Work Text:
The first time Albus Dumbledore comes across the problem that will gnaw at him for the next fifty years, he absently scratches out a section in red ink and sets it aside—it is the first time Tom Riddle fails to score full marks.
Three years later, it’s on his desk again. This time, he gives it more attention. The work is meant to be Riddle’s ticket to the conference in Cairo, for one, and no longer bothering to beat around the bush about what it’s trying to solve.
It is not entirely new; it is the old argument, repackaged—the one between the Founders, between Gellert and himself; the one that asked what, precisely, separated a Muggle from a wizard.
An ambitious—and foolhardy—choice of topic, Dumbledore thinks, as he unrolls the scroll. Riddle, who never took classes with him, has chosen to submit a thesis in Alchemy. Without a proper teacher, Alchemy is all but impossible to master. Riddle does not even know that the tools needed to solve one of the oldest, greatest mysteries in magic has not yet been developed.
He would have been much better served choosing Potions, where Slytherin’s Head of House would be the one selecting the student to recommend—and Slughorn has always liked Riddle.
Dumbledore sighs. He would much rather skip Riddle’s work in favor of the one underneath it—Albright’s, who is much more aware of the limitations of current magical theory, and is not chasing fanciful daydreams. But no, no favorites; He must be fair. Ten minutes. That was how much every student got, and that would be how much Riddle would get from him.
At the end of the week, Dumbledore is rereading the piece for the seventeenth time, desperately trying to find a mistake. It takes him three days to grasp the general outline of the proof, but only an instant to know he needs it to not succeed
For Riddle seeks to settle the question of wizarding supremacy for once and for all. A deductive proof for a philosophical question that did not need an answer. And his conclusion is intolerable.
But just as he is beginning to lose hope, almost unbelievably, Dumbledore does find the mistake. It is a small error, one generalization a mite too broad. In truth, it does not render the work worthless. Far from it. Each part of Riddle’s work is highly significant and innovative by itself, as are the techniques he developed in the course of his proof, and only one tiny part was affected.
Another time, and Dumbledore would have sent it through, despite the author and despite the content.
But too much of it echoed his old friend’s rhetoric, and even with the mistake, he had no doubts that the pieces of the proof that did work, that was unassailable, would be twisted and coopted into a mockery that would strengthen Gellert’s position. Or, even in the scenario where the old families of Europe were not gainsayed, any validation of Riddle’s proof would weaken the resolve he needed for the final showdown. Worse yet, what if Riddle, with the collective effort of the conference, could repair the proof? Dumbledore could not bear to think that the two boys in Godric’s Hollow could have been right.
… Only one tiny part was affected. However, without which, there is no proof.
Enough, for an excuse. Enough, to convince himself.
Enough, to send Albright instead to the International Alchemical Conference. Albright’s paper wins no awards.
Meanwhile, the proof, the Treatise on the Existence of Magical Cores gathers dust in Dumbledore’s drawer, and with it, Riddle’s chapter at Hogwarts quietly closes.
He knows he should follow Riddle’s post-Hogwarts trajectory with closer scrutiny, but in December, he defeats Gellert, and his heart breaks with it.
By the time he has picked up enough of the pieces to become the Albus Dumbledore the world expects again, Riddle is working at the Department of Magical Education. He’s turned down Slughorn’s increasingly insistent offers to connect him, content to remain all but forgetten within the rank and file.
Dumbledore wonders if he has permanently snuffed out Riddle’s ambition. Two more years pass, and Riddle publishes nothing. Now there is a drawer in his desk that he never opens. He knows he should publish the papers and credit Riddle. Something this brilliant should not languish forever, but he cannot bring himself to do it. Gellert is still too raw, too fresh in recent memory, and Dumbledore fears to rekindle the old fire.
He tries his best to forget. About the proof. About Gellert. And he manages until an owl from Flamel arrives. Within is letter and a manuscript. Not authored by Riddle, but by Adalbert Waffling. The premier magical theoretician of their time, though his best years are well behind him now. The older you get, the harder it is to publish something new, and Waffling was already famous when Dumbledore entered Hogwarts.
The list of co-authors is long, and several of their names bring with them bursts of nostalgia. Marchbanks, Ogden… and Flamel. Surprising. He wasn’t aware his erstwhile mentor has been working on anything. The letter is even more surprising. It is a request for advice: Flamel is torn on whether he should be adding his name to the paper.
It does not take Dumbledore long to notice that while the words are Waffling’s, the concept is Riddle’s. He does not understand. The original mistake is still there. Yes, it is subtle, perhaps subtle enough to slip past an expert or two, but all of them?
Dumbledore gets to the end of the proof he remembered, but the manuscript keeps going. His mouth has gone dry, because he now realizes Riddle has fixed his proof. He is not proving that magical cores exist, but why magical cores should exist. And this second section is ironclad.
Consistency, says one page, showing how the notoriously finicky art of Alchemy can be structured, codified, and taught to students who were not blessed with a wealth of talent.
Accelerated development, says another. Children will reach magical maturity at thirteen, instead of seventeen. Four extra years for everyone.
As for how to create something that does not exist? The text explains it very clearly. The same way a chair can be drawn up from out of thin air. Through inherent belief. By making every person believe they have a magical core, their magic will create one for them. Such an elegant solution.
A lie. A ruse to the whole world. But does he, Dumbledore, have a right to deny this? The only people who do not stand to gain are the people skilled enough to see the hidden mistake. Magic—life—will be easier for everyone else. For the greater good, comes Gellert’s voice from the past.
He does not tell Flamel to withdraw his name, and when Educational Decree Thirteen is up for a vote at the Wizengamot, Dumbledore holds his tongue. It passes, and magical cores becomes a knowledge as common as the sky being blue.
One thing bothers him. Riddle, too, is among those who have nothing to gain. He wasn’t even named in the final paper. The altruism is so far removed from the Riddle he knew. Maybe, Dumbledore thinks, he was wrong about that boy in the orphanage, so many years ago.
It takes him another decade, for age to begin creeping into his joints, for Riddle to begin his rise in politics, for Dumbledore to uncover the true reason for the ruse.
Riddle is waiting for him to die.
Not by his hand, which made him all the more dangerous for it. Dumbledore wonders if Riddle knows about the Elder Wand. Or perhaps Gellert was enough of an example.
He wishes he could have seen it years ago, but now it is as stark as day. You see, no matter how efficiently a system is designed, there is a little overhead in structuring it. Centuries of wandmakers have never been able to bring back the old magic lost when wizards swapped to wands. The same can be said for when a person’s innate magic has to create a magical core. The vast majority of people will only see benefit, but at the most extreme outliers—cores are a limitation.
Riddle even chooses an ironic name for how powerful a wizard could be under his framework: Lords. And people do not wonder if there can be something more.
The entire ruse is trying to prevent another challenger after he, Dumbledore, is gone. The enemy is no longer Riddle, but the last enemy, and that is not a foe who could be defeated through force of arms.
There are ways around that, he thinks, then recoils in horror. So many years, and he is still not to be trusted with power. There is nothing for it. Dumbledore settles on the final wager between Tom Riddle and himself: that in the years left to him, a person brilliant enough to see through the ruse will come along.
More years pass. He starts getting worried when not even a Flitwick or McGonagall turns up. And then, as if they were all bottled up somewhere, one golden generation. Snape, Black, and Potter. He is careful to scoop them all up, making sure they take Alchemy.
Severus, ever impatient, ever interested in power, is the first to blurt out the question after just two classes, while the messy-haired boy holds out the longest, at twelve. But in the end, it is all the same question, with the same answer.
“0.97,” he replies. A theoretically impossible answer. Nothing under one can exist. Not if cores exist. He does not elaborate, for fear of ruining them. Nor does he expect them to ask today. They have not yet accumulated the knowledge needed to see it. It is a light, thrown far into the future.
The greasy-haired boy turns into a sallow-faced man. The two pranksters settle down. None ever ask. Perhaps they are wiser than he, not choosing to waste their lives with theories and calculations.
Dumbledore knows he is running out of time. He is tempted, again, to delay death—but he is tired now, and he would much rather see Ariana again. What’s the point? He already tried. He doubts he’ll ever get a better chance.
Then Rigel arrives.
By the time he has the boy—no, the girl—in his office for Alchemy, he knows.
He only has to hold on a little longer. After that, the ruse is Riddle’s problem.