But to Bother Dumbledore --

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Albus Dumbledore was perusing a stack of CV forms that had come from the Ministry and the Daily Prophet by owl post only that very morning, and he paused to lower his glasses and rub his forehead, all of the text he'd been reading seeming to swim before his eyes. Dumbledore looked up at Fawkes, who coughed and let a stream of smoke escape his beak, before setting fire and turning to ash, falling into the dish below his perch. "Precisely how I feel, my ashen friend," he murmured, and he turned back to the work at hand. 

An owl came in through the window and came to land on the Headmaster's desk. Dumbledore shifted in his seat, reaching across to untie the envelope from the bird's leg, slipped a finger beneath the seal, and withdrew a hurried note with a small, hand drawn map. He read the note, and stared at the little map for several moments.

Albus Dumbledore knew the spot indicated on the map very well. It was a small hollow on the edge of a cliff that overlooked the forest from a good way into the woods behind the house in Godric's Hollow that he had once called home. Instinctively, Dumbledore's fingers moved to the knotted wand that lay beside the stack of CVs on the desktop and he drew a deep breath.

He had not been to that place since the day that he'd had his break-up with Grindelwald. It had been years - decades, even - but still, when Dumbledore closed his eyes he could see the place in his mind, and, worse, he could feel the ringing silence that had weighted down the air following the crack of Gellert's disapparation from that place...

Dumbledore folded the map and the note, dismissed the owl, and, walking over to the fireplace, he looked down at the ashen hatchling sitting in the bowl beneath Fawkes's perch. He took up a handful of floo powder and, as he threw it into the flames and watched them turn a magnificent green, he pondered the significance of the phoenix rising from ash as he went to make his return to that place.




Lily and James had pulled Remus to his feet, his arms stretched over their shoulders, and they braced him up, helping him to walk through the trees, wincing in pain with every step. James took on most of the taller boy's weight - though weight was hardly the word for Remus Lupin's narrow girth. Lily was more to steady them, and together they moved like a three headed monster through the trees, carefully. "Nearly there," James said.

Lily's tone was supportive, as though she were cheering on someone in some sort of competition, "You're doing such a good job, Remus, being so strong!"

"Just around this bend up here, I reckon," James said.

"You can do it, Remus, just hang on - just a little bit longer!" Lily chimed.

Remus groaned as he tripped on a root neither Lily nor James had noticed and James cursed and lifted Remus's frame up over it. "Sorry," James said.

They stepped through the trees to the camp and James stopped short. It was destroyed. The tents were shredded, the rocks they'd used to create the fire pit thrown asunder. "Bloody hell," James said, looking around, "What - what happened?"

Remus shook his head, "I didn't do this. We weren't here, we were no where near the camp when I transformed."

"Perhaps it was that man," Lily suggested, nervously.

"Man?" James looked at Lily, "What man?"

Remus nodded to one of the logs that they'd used as seats 'round the fire just the night before and James and Lily lowered him carefully upon it so he was sitting. Remus let out a breath of relief as the weight came off his hip and he looked to James. "I met a man this morning, just before you lot came."

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