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The Sins and Sorrows of Albus Dumbledore	By : GoldSnitcher Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 2953 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters, nor do I profit from the writing of these stories.

Chapter List
- 1-1: The Intractable Inheritance
- 1
In Scotland, near the village of Hogsmeade, across the Black Lake and behind layers of charms and enchantments, balanced at the peak of a mountain, is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which is, as any sensible person knows, the perfect place to keep a secret.

The impossible castle, built and maintained with magic, is a hodgepodge of towers and battlements, hallways and doors, filled with passages and treasures and mystery and, for more months of the year than not, gossiping and whispering witches and wizards, eager for any little piece of news.

The best way to maintain a secret, besides hiding it in plain sight, is to distract everyone so thoroughly and so completely that they are utterly diverted, believing with startling conviction that they know everything there is to know already, and so have no need to pursue anything any further. Maintaining the careful balance of rumor and fact, truth and fiction, was something the headmaster of the school was charged with since the school’s founding, and of necessity, it was something that they excelled at, and no headmaster was more adept at maintaining the delicate balance than Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

…………………

It only made sense that when Albus Dumbledore died at the startling age of two hundred and twenty-three, there should be uproar. Witches and wizards, young and old alike were stunned by the news, and many simply didn’t know what to do. There was turmoil in the Wizarding World as people struggled to come to terms with the fact that one of the most stable and comforting icons of their world, someone to whom they had clung for so very long, had slipped through their fingers without the decency of prior notification.

At Hogwarts however, there was no such turmoil. Minerva McGonagall after all, was a very stern and disciplined woman who had no tolerance for histrionics, however much she herself wished to succumb to them. She made the announcement at the morning meal and dismissed the students back to their dormitories, soothed by her platitudes and the cancellation of classes.

Albus died on a Tuesday. Minerva notified the suitable authorities, and made the appropriate arrangements and then retired to her rooms and wept. Severus Snape spent hours nursing a bottle of scotch and staring into the flames of his fire. In their dormitories, students studied and played exploding snap, some of them huddled together and exchanged stories they had heard, of the remarkable wizard who had done so much for the Wizarding world. In the headmaster’s office, on a golden perch, a fiery phoenix sang a quiet lament.

Two hundred and twenty-three was an extremely respectable age, longer than the average lifespan of a wizard. As well, Albus Dumbledore had been grappling with a persistent cold that seemed to come and go, and yet refused to be subdued by the appropriate remedies. Yet was still utterly beyond comprehension that someone as steadfast and powerful as Albus should succumb to death.

So extensive was the upheaval resultant from the great wizard’s demise that it was not until the following Saturday that things became settled enough for a goblin from Gringott’s to visit Hogwarts for the reading of the will. The final bequests of Albus Dumbledore were entirely typical of the man; each item bestowed with a letter enclosed in a plain parchment envelope, containing words from a dear friend almost more precious than the inheritance. Everyone present to hear the reading of the will left with a little something from their friend, headmaster, leader and confidant. His wealth, his belongings, bits and pieces of his life bestowed on those who survived him, and many sought refuge in their rooms where they once again succumbed to tears.

Severus Snape left the room bewildered and perplexed. He had not known what to expect when he had attended the reading of the will. Albus had been like a father to him, but Severus did not dare to presume that he would receive anything from the man. Still, after seeing what his colleagues from the Order and from Hogwarts had received, he did not quite know what to make of the large old-fashioned and bulky key that had been the sole thing with which he had been presented, especially when his mysterious inheritance was not, unlike every other item the goblin had brought forth, accompanied by a letter from Albus.

The key was not quite the length of Severus hand, crafted from dark brass and roughened by age and use. Despite its size, it weighed almost nothing, which Severus assumed was due to some spell. The goblin had passed it over wrapped in his handkerchief, and had glowered at it darkly, which prompted Severus to wonder what other spells and enchantments had been woven into the item. That work and effort had been invested in the key was apparent from the careful rolling Celtic knots that formed the bow of it, as well as the careful etching along the narrow blade; careful script-work that read on one side ‘for peace’ and on the other ‘for war’ inscribed in Latin.

Severus had seen the key before, of course, but only in passing. He had often taken tea with Albus in the headmaster’s office and had many times witnessed the old wizard tucking it safely into a robe pocket, or twirling it distractedly. Still, Severus had no idea what the key opened, or why his mentor would pass it on to him.

Irritatingly perplexing and seemingly impossible to solve, Severus placed the strange key in his desk drawer, closed it, and set the matter aside; or at least attempted to. The peculiar inheritance seemed like a metaphor for the old headmaster himself, as enigmatic and inexplicable as Albus had been in life. Every so often, Severus would open the drawer and stare at the key, wondering at its significance.

Almost six days after receiving it, Severus removed the key from its resting place and carried it up several flights of stairs, passed a number of bewildered students and into the headmaster’s office, determined to find some form of answer to the puzzle.

………………

The headmaster’s office was in disarray as the house elves’ efforts to convert the space for the new headmistress were thwarted by Minerva McGonagall’s reticence to move into an office that held so many memories. As a result, Severus found himself stepping into a room that packed with trunks and cases, and scattered with papers and books. The furniture was mostly displaced, desks and chairs resting in illogical places, and some of it stacked against the walls. Light listed in through the windows, illuminating drifting particles of dust, and the space felt forgotten and empty in a way that gave Severus pause. The entire castle had been affected by Albus’ death, and not merely the people living inside its walls, everything seemed just a little more drab, a little less magical.

With conscious effort, Severus pulled himself away from such morose and overly dramatic thoughts to concentrate on his task. Without some sense of where to begin, Severus strolled the perimeter of the room, scanning for anything peculiar that might be a clue. There was no sign of a secret passage, or any place where his key might possibly reveal its secret. There were, however, a surprising number of unusual trinkets and piles of parchment and old tomes.

Severus flipped through some of the files, most of which were schedules and notes on various projects in which the man had been involved. These files were in no way classified, at least not to Severus who was a respected professor and potions master, as well as friend and confidante to the deceased wizard to whom they belonged. The papers were mostly schedules and plans for various things, Albus had been a very busy man in life, with many responsibilities, though he had always had time for tea with Severus.

Moving from the files to the desk, Severus’ lips quirked upward as he noticed the little dish on the corner of the desk that still contained a small pile of lemon drops. Albus had always had a sweet tooth; Severus knew several spots in the headmaster’s office in which the man had kept a hidden supply of sweets. On the desk beside the bowl sat an ornate picture frame, gold-leaf and fine carving, too intricate for Severus to find truly attractive, and yet such an odd blend of colors, gold designs atop a dark green, framing a gold section with oxidized bronze designs, framing, in turn, an oval of carved silver. Etched into the gold at the base of the frame was a small rune; never having been a student of ancient runes, Severus was unable to identify what it meant. He picked up the frame, wondering at who would feature in a picture that warranted such a notable position as directly and constantly in the headmaster’s line of sight; there was no picture. At the center of the black paper that the oval of silver encased was a tiny etching of the same ancient rune depicted on the frame itself, inked in a fine silver pen.

Huffing at the headmaster’s eccentricities, Severus returned the frame to the desk and dropped, rather inelegantly, into the headmaster’s chair. Albus Dumbledore was an exasperating man who twinkled happily when he could have explained, spoke in riddles, and always asked for more than any person could give. Why Severus missed the man was beyond him, but it was nonetheless true, and though he would deny it with every ounce of himself, he deeply wished for another chance to speak with the man, another opportunity to enjoy tea and impossible conversation that he would never admit to enjoying. At best, Severus would insist that Albus Dumbledore infuriated him, and he would leave it at that; even beyond the grave the man was still insufferable; Severus would insist this, since he was left with the weight of the damn key in his pocket.

The rest of the desk was cluttered with lamps and oil burners and various magical devices, including a time turner, carefully tucked inside a maroon velvet pouch. Settled on a swatch of dark silk by a bottle of ink and a quill was a dark grey rock. Curious, Severus picked it up and inspected it. There were no magical properties to it of which he could deduce, it did not glitter or display a particularly fine or even terribly rare coloring, and the shape of the thing was nothing remarkable. It was quite small, not even half the size of his palm, roughly oval in shape, and with curved sides that made it comfortable to hold. The weight of it was slightly more than Severus had expected, but it was still light, just enough heft to make him aware of something in his hand. The smooth greyness of it had been rubbed into a soft gleam, and it was a cool, soothing weight in his palm. Idly, Severus sat running a finger over the even surface of it, letting his mind wander, not feeling the ache of loss so much as he had just a moment before. Unnoticing, Severus dropped the stone into his pocket before he moved on with his search.

Inside the top drawer of Albus’ desk was a small square slip of parchment that only caught Severus’ attention because it was vibrantly red. As he picked it up he noticed the familiar scrawl that was the headmaster’s distinct penmanship and at the bottom corner of the page was the same rune as from the picture frame. Severus read the inscription through once, and then again more carefully, wondering at reasoning behind Albus’ careful recording of it.



Said the knight to the age’d fool: ‘I walk this path for at its end rests the most feared dragon in the land and I am a dragon-slayer.”

”Because it is here, and ends there?” asked the man, and the knight knew at once to whom he spoke. “You are the one they say tamed the beast!”

“I make no such claim. But we have talked before.” And here the old man

smiled such a smile of peace and pride and joy that Sir Genderan had never

before seen, not even on the fairest face of the mightiest queen.

“Know this, bold knight,” said the man. “A wild thing cannot be tamed,

nor any thing at all be ever truly known. But heed me now,

for this you need to hear: that any thing, great or small,

requires compassion to flourish at all, even those very things we fear. ’

The passage, Severus knew, was an excerpt from the tale of Sir Genderan, the dragon slaying knight who went off to slaughter a dragon and ended-up devoured by it. It had been a long while since he had read the tale, and he found himself seeking out the heavy tome from Albus’ own shelves, as much driven by his own nostalgia, though he would never admit it, as by the possibility Albus might have included a further message in the original text.

It was a large tome, old and dusty and Severus thought it might be the very first edition of the work it was so worn. He withdrew it carefully from the shelf and placed it on the desk as gently as he could manage, turning the pages to the story from which the passage originated.

He read the section of the text through, and then skimmed the entirety of the story, but there was nothing that might shed any light on the mystery of his key, or why Albus would write-out a quotation of it and keep it so close to hand.

Severus was at a loss; with no way to pursue the strange mystery Albus had bestowed on him, and no idea where to turn for any further clues. A key without a lock was a key without purpose, and Severus had enough trust in the headmaster to refuse to accept that the key might just be a key, a simple metaphor perhaps, with no greater message behind it than the obvious. He hefted the tome gently and returned to the shelves preparing to replace it when he sucked in breath and nearly dropped the thing.

There, in the gap that the tome had left among the bookshelf, was a large version of the same rune as the parchment, on which the verse was written, and the absent photograph, and the picture frame. Hurriedly, Severus returned the tome to the desk and removed the books surrounding the marking. Beneath the runic marking burned into the mahogany wood, was a small disc of aged bronze that, when pushed aside, revealed a keyhole.

Severus had a moment of keen triumph, wishing dearly that he could say to the headmaster, “ha! I solved your blasted riddle!” His moment of victory was overshadowed by his curiosity and a sudden and inexplicable apprehension, as if he were about to break a rule, which was silly, as Severus had never had any compunction about breaking rules as it suited him. Still, he could not help a quick glance about the room to make certain he was alone before he removed the key from his pocket and settled it into the keyhole. It slid into place smoothly, and not wanting to waste another moment, Severus twisted the key, hearing a satisfying ‘click’. Severus held his breath as he stepped back.

Nothing happened.

“Damn the man,” Severus snarled, wishing very much that he could throw something and give-in entirely to a fit of pique. Before he could fully lose himself in a tantrum, however, a faint glimmer from the back of the wall drew his attention as slowly words in a language Severus neither knew nor recognized, began to appear in sloping, warm golden letters.

“Damn the man.” Severus snatched up a quill and parchment from the desk and carefully copied the markings that made-up the verse, pausing for a moment once he had completed his task, in case the door might simply open on its own. Five minutes later, when nothing had changed, Severus resigned himself, snatching the key from the lock.

“I refuse to be pushed down the rabbit hole by you yet again, Albus,” Severus announced to the empty room. He returned everything to its appropriate place and dropped the key and the parchment onto the desk before turning and marching toward the door. He paused again with the worn door half-opened, turning back and looking up at the ornately carved desk almost lost amongst the scattered books and parchments. With another sigh, Severus strode back up to the desk and, with a muttered curse, retrieved the key and the parchment on which he had jotted the archaic markings of the verse. He folded the parchment three times and then shoved it into his pocket, before sweeping out of the office, the door slamming closed behind him.

………………

Severus’ intention had been to set the puzzle of the key aside and, in so much as it was possible, to get on with the business of adapting his work and responsibilities to more easily accommodate his new position as deputy headmaster, and forget about Albus’ blasted inheritance.

Later that afternoon, however, Severus found himself mid-lecture, explaining to a class of Gryffindor and Slytherin fifth years the difference, however nuanced, between chopping finely and mashing to a pulp, when he realized he had also slipped something else into his pocket during his visit to Albus’ office. The smooth stone rested in his pocket, cool to the touch.

Over the course of the week, rubbing the rock became a habit. When he was poring over the mysterious verse in a language that he was finally able to determine was a form of ancient Gaelic, or completing his marking, Severus usually had the rock in his palm, a comforting weight, and strangely grounding.

Two weeks after the death of Albus Dumbledore, Severus received a summons to the headmistress’ office for tea, which brought with the message the compounded aggravation both of being interrupted in his work, and her presuming to fill Albus’ place to the extent that she should take-up the tradition of weekly teas. Still, he found himself navigating the long corridors just the same.

Minerva answered the door on his second knock, with a slight smile, “Severus.” He dipped his head and entered as she stepped aside.

Minerva’s office was relatively sparse and exquisitely organized. Where Albus had preferred to have his office cluttered with portraits and books, magical artifacts and trinkets, Minerva kept the majority of her personal effects in her room, and the items needed for her teaching in her classroom. She had a small writing desk and chair set before a window, on which sat a rose-colored lamp, a quill and ink, and a tin of biscuits, as well as a mirror. Opposite the desk, beside the door, was a stretch of bookshelves occupied by an assortment of peculiar artifacts ranging from skulls of particular creatures to various awards Gryffindor house had collected over the years including, much to Severus’ chagrin, the House Cup.

Minerva led him to the fireplace, offering him a seat in a wing-back, tartan covered chair in front of the roaring fire, and began to pour tea without even asking if he should like any.

Narrowing his eyes, Severus steepled his fingers and settled back in the truly horrible chair. “Is this a necessary meeting, Minerva, or merely a social call?”

Minerva offered him a cup and saucer, pouring one for herself before she too sat back in her chair and came straight to the point. “You’ve been quite reclusive, Severus.”

“I’ve been busy,” he dismissed as he took a sip of his tea.

“As have we all, but we have managed, at least, to take meals in the Great Hall. I’ve barely seen you, and when I do you invariably distracted by some book or another. I am in support of research but not at the expense of one’s health. I’m sure you can understand that I am concerned. As your friend, as much as your colleague.”

Severus lifted an eyebrow at her. “I am not, as you believe, jeopardizing my health, I assure you. The elves bring food when I am unable to attend meals in the Great Hall. I have, as I have said, been rather busy.”

“But with what, is the question? There has been no more work than is usual for this time of year, and while being deputy headmaster entails greater responsibility, I know from personal experience, it is not so much to warrant your apparently extensive studies.”

“I have been preoccupied with the inheritance that Albus has left for me,” Severus admitted, somewhat reluctantly. He had wanted to keep it private, in part because he was loathe to speak of something he himself did not quite understand, and also because it belonged to him, a gift from his mentor. Still, he trusted Minerva, she was as close to a friend as Severus had, and he could not begrudge her curiosity.

Carefully, Severus set his teacup aside and withdrew from his pocket the key and held it in his open palm. He felt a tightening in his chest and had to fight the urge to snap the key back when she picked it up but after a brief inspection, she offered it back to him. “I’ve not seen it before,” she admitted.

“I have seen it in Albus’ possession on occasion,” Severus said. “But I never knew its purpose. In fact, I still do not, which is what has distracted me. Though it has yet to unlock anything, it has presented me with a perplexing riddle.”

She surveyed him over the rim of her spectacles. “I know better than to offer my assistance, however, if you find there is something I might do to help…” she let the sentence hang, its conclusion plainly written in the quirk of her brow.

“That is not necessary,” he dismissed immediately, ignoring the downturn of her mouth, the only indication of her displeasure at his stubbornness.

“Well, you know where I am,” she said, and rose from her seat. Severus followed suit quickly, eager to return to his office and the riddle that awaited him there. He had not quite reached the door when Minerva said, “Severus, do make an effort to appear at some meals in the Hall.”

………………

It was as much to thumb his nose at Minerva as to carry on his research that Severus brought the text on runes he’d withdrawn from the library down to the Great Hall to pore over during lunch. Poor manners, perhaps, but lunch was always a casual meal, and it wasn’t as if he were blatantly reading at the table.

The rune that Severus had seen repeated in Albus’ office was not, much to his chagrin, to be found in the majority of texts he’d perused in the library. When it did appear, its translation was different from any previous one he had managed to find. He was, however, prepared to give-up his search.

Adjusting his makeshift bookmark carefully, Severus settled into a chair beside professor Babbling, placing his book down in plain view and began to fill his plate. He was just dropping another slice of ham onto his plate when Bathsheda Babbling, teach of ancient runes, leaned over slightly to get a better look at his book. ”Rune work, Severus? I didn’t know Potions made use of them,” she said, and smiled. She eyed the scrap of paper that was sticking out of the top of the text, on which he had copied out the rune he was looking for, and sighed in a sort of contented, satisfied way. “It’s not often one sees that particular branch of runes. Even in teaching, we save those for the older students.”

“The material on it is certainly contradictory,” Severus said somewhat absently though in truth he was listening quite carefully. If there was one thing Bathsheda was skilled at, it was volunteering copious amounts of information on the slightest provocation.

“Haegl always did confuse some of the more traditionalist translators,” she said. “It’s a rune of upheaval. That’s the theory I generally agree with,” she said, raising her napkin to wipe at the corner of her mouth before setting it down again. “The ancient rituals it appears in all have to do with that sort of thing, anyway. It speaks of spiritual struggle, overcoming obstacles, healing from a disruptive physical event.”

“Haegl,” Severus repeated thoughtfully. “It was the basis for the banishing charm, was it not?”

”Why, yes!” she exclaimed, happy to have found someone who knew something about the subject she was so passionate about. “It’s an adaptive rune. That’s rare, most are very specific, the advantage being they’re easier to understand when they are translated, you see?”

“But surely that would restrict their use?”

”Yes. Haegl is used in some healing charms, some banishing charms, some defense charms, some blessing charms; it’s quite a varied rune. At least, in comparison to say, Verdun, from another branch of runes, which can only really be used to ward off a particular breed of ivy. Or to heal after exposure to that ivy.”

Severus mulled that over. “To perform any of the runic rituals, is an item ever involved?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Supposing there is a thing that needs protection, and a rune provides that protection; is a third party, such as a piece of jewelry, ever involved to bear the spell?” Severus tried, though he was fairly sure he knew the answer.

Bathsheda frowned and said, “Why, no. There isn’t a spell really involved. The magic is intrinsic to the rune, so, to follow your example, there is only the thing being protected, and the rune for protection. The rune itself can be placed onto a piece of jewelry, but its intrinsic magic cannot be transferred.”

Which meant that if Albus put the rune Haegl on a picture frame then it was the picture frame that he was attempting to protect, and not something else. Which didn’t make sense, because who cared about a bloody picture frame? An antique, gaudy one at that? One without even a photograph in it?

Severus thanked Bathseda absently, his mind turning the new information around as he finished lunch. As soon as he had finished his meal, Severus exited the Great Hall in a flurry of black robes, walking swiftly to the headmaster’s office where he paced up the steps to Albus’ desk and snatched up the picture frame.

Albus could not be attempting to protect the frame. The sort of protection the Haegl rune offered was not the sort a frame, no matter how delicate, would need. The only other solution, then, was that the rune had some other meaning to the old man, some meaning that Severus would not find in a book; but perhaps he would find it behind the damned passage, which was blocked by the damned riddle that Severus was in the middle of translating.

Setting the frame back onto the cluttered desk, Severus stormed back to his office.

………………

Spurred by his success in discovering the meaning of the rune, if not the reason as to its presence, Severus set to work on translating the verse with renewed determination. It was four o’clock in the morning, but he felt only triumph as he re-read the riddle from the parchment littered with his scrunched, loopy writing, rubbing at his eyes tiredly and wishing for some further illumination.



I am the lone wood in the warp of battle,

Wounded by iron, broken by blade,

Weary of war. Often I see

Battle rush, rage, fierce fight flaring –

I hold no hope for help to come

Before I fall finally with warriors

Or feel the flame. The hard hammer leavings

Strike me; the bright edged, battle sharp

Handiwork of smiths bites in battle.

Always I must wait the harder encounter

For I could never find in the world any

Of the race of healers who could heal my hard wounds

With roots and herbs. So I suffer

Sword slash and death-wound day and night.



The answer to the riddle escaped him, though he suspected the reason had something to do with the fact that he had been working so long on translating the bloody thing, and his mind was still swimming with the nuances of a language he had know absolutely nothing about just two weeks ago. Resigned to let the riddle of the key stand for another night, he put his things away, leaving out the copy with the translated verse on it and, as he climbed into bed, he set the parchment on the nightstand, in case some inspiration came in the night.

Four days later, on Saturday, Severus found time to sit down with the verse again. The hols were swiftly approaching and he had been assigning quite a number of essays and tests for his students, which made class time quite enjoyable, if not quiet, but cut-down severely on his free time. With all the effort that went into translating the verse, Severus was shocked to find that solving the damned riddle was so simple. It was somewhat disappointing, except for the simple fact that there was still the larger riddle to solve, pertaining to the mystery of the key itself and what it was that it unlocked.

With a brief glance at the clock, Severus rose from his chair and, resolved to skip dinner for the sake of this mystery, made his way up the eight flights of stairs that separated his rooms from the headmaster’s office, and stepped into the cluttered room, not quite able to convince himself that he wasn’t curious and just the slightest bit excited.

Briskly, but carefully, Severus removed the tomes from the shelf and revealed the Haegl rune carved onto the back wall. He inserted his key in the lock and twisted it, waiting patiently as the archaic scratchings of the riddle were revealed, and then read the passage aloud, because he was not certain what procedure should be taken to open the passage. He read it first in the abrupt, husky staccato lilt that was the original Gaelic, and then he read it in English, just to be certain. Finally, with a twinge of anticipation, Severus gave the answer to the riddle: “Shield.”

There was a click and a creak, followed by a silence. A moment more, and Severus remembered to breathe. Another moment, and he was able to extend a hand and slide the door aside, revealing a narrow, winding stone staircase that twisted to the right and out of sight. Gripping his wand, and fully prepared to use it if the need arose, Severus climbed the steps slowly and after winding upwards in a circle several times, arrived at a heavy oak door that had been painted green.

There were no riddles, nor even any locks preventing Severus from pushing the door open, much to his relief, and what it revealed gave Severus pause, contradicting as it did what Severus knew of the man he had called a friend.

Albus’ office might have been a frightful mess after his passing, but in life he had always been meticulous. Each paper was properly filed, each tome suitably shelved, and every curious contraption resting in an appropriately logical place. The room that lay beyond the green door, however, was an explosion of parchment and opened books and clutter, as if Albus’ last visit to the room had been in a great hurry. As he stepped further inside, Severus noted that the room small, but very brightly lit by large windows that spanned the length of one wall and looked out toward the mountains.

A glimpse at some of the pages revealed a curious assortment of remarkably details sketches of thing, some magical and some non-magical. He paused on an inked sketch of the school, and then again on a detailed image of himself standing on the school grounds, an arm raised up, offering a perch for Fawkes. He frowned at the image and turned to the next parchment, a rough sketch of slitted eyes that, even without an accompanying face, Severus could recognize as Voldemort’s. He backed away from the desk with a hiss of surprise.

It was ultimately the sound emanating from the other room that drew Severus out of his shocked daze and toward the other door. It was a slow, almost lilting hiss that Severus had not noticed when he’d first entered. A moment later, there was a faint pop, as if a house elf were doing magic in the vicinity.

Unlike the brightly lit office space, the room that he walked into was very large, and relatively dark. Heavy curtains covered the windows, but the sunlight was peaking through a crack where the thick grey-blue curtains joined. A faded rug covered stone floor, and though, as in the Great Hall, there were candles floating near the tall ceiling, and several candelabras about the room, none of them were lit save one candle in each corner of the room and one on either side of the large four poster bed that occupied the far wall. It was enough light, however, to illuminate what lay on the bed. Severus was at a loss for words.

On the middle of the indigo and silver sheets, sprawled on his stomach, was a slender young man clad in green flannel pajamas. He had dark messy hair and a pert mouth, lips parted slightly in slumber. Long lashes kissed pale cheeks and the youth sighed softly in his sleep, nose wrinkling before once again relaxing into slumber.

Severus did not pause a moment longer to analyze the source of the hissing or the pop, or to ponder what on earth Albus was doing with a young man locked away in a tower. He turned on his heel and promptly fled in the direction that he had come.

………………

Given how long he had known the woman, she having been his own Transfiguration professor when he’d been at school, it only made sense that, after having fled the headmaster’s office, Severus should find himself pacing in front of the familiar fireplace in his colleague’s office. Her curious clucking was quite calming in a way, until of course, her patience snapped.

“Really, Severus, this is most irregular!” Minerva said, pacing alongside him a few times before throwing up her hands and settling on a couch to watch. “What on earth has happened? If you would tell me, perhaps I could be of assistance!”

“Help!” he scoffed.

“What is the matter!” she cried, at wits-end already. She paused a moment to think and frowned at him. “Has this anything to do with your inheritance? Severus, really, I would help you with the riddle, if you’d only ask!”

“It’s not the riddle,” Severus snapped. “I’ve solved Albus’ damned riddle!”

“Then what is the matter?”

Severus whirled on the headmistress. “I’ve inherited a boy, Minerva!”

“A what?”

“A boy. Albus has been keeping a youth locked away in a room behind his office.”

“I’ve never heard of …”

“Nor have I, but nevertheless, there he is.” Severus stopped pacing and collapsed into a chair, running his hands through his hair in agitation.

“Why would Albus have a child?” Minerva wondered. “And why on earth would he give that child to you?”

“Your confidence in me, Minerva, is quite comforting,” Severus drawled.

“Come now, Severus, you and I both know that Albus understood very well that you did not have any interest in being a father.”

Grudgingly, Severus said, “The boy seemed old enough to no longer need one.”

A slender eyebrow quirked upward as she repeated, “Seemed?”

“I hardly joined the brat for tea,” Severus snapped, and immediately rose from his chair and resumed his pacing. “What on earth am I to do with him?”

“Did you say anything to him? Did you ask him anything?” Minerva questioned.

”Of course I didn’t. I was hardly prepared to find out that Albus was stashing students in secret rooms protected by elaborate riddles!”

”Don’t be so dramatic. I’m sure there’s a perfectly sensible reason for all of this.”

“We are speaking of Albus Dumbledore!”

“Precisely, and there was always sense to his schemes, even those that seemed utterly peculiar.”

Severus pinched the bridge of his nose, tilting his head forward so his dark hair slid forward and hid his face. “Your faith, I find, is hardly helping.” He stopped pacing and sighed heavily. “I suppose you would counsel me to have a merry chat with the child.”

“There seems little else you can do at this time.” She was irritatingly calm, though Severus dismissed that as being because she wasn’t the one who had inherited a strange young man. “The most appropriate course of action cannot be determined without further information.”

………………

It took two days for Severus to compose himself enough to return to Albus’ office, and when he did, he did not venture near the bookshelf that hid the secret passage for some time. He busied himself with rifling through some of the documents the house elves were having difficulty sorting. His attention, however, frequently drifted toward that particular book on that particular bookshelf, and finally Severus found himself removing the tome just as he had done before. Just as before, the riddle appeared when he inserted the key, and he read it aloud and spoke its solution. Just as before, the door was revealed and Severus climbed the steps.
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The Sins and Sorrows of Albus Dumbledore