Chapter 3: The Man in the Portrait

The wizard in the portrait was sleeping, or rather pretending to be asleep in any case. He had long white hair, and an equally long white beard. He was wearing a magnificent set of deep blue robes covered in twinkling silver stars. On the top of his head was a tall pointed wizards hat matching the robes. He had a pair of half moon spectacles that were slightly askew due to his sleeping posture. He was sitting in a maroon chintz lounge chair with his head resting against the side.

“DUMBELDORE!” Harry exclaimed completely over come with shock. “But how? Why? Did we –? How is this even possible?” Harry stuttered at a complete loss for words. He had almost been expecting Sirius, but not Dumbeldore.

“How did we get him, he is supposed to be at Hogwarts in the Headmaster’s office! You didn’t steal him did you?!” Harry looked appalled at the very thought. “We need to take him back right now, this isn’t right, he belongs there!” He stopped ranting at the sound of a soft chuckle.

“Hello Harry.” The man in the portrait was awake now, still sitting, but now with his hands pressed together in his lap. “Actually your parents didn’t steal me, as I believe you feared. It was my wish that you have a portrait of me, at the time of my demise. Because it was such an unheard of request it took the ministry a little longer than I had hoped.”

Harry sat there not replying, his mouth gaping open.

“I see from your shock, that you were not informed of my wishes. I also see that I missed the last battle. Hello Lily, James.”

“You knew that this would happen?” Finally finding his voice Harry asked, “You knew they would come back from the… well… come back?”

“No, not exactly.” Dumbledore mused, “Although this is wonderful! You see Harry, something like this has never happened before. Yes I see you are about to interrupt, and I know what you will ask. Wizards have killed other wizards before using their wands as a weapon, but their wands were never destroyed, at least not right away. Those wands might be passed down for generations, and then break on accident if at all. Priori Incantatum I imagine would lose its force as other spells have been cast. If a wand is used to kill a Witch or a Wizard, as the years went on and other none harmful spells were cast, by the time the wand was destroyed any remnants of the spell would be long gone. I would also imagine that it would matter greatly the manner in which the wand was destroyed. In this case, not very many spells had been cast with this wand, all of which were evil spells, so the spell used to kill your parents was still relatively recent in terms of spells cast. I would also imagine that you destroyed his wand immediately before or after you had destroyed him, and not by just snapping it in half, am I correct?”

Harry was still mulling over all of the information that he had just been given, and took a minute to respond. “What? Oh, yes, I demolished it and then burned the pieces. That is when it happened. All of the pieces I could find I gathered up in a frying pan, and then set them on fire. I was shocked when people started jumping out of my pan!”

“I would imagine it would be a shocking experience.” Dumbeldore chuckled, and his eyes twinkled at the thought. “Now Harry, your parents are obviously back, is it safe to assume that Mr. Diggory and the muggle Caretaker are also back as well?”

“Yes, Cedric is very happy to be back, and his father is overjoyed, he didn’t do too well as you well know, after the tournament that is. The muggle Caretaker however was in such a state of shock, being as that he can remember everything that happened from the time of his death on that they had to bring in an officer from the Department of Memory Modifications to help him. Luckily this all happened in the small graveyard behind the old Riddle house, so now he thinks that he was chasing some kids out of there and tripped and hit his head.”

“Did Emmalina Vance and Susan Bones come back as well?”

“No, apparently Voldemort’s wand was not used on them. Sirius didn’t come back either.” Harry said after a pause, “But I guess that makes sense because it was Bellatrix’s wand not Voldemort’s.”

“Ah yes, but that is an interesting situation as well. Bellatrix didn’t actually kill Sirius. Wait, hear me out,” Dumbeldore said as he saw the furious look on Harry’s face. “She caused his death, if that is what you can call it, but she did not actually kill him. If you remember, she hit him with a spell that knocked him through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. Even if her wand was destroyed, he wouldn’t come out of it, because the wand didn’t actually cast the spell that killed him.”

James had a pained expression on his face as the conversation turned to Sirius; he hadn’t taken the news of Sirius’s death very well. “Is there anything that we can do for him? Is it to late? What, in Merlin’s beard, is the veil?” James bombarded all of these questions onto Dumbeldore, “I can’t believe that he is gone, there has got to be something we can do.”

“That is an interesting topic to be sure, and I am not avoiding answering you James. Some other things need to be addressed first, and some research needs to be done on my part so that I fully understand things before I answer you.” James did not look at all happy about this answer but did not protest. “Now Harry, I would imagine that you are wondering why I requested that you have a portrait of me.”