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He turned away from the statue, something sharp and knowing in his expression.
"Was it truly the work of Salazar Slytherin from a thousand years ago?" Dumbledore asked, his prophetic intuition stirring at the edges of his mind.
Grindelwald, however, merely chuckled.
"No, no, no, Albus," He said, his tone light, almost amused. "Not Salazar Slytherin from a thousand years ago."
Dumbledore stiffened, and a terrible suspicion took root in his mind.
"What are you implying?"
Grindelwald met his gaze, eyes gleaming with a mixture of anticipation and nostalgia.
"I mean," He murmured, "That you ought to brace yourself. Because, my dear friend, the one we are about to face is a true impossibility. A legend that should not exist."
He took a breath as if savoring the weight of his next words.
"A legend still alive after a thousand years."
His voice drifted through the underground chamber, carrying an eerie finality.
---
Time wavered on its pendulum.
As Ian ascended from the depths of the underground palace, thoughts swirled in his mind.
"So, it's all tied to me after all," He muttered, glancing down at the faint rune on the back of his hand.
With a dramatic flourish, he raised it. "Unseal your hidden power, ancient mark of time! Reveal yourself!"
Nothing happened.
With a sigh, Ian trudged onward.
Since Dumbledore hadn't summoned him directly, he had no choice but to entertain himself for the time being. He kicked the statue near the entrance of the eighth floor a few times for good measure.
Fortunately, the stone guardian responded promptly, shifting aside to grant him entry to the headmaster's office.
Stepping inside, Ian cast a critical eye over the room.
"It's even messier than last time."
Above, a flash of scarlet and gold streaked across the rafters. Fawkes, the magnificent phoenix, caught sight of the golden branch in Ian's hand and immediately took flight as if offended.
Ian sighed dramatically. "You don't love me anymore."
Reaching up, he plucked a few stray phoenix feathers, rolling them between his fingers. Fawkes, rather than displaying any signs of irritation, merely shook his tail feathers and fixed Ian with a knowing gaze, a look that carried both amusement and patience.
Ian plucked a few more feathers.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Realizing something was off, Fawkes let out a disgruntled squawk and flapped his wings, soaring up to perch on the chandelier, well out of reach. Even when Ian brandished a small vial of specially brewed potion as bait, the phoenix remained stubbornly aloft, fixing him with an unimpressed stare.
"You've got quite the resolve," Ian muttered, sighing as he examined the handful of shimmering feathers he'd already collected. Though he couldn't understand Phoenix's speech, the sharp, repeated clangs echoing from above hardly sounded like words of praise.
Perhaps his antics had disturbed the other enchanted inhabitants of the office.
"Oh, not you again, you blasted little cat-bird!" The Sorting Hat grumbled as it was roused from its slumber.
"Lalalala~"
Ian, grinning mischievously, proudly demonstrated his latest magical achievement: a perfectly controlled stream of water swirling around the hat. Gone were the days when he needed a sink to scrub it clean.
"You wicked little menace! Dumbledore! Where is Dumbledore?" The Sorting Hat shrieked as the water spiraled around it, threatening to drench its tattered fabric.
"He's off having a grand old time in the underground chamber," Ian replied airily.
"Can't you appreciate my progress?"
With a flick of his wand, he intensified the water's flow, sending the Sorting Hat into a dizzying whirlpool. Bubbles foamed around its brim as if it had been tossed into an invisible washing cauldron.
"Yes! Yes, I can feel it! You've improved immensely! Oh, merciful Lord Prince, I surrender!" The Sorting Hat wailed.
Satisfied, Ian released it, letting the hat flop back into place, thoroughly drenched.
"Honestly, first-years shouldn't be praising Merlin, they should be praising me. I'm single-handedly upholding the cleanliness and well-being of this castle."
While his words carried a trace of self-congratulation, they weren't entirely untrue. The Sorting Hat was undeniably cleaner than it had been before.
"See? The headmaster's office maintenance is practically my responsibility now," Ian remarked as he continued tidying up with a few flicks of his wand, sending books and parchment floating back to their proper places.
He had to admit, Dumbledore's collection was truly something to behold. Beyond rare tomes on the most obscure branches of magic, there were countless academic journals and periodicals, many of which bore Dumbledore's own articles.
In fact, the sheer volume of his published work was staggering. Even in recent years, his output had only increased, not declined. Ian could flip through almost any issue and find yet another groundbreaking magical theory penned by the headmaster.
If the wizarding world had an equivalent to the prestigious scholarly journals of Muggle academia, Dumbledore wasn't just featured in them, he was practically keeping them in business.
"Old Dumbles is holding up half the magical academic world on his own," Ian mused, beginning to grasp that Dumbledore's influence extended far beyond his legendary dueling skills. His contributions to magical scholarship were just as vital to his legacy.
It was also, Ian suspected, why the headmaster was so absurdly wealthy.
Glancing at the rare, enchanted artifacts scattered throughout the office, Ian couldn't help but admire the sheer value of the collection. If he were the thieving type, he might have been sorely tempted to pocket something.
He continued working, his gaze briefly landing on a solid gold ornament.
"Wrong shade," He murmured to himself. "Michael's got the right color, but he clearly doesn't appreciate the significance of having the right kind of gold."
He moved on, tidying up a bit more before discovering a small bundle of leftover food near Dumbledore's bedside. Apparently, the headmaster had a habit of keeping snacks close at hand.
Never one to waste good food, Ian carefully packed it up into a small bag, a personal creation of his, designed specifically for storing leftover meals.
With an admirable sense of thrift, he decided to set it aside for Ron next year. If nothing else, it would save the Weasley boy from worrying about feeding Scabbers ever again.
"Having a senior like me is sheer good fortune for the younger students." Ian's cleaning efforts were anything but quiet; he scrubbed with such enthusiasm that even the enchanted portraits lining the walls gleamed under a fresh coat of polish and wax.
This, of course, did not go unnoticed by the former headmasters and headmistresses, who had been dozing or at least pretending to.
"What in Merlin's name is he doing?"
"Looks like he's cleaning Dumbledore's office."
"Is the little wizard planning to move in already? Bit ambitious, isn't it?"
"I knew it! Dumbledore's finally been carted off to Azkaban! That's the only way this boy could have taken over the Headmaster's office!"
"Nonsense, McGonagall would never allow it—"
"Then she must be in Azkaban too! Honestly, Gryffindors belong there! Except for us Slytherins, of course. Any new Headmaster ought to be locked up on principle!"
...
The last voice, the loudest and most persistent, undoubtedly belonged to a Slytherin headmaster from the past, and Ian had long since grown wary of Slytherin rhetoric.
"Headmaster," He called sweetly, "Would you like a little gift for your portrait this Christmas? Perhaps a house-elf assistant— no, no, I know! A particularly lifelike Inferius maid to keep you company!"
Ian pulled out the rough sketch he had doodled in class. The artistic merit was questionable at best.
The reaction, however, was immediate. The portraits scattered in a frenzy, fleeing their frames as though the very sketch might hex them. The Slytherin headmaster in question paled, disappearing from sight faster than any of the others.
No one wanted to be the last to flee. The latecomer might just find themselves immortalized in oil paint with Ian's cursed creation.
(To Be Continued…)