Whenever Albus Dumbledore arrived at the Ministry, people took notice. Especially on those days without a scheduled Wizengamot meeting. Today was no exception, and he had many people greeting him cordially in the lobby and on his way through the Ministry building. Most of them had been his students, either when he was a Professor, or as the Headmaster at Hogwarts.
It was noticeable, however, that this time at least a few of them were not as warm a greeting as he usually received. In fact, a few were downright frosty. Clearly, those particular wizards had not liked the revelations in today’s Daily Prophet.
Still, that was why he was here — to combat some of that attitude.
However, rather than go to the Minister, as those with less political acumen might suppose, he headed for Arthur Weasley’s office.
Arthur had come up in the world since the Atlanteans had arrived. His family’s sudden outing as nearly all being animagi, and such close friends with the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter, had seen a dramatic change in how he was viewed in the Ministry. That didn’t even factor in their close association Atlantean royalty.
Then there was the fact that the wizard was no longer poor.
No one knew how they had done it, but each of his children had come into Gringotts to deposit gems — gems the goblins had been very happy to see. Even the two that had moved out and were in foreign countries had managed a few gems. All denied that they had been given the gems by the Atlanteans, but that they had secured them, themselves. Whatever the source, the goblins treated them with what might be the goblin equivalent of respect.
Arthur had told Dumbledore that one of Harry’s girlfriends had taken the Weasleys on a gem-finding expedition, and the kids had actually dug them up! Not the uncut kind, but cut and faceted gems! It was incredible. But true.
Suddenly Arthur had been looked on with great favour instead of the disdain with which many had previously viewed his family.
Cornelius, the Minister of Magic, had not been slow to realize that having Arthur support him would be a big political advantage. As a result, success had begat success, and Arthur had been promoted. But not out of his position as head of The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, as many had supposed would happen.
No, at Albus’ subtle urging, Cornelius had instead greatly expanded the department. The formerly overwhelmed and understaffed department had a dozen employees, now. It even had a special liaison member who worked closely with the aurors to track down the miscreants who liked to bait the muggles.
This expanded department would decrease the exposure of magic to muggles, and prevent the inevitable clashes that using magic on muggles would create with the muggle government. Combining that with expanding the auror ranks to pre-1980 levels, and, well, Albus had great hopes that it would reduce the threat of wizards inadvertently breaking the Statute of Secrecy.
The more carefully wizards and witches hid themselves, the less likely they were to have an unfortunate experience with the muggles. That meant there was that much less of a chance that the muggle government would take offense at them. Which meant dealing with the government’s expectations would be easier.
It was definitely a case of out-of-sight, out-of-mind!
Those improvements, he hoped, would gain him more time to correct the Wizengamot’s wayward course. The Wizengamot moved at a glacial rate in the best of times, and anything he could do to decrease that time would be to his advantage. Placating the muggle government by reducing the incidents of conflict was one way to manage that in his favour.
Plus, the newest addition to the Daily Prophet was a big assist in reducing the attention those wizards and witches who went into muggle areas tended to attract. He, himself, had been amazed to see that some of the costumes he had thought were perfectly acceptable were not!
Fashion in the muggle world apparently moved much faster than in the wizardry world. Who knew?
He shuddered. Reading how a bright-purple suit with sparkly pointy-toed shoes — with a picture of the poor fellow — was considered the attire of a man who kept prostitutes had been quite a shock. Albus, himself, had one of those suits and shoes in his wardrobe! He thought it looked quite fetching.
He shuddered again at the thought of having to go out in a plain-brown tweed suit. The horror!
Fortunately, going among muggles was something he rarely did. But if he did, he now had a much better idea of what they considered acceptable.
He wondered who had managed to convince that old buzzard of an editor at the Daily Prophet to put in something that was so radical. It seemed popular, though.
Especially among the half-bloods and muggle-borns. Not so much the pure-bloods, however.
It took him only a few minutes to find the enlarged Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, and then Arthur’s office in it. Despite his increase in responsibility, Arthur, so far, had eschewed having a secretary. Instead, he usually left the office door open. He was hard at work when Albus looked in.
Paperwork, the bane of any manager. Not even magic could get rid of it.
Albus was grateful that Minerva took over most of his paperwork. It gave him more time to manage non-Hogwarts related items.
He knocked three times on the door’s frame.
Arthur looked up from the parchment he was writing on, and nodded. “I thought I’d be seeing you today,” he said quietly, setting the parchments aside and stretching slightly. Arthur motioned him to take a chair.
“You’ve read the Prophet, then?” said Albus, going inside. At the other’s nod, he said, “It’s quite the quagmire she’s laid out for us, isn’t it?”
Albus sighed as he waved his wand, transforming the simple chair into a very plush and comfortable armchair.
There weren’t enough hours in the day for Albus to tackle this problem himself. Arthur would be essential in helping him quell the worries and objections of their allies. Arthur normally wasn’t interested in the politics that enveloped the Ministry, but he was, by far, not an innocent in that scrum. He had managed to get laws passed or amended, in the past.
They spent most of the next hour dissecting the problems, and what the best approach to mollifying the objections they both expected to encounter in the Ministry. Albus would concentrate on the Wizengamot, and Arthur on the Ministry Department Heads. Between the two of them, they should be able to keep most of Albus’ Light supporters in line.
Arthur would play up his daughter’s association with the Boy-Who-Lived, and his twin sons’ business dealings on the Atlantean side of the portal. The one would draw the boy to the Wizarding world, ensuring he wouldn’t abandon it as Rita had suggested. The other would bring their business contacts to this side of the Portal, enriching everyone here with new customers and business opportunities.
They were just concluding their plans for the day when a silvery cat burst through the wall and galloped to halt in the air in front of the Headmaster. “Albus,” the cat declared opening its mouth and speaking in Minerva’s voice. “Gilderoy’s class has ended in an explosion. We need you here immediately. The Great Hall has extensive damage.”
After delivering that alarming news, the cat faded away.
“Oh, dear,” Dumbledore said, shocked. Minerva would never have contacted him for anything but a disaster! What possibly could have happened? If they hadn’t dealt with Voldemort last year, he would have expected this to be one of that evil wizard’s plots. That the “missing” diary might be a factor was a possibility. However, the horcruxes that they had seen, while powerful in and of themselves, wouldn’t be able to cause any real damage. Scorch the floor, or a wall, and make a lot of noise, but that was it. The lack of any signs of the diary, or anything that could be attributed to actions by its inhabitant, helped him dismiss that as a cause.
He stood, absentmindedly restoring the armchair to a regular chair. “Well, Arthur, I see that I must take my leave.” He gave the other a weary look. “It appears I will have to place things in your hands for the day.”
Arthur, also alarmed at the news, nodded. “Go,” he hurriedly said, “If Minerva calls, it is serious! I’ll see what I can do here, in the meantime.”
Arthur followed him into the main room. “I’ll be stepping out for a while,” he said to the room at large.
The four people working at their desks looked up at him.
“I won’t be leaving the Ministry, so if anything important comes up,” he said as the two wizards headed out the department’s door, “just send me a memo-flyer.”
“Yes sir,” one of the witches said, nodding.
Albus headed for the elevator to the atrium while Arthur headed for the office of one of their allies who they suspected might have taken the news in the Daily Prophet badly.
Just as he reached the elevator, Minister Fudge stepped out.
“Cornelius,” Albus said cheerfully, cursing inside at the Minister’s bad timing in showing up at this instant. “What a surprise!”
Fudge smiled and then frowned at him, simultaneously happy to see the wizard and unhappy at why he wanted to see him.
“Have you seen this?” he demanded of Albus, brandishing a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet. “This is terrible! The boy-who-lived wants to leave or world!”
“Now, now,” Albus said calmly. “This was written by Rita, and you know how she exaggerates!” he said soothingly. “I’m sure the boy has no such intentions, whatever his friends in Atlantis might say. Without a doubt, they want him to stay there with them and are telling her tales to make her think something he has no intention of doing.”
Albus steered the minister into the elevator. “Minister’s Office,” he said. He suppressed a sigh. Much as he wanted to return to Hogwarts, with the Voldemort issue settled there probably wasn’t that much of a problem. An explosion in the Great Hall was nothing compared to what it had been built to withstand. It might shake the dust off the ceiling and torch sconces, but that was all Only a direct attack on the structural supports might cause a difficulty, but Minerva hadn’t mentioned any such thing.
Dealing with the fallout from the Prophet’s article took a higher priority. He would apologize to Minerva later.
Two hours. It took him two hours to calm the Minister down enough to leave him. He had reassured the man that Harry Potter had no intention of leaving the wizarding world, and England, behind. It was, after all, the truth. The boy, himself, had told Albus that he intended to complete his Hogwarts education!
Albus had exaggerated a bit, not a lot, but a bit, about how smitten the boy was with the Arthur’s daughter. He had emphasized the close connection the two had, and how the other girls, the ones from Atlantis, had accepted her without complaint. He had also pointed out that two girls didn’t live with their parents in Atlantis. Instead, one lives with her aunts and the other, her sister. The third’s parents had passed on years ago. Albus might have implied they preferred it at Hogwarts, and the wizarding world.
Then he had pointed out the close business connections the Weasley twins had with the Malfoy family, even if Malfoy, Senior, was currently serving a sentence in Azkaban. Plus, that they had a similar business connection to several businesses in Atlantis which would draw both sides of the Portal closer together.
It was highly likely that the boy-who-lived would spend his time equally between the different societies. After all, he would have family on both sides of the Portal. That the Weasley family would forsake the wizarding world for Atlantis was ludicrous . . . completely unbelievable. If anything, they would make sure the boy spent more time here than there!
The Minister had met Molly, hadn’t he? Could he imagine her letting her only daughter move to Atlantis, permanently? It would never happen. That witch had her roots firmly in the wizarding world.
As for the adoption? It meant nothing in the long run. In five years, when the boy graduated, no one would even remember it.
His voting rights on the Wizengamot seat? Those could easily be handled by proxy until a child from Ginevra grew to adulthood. There were currently several such seats waiting for current Hogwarts graduates. That the Potter seat might have to wait until the next generation was not necessarily a reason to try to strip the family of their seat. On the other hand, if one of the current Weasley adults were to have a child, the Wizengamot seat could be transferred to that child at majority, if neither Harry nor Sirius raised an objection. The Weasley family, after all were a long-time pure-blood family who would have cadet status to the Potters with the marriage of Arthur’s daughter to the boy, later.
Considering the Weasley family’s meteoric rise, lately, it would be in Cornelius’ best interests to support Arthur, now, wouldn’t it?
Two hours . . . to explain what should have taken only five minutes — ten minutes, maximum. Two hours to say the same thing in as many ways as the English language allowed.
He wished they had been able to get almost anyone else into the position of Minister. Unfortunately, with the conservative block — former Death Eaters and their supporters — vetoing all his candidates, and his supporters vetoing all the conservatives’ candidates, Fudge had been the only one that they all could agree on as the least offensive to everyone.
He was quite relieved to finally floo to his office.
After a quick bite to eat — it was well into the lunch period — he checked the Hogwarts Map on his wall, and saw Minerva was in the Hospital Wing. He also saw an inordinate number of unfamiliar names on the map. Well, no exactly unfamiliar, he recognized all of them as being former students.
What were so many aurors doing in his Hogwarts?
He headed off to the Hospital Wing to speak with Minerva.
He had barely walked into the room when Minerva spotted him and came charging over. She was furious, he could tell. And still a bit dishevelled from whatever had happened earlier. It must have been quite something if she hadn’t put herself to right yet. She had probably forgotten she needed to do that.
“Whaur hae ye bin?” she demanded. “It’s bin a madhoose haur!”
Oh, dear, she had slipped into her native gaelic. He slowed down and braced for the onslaught.
“Th’ Stoatin Close almost destroyed, dozens ay injured students haur, dozens mair sent tae St. Mungo’s . . ..”
He raised an eyebrow and regarded her carefully. “Fudge was being especially difficult at the Ministry. I only now managed to take my leave,” he said calmly.
She rolled her eyes, and her head, and waved her arms angerly. “Th’ Minister!” she said derogatorily. She put her arms on her hips and stared at him with narrowed eyes. Then she huffed.
“If it wasn’t fur princess Twilecht, thes woods still be a disaster area!” she stated.
“What!?” he said amazed.
It took only a few minutes to recount the disaster in the Great Hall, the evacuation to the Hospital Wing and St. Mungo’s, and the lockdown on the castle. The worst part was hearing that Gregory Goyle was still missing, and that Draco Malfoy and Vincent Crabbe were still in St. Mungo’s with clear cases of obliviation, compulsion, and other magical mind damage.
The good news was that those two were the only students still at St. Mungo’s. The students filling the Hospital Wing beds were sleeping off the effects of the strong calming potions that had been given to counteract their hysteria at the happenings in the Great Hall.
Minerva had mostly calmed down by the time she had finished, and they were almost at his office. A few moments later, he was pulling out his pensieve and Minerva was dropping a memory of the event into it. Then he got to see for himself just what had happened after he had left.
“Vampire?” he said questioningly, on their return to his office. “An interesting possibility.” He looked over at the Hogwarts Map. “But it would be impossible for a Vampire to enter the castle undetected. Especially now that we have someone always watching the map for intruders, and mischievous students.” He sighed and stroked his beard. “Has the Great Hall truly been brought down?”
He waved his wand. A cabinet opened and a bottle of amber liquid floated over, accompanied by two small glasses. He poured one for himself, and the other for his Deputy.
She shook her head as she took the glass and swallowed half at one go. “Haaa,” she said as a small flame burst out of her mouth. She closed her eyes a moment, then sighed.
“Princess Twilight came through about half-an-hour before lunch and managed to put things to right.” She shook her head again. “The enchantments on the ceiling have been broken, though.” She looked at the Headmaster. “Filius thinks we can restore them over the summer, but it’ll take a lot of work, especially on your part.”
Albus winced. Then furrowed his brow lightly. “Princess Twilight?”
Minerva nodded. “One of the ponies notified her rather promptly. It took her a while to make her way here from the other side of the portal.” She sighed. “Whomever it was got her to go to St. Mungo’s first, and she healed all the injured there, first, before coming here.” She blew her cheeks out in remembered surprise. “I heard she accidentally emptied half the hospital. The only ones not set to right were the long-term patients and the potion accidents.”
Albus found himself raising his eyebrows. That . . . was a remarkable amount of magic to use. She might not be on par with what he had seen Princess Luna wield, but it wasn’t that far off.
She sipped from her glass.
“Then she came here. She wanted to see Mr. Potter, and I can’t say I blame her — not after last year. I didn’t exactly try to dissuade her.” She gave him a long look. “We should open the school to parents, tomorrow, to reassure them. It’ll be impossible to keep this from the Prophet, especially with Rita here to witness it!”
He stroked his beard thoughtfully, then nodded. “With the aurors being here, and so many sent to St. Mungo’s, the parents would descend here en masse, anyway,” he said, sighing. He gave her a steady, narrow-eyed look.
She shrugged. “With Madam Bones being here, do you think she wouldn’t have called for backup?” She sighed. “I was more concerned with the students than worrying about the publicity.”
The look she gave him dared him to disagree on her priorities.
He nodded. “Of course,” he said sadly. He would still try to guilt-trip her.
“So,” she continued from before, “I heard Princess Twilight went by the Great Hall to see the damage for herself, then cast an overpowered spell from her own repertoire and put the whole hall back together as if it were brand new.” She stopped and took another sip, then looked at her empty glass sadly. “Couldn’t fix the broken enchantments.” She sighed. “The Great Hall was never designed to withstand an attack from the inside.”
She fixed the headmaster with a solid stare. “If those two wee jimmies hadn’t nearly exhausted themselves with the two bombardas, there might have been a few deaths when they started slinging those cutting spells.”
They both reflected on that for a few moments. The headmaster refilled his empty glass and offered the bottle to Minerva.
She reluctantly shook her head.
“Gilderoy insists Mr. Goyle was possessed by a vampire,” she said darkly. She hiked an eyebrow. “Do you think it might have been the diary?”
He slowly shook his head. “No horcrux that I have heard of can possess someone. Their only purpose is to act as an anchor. Nonetheless, I shall make a few more inquiries of my Egyptian contacts, and the goblins.” He reflected a moment on what those books from Equestria had implied. It would take careful, extensive research.
He sighed and stroked his beard, thinking. “We shall have to just go with the vampire theory, no matter how improbable.”
She nodded her agreement.
They spent the next half-hour discussing the events, and how to handle the parents and students tomorrow.
Just as they were wrapping things up — Albus planned to inspect the Great Hall while Minerva would have the house-elves spread the word to the Prefects that dinner in the Great Hall would signal the end of the lockdown — the floo suddenly flamed up. Out of it emerged Princess Twilight’s visage and voice, “Is anyone there? Can I come through?”
“Of course,” called out Albus, “Just give me a moment to set the floo to receive.”
Seconds later, the purple-haired princess popped out into the room. She looked at the two people already in the office and nodded. “Have you had an opportunity to look at a pensieve memory?” she asked, going straight to business.
They nodded.
She nodded back. “Good. I took a memory from Harry and I’ve been studying it carefully.” She crossed her arms on her chest and started pacing. “From the memory, it’s obvious that Goyle suspected something from the beginning.” She stopped and looked at them. “I don’t know if you know it, but apparently there’s some sort of rivalry between Harry and Malfoy, Goyle, and Crabbe.”
Minerva moued and Albus nodded,
She resumed pacing. “In addition, Miss De Rippe — you remember her from last year’s incident, right? She was the only one to notice something was wrong.” She stared at the Headmaster. “She had a warning for Harry just after Easter Break.”
Yes, he certainly did remember the quiet Hufflepuff. Albus tilted his head sightly and raised an eyebrow to encourage her to continue.
She resumed pacing. “She said that she had noticed Gregory acting . . . out of character since before Christmas. So, she started watching him more closely. Her tentative conclusion was that something about the situation reminded her of the Head Boy from last year during exams. Nothing definite that she could take to a professor, but something, even so.” She waved her right arm.
“Looking at the memory, it’s easy to see that Gregory was suspicious of Gilderoy’s class. His expressions were quite out of line with those of Draco and Vincent.”
She shook her head. “Clearly, Gilderoy suspected something was up with Gregory. He was using this ‘special class’ to isolate the boy from his class. Confronting him in a classroom would have been difficult and the boy might have grabbed a hostage.” She huffed. “By getting him on-stage with only a few others nearby, he was better isolated. Plus, without a doubt, he planned to milk the situation for all the publicity it was worth, after the fact.”
After a brief pause, she continued. “Anyway, he used his ‘demonstrations’ to verify the situation by casting spells that would have been dead giveaways of his misgivings in a small classroom.” She shook her head, again. “It might have worked if Gregory already hadn’t been suspicious. Which was entirely out-of-character for the boy, according to Harry. He should have been like Vincent, slow to realize what was going on.
“Thankfully, Gilderoy managed to separate Harry, Hermione, and Susan from the rest before casting his last detection spell. That his wand vibrated slightly you can tell if you look very closely in the memory. That and he has a tiny smile afterward. That meant that whomever was possessed, and it was definitely a possession at that point, had to be one of Wayne, Su, Stephen, Pansy, or Gregory. Wayne, Su, and Stephen were out, because they hadn’t aroused his suspicions. The same for Pansy. Which left Gregory.”
She stopped pacing and stared at them. “If you examine things closely, you can see that when Gilderoy starts to raise his wand to cast the stunning charm, Gregory’s eyes widen and he too starts to raise his wand. Which he has had up his robe’s sleeve the entire time since he had left his desk. Interestingly, the tip is already glowing, which means he had a spell ready to cast before Gilderoy even started.”
She sighed. “The rest was quick. Gregory had already moved to the side before Gilderoy cast his stunning charm. You can tell Gilderoy saw Gregory’s flipendo jinx just before it hit him. As Gilderoy flew across the platform to hit Madam Bones, and Professors Flitwick and McGonagall, Goyle sent a second spell, a curse, at Harry.
“Harry, with Elly’s warning ahead of time, had a shield spell up already.” She gave a proud smile, then continued, “By then Gregory had smoke billowing from his wand, obscuring everyone’s view of him, and he used that cover to vacate the Great Hall using the Professor’s door on that side of the stage.”
She paused a moment. “The Castle Map shows he was out of the castle long before the aurors showed.” She grimaced. “So, my conclusions are that, first, there weren’t any vampires close enough for a possession. They would easily have been detected by the map weeks ago.” She glanced at the map that took up most of a wall in the office. “Second, we suspected there was a horcrux in the castle hiding as a diary, but we couldn’t find it. If the horcrux is as powerful as we have been led to believe by the books, then it could have possessed Gregory. Given how close-mouthed the Slytherin wizards and witches are, it wouldn’t surprise me if it got away with possessing Gregory and no one said anything about minor changes in Gregory’s character from last year.
“Third, the spells used by Gregory are within reason for him to know, but not at the level of competence he demonstrated given his academic performance so far in Hogwarts, according to Harry. Also, to do what he did required far more control over his magical power than he has every shown.”
She glanced between the two others. “The only reasonable conclusion I can reach is that Gregory, indeed, has been possessed by the diary horcrux. That being the case, we need to get to Gilderoy as soon as possible. There is a spell I know called ‘Traumalocation’. It is a spell that, when cast on someone who has recently been the victim of some form of attack, will allow us to locate and view the person or persons who committed the act.”
She turned and looked at the map, obviously concentrating on Gilderoy’s present location. “He’s still in the Hospital Wing?” she said, surprised.
Nodding firmly, Albus said, “Then let us be off.”
On the way, McGonagall explained that he had been knocked out when he crashed into them. Madam Pomfrey, not wanting to deal with his drama, had simply fixed him up with a potion, made him comfortable, and cast a spell to let him sleep and leave her in peace.
Soon enough they were grouped around his bed, the curtains drawn for privacy. “He doesn’t need to be awake for this spell,” Twilight said as she drew her wand.
“Thank Merlin for small favours,” Albus heard Minerva whisper.
There were no fancy wand movements, she just pointed her wand at the sleeping professor. A magenta glow began to surround the wand, then a second later a beam of the same magenta encompassed the professor on the bed, growing to a globe in shape. One spot on the globe began to glow bright while a spot on the direct opposite side got darker. “He’s in that direction,” she muttered, indicating the line formed by the two spots.
Albus noted the direction indicated, and had a quick spell-map of everything in that direction appear. Most notably, it included London, he saw.
A scene started to form in the globe of some sort of room, but it was mostly a magenta fog that slowly dissipated, and the two spots on the globe returned to their normal shade.
Twilight sighed, and the magenta magic faded.
“Well,” she said, dejected, “Either he is too far for more information, or he just died.”
“Too far?” Albus asked, staring at his map as the coast of France appeared beyond London on his image-map.
“Dead?” gasped Minerva.
The princess shrugged. “That could have been the cabin of a ferry, or train.” She frowned. “I haven’t really determined the exact limit of that spell.” Her mood noticeably brightened. “A new research project!” A notebook floated up beside her, with a pencil. She hummed to herself as she made notes and rearranged a few things in her scheduler.
“And yes, one of the reasons for the spell to fail is that the target died in the meantime,” she distractedly said. “However, he was alive when I cast the spell or we wouldn’t have gotten a direction indication, so I rather doubt he just up and died for no reason. And if he’s traveling, then the horcrux-diary wouldn’t dare to try to assimilate him, so probably not. It is more likely he’s on a train and it just exceeded the spell’s range. Or maybe he was somewhere with a floo and took it to a point that was outside the spell’s range.”
She looked around the room absentmindedly. “Unfortunately, he has probably mastered your apparition — he was seventeen, a sixth-year, when he made the diary. Hopefully, he’s not very proficient at it yet, and can only travel to places Goyle’s visited. Fortunately, almost everywhere else he might go to has changed and it would be very dangerous to attempt.” She shook her head. “If he did, he might find himself inside a wall.”
She turned to him. “I can leave you to tell all this Madam Bones, right?” She shivered slightly. “I have some research I need to conduct,” she said brightly, appearing far too happy at the prospect.
He nodded slowly. “I think Madam Bones would be most interested in your Traumalocation spell. I find myself intrigued by it.”
She frowned, and sighed. “Okay.”
The spell was surprisingly difficult to master using her methods, which were far more mathematical and formula-based than the methods wizards used. It took him, and Minerva, the better part of ten minutes to get the spell to work every time. But once mastered, it was easy to cast.
This spell would be quite the time-saver in catching any students who might cast harmful spells at others. The miscreant’s own magic would betray them.
“There now,” she said, pleased, “You can teach Madam Bones the spell, right?” She handed him the formula she had written down on parchment.
^·_·^