The Letter

The Letter

***

The letter had arrived in a normal enough manner.

He had been sitting at his desk contemplating whether or not to try out the pale colored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean. It was possible that it was kiwi, but it was also possible that it was toe jam. It was a difficult choice to make. Kiwi was a very good flavor, but he'd rather not repeat the toe jam experience that he'd had several years back.

A sharp tapping at the window had caught his attention. He opened the offending glass pane with a swish of his wand to allow the dark feathered owl that was pecking the window to swoop in, and land on his desk. A note was tied to its leg, which Albus had untied with the deft movement of someone who regularly received owls. Being Headmaster of such a prominent school did entail many unpleasant responsibilities, such as handling owls from unhappy parents.

And there were many more unhappy parents than there were unhappy students. Of that Albus was positive.

For example, as far as he could tell, young Hannah Abbott a perfectly well adjusted and happy Hufflepuff. However, her mother persisted in writing him on a weekly basis insisting that he should be doing a better job of keeping her precious child happy, and that she was severely disappointed in the way that he ran the school.

It took every ounce of self-control that Albus possessed to stop himself from writing back to Mrs. Abbott telling her that if she thought that she could do a better job of running this school, she was more than welcome to try.

Mrs. Abbott wasn't the only one, though she did hold the somewhat dubious honor of being the most frequent owler. There were parents of students from every house claiming that their student was treated badly, or unfairly, or that the house system was rigged, and the Gryffindors/ Ravenclaws/ Hufflepuffs/ Slytherins were being mistreated and looked down upon.

He was pretty sure that the other staff members thought that Lucius Malfoy was the biggest thorn in his side when it came to troublesome parents. But, alas, that was simply untrue. Mr. Malfoy might have planted an evil diary on an unsuspecting girl, he might have nearly gotten an innocent hippogriff slaughtered, he might be aligned with the Dark Lord Voldemort himself, but he was still not the worst parent in the school.

Instead, it was Mrs. Abbott, mother of a sweet Hufflepuff girl, who religiously wrote him long-winded letters criticizing every single action he took, regardless of how those actions were meant to help the students.

So now, he looked at the seal of the letter he'd removed from the owl, which had already flown away, fully expecting the insignia to belong to the Abbott family.
He was shocked when he saw what it was.

He inspected the seal more closely, thinking that he had made a mistake, that this letter could not be from who he thought it was from.

His closer inspection revealed the same result as the first glance did.

He opened the parchment hesitantly, then began to read the letter.

***

Almost an hour later, Albus Dumbledore stared at the parchment in still his hands.

He had read it twelve and a half times already, and still the words had not come together in his mind. There was simply no way that the letter said what he thought it said. He read over it again, and was startled by the fact that the words had not changed at all in the now thirteen and a half times he had read them. They were still in the same position, they were still in the same scrawled handwriting, they were still written in that horrible shade of puke green ink that Albus sincerely hoped had been on sale.

This was the absolute last thing he would have ever expected to happen.

Although, now that he thought about it, what the letter said did make a bizarre kind of sense. The writer had always been of the gullible sort. And people had done more over less before, after all.

Well, maybe not.

But he still wasn't sure that the letter said what he thought it did. He thought about this for a minute, then made his decision.

He would have Minerva read the letter, and tell him what it said.

Fifteen minutes later, Minerva McGonagall stood in the Headmaster's office, looking at Albus like he had put a teakettle on his head and started to do a polka.

"You want me to read that letter," she said, motioning towards the offending piece of parchment, "to tell you if it says what you think it says."

"Yes," Albus replied, slightly confused as to why Minerva would find this request so very odd. He proffered the letter to the staunch woman, hoping that she would take it.

She did.

She then began to read the lines, her eyes widening with shock as she finished the rather brief letter quickly.
"That's...That's..." she managed after staring at the letter for another few moments. "It can't say that. There's just no way..." She trailed off, biting her lip and looking more confused than Albus had ever seen the woman.

"Maybe we should get someone else's opinion," Albus finally said.

"Yes," Minerva agreed. "How about Severus?"

Another fifteen minutes passed as Minerva reread the letter, and furrowed her brow even farther with each consecutive reading. Albus finally removed the piece of parchment from her grasp, and said, as gently as he could manage while in such a confused state, "I don't think you'll be very happy if your forehead takes over your face."

Minerva looked even more confused after this comment, and probably would have questioned him about it had Severus Snape not swept into the office at that moment.

"You requested my presence?" Severus questioned coldly. Albus sometimes marveled at the man's ability to stay so very cantankerous. It wasn't like he was old, like Albus himself. Then he would have a reason for being so bilious. No, the man was just naturally irritable and easily annoyed, and he managed to make anyone who stayed in his presence for any amount of time feel the same.

Secretly, that was the reason that Albus thought he made such a great spy. Who in the world would suspect someone so obviously joyous at the prospect of other people being as miserable and cranky as he to be working for the side of good?

"Read this letter," Albus instructed the crotchety potions master.

Severus looked at him with an expression startlingly similar to Minerva's original reaction. He took the letter, and began to skim the lines.

His mouth had dropped open with shock by the time he reached the end of the rather short letter, and he immediately asked, "Is this really...?"

Albus and Minerva, both understanding the question completely, nodded, with their heads bobbing in unison.

"But...But it can't be! I mean, after all our hard work, and all that effort, and..and..everything!" exclaimed Severus. "Get someone else to read it, because it just can't be!"

An hour later, the majority of the teaching staff was crowded in Albus' office, all looking confused, angry, and even disappointed after reading the letter. They had all agreed that the letter said exactly what Albus had originally thought it did, and they were all just flummoxed as he had been. In fact, expressions of bedevilment, befuddlement, bafflement, and bewilderment were all over every professor's face.

Well, all save one.
Sybill Trelawney had a distinct, 'I knew it all along, I was just keeping it to myself because I didn't want to ruin the surprise for the rest of you silly nonbelievers' look on her face.

Minerva, upon seeing this look, suddenly gained a 'Please, Albus, let me punch that cow right in the kisser just to prove to her that she doesn't really see everything coming because then she would have moved to avoid my punch, and I really, really, really want to hurt her' expression.

Albus, deciding that a roomful of confounded magicians needed to see a good cat fight, nodded to Minerva.

She promptly punched Sybill in the kisser. Then she repeated the action, only this time she aimed for the nose. Then Sybill, having not seen this future possibility, and therefore failed to have moved very quickly to the other side of the room before violence erupted, fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Everyone else in the room stared at the prostrate Divinations professor, then at their normally dignified Deputy Headmistress, then back at the prostrate Divinations professor.

"About time," said Severus, actually smiling at Minerva. Then the other professors began congratulate the woman, who had an unabashed grin spreading across her face.

The physical violence had effectively killed the tension that had previously been heavy in the room. Hagrid, who had been the last to read the letter, allowed it to slip from his fingers, and tumble to the floor.

"Come on, I'll buy you a drink at the Three Broomsticks," he told Minerva as he led her out of the office, "a right hook like that deserves one."

The office gradually emptied out, until only Albus and Severus remained. Severus retrieved the letter from the corner, and asked in a quiet tone, "Do you think it's for real?"

Albus smiled. "Yes, I do."

***

Professor Albus Dumbledore:

I needed to write this to apologize for my atrocious behavior these past decades. I only recently, through the help of my new life guide, realized that all my pent up rage was misplaced. I was only mad at you because of that time you gave me a less than perfect score on my Transfigurations essay in sixth year. Please accept my apology. I will not try to harm you or your students any longer. In fact, I have decided that taking over the world really isn't the best career move I could have made. Torture of the innocents was fun while it lasted, but it is now time for me to accept that I can't always get my way. By the time you receive this, I will have given up my war against the weak and useless in order to live a more peaceful place. I have joined a rare group of free minded Muggles. They believe that by living in solitude, we will gain a closeness to others that I have for so long sought.

Sincerely,

The former Lord Voldemort,
The former Tom Riddle,

Now known as Sunny Afternoons.

***