Chapter 63: Chapter 63: Prerogative
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14 June 1992, Hogwarts
Albus Dumbledore sat in his chair, pondering on the happenings of the previous year. With the students gone, the castle was oddly quiet, with only ghosts, elves, and the portraits keeping him company.
His plans with the Philosopher's Stone were a resounding success. The confirmation of Lord Voldemort's survival was very valuable, and so was having an active participant to a true prophecy. Neville Longbottom had no idea of his true value, that until the prophecy is fulfilled, fate itself will move mountains for his survival. And in the case, he wasn't cooperative, or if the prophecy would obviously not end in his victory, breaking the prophecy and using it as fuel for a ritual could be very beneficial for Albus in the long run, as regrettable as that might be.
The boy arrived exactly as he predicted. He was arrogant, and spoilt, but fairly talented, at least for a normal wizard. And Albus Dumbledore was nothing but a normal wizard.
His tranquillity was interrupted by a visually livid woman flooing to his office. He had been waiting for this meeting and dreading it at the same time. This woman could indivertibly ruin many of his plans, just out of stubbornness.
The visitor was tall, thin, and bony. She was wearing her customary stuffed vulture hat and was carrying her red handbag. The witch looked surprisingly formidable despite her age and was a terror in the Wizengamot session. It was Augusta Longbottom, the grandmother of the boy who lived. Honestly, Albus preferred to call him the child of the prophecy. He wasn't really special regards to living, his mother had used a sacrificial ritual of his own design to trap Voldemort. Well, it was a ritual that the Light, which he had sworn to almost a century back, helped him devise. He knew to trust the small whispers guiding his movements over the years, and they always delivered.
Honestly, it was lucky that Lord Voldemort hadn't gone after the Potter himself. Whatever monstrosity Lily Potter had conjured on Godric's Hollows was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was good that young malleable Neville Longbottom was the child of the prophecy in the long run. It made his planning a lot more flexible, all things considered. The willful and strangely intelligent Potter boy would have made a terrible weapon, although, if he had a better hand in his upkeep, he would have probably grown up differently.
"Dumbledore, you have a lot to explain…"
Oh, right, Augusta was there to meet him. She had refused him access to young Neville in the past, probably paranoid because of the death of her son and daughter-in-law. But that wasn't nearly enough to stop him from influencing the boy. Just his reputation had been enough, considering the awe in the boy's eyes whenever he looked at Albus.
Back to the angry grandmother, Albus pretended to sigh loudly, "Can you be a little more specific, Augusta…"
"The Philosopher's stone, the little tests, the possessed professor, what else do you want me to say?" the woman thundery returned.
The aged headmaster repressed a sigh. The boy had ended up blabbing to his grandmother, after all. He had thought that he would have a smidge of discretion after all. Alas, the boy really was a Gryffindor to the bone.
That woman really was irritating. Her husband was far easier to get along with. He had House Longbottom on his side in any Wizengamot meeting, but now, he had to appease her at every turn.
"Well, I can tell you that the Philosopher's Stone was nowhere in the castle. It was a small diversion Nicholas and I made to well, prepare to fake his and his wife's deaths, and see if Lord Voldemort was still alive. I dare say that it worked wonderfully so far." Albus explained.
He was lying slightly in this. The Philosopher's Stone was in the castle, just under very heavy wards in a secret room in his office. His control over Hogwarts was enough to divert the magical aura of the stone and make it appear to be in the forbidden corridor. Lord Voldemort in his prime probably wouldn't have been fooled by it, but as reduced as he was, possessing an average wraith with barely a fraction of a fraction of the power and skill he held, and counting for his desperation to regain his body, it was enough to trick him.
The woman didn't seem to be appeased at all, "And my grandson's involvement in this mess?"
"I will admit that I did not expect him to take that as an invitation to figure out the ploy and try to stop it himself. It was never meant to involve him in any way," Dumbledore answered with a calming tone.
"So, it was just a coincidence that you pull this off during the first year you have access to Neville?" the head of house Longbottom answered with a dubious tone.
"Yes, it was. It coincided with some very disturbing rumours I heard of a malicious wraith in Albania, which I thought might be Voldemort. And it was confirmed that he was still alive. Did you really wish that his return be a surprise, that your grandson and the legacy of Frank and Alice would be unprepared to deal with him when he inevitably returns? He will not leave the boy, you know it, I know it. This defeat was a sting to his pride, to his supposed supremacy. He will not take it lying down."
It was easier to scare the woman than to try to outfight her stubbornness. It showed in the manner she paled in fear and flinched at the probable danger coming her grandson's way. It was better to give her that wake-up call, to remind her of the active threat a surviving Lord Voldemort could pose to her legacy, "What are you doing to stop that monster?"
"Well, there was a plan in place to capture him in his wraith form. The small trials were supposed to only slow him down, making him overconfident after passing the Cerberus. I put in place an artefact that was supposed to trap him, as it has many people. With the lure of the stone, it should have been done and over. Alas, it proved to be ineffective, be it because of your grandson's involvement or it simply did not work on whatever Voldemort has become. You can understand how I took that small risk to stop a war in the long run. A war that will inevitably come if he ever returns, and he will start by going after young Neville," Dumbledore explained.
Yes, Albus had planned on trapping the wraith of Lord Voldemort in the mirror of Erised. It was a way to eliminate Lord Voldemort without having to kill him, and still keep the prophecy alive in case of emergency. True prophecies were rare and Albus had felt its power when Sybil Trelawney had spoken hers all those years ago.
But Neville had no hand in the mirror failing. The magic was simply incompatible. The wraith was entranced by the mirror, but Voldemort had the willpower to break free of it eventually. The space inside of the mirror refused to absorb the wraith and trap it inside for some reason. It was a long shot at best, but it was a very curious phenomenon. It was why he had also let the confrontation between the possessed professor and young Neville occur. He needed to study his mother's protection.
Even if he had designed it, the protections were something new. He didn't always understand the will of the Light and just followed its guidance. It had never led him wrong. But he was very curious as to the nature of the protection itself, and how it would react with Voldemort trying to finish the job. Well, from what he could understand, the boy would be safe from the supposed dark lord for now. It made the boy practically invincible. According to the prophecy, he must die at the hand of Voldemort, and yet, the protections assured him that he wouldn't, unless something drastic happened. This was the power of the weapon he had created against Voldemort.
The headmaster's musings were interrupted by the Longbottom matriarch, "And now what?"
"Well, Voldemort is a very intelligent wizard," Albus said, "and he will not fall into the same trap again. I had hoped to do this subtly, but I will need to research the method with which he survived the killing curse. We need to counteract his immortality somehow. I will continue to do this discreetly to avoid any mass panic, or his old followers from returning, which is why I'm asking you to tell young Neville to not spread the news of Voldemort's survival to the general public. As for now, we can do nothing but wait. It will take time for him to return, time which you will need to prepare your grandson for the worst that could come."
The woman nodded, and took a deep breath to calm herself before straitening out, "But why did you make the trials this easy?"
"Well, I didn't want any student to accidentally get hurt trying to be adventurous. The Cerberus was explicitly ordered to not hurt any wizard or witch under the age of eighteen, but still target possessed students and professors. The devil's snare was bred to inject paralytics and simply knock out the intruders. The broom key was just a delaying tactic, at best. The giant chess set was enchanted to knock out the intruder, nothing more, the room the trolls were in was warded to petrify the beasts and the students in case of mortal peril, and the poisoned potions contained sleeping potions. A student who would have that gotten far would have been unharmed in my trial, as they will need to know about the stone to be trapped, even then, they could be released rather easily by myself. Everything was planned. I could not risk a student getting severely hurt under my watch."
"Tell that to the Potter boy," Augusta retorted.
Albus suppressed a flinch at that, "That was an unfortunate accident."
"That boy saved my grandson's life in that foolish detention that you allowed to happen. And he was attacked again under your watch. It's a miracle he was able to pass with all the days he missed," the Longbottom matriarch continued.
Yeah, that was a sore spot. Dumbledore's opinion of the Potter boy was mixed. Sometimes, he just looked so similar to a familiar Slytherin boy with a troubled childhood, and yet there was a kindness and gentleness to him. He was a prodigy when it came to magic. Albus had noticed the obvious signs of Occlumency training when the boy practically fed him the memories he wanted. They weren't modified, at least not in a way he could notice. The pain was too real, the emotions too wild to be fake. It was how you knew a memory was fake. A competent mind mage might be able to change how things looked, and how they sounded, but it was almost impossible to fake a feeling because you had to have felt it. Even then, the boy was eleven years of age. Even the most outlandish of prodigies did not achieve this much in just a year of magical education.
Still, the boy had been attacked under his watch, and it was his inaction and anticipation of destroying Voldemort once and for all that almost caused the death of the boy. He owed it to his father at the very least to keep him safe. James Potter had heavily supposed the war against Voldemort as a member of the Order of the Phoenix, especially financially. He had been tempted to use what remained after the man's death. Especially when dealing with the damage of the fire of Godric's Hollow, but he couldn't rob a boy of the meagre remains, that wouldn't really help on a large scale.
"I will admit that what happened to young Harry was my fault. I can't take it back, but the boy fully recovered, and I do not plan on endangering him anymore. For James and Lily's sake."
The severe looking woman nodded imperiously, "That boy was Alice's godson. See to it that he's not endangered again."
The headmaster returned her nod and the woman silently walked towards his personal floo and left. Albus sagged the moment he left. Dealing with that woman was exhausting.
"Still, as crafty as ever, aren't you, Albus?" a familiar voice spoke up behind him.
He had felt the man's presence the moment he snuck in during the conversation, but he did his best not to react, "Well, I have learnt from the best, Nicholas."
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