The Cry of the Phoenix

Chapter One

Morpherkidvb

A/N- Just read it, ok? Please? Researching Dumblydore's life was not easy work, and I want to continue this, if not for the fact that I want to have some use for that… Thanks!

"Professor?"

Harry Potter walked tentatively into Dumbledore's homely office, and was surprised to find his mentor nowhere in sight. He had been called there, hadn't he? Yes, he remembered, because he had been talking to Ron, Ginny, and Hermione right before in the common room…

Professor Dumbledore looked up at him from a tacky purple loveseat and smiled effortfully, as if the gesture would drain all the life out of him.

"Hello…" He paused for a minute, gave a feeble cough, and continued, "… Harry. Would y-you please walk to the c-cabinet and get my pensieve? "

The last word was said with a sigh of something a bit like relief, and Harry, quite apprehensively, did as he was bidden without a sound.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. You may sit down, of course, yes, that's fine, wherever you like. "

Harry sat down in a hard leather-backed chair, worrying. This state of Dumbledore's… it was scary, it made the sparkly mentor look a thousand years old, ancient and decrepted…

"Professor Dumbledore, should I, err, go for Madame Pomfrey or something?"

"No, Harry, that won't be necessary. " Dumbledore smiled, having the Pensieve near him seemed to relieve him. Fawkes the phoenix screeched softly, smoldering quietly, perched on the high wooden desk near the entrance, breaking the silence.

Harry watched Fawkes for a couple of minutes, then turned his attention to Dumbledore, who was using the pensieve. The headmaster pointed his wand at his own head, muttered remno, and closed his eyes. Silvery wisps of the same stuff (there was no other word for it) that was in the Pensieve itself entered the stone bowl.

Dumbledore put his wand down, and his appearance seemed to shift slightly, his face contorting into a sort of relief and sorrow at the same time.

Harry self-consciously turned his eyes to Fawkes, stroking his withering breast feathers gently. Dumbledore sat up as if he had just noticed the 17-year old wizard was there.

"Harry Potter, " Dumbledore said as a way of invitation. Harry turned and leaned in towards the headmaster, staring straight at him, his words soft but his expression demanding.

"Yes? You called me here? "

" Harry, you are about to leave Hogwarts, am I correct?"

"Yes, sir." Harry's mind strayed to his seventh year, which had given him both a spot as head boy and also (to Ron's great envy) a fourth Quidditch Cup.

"Well, I have something for you, a sort of going away present."

"Sir, you don't have to…" Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Harry, this is not something I want you to refuse, if that is alright. It is not exactly a gift that one can buy; no matter how many Galleons one has… It is just something to help you better understand why these things have happened…"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled briefly, his blue eyes shining into Harry's green ones. He held the oddly decorated bowl out to Harry like an offering.

"You, if I remember have been inside my memories before? "

Knowing the answer, he went on, while Harry pondered the time in his fourth year when he had seen the trials of accused Death Eaters through his headmaster's eyes. The thought of the Death Eaters brought him back to the current situation, and he refocused his attention to Dumbledore.

"Well, this time I am actually giving you permission to do so. I need you to be able to understand things… the Dark Lord is still out there, Harry, and I think that this journey will help you…

"When you arrive back from the pensieve, you will find that only five minutes have passed. That will give you…" He consulted his odd celestial wristwatch, " …exactly three and a half minutes to make it down to the Leaving feast. Understood?"

Harry nodded solemnly; he didn't feel as he had much of a choice.

He walked over to retrieve the Pensieve, then remembered something.

"Sir, last time I, erm, saw your memories, you had to bring me back to your office. Is there anyway I can do that, well, of my own accord, just in case? "

Dumbledore smiled.

"Very wise, Harry, to learn from the past. And very wise also, to remind me of my little invention. "

Ceremoniously he pulled out of his cloak a device that looked very much like a Muggle television remote control. It had four triangular buttons arranged in a rectangular pattern and two other buttons beneath it. It was about eight centimeters long and fit exactly into a robe pocket.

"I call it a Permutor, from the Latin for change, " said Dumbledore, seeing the quizzical look on Harry's face. "It works, not surprisingly, very much like a Muggle television remote control. These two buttons," he explained, pointing to the buttons forming the left and right of the rectangle, "control backward or forward movement."

"Fast forward and rewind, " Harry translated.

"Exactly. And these two, the top and bottom ones there, can pause or replay a chunk of memory, and these two different ones can get you out of the Pensieve entirely, or get you back in again. Did you get all that?"

Harry took a few seconds to commit these facts to memory, then took the Permutor in his right hand and the Pensieve in his left.

"All right sir, I've got it. I'll see you then, in, err, about five minutes? "

"Good luck, Harry Potter, " smiled Dumbledore fatherly.

Harry nodded and smiled back nervously, then looked straight into the swirling Pensieve and was sucked in.

Dumbledore turned to Fawkes and said in a low voice, " Good boy, that Harry. Just like his father…"

The old man smiled again and closed his eyes. Soon the only sound in the room as the cry of the Phoenix, as he burst into flame and prepared to be reborn.

A/N- Whew! The next chapter's twice as long, and it'll take me a long time to type, so the faster I get inspiration to type it, the better… in other words, please review!