Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches

Chapter 31: ... And the Tournament

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text
Dumbledore felt inordinately smug.

You'd think, what with the mirror room now under a hostile fidelius, that he'd be down one defence professor and facing the prospect of immediate war with a resurrected dark lord, but no — Tom had yet to leave his teaching post and, far from being the endless fount of dry, dark humour that would indicate a good mood, seemed more annoyed than ever. Clearly, Nicholas's devilish mirror and his own additions were doing their job.

There was one thing that puzzled Dumbledore though and it was with this puzzle in mind that he gently knocked on the door to the defence professor's office.

"Enter."

Dumbledore opened the door and stepped through.

"Ah, Headmaster." Quirrell's body looked up and Tom directed him to an empty chair. His manner was impassive, if a bit surly. "How can I help you?"

"Quirinus,"—Dumbledore took the seat offered—"I was wondering if you could help me with a little mystery."

Tom tilted Quirrell's head. "You know I will give you any help I can, Headmaster. I understand you are extremely busy at the moment."

Dumbledore's beard twitched. He'd spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening dealing with the fallout from calling eight aurors out and locking down the castle for reasons that neither he, nor the aurors, could fully remember — and those bits he could remember, he had no desire to tell. "It is about my being busy that I wish to ask. You remember yesterday that I put the castle into lockdown?"

Quirrell's left eye twitched. "I would find it incredibly difficult to forget something like that."

"Well, during that time, the wards recorded you as leaving the castle, despite the fact that such a thing should be impossible during a lockdown."

"How interesting."

"And what's more, I can understand the fact that you were not in the castle. That is to say, my brain allows me to process that information."

Tom's surely expression momentarily shifted. His eyes flickered with dark amusement. "Ah, the fidelius charm. Such a useful piece of magic."

Dumbledore tensed.

Tom laughed. "I really wish I could help you, Headmaster, but unfortunately, I cannot... remember."

Dumbledore's eyes widened in shock.

Tom's face became surely again. "Yes, annoying, isn't it?"

"But..." Albus tried to comprehend what he was hearing. "Who?"

Tom's lip curled upwards, eyes instantly shifting back to dark amusement. "I'd say, 'you-know-who,' but clearly that isn't true."

Dumbledore fixed Tom with the same severe look he used to give him in transfiguration.

"Oh, come now, my dear Dumbledore. I'm sure that I, a mere former muggle studies professor, doesn't need to spell out what to you should be obvious — that the binary game is no longer."

And then Dumbledore suddenly realised what Tom was suggesting. He, Albus, was the Light Lord and Tom was the Dark Lord, that much was obvious — but that there might be a third — his eyes widened — and that Tom seemed to believe that third was worthy of being classed as their equal.

Tom smirked. "The Gray Lord."

— DP & SW: TFoP —

After an evening assuring Tracey that they were fine and just training down by the lake, Daphne Greengrass stood, once again, in the fideliused mirror room, in front of a mirror that was certainly not the mirror of Erised, although exactly what it was, was up for debate.