Flight Of The Dove

~ Prologue: The Portrait in the Headmaster's Office ~

Albus Dumbledore roamed the empty corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. 

It was past midnight, but the Headmaster could not sleep. 

The third floor corridor was a long, straight path lined with pedestals of magnificent suits of armour which cast shadows. 

The windows were long and shone a bright though rather pale, ominous blue. Bars of moonlight stretched across the hard, flagstoned floor. 

The night was cold, dark and chilly.

Every so often, Albus would feel the passing of a light breeze, making his hands clutch his silk robe tighter around his weak body. 

He was fully aware of it being an evening he should have spent warmly tucked in bed; one he should not be investing so much time in wandering the dark, deserted hallways, especially considering his old age and frailty.  

It was 1997, and in a matter of days he would be travelling with Harry Potter to the cave by the sea, which seemed the promising location of where Lord Voldemort had concealed one of his seven horcruxes.

Albus needed as much rest for the journey as he could receive, but before he left there was something he felt as though he must do.

There was a particular room inside the castle he had experienced the recent urge to revisit.

Moving slowly and quietly, he recognised the empty halls.

He was almost there.

His shoes clicked softly with each step he took, until he at last reached the large, bolted wooden door. 

The sign nailed to the stone wall still made Albus chuckle: “Defence Against The Dark Arts Classroom. No cursing allowed.”.

The room had been occupied by countless teachers over the past fifty years, but there had been a time whenever it had belonged to him.  

The door was heavy but gave way with a low, resonating creak to a bleak, abandoned classroom. 

It was a long room, at the end of which stood a small spiral staircase leading to the office Albus could not remember inhabiting for almost seventy years. 

The line of long, narrow windows projected reflections of moonlight across rows of smooth-surfaced desks and benches. 

The professor’s desk governed over them all, raised slightly from the floor to provide a more effective view of the classroom, and was also a subtle reminder of the teacher’s authority over their students.  

Carved legacies of past pupils thrived in the engravings on the undersides of desks.  

Among the eerie atmosphere of the desolate space present from the moment of entrance, Albus felt also an immediate sense of overwhelming nostalgia.  

His wandering feet carried him to the desk he had tried his hardest to refrain from seeing, yet at the same time longed to catch a glimpse of again. 

It was the desk at the very front of the room, directly before the teacher's.

Albus wondered if it had changed in all the decades which had passed. 

His trembling, blackened hand placed on the cold, smooth wooden surface.

Hesitantly, he lifted the creaking top until it stood open independently, revealing a dusty, gloomy interior, devoid of any books. 

Albus slowly extracted his wand from his robe and uttered, his voice barely more than an audible whisper: “Lumos.”