I'm walking through Central Park in New York City, just enjoying the scenery and passing the time, when i hear a voice from behind me.

"Well, hello, Clair." The voice is old, whithery, and kind. I know that voice. It's a voice from my past. A past I'd rather forget.

I stop and turn to see my old headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. He looks older; his white beard is longer, the ends no longer at his chest, but below his waist. His skin is more worn, but his blue eyes still twinkled with a keen intelligence. He smiles at me.

"How did you find me, Professor?" I ask slowly.

He chuckles. "I understand your confusion. I admitt you were indeed very hard to find, but not impossible."

"No, apparently not," I mutter to myself. I walk up to him. "How did you know where to find me? How did you even know where I was?"

"I've always known where you were."

My eyes go wide in alarm. "What?! Who else knows?! What if he found out?! What if he came after---"

"Calm down, Clair," he says, placing his hands gently on my shoulders. "You'll be alright."

"What do you want with me?"

He takes his hands off my shoulders. "I need your help."

"With what?" I ask.

His eyes dart around is, looking at the different faces of passerbys and the shadowy recessed of the trees. Then he smiles at me again.

"If you would be so kind," he holds out his arm, "I would like a more private place to discuss this. My office, perhaps?"

I bite my lip. "No one's going to know... right?" I tentatively take hold of his arm. I'm almost certain I can trust him.

He leads me into the dark cover of the trees. "I assume you are still familiar with appearation?"

"I remember, but I have other ways of travel."

"Yes, of course, but you have not been to my office since...?"

"No." I look away from him. I have not."

"Then shall we be on our way?" he asks.

"Sure," I mumble, and the next thing I know, I feel a horrible sucking sensation, like all the air is being sucked form the atmosphere, the the feeling is gone and I'm in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts.

I quickly let go of Dumbledore. "Okay, we're here. What was it you wanted my help with?" I watch him circle his desk and sit in his high-backed chair.

He leans back. "I'm going to be frank. You, once upon a times whenn you were a student at Hogwarts, were in love with a Slytherin boy named Tom Riddle."

My heart speeds up, going so fast that it felt like one long beat.

"Otherwise known as Lord Voldemort."