Harry Potter One Shots

Those Who Came Before

All rights belong to the author, Aria Gray

From the window of Gryffindor tower a small black haired boy with knobby knees was just barely discernable as he ambled across the Hogwarts grounds toward the lake. It was a gray, cloudy winter day and most of the students had been driven inside to the warmth and comfort of their common room fires. For Albus Potter however, the angry wind and bitter cold was welcome and refreshing.

He shuffled slowly to the large beech tree by the lake and sat down, gazing unfocused into the rough, storm tossed water, ignoring the large stone monument striking up from the ground obtrusively beside him.

This spot under the tree was a favorite of his and he laid claim to it whenever he found it unoccupied. He liked to sit in the shade of its leaves on warm, sunny days and let his mind wander. Sometimes he thought about the countless students over the last thousand years who had called this castle home. He thought about all the scenes of happiness that had taken place beside this lake and all the scenes of sorrow. Sometimes he closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the emotions of students past. It was impossible, he thought, that a place with so much history, a place that had been witness to so much life, hadn't at least retained some of the energy for which it had been the setting.

The past was something Albus found followed him. It seemed that so much of who he was was connected to a history that he hadn't experienced. It was a part of him, but he had never really been a part of it. It was just some vague other time, as intangible to him as stories of the founding of Hogwarts, or the Goblin Rebellions.

Through the fog of the early morning air, Al could just make out the white marble tomb of his namesake across the lake: Albus Dumbledore.

He had been an incredible man—powerful, kind beyond comparison, full of love for life and or all things living, or so Al had been told. How could he really know? The man had been dead for nearly a decade before Al was born and stories-unreliable second or third hand accounts, likely skewed by fondness, respect for the dead, and the befuddling of intervening years—stories were all Al knew or would ever know of the man for whom he had been named.

Albus Severus Potter. Three names; each carrying with them a history, a heroic past, and a standard to which he knew he could never aspire.

He hadn't known during his childhood, not really anyway. His father kept for the most part out of the public eye. Of course Albus had heard many of the stories growing up—mostly from Uncle Ron when he had drank a bit too much Firewhiskey, but the scope of it had never really dawned on him. Not until he went to Hogwarts anyway.

He had been greeted on the train that unassuming autumn morning by stares and whispers for which he couldn't account. The morning had merely set the stage for what he would experience in the years that followed.

"That hair! Those eyes! Just like his father!" They would all exclaim. Those who knew his father, or had ever been in a room with him, or liked to pretend they had, would tell him over and over again how just like his father he was...In looks anyway.

His father: the famous Harry Potter. Sometimes Al felt as though there were two separate men who bore that name: The kind, gentle man who had raised him and the larger than life hero that the entire Wizarding world nearly worshipped. Everyone knew his name. His father could hardly leave the house without being accosted by grateful well-wishers and swooning women. There were posters, biographies, statues, and even a museum for Merlin's sake! How could the man that taught Al Quidditch, that read him bedtime stories, that sat up with him all night when he was sick and comforted him when he was frightened, how could that man be not only Al's hero, but everyone else's as well?