Sherbet Lemon? -HP Fanfiction-

The summer weather always found Hogwarts empty and at peace. Though the students had long gone home for a break from their classes- and their professors-, a man sat alone in his office, peering over half-moon spectacles at some papers he was checking.

“Black manor has been fully emptied, Albus, blood traitors and mudbloods alike.”

“Yes, thank you Phineas,” Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore replied, obviously too wrapped up in his work to correct the old Headmaster’s addition to his report. Finishing up the top paper as the man slipped out of his portrait, he removed his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing tiredly as he did so. But as he reopened his eyes, a flash of familiar red swam in his vision. Though the air did not crackle with the energy of a red-tinted spell, he knew exactly what the red was. As such, Albus looked back at his papers once he had replaced his glasses, addressing the sinister red in a calm, collected voice. “Hello, Tom.”

A dark chuckling resounded behind him, the intention of which was as demeaning as it was arid. “Tom?” the one behind him repeated, the same condescending tone in his hiss-like voice. “He is dead. Surely you know that.”

“I do,” Albus replied, as though not at all offended by the degrading voice. Just above his spectacles he could make out the pale figure swathed in black, his piercing red eyes watching him as he circled around him, and thus his desk.

“Then why do you persist to call me so?” the dark one pressed. “Do you hope for a shred of humanity left in me?”

Dumbledore smiled, an act that prompted a flare from his companion. Still, that didn’t stop him from doing such; the fact that the boy still asked him questions was oddly amusing to him. “Oh no,” he said quickly, causing the other to smile as well- though it was more of a smirk-, “I know there is nothing humane left in you. And yet, everything is humane about you.”

There was a pause in their chat, in which Albus leaned back in his chair, taking a couple sweets out of his pocket to try and unstuck and possibly eat them. “You’ve gotten senile since my last visit, Dumbledore,” the circling figure commented, and Albus wasn’t sure if he was attempting to tease, or insult.

What he did know, however, was that Voldemort was attempting to unnerve him, to get him frightened. It was why he was circling him, it explained the tone in his voice. Smiling as his two sticky sweets broke away from each other, he fingered the one in his hand. “Hmm, yes, I suppose,” Albus said by way of agreement before offering one of the yellow sweets to the man circling in front of him. “Sherbet Lemon?”

The look on the Dark Lord’s face at being offered a Muggle candy by his foe was priceless- in Dumbledore’s opinion, anyways. When he stopped his circling, yet said nothing, Albus shrugged his shoulders lightly. “Oh well, more for me then,” he said lightly before popping the proffered sweet into his mouth as he put the other back in his pocket. There was a great silence as he chewed, easily meeting the other’s red gaze. He could surmise by now why Voldemort was there, and knew that the other was too proud to ask for what he wanted. Sighing, Albus swallowed the last of the treat, his one hand going out to brush his wand where it sat beside the stack of papers on his desk. As expected, the Dark Lord flinched, but listened as he spoke. “Yes, I know why you’re here, Tom. Though I can safely say that you shall not be getting such knowledge from me.”

Had he been any other man, Albus was sure the glare he received would have been accompanied by a green curse. But instead, the Dark Lord threw back his head and laughed once, harshly. “Ha! This, coming from the man who used to teach me!”

“Spells are much different than how to kill people, Tom. Especially Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly, his tone causing the other to glare once more.

“You think I do not know that?” Voldemort questioned, his voice seeming to crackle with energy from his anger.

Albus merely shrugged, running his index finger along his wand. “Well, you do seem to be forgetting.” Wasn’t he standing there in front of him, after all?

The wizard could see the Dark Lord’s slit-like nostrils flare at his words, and watched carefully as the other raised his arm to draw his white wand from his sleeve. “I tire of your tone, Albus.”

Sighing at the hostile message, Dumbledore picked up his wand, bouncing it in his opposite hand. “Shall we, then?” he asked, as though they were two old-fashioned gentlemen about to duel.

He took note of the smirk that traveled to his opponent’s lips. “We shall.” A quick slash of his wand deflected the copper orbs sent at him from their place on his shelf, and he jabbed in reposte only to watch Voldemort dodge it by soaring into the planetarium-area of his office. Fawkes squeaked from his perch, having been reborn the day before. Arching his wand above him, Albus set a few safety spells on the bird before he was attacked again, this time by his on-fire opponent. Leaping to the side, a quick non-verbal spell sent a powerful rain upon the Dark Lord, snuffing him out.

“You do not aim to kill me, Tom?” Albus asked as Voldemort quickly dried himself off.

A wicked grin spread on the Dark Lord’s face, and he stopped his spell. “If you wanted me to use the Unforgivables on you, you old fool, you should have requested it!” His white wand jabbed down at the headmaster, who was hit in the chest with the pain of the Cruciatus Curse. As the Dark Lord neared, the same sickening grin on his face, Albus threw his wand in an arc in front of him, his spell hitting his old pupil in the corner of his lip, a deep wound stretching from there over his cheek, up towards his ear.

Voldemort turned, grabbing at his face, and the curse was lifted instantly from his person. When he turned back, Dumbledore could see blood seeping out from where his hand was grasping around his face. “I could now say the same of you,” the Dark Lord countered, before his wand swung in a wide circle over his head, catching Albus in his left wrist, breaking the bone there, though he refused to release his wand with his opposite hand.

“Oh, I know all about your ‘experiments’, Tom. I cannot kill you, nor will I be the one to kill you. I am merely an aid.”

Voldemort laughed coldly, circling around him as he leaned back against one of the pillows surrounding his large telescope. “And yet, if not by my hand, I shall see you dead. Ironic, no?”

Though he saw nothing humorous about it, Dumbledore chuckled. “In a sense, I suppose. But you have not answered my question.”

The Dark Lord stopped in front of him, keeping his wand pointed at his chest. “You’re no good to me dead. Not yet.”

Ah. Well, Albus had been suspecting such. But if he thought he’d hand Harry over simply because he broke his wrist, he was quite wrong. “If that is why, Tom, I suggest you hurry… and flee.”

His foe smirked at the suggestion. “The Dark Lord Voldemort, flee?” he questioned, and Albus knew it was because he simply didn’t know something he knew, and thought himself at an advantage. He leaned in then, and the older man could smell the blood on his face. “And why would I do that?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

“For one, I will not give you the information you seek,” Dumbledore said simply, putting his wand in his pocket to reach inside. “And I would be a fool to not alert the Order the moment you entered the school. My school.” Seeing the loathing spread across the Dark Lord’s face, he didn’t look to the side as he heard footsteps ascending the stairway to his office.

Voldemort, however, did, the same dislike and anger on his face. “You…”

“Senile old fool?” Dumbledore finished for him, a smile on his face as his long fingers brushed against something sticky in his pocket. “Yes, I know.” Removing the sweet from his pocket, he proffered it once more to the other man. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a Sherbet Lemon before you go? Chocolate Frog, perhaps?”

The Dark Lord’s face was purely livid as he stepped back. “One day, Dumbledore. One day,” he seethed, his slotted red eyes glaring at him as he planned his escape.

“Yes?” Albus said calmly, withdrawing the candy.

“One day, I shall make you pay for the humiliation you have brought upon me,” Voldemort said, taking slow steps back. “And I shall let the world know how merciful the Dark Lord is,” he continued, smirking as he tilted his chin up proudly, “and kill you when you beg for it.”

Albus smiled at his words, pushing himself to his feet. “I shall be ready for it, Tom,” he replied quietly, turning to walk back to his desk. As such, he did not see how he left, but as he sunk into his chair and the door burst open, Dumbledore knew the man once called Tom Riddle was no longer in his office.

Thus, he smiled invitingly to Minerva as she walked carefully into his office, stepping over the broken orbs scattered on the floor. “Are you alright, Albus?” she asked as she finally reached his desk, eyeing the Sherbet Lemon he placed on its surface with confused eyes.

“Of course,” he said as he transferred his wand from his pocket to his desk, licking his fingers clean once he had. When Poppy came by, he gently placed his broken wrist on the desk’s surface, watching as she pulled out her wand and went to work setting it. Noticing Minerva’s eyes flicker from it to his face, he smiled once more. “We merely had an… interesting chat.” Picking up the sticky yellow sweet, Dumbledore held it out to her. “Sherbet Lemon?”