The usual paper. The usual ink. The usual quill. The blotter on his desk here, the aged, ageless desk which had never carried so important a missive in all of its existence, the blotter he’d been given when he took the job, with its plain, Muggle blotting paper and the red leather corners, the lump of brick from the building where he’d finished Grindelwald that he used as a paperweight to remind him of so many important things that had nothing to do with glory or renown, the desk itself, loomed large and clear in his sight, as if there were something in the air magnfiying and clarifying what he saw.
I must strike just the right note. I must persuade. Persuade, and not coerce “ coercion will be futile. He glanced at the bit of brick. No, I’m not above coercion, but it will not serve.
No, he would not use the usual ink. The usual ink was magical. This had to be “ non-magical. She could not feel he was using magic against her. She had to know that she was free to choose, to accept or reject “ had to understand that it was not only her choice, but her responsibility. If she refused, and the boy was killed…
She is worthy of many things. She would do much to maintain that façade. Much. But would she enable murder? She is probably above murdering, herself, even to preserve her precious bubble. Above, or perhaps beneath? Quite possibly there is nothing she would consider worthy of that level of risk? Exertion? Something…. He turned his mind resolutely back to small, practical matters.
The usual paper? His usual paper was thin, onion-skin, the old-fashioned airmail letter paper--better for the owls, he thought. It should have substance. It should be impossible to ignore. And it should not remind her of telegrams. Young as she is, Muggles, and telegrams…
He had to think of her as a Muggle. Indeed, in the face of her sister’s growing magical knowledge she had clung more and more tightly to her Muggleness. He sighed. There ought to be a different words for people who, having no magic, wished they did and those who wanted magic destroyed altogether. Petunia was the second sort, and yet, he must ask her help.
That was the problem with the good paper. It was the Hogwarts stationary. It was the Hogwarts Letter paper. It would not be the first such that she had ever seen. Would that work in his favor, or against it? Probably against it. Still, important Muggles write on this sort of paper as well. The thickness, the weight, the slight tooth to the linen-weave paper, the creamy color implied not modern offices but grand houses, country estates and traditional appointments to the Royal Family. It would, at any rate, impress her husband.
The blue merino of his cuff, folded back at the wrist almost to the elbow for better writing and better thinking, looped in what looked like a smile as he laid his arm back down on the dark wood, cool where his arm had not lain moments earlier, warm where it had. Phineus Nigellus, he saw, as he turned his head and glanced over his shoulder, had slunk off to his portrait in Grimmauld Place, or some other corner perhaps, to digest the news. He felt a considerable weight settle on his left shoulder, feathers brushing against his cheek.
“Am I that obvious, Fawkes?” he said, reaching up to run his fingers through the bird’s feathers. He sighed. “And he’s a lovely little child, too. So happy!” He recalled handing the boy his birthday present, a cloth ball, made from a bit of one of his old robes, with one of Fawkes’ feathers inside. It rolled back to the baby of its own accord. He couldn’t even have that, poor child. To lose a mother like Lily, a father like James, a…
Molly Weasley would take him in an instant, or Alice Longbottom, or Amos Diggory, or “ the list went on in his mind, former students, Order Members or the sort of people who easily would be, people with children he could have as siblings, almost: people who would understand and be delighted by his magic. People who would spoil him. People who couldn’t protect him. He looked around his own office. Oh, he could bring the child here, but even here there would be risks.
"It may yet come to that, Fawkes, if I do not succeed. But I must succeed. It is his best chance. They do not, I believe, know of this magic, and thus they will not know to simply kill her and her son. They will attribute all to me.” He grimaced wryly, and the bird rustled on his shoulder.
“Fawkes, there are occasions when it does indeed pay to be a legend in one’s own time; no matter how tedious it is generally.” The late autumn sun was already slanting in on the corner of the desk “ it caught just the one fold at the wrist of his robes. This could not be delayed any longer. Silently, he stared at the paper.
A cough and a snide voice, speaking from the portrait at the corner of his eye, accosted him. Phineus had returned.
“It is unlike you to be so silent, Dumbledore. Normally you would be entertaining us all with the task before you. Why so glum?”
“It is unlike you to care, Phineas Nigellus, what I do. Were you hoping to be of help, or is this something else entirely,” the headmaster replied without looking at the frame.
“There are rumors, Dumbledore, which concern my family and the honor of the most noble house of Black, however low it may have fallen in recent years,” the snide voice continued. “Naturally I…”
“I am sorry, Phineas,” the headmaster replied in a tired voice. “I cannot know which rumors you have heard, but I presume you refer to the implication that Sirius Black has betrayed,” he began, but the portrait cut him off.
“Yes, Dumbledore. Those rumours. The rest seem, at the moment, secondary to that. Yes, I do find it surprising myself. But the boy is my blood.” Phineas Nigellus or, rather, whatever of Phineus Nigellus resided in his portrait identity seemed genuinely confused at his own interest in the rogue Bludger of a Black who had sorted Gryffindor and now “
“I am sorry, Phineas. Those rumors are true. I know him to have been the Secret Keeper.”
He could say no more. He never would have thought that. He was shocked, as shocked as anyone, and perhaps more than most, despite his age and all the experience it implied, that Sirius Black, of all people, had betrayed Lily, and James, and Harry, of all people. “Perhaps Blood told in the end, Phineas. Perhaps, in the end, he was as Slytherin as the rest of you, could not bear to …” Dumbledore did not finish.
“Blood means a great deal, Dumbledore. But for all my own I taught Mudbloods and purebloods alike.” The portrait went on, with apparent difficulty.
“I had always thought that odd, Phineus. I must admit I had assumed it was outside pressure.” He said, glad for the respite from his task and yet aware that it could not be a long one. The second fold on the sleeve of his wand arm was beginning to brighten with the rays of the setting sun. It raked across the wooden surface. Oak, he thought, although the wood was old and blackened and it was difficult to tell. Good old unyielding British Oak “ not flexible willow. Maybe Sirius had been too flexible. Quite possibly Petunia was not flexible enough.
“I felt it was in my own best self-interest, Dumbledore. Why else would I have done it?”
Dumbledore sighed, wondering if that were the precise truth, but loath to discuss it at that moment. “Spoken like a true Slytherin, Phineas,” he said, “but it does not answer my questions “ neither the one I have asked, nor the one to which I am attempting to address myself.” He was, despite a bit of pique, courteous. One should always be courteous. If one can not even manage civil manners… With long practice, he reigned in his irritation.
Well, in that much, at least, she and I are alike. I may have a certain control over my emotions, at times when they rub highly but it is matched by hers. I can hardly begin the letter by reminding her forcefully that here is something she has no control over at all.
“Dear Mrs. Ve” “ no, he crossed it out, He would not let her hide under that corpulent pile of Muggle flesh.
“Dear Petunia,”
How to best explain? She would not want her time wasted. He dipped the pen in his ink and wrote ten words, firmly. Then he read them over, and crossed them out.
He felt Fawkes nuzzling the base of his neck. “I am that upset, am I?” he asked the phoenix. “I should know you sense it better than I do myself. But I must stop wasting time. Still, I can take a report from Everard…where is he?”
As if in answer, a puffing wizard appeared in the frame directly across the room, sinking into his chair and taking a bit of water from a glass on the table next to him in his portrait before speaking. “It is as you suspected, Dumbledore “ they might as well all be drunk, the ones who are, and the ones who aren’t, as well. There is not a word of sense anywhere, and those who have them know better than to drop them on deaf ears. But nothing is really out of hand, at the Ministry or here, either. Dillys is down there supervising that girl who likes to help in the hospital wing, while Madam Pomfrey takes care of the Broomstick injuries. She’s in a taking, but nothing is beyond her means to deal with it, and Alastor Moody is still checking identification on anyone who shows up claiming to be a parent. He’s got Argus Filch helping him. I wouldn’t want to be the miscreant facing those two. No, things are settled enough, for all the frivolity.”
Dumbledore smiled and nodded. “And have I thanked you yet this week for that summer job you had at the Hog’s Head, the one where a patron drew that sketch of you in return for his dinner?” he asked, knowingly.
Everard glared. “Only twice. And everything is fine with Aberforth. Said specifically if things get out hand he will Floo your office. But you won’t be here, will you?” he returned slyly. “I’ll pop back and tell him to Floo to Hagrid instead, then, if he needs someone. No, not Hagrid either? Well, good, then, for once he’s on his own. Let him call the authorities if he needs to. Serve him right for letting the place go to rack and ruin.”
“Everard?” The question caught the fleeing wizard before he reached the frame of his picture, and something in Dumbledore’s tone led him to retrace his steps and sit once more in his chair.
“Can I help you, Headmaster?” he asked courteously.
“I am trying to write a letter. I am finding it difficult. She won’t want to take him,” Dumbldore said to the knowing portrait.
“It isn’t the first time a child’s life has been in your hands, Albus,” the former headmaster pointed out, not unkindly.
“No, it is not. I would like, however, to save this one.” He picked up the quill from the dark desk surface, running it through his fingers as if it were the fletching on an arrow, straightening and neatening the plane of the fins.
Everard sighed, replying “There is only so much you can do, Albus. You know that. It is the blessing and curse of humanity.”
“I don’t think, “ Dumbledore began, but he was not allowed to finish.
“Nor do I. But what would you tell me, if our positions were reversed.” The man in the portrait tilted his head slightly to one side.
Dumbledore barked a short laugh. “Yes, quite. Well, thank you, anyway.
He stared back at his desk, picking up a clean piece of paper and placing it squarely on the blotter, the sun already up his arm almost to the elbow, the bird on his shoulder heavy and a bit restless.
“Muggle ink, good thick paper and the usual quill, then, Fawkes.” He began, but there was a *pop* and a long, curved red-gold feather sat across the paper in front of him. He smiled, almost chuckled. “Not quite the usual pen then, you crafty bird. Phoenix feathers have no known magical properties as quills.”
If the bird knew any different he gave no sign as Dumbledore sharpened the quill with a word and his wand, picked it up, and dipped it into the ink decisively.
“Dear Petunia…”