Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore loved to pace around his office, if we are to believe the naughty inventions of certain Hogwarts alumni. However, the tiny footsteps by the name of our deemed headmaster were static on one particular Christmas Eve.
The food at Hogwarts, as we all know by now, became dreamier and more of a miraculous gift of existence around the holidays. Even the Weasley twins decided to not care why Dumbledore wasn't pacing his office tonight.
"It's all those goblets of mead, I'm telling ya," George finalized, as he and his twin walked to the common room for a festive game of wizard's chess with their best friend, Lee Jordan.
But as it turned out, Dumbledore was at a rare loss of interest in leaving hischair that night. He felt exhaustion, a drowsiness that felt a lot like failure to him. It had nothing to with Rosemerta's excellent mead.
Dumbledore was humming a self-composed song about candies when he found a package near the gargoyle that provided an entrance to his office. It had to be the work of one of the ghosts; the children didn't know where his office was, besides the Weasley twins of course.
Headmaster Dumbledore, it said in perfect calligraphy on top of the brown package.
The box inside had four vials of memories. Whose, there was only one way to tell. Dumbledore, using his prized pensieve, jumped into the contents of the first vial.
It was a little boy, no older than twelve, in billowing Ravenclaw robes, being called really mean things by Marcus Flint and his friends. After that, it was a series of similar events at the hands of a different bully each time, from every house, even Hufflepuff. And then appeared a page from his journal:
"Rosaline Belby and I are trying to find a way to switch our bodies. We've racked the library, and almost made it to the restricted section. I mean, I'm called a faggot at least once a day. If only there was a way to educate these imbeciles! I'm a girl, I should have been Rosaline, and she should have been Kevin Newt. In my free time, which isn't often what with the huge load of assignments McGonagall has set upon us, I like to think of what my real body should look like. It's always Rosaline's. He, on the other hand, really likes for me to call him by the name he wants in private. For some weird reason, he likes the archaic name, Arnold."
The next memory was short, almost like it was designed for Dumbledore's viewership. In an abandoned lavatory, Lee Jordan, from the Gryffindor house, made the following speech:
"I don't like what's happening to me these days. I mean, Merlin's broomstick, Fred and George are identical! My brain goes all fuzzy when George walks in. It's not even a one time thing. It happens every single time! I need a cure, Sir. It's just George everywhere. My parents will make grilled Lee this Easter if I tell them. The other teachers and I aren't exactly on the best of terms. Sir, I swear, I did not mean to put purple dye in Professor Snape's shampoo supply. I had to promise Nick help for the next headless hunt or something or another to reach you, Sir.
PS Please Sir, I need your help."
Yes, Mr. Jordan said PS into the lavatory mirror.
The third memory belonged to a girl from Slytherin. She looked like a third year in the broom cupboard she was co-occupying with Mr. Flint in the memory. Wasn't he everywhere that night?
"Flint, what part of no is not understandable to you?" She whispered, trying to keep her voice down.
"The part of me that knows you actually shagged Penworth from Hufflepuff here." He sneered.
"Lucas kissed me, he's my best friend. He understands I don't like him. If you don't, there's really nothing I can say."
"How is a Hufflepuff your best friend?"
Mr. Flint was unable to comprehend it, Dumbledore wasn't. And he was sighing way more than a man his age should be. But it wasn't his lungs in which the headmaster was losing faith.
It seemed like the brainchild of Mr. Jordan, of course. Inevitably, the next memory was Lucas Penworth's.
Lucas looked like someone broke his heart at breakfast, in class and in the common room. His memory seemed common enough for his age when the following happened.
Mr. Penworth spoke, his voice chalky, to a fellow Hufflepuff in the Great Hall. His golden locks breaking hearts Hogwarts-over, Cedric Diggory looked up at him with even shinier eyes. Charming young lad, Dumbledore had heard.
"Say Diggory, would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this Saturday?"
On due inquiry, polite, concerned even, Mr. Diggory found out that Penny Banks from Slytherin broke his friend, Penworth's heart. And Penworth thought it could get better through Cedric.
"I'm sorry, I just. . . I don't care whether you're a bloke or a girl. I just really like you." No one should be sorry about such a thing. Dumbledore was relieved to find that Cedric Diggory thought so too.
And while his kindness did just save Lucas Penworth, Dumbledore shuddered to think how many more Lee Jordans, Kevin Newts and Penny Banks there were at the school - helpless, misunderstood, misinformed, and slowly dying - just like he once was.
Dumbledore had always believed that his students were safe at Hogwarts.
He had never been more wrong, and he wasn't wrong very often, as we all know. It just so happened that after perhaps over a hundred years, Dumbledore felt the familiar ache of failing his family.
The victims and the bullies, the misunderstood and those who didn't understand them, everyone was suffering in the darkness of ignorance. Everyone he prized so dearly! Changes had to, and must be made.
