[July Celebration fics]: Last Lord of the Sun, gen, PG-13, 2/2

[lomonaaeren]

Part One.

Title: Last Lord of the Sun
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Angst, AU, emotional manipulation, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Background mentions of Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald; otherwise gen
Wordcount: This part 4000
Summary: AU. When Albus Dumbledore visits Wool’s Orphanage and sees the terror and rage in Tom Riddle, he decides he cannot leave the boy without a mentor. On the one hand, he may never make a Light wizard of him; on the other hand, he will keep him from going down the path of the Dark.
Author’s Notes: This is another of my July Celebration fics, and was born from reading a lot of fanfics that attribute Voldemort’s existence in part to Dumbledore’s failures, and wondering what would happen if he didn’t fail. It will be posted in two parts, and covers Tom’s first year.

Thank you for all the reviews! For now, this is the end of the story. I may make it longer later.

“Riddle.”

Tom looks up with a bare flick of his eyebrows. “Mulciber. What do you need?” This particular pure-blood boy, a few years older than Tom, has never been part of the crowd that particularly sneers at his name, but neither has he been friendly. He sits down on the couch next to Tom as if he has, though.

“It’s Transfiguration,” Mulciber says. “I can never understand it, but you do it-” He pauses suddenly. “Or do you just get good marks on your essays since you’re Dumbledore’s pet?”

Tom looks at him steadily for a long, long moment. He lets the words hang in the air, and watches as Mulciber flushes and mutters something. The mutter doesn’t have enough of an apologetic sound for Tom, though, so he only smiles and says, “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to sully yourself with being close to Professor Dumbledore’s pet.” He picks up his homework and turns to go upstairs. The spells he’s studied guarantee that the zone around his bed remains free of pranks, curses, and jinxes.

“No! Riddle, wait. I mean-I have no idea how to write this essay. Help me, please?”

There aren’t many Slytherins in the common room, but there are enough that Tom can feel the eyes. He glances over his shoulder. “What will you give me in return if I do?”

Mulciber lets his eyes dart around, also gauging the audience, before he looks back at Tom. “What do you want?”

“Information,” Tom says. He’s heard Mulciber has a relative who works in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; he’s heard it from the boy himself, who can’t shut up about it. “I want to know how the first werewolf laws got passed and why they stopped short of forcing them to register.”

Mulciber blinks and says cautiously, “It’s going to take me a while to write to Sabia and get that information from her.”

“As long as you do it,” Tom says softly, with a command that the older boy can still hear, and comes back to the couch and looks at Mulciber’s essay.

It would be laughably easy to correct it with his own insights, but Professor Dumbledore knows his writing by now, so there’s no point. Tom does find a few places in the chapter of the third-year textbook that Mulciber can refer to, and explains the main concept the boy was struggling with. It seems he didn’t realize that visualization is a huge part of Transfiguration.

How did he take the class for two years and not understand that? But Mulciber’s idiocy is Tom’s gain.

When they’re done, Mulciber stands up and looks at Tom with something a little like awe. “Don’t know how you got so good at that, Riddle, but thanks.”

“The information, one week,” Tom says, with a slight inclination of his head, and goes back to his reading. He wants the information on werewolves because there’s none about the failed registration in any of the books in the library that he can find, and not even Professor Dumbledore will write a first-year student a pass to the Restricted Section yet.

Mulciber nods and mumbles away, and Tom continues checking his own essay with the book as if he notices none of the subtle stares.

Inwardly, he revels in it.

*

“Albus, could I talk to you for a moment?”

Albus raises an eyebrow and turns around. It’s hardly unusual for Horace Slughorn to feel like a chat, but he usually waits until the Great Hall if they’re already headed for dinner. “Of course.”

“I just felt I should mention that boy to you,” Horace says, bobbing his head in a way that’s always irresistibly reminded Albus of a pigeon pecking for seeds. “Riddle? Is he really a Muggleborn?”

Albus smiles. “Brilliance comes in all forms and families, I’ve told you that, Horace.”

“Oh, it’s not that, it’s not that, Albus! It’s just that he’s so brilliant, he picks up potions so intuitively…I just wondered if he had any training before Hogwarts.” Horace lowers his voice as some seventh-year Ravenclaws, moaning about NEWT revisions, go tumbling past them towards the Great Hall. “If he was in hiding from Grindelwald for political reasons.”

Albus smothers the prick of pain at the sound of Gellert’s name. It’s almost easy this time. Not many people talk about Gellert, who is known but not yet infamous, and working in Germany to recruit Dark wizards to his cause.

Not yet.

“No, nothing like that. His name really is Tom Riddle, and he comes from a Muggle orphanage in London.”

Horace gives a small sigh and nods. “I feared it might be that. Well. Be assured that the boy shall want for nothing in my classroom, Albus. If I can give him a good recommendation that might get him in a job in the Ministry, I will.”

“I’m sure he’d appreciate that, Horace.” And Albus is not being sarcastic. Few Muggleborns can rise high in the Ministry, and Tom will like knowing that more professors than his magical mentor favor him.

They’ve barely entered the Great Hall when one of the seventh-year Ravenclaws who passed them earlier comes sprinting up to them. Her hair is in disarray and she’s panting so hard that it takes Albus a moment to recognize her as Mindy Glasswright, one of his students.

“Prof-professors! Please, you have to help him.” She bends over and clutches at her heart, her wild hair spilling around her face.

“My dear girl, tell us who you mean,” Horace is beginning, a little impatient, but Albus has a terrible feeling that he may know. He takes a step back from Miss Glasswright and looks at the Ravenclaw table.

Yes. Lawrence Urquhart is missing. Albus caught him trying to sneak into the Restricted Section a few months ago, and some of the things the boy has said when he didn’t know Albus was close enough to overhear…

“Miss Glasswright,” he says, and catches her attention firmly enough that she gulps and nods. “Has Mr. Urquhart gone up to the Astronomy Tower?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “Oh, sir, he-he didn’t mean to, but someone else told me one of those awful shadow grimoires is in his bed, and-”

Albus shakes his head, getting rid of the question of blame. “Please do your part to keep students in the Great Hall, Horace,” he says, and then turns and strides away from the hall, towards one of the secret passages that will get him to the roof of the Astronomy Tower faster. His mind leaps and buzzes in the meantime with memories of old spells he and Gellert studied, and he begins to draw his magic up to the surface of his skin.

He’s going to need it.

*

Tom pauses when he notices Professor Dumbledore running past him, towards the Astronomy Tower. Most of the time he insists on moving around like he’s an old man, and that exasperates Tom so much. But right now, he’s sprinting. His auburn beard whips behind him. His eyes-

His eyes are bright and deadly.

Tom has to see what’s going on, because Professor Dumbledore never acts like this. He turns around and follows him.

They come out on the top of the Astronomy Tower so quickly that Tom’s lungs are burning. But he’s right there, and he’s caught up, and he’s going to see what Professor Dumbledore can do when his power is roused. Tom still can’t see auras, but right now, he thinks he can feel them. Professor Dumbledore’s is like a burning hand laid alongside his cheek.

“Go back now, Tom.”

He knew I was there without even looking back at me. Of course, Tom becomes aware a second later that the professor probably heard his breathing and footsteps, but it still seems impressive. “No.”

“This is shadow-summoning, Tom. You don’t understand. This young man is up here because he’s under their influence, now, and he will try to spread the evil as far as he can, so it will drift to earth a great ways away.” Professor Dumbledore snaps out the words, turning his head in sharp clicks that let him see everything. Tom looks with him, but he can’t see any other man up here. “I have no time to spare-”

Abruptly, Professor Dumbledore leaps straight up into the air, and Tom throws himself flat, as a crackling grey bolt of magic shoots past his head. Professor Dumbledore lands next to it and slices down with his wand, barking a spell Tom has never heard of. “Cinefactus!”

The grey bolt of magic catches fire all along the edges, writhing, and burns until it’s only ashes. Tom lies flat on the stone and stares at it with his mouth open. He didn’t know you could do that with pure magic.

“Mr. Urquhart.” Tom looks up and sees the professor walking towards a student who stands on one of the parapets of the tower, wearing a Ravenclaw tie. “You can still be saved. Come back to me now. Shadow grimoires are nothing to play with. The shadows have taken over your mind. This is not you.”

“This is exactly me! They wouldn’t respect me? They wouldn’t give me what I wanted?” Urquhart holds his hands out. “Well, look at me now!”

I am looking at you, Tom thinks. You’re crawling with slimy grey magic, and you look half-insane. Whatever respect anyone had for you would be gone now. You are a very great fool.

“Mr. Urquhart.” Dumbledore looks incredibly weary. Tom wonders if the effort of running up the stairs and leaping over the grey bolt of magic has tired him out already. “I ask you another time, give up the shadows and come back to us. There is no reason to think that whatever made you vulnerable, whether sadness or grief or the mere possession of a shadow grimoire-”

“There’s nothing you can do to stop me!” Urquhart cackles, and starts to roll up a ball of shadow with his hands. Tom supposes the wandless aspect of it is impressive, if you ignore that the magic seems to be eating his skin off his bones.

“A third time I ask you, Mr. Urquhart.” Dumbledore almost whispers the words.

“Nothing!” Urquhart shrieks, and lifts his hands to lob the greasy shadow magic at Professor Dumbledore.

Dumbledore nods slowly, and speaks, with what Tom thinks is incredible sadness, a single word. “Comburo.”

Tom has to duck his head at the light that explodes from Dumbledore’s wand. But he lifts his head again instantly, eyes tearing and blinking, determined to make out what’s happening. Dumbledore’s aura is pressing against him now like a warm cat.

The flames that leaped from Dumbledore’s wand are encircling Urquhart now, but they don’t seem to be burning him, to Tom’s puzzlement. They eat the shadow in his hands, and they eat the rest of it dripping around his clothes and shoulders, but then they dive into his skin. Urquhart screams and ducks his head.

A second later, he utters a scream of loss like nothing Tom has ever heard.

The fire goes on ringing him, crowding into him, burning him. Tom can’t smell burning flesh or cloth. Nonetheless, he’s sure the boy is losing far more than a bit of fabric. He looks at Professor Dumbledore.

Dumbledore’s face is set in stern lines, but he’s blinking slowly. Tom sees the flames’ glitter catch on tears making their way down his cheeks.

Tom stares. He doesn’t understand. He has no time for pitying his enemies, but he knows some people do. If you can pity someone, why would you use that kind of spell?

Other people, Tom decides, not for the first time, make no sense.

The fire goes on burning, until Urquhart suddenly starts sobbing instead of screaming. Dumbledore immediately cancels the spell, with a simple jerk of his wand, and rushes to the boy’s side.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Urquhart?” he asks softly. Tom strains his ears, but he’s sure he doesn’t miss the next words Dumbledore utters. “Do you still have any of your magic left?”

Tom widens his eyes. That-that spell was a spell to burn away magic?

Urquhart says something Tom can’t hear at all. Dumbledore only nods, as if he’s not surprised by whatever he hears, and helps the boy to his feet. They stumble towards the stairs that lead down from the Tower.

Dumbledore collects Tom with a single glance on the way-a warning glance. Tom knows after he sees Dumbledore’s eyes that he’s not supposed to talk about what he’s seen here today.

But I am going to hear about it, he thinks, as he follows Professor Dumbledore and Urquhart. I never knew there was magic like that. How could he keep from telling me there was magic like that?

*

Albus sighs as he settles into his chair by the fire. His head is ringing and his hand is trembling. Using such powerful Light magic always takes a lot out of him, and he hasn’t had time to rest since Miss Glasswright told him about Urquhart and the shadow grimoire. He reaches for a vial that he keeps for very special occasions, tucked in a notch on the underside of the desk, and tips a few grains carefully into his glass just before the door opens.

“I want to talk to you, Professor Dumbledore.”

Albus sips the wine before he turns to look at Tom. The boy drops to sit bolt upright on the chair that’s usually his and stares at Albus with a devouring hunger in his eyes. Albus saw the same thing at Christmas, and sometimes he sees it in class, when Tom comes across new information about magic.

“You want to know what the spells I used on the roof were,” Albus says, and sighs again. “And why.”

“Yes.” Tom is almost vibrating. He places a hand flat on Albus’s desk, and taps it up and down. “What is shadow magic? Why did it matter if Urquhart was on the Tower? Why did you burn up his magic? Is that Light magic? What is it? Why did you do it? Why-”

Albus raises a hand, and Tom subsides with a faint flush. Chuckling, Albus shakes his head. He’s tired and grieving at the necessity of taking most of a young man’s magic, but he has to admit, it does him good to see Tom so intensely alive and interested.

“The shadow magic is contained in the shadow grimoires. Books that should have been destroyed long ago when they were first infested, but the Ministry refused to do so, because they were old and valuable.” Albus rolls his eyes. He sat in on some of those discussions, and they make no more sense now than they ever did. “And now they’re free to infest wizards.”

“You make the shadow magic sound like a-parasite.”

“That is exactly what it is, my dear boy.” Albus considers whether he should refill his glass, but in the end only reaches for the wine. He doesn’t want to explain things like his powder to Tom yet. “A creature with a very low level of sentience. It exists only to corrupt wizards and perpetuate itself. Any book that’s infested can become a shadow grimoire, it doesn’t matter what kind of tome it was originally. The shadows creep into a wizard’s magic and turn him into a vessel for spreading them. If Urquhart had succeeded in what he planned-which he thought was casting a spell to make himself more powerful-then his body would have exploded and spread the spores of shadow far and wide. Height makes it more effective, you see.”

Tom looks more than ill. He swallows. “But when it’s in the books-”

“It spreads far more slowly,” Albus says, with a nod. “It can spread from book to book on the shelf, but even that takes a long time. For it to spread to a wizard from the shadow grimoire, the wizard must possess it and use it for several months. And become distracted by the temptation of power, and open himself to possession by the parasite.”

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

“We didn’t know about the infestation here. And it may still have come from Mr. Urquhart’s family library or a book he bought in Knockturn Alley. It’s a rare disease. We don’t concern ourselves with treating it until an infected book or wizard appears.”

Tom stares at his feet. Then he looks back up. “And the spells you used on the roof?”

“The first simply incinerated the shadow magic bolt that attempted to infect us. The last…” Albus massages his forehead. It’s starting to ache. He wishes he could have the comfort of Fawkes right now, but the phoenix is with young Mr. Urquhart, soothing him as much as possible. “You heard me ask Mr. Urquhart to surrender three times?”

“Yes.”

“That’s part of the price for using powerful Light magic. I could not have burned out Mr. Urquhart’s shadow infestation, and thus his corrupted magic, unless I had given him a fair chance to surrender and cast the spell itself with pure intentions.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“Then the Light spell would have turned on me and eaten my magic.”

Tom actually sways in his chair. Albus blinks. He has to admit, he didn’t predict how Tom would react to the very notion of losing his magic. It obviously matters more to him than Albus knew.

“But-everyone talks about Light magic and Dark magic like they’re good and evil,” Tom finally says. “Not…”

Albus nods. “Remind me to up your reading level, my boy. I didn’t realize the books I was giving you weren’t advanced enough.”

“But what’s the difference?”

“The price for using them. Dark magic can corrupt the user and perpetuate itself by ensuring he casts only Dark magic in the future. It’s related to shadow magic in that way, though thankfully it’s not actually a parasite. Light magic punishes the user who isn’t pure of heart or doesn’t give the target a chance to avoid the consequences.”

Tom is silent for so long Albus thinks he’s going to leave. Then he says, “I think-I need to think about it.”

“Of course you should,” Albus says gently. It’s been a long day. He wants to go to sleep and hopefully avoid dreaming about Gellert. “Remind me to give you some proper books in the morning, though, especially the ones that discuss the shadow magic infestation.”

Tom stands up slowly, but he’s still not leaving. He’s staring at Albus instead. Albus tilts his head to the side and blinks inquiringly.

“How much magic did you burn up?” Tom asks abruptly.

“Of Mr. Urquhart’s? There’s no way to tell until he’s had a proper evaluation in the hospital wing. I have hope that he’s not a Squib-”

“No. I mean. Your own power. You-managed spells like that. You’re a lot more powerful than you let on.”

“Yes,” Albus says simply.

“But you could have people respecting you all the time if you let loose more often.” Tom studies him intently. “Why don’t you? Some people know and respect you, but a lot don’t. The Slytherins don’t. I hear other professors talking about you too, sometimes.”

Albus musters up a smile and a finger-wag. “Time and place, my dear boy, time and place! When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll understand about the need to confine the awe-inspiring displays of magic to the right audience and the right battlefield.”

“Professor Dumbledore,” Tom says, with a small, displeased look that makes him look incredibly self-important, if he only knew, “if I hadn’t been on that roof, there would have been no witnesses and barely a battlefield.”

Albus beams at him. “You see?”

It’s obvious that Tom does not, but Albus does so enjoy watching students figure out challenges. Tom does seem inclined to leave now, but then he turns around again at the last minute and stares Albus dead in the eye. Albus restrains his instinctive Legilimency. Despite how piercing Tom’s eyes seem, he won’t have learned Occlumency or mind-reading skills of his own yet.

“I was wondering,” Tom mutters, “how powerful you really were. And what good it was if you never displayed it. And sometimes I was upset when the Slytherins called me your pet.”

Albus starts to nod and offer a response that will help Tom navigate some of those waters among his classmates, but Tom interrupts. “But I think-if I have to be someone’s pet, better the one of the most powerful wizard I’ve ever met, right?”

Albus could castigate Tom for saying that. He could lecture him for valuing power over-much, or paying too much heed to the insults of pure-bloods without a tenth of his talent or intellect.

But he’s learned some things since taking Tom in. Instead, he nods mildly back and says, “While I do prefer the term protégé, I think that you’re correct in essence, Tom.”

“I can still stay with you over Easter holidays? And the summer?”

“You’re always welcome, Tom.”

One more sharp nod, and finally Tom slips out the door. Albus levels himself carefully out of the chair, removes another vial of the powdered potion from the desk, and makes his way to his bedroom.

But despite the stiffness in his muscles and the brewing headache behind his eyes, he is content. He has won more than one kind of victory today.

*

Tom walks slowly towards the library. He meant to go to the common room, but curfew’s not for an hour yet, and he wants to look up shadow magic and Light magic and power levels in wizards and…all sorts of things.

He’s thinking hard about Professor Dumbledore. The way he came and got Tom out of the orphanage. The way the Slytherins despise him. The way a magnificent phoenix sits by his side day in and day out. How he told Tom the pure-bloods don’t know what to do with him, given his family name and his power and his perfect contentment teaching at a school.

Tom has been studying Dark magic in his free time, because it seems more powerful. But he wonders what kind of power it takes to make decisions of your own and stick to them, whatever other people think you should want.

To teach at a school because that’s what you enjoy, instead of fighting duels and holding off rivals all the time, just because that’s the stereotype of a powerful wizard.

To cast Light magic because you understand and agree to pay that price more than you would the price for Dark magic.

To have people stare at you in confusion and twinkle your eyes at them.

Professor Dumbledore has carved out his own path, and it occurs to Tom that, just as there are many worse names he could be called than “Dumbledore’s pet,” there are many worse things he could do than imitate his mentor.

Not that the kind of man Tom intends to be would imitate just anyone. But Professor Dumbledore is hardly just anyone, either.

Well, he’ll have the time to find out what he wants to do. He’ll spend a lot of time over the next seven years with the man who saw potential in him and picked him out of the filthy Muggle orphanage to enter his new world on terms equal to any pure-blood.

When he gets to the library, Tom walks past the shelves he’s been perusing lately, the ones that hover around the edges of the Restricted Section, and enters the shelves that contain information on countercurses, fire magic, defensive magic, and a lot of other things he’s been ignoring. Soon he finds what he’s looking for.

Tom takes the book on powerful Light magic back to his usual table, and begins to read.

The End.

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