Dark Lord Dumbledore

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was not pleased. When he had arrived at the Ministry of Magic and asked to see Peter, he was rebuffed. He needed to find out how the Rat had fought off the compulsions and abandoned his hiding place amongst the Weasleys, but had been met with refusal and suspicious stares.

A quick scan of the less than mediocre Auror's mind blocking his way revealed that Rita Skeeter had once again ruined his plans! That blasted woman was really starting to get on his nerves! Maybe it was time to release her deepest secret and pack her off to Azkaban for being an unregistered Animagus.

Since he had now inadvertently turned himself into a suspect, he could only play it off as shock at discovering that the hero awarded with the Order of Merlin was still alive.

"Forgive me if I overstepped my boy. I forgot myself due to the shock of finding the man I thought dead, was instead alive! Are we sure that he is not an imposter?" Dumbledore asked, trying to limit the repercussions of his blunder.

The Aurors noticeably relaxed at the excuse. This was, after all, the Leader of the Light and the greatest wizard since Merlin!

"Of course, Headmaster. Madam Bones herself was present for the questioning under veritaserum. There is no need to worry sir, we will get to the bottom of this!" Reassured one of the bumbling magical police officers guarding Pettigrew's cell.

Knowing that he could not see Peter, as asking further would just create more problems, he had decided to visit Cornelius instead and implant some suggestions. But arriving at Fudge's office had only irritated him more!

The secretary actually had the gall to tell him to take a seat and wait as the Minister was in an important meeting! Him, the greatest wizard alive, waiting for a fool that would struggle to clean his arse with a Scouring Charm!

Ten minutes later, the door opened to show a clearly displeased Lucius Malfoy striding out. With only a sneer thrown at Dumbledore, the Imperiused Death Eater continued on his way.

Fudge could only groan when he saw Dumbledore walk into his office. He had just dealt with one problem, and now he was sure another had just stepped into his office.

"Cornelius, I hear there have been some exciting developments."

"Yes, quite. Skeeter has really made a mess of things by releasing her story before she had even delivered Pettigrew! She will make the Ministry look like fools! Can you imagine what everyone will say about us for awarding a criminal the Order of Merlin posthumously while the man was still alive?" Lamented Fudge.

"Yes, I came as soon as I read the Daily Prophet. I had to come personally to verify the outlandish claims. Has Serious Black been released yet?"

For a man everyone thought was an idiot, Cornelius Fudge had a certain amount of low cunning. He had just reluctantly fended of Lucius' considerably large bribes for Sirius Black to have an accident, and now here Albus was asking about the same man a little too eagerly.

"Amelia herself went to get him. Thanks to Skeeter's article, if anything happens to the man, there will be hell to pay from the Purebloods. A Lord sentenced without a trial and mysteriously died when found innocent? I would be lucky to survive the week as Minister!"

"Indeed, the poor man has not been treated well. I was wondering if I could have some time alone with him since we were quite close during the war. I wish to apologise for thinking him guilty." Dumbledore said sadly, he certainly was a masterful actor.

"I'm afraid it is out of my hands, old boy. Amelia wouldn't even let me see him once she was done, something about not tampering with the suspect or some such. A scandal is the last thing we need."

Fudge had read the paper this morning, and even he could see that Skeeter painted Dumbledore, Crouch and his predecessor in a not so generous light. If it had been before today, Fudge would have been jumping to have Dumbledore owe him a favour, especially after not being able to accept Malfoy's Galleons.

But now he was trying to distance himself as much as possible from the Hogwarts Headmaster. He had seen the way the wind was blowing and planned to shove all the responsibility for this monumental blunder onto the previous administration.

He could even increase his approval rating for clearing Black and making himself out to be a champion of justice by throwing Millicent Bagnold into his old cell! The Ministry had to be seen to be doing something after all!

"A pity," said Dumbledore, "it would boost poor Sirius' spirits to know he had people on his side."

"I'm sure Amelia will make sure he catches up on current affairs and inform him the public was outraged to hear of his unfair incarceration. If that is all Dumbledore, I really must get back to work. Pettigrew has caused the Ministry a lot of problems!"

As Dumbledore abruptly had his request denied and then was dismissed, it had only added to his rage. If he had not had a firm grip on his emotions thanks to Occlumency, he was sure he would have slapped the blundering idiot that called himself the Minister of Magic!

But he was soon to find out that his failed foray to the MoM was the least of his worries. As he used the Floo Network to travel back to his office, he was met with a frantic McGonagall.

"Headmaster, thank Merlin!" she cried out in relief after recognising the unexpected intruder, she had even raised her wand in her fright. "There has been an incident!"

"Whats happened Minerva?" He could only ask anxiously, noticing the sudden lack of clutter that had once decorated his sanctum.

"Masked men were seen crashing out of a window on the third floor near your office, only to fly away on brooms! I rushed here as soon as I was informed only to find them all gone. I'm afraid they have ransacked your office! Could they have been after the Sorting Hat?"

Dumbledore could feel his stomach drop from anxiety, and he couldn't help but call for his fast-travel method after noticing his absence.

"FAWKES!"

Receiving no response, his anxiety grew into dread, and his face lost all colour. He had to physically restrain himself from hiking up his colourful robes and running to his private room to see if they had also stolen one of the famed Deathly Hallows.

As it was, he was still striding too fast, forcing McGonagall to half jog to keep up. Opening the door to his personal suite, he found it just as b.a.r.e as his office. More so considering that there were not even portraits left to decorate the now totally empty room, not even the furniture was spared!

Seeing Dumbledore stopped in the doorway, McGonagall peered over the now fuming man's shoulder and could only unhelpfully mutter, "Oh, Dear!"

It took all of Albus' considerable control not to backhand the woman for stating the obvious. He would rather face this disaster alone than have someone offer up empty platitudes since there was literally nothing anyone could say to help.

"What did the portraits say, Minerva?" He spoke as calmly as he could, yet unable to keep the bite out of the question.

"I have yet to ask them as I had only arrived a couple of minutes before you Flooed in. I was afraid to try a counterspell lest I damage the painting and lose a valuable Hogwarts artifact." She replied as diplomatically as she could, understanding that the old man was upset.

Taking a deep breath to restrain his anger and help his mental shields reassert themselves, he responded with, "Indeed, then let us remedy that problem first and learn what has transpired."

A couple minutes later, Dumbledore had identified the spell locking the portraits and cast a counterspell that encompassed the entire room.

"Intruder!"

"Help!"

Various cries were heard as the paintings all came to life at the same time, as if they had been frozen mid-speech.

"Silence!" Called Dumbledore to settle the life-like paintings down so he could figure out what the hell had happened.

They were justifiably upset since, in all of Hogwarts history, there had never been such a blatant breach of security and thievery as what happened here today!

Seeing them gather themselves and realise there was no longer intruders, Dumbledore addressed one of his predecessors that he trusted and had died recently. Armando Dippet would have been the best choice as he had been the Headmaster during Tom Riddle's schooling, but he had yet to die and take up residence in his magical portrait.

Phineas Nigellus Black was the next Headmaster in line and would be the most informed on recent goings-on, but Dumbledore prefered to deal with the man as little as possible since he was often critical of Dumbledore's so-called plans.

So even though he had a portrait in the Black townhouse during the second wizarding war and was privy to information about Voldemort's crusade, he was not asked.

And there was no way Phineas, a Slytherin, was going to supply any information unless requested by Dumbledore since the man had destroyed both his Hogwarts House and family's reputation in his 'crusade' against the 'Dark'!

It wasn't a coincidence that everyone 'knew' that Voldemort came from Slytherin, yet didn't even know his real identity. Dumbledore was a master of propaganda and could have destroyed Tom's Pureblood support by outing him, but that would ruin the whole purpose of creating 'Voldemort in the first place!

That left asking Brutus Scrimgeour, the Headmaster before Black.

"Brutus, what happened here?"

"Albus, you would not believe it! A bunch of violent upstarts in masks barged in and started attacking us! They even used the Killing Curse on your Phoenix! Call the Aurors, this can not go unpunished!" Yelled Brutus Scrimgeour.

"Masks? Describe them clearly, was there any that stood out or you recognised?" Dumbledore asked.

"Now that I think about it, they seemed awfully similar to those Death Eaters you told us about. And the only one that was unmasked looked like he survived a failed ritual, the man didn't even have a nose!" Responded the deceased Headmaster.

Since everyone had died before Voldemort had formed his band of merry criminals and had waged war against the Ministry, the only information the portraits had on the subject was what Dumbledore had told them.

They only had the b.a.r.e bones of the war as Albus was not going to create a security breach by sharing all of his secrets! All it would take was one of them to share the information with another portrait, and then the whole castle would know his plans!

Not to mention that when he died, they would be free to reveal all of his secrets to the next Headmaster!

Upon hearing that the leader had no nose, Dumbledore was shocked to his core! It was too early for Tom to have resurrected, he hadn't even made an attempt on the Philosopher's Stone yet!

'Is that why Quirrell never showed up? Did they changed their plans?' He thought to himself.

Dumbledore was well aware that Quirrell was an agent for Voldemort, how do you think Riddle learnt of the Philosopher's Stone in the first place? Dumbledore wasn't stupid enough to publicly announce that he was keeping one of the most sought after artifacts in his school, that would have everyone trying to invade, not just Riddle!

That sudden realisation made the acclaimed second coming of Merlin incredibly anxious. Without a word, he rushed from the barren room to investigate the place that he had publically announced hid something of value.

His destination was the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side, just down the hall from the stairwell leading to his office.