It was late into the evening before Albus Dumbledore brought his weary body to his room. It had been quite an eventful day and his mind was past fatigue; it was exhausted. He had witnessed the end of a bar fight, found out that his fellow Professor had told a student about Horcruxes and that the same student may have gone and made one or two of said items. The day had gone from bad to worse because now it seems the murderer had not only broken into Professor Slughorn’s room, which was protected by sophisticated spells, but had also destroyed the room and taken the journal. Dumbledore knew the journal was gone because he had just come from helping Horace clean up his room and sift through the debris to see what was missing.
Horace had been incensed by the brazen act of vandalism and was determined to find out who had done it. He was convinced that it had been a former student of his playing a prank and still did not see that it had only been Tom Riddle’s trunk and the area around the trunk that had been savaged. Dumbledore had noticed that fact right away.
Now that Albus had reached his own room, his mind didn’t think it could handle the strain of another thought passing through it, as it tried to put the pieces of this mystery together. Albus’s body was cold, despite the thick layer of heat that lingered in the castle walls after the sun had fallen. He was chilled by the thought that someone very powerful, the same person who had killed Tom Riddle, had been only a few floors above ransacking Slughorn’s room while Albus was in the dungeons. He couldn’t help, but see dark implications in this and his mind began to search every shadow in the hall as he walked up to his door.
After being certain no one had followed him, Albus opened his door. He quickly lit up the interior with his wand and swept his room with his eyes before he stepped into it. No one jumped out or attacked him and he felt he could breath easier. He quickly shut the door behind him.
After removing his shoes, Albus finally thought he could relax. He strode over to the chair that sat next to his desk and let his body fall into its comfortable softness. With a wave of his wand, he lit a candle that sat on his desk. As he basked in the comforting warmth and light of the candle, he felt all his stress slowly seep out of him. After scanning his bed and desk for anything that may be out of the ordinary, he felt comfortable enough to close his eyes if only for a moment.
Albus had no idea how long he had been asleep, but he did know that some sound had woken him up. The sound had been familiar and had stirred the inner depths of his mind. As his eyes slowly opened and adjusted to the dim light of the candle on his desk, now half its original height, his mind struggled to understand what it was he had heard. He swore he should know what it was.
Shaking his head to clear it of the twilight realm between dreams and reality, he began to get his bearings. He looked about him and noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Until his eyes landed on his desk.
Sitting wide open on his desk was a black, tattered leather journal, its pages worn from use. It was blank, but that was not unusual for, what Albus clearly thought was, a magical journal. He also had no doubt he was looking at the mysterious journal that had belong to the now deceased Tom Riddle. Albus felt icy fingers of fear seize his heart and tightened their relentless grip. In the middle of the pages was a piece of paper with a note on it, its ink still wet and glistening.
It said:
If you want to know why this is happening, I will be waiting at the Leaky Cauldron every day at dusk and will explain everything. I only ask that you come alone. Know that, the death of one boy was done for the greater good.
The murderer had been in the same room as he, had stood inches away from him. The murderer had also left him the journal and had time to pen up a note. Albus finally understood what the noise was that had awoken him.
It was the sound of his door as it was shut behind the intruder.
Albus slowly felt his heart start up again. It had nearly stopped when he had seen the letter in the journal. With the restart of his heart, his mind began making lightening quick decisions. He jumped up from his seat and grabbed his wand, which was by his side. He ran to his door and yanked it open. The intruder had been in this room less than five minutes ago. There was still a chance that Albus may still find him and he was tired of these games; this person had been too close too many times.
As Albus ran out of his room, he saw the hem of a black robe whip around the farthest corner down the hall. Fire burned inside Albus as he ran after the robe. He was angry, his nerves stretched thin. He felt violated that someone had been in his room, had written a note, mere inches from him. He hated that helpless feeling, which ignited his anger even more.
Albus reached the end of the teacher’s corridor and looked down a spiral staircase. The ancient stone stairs wound down into darkness. Along the walls, long glass windows let in pale moonlight, which cascaded down the stairs, causing alternating spaces of light and darkness. With the use of the moonlight, and his wand, Albus made his way down the stairs stealthily. He could hear the faint whisper of footsteps as the intruder got farther and farther away from him.
Albus sped up, his heart pumping wildly. Every time he stepped into a dark spot on the stairwell, his mind imagined all types of horrors waiting to grasp at him and every time he found himself in a pool of light, his fears eased.
He eventually made it to the end of the stairwell and into a wide hall that led one way to the Great Hall and the other to the entrance. Without hesitation, he headed towards the entrance. If he had been an intruder, he would not have lingered in Hogwarts; he would have gotten out of the castle and off the grounds as soon as possible in order to Apparate away. If that happened, Albus knew he would lose his chance to catch the murderer.
Albus reached the front door, which was slightly ajar and ran through it. He raced down the front steps. Ahead of him, he saw a moving black shadow that ran towards the Forbidden Forest. Albus sprinted after the man in the black robe, determined to get to him before the man reached the boundary of Hogwarts. He felt his adrenaline pumping through his body like an electric current, sharpening his senses and clearing his mind. He had one goal and one goal only. To catch this murderer and finally make sense of all the things that had happened.
Cool wind slapped Albus’s face as he ran down the hill, the lights of the castle disappearing behind him. His rational mind began to protest, but his will pushed his feet forward. He began to think of all the things he would do or say when he caught up to the man in black. He couldn’t very well attack the man since the intruder had had a chance to kill him and didn’t. No, this man wanted something else. Wild suppositions hurdled through his head as he reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
From there he slowed down, his rational mind making more of a presence. He couldn’t just charge into the forest blindly, especially since he knew of the type of creatures that resided there. If the murderer had fled to the forest, it could very well be a trap for Albus.
His mind wanted to think through all the consequences of following a murderer into a dark forest at night, but his heart stubbornly persisted in charging in there, reminding him that the more he waited, the further the murderer got from him. Finding a compromise, Albus walked into the forest at a fast pace, his senses attuned to all the different sights, smells and sounds, trying to pick out anything out of the ordinary.
Nothing seemed out of place. As Albus followed the main path, since he assumed the intruder would not have strayed far from it, he didn’t detect one difference. There was the usual night sounds. Ten minutes passed, and the cool mists that hovered over the leaf strewn path, swirled around his ankles.
Suddenly to his left, he heard a thudding of heavy feet, and the movement of something big coming his way. Out of the darkness, stepped a Centaur. Teresias was a young, pure white stallion, with midnight black hair. He was the friendliest to Dumbledore out of his kind, but tonight he had a look of wary suspicion. He stopped a few feet from Albus, looking at him with a puzzled look.
“Albus Dumbledore, it is good to see you, though the stars have told me some odd things of late about you.”
“Yes, things have not been quite as they usually are. Teresias, have you seen a man in a black cloak come through here just a few minutes ago?”
Teresias looked at him oddly.
“This is not the night you will meet the man in black. Only at the appointed hour at dusk will you see the truth.”
Teresias didn’t say another word, and Albus knew he wouldn’t get another answer. He also knew that the murderer had probably reached the boundary of the school grounds by now and had Apparated away.
“Thanks, Teresias,” Albus answered.
He then turned back to path and walked back to Hogwarts, knowing that in the very near future he would have to face the man in black.
************
Albus ran as fast as he could through the woods. The mist that swirled around his ankles was thick and seemed to wrap around them like chains. Ahead of him, the man in the black cloak darted in and out of trees, like a ghost. Albus pushed himself to run faster, his heart pounding and his breath coming out in jagged spurts. The trees seemed to grow denser and more unyielding the closer he tried to get to the man in black. He ran past Teresias and vaguely remembered the words he had spoken. He ran into the darkest and thickest part of the forest, his fear running alongside him, and it was only his stubborn tenacity that kept him going.
Just when he thought the woods would never end, he realized that he was no longer running in a forest, but through a dark dungeon. Blue fire burned in the sparse brackets on the wall, casting a somber hue all around him. The tunnel he was in was serpentine, and Albus was having a hard time mitigating the turns, always one step behind the murderer. On and on he ran, the tunnel becoming more and more dark, the way more and more treacherous.
He ran past a classroom and saw Horace bending over a boiling potion, his face shrouded in the fumes. In a flash, he was past the Potions Master, but not before Slughorn’s voice could be heard drifting from the classroom.
“Not too long ago, Tom had asked me about Horcruxes and how one went about making them.”
Horace’s words hung in the air around Albus and lingered in his mind. He couldn’t stop thinking of the ring and the journal. Had Tom gone so far down the dark path as to take a life to make a Horcrux? That was the sacrifice needed to rip out a part of a soul and place it into an object. It was a debasement of life, and not worth the immortality given. Albus shuddered as he thought of such horror and the darkness a soul must possess to be able to do such a thing.
Finally, he ran into a rounded chamber that was lit by golden flames in brackets on the wall. It was also a dead end. Expecting to finally meet the man he had been chasing all this time, he was surprised to find himself looking into a mirror. The Mirror of Erised to be exact. He had heard rumors of the famous mirror, but he had never seen it before. He had heard how it worked though. When he stepped closer to the mirror, he saw Ariana at his side, her small hand in his. He looked at his hand, desperate to see hers and he forgot about the chase and the murderer. In the mirror, he saw what he wanted more than anything. Behind him and Ariana, he saw his father, his mother and his brother. He ached being so close and yet so far from them. He stood with their ghostly apparitions at his side for awhile, content in where he was. Albus could stand like this forever.
“Albus, wake up!” Ariana said.
It was only until Ariana spoke that Albus remembered what it was he was after.
And with that, he woke up.
The late morning light slanted down through his window, promising another hot and muggy day. It lacerated his face and stung his eyes as he opened them. He slowly sat up and shook the lethargy from his head and body. He remembered his fruitless pursuit into the forest the night before. And he remembered the odd dream he had had afterwards, with the same futile quest ending in nothing. He remembered the ring and the journal and how it seemed to haunt his every waking thought.
And he remembered the note from a murderer left in the journal. He was no closer to understanding why all of this was happening and what the murderer had been trying to tell him by leaving these obscure clues. It was clear that Tom may have made the ring and journal, or planned to at least, into Horcruxes, but why was the murderer leaving these items with Albus? What was he supposed to do? He had run out of ideas and feared that he must go to the Leaky Cauldron at dusk if he wanted any answers.
So Albus waited as the rays of the day turned bright and hot, as the hours slipped by. He paced in his room and ate some food, though it was tasteless. He read and conjectured, but most of all he waited. It was unbearable because every few seconds he thought of what he would say and what he would do when he finally met up with the man in black. He thought of every way in and out of the Leaky Cauldron and the defensive spells he would use if it were a trap.
As the day neared dusk, his mind was tired of all its overbearing thoughts and just wanted some answers. Albus found he was having spasms of terror and doubt when he picked up his wand and headed to the door of his room. He found he was anxious when he walked out of the castle and across the grounds. He found he was numb when he finally got to a place to Apparate away.
But oddly, when he finally stood in front of the Leaky Cauldron when the light of the day was fading, he found he was calm and ready. He wanted and needed answers, and with this stillness, he walked through the front door of the Leaky Cauldron.
A thick fog of smoke surrounded Albus the minute he stepped through the door of the Leaky Cauldron. The rolling and constant waves of voices percolated throughout the air, coming from the hazy shapes of witches and wizards who sat around tables. The bar was full, yet oddly quiet. People were there to drink and to forget about their worries and Albus felt quite at home.
Scanning the crowd, Albus had expected to see a man in a black cloak, and when he didn’t, he felt foolish. Of course, a murderer wouldn’t have sat out in the open in a suspicious black cloak. Albus searched the room again, this time looking for lone witches and wizards and finding none that were not apart of some group or in some conversation. Albus sighed and waded further into the pub, feeling the further he got from the door, the further he was from his escape.
He saw Tom the bartender talking to some men near the back, big men with large black mustaches and a rough glint to their eyes. Albus strode over to Tom. The bartender was an honest, hardworking man and someone who was very friendly towards Albus since Dumbledore was a Professor to his son, Tom Jr.
When Albus arrived next to Tom’s side, the bartender gave him a wide smile, his eyes crinkling in happiness. He excused himself from the burly men who nodded gruffly, and stepped towards Albus.
“Albus, it’s so good to see you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you have done for my son. He is progressing so well, but I have a feeling you’re not here to talk about my son. What can I do for you?”
“Can we talk in private? I have to ask you something about your patrons and that may not do to have this conversation out in the open.”
Tom’s eyebrows rose in consternation, but he nodded and led Albus to a door near the back of his pub. He withdrew a large, ornate key, that was lovely and old. Dumbledore thought it peculiar that such a key would be used in such a normal task as opening a door, but it may very well be a magical key with other properties.
Behind the door was a small office. It was filled with ordinary Muggle objects like a scarred up wood desk, a faded brown leather chair behind the desk and a drooping sofa against the wall near the desk. One would have never guessed that this room belonged to the owner of a magical pub.
Albus walked in first and sat down on the sofa. Tom followed quickly behind and shut the door. He carefully pocketed the beautiful key. Tom marched over to his desk and sat down, worry creasing his face.
“Is there some danger to my pub that you know of? Some disreputable characters that you noticed around the Leaky Cauldron. If you have, tell me at once because I will not have any of that sort in my pub!”
Albus smiled as widely as he could, but he couldn’t quite put together what he wanted to say. And Tom noticed the hesitation, his brow furrowing in anxiety.
“I have, actually, come to ask you if you have seen anybody of late that has been odd; anybody who is a normal patron at around dusk, a man in a black cloak perhaps.”
“I have seen a few regulars at that time. Some have come in wearing black cloaks, but that is not unusual since that time of the day is one of the more busier times. Why do you ask?”
Albus’s smile faltered, as his doubt quickly flashed across his face. He knew that Tom had seen his doubt because the bartender leaned back in his chair, a bright keenness to his eyes.
“There is someone who I was suppose to meet, someone who said that they came here everyday at dusk. This person wears a black cloak,” Albus finally replied.
“This someone you were suppose to meet, are they giving you problems? Is it something I can help with?”
Albus quickly waved his hands, trying to dispel those thoughts from the bartender’s head.
“No. No. I just needed to talk to him about something, but I guess he isn’t here this evening. Sorry to have taken up your time Tom, since I know you are a busy man,” Albus said.
“Not at all, Albus. It is always a pleasure to see you and please don’t hesitate to ask for help from me. I will keep a lookout for any regulars that wear a black cloak and come in around dusk and I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Tom. I really appreciate it. I‘ll be going now.” Albus stood up, knowing he shouldn’t say anymore than he already had. He held out his hand and Tom stood and shook it.
The bartender showed Albus to the door, perplexed and worried by his friend’s odd behavior and reticent attitude. Albus strode through the door, with Tom behind him, without saying a word and feeling foolish. Why had he thought the murderer would have been here? Had he been so desperate for answers as to come searching for danger and trouble?
As Albus walked away from the bartender and wound his way through the crowd, he kept looking for a man in a black cloak. He had been so certain that he was going to find his answers, but they seemed to be locked away from him, just out of his grasp. He almost wished he had a magical key like Tom, which would reveal all the answers for him, but he knew that that was not realistic.
As he reached the door of the Leaky Cauldron, he made one last swept of the bar with his eyes. When he saw nothing out of place, he walked out into the darkening night. He was partly relieved that he had not met the man in black, not sure if he was ready to face the truth. With a mixture of disappointed expectations and relief over not having those expectations met, Albus was embroiled in conflicting emotions. It was in this state of contemplation and vexation that Albus had not seen the man in a black cloak step out of the shadows and follow the Professor.
************
The cold fingers of the mist stroked the back of Albus’s neck, sending their chill down his spine. He ran down the long, narrow and twisting alley, his breath coming out in spurts of white air, his heart hammering deep inside him. The night fog followed him, melding onto the old gas lamps that were bracketed to the walls. The light from the lamps were fretful, flickering precariously, and creating shadows that haunted Albus.
In every shadow his mind saw the murderer, the murderer he knew was after him now. He had seen all the clues, known every fact and yet he still couldn’t reconcile the truth in his mind. And now that truth was chasing him, hunting him down with its harsh realities.
After he had left the Leaky Cauldron, he had been in such a flux of emotions that it had been a few moments before he realized that he was being followed; he had caught sight of the man in the hooded robe out the corner of his eye. Albus had pretended as if nothing was wrong. At first, he had walked nonchalantly down the street, hoping his boldness would scare the stranger away; he was, after all a highly respected and feared wizard, but the stranger had not altered his course. When Albus had quickened his footsteps, the stranger had matched his pace. It was odd; they even seemed to walk the same.
He had found the nearest alley, and had slipped down it as quickly as he could. He had then broke into a run. It wasn’t very courageous of him and he should have turned around and faced his enemy. That was something the normal Albus would have done, but this situation was different. His hunter had known too much about him; he shouldn’t have known about Ariana and that her favorite flowers were orchids. All the little things had added up in his frazzled mind and the coincidences were beginning to topple over on him; he just couldn’t face this unknown and slightly familiar stranger.
Albus had been running a long time, speeding around the twists and turns of the alley. Occasionally, he would run past a poverty stricken Muggle or a shady character and his heart turned to ice; it had not been that long ago that a Muggle serial killer had stalked young women down allies just like this one. The Muggle newspaper had named him Jack the Ripper and to this day Albus still thought the name grotesque. Not that he was afraid of any Muggles, though it had been hinted that Jack had been a dark wizard.
Albus eventually slowed and then finally stopped down the middle of the alley. He looked around him quickly and was relieved to see no one near him. He had no idea why he had run in the first place when he could have just Apparated away.
Maybe you really do want to meet the man in black, the one who has been following you all night, thought his subconscious mind.
He shook his head in disbelief, but realized that his mind was probably right. He had to admit he was curious as to who the murderer was. By this time, his breath had slowed and his heart had returned to its regular speed.
Just as he got his senses under control, he saw the slightest movement in the shadows not too far from him. He slowly turned and saw the man in the black robe had indeed followed him. Albus wondered how long the man had hidden in the shadows and why he had not attacked him. The man in the robe took a tentative step forward and Albus thought that odd; it was as if the man had not wanted to scare him.
Albus immediately reached for his wand and held it out at the stranger. The man in black froze in mid-step.
“I am not here to harm you, Albus,” whispered the dark figure. His voice was low, but not dangerous. The words whispered had been gentle, not aggressive. Somehow this person was familiar, but it still unnerved Albus that his name had been used.
“Who are you and why are you here?” Albus asked curtly. He used the same tone of voice as when he wanted answers and answers fast. He hoped it was intimidating enough.
Around them, the mist swirled about their feet, covering the ground in a thick layer; it had turned the two men into specters of the night.
“Both are complicated questions to answer. There is only one way I can answer one of them,” the stranger finally replied, after an abated silence.
With that, his bone white, ancient hand shot out from the robe and like a flash flipped the hood of the robe from his face. Albus’ heart nearly stopped when he saw who stood before him.
The man in front of him was a tall, lean man, as tall as he was. He was much older, with a mane of white hair and a beard that cascaded down from his chin. He wore a gray, simple robe, something Albus himself would have liked to have worn, but it was his eyes that arrested Albus’s attention.
They were the same electric blue as his own and the stranger wore half-moon glasses as he did.
Albus could barely breathe as his mind began to reconcile who it was he saw before him. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was looking at himself, but much, much older. The implications of this revelation was too much for his brain to handle, and the young Albus staggered and fell against the nearby wall. He looked down, in order to calm his breathing and his heart. He noticed that the once thick mists had cleared. Every detail of the alley and the night was stark and clear. He closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them things would be different, that his world hadn’t really turned upside down.
But when he opened his eyes, his older self was still there, patiently watching him, allowing him to adjust to the situation as he would have done himself.
“What…How…Have you come back in time to kill Tom Riddle?”
The young Albus asked.
“Yes.”
The young Albus suddenly felt very angry. He couldn’t understand what could have possibly driven his older self to go back into the past and change it. He knew better than to mess with time and he would have thought his older self would have known better. If he could have changed the past, he would have saved Ariana a long time ago, but the young Albus knew better than to do that, because changing one thing in the past, even the smallest of things, caused tiny ripples, which changed into crashing waves. Something bad must have happened to have made his older self have to resort to such drastic measures.
“You…I know better than to disturb time as you have. What could have possibly have happened that I would have changed time? And what does Tom Riddle, the ring and the journal have to do with anything?”
His older self gave him an imperious look that made him feel like a dolt. He would have to remember not to use that look again.
“They have everything to do with the situation we are in right now. As you have learned from Slughorn, Riddle knew about Horcruxes and how one went about making them.”
“Are you saying that a teenage boy managed to make a Horcrux, a form of the darkest magic, one that requires murder to complete?” The young Albus asked.
“He managed to make seven in his life. The ring was the first he made with the murder of his father and grandparents. The journal was also a Horcrux. I killed him before he could turn either one of them into a Horcrux. He will stay dead, as is the natural order of things. Tom Riddle would have grown into the darkest wizard of all time. He made Grindelwald look like a saint. He was responsible for killing hundreds and his followers were responsible for killing and torturing hundreds more.”
The young Albus looked at his older self, seeing his older self avert his eyes and fidget. He knew that his older self was not telling the absolute truth.
“So why have you given me the ring and journal? What aren’t you telling me? I know you haven’t told me the absolute truth. Did something happen in the future that made you take this step?”
He saw his older self wilt, and he looked more than ever like a fragile creature. His eyes dimmed and brimmed with tears.
“I gave you the journal and ring to be sure that they were kept in sure hands, my own, in case all of this wasn’t really over. As for the future, you’re right. Something happened that shouldn’t have, that I could have prevented if I had been faster. In the future, it was predicted that a boy would come and defeat the Dark Lord, or as Tom liked to call himself, Lord Voldemort. I was with that boy, Harry was his name, in his sixteenth year on top of the Astronomy Tower. I was dying,” The younger Albus suddenly noticed his older self’s other hand, which was black and withered. “but Harry had not known that at the time. I was planning on sacrificing my life for his and one other boy by the name of Draco. The Death Eaters, Tom’s followers, had burst onto the roof before my ally or Draco got there.
“My ally was undercover and the one teacher I trusted with the task I had given him. He was suppose to kill me instead of Draco, who had been misled into the task, but who didn’t have the heart of a murderer. I had wanted to spare Draco that horror, but my ally didn’t reach the roof before the Death Eaters. I tried to stun Harry so that he couldn’t join into the fight, but I couldn’t get to him and fight off the Death Eaters at the same time. The Death Eaters killed him right in front of my eyes, and the only hope we had was now gone.”
His older self cried freely now and he couldn’t help, but feel a twinge of sorrow himself.
“Somehow, I escaped the fight on the rooftop, though I felt as if I should have died right there next to Harry, a boy who should have never had to shoulder the burden he had to. I knew I didn’t have much time left and decided to rectify the wrongs of the past. I decided to kill Tom before he could ever become the menace he would become. Could I have made the future worse? It is always a possibility, but I believe that the future will be better, brighter. It will be a future where children aren’t orphaned and left to face a cold world alone. A future where a teenage boy isn’t bullied into becoming a murderer. I did what was right for the greater good and if that meant killing a teenage boy, then so be it. I can now die with some peace in my heart.”
The young Albus was stunned by the revelation, but he thought that he would have done the same thing and then realized that he did do the same thing.
“What do I do with the ring and journal?” asked the young Albus.
“Whatever you do, don’t put on the ring. It’s cursed. Hide it away somewhere, somewhere no one will ever find it, a place even you couldn’t get to it if you wanted to, like the bottom of the ocean. Destroy the journal.”
“What is so important about this ring that you would have me throw it into the ocean?”
His older self paused, his hesitation electrifying the air. The young Albus knew there was more that he wasn’t telling of the story.
“It’s best if you just got rid of it. You of all people would know that I or you would never say something like that if it wasn’t to be taken seriously.”
The young Albus did know that fact to be true. He nodded sternly, and his older self knew that the younger Albus would see those tasks through. The older Albus sighed as if a large weight had been lifted from his heart. He turned to leave.
“Wait!” said the younger Albus.
The older Albus turned around, his eyes twinkling with mirth, as if he knew what the younger Albus would ask, but then the younger Albus supposed he would know.
“Did you have anything to do with the orchids in the room at the Riddle manor?”
The older Albus smiled.
“It seemed fitting that the one thing of life in that room had been something that represented someone as pure as Ariana. Don‘t you think?”
“I suppose you’re right. I would have done the same thing,” said the younger Albus.
“You did do the same thing,” responded the older Albus, a smile covering his worn face. With that said, the older Albus turned on the spot and Disapparated away, to what, the young Albus assumed, was his own time and place.
The younger Albus also Disapparated away. He would do what was asked of him; he would destroy the journal and get rid of the ring. He hoped that the future was a better place to live in, hoped that he had not made it worse. He guessed he would have to live his life to find out and he smiled at that prospect.
The Line Between What is Right and What is Easy by eternalangel
Chapter Notes: Albus comes face to face with the murderer.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you for reading my story. Feedback is always welcome!