Bab 95: Albus's Schemes and the Triad's Downfall
The Lupin Will only allotted for a small stipend to be paid out to Remus. Nothing else because like Peter with the Pettigrew Estate, Remandus had taken care of all the obligations before he died making certain none of them were ongoing.
He'd even left a separate account for the payment of Estate taxes to the Ministry. The only payment authorized naturally was ended when the recipient died and Albus couldn't even lie and say the man was still alive because the goblins knew better.
The Black Will had many obligations but he was told, all he could do was authorize payment via a simple yes or no checkmark. The goblins would then pay the obligation or not according to his authority. But no coin would filter into his hands should he choose not to pay something and he could be overruled in the matter by the other trustees of the Black account which they weren't obligated to inform him of or about.
He had tried every trick he knew to get the goblins to return things to the way they were but the nasty little beasts refused to listen to him. They kept saying Lady Tonguelash would have their heads if they didn't follow her direction. And when a goblin used that term it was no mere figure of speech. The little beasts meant it quite literally. Nor could he discover who this Lady Tonguelash was. The only thing he knew was the Lady was a goblin and he only knew that because of the name.
He'd never heard of the goblins following the direction of one of their females before. But then he, like so many other people, didn't really pay all that much attention to creature societies. It mystified him but it was clear that until he could discover her identity and meet with her personally there wasn't going to be anything he could do to change things. And goblins were extremely protective of their females. So the chances of him getting a face to face with her were slim to none.
Nor could he discover the identity of the other trustees on the Black account to try and meet with them about authorizing funding to come from the Black accounts. He couldn't bribe or blackmail people if he didn't know who they were, after all.
So he was stuck, he reflected as he slowly walked along the halls back to his office and his warm comfortable bed. All he could do was go to the Bank each month and hope this would be the month the goblins stopped playing their games and gave him back his access to all that lovely gold
There was nothing else to do. It never occurred to him he should spend some time handling the mountain of parchment on his desk. All he wanted right now was a good hot soak in his bathing tub and then a good night's sleep.
....
The rest of the month of September and into early October passed relatively smoothly for the Castle inhabitants. Minerva had gone to Albus to try and force Harry to move back into Gryffindor Tower where he could begin to make inroads to making friends with the other boys in his year and sorting.
She knew he wouldn't ever be friends with Mr. Weasely again but she hoped by being around the other three boys in his year he'd make friends with at least one of them. Now that she was awake and aware, she didn't like how very alone he was. It wasn't healthy to her way of thinking.
But that hadn't worked out for her. She'd been forced to give up the idea when Albus kept dismissing the issue of Harry's chambers and trying to get her to tell him why she'd let the Triad disfigure their faces. Since she didn't want to talk about them at all, she vacated his office as quickly as she could do so without seeming to be rude. Which had suited him fine as he didn't want Harry moved back into the dormitory. So Harry retained his private quarters.
Unknown to Minerva, Albus wouldn't even hear of allowing him to be moved back to the dormitory even if he hadn't been able to distract with the Triad's misadventure. He'd worked too hard to ostracize the boy in the school to take the chance it would unravel now. Especially since so much of his carefully thought out plans were unraveling around his ears.
Marked faces or not, he still believed his chosen children would be more successful in their endeavors to ruin Harry's good name if the boy wasn't in the dormitories with the other children his age.
He knew if the boy were to move back into the dorm, his children would have to work harder because his naturally retiring personality would have the children questioning everything his children told them.
They might even question the boy about the things his children told them. So Harry needed to stay separated from the general population where his children could reenforce the idea that he was a spoilt and pampered brat. Or just too dangerous for the good children to be around all the time.
Of course, because he was deep into the problem of how to regain control over Harry's vaults and finances, Albus had no idea Harry wasn't nearly as unpopular with the children as he had been before. For the first time since he'd allowed the boy to come to Hogwarts, the students were truly on his side.
Nor did he realize his three chosen patsies were actually the ones being ostracized by their peers. Or just exactly what the marks on their faces actually were. He still had the mistaken idea they did it to themselves in some misguided attempt to start a new fashion trend amongst their peer group.
All popular teens tried it sooner or later and the trends were short lived if they ever got off the ground at all. The only successful trends were created unknowingly by people who honestly didn't care if others followed their lead or not.
Nor did he realize the triad were attempting to see him but being blocked at every turn by his staff. Even Minerva was blocking their efforts to go complaining to him about their disfigurement. But she was getting fed up with the Triad because they weren't listening to her and were still trying to openly lie to her. Not just about past events but also their current difficulties as well. Harry was still their go-to person to blame for every misfortune in their lives. It was both frustrating and infuriating.
Dumbledore had no idea it wasn't Harry the children saw as the child too dangerous to be around. That was Ginerva, Hermione and Ronald. Ginerva, mainly. Because she actually had gotten a child killed already. Even first through third years knew of the child she had gotten killed because they were introduced to him by their older classmates.
Colin Creevey had returned to Hogwarts as a ghost. Like Myrtle, he hung out around the second floor girls necessary where he had been killed. And since he was of an age to Myrtle, he'd struck up a friendship with her.
But he could often be found trailing along behind either Harry or his younger brother in the halls as well. He still liked to follow Harry around and still worshiped the ground Harry walked on. So he was easy to find when older students wanted to introduce a younger year to him. But neither Ron nor Hermione were trusted by the students either. Word of mouth had made certain every child knew how very many times the two seemed to have tried and failed to kill Harry or at least led him to a place where he would get killed. Every single student was doing their level best to let the Triad know they didn't agree or approve of their past behaviors.
Harry wasn't actually socializing with anyone, though. He was fed up with the hot and cold attitude of the wizarding world and didn't really care that now it was ok for people to be seen talking to him again. In his experience, they'd only turn on him as soon as the slightest whisper of wrongdoing was attached to his name and person.
While he would return greetings and he did speak when he was spoken to, he deliberately didn't seek out anyone for any reason. It was too dangerous for him to do any such thing. He did know he had other enemies than just the Trio of Misfortune, as he thought of his former friends now. The last four years had shown him very clearly anyone he could be said to care for was at great risk and he didn't want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt or killed. Not even the Trio of Misfortune deserved that fate.
...
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