Chapter 31

Albus Dumbledore sat in his office pondering the events of the last couple of of years. The first year was a mystery to him as someone had stolen the Sorcerer's stone even before Lord Voldemort but had returned it to the Flamel's without so much as the name of the person who sent it and the Flamel's wouldn't tell him even if they knew, as Nicholas had said that they owed the person who had returned the stone to them and were not about to betray his confidence, and they were angry with him about storing an artifact being sought by the Dark Lord in a school full of children, which on second thought was probably not such a good idea.

Neville Longbottom had turned out to be a huge disappointment, he was an average student at best but with an extraordinarily overinflated sense of ego who enjoyed bullying others and was inordinately jealous of others who were better than him at anything. His behavior had not been rectified by his grandmother Augusta, who coddled her grandson and couldn't see anything wrong with it. She had even tried to steal the Potter inheritance, so she was not any better than her grandson.

Speaking of Potter's, Harry had turned out to be a huge surprise, he was brilliant at everything he did, with a particular interest in Transfiguration and Charms; even though he was equally talented in all fields of magic. Harry honestly reminded him of a young Tom Riddle with his handsome looks, emerald green eyes and talent for magic ; but Albus didn't fear Harry walking down the same path as Tom as Harry genuinely cared about people, he was friends with students from all four houses, and couldn't care less of Blood purity and was fiercely protective of his friends and family as evidenced by the boy killing a mountain troll and a 60 foot long Basilisk to protect them. Harry actually reminded him more of himself before his sister's death when he became more passive, before that Albus also was very brutal against anyone who targeted his family and friends.

Harry had excellent Occlumency shields, some of the best he had ever seen and looked to be on the verge of completing stage six of his Occlumency training. Harry Potter would be a Magical Titan un the future just like Lord Voldemort, Gellert Grindelwald and Albus himself. Albus had a feeling that Harry would play a vital role in the war against Voldemort when he regained his body as he knew that Lord Voldemort was too resourceful to be thwarted forever.

As he looked at the destroyed Diary on his table, Albus just shook his head, " Oh Tom! what foolishness prompted you to create this abomination. "

Albus recognised the Diary for what it was, a Horcrux, one of the most vile magics there was. It was basically a phylactery of a soul, it stored a piece of a person's soul, and as long as it was intact the person was immortal. It was a forbidden magic as tampering with one's soul was an abomination of magic, and though Albus didn't believe in the Ministry's narrow definitions of Light and Dark magic, he knew that some magics like Horcruxes were indeed true Dark magic, something which should never be attempted by anyone.

In Albus opinion Harry was lucky that he had destroyed the diary using Basilisk venom as it was the only thing other than Fiendfyre and the Killing Curse which could destroy a Horcrux. After the events of the past year, Albus was beginning to think that the prophecy may have been referring to Harry and not Neville even though it was Neville who was the "Boy - Who- Lived".

Albus was shook out of his musings by the Minister of Magic's head appearing in his fireplace looking extremely agitated, " Albus, you had better get down here, Peter Pettigrew has escaped from Azkaban and we believe that he will be targeting Neville Longbottom as in Azkaban have heard him muttering in his sleep about someone being at Hogwarts, and the Dementors are extremely agitated at someone escaping from their custody."

Albus agreed to come to the Ministry and the Minister terminated the Floor call, abd Albus sighed tiredly and rubbed his forehead as he could feel an incoming headache.