Chapter Twenty-Three

Albus Dumbledore was jolted from the first sleep he had had in more than twenty-four hours when the train he was on lurched to a sudden, screeching stop. His travelling companion shot him a brief worried look. They had arrived near the border between France and Germany just outside Strasbourg, and the train had been halted so that soldiers could check the identity papers of the passengers.

Albus gave the Muggle a brief, reassuring smile. The papers the Ministry of Magic had provided for both of them had passed muster when they had each arrived in occupied France, and Albus had no reason to believe they would not do so now.

He glanced out the window and saw a group of soldiers stepping up to board the train. It looked like nothing unusual, and he sat back in his seat. A few minutes later, the compartment door slid open, and two soldiers entered.

"Ihre Papiere, bitte?" the baby-faced soldier requested politely. Albus estimated him at no more than fifteen.

"Bitteschön," Albus replied, holding his and Smythe's papers out for inspection.

"Danke." The young soldier took them and passed them to the older soldier, who peered at them closely, then at the two men sitting quietly before him.

"Ich hoffe, es ist alles in Ordnung, Herr Leutnant?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly.

The solider examined Albus's face for a few moments before answering. "Ja, alles in Ordnung."

He handed the papers back, and the younger man gave a polite nod of his head before they left.

Albus hadn't realised he had been tense until the compartment door swung shut, and his shoulders relaxed.

"How long do you reckon until we get to Munich?" asked Smythe.

"Four or five hours, I'd guess. As long as we're not stopped again."

"Try to have a kip, then, Morgan," Smythe advised. "You didn't get much before we stopped."

"Mmm," was all Albus would commit to. The train still hadn't started up, and he'd be on alert until it did. Moreover, the stifling July heat made it hard to sleep comfortably, especially in constricting Muggle attire.

Albus had met the man he knew as Gordon Smythe in a small café near the Gare de l'Est in Paris the day before. He'd spied the man at a corner table, reading a day-old copy of The Daily Telegraph, as the Minister had told Albus he would be.

Albus had walked up to the man and introduced himself as Llewellyn Morgan, and the two had taken a meagre lunch, talking of things of little consequence. They left the café together and went to a hotel not far from the station and went up to Smythe's room, Albus casting a number of anti-eavesdropping charms after having checked for signs of devices, magical or Muggle, that might allow their conversation to be overheard. Anyone seeing the two of them going in together would likely think them a couple of poofs off for an afternoon shag, as the hotel was quietly notorious as a trysting place, which was why it had been selected.

They went over the plans in detail, making sure each man had memorised their cover story. To casual enquirers, the two would be business associates...British ex-pats living in France...travelling to visit some of Munich's dozen-odd breweries in hopes of starting their own Bavarian-style brewery operation outside Paris, a city currently teeming with young German soldiers yearning for a little bit of home.

Albus was never to learn what Smythe's role in the Muggle war was; he was only under instructions to see that the man got safely to Munich, where they would part ways. The paths of the Muggle and wizarding wars had overlapped, and the chaos that had enveloped much of Eastern Europe as the Muggle dictator's megalomania and lack of military prowess slowly strangled his ambitions had displaced thousands of wizards and witches as well as millions of Muggles, and it had provided Gellert Grindelwald and his supporters with new opportunities to attack the stability of wizarding society in the region. Nevertheless, the governments of wizarding Europe had been reluctant...rightly, Albus thought...to intervene in Muggle affairs, except where they had the potential to significantly affect the wizarding world. And of course, Gellert Grindelwald had his own plans for Muggles...plans that could only be aided by an Axis victory in the Muggle war. The mad Austrian Muggle had provided a blueprint for the mad Swiss wizard. Albus wondered if Gellert saw the irony in it.

Albus had not been surprised when Minister Greengrass had essentially ordered him to go into the field to find Gellert Grindelwald. He had known he would eventually be called upon to do it, and he was quite ready, although he had been dreading it. He told himself that he had hesitated only because he wanted the Ministry's backing before setting out on a mission with such potentially far-reaching consequences for the international wizarding community, but that was only partly true. When he was completely honest with himself...lately, only when in his cups, it seemed...he admitted that the other reason was that he dreaded seeing Gellert again. Dreaded it like the dragon pox. He was not terribly afraid of being killed...a distinct possibility...but he was very much afraid of the temptation.

Albus had been so close to losing himself with Gellert all those years ago, and it had turned out that the price of saving his own soul had been shockingly high. Seeing Gellert Grindelwald again would bring those long and carefully sequestered memories flooding inexorably to the fore again. Memories, Albus allowed himself to realise only on those dark, Firewhisky-soaked nights that followed the Minister's summons, that were not all bad.

Gellert had been preternaturally seductive for a seventeen-year-old. Albus had been drawn to the younger boy like a Niffler to gold, starving for affection, understanding, and the thrill of being challenged by a nearly matched intellect after weeks of mouldering away in Godric's Hollow with only a fractious adolescent and a damaged, vague child for company. No amount of tea and talk with his sympathetic and learned neighbour, Bathilda Bagshot, could pierce the loneliness and, it must be said, the resentment that had been simmering within the breast of the brilliant and naïve eighteen-year-old Albus Dumbledore by the time Bathilda's young nephew had come to Godric's Hollow.

It had been all too easy, Dumbledore recalled ruefully, for Gellert to convince him of the rightness of his dreams of wizard supremacy. Albus's anger had finally found a focus, albeit one he would not have admitted, even to himself. Those Muggle boys . . . if not for their stupidity...their bestiality...Ariana would have been whole, his mother and father would have been alive, and Aberforth would not have been the quiet, seething mass of dependence he had become. And Albus would have been free to pursue his brilliant destiny. If not for those Muggles . . .

And then it had all come crashing disastrously down around him, and in the space of only ten minutes, he had lost everything he loved.

Albus had spent the decades since Gellert avoiding temptation, travelling, burying himself in academic research and study, and finally taking refuge at Hogwarts. He had thought himself safely cloistered, far from serious temptation then, but Minerva had put paid to that pleasant delusion.

He had had lovers after Gellert; they had all been women, and women with whom he could never have fallen in love. That had been a conscious choice on his part. Falling in love with Minerva McGonagall had come as a shock. In addition to the almost comical banality of a middle-aged teacher panting after his nubile, teenaged student, Albus had been troubled by the nagging feeling of familiarity his longings had brought with them.

There had been one night...that terrible, endless night after Minerva had left Hogwarts and Albus Dumbledore forever...during which he had downed almost two-thirds of a bottle of Ogden's and had finally fallen asleep only to dream of Gellert for the first time in years. In his whisky-fuelled stupor, Albus had seen the young man Gellert had been...all corn-silk blonde hair and cherry lips and old, old eyes...and had been seized with such joy. Dream-Albus had run to embrace him, even as he knew he should pull his wand and destroy the young man who would grow into the greatest threat the wizarding world had ever seen, and as he stroked the beautiful hair and kissed the downy cheek of his boyhood love, he had found his fingers running through tresses that were raven-dark. When he pulled back to look at the face of his dream-love, he had found it was Minerva's. Except the eyes...those remained the same pale, piercing blue, and far too knowing for the fresh, pretty face of the eighteen-year-old girl man-Albus loved.

"Minerva?" he had asked fearfully, and she had answered by pulling his face close for a kiss that seemed to last for ages. As he had kissed dream-Minerva, he had opened his eyes and found, to his horror, that he was looking into the soft, unfocussed, sea-blue eyes of his sister.

He had woken with a shout on his lips and an erection in his pants, which shamed him as much as the first one he had gotten when the then-youthful Madam Soranus had run her wand over his groin during his physical in his second year at Hogwarts.

The next morning, Albus had poured the remainder of the bottle of Ogden's down the loo and delivered the two unopened ones that sat in his liquor cabinet to a happily surprised Horace Slughorn. Albus promised himself he would never drink anything stronger than wine or ale again.

Albus's mind wandered over this terrain as he sat in the railway car that would deliver him to confront the mistake he had made in his youth...the mistake that had led him to everything that had come after.

He was pulled abruptly from his sleepy ruminations when a sudden whiff of magical energy penetrated his consciousness. He was immediately on the alert. He and Smythe had taken the Muggle train to avoid detection by the Blackrobes, who, the Ministry knew from intelligence reports, were monitoring all magical means of transport into and out of the country. Even Apparition wasn't safe, as there were spots all around the border set up to detect any significant magical activity. Gellert was obviously expecting him.

The presence of another witch or wizard on the train was not troubling in itself; wizarding folk sometimes used Muggle forms of conveyance, especially in troubled times when wizarding methods could prove dangerous. No, what bothered Albus was that he hadn't detected this presence before, which meant that the witch or wizard in question had most likely boarded the train at their current stop rather than at a proper station.

Albus focussed his energy on Occluding. A strong shield would dampen, but not eliminate, the reverberations of his very strong magical signature that would be detectable to any skilled witch or wizard who was on the alert for them. He put a hand on Smythe's arm, and when the man looked at him questioningly, he whispered, "Stay alert. If anything happens, keep your head down and follow my instructions to the letter, understood?"

Smythe nodded curtly.

Albus opened the book he had in his hands...The Hotel Majestic...and signalled to Smythe to do the same. Although ostensibly focussed on the novel, Albus kept watch on the corridor through the compartment window out of the corner of his eye. The soft thrum of magical energy increased until Albus heard the footsteps in the corridor. He saw the figure outside the compartment as it moved past, then stopped and turned back. Albus saw the triumphant flash of the wizard's eye through the compartment door window and drew his wand as the door began to slide open. He allowed the wizard to take a half step into the compartment before he cast his Petrificus Totalus, simultaneously barking to Smythe, "Get down!"

The other wizard's half-cast Avada Kedavra bounced harmlessly off the seat next to Albus, its watery, blue-green light rapidly evaporating in the aftermath of its caster's fall.

As Albus pulled the Petrified wizard into the compartment, he told Smythe, "Take a look in the corridor, see if anyone's there."

"No one," reported Smythe a moment later and moved to help Albus lay the immobile man on the seat. Albus searched the wizard, who was wearing the uniform of a Muggle SS officer, and removed a card identifying him as "Prüss, Gunther, Obersturmführer". Albus took the man's wand and handed it to Smythe.

"Keep this safe; don't try to use it."

He pointed his wand at the man and cast: "Mutatio Librum!"

"Christ on a cracker!" exclaimed Smythe as he stared at the compact, black volume that had, moments ago, been the fake SS officer.

Albus picked up the book and said, "You've never seen magic before, I take it?"

"No," replied Smythe still staring at the space the book had occupied on the seat. "Well, that is . . . I saw that fellow...your Minister...come into the PM's office via the fireplace, but that was nothing like this."

Albus nodded and said, "I need you to understand something, Smythe: what I have done is considered unethical in my world. We don't go around changing people into objects willy-nilly. If these were normal circumstances, I merely would have incapacitated the man and delivered him to the proper authorities, but these are hardly normal circumstances, as I'm sure you'll agree."

"Too right," said Smythe. "So what do we do with him . . . it . . . him?"

Albus handed the book to his companion. "You're going to take this with you, and if and when you get the chance, you're going to get it back to your people with the wand and instructions to turn it over to our Ministry."

"Why me? Why not you?" said Smythe. It was not a complaint, merely a question.

"Because you have a better chance of surviving to do it than I do."

There was a moment of silence, then Smythe said quietly, "All right, Morgan." Looking at the book, he chuckled and said, "It had to be a Bible."

"Why?

Smythe looked at his companion and said, "I'm an atheist."

The two men exchanged grim smiles, then sat down as the train began to squeal to complaining life.