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Morning at Hogwarts was veiled in mist.
From the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, dawn's light filtered through stained glass, scattering jeweled colors across the stone walls. A hush lingered, the kind of quiet that belongs only to early hours when the world itself seems caught between dreams and waking.
The sun had risen, yet within Hogwarts, something of the night's mystery still clung to the air.
In that light, two figures stood at the hall's heart, sharply bathed in gold: Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel.
"It's done, Nicolas," The headmaster said softly. His deep-purple robes glimmered faintly as his long, silver beard stirred in the faint morning draft.
"Yes, Albus," Flamel replied, adjusting the spectacles perched on his weathered nose. His tone was scholarly as ever, yet there was a current of eagerness beneath it. "I should return to my office and take a closer look at that rainwater Ian brought back. Perhaps within it lies some clue… some trace of why the gods vanished from our world."
He spoke without disguise; before his old friend, secrets were not needed.
"Mm."
Dumbledore answered with only a slight nod, the motion setting his beard swaying like a slow pendulum. "I, too, have my rituals yet undone. Morning brings me to my lessons."
Consulting the golden pocket watch in his hand, he frowned almost imperceptibly; the hands glinted as though urging him onward. As Nicolas departed with serene composure, Dumbledore turned toward the staircases and began his steady ascent.
The castle was no gentler than usual. The stairways twisted, groaned, and shifted with their strange will, yet the headmaster followed their pathways with the practiced step of long familiarity. On the landings, a few early-rising students spotted him and froze mid-stride, offering rushed greetings.
"Good morning, Headmaster Dumbledore!"
A Hufflepuff boy with round spectacles near tripped over himself as he spoke, but his timid grin brimmed with awe.
"Good morning, child," Dumbledore returned, tone warm, lined with humor. His eyes twinkled briefly. "Your first class is Charms today, yes? Do not forget your wand. Professor Flitwick's patience for forgetful hands is far thinner than mine ever was."
The boy brightened instantly, flushing crimson at the fact that the Headmaster remembered his schedule. "Y-yes, sir! I won't forget!" He yanked his wand from his satchel, his friends doing the same, as though to prove their preparation.
"Good," Dumbledore said with a conspiratorial wink. "You are far more reliable than I was, I fear. In my own school days, I misplaced my wand more often than not."
Whether truth or playful deception, the words left the student overjoyed, whispering excitedly to one another even after they hurried off.
Dumbledore lingered a moment, watchful, a soft smile on his lips. To them, he was the kindly elder who cared for each one personally, the pillar of Hogwarts' strength. But when he reached his office door and entered, the smile drained away like light fading from a candle.
Inside, an overwhelming solemnity descended.
The headmaster's office breathed with ancient enchantments, its walls lined with slumbering portraits of past headmasters. Every painted eyelid remained resolutely shut, though it was plain they were not truly asleep.
"Almost time."
Dumbledore's words were quiet, yet carried the weight of finality. Striding to a shadowed corner, he approached a massive oak cabinet carved with runes that throbbed faintly with magic. With only a wave of his hand, the door opened soundlessly, revealing the relic within.
A silver Pensieve rested inside, its surface rippling as if breathing. Rows of delicate glass phials framed it, each cradling fragments of memory preserved with exacting care.
Dumbledore's gaze passed across them until it stilled, heavy with unspoken thought. Then, raising his old wand, he pressed it to his temple. Slowly, a ribbon of thought pulled free, delicate, luminous, yet not like the memories he had drawn countless times before.
Where most memories gleamed in pure silver, this one was marbled with curling streaks of gray and dark, sickly red, as though soaked in corruption. An alien weight pulsed in its glow.
The headmaster frowned deeply. The breath in the room seemed to thicken, the mist of dawn replaced by something darker, more uncertain.
"Hm?"
Dumbledore's gaze lingered on the strange, corrupted strand of memory. Still, with practiced steadiness, he guided it using his wand toward the assembled portraits of former headmasters lining the walls. His voice was soft, firm, ceremonial:
"Headmasters… as always, I entrust this to your keeping."
The figures within the frames stirred faintly, accepting the burden. The memory sank into their painted world, hidden in brush and canvas.
When it was done, Dumbledore stood staring up at them, lost in thought.
"Who is influencing us?"
The rasping voice behind him needed no introduction. He did not even turn.
"Gellert."
His old rival. His old friend.
"Finished what you set out to do?" Dumbledore asked calmly.
"More or less." Grindelwald stepped closer, the air thickening with his presence. His words carried both arrogance and a strange intimacy. "Now that we've returned to the same starting line… why not test once again who can go further?" A challenge in tone, but not without invitation.
Dumbledore gave no immediate reply. His eyes lifted instead to the slumbering portraits that now bore his secret.
"This time…" he murmured, almost to himself, "it seems I chose to forget by my own hand." His voice trembled with confusion, but his will refused to revisit the memory.
Grindelwald arched a brow. "I told you before, besides Slytherin, another walks in shadow. One perhaps more dangerous than Slytherin ever was."
The weight of his words lingered.
"And who might that be?" Dumbledore raised a finger toward a portrait, hesitated, then withdrew, gaze firm. His discipline held. He would not be ruled by curiosity.
Instead, he turned toward Grindelwald with sudden clarity.
"It's time… to test our theory."
Urgency cracked through his composure, the faintest slip, yet undeniable.
…
Elsewhere,
In the Ravenclaw dormitory, the air rippled with invisible harp strings. Each vibration hummed deep into Ian's bones. His vision blurred, swallowed by the white threads unraveling from Merlin's temple.
The world around them fractured like brittle glass.
Shards fell away, replaced by countless strands of glimmering memory, each twisting and weaving into place. The threads coiled and knotted, shaping themselves into form, an ancient tapestry being rewoven before Ian's eyes.
"Ancient magic," Ian whispered. He stood aside, eyes bright with both awe and calculation. This was not his first encounter with memory-walk magic, he had even tinkered with it himself. But this… this was different. The scale, the texture, the way it bent not just thought but emotion, Merlin's threads pulsed with wrath, grief, flashes of brittle joy. They were veins, not strings.
"Are you even supposed to be casting something like this?" Ian asked, suspicion cutting through his wonder. He remembered Merlin's claim, that his power to work complex magic had long since withered away.
"I'm crippled, not dead," Merlin shot back dryly, his hands precise as the memory-scape solidified.
The woven threads melted away, unfurling into a vibrant forest. Sunlight streamed down through ancient boughs, dappling moss and meadow alike in shifting gold. The sweet breath of grass and flowers perfumed the air. In the distance, white walls arose, a monastery gleaming like ivory in the daylight.
Ian felt it at once. A familiar pressure, faint but undeniable, like divinity itself trailing its fingers across his senses.
(To Be Continued…)