Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
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Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was one of the most powerful wizards in the world. He had neither the false modesty to protest that statement or the arrogance to claim to be the MOST powerful. At the moment however he was feeling rather helpless.
His world was at war. People where dying. His former students where dying. On both sides. Guilt had started gnawing at him constantly. He had to wonder how much of it could be laid at his door? If he had taken different actions, could he have steered Tom Riddle away from the path he had taken? If his favoritism for certain students hadn't been so obvious would Severus Snape for example joined the death eaters? If he had taken steps to curve the arrogance and entitlement of the pure bloods as well as their misunderstandings about the nature of muggles, could he have changed the lives of Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black, or Regulus Black?
Albus wanted to think that he had never had a choice. That he had done all he could. That this was the way it was meant to be. A conflict that would have always come to a head. That eventually the fate of the world would always be balanced on the shoulders of a tiny baby girl. But then he always remembered that the prophecy wasn't a ancient one. It was only a few months older than the two tiny babies it could refer too, and it had been delivered to him. As if...as if it were his fault that the world had become so out of balance that magic itself had to step in too right things with the birth of a chosen one.
He wished desperately that he could know for sure which child the prophecy referred too. The Bones or the Potter child. Both little girls born on the last day of July. To parents who had thrice defied Tom. Susan Bones was a pureblood the only child of two famed aurors. Ivy Potter a half-blood whose parents where both fighters for Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix and whose father was also a auror. Both where from light families. Susan's family tended to sort to Hufflepuff, while Ivy's had been Gryffindor except for her Slytherin Grandmother. Both had manifested accidental magic early a sign of a powerful magical. It was equally likely to be the red-haired Bones heir, as it was to be the brunette Potter heir.
Dumbledore had urged both families into hiding. The Bones had retreated behind powerful family wards at their ancestral home while the Potters put their faith in the Fidelius charm and their friend's loyalty. He had the feeling of being locked in place now. Just waiting. Waiting for Tom's next move. Waiting for Tom to in some way mark one of the little girls. Until he knew which of them was the Chosen one Albus couldn't really move forward with any plans. All he could do was take information from his spy and try to minimize the damage Tom and his followers caused. It reminded him of his conflict with Gellert so many years ago.
At the thought of Gellert, Dumbledore paused in his pacing one hand going to his heart at the throb of pain the memory of his old love caused. His first huge mistake. He had put so much faith in the man he'd loved, and it had cost him the most important things in his world. His family, his self-respect, his confidence in his own judgement. Since he'd helped defeat Gellert and locked him up in his own castle Dumbledore had created his own code of conduct. His own sense of the Greater good that had no similarities to the one he and Gellert had once envisioned, and he had held to it desperately. Was that desperate clinging partly to blame for the danger those two young families where now in? Was the danger to those two beautiful baby girls that reminded him so painfully of his baby sister Arianna to be on his conscious as well?
Another bolt of pain flashed through his chest as he remembered his sister's face. The trusting smile she had always reserved for just him and their brother Aberforth. Then to his surprise the pain traveled down his arm and then tripled. He cried out and fell to his knees hand going to his chest. Was he...having a heart attack? Surely not. True he was close to 120-years-old but surely, he had another few years. Surely, he would die fighting for the greater good not from something as mundane as a heart attack. A cry escaped his gritted teeth as another flash of pain hit him.
He pulled out his wand and once again focused on his sister's smile. "Expecto Patronum." He barely got the words out his phoenix Patronus flaring to life but much weaker than normal. "Go to Poppy. Tell her...tell her..." Albus's words choked off as his heart stuttered and body and mind both started to go numb. "Gellert." He whispered softly and his arm fell his body fully collapsing onto the floor. The Patronus streaked off to fulfill his final order before fading from existence. Forever.
By the time Poppy Pomfrey, and Minerva McGonagall who she'd been having tea with arrived it was too late. The great Albus Dumbledore had breathed his last.
In the next few days much was made of Albus's reported last words. Many believed even after it was ruled a natural death by heart attack that somehow Gellert Grindelwald had managed a spell to kill the great hero. It seemed a much more fitting death for the Leader of the light than a heart attack. They didn't let the fact that Gellert Grindelwald wasn't even in the same time zone as Hogwarts and was kept in magic suppressing shackles get in the way of a good story. Of course, a few days later on Halloween of all days a event happened that banished the death of Dumbledore from the minds of the Wizarding world. An event that would change the lives of the entire wizarding world and most specifically one little girl whose life would have gone much differently if Albus Dumbledore had survived his heart attack.