Chapter Fifty-Nine
Wards
At precisely nine AM, just as agreed, Sunset faded into existence in the Teachers' lounge. There, she found Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Vector already waiting for her.
"Good morning."
"Ah, good morning Miss Shimmer, so glad you could join us," Flitwick greeted merrily. "I do hope you've had a pleasant holiday."
"Oh, it's been quite nice so far. Are we expecting anyone else?"
"Well," McGonagall spoke up, "it would seem Severus is following his habit and being fashionably late ... and Albus, I suspect, is just late."
"Yes," Professor Vector agreed, "he has seemed a bit busier than usual lately, hasn't he?"
"Indeed." The gathered professors only noticed Snape's arrival when he spoke up. "Good morning."
Snape shared a quick glance with Sunset, both of them aware of why Dumbledore had been busy lately. McGonagall's eyes lingered on them for a while longer, but she didn't say anything.
Fortunately, before any further questions could come up, the door opened again and Albus Dumbledore finally arrived. "Ah, everyone is here already, I see. Good. Please apologize my delay. I had a matter to discuss with Aurora."
"That's quite alright Albus. We didn't have to wait long."
"Thank you, Minerva. Now, we all know why we're here. Over the years, the wards of Hogwarts have been upgraded several times, I myself have touched them up here or there several times in the last few decades. Still, it has been over three centuries since the wards protecting our fair school had their last full upgrade. When Miss Shimmer here recently brought them up with me and how some of the spells they include are simply obsolete these days, I realized that they are well overdue for another.
"Since all of you are well aware of Miss Shimmer's ... heritage, I don't need to be coy about. Miss Shimmer is here to provide her expertise with the spellcraft of her homeland and include the protections it can offer into the school's wards. Now, Filius, I believe you had an idea where to start?"
"Yes, Albus. Some of you probably noticed that this place and a few other locations around the castle aren't as cold this year as they have been around this season in previous years."
"Yes, Filius, we noticed." McGonagall rolled her eyes. "And we also noticed Miss Shimmer applying a set of charms causing that effect wherever she went. I conjecture that there is a relation there?"
"Yes, there is. Miss Shimmer, would you explain?"
"Of course." Sunset drew her wand and quickly projected an illusion of the relevant spell matrices. "It's a relatively comprehensive suite of thermal insulation and regulation magic placed on most Equestrian buildings these days. Applying some of the magical principles this world knows that mine doesn't has made it marginally more effective, but that's about the extent of the changes in this case."
"Thank you," Flitwick picked back up. "I would suggest starting with this spell. It's one of only a few that we can just straight up add rather than use to replace an older version. I take it I don't need to spell it out for you that that makes it much easier. I figured it would be a good point to start."
"Thank you, Filius," Dumbledore spoke up again. "Now, before we start I need to ask that you run any modification to the wards by Septima and Miss Shimmer first. Septima is our expert on spell efficiency, and the more efficient we can make our wards, the more powerful they will end up being. And Miss Shimmer can apply the magical principles known to her homeland that are unknown to us to improve the spells.
"Now then, let's get started."
The headmaster lead the way to a secluded area in the dungeons beneath the castle. On the way, he explained that they were headed to the primary keystone. Each of the school's wards was placed first on the primary keystone that provided the power for the spells and linked them up to the one currently controlling them – the headmaster, in most cases – and from there mirrored onto an array of twelve secondary keystones distributed around the castle that were responsible for actually applying the wards to the castle itself.
After a final door that only opened to a few specific spells and through the application of four separate physical keys, they finally stood before the large, heavily enchanted quartz crystal that served as the castle's keystone.
Everyone cast their own advanced aura sight charms in short order and took up positions around the keystone.
"Miss Shimmer, would you apply the spells here first?"
"Of course."
"Good. Now everyone, please, watch carefully. There are six of us and twelve secondary keystones throughout the castle. It will be up to each of us to apply these spells to two of them. Miss Shimmer, go ahead."
A few minutes later, once the set of six spells was cast, a heating charm, a cooling charm, a humidifying charm, a dehumidifying charm, an insulation charm and, finally a complex control charm to tie them all together and control them as a cohesive whole, Dumbledore conjured up a map of the castle's current configuration and marked the twelve secondary keystones in six different colors, red for McGonagall, blue for Flitwick, green for Snape, purple for Vector, a sunny yellow for Sunset and a silvery gray for himself, the professors went on their way while Sunset looked at the central keystone and used its connection to find the first secondary one she had been assigned and teleport straight there.
Once again, she shook her head at how easy it was. She would have to upgrade the teleportation wards personally.
She applied the set of spells to the first keystone she had been assigned, then decided to check in on the professors before taking care of her second one. They may be exceptionally skilled magicians, but even they weren't guaranteed to perfectly cast a set of six spells after seeing each of them once.
Since she had shown the spells to him several times before and because of his specialty, she decided to check up on Flitwick last, after a moment's consideration, she teleported to the first keystone Snape had been assigned.
Her prudence proved to be wise, as each of the professors, save Dumbledore and, of course, Flitwick had made a mistake somewhere. After helping them correct them, she moved on to place the suite of enchantments on her second keystone.
When everyone reconvened by the main keystone, the castle had grown noticeably warmer. After a few moments' discussion, they moved on to the next charm on their list.
By noon, each of the five other charms that were straight up additions to the wards was added and the group had had lunch in the teacher's lounge. The professors were still there, discussing what wards to apply next, while Sunset was back at the main keystone, getting started on the upgraded teleportation wards.
It was as she had told Dumbledore. She couldn't create a phasic ward that she couldn't bypass given time. That was not to say, however that it wouldn't be entirely adequate to hold off anyone but those with truly exceptional skill in arcane phase theory. Of course, such wards took time to apply. She'd already been at it for an hour and she suspected that it would take another hour of focused work before the new wards were applied to the central keystone.
Over the next few days she would apply them to the secondary keystones. She simply couldn't take care of them all in one day.
A few minutes before she was done, the professors returned and watched her work until she was done. When the teal light finally faded from the tip of her wand, the five gave gentle applause.
"My goodness," Flitwick spoke up. "I can see the resemblance to some of the basic wards from the book you gave us, but this is on an entirely new level. I've rarely seen a ward that complex."
"Well, this is more or less a direct copy of the phasic wards on the royal vaults beneath the Royal Palace of Canterlot. I spent about a month and a half studying the wards there."
"It shows. I suspect you'll want to put take care of placing that enchantment on the secondary keystones yourself."
Sunset nodded. "Yes. I'll take care of it over the next few days. There are some other things I'll have to take care of and I wouldn't get it done today anyway."
Three days into the rework of the wards, Sunset found herself in Dumbledore's office waiting for the headmaster alongside Professor Vector. She had inquired about the siege wards on the Great Hall that Dumbledore had activated to ward off the troll on Halloween. When asked, Dumbledore admitted that these particular wards were one of the founders' own creations and hadn't been touched since their original installation. Only one written record of their schemes existed.
It was located in the founders' private library. What was now the private library located in the headmaster's quarters directly above his office.
After a good five minutes, Dumbledore returned, a heavy tome in his hands. "Here it is. The schemes for the siege wards should be in here. If I recall correctly they were only applied to key areas of the school because they would have been too power hungry otherwise."
"Well," Professor Vector replied with a smirk, rubbing her hands at the challenge, "let's see if we can change that."
Looking at the spell, two things became immediately clear. It was a creation of the founders and they had been brilliant. The sheer number of clever tricks, the way each bit of the spell was perfectly placed for maximum effects made that fact obvious. It was also over a thousand years old. And that showed just as much. In so many places did the spell do things in such a circumspect way that it was almost painful. There was always a much easier way, but one that, of course, relied on a principle of magic that hadn't been discovered until centuries later.
Over the past two-and-a-half days, Sunset and Professor Vector had formed a budding friendship built on mutual respect of the other's abilities. Both marveled, again and again, at how much they could teach each other. As such, an opportunity to improve upon a spell crafted with such ingenuity, but using such vastly outdated methods was a real treat for them.
Finally, after several hours of complex arithmancy, careful spell construction and at least half an hours' worth of double and triple checking, their work was done. The new siege wards were completed and they would not share the efficiency problem of the original. They could be safely applied to the entire school.
Hogwarts was a castle. But once those spells were installed, one command from the headmaster would turn it into a fortress.
With their work done, Sunset returned to her own project, she still had five of the keystones left to enchant, and she had just enough time to deal with one more before sundown. Professor Vector, meanwhile, went to show the fruits of their labor to the headmaster and Professor Flitwick. The three of them would handle applying them to the keystones.
It was done. Their work was completed. All the enchantments were set, each of the keystones aligned, every spell cast. Now only one step was left.
To deactivate the keystone and power it back up. Then, and only then, would the new wards take hold.
All of them had their eyes lit with magic, prepared to witness the activation of one of the greatest and – now, at least – most modern ward setups on earth.
With a wave of the Headmaster's wand, the keystone lit up brightly for a few seconds, then fell dark. Each of them shuddered slightly at the rush of power. At the feeling of the wards all around them suddenly vanishing.
Another wave of Dumbledore's wand reactivated the stone. Lights of all colors flashed through it for several minutes, before the enchanted quartz resumed its usual pale blue glow, but much brighter than they had gotten used to for the past five days. Then, twelve motes of light came shooting out of the top of the crystal and began spinning around it in a circle. After a few moments of dancing around the primary keystone, the twelve lights rushed off, spreading throughout the castle.
None of them needed to be told, that they were headed to the other keystones. A shudder ran through the castle as the ancient wards gradually returned. It took about half an hour for the wards to return to full strength, and, during all that time, they were fully active. Even the siege wards covered every wall, door and window in the castle, giving them all a slight silvery sheen. A side effect of the modifications.
Finally, the keystone came fully active and the light faded back to it's usual, dull glow. In the process, Dumbledore regained full control of the wards. It took him only a few moments to get the wards set up to work as he had planned. In short order, the siege wards were placed back in stand-by, the new thermal regulation wards, now under the headmaster's full control all throughout the castle, were set up for a pleasant temperature, and all the teachers were keyed into the new phasic wards.
After a moment's consideration, he keyed Sunset into the phasic wards as well. After all, there was little point in not keying her into wards she could bypass given time, especially since she also had a phoenix as a familiar that would bypass them anyway.
With everything set up to his satisfaction, he nodded to the gathered teachers. Testing out how Sunset's work, each of them teleported to their own private quarters in short order. Finally, only Dumbledore and Sunset stood next to the keystone.
"Miss Shimmer, if you would accompany me to my office."
"Of course. We did get done a little sooner than I expected."
Dumbledore chuckled as he re-locked the door to the primary keystone. "Indeed. I suppose our improvements really do show. The wards used to take longer than that to power up."
With the door locked once more, they both teleported to Dumbledore's office.
"Now, Miss Shimmer, I thank you for your assistance. Your expertise has been invaluable. This has been a most enlightening experience."
"Absolutely, I learned plenty of things myself. Oh that reminds me. Twilight came by for Christmas with the Weasleys, she brought along a message for you. From Princess Celestia. I wanted to give it to you sooner, but I kept forgetting." She reached into her bag, pulled out a sealed envelope and handed it to him.
Recognizing the seal as magical, Dumbledore drew his wand and tapped the seal. He wasn't surprised at the small burst of magic when the seal broke. It was clearly that of the princess. A proof that the letter hadn't been opened by another. Not uncommon on confidential messages. Once it was open, he put his wand away, opened the letter, unfolded the sheet of clear white parchment inside and began to read.
"Ah yes. It would seem Princess Celestia wants her 'local agent' to check on the defenses for the stone, to ensure they are adequate and will last until the trap is ready." He nodded. "Yes, that may be a good idea, Quirinus managed to get me under the influence of a Confundus Charm on Halloween. If he managed that, he may well have managed to sabotage our efforts to safeguard the stone itself in a similar manner. Very well. I'll arrange for the Professors that helped with each of the defenses to meet us tomorrow. We can show you the defenses then. I actually was about to implement my own defense. I'll use this chance to take care of that."
Ok, the wards were down, even for a short time. If Voldy, or his followers, didn't do something in that time I am going to be very disappointed.
9668057
Okay, how and why would they do that? Quirrell doesn't know that they're on to him. And all of them had aura sight charms active. With the wards down, there was very little other powerful magic that could have hidden something.
Not to mention that it's the holidays and Quirrell is planning stuff. There is no way to be sure that he would even be in the castle at all, or that, if so, he would notice the wards going down. Even if he knew about the rework. Even the professors didn't know exactly how the keystones worked before Dumbledore told them.
Chekhov's gun. Why force a shutdown of the words without it meaning something? For a very short time the wards where down and Tom is still riding the back of a head.
He must have felt them fall, I don't know what he might have done, but something should have happened in that time, and at some.point before the story is over, we should find out. Doesn't need to be next chapter, hell it might not pop up until the next book, but something should come of this.
9668089
You'r asuming Qurry was in the school for the hoidays.
9668137
Why wouldn't he be? His goal is the stone and the holiday's present the perfect opportunity for him to research the defences and formulate a plan to get past all of them in order to reach his prize. There is no reason for him to leave the school especially since the instructors live in the school and I imagine Quirrell is no different.
9668172
To go get a dragon egg.
9668177
So they waited for him to leave for a task he most certainly would not tell them about nor is he obligated to tell them since its the holidays and just hoped that whatever he was doing would keep away long enough for them to finish a task that takes several days to complete?
Like I said he lives there doing something big like this but not include the DADA professor would almost certainly draw suspicion that they do not need.
I'm nitpicking here but I'm just pointing out that yeah it seems weird that they weren't concerned about Quirrell at all especially with how involved the whole process was.
Honestly, they should have included Quirrell since it would keep him busy and away from the stone while Sunset's close eye on everything would assure that he couldn't pull any funny business with the wards.
9668189
To build on Dark Feather's point, I imagine acquiring an illegal dragon egg to be a bit of an involved process, especially if you don't want to get caught. Quirrel not being in the school while they are upgrading the wards is probably merely a bit of serendipity, rather than an orchestrated happenstance. After all, Dumpledore and Sunset have been planning on doing this for a couple months now, and The Headmaster may simply have not informed the professors he planned to ask for assistance until just before the holidays.
As for involving Querril, with Dumbledore knowing he's being possessed, he would probably want him as far away from the wards during their upgrade as possible, if only to keep him from having the opportunity to gain an in depth understanding of how they work.
9668208
In which case the best option would be to not go messing around with the wards while someone dangerous is lurking around the school and just wait until the current crisis has been resolved.
9668216
Unless he isn't during the period in which they plan on updating the wards, which the case in this story apparently is so it's more or less a non-issue.
Given everything going on and that more or less everyone in a position of authority in the school knows Sunset is working with Dumbledore and Flitwick on comparative magic studies, I wouldn't have put it past them to have announced in an off-hand manner during a staff meeting or such sometime either mid November or early December that "Oh, by the way, the wards will be undergoing some minor tweaking during the holidays while a majority of students are away as a result of new information and processes that have come to light thanks to this recent partnership. Nothing major to worry about, folks." This is the sort of thing that would be expected, especially if it's more or less common knowledge that the wards haven't been updated in a while, and putting on some pretense to put off such a "Minor" thing until summer would probably be more suspicious to the people fully in the know, know would secretly be most interested in such an announcement.
Quirrelmort also probably started making plans to acquire a Dragon Egg around the time Dumbledore, Sunset & Co. Seriously started discussing updating the wards (which was incidentally also around the time they began seriously suspecting Quirrel of being Voldie's agent, but didn't yet know he was actually being possessed), so by the time such an announcement would be made his plans to actually go and get the egg would have already been more or less set, he would have already given notice to Dumbledore that he would be gone during the Winter Hols under whatever believable pretense they came up with for being away, and changing their plans simply to gain access to the school during that period would not only be Highly Suspicious, but also likely either loose at worst or irritatingly delayed at best, the opportunity to actually get the egg in the event that they can't get to or find the stone during the small window of opportunity they would have been afforded while the wards were down..
Even if Quirrlmort wasn't out and about during the holidays, I don't peg Dumbledore as being dumb enough to not have a contingency plan regarding the stone during a period of known vulnerability, even if that just means secretly moving the stone to a heavily warded drawer in his desk for the half hour or so when the wards would have been down to reset. Quirrel telling Dumbledore some pretense about being out of the castle during the winter holidays for whatever reason while he actually goes and gets Norberta's egg just means Dumbledore didn't have to go to the trouble of doing so.
9668704
Regardless of the plausibility of the situation, it's still unnecessary filler that would have been better saved until after the first year finished. It makes no sense for them to take the time to update the wards when the enemy is already inside so I'm not sure why the author felt this little distraction needed to happen right now instead of later when it would have made more sense.
9668737
Because the setup for even the minor ward upgrades had already been established in the narrative prior to the characters fully discovering the nature of the Dark Magic hanging around Quirrell ala Chekhov's Gun fashion, and even after they had, they apparently determined that as long as they continued on in a "Business As Usual" manner so as to not tip their hand while forming contingencies Quirrellmort would equally carry on as he had so far, unaware that they're on to them.
Like it or not, these ward updates fall in the category of "Business As Usual", as no one has made any particular effort to hide the fact that they were going to happen. Flitwick has been raving since the beginning of the school year about the things Equestrian Magical Theory combined with Wizard Magical Theory now make possible, and one of the first things he and Sunset worked on was magical shields. He's probably been off-hand commenting and speculating on what could be done with wards almost since day one in the teacher's lounge, and the logical extension of that would be consulting on updating Hogwarts' wards, even before their plans to do so were fully solidified.
"No One" (Except Quirrellmort) thinks the stone is actually going to be stolen, so the expectation among the majority of the staff would be that it would remain at the school more or less in perpetuity. That means that it's expected that it will still be in the castle next summer, and updating the wards would still make it temporarily vulnerable regardless of When such updates are made. "No One" (Except Dumbledore, Sunset and Princess Celestia) knows for certain that the person after the stone is actually in the school already, and they don't want to tip their hand and make Him aware that they're already on to him. To that end, with everything that's already been established there is no easily justifiable excuse that they could give for putting the upgrades off until Summer when they can just as easily do it now without tipping off Quirrell that they're specifically waiting until he's not around, and even more believable reasons for doing so now, such as a BS line like: "While these updates are minor, given what happened last Halloween and what we are keeping on the third floor, it is in our interests to ensure that the school has the best security we can afford it, so we will be doing so during the winter break as it is the first opportunity where we will have the necessary time to devote ourselves to the project".
Even waiting until the Summer has its risks, as if he hasn't gotten the stone by then Quirrell might simply decide to stay at the castle where and when he would have even more time to devote solely towards breaking the defenses around the stone rather than keeping up the pretense of being a stuttering professor five out of seven days a week. Dumbledore and Quirrellmort both know this, and Celestia has likely already inferred such a possibility herself, which leads me back to my earlier point that I don't peg Dumbledore as being dumb enough to leave the stone completely exposed during a known, if brief, period of vulnerability, something Quirrelmort would also expect and likely try to avoid due to the risk of exposing himself prematurely in the high likelihood of failure given the expectation that during said vulnerability Dumbledore would be watching the stone like a Hawk and Voldemort isn't nearly strong enough to directly confront the Headmaster at this point, so once again, When the upgrades are made doesn't particularly matter beyond people applying the philosophy of "The Sooner The Better" rather than procrastinating on something so obviously important.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly".
Is it a gamble? Yes, but it's also a situation where everyone involved knows that "Waiting for the perfect opportunity" isn't going to come any time soon. Dumbledore, Sunset and the Professors fortunately have the opportunity to act now, rather than waiting like Quirrelmort has to because they know if Quirrellmort acts now he'll more than likely just expose himself and loose all opportunity to get his hands on the Stone, while Quirrellmort knows that if he acts now the window of opportunity he would have would be too slim for the odds of him getting in-and-out without exposing himself aren't in his favor.
Perfect? No, but the odds are currently in Dumbledore & Co's favor, and everyone knows it, so they might as well do it now.
9669047
One detail you forget though is the curse on the DADA position, it pretty much guarantees that Quirrell only has till the end of the school year to get the stone.
9669300
Maybe, but banking on that alone is its own brand of foolishness. For all they know Quirrell might make it through the whole school year only for "Something to happen mid-summer" that would prevent him from coming back. The curse only makes it so that the DADA teacher won't stay on for multiple consecutive years. It says nothing about Why or When it's going to kick in and over the last 20~ish years I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two times where the DADA teacher was forced to leave literally Just before the start of their second term and Dumbledore would have had to scramble to find a replacement.
I know I rambled a bit in my previous post, but the bottom line remains the same: There's no point in waiting seven more months and plenty of reasons not to, especially if the people legitimately trying to protect The Stone want to make it seem like they're unconcerned and don't know what they know about Quirrellmort. Quirrellmort removing himself from the castle grounds on his own is simply serendipitous as far as they're probably concerned, but even if he hadn't they had options to keep the stone safe that make any excuses they could have made irrelevant even to themselves..
I want to see their reactions to the first-year level protections.
9675198
Actually, the Ministry is underground. Though it still is in the middle of London, so it'd just be the Tube that stops working. Which, if anything, would be more suspicious.
9675207
That's just the start of it. That law has an exception for flying brooms, but not for flying carpets. An enchanted car doesn't violate this law, but if it can fly and go invisible it does. This law, just like many wizarding laws, doesn't make terribly much sense.
9675162
Just because he wasn't aware of him doesn't mean it wasn't a backup plan. Technically every one of his followers is a backup plan because any one of them can get the initiative to try to help him, just like Scabbers did with performing the ritual to revive him.
9675321
The point of the law is to prevent enchanting items that muggles use in their everyday lives in the event that they fall into Muggle hands. These are items that if the muggles got ahold of them they'd actually be able to use them thus the risk of exposing magic.
This obviously won't apply to items employed by the ministry that is set up so that only wizards will ever have access to them like the Hogwart's Express and Night Bus as well as the various entrances to the ministry. Flying cars aren't allowed because obviously, it would be hard to hide a flying car from muggles.
Magic Carpets are kind of an odd case as they are legal in other countries and were only recently banned in Britain thanks to Arthur's efforts. Needless to say, a lot of wizards were upset at Arthur for that.
That said this is a case of "if you need to enchant a muggle item just make sure not to get caught".
9676104
Still though ... this seems to imply that flying cars are completely impossible to hide from muggles ... but teleporting busses are not.
Again, it this point it would probably be easier to just strike down that law completely and just expand arthur's department so as to locate and replace enchanted items in the posession of muggles. They're already doing the same thing for magical creatures and spell accidents.
And it would get rid of one of the messiest and most inconsistent laws the wizards have.
9676109
If a muggle spots the Night Bus all they see is a bus and most will ignore it but a flying car draws all kinds of attention. Not impossible to hide but why take the risk?
They already do this, the law is meant to be a deterrent to stop wizards from enchanting such items in the first place.
9676123
And if a muggle spots the Arthur's car they just see a Ford Anglia. The reason it was illegal was because the car was able to do things that a normal car couldn't. And last I checked, normal busses can't teleport. Or cause obstacles to jump out of the way.
9676146
To be honest I'm not sure if enchanted vehicles are illegal to use I believe they are just frowned upon. The general rule seems to be its fine as long as you don't do anything that gets you caught. If they were completely illegal then Sirius (and later Hagrid) wouldn't be allowed to own a flying motorcycle.
9676165
Actually, I'm pretty sure that there is a list of 'muggle artifacts' that are not allowed to be enchanted. And I don't think vehicles are actually on them. So long as no muggle catches you in a vehicle that's doing thins it shouldn't you're not breaking any laws.
What made Arthur's car illegal (beside the whole flying in broad daylight business) was the undetectable expansion charm which (as mentioned in chapter 57) has some strangely specific legislature attached to it.
need more this is one of my 4 stories that i keep track of that are still ongoing. please dont stop
9676179
The restrictions aren't all that strange, after all, muggles would obviously notice if something was bigger on the inside so it makes sense that it is subject to strict Ministry of Magic control.
Also fun fact apparently it's called an Extension charm, not an Expansion charm.
9676192
Working on it. Had a bit of trouble for a while (real life getting in the way, me being a bit under the weather, etc.) but I should be ready to continue relatively soon. And, when I do, I'll give you two chapters to compensate. (Well, one larger chapter split in two, really, but whatever.)
9677088
Awesome! Looking forward to it, I can't wait!
9679276
In the story's defence when it does get into the book stuff we do start seeing some ideas that I haven't seen in other stories and it does get pretty interesting. But then it shifts back into how awesome Sunset is so I don't blame you for being frustrated. At this point, my enjoyment of this story is mostly despite Sunset but I do think there is some interesting stuff in between the "look how awesome and amazing Sunset is" stuff.
For Quirrell to act, he would have to have a plan. However, even though they didn’t tell him what they were planning, they’ve done enough things that it’s blindingly obvious that they are upgrading the wards & he would anticipate that there’s at least a chance that they’ll have to shut down & reset the wards. IMO, yeah, it’s likely that Voldy pulled something. Yes, Dumbledore should have anticipated that but in the books he’s like that. Brilliant, but prone to screw up & overlook details.