Cassian stepped into the office, frown already forming. Fawkes lifted his head from the perch and trilled at him.
"Evening," Cassian said, giving the bird a wave before helping himself to the teapot on the side table. He poured then wandered to the nearest chair and dropped into it.
"I'm assuming you've heard the circus by now," he said, lifting the cup.
Dumbledore's smile creased the corners of his eyes. "News does travel rather quickly when half the castle is involved."
Cassian snorted. "Good. Saves me the recap."
He took a sip and set the cup on his knee. "Potter's rattled. Black's drunk. Snape's two minutes from committing a tasteful homicide. I've spent the evening dragging emotional bodies out of a ditch."
Dumbledore folded his hands. "I'm grateful you stepped in."
"Don't thank me." Cassian shrugged. "I'm fairly sure I've aged ten years today. If I start forgetting names, I'm blaming all of you."
Dumbledore's mouth twitched. "You can't forget."
Cassian grumbled, "That's a curse." He said under his breath.
Dumbledore chuckled.
Cassian sighed and set the teacup aside. "I'm here for something else."
Dumbledore's smile dimmed a fraction. His eyes sharpened. "What would that be?"
Cassian met the look straight on. "What are the Deathly Hallows?"
Dumbledore's gaze narrowed. He rose from his chair with a grunt, took his wand from the desk, and nodded toward the door.
"Before we discuss that," he said, "walk with me."
Cassian followed him out. The corridors were mostly empty at this hour. Saved them from explanation.
"So," Dumbledore asked as they turned the corner, "what's prompted the sudden interest?"
Cassian raised a brow. "I don't know. Could be Potter's Cloak. Could be the bone-white wand you whipped out in Gobekli Tepe like you weren't hoping no one noticed."
Dumbledore frowned. "When did that happen?"
Cassian grimaced. Oops.
He'd said too much.
The Djinn'd rewound time. The wand had never been drawn after that. So Dumbledore couldn't remember.
Cassian dragged a hand down his face, already regretting opening his mouth.
Dumbledore's gaze sharpened, eyes narrowing just slightly behind the half-moon spectacles. Cassian, deciding that silence was safer than improvisation, tucked his hands into his pockets and gave a tuneless whistle, as if the stone walls were suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world.
The Headmaster continued to study him for a beat longer than comfortable.
Something had happened. That much was clear.
But, to Cassian's relief, Dumbledore didn't press.
Instead, his expression softened into something thoughtful. "Hmm," he murmured, almost to himself, before continuing down the corridor.
When they reached the corridor leading to the Duelling Chamber, Dumbledore flicked his wand. The doors swung open on cue.
Cassian stopped. "Oh," he said. "We're doing this again."
Dumbledore stepped inside first. "You wished for answers," he said lightly. "And I find clarity comes easier when the body is occupied."
Cassian eyed him. "That's a suspicious way to say 'I want to hit you with spells while explaining lore.'"
Dumbledore smiled in a way that didn't help. "You learn quickly."
Cassian entered with a groan and shut the doors behind them.
Dumbledore moved to one end of the floor. "Wands out, Professor Rosier."
Cassian drew his. "Right. Practical demonstration."
"You asked a difficult question," Dumbledore replied. "The Hallows are not merely objects. They are ideas. Stories. Temptations. People seldom hear about them without trying to claim one."
Cassian tilted his head. "Relax. I'm not assembling a collector's set."
"We shall see." Dumbledore lifted his wand. "Now. On your guard."
Cassian mirrored him. "Right then. Lecture and duel. Multitasking. My favourite."
Dumbledore struck first, clean, fast, and something older than standard curriculum. Cassian swept it aside, the spell cracking against the far wall in a neat burst of gold.
"Begin with the Cloak," Dumbledore said as if they weren't trading hexes. "What do you think it is?"
"A relic," Cassian replied, stepping around a ricochet that hummed past his knee. "Woven with something that turns every ward it touches into a polite rumour."
Dumbledore smiled softly. "Not inaccurate."
He sent another charm, this one slow and curving, testing Cassian's footing. Cassian knocked it flat and returned a short, sharp curse that clipped Dumbledore's sleeve with a hiss of blue.
He followed with a sharp bolt of lightning straight at Dumbledore. The old wizard caught it on his wand-tip with irritating grace, ready to sling it back, right up until the metal grille overhead snapped shut like a jaw and locked the strike in place. Sparks skittered down the coil. Dumbledore's hair began to float.
He glanced up, mildly alarmed. "When did you conjure that?"
Cassian grinned. "When we started."
Dumbledore let out a chuckle as he waved the metal away. The lightning sputtered out, leaving his hair still faintly puffed from static.
Cassian tipped his chin toward Dumbledore. "And let's not pretend that the white stick is ordinary."
Dumbledore's expression turned serious. "Go on."
Cassian twirled his wand. "It's the Elder Wand. You took it off Grindelwald."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "You've studied the past."
Cassian flashed him a bright smile. "I'm a historian. That's what I do."
Dumbledore nodded, then flicked his wand toward the far corner. "Then tell me, Cassian. What do you make of the stone?"
Cassian spread his arms. "Haven't a clue, but-"
A fireball roared across the room.
He swore and dropped into a crouch. The spell sailed over him, smacked into the warded wall, and burst in a harmless shower of sparks.
"Bloody hell!"
"You should always be on your guard," Dumbledore said as if he'd merely tossed him a cushion.
Cassian stood, dusting ash off his sleeve. "Yes, thank you, Headmaster. Lovely feedback."
He shifted his grip on his wand. "I don't know what the stone does, but I'm certain the Hallows aren't fairy tales."
Dumbledore huffed through his nose. "They aren't."
Cassian tilted his head. "So all three exist."
Dumbledore answered with a fast, curling whip of spelllight.
Cassian redirected it with a twist, the arc bending away and smashing against the ward.
Dumbledore walked a few steps to the side. "Stories outlive their truths. And sometimes truths hide behind stories. The Hallows are both."
Cassian snorted. "You're very poetic when you don't want to answer a question."
"You're very persistent when told nothing," Dumbledore countered.
Cassian smiled. "Occupational hazard."
Dumbledore lifted his wand again. Cassian felt the push of magic before the spell took shape.
"Tell me," Dumbledore said, "have you discovered anything about the stone?"
Cassian circled a few steps, wand raised. "Rumour says resurrection. That's daft. Magic can cheat death, but it doesn't resurrect anything cleanly."
Dumbledore looked amused. "Probably not."
He lifted his wand. "Let's get serious."
Cassian raised a brow. "We're doing this again? You humiliated me a few years back, remember?"
Dumbledore laughed. "You've developed quickly. I'd like to see where you stand."
Cassian muttered something rude under his breath but lifted his wand all the same.
"Lumos Noctis."
The light in the chamber vanished, as though someone had tipped a bucket of ink over the world. Torches guttered out. Even wandlight couldn't be seen, eaten before it could spark.
Cassian moved silently, waving his wand to create dummies beside him, each matching his height and stance. A pulse rippled through him.
Dumbledore chuckled somewhere in the dark. "You've learned your lesson, then."
Cassian said nothing. Speaking would pin him down. He used voice-illusion, footsteps echoing around the chamber, left, right, behind, circling. Dumbledore turned at each.
A hiss of magic cut the dark, Dumbledore fired something. It sliced through one dummy. The figure burst into ash.
"That was rude," Cassian muttered, far from where his voice seemed to be.
Dumbledore flicked his wand again. A sweeping spell rippled outward from him. The second dummy exploded. The third skidded back and collapsed. Cassian felt the force brush his ribs from a distance.
It was an area-of-effect spell that damaged everything standing in its way, similar to his Ignis Orbis. He let out a very believable yelp, thrown a few feet to his right with sound-illusion again.
Dumbledore pivoted instantly. "There you are."
Cassian moved the opposite way, muffling his footsteps with a silent spell, slipping along the wall until his fingers found Dumbledore's shoulder.
He tapped it.
The darkness peeled back at once. The torches blinked alive. The room came back in colour, chairs intact, floor scorched, fake Cassians dead on the ground.
Cassian dropped his hand. "Caught you."
Dumbledore turned, eyes bright with something annoyingly close to delight. "Well done."
"You're still terrifying," Cassian said. "Before you get any ideas."
Dumbledore, naturally, had ideas. He flicked his wand and sent a spiral of light up toward the rafters, it burst, rained down soft motes, and then shot toward Cassian in a sudden second strike.
Cassian dodged, because he had dignity, then fired back a cross-cut curse that Dumbledore dispersed with a lazy wave.
"You're faster," Dumbledore said.
Cassian huffed. "I'd hope so. I've been training."
Dumbledore's wand was still raised.
Cassian sighed. "You're not done, are you?"
"Not remotely."
Dumbledore fired a chain of spells, thin rays, wide arcs, a binding strand meant to catch him mid-step. Cassian ducked the first, broke the second, and vaulted sideways from the third, landing with one hand braced on the floor.
Dumbledore twirled the wand lightly. "Excellent. Again."
Cassian glared. "I came here for a conversation about the Hallows."
"And you shall have it," Dumbledore said, already sending another spell. "Consider this the entrance exam."
Cassian blocked it and muttered, "I should've gone to bed." He fired back a bolt that fractured into three mid-flight.
Dumbledore caught two. The third he let hit the floor, it fizzled out, harmless.
"Better," the Headmaster said.
Cassian pointed at him. "Don't mentor me while you're trying to murder me."
"Murder is such a strong word," Dumbledore replied.
Cassian gave him a look. "You threw fire at me five seconds ago."
"A gentle fire."
Cassian barked a laugh. "Right. Lovely warm fire. For roasting professors."
Dumbledore's eyes went sharp again, the kind of sharp that meant Cassian had about five seconds before he would find himself back on his arse educationally.
Cassian let out a tired sigh. Dumbledore's wand gave a jolt and tore itself out of his grip. It shot across the room straight at Cassian like a very polite missile.
Cassian caught it cleanly. He turned it in his hand, weighing it the way someone might check whether a broom was worth buying. "Albus," he said, "you forgot I spent a year in the wilderness without magic. My only company was trees. Your wand might adore you, but it's still made of wood."
Dumbledore stared at him, caught somewhere between affronted and delighted. "I really ought to remember things like that."
Cassian lobbed the wand back. Dumbledore caught it neatly, slid it into his sleeve, and then drew a different one.
A bone-pale wand, long and smooth, the grain barely visible under the polish.
Dumbledore held it up. "This," he said, "is the Elder Wand."
Cassian's eyes widened. That wood...
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