to term, still active in the depths of the Department of Mysteries.

A year passes.

Sirius Black dies in Azkaban, two years on the dot after the Potters’ deaths. People celebrate even more, cheering on both the end of the war and the death of a powerful Death Eater. His family wants nothing to do with his body, so the Dementors bury him next to Barty Crouch Jnr, and Albus finds a painful sort of peace at the knowledge that the Potters’ traitor would never leave that terrible island. He disapproves of the Dementors, has never agreed with their torture of their prisoners, but he is human enough to be satisfied that Sirius Black would not find peace after his too-short life. He is not the only one—Minerva and Severus share a rare moment of solidarity when the news reaches them, the both of them giving each other a look of grim gratification.

Sirius’ death, however, does not bring any clarity as to Albus’ other problems. There is no secret revealed, no last revenge triggered. Albus still has no idea where Harry is. The curse on Number 4 Privet Drive is still there, and the family living under its roof seems to wither away. Albus tries to talk them into moving away, but he is ignored, and he fears that they will now remain there out of spite. Short of mind-controlling them, which he refuses to do, he cannot save them—not when they refuse to be saved.

Ignorance and resentment are just as devious killers as deadly curses. That is a lesson he learnt young.

Not young enough. But young, still.

Another year passes. Halloween comes again. Albus spends the day in Hogwarts, taking comfort from the children’s joy at the tables covered in candy and the animated decorations covering the castle.

The next day, however.

The next day has the Daily Prophet’s front page covered not with a picture from the Halloween Ball, but that of Lily and James Potter, pale and sunken-eyed and dead dancing together between trick-or-treaters.

They are unmistakable. Severus stares at the paper for a whole minute before stalking out of the Great Hall, cloak whipping angrily behind him.

There, in from of Albus, the newspaper writes, NECROMANCER IN GODRIC’S HOLLOW, THE POTTERS’ REST DISTURBED!

But Albus’ attention is on the cloak around James’ shoulders, a familiar cloak that flares with every spin and twirl, the Potter scion’s boyish smile matching the youthful joy on Lily’s face.

And suddenly, Albus thinks of Blood Magic and blackened blood and a missing son and Sirius’s death, murder—

He remembers Tom Riddle. A charming young orphan, the son of an arrogant noble and a desperate witch, and the mirrored image is distorted, not quite a perfect reflection. He remembers Severus Snape, cursing James Potter and calling him cruel, entitled and spoiled—the cruel, ruthless Severus Snape, who had been Lily Evans’ friend long before Hogwarts, Lily Evans who is the sister of the spiteful and cruel Petunia, and wonders…

They had both been charming people. Gryffindors. Good people. Amazing at magic.

But Sirius had proven that not all Gryffindors were noble or good. Lily had proven to be a practitioner of Blood Magic, and James…

Albus thinks of the Tale of the Three Brothers. James was Ignotus’ descendant. The descendant of a wizard who, past the decorations of storytelling, was the brother of a powerful wand maker and of a wizard who created the Resurrection Stone. Necromancy may be Tom’s heritage, but that did not mean it was absent from James’ own.

Albus suddenly knew who had cursed Petunia. Knew who had taken Harry, stolen—recovered—the Cloak, killed Sirius, and who knew what more.

And as the newspaper trembled in his hands, he found himself considering the meaning of the Prophecy once again.

The one who called for Lord Voldemort’s equal.