Will turned recent events over in his head.
Eat, attend class, grind experience.
After class, eat, grind more.
Get into a fight with classmates, eat a late-night snack, grind again.
Nothing unusual there.
Just a normal week at Hogwarts.
Unless, of course, this whole summons traced back to that explosion in the common room.
Still turning it over, Will reached the gargoyle guarding the Headmaster’s office and gave the password.
“Lemon Sherbet.”
Inside, portraits of former headmasters lined every wall, watching in silence.
The Sorting Hat sat on a nearby cabinet, still as filthy as ever.
Dumbledore himself sat behind his desk in purple pajamas patterned with stars, absently playing with Fawkes perched beside him.
“Professor Dumbledore.
I heard you wanted to see me?” Will took the seat across from him without hesitation, nothing to hide, no Occlumency raised.
Not that he couldn’t have managed it.
His Occlumency had come along reasonably well, but he doubted it would hold up against someone of Dumbledore’s skill in Legilimency.
His system, meanwhile, stayed as unresponsive as ever, tracking his experience gains and offering nothing else, no warnings, no advice.
He hadn’t done anything he considered wrong, and had no plans to start.
Better to sit here honestly than throw up mental walls out of guilt he didn’t actually feel.
Besides, what eleven-year-old practicing Occlumency in front of Dumbledore wouldn’t look more suspicious for the effort, not less?
“No need to be so formal.
Chocolate cake?” Dumbledore gestured toward a plate on the desk.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Will helped himself without ceremony.
“This is good.
A bit of sugar does wonders for the mood.”
“Ah, yes.
What the Muggles call dopamine, I believe.”
“You read Muggle science, Professor?” Will asked, genuinely caught off guard.
“Of course.
Muggles never stop improving on themselves, it’s rather remarkable to watch.
Don’t mistake me for some relic stuck in old ways, Mr.
Behrens.
I try to keep pace with the times, wizarding and otherwise.
Students didn’t always take a train to school, you know.”
“Is that so.
Sounds like the wizarding world’s actually moved forward, then.” Will kept his tone politely doubtful.
Everything he’d read and seen so far painted a very different picture: a society that looked down on Muggles, resisted change at every turn, and preferred to stay exactly as it was.
As for the train, pure-blood families had pushed back hard against modernizing it at the time, and it had taken Dumbledore personally stepping in before anyone stopped arguing.
The Ministry’s progressed?
Sounds more like Dumbledore’s the one who’s progressed, and everyone else just got dragged along behind him.
“Settling in well, at Hogwarts?” Dumbledore poured him a cup of steaming black tea.
“Getting there.
It’s more comfortable than home, honestly.”
“Ah.
Home.” Something flickered behind Dumbledore’s eyes.
“Filius mentioned you to me.
Quite the talented young man, from what he says.
There’s no rush, you know.
Plenty of time ahead of you.
At your age, I hadn’t read a fraction of what you clearly have.
Make some friends.
Enjoy the years while you’re here.
Buried too deep in books and spellwork, and you risk missing a great deal else.
Spend some time with your classmates, when you can.”
It clicked for Will then, why Dumbledore had called him in at all.
Somewhere in him, the old man probably saw a flicker of Tom Riddle.
The orphan.
The boy nobody wanted to name.
The one who became the Dark Lord.
Could anyone really blame him for wanting a bit of peace, though?
If Dumbledore had dealt with the noseless bastard properly, years ago, before things spiraled, Will might genuinely be able to relax right now.
But he knew exactly how this story ended without intervention: Voldemort seizing control of Hogwarts itself, countless deaths stacking up before Harry Potter finally put an end to it.
Sitting back and enjoying his tea sounded like an excellent way to get himself killed.
“Professor, I love reading.
I love learning magic.
Every new thing I understand brings me real satisfaction, real joy.
All I want is to keep learning, keep exploring.
I do have friends, and I value them.
As for the others, well.
If they’d stop calling me a Mudblood long enough, I’d probably enjoy their company just fine.”
Dumbledore paused, then smiled and shook his head.
“Everyone insists I’m the greatest headmaster this school’s ever had, and yet when it comes to actually teaching, Professor McGonagall runs circles around me.
Don’t laugh, but I still haven’t quite worked out how to reach students as gifted as you.”
“You’re a fine educator, Professor.” Will reached for another slice of cake, leaving only half the plate remaining.
“Kind of you to say.
Though I confess, I worry constantly.
That acting too much might steer a student wrong.
That doing too little might let them wander somewhere far worse.” Dumbledore’s voice carried unusual weight as he spoke.
“There was once a gifted young wizard, born into rather humble circumstances, sorted into Slytherin.
He proved himself quickly, brilliant grades, tireless studying.
Polished manners besides, humble, well-spoken, the kind of student every professor trusted instinctively.
He built quite a following in no time.
Had I recognized what lay underneath sooner, I might have spared this world a great deal of suffering.”
“You mean Voldemort.”
“Ah, Will.
That takes real nerve.
Very few wizards will even say his name aloud.”
“I can afford the nerve, sitting across from the strongest wizard alive.”
“Voldemort held a kind of power I never possessed myself.” Dumbledore picked up another slice of cake, considering it.
“Whatever most people believe.”
He handed the piece across to Will.
“When he was a student here, he seemed courteous.
Brilliant, even. Get faster updates on g.com.
We only understood later how carefully constructed that image really was.”
“I do worry about you, my boy.”
“Because I remind you of him?”
“No.
You’re quite different, in the ways that matter most.
You don’t hide what you love or what you can’t stand.
You care for people, genuinely, and you have real friends who care for you in return.
If anything, you strike me as his opposite in most ways that count.
What worries me is different, that power itself might pull you somewhere you didn’t intend to go, that the pursuit of magic might swallow something else in you along the way.” A note of real concern colored his voice.
“Promise me something, child.
Don’t reach for dark magic too soon, or treat it too lightly.
It leaves marks, on the mind as much as anything else.”
“You’re not going to stop me from encountering it at all?”
“I couldn’t, even if I tried.
You’ll cross paths with it eventually, one way or another.
The best I can offer is a word of caution before you do.”
Will studied Dumbledore for a long moment, genuinely surprised.
“Thank you, Professor.”
Something had clearly shifted in how the old wizard viewed him.
“Go get some rest.
Enjoy your weekend, while you can.” Dumbledore popped the final bite of cake into his mouth and walked Will to the door.
Once he’d gone, Dumbledore’s gaze drifted toward the Sorting Hat.
“Well, old friend.
Care to share your thoughts on young Mr.
Behrens?”
“A rude little wizard,” the Hat said, clearly still smarting.
“He called me a filthy, stiff old thing, straight to my face.”
“Sounds like honesty, to me.” Dumbledore smiled.
He rather liked that quality in the boy, nothing hidden, nothing performed.
“Albus, he called me filthy because no one’s bothered cleaning me in years,” the Hat sniffed.
“As for the boy himself, he’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous, how?”
“He’s the type who chases knowledge for its own sake, and there’s real ambition underneath that hunger.
Left without guidance, a mind like his can end up somewhere very dark indeed.
Think of what became of men like Helbo.
Or Luther, and his descent into madness.
Both started exactly where this boy stands now.” The Hat offered its examples with clear unease.
Dumbledore said nothing for a long while, lost in thought.
The Hat pressed on.
“And another thing.
He wanted Hufflepuff, if you can believe it.
Absurd notion.
Nothing about that boy belongs in Hufflepuff.
I couldn’t have placed him there if I’d tried.
He was born for Slytherin, Albus.
No question about it.”
Dumbledore sighed quietly, still turning something over in his mind.