The Ministry of Magic gave Dumbledore nearly two weeks in which to gather his thoughts, deal with the uproar in his school, and try to make sense out of the disappearance of the students–now totaling five–who had simply walked away from Hogwarts and not come back. Despite this disturbing happening, Dumbledore was ready to speak with an Auror about the strange incident involving Anir and the unnamed baby by the time the Auror arrived on a Friday night after supper.
“Good evening, sir,” the Auror said, scanning Dumbledore’s office from the door. He was a fairly young man, thin, fit, with longish dark hair, penetrating dark eyes, and a catlike grace, evident as he crossed the room silently to shake hands with Dumbledore. Then he shook his dark hair out of his eyes and gave Dumbledore a grin–a familiar grin, a familiar, in a handsome face with noticeable cheekbones to go with those dark eyes of his.
“Alastor Moody!” Dumbledore laughed aloud. “To think I’d see the day when Alastor Moody came to question me about odd happenings!”
Moody threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, the good old days, sir–how we miss them. Anybody other than me ever figure out how to suspend Peeves upside-down from the ceiling of the Potions classroom?”
“Nobody. And Horace Slughorn would still like to nail you to the wall over that.”
“Ah, well. It was a nice little good-bye gift for him.” Moody sat down, uninvited, in the same chair he’d sat in as a student, when he’d been sent to Dumbledore, who had still been the deputy headmaster at that time.
“Which of them was the gift for? Professor Slughorn or Peeves?”
Moody laughed. “Either!” He made a swift face. “Well, Slughorn, actually. I couldn’t figure out how to keep Peeves from causing trouble while he was stuck up there. And Peeves was already in the room to start with; he would have done some form of mischief anyway.”
“Yes, but I doubt he would have had the time or inclination to meld every cauldron in the room together in one unholy mass of pewter.” Dumbledore chuckled and wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “You have no idea what it cost me to remain stern through that last lecture to you. And so you made it all the way through Auror training.”
“Yes, sir.” Moody let out a sigh. “And I suppose I ought to jump right in and ask you what happened that night about two weeks ago at Melinda Douglas’s wedding. Though how she got old enough to be married is beyond me–but is also beside the point.” Moody gave Dumbledore a small, sour smile. “So. What happened?”
It took Dumbledore over an hour to explain what he’d seen, but every question Moody asked was pertinent to the situation. Moody wrote every detail in his notebook, including the expressions on Stella Marie’s and Henry’s faces, the cherubs and their supply of flowers, and the silly white bonnet on the baby’s head. Moody nodded sharply at each point.
Finally, Moody tossed his note pad onto the corner of Dumbledore’s desk. “Good. All right, we’ve got the details. Now, of course, I need to ask you what you know about the old codger.”
“Anir?”
“That’s the one. To start with, do you know his last name?”
“No.” Dumbledore shook his head slowly. “I don’t. I’ve seen him now and again, Moody, but I know very little about him.”
“Never a student here?”
“No.”
“Would you remember if he was? I know you’ve been here a long time, but he’s not exactly young.”
“If I didn’t remember him, I’d have heard of him from Professor Kelderwin, who, during my first year at Hogwarts, gave me a thorough description of every single student she had ever taught.” Dumbledore made a swift face. He had tried to think of those long sessions of listening to the aged Ernestine Kelderwin as simply filling him in on details he might otherwise never have known. “I know little of Anir other than that I have seen him coming out of Knockturn Alley once or twice.”
“He wouldn’t, for instance, have attended here at the same time as... ah... well, they’re starting to refer to him at the Ministry as You-Know-Who.”
Ah. So it came down to Tom Riddle again. “No. I was teaching here when Tom Riddle was a student at Hogwarts. Anir was nowhere about. He never has been.”
Moody looked soberly across the top of the desk at Dumbledore. “We have discovered that anywhere this Anir has been, You-Know-Who has been close by. Somebody gets killed–Anir’s in the area. Somebody’s under the Imperious curse–Anir’s around. Any idea why Anir was at this wedding?”
“He said the girl was related to him.”
Moody raised one eyebrow. “But which girl?”
Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. “As we already discussed at length...”
“I know. But it would be nice if we were sure.”
“... he didn’t specify which girl.” Dumbledore sighed. “It could have been Melinda Douglas. That would have been the most logical. Or it could have been Stella Marie Douglas, or Endby, as she’s now known. He must have been looking our direction to have seen more than just Henry marching out the door with the baby in tow.”
“Or it could have been the baby itself,” Moody mused, “if it’s actually a changeling.”
“So you see that as a possibility.” Dumbledore kept his voice even.
Moody turned dark eyes, troubled eyes, back to Dumbledore. “Oh, yes.” He nodded slowly. “Yes, I see that as a possibility. Perhaps Anir was checking to see if the little changeling he left was being cared for.”
“Yet that is mere speculation. This leads me to ask why Anir would care what happened to the child if he was the one who performed a switch. Somebody following Tom Riddle–or Lord Voldemort, as he prefers to be called–would not be likely to care about the fate of an infant he simply dropped into place so the parents wouldn’t know their child was stolen.”
Moody nodded. “Makes no sense. You’re right, of course. And if You-Know-Who needed an infant, for whatever the reason, why even leave a changeling? Who cares if the parents find out their child has been snatched?” He scratched absently at his nose. “And if the baby Anir stole at the wedding was actually Sarameau, this business of a changeling could be nothing other than somebody realizing they had a Sarameau kid and wanted a baby who would live to be an adult. Walk into a house with a baby, drop one in the cradle, take the other one out.”
“You know about the Sarameau, then.”
“Oh, yeah.” Moody rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah, I sure do. I have been learning more about the Sarameau than I even wanted to know. I have read every single case I could lay hands on, all the way back to 1674 when little Doramene Brown disappeared right after her brother pushed her into the newly-plowed kitchen garden. Everybody seems to have said just about the same thing about why Sarameau disappear. The Sarameau kid gets really angry and whoever is with them ets scared and runs away, and nobody ever sees the Sarameau kid again. Or the Sarameau kid gets upset about something and walks away, and somebody finds a bunch of blood out in the woods or somewhere. No body lying around–just blood. Either way, that would be the end of that kid.”
“Yes.” Dumbledore leaned his head on his hands. “So that would be the end.”
“Kind of odd.”
Dumbledore turned his eyes briefly to the window of his office before looking back at Moody. “Very odd. There are hints, even in very ancient runes, that the Sarameau existed, one way or another, all the way through history. Some of the oldest Egyptian writings...”
Moody chuckled. “Can’t be proved, though. It could have been about somebody’s murder plan gone awry. Remember, I took Ancient Runes.”
“And barely passed your OWL in it, as I remember.”
“Your memory is too good.” Moody grinned and picked up his notebook. “Well, I think I’ve picked over your memory so well, even my boss will be mollified, if not pleased. I’ll keep my ear to the ground about this Anir. But I have a bad feeling I’m not going to catch him. And that makes me uneasy, professor–more than I can say. Anything I do know about Anir and his abilities tells me that You-Know-Who would have wanted him on his side, and badly. What I can’t figure out is what You-Know-Who would want with a squalling baby. Does he eat them?”
Dumbledore winced. “Alastor, that is no joking matter, whether it’s true or not.”
Moody shrugged. “Sorry. I just can’t help but wonder. Maybe there’s some kind of potion that requires ground up...” Moody met Dumbledore’s eyes, then faltered to silence.
“You need to develop a softer heart, Alastor,” Dumbledore said quietly. “Abrasive coldness will isolate you.”
Moody raised both eyebrows, but he did not reply, which Dumbledore was thankful for.
“Well, at any rate, I’ll keep studying this Anir fellow. The one follower of You-Know-Who that we’ve got in Azkaban has been spouting off about the Dark Lord’s most powerful assistant, who can unravel the most ancient mysteries of magic, even more easily than You-Know-Who himself can. And this prisoner said the fellow’s name is Anir. No last name. But this miserable little scrap of wizardry assured us that this Anir would make us quake in our boots.” Moody considered for a moment, tipping his head to one side. His dark eyes flashed humorously. “Well, those weren’t his exact words, but I don’t feel comfortable using foul language before you, sir, even in my professional capacity as an Auror. But you get the general idea. I don’t want to go Anir-hunting without knowing as much about him as I can, in case he’s that powerful. Well,” Moody rocked to his feet and grinned down at Dumbledore, dark eyes sparkling, “I’ll be off. I might have to come back and ask you a few more questions, anyway.”
“Let me know if you find anything. I would rest easier knowing the child is safe.”
“If it makes you feel better, yes, I will, sir.” Moody laughed. “Myself, I don’t get too emotionally involved in my cases, child or no child.”
Dumbledore let a slight smile escape him. “You may change in time, Alastor.”
“No.” Moody shook his head emphatically. “Not me. I’m not changing. Take this kid, for instance. I’m sorry she got abducted, and I’m sorry if she gets killed, but I don’t let it keep me awake at night. Things start keeping you awake at night, you might as well quit the Auror job and take up knitting.”
“You may change in time, Alastor,” Dumbledore said again. “You may change.”
Moody gave Dumbledore a startled look this time. “Right. Well, I’d better be off, sir. Duty calls.”
“Come back and we’ll go over to the Three Broomsticks,” Dumbledore invited as he stood up. “You can tell me about your thrilling life as an Auror, and I can tell you about my equally exciting life as a headmaster.”
Moody laughed, shook Dumbledore’s hand, and strode briskly out of the office.
Dumbledore listened as Moody’s footsteps went quietly down the revolving staircase, then as the door below clicked softly shut. He waited, calculating how long it would take Moody to walk the length of the corridor his office was located on, then down the stairs... yes, he would be well down the stairs now. Still Dumbledore stood in the doorway of his office, listening. The silence spread itself over his office, steadily, completely.
Perhaps fifteen minutes, or maybe more, had passed without sound to break Dumbledore’s concentration when he heard it–a tiny sound, like the complaint of a small animal. Then a whispered word, and Dumbledore clearly heard a slight scrape as the gargoyle that guarded his office sliped aside. Even to his finely-attuned ear, the footstep on the stairs was light, and so quiet that most people would have heard no sound. But Dumbledore had expected another visitor, and since Moody had been in his office, he knew the other would not be far behind.
What Dumbledore did not yet know was whether the man who paused just outside his office door meant to kill the headmaster of Hogwarts or explain why he had inexplicably stepped into the light.
“Come in,” Dumbledore said quietly.
The door opened, and Anir stood silhouetted, lit from behind by the torch in the sconce behind him in the entryway. He was a tall man, taller than Dumbledore himself, and his face bore the marks of years, decades, of thought, of patience, and of cunning–yes, cunning.
But in one hand, Anir held a wicker basket, and from that basket came the unmistakable sound of an infant who had just awakened and realized she was hungry.
“How have you been managing these two weeks?” Dumbledore asked, beckoning Anir forward. “I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience in caring for a baby.”
“None, except what I have learned these past two weeks.” Anir smiled slightly as he shut the door. The light behind him was cut off abruptly, allowing the softer light of Dumbledore’s office to illuminate his face, showing the dark circles under his eyes as well as the lines of age. “But the world changes, and if we are wise we must change with it. Two weeks ago, I realized that I held knowledge, but no wisdom.
“And now you hold knowledge and a small human with unending needs. Do you find wisdom there?” Dumbledore asked, gesturing for Anir to take the chair Moody had recently vacated.
“I do.” Anir set the basket down near the chair, sat, then rummaged in the basket for a moment. When he straightened up, he held a baby bottle and the beautiful baby girl he had stolen from Henry. Without shame or comment, he proceeded to feed the awakening infant, pausing only to draw his wand and prod the bottle with it once. “I keep the milk cold, but she can’t drink it that way.” Anir made a sour face. “Goat’s milk. I found I must put a warming spell on it before she can drink it. I could use a steadier supply of milk, though. I don’t want to steal anything, even a goat, since I’ve turned over a fresh leaf.”
“I’ll check around and see if I can procure a milking goat for you.” Dumbledore smiled down at the baby. “She’s grown more beautiful. Or perhaps I had simply forgotten how lovely she is in these two weeks since I have seen her last.”
“No, I think she’s growing more beautiful, and I don’t know if it’s because that is what happens with babies or because she is becoming more strongly Sarameau. I have never read of any child showing Sarameau traits so young.” Anir looked down at the infant in his lap, then sighed. “But then, every Sarameau cannot have been noted in historical documents.”
“Nor has every historical document been translated,” Dumbledore pointed out.
“Nor has every historical document survived intact to our day.” Anir made another wry face, then smiled down at the baby. “But I shall proceed without historical precedent and raise this child, Albus Dumbledore. I believe I know the answer. I knew it when that young man rejected this child. I knew it when I heard you say it. She must grow up loved. And so it falls to me to love her.”
“That is the only possible way,” Dumbledore agreed, watching as the baby finished the last of the bottle, then looked around her and let out a protest.
Anir looked down at the fussy baby on his lap. “This is different than anything I have ever done before. Never have I found myself with an opportunity to do so much good.” Anir smiled slightly at the infant, a slow, tender smile. “She needs me,” he said softly. “No-one else ever has.”
“What have you named her?” Dumbledore asked.
Anir gave Dumbledore a long, slightly amused look. “Strange you should ask. I have called her several different names, and none of them seem right. What name did they give to this infant, these parents who did not want her?”
“They hadn’t given her a name. Henry told me that. They wouldn’t give her a name because they were sure she was a changeling.”
Anir looked down at the baby in his lap, and the baby looked back up at him, the tears in her vivid blue eyes amplifying the blueness. “They gave her no name?”
“None. You name her.”
Anir frowned, then shook his head. “I will try to find a name that fits, but a name is ancient magic, Albus Dumbledore.”
Something within Dumbledore jolted. “Ancient magic?”
“Yes. The Sarameau... always since there has been magic, there have been Sarameau.”
Dumbledore felt his heart thud hard. “I am aware the Sarameau are ancient.”
“To name such a child is to name the soul. If the time passes to name, some...” Anir sighed, wiped the tears gently off the baby’s face, and looked solemnly up at Dumbledore, “... some must learn to live without a name. That is all. She will live, but it is no easy thing, this, to be without a name.”
Dumbledore looked at the child who now lay peacefully in Anir’s lap. A child without a name. Henry and Stella Marie had deprived the baby of a most basic gift. “So. She’s a child without a name, and she’s Sarameau. She is magical, then.”
“I have no doubt. She will be magical.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Nameless or not, I will accept her at my school when she is of an age to attend.”
Anir’s eyes flew wide. “Albus Dumbledore, you must understand she is Sarameau.”
“I understand that.”
“This is no easy thing. No Sarameau has ever been allowed to attend a school. If they show what they are, always they are thrown from schools.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“You will be harshly criticized for taking this child in your school.”
“I’m well aware of that, too. I have been harshly criticized often. I don’t expect that to end.”
Anir regarded Dumbledore steadily, intently. Then, without breaking eye contact, Anir nodded. A faint smile eased over his features. “I see your strength. You will take her in, and you will ease my mind. You know I cannot hide from him always.”
“No,” Dumbledore agreed quietly. “I realize that. You may have many years...”
“I may, but not forever. I am old.” Anir wrinkled his nose briefly. “Not so old I cannot raise this child, but beyond that I cannot say. Some day, he will catch up to me. My reflexes grow slower.”
“They do, with age.”
Anir rose. “I must leave. To stay here is a danger, to you and me both, and to this child.” Anir tucked the baby back into her basket. He bowed slightly to Dumbledore. “Good bye.” Then as quietly as he had come, Anir left, taking basket and infant with him. Dumbledore listened while the spiral staircase rotated, delivering the extraordinary man and his infant charge down to the bottom. “Good bye, Anir. And good bye, for now, child without a name.”
Changeling by Spottedcat
Chapter Notes: Dumbledore has two visits in one evening.