Amelia stared at him, then said, “So? Even if he is dead, and he isn’t coming back, his followers will believe that he is returning because their Marks are getting darker.” She pointed at Severus’ exposed mark. “And they will renew their attacks, won’t they, Mr. Malfoy.”
Surprised at being addressed, Lucius gave a quick nod, then frowned. Apparently he had not meant to do that. His thoughts on the revelations about Tom Riddle had probably unsettled him.
“So,” she continued, “because his followers will start acting up, you should increase the Auror budget. Or, when the attacks start and people find out you stone-walled any effective measures beforehand, they will blame you and you will be voted out.”
Now Cornelius looked nervous.
“I’m sure you are exaggerating, Miss Bones.”
She stared back at Lucius. “All it will take is one Death Eater sending up the Mark over a burning building, and people will come baying for your blood when they found out you knew in advance and did nothing.
“Not to mention what this basilisk could have done. I don’t think the wizards in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures could have handled it. Not if even Headmaster Dumbledore needed assistance. I know the Aurors would have been stretched!”
“I am afraid Amelia is correct, Cornelius,” Dumbledore said, “And I wouldn’t put it past your enemies to try to see you in Azkaban for gross negligence of your duties.” Albus gave the poor wizard a wry smile. “I would never condone such an act, but you have alienated a few in the Wizengamot.”
Striking while she thought she had the advantage, Amelia added, “It doesn’t have to be much, Cornelius, restore the budget to what it was during the war. That should be more than sufficient to let me rebuild the department.”
Augusta spoke up, “Minister Fudge, it would be in your best interest to be seen as a supporter of law and order. I have heard more than one member of the Wizengamot complain about the rise in crime over the last few years. It would hurt you greatly if this memory,” she waved one arm gracefully and pointed at Severus, “were to become common knowledge — and you were seen to do nothing.”
Confronted by three of the four in the room while his main financial backer said nothing, Cornelius capitulated. “Yes,” he said, “Perhaps you are correct. I will sign the orders when we get back to the Ministry, increasing the budget of both the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to what they were at the end of the war.”
Malfoy had the hint of disapproval in his expression, but dared not speak.
Dumbledore knew Lucius had been the driving force in keeping the Aurors’ budget low for the last ten years.
Malfoy was faced with arguments for which he had no effective counters, at the moment. If he did object, he would appear to be an obstructionist, for no apparent reason. Or worse, people would think he did have a reason, that he still supported the Dark Lord. Which would remove some of his influence from the Wizengamot and interfere with his plans when the truth of the Dark Lord’s parentage came out.
“It is the right thing to do, Cornelius,” Albus said, “we really must prepare, for I fear things will only get worse as the Dark Mark becomes more vivid.”
They spent a few more minutes discussing things, then exited the memory. Albus conducted his guests to the floo, subtly manoeuvring Amelia to be last. He closed the floo just as she went to throw the floo-powder.
“There is one more thing I think you should see Amelia,” he said as she looked at him questioningly.
Once more they stood in a memory of his office, and once more he ran the memory starting with memory him saying, “Severus, show them, please.”
This time the memory ran until just after Pinkie Pie said, “I think he was sad to lose his snake friend.”
Amelia stared at him in disbelief.
He nodded to her. “Yes, Amelia, he has found a host. And, I think you should inform the Unspeakables that the Dark Mark can be used to find and track Death Eaters, and maybe even Tom Riddle himself. I’m sure they could find a volunteer from Azkaban to help them in exchange for better conditions or a shortened sentence. Or elsewhere.”
She nodded slowly.
Once they were back in his real-world office, he handed her a sheet of paper. “Princess Sparkle is a bit of a genius at spell creation. She was appalled at hearing what the imperius curse could do, and came up with this counter-spell. It turns anyone under the curse a bright-green colour. If the cast spell is stronger than the spell used for the imperius, it cancels it.”
He shook his head sadly. “Imagine how many lives could have been saved if the runes for this spell had been placed on every floo-connection. And if Aurors could have cast this spell instead of more dangerous ones at suspects.”
She took the paper and studied it carefully. She looked back up at him and smiled grimly. “We’ll give this a careful study. It wouldn’t hurt to have the runes for it scattered throughout the Ministry. If it works.” She paused in thought. “And if it does, it wouldn’t hurt to have it placed on every door-front in Diagon Alley, too.”
Immediately after Amelia left, and before he could close it, there was a voice and face in his floo. It was Mr. Bulstrode asking, “May I come through?” And no sooner did he come through then it was Mr. Macmillian asking. He was followed by Mr. Turpin, and then by Mrs. Zabini.
Dumbledore almost clipped her heel closing the floo.
He sighed. It was Monday all over again. On the other hand, he could easily spread the tale of who Tom Riddle was, and that the Ministry had funded yesterday’s activities.
Still, it was going to a long and tedious day.
۸-~-۸
For once, none of the Gryffindor First Years, neither individually nor as a group, were the subject of gossip at breakfast on Wednesday morning. Instead, the main topics were the Chamber of Secrets, the seven foreigners who had been at dinner last night, and the things they had all purchased in Hogsmeade yesterday. On the subject of the foreigners, or Atlanteans as most were now calling them, the witches spent most of their time talking about how “dreamy” Shining Armor was and admiring his muscles. That he had held up a shield over all of Hogsmeade was also considered remarkable, and added to his “attractiveness.”
The wizards split their time to discussing the attributes of the various female Atlanteans. Well, at least those that didn’t have girlfriends did. The ones with girlfriends, if they said anything at all, did so only when their girlfriends were out of listening range.
Harry thought it was rather nice not to be gawked at during breakfast. With any luck, it might actually last a while.
Professor Quirrell, Harry saw as he finished breakfast, still looked unhappy. That did not bode well for their DADA class.
After breakfast, the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs picked up their walking bushes from Greenhouse number one for Herbology, and then headed on into Charms. Professor Flitwick was beginning to catch on to how much book-walking was helping them and spent more time on the practical than lecturing.
Lunch was quiet until Sweetie Belle said, “We should build a filly flinger, like we did in Ponyville.”
Harry choked on his pumpkin juice. He started hacking and coughing while Apple Bloom pounded his back a couple of times. He finally cleared his throat enough to rasp, “What?”
Sweetie shrugged. “I noticed some people swimming in the lake over the weekend, and we don’t have a lot of time before winter gets here. And, if we build it now, it’ll be ready in the spring and summer when it gets warm again.”
Scootaloo perked right up, “Yeah, and we pegasi could use it to play dodge-pony any time the weather is nice!”
Hermione, Ginny, and several others nearby were staring at them, baffled.
“Filly-flinger?” Ginny asked wonderingly.
Sweetie turned to her. “Yep. It’s a trebuchet made to throw po . . . people into the lake. It’s loads of fun!”
“Wait,” interrupted Hermione, “You four built a trebuchet? By yourselves?”
Harry nodded. “Actually, we built two of them the summer before.”
Hermione’s eyes glazed over as she tried to imagine the four of them building a trebuchet big enough to throw people. Just handling the tools should have taken them weeks of cutting.
“Yeah, we were trying for a Cutie Mark in Weapons of Mass Destruction, but,” she reflexively glanced down at her thigh, “it didn’t work.”
Everyone around them shivered at the thought. Considering how much damage they did by accident, either physical or not, the four of them getting that as a specialty was terrifying on an entirely new level.
“And it’ll be much easier this time because we can all use magic to help!” Sweetie continued.
“But we’re not supposed to go into the Forbidden Forest,” Bloom said. “Where will we get the tree-trunks we need?”
Sweetie shrugged, “We can ask Hagrid. If he goes with us, it’ll be safe enough. He is a staff member, remember.”
“Do you remember the numbers?” Scootaloo asked.
“Yep,” Sweetie said. “It’ll be easy.”
“Will they let us?” Harry asked.
“Don’t see why not,” Sweetie said.
Hermione snickered and said, “Cum trebuchetta Proscriptae Erunt Tum Soli Proscripti trebuchetta Habebunt.”
Everyone turned and stared at her.
Still snickering a bit, she said, “When trebuchets are outlawed, only outlaws will have trebuchets.”
Harry shook his head. Leave it to Hermione to study up on Latin. Probably because it was used so much in the science books she read — for light reading.
The muggle-born students nearby laughed, as did a few half-bloods.
With the three fillies set on the project, Harry quickly yielded to the inevitable, and went back to finishing his lunch.
Then came Transfigurations and DADA, which were both boring in their own ways. Apple Bloom finished off her initials using embedded needles in the ceiling, half of which were now matches. Sweetie Belle completed her carousel design on the window curtains. And Scootaloo’s needle had a finely detailed image of Rainbow Dash carved into it.
Oddly enough, Professor Quirrell was in a pensive mood and he spent most of the lecture talking about muggles. Things the muggle-born thought were blasé — cars, buses, etc. — turned out to be dangerous to wizards and witches. The muggle world was hazardous to the wizards and witches simply because they didn’t live in it and didn’t recognize the dangers. Even the idea that someone would break in to their homes and steal something was almost unthinkable!
After dropping off their walking bushes at the greenhouse, the cohort headed for Hagrid’s hut. Fortunately for their plans, he was in.
After braving Fang, and getting Hagrid to come out, they explained what they wanted.
“So,” Hagrid said, looking down at them and grinning, “Yeh wanna build a treebucket, eh?” He shook his head bemusedly. “And yeh need about sixty yards ’o wood?”
Sweetie Belle nodded eagerly. “Yep, that should be plenty. And about a thousand pounds of rocks.”
Hagrid stood there thoughtfully, rubbing his chin through his beard. “I think I know ’o where to find a downed one ur two.” He looked at Harry. “I can’t take you all in with meh.”
“Sweetie Belle and I will go.” Harry turned to the other Gyffindor’s. “Apple Bloom, you and Scootaloo go find a good location by the lake where we can anchor it well. And start levelling it.”
The two fillies nodded and turned to head off to the lake, with Scootaloo and Ginny transforming and taking wing to get there faster. And to fly because they could fly. The rest of the First Years trailed after the fillies, curious at what they were going to be doing.
Harry, Sweetie Belle, and Neville followed Hagrid after he retrieved a huge crossbow from beside his hut’s door. Harry had to stare at the crossbow, it was almost as long as he was tall!
After about three minutes walking, Hagrid said, “Here’s the ferst un.” And pointed to big tree that had apparently fallen over in a storm. It came up to about Harry’s neck in thickness, much thicker than what they needed. On the other hand, if they quartered it, the individual pieces would be about the right size to make a really solid siege engine.
Sweetie Belle studied the tree trunk carefully. She transformed into her unicorn self, and slashed a cut into the trunk. Then she paced down the length, stopped and made a second cut. She repeated this several times. She turned and trotted back.
“If we quarter the trunk,” she said, “We should have all the wood we need!” She grinned at Harry. “You start here, and I’ll start at the next one. Whoever finishes first, starts the next. Okay?”
Harry shrugged and transformed. He planted his hooves solidly, pointed his horn carefully, and cast the cutting spell taught to first years, only with as much power as he could put into. There was a thud as the trunk settled to the ground, separated from its roots. A moment later there was a second thud and his piece settled a bit lower.
He trotted past Sweetie and Neville, who were cutting off the lower branches on their piece of the trunk — his piece had been too low to have branches — and found her third mark. After that cut, it was his turn to help Neville cut off branches as Sweetie passed him.
Hagrid watched with an amused expression. Occasionally he glanced into the woods around them.
Once they had finished sectioning the trunk, Harry pushed the remainder out of the way. Then he pushed the piece he had just topped sideways. Screwing up his face in concentration, he cast the water-repelling spell they had learned to use in Equestria when working with wood. He slowly walked along the length of the cut piece, forcing the sap out the end and reducing the weight of the trunk by almost half. And making a big puddle of sap at the end. Sweetie was doing the same to her piece. They repeated this until they reached the roots. Removing the sap now reduced the amount of sap they ended up removing from their ears and coats later.
They managed to finish with only getting their hooves thoroughly soaked in sap. Harry counted it a win as they had managed to keep it out of their coats.
Sweating with the effort, Harry and Sweetie lifted the bottom piece in their magic and started back to Hogwarts. Hagrid picked up a couple of the thicker lower branches, after Neville had trimmed them to a shorter length, and brought them along, just in case. It took them five trips to get all the pieces to the lawn.
When they finished, and sat panting beside the pieces, Hagrid sat down beside them. “That were impressive,” he said. “I know some wizards what would have had problems doing that.” He looked at the pieces. “What’ll ya do now?”
“We’ll split the bottom piece into quarters, those will form the sides and two supports,” Sweetie said. “Then do the same for the second piece, but also cut two of those sections in half to form the ends of the frame with the other two sections forming the trough. The third piece will be additional supports and the pivot. The fourth will be the throwin’ arm, and the rest we’ll cut up and use to make the rock box.”
She looked up at him hopefully, “Would you have any rope you can spare? About a hundred yards?”
He laughed. “If not, I’m sure the house-elves would be thrilled to make some for yeh.”
With the help of the cohort, and a liberal application of magic to do the splitting, piercing, trimming, heavy lifting, and holding, they managed to finish the pegged wooden construction before dinner. They had discovered that slightly shrinking each peg before putting it in its hole and then restoring it made for exceptionally tight holds. Those pegs would not be shaken loose!
All that was left was attaching the sling ropes and cup, and filling the rock box. Other students had noticed what they were doing, but had been puzzled at their explanation that they were building a wizard-whipper.
At dinner Harry noticed that the Headmaster, once again, looked tired. Which he thought was strange, given that he hadn’t looked anywhere near as tired after battling a fierce basilisk.
After dinner, they retired to their dorm to work on their day’s assignments. Harry saw, as they were settling in to their study table, that there was a new notice on the bulletin board. When he checked it during a break in studying, he saw that they would be having their first broomstick flying lessons on Thursday. Which, on the schedule Dumbledore had changed, meant it was actually going to be the day after tomorrow, Friday. Harry couldn’t help but wonder if he would actually learn anything in that class, given that he and the fillies had been flying almost every day since they had first visited the Weasleys.
However, based on what he heard some of the other students say, not everyone in Gryffindor had had that sort of opportunity, such as the muggles and most of the half-bloods whose parents had toed the line about not being seen by muggles. Such as Neville, whose grandmother had never let him near a broomstick. Given the extraordinary number of accidents he had, even with both feet on the ground, Harry thought she’d had good reason.
The Gryffindor First Years managed to complete their assignments before curfew, in between petting and combing sessions with the older Gryffindor and Ravenclaw girls, and headed upstairs to collapse into bed. The fifth years seemed especially appreciative of their time with the cuddly ponies.
۸-_-۸
Thursday, or rather Wednesday on their schedule this week, was rather quiet, Harry was relieved to see. He had hopes that the day would be like the previous — no disasters centred on the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Instead, he reserved his dread for tomorrow, when they would be taking broomsticks in hand — with the Slytherins. If anything foreshadowed disaster, Harry suspected that it involved putting those two Houses together. It had certainly borne out that truth in Potions class!
What was puzzling was how unlike Slytherin ideals Malfoy was. Slytherins were supposed to be sneaky and underhanded, to be concerned only with themselves — that they did not have “friendships” so much as alliances. Crossing a Slytherin was supposed to be dangerous, as you never knew when they would get their revenge. And when it did happen, the person doing the act was never the one offended. They would trick, bribe, or manipulate a “friend’ in another House to do the dirty deed. And while they were leaders, they led from the back, never risking themselves or placing themselves where they could come to harm. Or be blamed for the debacle that might result.
Malfoy was brash, unafraid to attack a problem in person and up front — just like a Gryffindor. If something bothered him, he told you, he didn’t smile and back away, determined to hold a grudge and get you back later, when you least expected it. He made sure everyone knew he was the leader. That he was in charge, and Merlin help the idiot who tried to say he wasn’t. He felt everyone else should toe the line he drew. Discretion was not only a word he didn’t know the definition of, it was apparently a word he had never heard.
His continual “My father thinks . . .” or “Father said . . .” were already beginning to become infamous. He had no concept of stealth, nor of hiding your talents until you could derive the most advantage at their unveiling. The broom-stick class tomorrow was certainly becoming clear evidence of that.
Malfoy had firmly established himself as a braggart as he loudly complained about the House Quidditch teams excluding extraordinary first years, such as himself, and told long, boastful stories which always ended with him narrowly escaping Muggle helicopters. Harry had to wonder how he knew about helicopters when no other purebloods seemed to know the word or how to pronounce it.
Harry considered, momentarily, reporting Malfoy’s boastful stories to the Aurors, but then decided it wasn’t his place to do such a thing. While annoying, Malfoy hadn’t really been that much of a bother to him or the fillies. Neville and Ron, on the other hand, were favourite targets for the snobbish Slytherin. Ron, for his family’s lack of funds and large family, and Neville for his ineptitude in almost everything.
۸-~-۸
Castor was once more in the meeting room at Number Ten Downing.
He and the two Equestrian agents, Drop and Heartstrings, had spent most of the day at Bassingbourn learning the basics of handling guns. It had been clear that they were still learning how to use their fingers, as they tended to fumble things when loading the pistols and handling the ammunition.
They would be there for the next week. By the time they finished, they would, like most recruits, have a very thorough understanding of guns, and be able to field-strip an unfamiliar jammed rifle or pistol and reassemble it in moments. Unlike most recruits, with such a short course, they would also be qualified sharp-shooters in both pistols and a range of semi-automatic and automatic weapons — fifteen-hour days concentrated just on shooting tended to have that result.
And while the staff had been unhappy at having a class of just two, it did allow them to compress the normal thirteen-week course. They could ignore the Personal Training, hiking, and aspects unrelated to actually shooting — these two recruits didn’t need to learn how to construct an invisible sniper’s blind in the forest. That and the fact they had easily evaded capture while catching their instructors in camouflage in record time had shown the lack of need for that part of the course.
Castor expected their magic played a large part in their apparent skills at camouflage and detection.
The instructors had also been told that asking questions regarding those two specific recruits were verboten. Their job was to bring them up to Her Majesty’s Military competence level. Period.
He had just settled into his chair when the Prime Minister came in behind Sir McColl and Sir Walker. They quickly seated themselves with the Major at the head of the table.
For a moment, they all just looked at each other. Castor opened his briefcase and started pulling books out. He slid the first one to the PM, then the next to the director generals.
“Ambassador Blueblood was kind enough to give me these. He said we may keep them. The first is,” he gestured to the book in the Prime Minister’s hands, “a general history of the wizards. The second,” he pointed to the one Sir Walker held, “is about their Auror — police — force and what they do to keep the magical world hidden. The third,” he indicated Sir McColl’s book, “is a travel book of the most popular wizarding locations in the world. They all probably have a variation of that “don’t notice it” tech the Equestrians showed us. Knowing about where they are, maybe we can find them with surveillance photography. See how far their magic can reach and still be effective.”
They were silent for several minutes as they flipped through their books.
Sir Walker set his book down with a sigh. “All this time we’ve been working on First Contact protocols with Gallifrey when we should have prepared for contact with Narnia . . . ,” he said dejectedly.
Sir McColl said, “We did. They’re in File 17, subsection F, cabinet 231, in the basement of 140 Gower Street. First contact with the Fae courts. It basically boiled down to ‘stockpile cold iron and pray’ — we probably should update it.”
“And now we’ve got a situation more akin to that yank sci-fi film ‘They Live’ mixed in,” Major said. He looked over to Castor. “Might the Equestrians be interested in helping us come up with a workable strategy in dealing with these wizards?” He looked at the two directors, “And if not, what can we do on our own?”
Sir Walker said, “Well, we’ve already got surveillance cameras on The Leaky Cauldron address. We can’t see it, in person, but the cameras pick it up perfectly. We’re building a dossier on the ones we see going in and out.”
۸-_-۸
Because they had Astronomy that night, the Gryffindor cohort spent their afternoon working on their assignments instead of finishing the trebuchet. Then, after dinner, they all tried to take a short nap in the hope they wouldn’t be exhausted when they woke for the class. It sort of worked. Waking after only a few hours’ sleep was awful, but then they weren’t nearly as tired during class as they had been last week.
And this time — praise Celestia! — there were no detours after class!
۸-_-۸
The Daily Prophet’s Friday edition gave Dumbledore heartburn the moment he saw it: Completely crossing the front-page in all caps and bold was a two-line headline, BASILISK KILLED HOGWARTS STUDENT! Below that a smaller headline blared: Dumbledore kills Salazar’s Thousand-Year-Old Basilisk! A picture to one side of the article, and below the headlines, showed the basilisk in the witches’ toilets glaring out at the readers. Two smaller pictures showed Myrtle from when she had first been a student and Tom Riddle in the witches’ toilets, the captions underneath identified them as victim and murderer. All three were clearly taken from the memories he had shared yesterday.
And he hadn’t even had time to contact Miss Skeeter, yet.
۸-_-۸