Dumbledore gazed at the pale-faced young man swirling in the basin. "Let us go inside, Henry."
"Inside?"
Dumbledore smiled, placed the Pensieve before Anthony, and gestured for him to look inside.
Anthony peered down, confused. Quirrell's face spun and wavered within the silvery memory. Dumbledore prodded the contents with his wand. The memory swirled faster—Quirrell's face vanished, the memory turning transparent. Anthony saw it again: the room with the giant chessboard. It was as if a tunnel led straight from the bottom of the Pensieve to the chamber protecting the Philosopher's Stone.
Before he could lift his head and ask a question, a gentle push landed between his shoulder blades. His head plunged into the basin. Then, gravity flipped. The world spun. His feet left the floor.
Anthony shot headfirst into something. Down he fell—down—through darkness and cold—down—
His feet hit solid ground.
He stood at the edge of the room. The massive white queen loomed before him. Quirrell's voice echoed through the empty chamber, droning on about "the secret to immortality."
Anthony cautiously peeked through a gap between the chess pieces. There he was, wearing that ridiculous dressing gown, one pocket bulging with the Wraith Mouse and its apple.
A soft chuckle sounded beside him. Anthony whipped around. Dumbledore stood there, watching the two figures across the chessboard with keen interest.
"You pushed me in?" Anthony whispered, a touch of complaint in his voice.
"I did. But let us focus on the matter at hand." Dumbledore's tone was cheerful. "My, those are excellent slippers, Henry."
They stood behind the white pieces, listening to Quirrell's speech. As the man's rant grew more fervent, Dumbledore's expression gradually sobered.
"What is it, sir?" Anthony asked. To his ears, the speech sounded as hollow and weak as he remembered.
"The mist," Dumbledore murmured thoughtfully. "How curious…"
He was right. Anthony looked around. Pale white mist had gathered in the corners of the room, nearly invisible against the white walls. He hadn't noticed it before.
Anthony shook his head. "I don't remember any of this… Then again, I might not have been paying attention."
Dumbledore didn't answer.
Quirrell finished his speech and strode purposefully toward Dumbledore's position. Anthony flinched and stepped aside. Dumbledore remained perfectly still, watching as Quirrell casually shattered the white king.
Quirrell, seemingly oblivious to Dumbledore's sharp gaze, stood by the door in Anthony's memory, boasting of his power. Memory-Anthony slowly approached and followed Quirrell into the corridor beyond.
Anthony noticed Dumbledore wasn't watching him. He followed Dumbledore's gaze. The mist in the corner churned.
…
Once they entered the troll room, tendrils of white mist seeped in after them. Was it his imagination, or had the fog grown thicker?
Quirrell displayed his power with brutal flair on the troll's body. The creature crashed to the ground before them. Dumbledore knelt, examining its wounds with a calm, impassive face.
"This is but a fraction of my master's power…" Quirrell's voice carried, followed by a fit of coughing. Dumbledore straightened up, looking directly at memory-Quirrell standing so close. In the flickering torchlight, a trace of sorrow finally surfaced in his blue eyes.
"Quirinus…" he murmured. "You've sought power in the wrong place."
Quirrell continued his relentless recruitment pitch. The troll beside them groaned like a broken bellows. Even within the memory, Anthony felt he could smell that suffocating stench.
He heard his own voice: "I'm not interested… I find life at Hogwarts quite agreeable…"
Dumbledore shifted his gaze and smiled at Anthony. Anthony felt a flicker of embarrassment. But then, a dense fog suddenly flooded the room. The voices of memory-Quirrell and memory-Anthony grew muffled, distant, broken—as if they were speaking from far away.
Anthony looked around in surprise. Dumbledore remained composed beside him, tilting his head slightly as if trying to discern the conversation within the fog.
"I presume you fought, Henry?" he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Anthony thought back. "Yes, sir."
Suddenly, Quirrell became visible again. The thick mist still shrouded memory-Anthony, but Quirrell's face emerged with stark clarity.
He seemed only feet away, his pallid face a mask of disbelief. His mouth opened and closed, forming words. Yet, a phantom gale seemed to scatter his speech. Anthony caught only scattered, meaningless syllables.
After a moment, the fog rolled in once more. Anthony and Dumbledore stood in a world of white, silent memory.
"I gather you don't know what this is about, Henry?" Dumbledore asked, his tone still deceptively light.
"No…" Anthony said, baffled. "I don't."
Dumbledore nodded. Anthony wondered why they were still standing there. Then, the fog cleared again.
Dialogue burst into their ears—like a boy kicking a TV screen full of static. They saw Anthony and Quirrell standing face-to-face. The room was littered with shattered bricks, dust, and blood.
"My mistake…" Quirrell was saying. "But it's over now…"
Dumbledore stood behind Quirrell, leaning forward slightly, studying the man's turban with intense curiosity. Anthony craned his neck and finally saw it: something dark, almost black, was seeping from the depths of the blue fabric, staining it a deep, ugly purple.
With some effort, he remembered. During the whiteout, he must have struck Quirrell on the back of the head.
Then, the white mist descended again. Thicker than ever. It surged toward Anthony and Dumbledore like a wave—this, Anthony realized, was probably where his memory extraction had cut off—and then, he was floating up.
Anthony opened his eyes. He was back in the Headmaster's office. Fawkes peered down at him and Dumbledore from the top of a cabinet.
He felt like a beached fish, just washed ashore by a giant wave.
Dumbledore opened his eyes as well.
"What was that, sir?" Anthony asked.
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Typically, mist in a memory indicates tampering."
"Tampering?" Anthony retrieved his silvery strand with his wand, guided by Dumbledore's gesture, and tipped it back into his own mind.
"If someone wishes to conceal something within a memory, we are usually left with a great bank of fog," Dumbledore mused. "But it usually appears abruptly, and departs just as suddenly… I've not seen fog quite like this before."
Anthony shook his head, the cold sensation of the memory lingering at his temples. The memory itself felt sharp and clear again, the old feelings of shock, helplessness, and anger returning in full force.
"Every time the fog came… I was using Necromancy," Anthony told Dumbledore. In his own mind, those moments were no misty blank.
"Ah," Dumbledore said. "That does explain a great deal." He fell silent for a moment, then shook his head. "Let us not pursue the parts I should not know. Your Necromancy, Henry… Use it wisely."
"I'm trying," Anthony replied.
…
"Sorry. I suppose I wasn't much help," Anthony said. "All the parts that might show Voldemort's power were covered in fog."
To his surprise, Dumbledore shook his head, his expression grave.
"On the contrary. I saw many crucial clues," Dumbledore said. "You may not grasp how vital this memory is, Henry. But Quirrell's condition… his trembling, his demeanor, his very words… they speak volumes."
Anthony replayed the memory in his head. Even now, sharp as yesterday, he saw no revelation.
"Furthermore, I noted Quirrell said something particularly interesting," Dumbledore continued. "'If you've noticed, I too hold the secrets of the soul.' I believe that was the phrase."
Anthony nodded. "Professor Quirrell—Quirrell—had a profound understanding of soul magic." He recalled the flawed papers Snape had shared. "I'd say his understanding was far more accurate than most published academic works on the subject."
"Are you certain, Henry?" Dumbledore asked, his gaze sharp and penetrating.
Anthony was taken aback. He thought for a moment. "Yes. In the areas I can verify, his understanding was both precise and deep."
"Good," Dumbledore said. A strange mix of pity, coldness, and grim satisfaction lay beneath his calm tone. "That is also most useful information, Henry. It confirms certain rumors."
"What rumors?"
"However sharp one's intuition or talent, accurate and profound understanding of a subject… requires experimental foundation," Dumbledore said quietly. "When Voldemort first rose… there were rumors he had ventured further down the path to immortality than anyone. When I later saw him, I knew then he must have performed… very dangerous experiments."
"He experimented on his own soul?" Anthony asked, shocked.
Dumbledore looked down at the swirling memory in the Pensieve. It was a moment before he spoke. "I cannot say for certain, Henry. I dare not. It may have been the souls of others… The things one can do with a soul are manifold."
Anthony couldn't help adding, "If not for the fog—"
Dumbledore smiled. "You have provided more than enough assistance, Henry. No, I would not advise you to try again."
Anthony pulled his gaze from the memory. "What?"
"The Pensieve," Dumbledore said. "It is a fascinating device, of course. So long as one does not become addicted… I have known several brilliant witches and wizards. Their minds held too much. They grew too reliant on extracting memories. In the end, they lost the ability to put them back."
"I won't," Anthony promised. "Truthfully, I don't think I have any memories I wish to see more clearly."
Dumbledore smiled and shook his head. "You are too modest, Henry. I would say your memories hold many precious scenes."
"That is precisely why, sir," Anthony said earnestly. "Because I cherish them, I don't wish to look back."
"A fascinating theory, Henry," Dumbledore said, intrigued. "Might I ask your reasoning? The inventor of the Pensieve would argue it was made for cherished memories—to preserve and replay them."
Anthony hesitated, unsure where to begin.
"My memories are vital to me, sir," he said, thinking of clawing his way from the grave, of being nothing until he remembered who he was. "I am largely made of them. But I don't believe all those memories are perfectly true, or accurate… and I don't need them to be."
He thought of fragmented glimpses of his grandparents and smiled faintly.
"I don't need the details. The facts. They aren't useful to me. What I need… is the self those memories have built."
He would keep his memories for himself. Let his own rough recollection polish and tint them over time, like an oyster worrying a grain of sand until you could no longer see its original form. But he would know it was there, at the heart of the pearl.
He didn't want his life to be a meticulously documented film. He didn't need to know if the cupboard door was open or closed when the candle was lit, if a snail had crawled onto the windowsill.
He only needed to remember the flame. The warmth. Even if it was just an imperfect mind polishing the recollection over and over. In reality, that skinny little candle might have guttered pathetically. He didn't care. Because in his mind, it burned steady and calm.
He didn't care much for details. When the past softened, the real him rose from it.
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