Fellowship & Fairydust

“There’s Smoky.” Harry nudged Severus, who had dozed off in front of the television.

The men nervously stood.

“The first of the spirits is about to arrive,” the spectre announced, and held out her hands to them again.

“I am… uncertain if I wish to witness this.” Snape looked rather pale.

“It was the condition set by the Spirits, to which you agreed. There is no going back now,” the woman said firmly.

“I know. I do not wish to back out, but still I am uncertain if I want to witness this.”

Harry stepped closer to him, a concerned frown on his face, and the woman’s voice softened. “It is disconcerting to all involved, certainly.” She sounded almost sad. “Yet enlightening. Growth sometimes requires pain. The only consolation I have for you, is that we come to encourage change, not to announce condemnation.”

“I… are you ready for this?” Harry asked Severus gently. “I never realized that… that we may see things that would probably upset you, as well.”

“And you.” Severus gave a small smile. “It is supposed to be like this, isn’t it, if the condition for the ritual is that one must care for the subject? At any rate, it would appear we are under a geass of some kind to complete this journey.”

Smoky held out her hands again. “We must go. Come.”

With a sigh, they both complied and went off for the first tour of the night.

***

Albus Dumbledore had dozed off, but was woken at midnight by a strange light in his bedroom. Fumbling around for his glasses, he sat up and turned towards the source of the light.

Which turned out to be a small childlike figure standing at the foot of the bed. Though he was unable to discern whether the figure was male or female, what did stand out immediately was the flame on top of its head. It carried a strange hood, almost like the device used to snuff a candle.

“Hello?” he said uncertainly.

“Albus Dumbledore.” The voice gave no indication as to gender, either, though it did sound childlike. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Oh?” the Headmaster replied, uncertain, “and what is your business here?”

“Your welfare,” the Spirit answered.

“My welfare has certainly not been served tonight by giving me a heart attack,” the aged wizard grumbled.

Harry and Severus, who stood behind the Spirit with their smoky tour guide, couldn’t help but snicker. They hastily hid it behind their hands until they remembered that they could not be heard or seen.

“Your reclamation, then,” the Spirit amiably agreed, obviously thinking that a debate at the start of its visit would not serve its purpose. “Take heed, rise, and walk with me!”

“We are to go through the window?!” Dumbledore quickly threw on his purple star-patterned bathrobe.

“Does that frighten you?” The Spirit of Christmas Past sounded amused.

“Without a broom? I could do a levitation charm….” The Headmaster already held out his wand, but the Spirit stayed him with a gesture.

“Bear but a touch of my hand, and you shall be upheld, in more than this.”

“Very well.”

The moment Dumbledore touched its hand, they vanished; Harry, Severus and Smoky along with them.

***

They arrived in a homey scene – two boys, about six and nine, and a smaller girl were seated around the hearth. A woman sat in a chair nearby, the eldest boy leaning against her knee.

“Mother,” Dumbledore breathed. “Ariana.”

The Spirit stayed quiet.

“Mould-on-the-Wold,” Dumbledore muttered. “This was… before….”

“Before your sister was attacked,” the Spirit said calmly, “before your father was arrested. You seem close to your mother?”

Dumbledore smiled. “She often spoke to me. She told me stories of great wizards and witches. Aberforth accused that she taught me to manipulate and scheme, but I do not remember that – I remember only her voice.”

He watched his younger siblings playing quietly together on the rug, Aberforth reading a picture book to his little sister.

“Abe and Ariana never seemed to have much interest in having stories told to them. They would rather read stories themselves. Even later….”

“She was but fourteen when she died,” the Spirit reminded him.

“When I killed her, you mean.” Dumbledore’s voice sounded harsh.

Their small audience of two gasped, unheard by anyone but their own guiding spirit.

“Do you know which wand killed her?” The Spirit moved towards the little girl; its face interested.

“It does not matter. It was my fault. Ariana…,” Dumbledore reached for his sister, but found he could not touch her.

“You changed your ways, to some extent, after her death,” the Spirit remarked.

“What do you mean? I learned much – I knew I was not to be trusted with power. That the ideals that Gellert and I held….”

“Yet you gathered power to you,” the Spirit said. “You became Headmaster of Hogwarts. The hero of the Grindelwald years. At that moment, these truths about your own nature may have been revealed to you, but you have not lived by them.”

The Headmaster stood quietly, mesmerized by the playing children in front of him as he pondered the words of the Ghost. It held out a hand to him again, and reluctantly he took it.

The scene changed again, this time to Hogwarts, and a Sorting. A line of first years were herded through the doors of the Hall by a younger looking Minerva McGonagall, and Harry nudged Snape.

“Isn’t that you?”

“Yes,” Snape replied, “yes, it is.”

“Why have you brought me here?” Dumbledore asked his Spirit guide.

“By this time, you were Headmaster, and Voldemort was beginning to rise,” the Spirit replied.

“Many of these children would later join him,” Dumbledore muttered.

The Spirit had moved to the child Snape, now sitting under the Sorting Hat, studying him intensely. “Yet this one came back.”

Harry could hear Snape hold his breath.

“Yes. Yes, he did,” the Headmaster said absentmindedly, “only one out of so many.”

“Do you remember what you said to him when he came back to you?” the Spirit asked, ignoring the Headmaster’s mutterings for the moment.

“You disgust me,” Snape whispered.

“Beg your pardon?” Harry asked, slightly offended.

“That’s what he said. You disgust me.” Severus looked away as Dumbledore repeated the sentence.

“But it was not the boy that disgusted you, was it?” the Spirit continued mercilessly. “The boy did the very same thing you have done, though he repented before the one person he loved lay dead. He brought the Prophesy to Voldemort, yes, but he did not betray their location that was under Fidelius. It was another who did that. They would have lived if not for that. You were not disgusted with the boy; you were disgusted with yourself.”

The Headmaster did not answer.

***

“I thought you hated Sirius because of what he did to you at school,” Harry remarked.

Snape looked straight ahead, to the still image of his eleven-year-old self sitting on the stool.

“I did hate him for that, yes, but I hated him more for killing Lily. It was my fault she was in danger, but I thought I had saved her! I had warned Dumbledore and he was going to keep her safe. I thought Black had betrayed them, killing Lily. I hated him so much for that. All my efforts – my penance – for nothing. Lily lay dead, and I could only go on by being reminded that you were still alive. Had I known then that you are my son, I would perhaps even have led a reasonably happy life. As it was, I lived to keep you safe for Lily, and for revenge on Black.”

“But Sirius did not betray us,” Harry pointed out.

“True, but until well into your fourth year, I did not know that.”

Harry conceded the point, and they felt the strange pull that brought them to yet another scene of the past.

***

The Dursley family sat happily around the Christmas tree, Vernon helping five-year-old Dudley with some sort of electronic train as Petunia walked back into the room from the kitchen with a tray of cookies.

“Here you are, loves,” she said affectionately. “Men who work this hard should be rewarded.”

“Thank you, honey,” Vernon grunted, whereas Dudley merely grabbed a cookie.

“Harry?” Dumbledore asked softly.

The Spirit merely lifted its hand towards the cupboard under the stairs. The adult Harry was already standing there, looking at it with a myriad of emotions on his face.

The door to the cupboard vanished, allowing them all to see the miserable, bruised, thin boy inside it. He had ceased trying to stare through the cracks, and was curled up on his small mattress, holding a tiny, broken knight in his hand.

Regret flashed over Dumbledore’s face. Anger passed over Snape’s, and he had his wand in his hand to curse the happy family under the Christmas tree, until his son laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“This is not real,” he reminded Severus. “It happened a long time ago.”

Dumbledore reached out a hand to touch the dark-haired child. “It was for the greater good,” he muttered, “oh, Harry….”

“That is all you ever worried about,” the Spirit said dispassionately, “the greater good.”

“That was my business,” the Headmaster replied. “It was my job to look out for the greater good.”

“They were your business,” the Spirit of Christmas Past pointed to the child, “the lives placed in your hands were your business! Harry was your business, Severus was your business, Ariana was your business!”

“Do not say that!” The eyes of the two observers widened as they saw the Headmaster lose his temper for the first time they could remember. “I loved them! How dare you!”

Grabbing the Spirits hood, the Headmaster began to pull it over the flaming head, as if he were snuffing a candle, until its light had been extinguished and the spirit gone.

As soon as it ended, they found themselves back in Dumbledore’s bedroom, the old man asleep on the bed.

“Go wait in the office,” Smoky told them, “the second Ghost will be here soon.”

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