Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Harry Potter and the Ashes of Hope ❯ Chapter 5: Too Late ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

I do not own Harry Potter...You should know the rest by now if not go look at Chapter 1

Chapter Five

Too Late

Albus Dumbledore had been sitting in his office and pleasantly sucking on a lemon drop in a vain attempt to forget the memories this early morning would bring.

You see, today was July 31st and it just so happened to be a certain raven-haired boy's seventeenth birthday. However, the said boy happened to be a heartless murderer and was currently residing in Azkaban. Nevertheless, despite the flaws of young Harry Potter, Dumbledore could not help but feel tragically partial towards the boy.

Especially since an overwhelming feeling of dread had been in his soul since everything that had happened began.

Dumbledore was plucked from his sad reverie when the pendant upon his chest grew warm, thus indicating a presence at the foot of the stairs leading to his office. The old man spanned out his senses a little to identify the aura of the guest and discovered Severus Snape. Then again, who else would be climbing up his staircase at 2 AM in the morning, coincidentally after a death eater meeting?

“Come in, Severus.”

The hooked-nosed man with greasy black hair grumpily strode into the man's office with a slight limp, as if he had been victim to the sadistic murmur of “crucio” earlier in the night. Annoyed with the man's mysterious means of identifying visitors, Snape hastily, and a tad bit harshly, refused the offered lemon drop.

Truth be told, Dumbledore was a bit happy about this new arrival, despite the ever-solemn circumstances that always surrounded Severus Snape. However, what Dumbledore did not know was that this very exchange would be about the one thing both men wanted to avoid thinking about: Harry Potter.

Snape slowly relayed the night's events to Dumbledore who listened intently. However, at the end of the oration, Snape hesitated a bit.

“Is that all, Severus?” Dumbledore asked knowingly.

With a glare, Snape continued reluctantly. “Tonight the Dark Lord introduced a death eater.”

“And…?”

Turning his cold eyes downward, Snape continued evermore unwillingly. “Apparently it was not a new member.” Snape appeared to be ready to stop, but with a prodding glance from Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes, continued again, even more grudgingly.

“Apparently it was a member who's been around for awhile.” Hepaused as he tried to find the right words. “Over a year in fact.”

Another pauseoccurred and Dumbledore's sinking feeling threatened to overwhelm him as memories of a poor boy that needed him most hit him. “He was a potion's master, like meand one with the capability... the capabilityto create a Veritaserum replica with imperious properties.”

“Excuse me?” Dumbledore was a very intelligent man, and certainly understood the horrible implications of this statement, but he also noted that Snape was alluding to something thathe himself had not yet deduced or as Snape would say himself later on in life.

Was not willing to deduce....

“A fake truth potion, sir. One that can make the drinker spew whatever the potion-creator wants to-”

“I understood that!” Dumbledore interjected.

“There are many things a man can do with one, sir.” Snape said with a cold glance and a bit of hesitation. “Additionally, the Dark Lord also has spies in the ministry. He could easily remove and replace people in custody. He could even go as far as to exchange the ministry's potion stocks…”

And then a cold, hard revelation struck Dumbledore squarely in the chest. It struckso hard in fact that his breath caught in his throat for a second before he could force out a horror-filled exclamation.

“Harry Potter! Dear Merlin, no!” Snape seemed to cringe at the name, as if it was a vile curse that even a Death Eater should shudder upon hearing. Through Dumbledore's disbelieving mutters of “no,” Snape continued.

“Apparently…” Snape drawled out, “the initial speculations were correct. One death eater or another did indeed take the facade of Harry Potter - I'm sure many will claim the honor of such - and you can imagine what he or she did under this disguise. When apprehended and taken into custody, one ministry-associated Death Eater or another - possible Avery - replaced the Potter-look-alike with the brat. Voldemort proudly relayed the whole night's affair at tonight's meeting, describing at full length how he broke through the blood wards exactly a year ago- which his revival of 1994 enabled him to do - and took Potter's wand while the brat's family were all asleep.”

Snape continued the story, looking more pleased at the aspect of Harry's suffering than at the aspect of revealing Harry's innocence, while Dumbledore grew paler with every word that attested to his own mistakes… the mistakes that sent an innocent child (his own Golden Boy at that!) to the most feared place in Wizarding Britain.

At one point or another, Dumbledore abruptly stood up so quickly that it made Snape falter. With newfound determination, Dumbledore started shooting out orders at Snape.

“I need you to wake Minerva and the two of you shall organize an Order meaning of only the inner circle - make sure to call Remus first, tell him what you told me, but make sure he is situated in a safe place first so he won't hurt himself (“or ME!” Snape interjected) - my office will do…” Dumbledore said, glancing down at the broken objects still arranged on his desk.

“Tell him that I shall arrive back around seven if everything goes to plan. Also, inform Minerva first of the events about which this meeting will be discussed. Tell no one else, besides Minerva and Remus, what you told me.” With that, Dumbledore strode out of his office and left a miserable Severus Snape in his wake.

It was already quarter past four in the morning when Dumbledore found himself in Azkaban accompanied by Mad-Eye Moody. By four thirty, the two were done arguing with the dark attendants who ran the prison and were striding through the corridors, heedless to the Aurors' shouts of “stop!” and “go no further!” that met their backs. At twenty of five they finally found the cell of Harry Potter.

And it was empty.

“Where is he!” Dumbledore shouted. As one can imagine, an angry shout from this powerful wizard is indeed a scary thing to witness.

The prison attendant broke through the circle of Aurors that surrounded the duo standing before Harry Potter's cell. With several gasps for breath, the exhausted man managed to get out, “I was trying to tell you earlier! You CAN'T see Harry Potter! He's been relocated!”

“WHERE!”

The attendant momentarily froze at the demand, before rushing out, “the ministry!” With that, Dumbledore and Moody rushed out of the prison as fast as they had entered.

Fudge, like any other person, had his momentary intelligent moments. July 31, 1997 witnessed one of his few.

The Minister of Magic had planned to execute Harry Potter as soon as possible, especially at the urge of several of his close associates (like Avery for instance) and this opportunity revealed itself legally upon Harry's seventeenth birthday. Therefore, Fudge had already relocated Harry to a rarely-used, well-hidden holding cell in the basement of the ministry building by three that morning. When his secretary informed him that Albus and a retired Auror were demanding Harry Potter approximately around 5 in the morning, Fudge had already set the execution time to six. Not even Dumbledore would be able to fudge Fudge's plans.

A few minutes short of six found Moody and Dumbledore rushing through the ministry's basement corridors. After an hour of powerful persistence, the duo had finally discovered where the boy-who-lived was being held. No later had they set off on their quest. The door of the holding cell noisily crashed open upon Dumbledore's arrival.

And it revealed an empty room.

That could only mean one thing...

...and after all, why else would the ministry have removed Harry Potter from Azkaban except to enforce the ultimate punishment: a dementor's kiss.

The door of the Kiss Room was finally in sight. However, when a freezing chill met Dumbledore's frail frame, his pace quickened into a full-out sprint.

Dumbledore ran into the room just in time to see Harry Potter fall helplessly at the foot of the dementor. It was then, and only then, that Dumbledore realized why Voldemort had chosen this morning to boast of the framing of Harry Potter: because he wanted Dumbledore to feel the pain of being too late.

Dumbledore was an old man who had lived well over seven scores of years. He had, by then, witnessed the state of dementor victims and most certainly understood the well-known fact that there existed no cure for this state of soullessness. And Harry Potter was now soulless.

As Harry was being dragged out of the room to a destination unknown to Dumbledore, ministry officials swarmed in the room to apprehend the intrusive old man. Of course, no charges were made against the Chief Wizengamot, but what would it have really mattered to Dumbledore? He had just witnessed the irreversible soul-removal of an innocent child. The only hope for the wizarding world as well!

Dumbledore lifelessly scaled the staircase leading up to his office. He knew the Order was impatiently waiting for him at headquarters, but he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was confirmation. In the recesses of Dumbledore's aged heart dwelled a lingering hope that maybe Harry's state of soullessness could indeed be cured. If only he could see the exact details on the monitoring parchment...

Dumbledore slowly opened the door to find Remus pacing his office nervously. Upon seeing Dumbledore, Remus's amber eyes widened into hysteria and the man started anxiously lobbing questions at the old man.

“Where is he? Did you get him? He's at the order, isn't he? Merlin, tell me! You couldn't have possibly brought him to 12 Grimmuald Place, not with all the memories! I was going to go there but I thought you might come here first… Albus! Where in Merlin's name is he?”

A lifeless glance from Dumbledore shushed the desperate werewolf. He strode over to his desk and pulled open one of the many drawers in the magical furniture. He withdrew a piece of parchment and laid it on the desk.

It was blank.

This piece of parchment, which was once covered in green-inked scribblings of the state of Harry's well-being and general location, was now wordless. There was only one circumstance that cleared a monitoring parchment: death.

Dumbledore had been prepared for the emerald scribblingof “soulless” and “unresponsive.” He had not been prepared to find the parchment blank. He had neither expected nor been prepared for the absolute lifelessness of Harry Potter....

Wizardkind's last hope...

With a bout of frustrated energy, Dumbledore's fire blazed with flames that then swallowed the piece of useless, banished parchment. The old man then sat down into his chair, elbows on his desk and dull, spark-less eyes hidden beneath crippled fingers, and, with not another word, he cried. Dumbledore sat miserably at his desk and cried in front of Remus Lupin.

Remus stared in shock at the old wizard for several moments. The old man, who until this point appeared infallible, was reduced to tears at his own failings. Remus took in what he know of the parchment and what he knew of Dumbledore's plan, and then he felt the dangerous revelation gnawing at his heart.

Breath eluded Remus and he began choking on his sobs. Harry Potter couldn't be dead! The boy he used to coddle as an infant... the child he taught in extra defense sessions... the teenager he saw as a son. That boy could not be dead... for that boy was the only one that kept him going. Remus's knees buckled beneath him and he crumpled to the floor, looking as miserable as Dumbledore.

These men, whose eyes were too teared with the failures and miseries of their lives, failed to notice the burning scraps ignite once more in emerald ink writing before completely burning into ashes at the basin of the headmaster's fireplace.

Failed to notice that not all hope was lost....