TITLE: THE PIED PIPER

DISCLAIMER: I don't own them, JK Rowling does.

SUMMARY: There is a little darkness in everyone, even if it is not readily apparent. Dumbledore POV.

RATING: R for darkness. This ain't a happy fic, kiddies.

PAIRING: None. Well, not yet, anyway.

SERIES: Story 1 in 'The Ceremony of Innocence'. Story 2 is called 'Speak No Evil'.

ARCHIVE: List archives fine, everyone else ask first, please.

THANKS TO: My wonderful beta-readers. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own fault. Special thanks to Monika for remembering a whole lot more about Harry Potter continuity than I could ever hope to, and for saving me from some pretty big inconsistencies that I hadn't even realised I had created.

NOTES:

1. The 'quotation from a famous Muggle' that Dumbledore alludes to is, of course, Nietzsche's famous 'if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you'.

2. Not entirely sure why this fic ended up being so sinister. I was just going to go for angst and h/c. It didn't end up that way. Eh. Actually, this was inspired by a Newsweek article on the use of child soldiers (aged 14 and up) in one of the Middle Eastern conflicts, so grimness WARNINGS are being given now.

SPOILERS: This is set relatively soon after GoF, so mild spoilers for anything concerning Voldemort and Snape.

We failed.

That you must understand – first and foremost, we failed. All of us, to the last one, failed in our duty to protect the children. We swore that we would do it, and we failed. Completely. Utterly.

Oh, I know that the history books don't show that. They're full of the ecstatic news that amid all the death there was one survivor: The Boy Who Lived, despite all the mistakes we made. They don't speak of all those other children we failed to protect, all those young lives we ruined simply by not being there when we were needed. Simply by standing idly by while Voldemort worked his evil.

Slytherins. Crafty, suspicious, ambitious, willing to kill for him. But still, despite all that, they were children. They looked to us – to me – for guidance, and they were failed. We handed them to Voldemort and then explained our actions away; we justified with tired, small words the brutal act of cutting a swathe through children with magic they could not hope to resist or survive.

One by one, those Death Eater children – recruited from our classrooms, from the dorm rooms we thought were so safe - fell and burned on the ground, writhing in pain, utterly ignored by the 'heroes' that cut them down and left them to die alone. We did not teach them enough. They were too young, far, far too young to know enough about Defence to stand a chance. They did not even know that the Avada Kedavra curse is not the only one to kill. It is simply the one you cannot block. There are many others, equally as deadly, but if you are strong and powerful, you can block them. Dodge them. Escape them.

Not, of course, if you are a seventeen-year-old boy, out to earn your Dark Mark and suddenly in the middle of an ambush. Many adults would be too frightened to move. What hope does a child of seventeen have? He would be cut down, of course, by wizards ignorant of the almost-hairless face behind that Death Eater mask, worn so that the Aurors that child would have to fight would not know that Voldemort – Our Lord Who Must Not Be Named – had stooped to using mere children as canon fodder.

Why should that surprise us? More importantly, why should that surprise me? I knew Tom, as a child and as a youth. I knew what he was capable of. I knew him as an adult, and I knew what he expected of others. I knew what he would expect them to be capable of, the depths he would expect them to sink to. Death was something unspeakable for him – a fact that other people would have to endure but something that he would not condescend to think about. Once you are convinced of your own immortality, there is little that can hurt you. Did we really expect him to shed tears over his dead followers?

Did I really expect any of our 'heroes' to do that? Our wonderful 'heroes', so brave when faced with the prospect of slaughtering children... did anyone really expect them to ask forgiveness for their sins? It was so easy to simply go home, covered in glory, bragging about the many Death Eaters one had killed and describe their last moments. It was so easy to ignore the screaming child behind the crisping, burning mask, the flow of childblood from beneath skin that was far, far too smooth and soft and new, and those last soft cries… Oh, Merlin, those last cries of death. Not for Our Lord of Darkness. Not for Merlin, or even God, but, Merlin help me, for Mummy. For Daddy. For big sis or the dear older brother who had dragged them into this and had left them to die here, their skin charred and blackened and crisping up over perfectly white teeth as they screamed and screamed and screamed for the adults that had sworn to protect them.

This time, it was those very same protectors that were doing the damage. It did not matter whether they were the ones who convinced a fourteen-year-old child to touch a Portkey and kneel in Voldemort's presence, whether they were the ones branding a youth of seventeen with the Dark Mark, or whether they were the ones who grabbed these Death Eater children – the first to fall, of course, and so terribly expendable - and dragged them off viciously to be detained and questioned. It did not matter, because there wasn't much difference in the end. It was still the adults who were killing them, bit by bit, as they waited patiently for the information that never came because the children did not know. Did any of these adults – some of them hailed as heroes by us now - feel any guilt? I'm sure of it. Torture is never a pleasurable activity, perhaps even for an Auror who is tired and jaded and has lost friends and family to Our Lord of Fear. Even for those ones, so empty inside that it is doubtful if they can be called 'human', human life is sacred. Or, it should be. Should be, even to an Auror. Even to a hero.

So many have accused me of being a Muggle-lover. Of holding their beliefs dearer to me that those of pureblood wizards. They never stop to ask me why this is so... why the screams of a child should trouble me. They never wonder why I do not befriend many Aurors and what I see in the eyes of the ones I do get close to. They never ask why I am sickened by the fact that Aurors have such wondrous rights, such freedom, when the innocents they are supposed to be protecting have none. Can even an Auror believe that a fourteen-year-old girl, be she a Slytherin or not, really felt the need to flay one of her former classmates? Perhaps they can. Perhaps such a child exists. Should the child be blamed, or should that blame be reserved for the adults that did not teach her that it is wrong to want such things? What makes such a child the villain, and the Auror that flays her in turn, the hero? History, of course. Written not by the victors, but by those on the sidelines who did little or nothing to help either side and then changed history to better please their new masters.

One by one, each parent takes me to one side and asks why I am so friendly, why I make friends with the children. It is strange how these wizards and witches all manage to make it sound like a failing to have any gentler emotions or, Merlin forbid, any rapport at all with their offspring. Strange, how they expected me to be tough, strong and fierce, able to protect their children should the Dark Lord return. Protect them from what? Themselves?

Each child that arrives at my school knows, long before they put a foot inside the Hall, what reputation each House has. They all have an idea of where they want to end up – or, at least, which House they would hate to be placed in. They all know that Griffyndors are considered brave – but mostly by fellow Gryffindors, whereas to the rest, they are wastefully foolhardy. They know that the Slytherins are all dark, ambitious and slippery as the snake on their crest, except if they are a Slytherin themselves. Then they speak of House pride, of protecting their families, of wanting to make something of themselves. Each House looks after its members and shuns the rest, more or less. And who suffers worse than the Slytherins? Hundreds of children, whose only crime was to be Sorted into a different House than their schoolmates, are told for seven years that they are slimy, unreliable and Dark.

A small, pale, almost painfully shy boy, and almost perfect for the task at hand, he was no different in that respect. A Slytherin, of course, told from the moment he stepped into the Great Hall that he was ruthless and ambitious, that he had Darkness in him.

Where on Earth could an eleven-year-old child possibly keep this 'Darkness' everyone was so sure existed? Where could he find the space on that tiny body of his, so impossibly thin that he looked like he would break in half if you so much as breathed on him? I did not understand it then.

I do now, of course. It wasn't Darkness the Hat saw in him. It was strength. Enough strength to save us... enough strength to last, at least for a little while. I was a fool. What is a child's strength when a child cannot think past tomorrow, let alone ten years ahead? What is a child's strength when confronted with something he doesn't understand?

Many have told me that I am a fool to have a former Death Eater working for me. They see the man and judge him by deeds done when he was not yet aware of how they would stain his consciousness. I cannot do so; I would never dream of trying. But you, you who would judge him and his past deeds, you tell me, then, who is to blame? The pale, dark-haired child who stood in my office bleeding, holding a knife and sobbing after trying to cut out the Dark Mark burned forever into his arm, or the adult that failed to prevent this from happening? Find us a spy, the Ministry said to me. Find us a spy so that we will know what the Dark Lord is planning.

Find us a child to do our suffering for us.

After all, what matters if he fails? He is a Slytherin. He might have returned to Darkness in any case.

Shameful, shameful thoughts that no one would admit to, but that is what they thought. Find us a child, Albus, so that we may all be saved. Find us a child willing to take on this responsibility. Find us a child so that he may be above suspicion. An adult entering the ranks, however dark his record previously, would be instantly under suspicion. But who, in their right mind, would suspect a child?

They did not stop to ask what kind of person would send a child to a war zone. Voldemort had done so; it seemed logical to them, even to me, to retaliate in kind. Voldemort had taken our children from us, and so we had to strike back at him with a properly ironic weapon… one of those same children, turning on his former master. No one stopped to question whether defeat was preferable to victory at whatever cost.

Look for long into an abyss, a famous Muggle had once said, and the abyss will look back into you.

I have looked into the abyss. It is in the eyes of a sixteen-year-old boy, clutching a kitchen knife and sobbing into my shoulder that it hurt, it hurt unbearably, pleading with me to make it stop. It still resides there, in eyes now aged hundreds of years despite their owner's relative youth, still staring back into my soul. Still accusative, still clutching that knife and still demanding to know why, of all people, he had been chosen to go back into the Darkness. He had already made his choice, turning his back on his friends and his Housemates, turning his back on all that he had known to return to the Light. After making one of the hardest choices a child could make, why had he been taken to one side by me, his protector, and asked to sacrifice himself for the greater good?

He did not ask this at first, of course. The questions came later, when it was much to late to make a difference. He could very well have assumed that any who returned from Voldemort's side would have done, and that he had been the most expendable. There wasn't anyone around to dissuade him from that... not even me, the famous Albus Dumbledore, friend to children everywhere. What could I say? It was more or less true. He was chosen because he was likely to remain loyal to me, smart enough to succeed... and alone enough not to be missed too much if he failed. I could do nothing. And so, he was sent off to wait, and to listen, and to have the Dark Mark burned into his skin, with a bag of Chocolate Frogs tucked into his schoolbag. The proper 'compensation' for the child sacrifice he would be forced to make. What uses have children of money or of fame among tired, boring old men?

It took him months to finally be accepted into the Death Eater ranks, months to finally be trusted and to have a brand burned into his skin as recognition of a kill made and enjoyed. So many sleepless nights in that time during which time I could have saved him. I could have protected him. I could have spared him somehow, shown the tiniest semblance of mercy. I did none of those things, simply waiting. Doing what I was told. Following orders.

Just as he did. What is the courage of a child in the face of a gauntlet – an ancient exercise in viciousness and brutality? What is a child's courage in the face of an oath that would bind him or break him? What kind of courage allows those things?

It's simple, really. The kind who still believes that, somewhere out there, there is at least one grown up, one adult, still looking out for him. Still protecting him. How can you atone for such a dreadful, frightening untruth, told to a child who could not conceive of you lying to him?

Months passed, and yet I did nothing. Years passed during which time he was a part of Them. He did what dozens of adult Aurors had refused to do and gave himself to the shadows and to the Darkness, letting it enter his soul. Dozens and dozens of trained Aurors, ready to die, if need be, for the greater good, but not ready to sully themselves by giving themselves to Voldemort. Ready to kill youth after youth wrapped in black cloth and wearing a mask so they would not have to think of them as children, but not ready to let someone burn Darkness into their skin with a brand.

A child cannot be a hero, the Ministry tells me. Especially not that child, presented with the Order of Merlin only upon my insistence. A child cannot be a hero because a child does not understand danger, or what is right and wrong. And besides – always said with a hint of a sneer - that child – and he couldn't really be called a child, he was seventeen years old now, almost a man - probably enjoyed the death he had to inflict to maintain his cover. He was a Slytherin, after all.

Almost a man. Almost. Almost, except for the lack of shaving each day. Almost, except for the delight in small things. Almost, except for asking my advice as if my opinion counted more to him than his own in small things, silly things, things that should not have mattered. Children do that. Adults do not.

Yet it did not occur to me to point this out. It did not occur to me to ask the Ministry how they could dismiss heroism so easily, but could not let villainy go unpunished. I did not ask how someone that wore gloves to prevent blood spattering him, and burned children from the inside out, was a hero, but a child who had let someone brand him was not.

Maybe not so strange. Who wants, after all, to have to deal with so many victims? Who wants to have to try and disable, but not kill? Who wants to arrive at their office and find a child bleeding on the carpet, eyes hard and dark and so, so, angry? Who wants to have to explain why it was them, why it had to be them and not someone who was older, better trained, who had chosen this and had known what they were doing?

Would an Auror choose to try to remove a Death Mark received unwillingly? Of course. Would they be so helpless, so disgusted, so frightened of what it represented and what they had been forced to do to earn it that they would try and slice their own skin off after magic failed them?

Look me in the eyes and tell me that, if you truly believe it. Look me in the eyes and tell me that I am a hero; that I did what had to be done and made necessary sacrifices to make sure that the Darkness did not win.

Tell me it was worth it.

Tell me that the sacrifice of a child was worth the lives of all those old men at the Ministry who have already lived full, rich lives; that an orphaned baby boy can truly be a hero. We need our heroes now, you see. Even if they are children. Another war is coming; Our Lord of Darkness and of children's tears is returning soon. We need heroes to do our fighting for us; what does it matter what age they are? Train them young, I'm told. Train them young and make them loyal to us. It does not matter that they are still children, for a child, at least, would not shrink from killing other children simply because they are children. Power is not an issue, not when potions can be brewed and poison poured and confidences betrayed. Even children can cause death and destruction, and so we must be on guard and plan for this. The children will understand, they tell me. They will understand because only a child would understand the responsibilities of a hero that an adult would find empty and silent. A child would hate anyone trying to tell him otherwise, that he is normal, that 'being heroic' and remembered as such by his peers doesn't mean everything, that he really, really does not wish to be a hero. Because this child – whether he be ten or fourteen or eighteen - wishes it. Because every child wishes it.

And because, in the end, children do not listen to their elders except when bribed to do so with false promises of chocolate and of respect from their peers.

I feel dark eyes watching me every moment, soft words forever trying to convince me to send this child away, to expel him, to let him be ordinary. I do not listen, of course. Our former hero – or is that villain? – is still entirely too trusting of me, entirely too sure of my goodness and heroism. He still cuts himself open in the privacy of his own rooms, still trying to remove the brand that marks him as a villain rather than a victim. He does not cry on my shoulder anymore, for which I am grateful. I am not entirely certain of what I would do if he did.

Besides, he still has a job to do. I care for him enough to tell him what that job entails; what he is expected to do. He agrees, of course, with that same look in his eyes of tired and entirely too trusting resignation. He still thinks of me as his saviour, it seems. Why else would he agree to this? Why else would he stop trying to convince me to send The Boy Who Lived home, whether it be covered with glory or in disgrace? He knows that the boy, too, has a job to do; he has learnt his lessons well. He stays silent, while, once more, the world cries out for a hero. And, once more, I thrust forward a child not expected to survive.

The Boy Who Lived. Will anyone remember his death?

There is still the faint scent of copper in my office, of blood and of tears and of so many healing spells gone wrong. There is still a bloodied knife wrapped in Slytherin-green cloth locked in my safe. Once more, they ask me for a hero. It will not be the last time. We must be prepared; if not Our Lord of Darkness, then someone else will always be there, waiting in the wings to take over. And the Ministry cannot allow that. Think of the children, they say, each time someone objects. Think of the lives we would save.

And so the parents think. They think of their own children, their flesh and blood, in danger from frightening, unnamed slivers of Darkness. They wonder about what lies under those Death Eater masks, not for once imagining a fresh-faced youngster. They think of the dangers their offspring are exposed to, and they ask me why I do not prepare their children for battle. They ask me why I am so warm and so friendly. What can I say to them?

My dears, how else am I going to convince your child to sacrifice his life for us?

fin