Chapter 1053 - 787: Indulge Once
In a certain shabby little house in Godric’s Hollow, Bathilda Bagshot was still upstairs looking for her manuscript.
Downstairs, Kael and Dumbledore sat facing each other, but the way they acted seemed as if their roles were reversed.
Kael’s expression was calm.
Dumbledore, however, looked tense... he could hardly describe how he felt right now.
In fact, Nicolas Flamel had repaired that Time Turner a long time ago. Although Dumbledore had been longing for this result all along, when the day really came, he shrank back.
For reasons he couldn’t quite name—perhaps guilt over Arianna, perhaps something else—he had started deliberately avoiding the matter, burying himself in work so he could subconsciously ignore the issue of the Time Turner.
But when he finally managed to steel himself, went to Devon to find Nicolas, he was told the Time Turner had already been given away—given to Kael.
He had no choice but to come back again.
"So Bathilda mistaking me for her nephew at the start—that was part of your plan too?" Kael asked.
"No, of course not." Dumbledore shook his head this time. "As I said just now, luck has always been on my side.
"In truth, I arrived quite some time ago, but I hadn’t yet figured out what excuse I could use to persuade you to lend me the Time Turner, so I didn’t show myself. And then, of all times, I noticed Bathilda getting muddled again.
"I’m guessing it must have been that Transfiguration Spell you used earlier that made her mistake you for someone else—and it also gave me this idea: to borrow Bathilda’s help to tell you about Arianna."
"Transfiguration Spell?" Kael thought for a moment. "You mean the one at the wedding?"
"That’s right." Dumbledore nodded. "Her nephew was very skilled at Transfiguration Spell when he was young, especially animal Transfiguration. The increasingly muddle-headed Bathilda must have recognized something familiar in your Transfiguration Spell."
Kael tugged at the corner of his mouth, struck speechless. He hadn’t expected that a Transfiguration Spell he’d cast on a whim would end up linked to the man studying in Nimongard Tower.
He was a decent man, after all, and had nothing whatsoever to do with Grindelwald, steeped in Blood Debt as he was.
Kael tilted his head slightly; sunlight streamed through the mottled curtains into the room, and one shaft of light happened to fall on the side of Dumbledore’s face.
"You must have known many years ago that I needed this Time Turner."
"Yes." Kael nodded.
The first time he ever saw Dumbledore lose his composure was in the Chamber of Secret at Hogwarts, when Dumbledore was holding the broken Time Turner, so tense he was on the verge of snapping.
For a long time afterward, Dumbledore kept running about because of this, seeking out renowned Alchemists in an effort to repair the thing.
"You know the reason now as well—it’s because of Arianna." Dumbledore said softly. "What happened that time is my greatest regret. Do you understand? All these years, whenever I look at her photograph, not a single night have I been able to sleep peacefully."
Kael very much wanted to say: if that’s the case, why not put Arianna’s photograph away? If you don’t see it, wouldn’t that solve it?
But after thinking it over, he still couldn’t bring himself to say it. On the one hand, it would be extremely rude; on the other, he had no desire to go courting death.
"I hope you can help me." Dumbledore said.
Kael drew in a deep breath and turned his head away again, refusing to look at Dumbledore as he was now.
"Professor, have you really decided?"
Under normal circumstances—even if you moved the time two months earlier—Kael wouldn’t even need to know any of this. As long as Dumbledore asked, he wouldn’t hesitate at all.
Back at school, he’d wanted to bring it up himself more than once, only to forget for various reasons.
After all, Kael knew very well what Dumbledore had done for this Time Turner. The fact that it could be repaired was almost entirely thanks to him and Nicolas. From any angle, Kael had no reason to refuse.
Only now...
Time was the hardest thing to grasp. On the box Nicolas had given him, the one holding the Time Turner, it clearly said: the further back you go, the greater the risk.
Going back a hundred years and going back a week were completely different matters. Too much time meant Dumbledore would find it very hard to land precisely on the exact day he wanted.
The margin of error could be a week, or a month, or even a year.
Most importantly, this kind of change wouldn’t connect with the current timeline, which meant Dumbledore couldn’t use it like the students do, where one second you go back, and the next you appear in the same place.
As for how long it would take—no one knew, because no one had ever done it. Even the Four Founders years ago had only spoken to Kael through some arrangements they’d made in the Chamber of Secret; they hadn’t truly come to Hogwarts at this point in time.
Now they had already begun to confront Voldemort and the Death Eaters directly, and the situation was getting more and more tense. If, at this point, their biggest pillar—Dumbledore—were to suddenly vanish, what kind of joke would that be?
Kael rubbed his forehead, inwardly grousing about why Nicolas had to give him such a troublesome thing.
If he knew nothing, then Dumbledore going back would simply be Dumbledore going back; there’d be no need for him to agonize over it.
"Actually, my original intention wasn’t to use it right now." Dumbledore seemed to have guessed what Kael was thinking. He glanced at his own limp arm and said, "But Tom helped me make this decision.