'I need all of the Deathly Hallows.'
Dumbledore studied Bryan's composed expression carefully, his eyelids were stirring faintly with some private consideration.
That particular way of putting it was, extremely interesting phrasing, whether or not Bryan himself had chosen it intentionally.
Throughout history, countless witches and wizards had sought to possess all three Deathly Hallows together—including, in their own younger, more reckless days, both himself and Gellert.
And those who sought after the Hallows had been driven, without exception, by simple ambition—infatuated purely with the sheer power the Hallows collectively held, the promise of mastery over death.
They had, always, only ever wanted to possess the Hallows, to hold that power in their own hands. But Bryan was different. He'd said that he needed them.
Dumbledore recognised in an instant that some secret lay hidden behind that peculiar word choice.
"Oh, don't worry yourself, Headmaster Dumbledore—"
Bryan caught the flicker of hesitation passing visibly through Dumbledore's eyes and smiled in response.
"I have no intention of taking the Elder Wand from you the way tradition claims it must properly change hands. It's only that, perhaps someday, I might ask to borrow it from you—but I would, naturally, give it back to you afterward without any complication."
Dumbledore smiled at that reassurance, turning the Elder Wand over slowly in his own palm as he considered it.
"Of course, that's no trouble at all, Bryan. In fact, if I'm honest, I've already given serious thought to who this particular wand ought properly to belong to, after I eventually die."
Bryan raised one eyebrow at that, his own interest was visibly piqued.
"And your answer to that question, Headmaster Dumbledore?"
"Oh, that's quite hard to say with any certainty—"
Dumbledore went on smiling as he rose and walked slowly back toward the dilapidated Gaunt house, returning to the spot where he and Bryan had shared their wine together just before.
"But you are indeed among those I've seriously considered for it, Bryan. Everything that's happened to you across these past years is proof enough of the suitability—you hunger for power, certainly, as any capable wizard does, but you don't abuse it once you have it.
Or rather, put more precisely: your wise mind governs your power, rather than the reverse. The wand wouldn't lead someone like you into losing control of yourself, the way it has led so many others before."
The two men settled themselves back down together on both side of the low wooden table, gazing out at the silent, restored old house standing before them in the moonlight.
"So, I'm merely one candidate among others, then?"
"Oh, well—Harry isn't a bad choice either, when I consider it properly—"
Dumbledore said lightly.
"You helped him understand that wanting a measure of power for himself isn't something to be ashamed of, and in the end, I believe his own natural kindness will keep his actions properly in check regardless of how much power he eventually holds."
"Is that so?"
Bryan said, smiling faintly at the observation.
"And here I'd always privately suspected you worried I might lead him down some wrong path, given my own particular reputation."
Dumbledore gave a weathered, knowing smile in response but offered no further explanation, only gazed at the old house before them with a complicated expression.
"The seventh one."
Bryan said it almost in passing, dropped casually into the silence between them, and Dumbledore nodded in acknowledgment.
Ravenclaw's diadem had been personally destroyed by Bryan back during his own school years, in circumstances neither man needed to revisit tonight.
Riddle's diary had been eliminated shortly after Bryan's return to Hogwarts, in that first eventful year. He had also, separately, destroyed the locket left behind by Slytherin, and as for Hufflepuff's cup—that Horcrux had been cleared away during the long-planned, costly Battle of Diagon Alley.
Tonight, in this same forgotten clearing, Voldemort had lost yet another Horcrux to the two of them.
And as for the remaining two Horcruxes—the ones both men already knew about—the death knell for those, too, would likely be ringing before very much longer.
Seven might well prove to be the complete total. Or perhaps, there remained one or two more they simply hadn't yet discovered.
"Do you think it's time to have another talk with Professor Slughorn, then?"
Bryan glanced sideways at Dumbledore, turning the conversation toward more practical matters.
"A large part of why Horace was willing to return to Hogwarts at all, from what I understand, was because your own decisive victory in the Battle of Diagon Alley gave him some fresh hope for the future. But he remains, surely, still afraid beneath that hope."
Dumbledore said it calmly, without judgment attached to the assessment.
"So, I rather think you might do well to win a few more fine, decisive victories, and only then go and talk to Horace again, once the ground has shifted further in our favour."
Bryan nodded slightly at that, accepting the strategic suggestion without argument.
In two months' time, the newly formed joint task forces would be formally gathering together in Paris for the first time.
These elite Hit-Wizards, drawn from every corner of the world, would need a brief period to properly find their footing with one another before any real coordination became possible, and only after that settling period would they begin the actual work of hunting down Death Eaters steadily across the whole of Europe.
Bryan also understood clearly that the watching world needed to see with their own eyes that this new peacekeeping force possessed real, demonstrated worth, rather than remaining merely a promising idea on paper.
Bryan needed, in practical terms, to give this fledgling force a victory that would lift their spirits early on and at the same time, this same force would necessarily sharpen and refine itself further through its clashes with the Death Eaters, so that if some unforeseen crisis eventually arose down the line, they would already be properly prepared to answer it without hesitation.
The moon had brightened steadily, clearing away much of the earlier gloom that had hung so heavily over the ink-black forest surrounding them; the ominous, unsettling air that had been lurking somewhere in the darkness had dispersed as well, leaving behind something closer to ordinary autumn night.
The dark itself had become their shared camouflage for this rare moment.
The two wizards, each carrying heavy burdens on his own shoulders across very different lifetimes, had shed the dignity and wisdom they habitually wore in front of others, and were, for this brief window of time, simply enjoying a rare, hard-won peace together in the quiet.
Dumbledore waved his own wand and conjured up another fresh bottle of wine between them, while Bryan busied himself lighting a small bundle of gathered firewood to properly drive off the lingering chill still hanging in the night air.
Clink—
Bryan took the fresh wine cup Dumbledore handed across to him, and as he did, casually, almost absently tossed onto the low table between them the ring he'd been holding pinched between his own fingers this entire while.
But behind this seemingly careless, easy nonchalance lay, a faint trace of fear still lingering in Bryan, not yet fully settled from the night's earlier events.
Dumbledore's own silver beard shifted slightly at the small gesture. He'd noticed the signs.
After a moment's hesitation, weighing whether to raise it, Dumbledore finally spoke.
"You told me, that you need all three Deathly Hallows, Bryan?"
Bryan was faintly, honestly surprised at the return to this particular topic—he hadn't especially expected Dumbledore to bring the matter up again s.
"That's correct, yes, that's how things stand—"
He assumed, that Dumbledore meant to press him further on the point, to ask what his actual, underlying purpose might be in gathering all three together.
"Oh, in a certain, rather particular sense, that specific wish of yours has already come true tonight, Bryan—"
Dumbledore said it plainly.
The hand holding Bryan's wine cup jerked violently at that statement—the liquid within spilled across the back of his own hand, entirely forgotten—and Bryan only stared at Dumbledore in blank, total astonishment, the cup was nearly slipping from his grip.
"Clearly you never put in the effort to learn much about the Hallows yourself, Bryan, for all your other considerable knowledge—"
Dumbledore smiled at the reaction, a certain gentle amusement was colouring the observation.
"In the old fairy tale, the three brothers who originally possessed the Hallows were, in point of historical fact, the three Peverell brothers. A real family, not merely a story's invention."
"I know that much already, at least—"
Bryan was still frowning hard at Dumbledore, working to follow where this was leading.
"Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus. Ignotus, following his death, was buried at Godric's Hollow. Over the years, no small number of ambitious wizards seeking the Hallows have visited his resting place there—and come away with nothing."
"That's because Ignotus never actually took the Hallow he possessed into the grave with him, Bryan—"
Dumbledore smiled again.
"He left it instead to his own descendants. Passed down through the generations that followed him, family to family. Oh, you must already know this part—like so many other noble old names that have gradually vanished from history, the Peverell name itself did eventually die out, formally speaking. But the actual bloodline never did. They simply go by a different family name now, in the present day."
There was a brief pause and Dumbledore said. "Potter."
In the quiet clearing, Bryan's face, gilded gold by the steady firelight, shifted with a subtle change of expression.
"Harry's—that invisibility cloak of his?"
"Ha, quite right indeed, Bryan—"
Dumbledore laughed aloud at that with a touch of genuine, almost childlike amusement at the whole situation.
"Fate really does so love to play its own little tricks on all of us, doesn't it, Bryan. So very many people, across so many centuries, spent their entire lives chasing after the Hallows. I, too, made a grave mistake in my youth because of them, and regretted that mistake for the whole of my life afterward. But I never once expected—"
Dumbledore's gaze fell, in that moment, to the ring Bryan had tossed carelessly onto the low table between them.
"—that all three of them would simply come knocking on my own door eventually, at a time in my life when I don't have all that many good days left remaining to me."
'So that means—'
Bryan's lips moved silently a few times rapidly, working to form the words, but no sound came out of him at all.
The three coordinates needed to open the stone door hidden within the Department of Mysteries—all of them, had already fallen into his hands.
He could now actually journey to the stars?!
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