Between his roles as Headmaster and Supreme Mugwump, Albus felt his plate was full. He convinced himself that the sacrifice of his time was for 'the Greater Good'. His secret shame of what Gellert had done with their ideas and the tragic death of Ariana drove him to do his best in the two roles as his own personal penance. Privately he admitted it was It was only with the help of then-Deputy Headmaster Davis and a young professor named McGonagall, that Hogwarts was kept running smoothly. An assistant at the ICW managed the day to day affairs there while Albus was resident at the school.
However with the rise of Tom, Albus felt he had to actively counter his former student. No one else had the power to do so. The war was long and seemingly hopeless. No matter what the Light did, Tom's forces managed to slip away while inflicting significant damage on the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix. Then came the Prophecy. It was like a sudden burst of light in a dark room. Here was hope but it was in the form of an infant child. Would they have to wait until the child was an adult before Tom was defeated? Albus made arrangements to protect both of the Prophecy's possible candidates that he'd identified. (There was always a small, remote chance that the Prophecy referred to another child but there was nothing to be done for that.)
Then in a single night, the war was over. Albus did what he could to assist the Ministry but he'd had the Potter child to place and the mystery of what had happened to Tom to unravel. So, he'd been distracted when many of the Death Eaters bribed their way out of Azkaban - and poor Sirius had been sent there without even a trial. That was when several of his allies on the Wizengamot approached him in 1984 and demanded that if he still refused to be Minister than he should take the role of Chief Warlock to reign in some of the Ministry's excesses. They said no one else had the reputation, power, and political clout to fill the role. As Supreme Mugwump, Albus had the clout and international reputation to make a difference. So in the end he acquiesced.
So, because Albus Dumbledore had an inability to truly say 'No' when someone presented him with a situation and he had the ability to make a difference, he was stuck here doing the paperwork for what should have been three separate full-time jobs.
And he hated it. He would be 114 years old this year. Most of his old school mates were either retired or dead. Yet here he worked the jobs of three younger men and now had to deal with Tom's return and the burden placed on young Harry as well. Albus often thought about retiring from one or more of his positions but was afraid to do so. Call it hubris, but he didn't see anyone else that could step into his roles and pick-up his work. Lucius Malfoy was the leading candidate to replace him as Chief Warlock and that would be an unmitigated disaster.
Sometimes he watched the ducks on the Black Lake. He could feel for them. All calm and placid on the surface but meanwhile their webbed feet were paddling like mad underneath.
A quiver in the wards at the Gargoyle statue below announced the arrival of Harry Potter. He was not surprised to feel the signatures of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin following him. He was slightly surprised to feel Ms Granger, Ms Patil, Ms Greengrass, Mr Weasley, and Mr McMillan following along behind them.
"Come in, Mr Potter and guests," Albus called just as they reached the door to his office. Harry opened the door and stepped into the room followed by Sirius, Remus and his friends.
"Good morning all," Albus greeted them. "I am rather surprised to see you all here this morning as I only asked for Mr Potter and Mr Black."
"Well, I haven't told them everything that happened yet and I didn't want to do it twice," Harry answered as he settled into a chair. "Besides, I'll tell them everything you tell me anyhow so it seemed a time-saver all the way around." Albus didn't really like that but saw no way around it. He couldn't force Harry to keep their conversation a secret and he did need to know what had really happened in that graveyard.
"Very well, Harry. The Ministry people were rather put out by your disappearance last night. Madam Pomfrey led them to believe that she'd removed you as their time was up and you needed to rest." Harry and his friends smiled at that. Albus couldn't help the answering smile. "Yes, I was impressed with her ability to distract and confuse on your behalf. They will be back later today with their questions. But could you please tell me all that happened last night after you were abducted?" Harry shook his head no.
"First I have some questions for you, professor."
"Questions for me? Whatever for?" Albus asked in honest confusion.
"Because you've been keeping secrets from Harry, sir," Ms Granger supplied. "He doesn't think he can trust you." At Albus's shocked look, she merely shrugged an apology.
"Is that true, Mr Potter?" Albus asked. "I thought we had cleared the air about your placement with your relatives?"
"You did, professor," Harry acknowledged. "I don't like it but there it is. But you have been keeping other things from me. Like why you - or anyone - never checked on me at the Dursleys. Or what truly happened the night that my parents died."
Dumbledore sighed and absently removed his glasses. He polished them with a piece of cloth while he considered his answer.
"I did check on you several times in your first eighteen months with the Dursleys," Dumbledore confessed. "They were, as Professor McGonagall put it, the worst sort of Muggles but you were adjusting. I was concerned when I saw you were living in the cupboard under the stairs but it seemed to be by your choice. I talked to a Healer friend and he said people that suffer traumatic events where they feel powerless, such as rape or witnessing a murder, often seek sanctuary in small places that they can control. Plus I remembered Lily telling a story where you emptied out her pots and pans to spend the day hiding in the cabinet."
"I'd forgotten about that," Sirius murmured with a sad, nostalgic expression on his face. Remus simply nodded as he also remembered the incident.
"After that, I became Chief Warlock and was too busy to visit myself. I created some wards to monitor your condition and alert me if you were injured. Plus I asked Mrs Figg to move into the neighbourhood to keep an eye on things. The wards only went off once. You were six. When I arrived at the Muggle infirmary you were having your arm placed into a cast from falling out of a tree."
"I never fell out of a tree," Harry said in a quiet voice that had an angry power behind it. "Vernon lost an account and claimed his dinner was cold. He grabbed my arm and snapped the bones when he twisted it. He told the story at the hospital so he didn't get in trouble with child services. After that, Vernon and Petunia focused on verbal comments to make me feel like a freak. Dudley wasn't so restrained. He and his gang beat me regularly when we were in primary school. They called it Harry Hunting. They were the hounds and I was the fox. And you know what happens to the fox in the end. "
"Arabella - Mrs Figg - never saw anything like that," Albus responded in a pained voice. "She knew it wasn't pleasant but saw nothing abusive. Even then her concerns went away when you were nine! She said you looked well even if you were always dirty and dressed in ill-fitting clothes. It appeared to be an 'in' thing with Muggle teens so it wasn't a concern." Albus felt an odd pain in his chest as he thought about what Harry had endured. He'd known Harry wouldn't have a soft life with his mother's sister's family but never anything like this!
Harry smile in a cynical fashion. "Oh, yes. My ninth birthday. You could say after that the Durlseys and I came to… an new understanding just before then." Albus waited for Harry to explain, but instead he just asked another question.
"And the night my parents died?" Albus considered the sudden change of topics and how best to explain the unique circumstances of that night. Emotionally he was still caught up on Harry's revelations. He took a second to run through an Occlumency exercise to settle his thoughts.
"Are you familiar with what Muggles call 'The Law of Unintended Consequences, Harry?" At Harry's headshake to the negative, Dumbledore continued, "It is the understanding that sometimes our actions have a result beyond that which was expected or planned for. We don't usually understand how everything in that natural world is connected and interact. I understand that Muggles introduced rabbits in Australia for hunting purposes. Now a rabbit is a rather benign creature of no significant threat. Yet they have no natural predator in Australia and have caused substantial ecological damage there.
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