A Push in the Right Direction – Chapter 15 – emersli1!

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October 31st was an important day in wizarding Britain.

Not just for the Samhain festivals, though there were many of those (and he had invites to all the best ones and had found just the robes to make the right impression).  But one year ago, Harry Potter had destroyed (at least temporarily) the Dark Lord Voldemort and lived to tell the tale.

Albus Dumbledore had been looking forward to this day for weeks.  Since August, really.  Everything had begun going wrong when that irresponsible Slytherin decided to die rather than live with his choices.  Sad, really.  Snape had had a lot of potential and Albus could have gotten a great deal of use out of him before his inevitable messy end.  

Comes of dealing with the young, of course.  And then some people just can’t deal with the fact that the story isn’t really about them.  And after all, someone has to play the unpleasant parts or the story doesn’t work.  Not everyone can be the hero.

Albus still wasn’t sure what he was going to do for a spy when Riddle returned … but that was a problem for Future Albus.  Current Albus had quite enough problems, thank you very much.

Those wretched creatures at the bank had decided for some reason that he wasn’t to be trusted.  Worse still, they had conveyed that information to the Board of Governors.  That had been an unpleasant meeting, and Albus had barely been able to come up with a suitable explanation.  Indeed, he suspected a couple of Governors hadn’t entirely bought his story.  They would obviously have to be replaced in the next couple of years.

But again, Future Albus problems.

He now had to send his Deputy to do all the banking for the school.  Which meant he was spending more magical energy in illusions, compulsions, and obliviations than he would be able to afford once Riddle re-emerged.  He hated the thought, but Minerva would have to go.  Albus would need someone he could control without resorting to expensive magicks.  Maybe Babbage or Sinistra.

Fortunately, the goblins had given him time to move his things out of his vault, but some sort of fine levied against him had taken all of his cash assets before he got there.  Albus had raged and complained, but the goblin accompanying him had just stoically repeated that he had admitted his guilt.  What nonsense!  As though Albus would ever admit to anything like guilt.  He didn’t have any.  Guilt, that is.  

Everything he did was for the Greater Good.

Now, considering the anniversary celebrations… a more sober set of robes was indicated.  Perhaps a velvet, or a heavy brocade.  He could always change later for the festival celebrations.  He wondered how young Harry was doing in the loving care of his aunt.

He really shouldn’t.  But if Albus had one tiny flaw, it was curiosity.  And after all, it was probably best to keep an occasional eye on that situation.  Yes, yes.  A check in was definitely for the best.  He could make sure no one saw him.

Casting a disillusionment spell, Dumbledore apparated to the edge of the wards in Little Whinging.  Good job he’d done with those wards.  Some of his best work.

Stepping through, Albus looked around with interest as he approached the house.  Everything looked to be in order.  It was obvious a family lived here.  Bicycles and balls decorated the porch and a midsized automobile sat in the drive.  

Reaching out though, he really didn’t feel the misery he’d expected to feel.  Maybe Petunia’s better nature had surfaced a bit?  Well, he could certainly fix that.  Chuckling, Albus popped through the door.  Wouldn’t want the boy growing up soft, after all.

Looking through the house, Albus saw nothing out of place, but … he also saw nothing to indicate the presence of two little boys.

He saw evidence of two older girls, and a married couple, but looking at the pictures on display … no these weren’t the Dursley’s.  Some other family was living in this house now!

Obviously the Dursley’s had moved.  Perhaps Vernon had been promoted, or perhaps they’d decided to relocate closer to his sister.  That would make sense, and Albus should have planned to counter that.  Ah well, maybe he could pick up some good gossip in the neighborhood.  Get a general location to start with… locator spells were so magickally expensive, even when you had a focus object.

Albus moved out into the street, thankful for his disillusionment spell.  He hadn’t exactly dressed to pass for a muggle today.  Moving towards the voices he heard in the back yard next door, he wound up dropping in on what was apparently a ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ party for the new family.

“Oh, we’re so glad to have you, dear.  You just wouldn’t believe … you really wouldn’t.  Such a terrible thing.”  The apparent queen bee of the group was addressing a younger woman, obviously the new arrival.  “The people who were living there before, well, it was just awful.  Two little boys, they had … though we never saw or heard of one of them until he was pulled out of the house dead.   Starved to death in a cupboard of all things.  And the other boy … drugged unconscious and left in his cot all the time.”

“No!  How horrible!  Did the second child survive?”  The new homeowner was suitably appalled at the tale.  For that matter Albus was feeling somewhat queasy himself.

“Well, I don’t know as I’d say survived.  Constable Clark, who found him upstairs in his cot, is the son of my uncle’s ex-girlfriend’s gardener, so he told me everything.   Poor child was twice the size he should have been, and couldn’t move a muscle.  Terribly sad.  They didn’t really know if he’d be right in the head after all the drugs.”

Another woman broke in at that point.  “I heard they didn’t really expect much, if he survived.  My father’s friend’s cousin’s dogwalker is the mother of the court bailiff, and she told me Petunia gave the child up.   Vernon died before trial, but Petunia was sentenced to life.  She released the boy to a relative in a private adoption.”

“Yes, yes,” the first woman said, giving the interrupter a dirty look for her pains.  “My hairdresser’s niece’s boyfriend’s sister is a guard at the Women’s Correctional Center.  She told me that Petunia has gone completely mad.  Sits in her cell screaming when she’s not tranquilized.  Horrible stuff, all about unnatural freakishness.  Well, I suppose she’d know, wouldn’t she?”

“Dreadful.  Quite dreadful.  I simply can’t imagine.  My girls are the absolute joy of my life.  What an awful woman!”  The newest member of the group responded to the tale with an appropriate amount of horror and shock.  And from there the conversation turned to other things.

Albus staggered out of the garden absolutely sick.  What in the world had Petunia done?  Apparating back to Hogwarts, he warded his office against intrusion and went to his curio cabinet.  Opening it, he carefully removed the small box from the back corner.

Taking the lid off the box he sat down in his chair with a thump.  The little snitch figurine that had held Harry Potter’s blood was shattered to dust.  Nothing usable remained, not even for a scrying spell.  He had one last thing he could try.

Albus gathered himself and sank into his core.  Casting the family revelation spell on the Potter line took a lot of magick since he was only distantly related, but if he could find a trace of Harry somewhere … or if there was another child close enough in age to pass off as Harry … well, he wasn’t above kidnapping.  For the Greater Good, of course.

But the spell just echoed out into nothingness.  No surviving members.  The Potter line was extinct.  No one the Family Magick recognized.  Perhaps someday in the future the line would resurface from a squib.  That did happen.  But for now, at any rate…

The Potters were dead.  All of them.

What in the world was Albus going to do now?  Looking around his office in shock, his gaze fell on the two sets of robes laid out for him for the evening.

Well, it would be a few years before Albus needed a martyr.  He had time to solve that problem.

Tonight he was going to celebrate!  Time enough for worry later on.

In a comfortable house, far away, tucked into the eaves of an ancient forest, two little boys slept after a very busy day.

Safe.