Rating/Warnings/Etc. : None
Character: Albus Dumbledore
Disclaimer: NASA's mostly, JKR's next, just a bit of mine.
Media: Digital using Pocket Artist on Pocket PC (yeah, it's amazing what the little buggers can do.)

Dedication: For my ever-faithful betas lydialovestruck, aseneth, atdelphi, N.B., and haldolpoim as a Big Thank You!



I'm a geek, I proudly admit it, so when NASA issued the first billion-pixel picture of the Orion Nebula last week, I had to be the first kid on the block to put one on my desktop. And it is lovely, but as I stared at it, I began to see a person in it--Dumbledore, to be precise (all right, so I'm a wierd geek). When I showed my husband, he noted it looked like, "That time Dumbledore went into the Orrery to capture a moment."

Wow. He was right. So I fiddled with the photo, left most of it alone clarified it a bit, and generally had entirely too much fun. Since it didn't turn-out like my usual stick figures too awful, I decided to share.



This is the original image:



Click here if you want to play with it at NASA.


And here's what I did with it:



Click here for a larger image.

~*~*~
And here's the passage I was thinking of when I did it...
Excerpt from Epithalamium Chapter 26:

Timeless

He walked through the endless corridors of time and space in the twilight realm of endless possibilities the Orrery represented. Reaching the infinite point where the future meets the past, he called out the mighty words of ancient power and captured an instant into a shimmering ball of reality. It twisted and writhed within his gnarled hands, his normally snowy white beard painted the brightest colours of the rainbow to the darkest shades of midnight as the captive moment desperately tried to escape his inexorable prison. He spoke to it, soothingly, lovingly, until captivated more by his charm than his magic, it calmed, expectantly waiting to do his bidding, for like everything else in this place, it could not ultimately refuse him.

Carefully cradling the fledgling against his chest like the infant it was, he carried it out of its cold birthing place, through an enchantment made only for those of his kind, into a plain room warm with promise. Happy, the moment begged in its noisy silent fashion to be released into this new inviting home, a sanctuary where it could reside in happy stasis. He whispered patience to it, waiting until it once again was under his spell, pulsing brightly with all its latent power, for both he and it knew nothing contained more power than Now.

His shoulders starting to droop with the effort of holding such an eager participant, he took a moment of his own to focus inner resources rarely called upon. Like an Ouroboros, his strength fed his weakness until, balanced, he stood tall and straight. Raising his arms, he waited for the instant and when it was right he released the captured moment, floating it until it spun furiously, freely in the centre of the Room. Joyfully it turned, faster and faster, growing with each revolution until it overtook him, passed him, encompassed him within itself. He waited and carefully watched its soft edges slowly expanding to fill the Room. Sweating with the effort, he watched and waited and when it began to escape the confines of its possibilities, in that instant when it crossed the lines of reality, he called upon the awesome power of the Now it was about to invade. With long words of power, he raised his arms again and bound the moment with the possibilities and made them one Now.

The past meeting the future held by the present. This was the way of the Now. It was done.

Now he could rest easy, knowing that those he loved would be safe. Conjuring a squashy chair, he gratefully sank into it, the last indulgence of the day, surrounded as he was by the infant moment he'd just birthed. It frolicked and rolled and played like a puppy, exhausting in its exuberance...

...Closing his eyes, he waited, relishing that he had a moment to spare, a moment filled with its own importance from simply existing, not requiring something to give it meaning. He studied this moment, feeling within it all the promise of what was to come from it and what had made it. Just like the little moment he'd captured here, in this Room of Infinite Possibilities, it burst into the future with each passing instant, leaving behind the echoes of the past. Always moving, always containing within it all the moments of eternity.

He smiled with its secret. It was almost time.

~*~*~