Blindness

Chapter 16: The Green Drink Of Despair

Albus Dumbledore waited at the edge of the wards that circled the grand Hogwarts castle.

The students had left the week before; leaving the castle empty except for the professors who preferred to summer there and the myriad ghosts and house-elves who couldn't leave.

His last year at Hogwarts was over, he knew. Too many things tainted his headship of the school in recent years; too many deaths, too many doubts. If he did not respectfully retire now, he would be shamefully cast from the school within a year.

He had given himself the summer to prepare; to begin the task of moving his many things to the old Dumbledore property in Godric's Hollow. Minerva Mcgonagall would take his place; and her new deputy would also be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Severus Snape.

He would miss the grand school; her hallowed halls, the portraits he knew by name, the ghosts, the secrets he would never solve. The friendships gained over decades, the students who brought life into the ancient school, watching them grow older, forming their own friendships and bonds.

But it was time for an old man to find what peace was still available to him.

"Headmaster."

Albus turned from looking up at the magnificent height of the Astronomy Tower.

Severus approached, cloaked in his trademark black, dark eyes as expressionless as ever.

Albus met that gaze and left his mind open, pushing the destination through in a sleight of mind that only one master legilimens could do with another.

The dour wizard grimaced in response.

"I suppose we'll be getting wet."

-O-O-

He had searched the old orphanage; had visited places of Tom Riddle's childhood, pouring over old interviews and memories, delving deep into the mind of a burgeoning child sociopath. Countless hours in his pensieve, sifting through the barest reference to any place or object that might be held sacred, have importance greater than any other.

And finally, he had found something.

A simple holiday for the orphanage; a trip to the sea, where a particular incident would happen between young Tom Riddle and two muggle children that would scar them both for life.

Mrs. Cole, the matron of the orphanage, had told him the children were never the same after that trip; quiet instead of outgoing, deathly afraid of Riddle, never speaking of what happened there, their actions telling a horrible story for them.

Dumbledore, returning to that seaside, had spotted the cave and felt the power emanating from it; and knew no way to get to it except through magic, its high cliffs and pounding waves making even a boat ride dangerous.

He could only guess what Riddle had done there; apparition, perhaps, if the child was as powerful then as in his Hogwarts days. Taking two children with him, alone in a cave... that alone would have scared them near to death.

But Riddle would not have been content simply to frighten them.

Albus suspected it was the place of his first human torture; and therefore, a place of fond memory and importance, where perhaps a dark lord might hide a piece of his soul.

"Here?" Severus sneered, wand light spilling forth in front of them, illuminating the rocky entrance. "I see no wards in place."

"Look for traps." Albus had known better than to come alone, and so brought with him someone who knew both Tom's personal style, and had an affinity for dark magic. "I'm certain it's here."