The caramel haze of Honeydukes had been a pleasant enough end to the excursion, but the reality of Hogwarts was waiting for them the moment they stepped back into the castle's chill. For Albert, the Hogsmeade trip had been a tactical success: the relationship was cemented, the public perception was being carefully managed, and he had successfully navigated the messy waters of the MacDougall family dynamic without having to lift a finger.
Katrina was still acting odd when he crossed her path in the corridors—a mixture of lingering confusion and that specific, sharp-eyed scrutiny one reserves for someone who has just outplayed them—but Albert didn't give it a second thought. To him, they were passing ships. His focus was already elsewhere.
Back at the school, the rumors began their inevitable churn. For a few days, the common rooms were thick with speculation about the "mystery date," with various students trying to connect the dots between him and Isabelle. Albert, however, had the ultimate silencer: Lee Jordan. Once Albert had made it clear that gossip was a waste of productive energy, the school's premier rumor mill had dried up overnight.
Fred and George, meanwhile, were living in a state of perpetually aggrieved curiosity. They had been dying to catch Albert in a vulnerable, romantic moment, simply for the sheer joy of watching him squirm, but he had proven to be a ghost. He never lingered in the common room with her, never held hands in the courtyard, and never left a trail. Most importantly, he wasn't showing up on their precious Marauders' Map when he was with her.
They didn't know about the Room of Requirement—that was a variable their map simply couldn't account for. But their obsession with the map had led them to a different, more baffling discovery: they had seen two Alberts on the parchment at once.
"It's not adding up, mate," Fred said, cornering Albert in a quiet corner of the library, his face flushed with the kind of frantic curiosity that usually signaled trouble. "We saw you in the Great Hall, and we saw you on the second floor. At the same time. Don't tell me you've got a twin hiding in the dungeons."
Albert didn't even look up from the ancient, crumbling text on alchemy he was dissecting. "I told you, it's a matter of course load. I'm doing things you aren't, and those things require a bit of… magical flexibility. I promised McGonagall I'd keep it quiet. If you're that desperate to understand, go ask her yourself."
"McGonagall? You want us to tell the Deputy Headmistress we're spying on you with a magical map?" George laughed, though it sounded strained. "You're a piece of work, Anderson."
"Look," Albert said, finally closing his book with a definitive thud, "I'm confiscating the map for a while. You lot are using it to hunt for drama, and frankly, I need the peace."
"You can't do that!" Fred and George exclaimed in unison, their voices rising just enough to earn a sharp glare from Madam Pince. "We've got a patrol with Filch tonight! We need to know where he is!"
"Take a night off," Albert said, sliding the parchment into his pocket with a movement that brooked no argument. "Consider it a lesson in stealth. If you can't navigate the castle without a GPS, you don't deserve to be out past curfew anyway."
He didn't wait for their rebuttal. He knew the warning—his past threats were still fresh in their minds—and he knew they were terrified he'd do something far more permanent than just taking the map, like wiping their memories of its existence entirely.
Once he was alone, Albert pulled the map out again, his mind shifting gears. He wasn't just hoarding it; he was studying it. It was a masterpiece of collaborative magic, and the more he examined it, the more he realized it wasn't just a simple tracking charm. It was a layers-upon-layers construction.
He understood why his own attempts to hide from it had failed. He had tried to use a basic Shield Spell to mask his signature, but that was like trying to hide a candle behind a sheet of paper. The map was fueled by something stronger—a collective, layered enchantment that didn't just look for a spell, but for the presence of a living soul.
He toyed with the idea of developing a counter-enchantment—a true, advanced Shield Magic that could ripple and distort the map's perception of him. It would be a monumental project, and while he was sure Nicolas Flamel could do it in his sleep, Albert didn't have the luxury of centuries. He couldn't just write to Flamel, either; the old alchemist was too high-profile. A letter from a student, intercepted by the wrong person, would be an invitation to disaster.
What I really need, he thought, tapping his wand against the parchment, is a two-way mirror. Something that doesn't rely on owls or the postal system.
His gaze flickered toward the map, specifically to the fourth-floor corridor. Quirrell was still there, a constant, flickering blot of malice on the parchment. He was still trying to figure out how to bypass the Cerberus, and Albert could almost feel the frustration radiating off the professor's location. It was a slow-motion car crash, and Albert had no intention of getting hit by the debris.
Halloween was approaching, and with it, the inevitable spark of the 'rescue' narrative. He knew how the story went—or at least, the version of it that everyone expected. Harry Potter would stumble into danger, Hermione would provide the brainpower, and Ron would provide the… well, the presence. If that triad broke, the 'Savior' narrative would fall apart. And if Harry died, then what?
The cold reality of it hit him: if Harry fell, the burden of stopping Voldemort would shift. It would fall to the next most capable person. To someone who had been lurking in the background, carefully curating their own power.
To him.
Albert looked at the map again, seeing the names of students scurrying about like ants in a glass box. Death wasn't a game mechanic here. There was no 'respawn' button in this reality, and the Killing Curse didn't care about how much potential you had. The idea of trading his existence for the sake of a prophecy he hadn't asked for was profoundly unappealing.
He wasn't a hero; he was a pragmatist. His goal wasn't to defeat the Dark Lord in a blaze of glory; it was to ensure that the people who were destined for that stage did their jobs effectively, while he stayed in the shadows, quietly building his own foundation.
He'd rather support the Savior from afar, let the chaos consume itself, and spend his time mastering the kind of magic that made the world bow to you—not the kind that forced you to bleed for it. If he could manage that, maybe he could survive this entire ordeal with his life, his intellect, and his freedom intact. After all, why risk getting hit by an Avada Kedavra when you could just pay someone else to handle the heavy lifting?