fpb | Harry Potter and the coming of Athena

The time was passing, and Harry was on tenterhooks. While desperately eager to see Dumbledore, he had a built-in fear – the result of decades of disappointment and abuse – that, for whatever reason, he would not come. As a result, when the knock came on the door – and his heart seemed to jump into his mouth – he was in no condition to pay attention to the details of the wizard’s appearance. And as he watched, and tried hard not to laugh, the old sage steam-roller the Dursleys with a hilarious mixture of urbanity and steel, it was unavoidable that his attention should focus on the words. The polite way in which Albus Dumbledore – the closest thing he had ever known to a father, not excluding poor Sirius – was delivering home truth after home truth to the pair whose neglect and cruelty had blighted his life was, to Harry, one of the greatest moments of his life; one he would remember in years to come, hugging it to himself like a warm blanket, drawing layer after layer of meaning from it. One day, for instance, he would remember, and marvel, at how easily moral righteousness had sat on the headmaster; how the words “you did not do as I asked” sounded like an absolute condemnation – as if he knew that he had a right to ask and be complied with. And Harry would then find himself wondering whether the authority came with the man, or the situation; whether it was because it was this man who asked, or because what he asked was so eminently just and right in itself. Maybe, he would conclude, it was both; because what such a man as Albus Dumbledore would ask of others would always be just and right, something worth doing in itself – but twice worth doing, because he rather than anyone else had asked for it.

This is what would happen years after, when an older and more experienced Harry looked back on one of his favourite memories; at present, he only knew the keen delight of truth told to the face of people who had avoided it for so long, but who could neither now avoid it nor shout it down. The very opening of the conversation – “I do not mean to be rude” – “Yet unfortunately such things do happen” – had filled him almost to bursting-point with glee; and as he watched Dumbledore toying with the Dursleys as he had often ached to do, and never dared, he could hardly bring himself to move his eyes, lest he missed something. Even the revelation that he was Sirius’ legal heir, adding a second fortune to that which already awaited him from his parents, did not really gain his attention; it was so much less important – or at least significant – than to watch Vernon and Petunia put in their places – consistently, relentlessly, and with a polish to which there was no answer.

That is why, at first, he did not notice the startling change in his mentor. When Dumbledore drew his wand, Harry had a passing sense that something was not quite right; but as Madame Rosmerta’s mead appeared, his attention was drawn to the drink and the Dursleys. Then there was the luggage to be made ready – Sirius’ last will to be discussed – and the startling appearance of Kreacher, who was himself more than enough to draw anyone’s attention. And when Harry found, in answer to a direct command, that Kreacher was forced to be silent at his order, his attention was still divided between the raging house-elf and the horrified face of his aunt, clearly thinking of Kreacher’s dirt on her nice floor. And that, too, was a delightful thought in itself.

So it was only when the conversation was wholly over, and Dumbledore had banished the glasses of mead that had been playing so much havoc with the Dursleys, that Harry had time to properly contemplate his mentor. Even so, his mind was still chasing the wisps of their absurdity; as, for instance, with a growing certainty that they would soon convince themselves that they had done well not to drink the mead after all. (Who knows what that crazy wizard could have put in it!) And Dumbledore had become, in the last five years, so familiar a figure, that Harry did not expect any important change in his appearance.

Later, looking back, he would be glad of that. He would be glad that he had not noticed the huge and sinister change in his mentor. If he had noticed in the Dursleys’ house, as he had not, he could not have helped showing his shock. He could not have helped letting some fear, some distrust, show; and God knows what the Dursleys would have thought or done then. But it was only as they were preparing to apparate away from Privet Drive that his eyes fell on Dumbledore’s wand arm and took it in consciously; and a sense of horrified surprise seized him. For what he saw he had only seen once before – and seen it as it was made, in the most horrifying circumstances imaginable. He had seen it given as a cruel gift to one of the worst and most treacherous people he knew, the man who had sent his own parents to their deaths.

Someone else might have considered it pretty; to Harry, it was horrifying beyond belief. And yet, he could not take his eyes away from the sight. From his fingertips almost to his elbow, Dumbledore’s right arm was no longer flesh – but pure, enchanted, shining sterling silver.