章 116: The Talk, and The Events That Built Upto It

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[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

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"What were you doing at the Shrieking Shack, Mr. West?" asked Dumbledore to the student sitting in front of him.

"I was returning from Hogsmeade, Headmaster," answered Quinn to the question. "And Shrieking Shack is the route that I used to travel back-and-forth from the castle and village."

Today's situation had revealed that Quinn went out of the castle, so there was no reason for him to hide the fact that he went out to Hogsmeade.

"What were you doing in the village?" questioned Dumbledore. "What prompted you to leave the castle?"

Quinn raised his right hand and snapped his fingers for a playing card - a joker - with a royal blue back appear in his hands.

"I was out at the village to confirm the new design on my business cards."

He then, with a flick of his wrist, threw the playing card from his right to left at a snapping speed, making a faint noise as the card jumped hands.

Dumbledore's eyes from Quinn's right to left, following the card, and they widened a fraction when instead of the throwing card, Quinn's left was holding a black card with golden lettering.

"These cards are my main source of advertisement, Headmaster," said Quinn as he leaned forward and gracefully placed the card on Dumbledore's desk and the black business card glided on top of the polished surface of the table towards Dumbledore.

Dumbledore removed his surprised eyes from the business card on his desk and looked at Quinn's hand, which had returned to resting on his lap.

"And you couldn't do it from within the castle? Communicating via owls, perhaps," asked Dumbledore as he continued to stare at the card on the table.

"Somethings come out better when you discuss them face-to-face, sir. As I said, these cards are my primary source of advertisement. I need for them to be perfect."

Other than the slight widening of his eyes, the old Headmaster didn't show any signs of surprise and picked up the card from the table to observe it.

His experienced hands and knowledgeable eyes looked for magic laid into the cards. Dumbledore found that hidden under a layer of bogus charms laid animation charms and a Protean charm, but other than that, no other magic was woven into the card.

Dumbledore looked for how Quinn transformed a playing card into a business card, searching for a transfiguration charm or a simple cantrip, but there was nothing like that on the card. Which told Dumbledore that Quinn had accomplished it without magic, surprising him further.

"That was an impressive show of sleight-of-hand, Mr. West," complimented Dumbledore as he gently shook the card in his hand. "I've heard that muggle magicians do tricks like these, but this is my first time seeing something like this."

"Thank you for the praise," smiled Quinn. "Sleight-of-hand seems like magic, a skill that requires pure skill and dexterity to fool people." The smile widened into a wide grin. "And I have found that it does wonder when I show it to magicals. I can get individuals to look at me with funny and, quite frankly, dumb faces."

"Did I make the same expression that you see on others?"

Quinn shook his head with a shallow smile, "You barely made an expression, Headmaster. It made me think that I should've done something more... wilder."

"Oh no, Mr. West. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was surprised," answered Dumbledore. "I'm an old dog, who was a little slow on the uptake, that's all."

"Oh, please, Headmaster. You aren't that old. You are what? A little over a hundred years old. You still have a full life ahead of you," chuckled Quinn and then gave a glance over to Dumbledore's face. "You have the dressing sense; if you trim that beard off, you would immediately shave decades off your appearance."

Dumbledore stroked his long beard and smiled, "Is that so? I will give it a thought. I'm a little attached to my beard: it has been with me for a long time."

"Follow your heart, sire. It will take you ways."

Dumbledore was about to laugh in agreement, but then he realized that Quinn had taken him off the tangent and blinked a bit at the smiling student in front of him.

There was a slight pause after Quinn's statement, and Dumbledore directly brought the conversation back on track.

"James tells me that you -." Dumbledore started to speak, but Quinn cut him off.

"James?" question Quinn, despite knowing who Dumbledore was talking about.

The conversation a few seconds, even if it was off-topic, was going smoothly, and Quinn wanted to break the rhythm, so he asked the question to which he already knew the answer.

"... James Potter, the person who escorted you to the castle," said Dumbledore, who indeed was slightly thrown off his rhythm.

He wasn't used to being interrupted or being pulled out of topic. It had been years, even decades, since Dumbledore had experienced close to what he was doing with Quinn.

"Ah, Auror Potter. I wasn't able to attribute the first name to him. Please do continue," gestured Quinn.

"Yes... as I was saying, James tells me that you knew that Professor Lupin is a Werewolf. My question to you, Mr. West, is that if you understood what Professor Snape was trying to tell you, why didn't you reveal to anyone," asked Dumbledore, and his eyes shined with curiosity.

Dumbledore was shocked that Snape had tried to reveal Remus's identity despite his insistence and order to not disclose the condition. But to think that the childish feuds would carry over to adulthood and Snape would try to circumvent the rules he had set and attempt to point the students towards the answers.

"I understand that Lycanthropy or the more funny word, Werewolfry, is a disease. As long as people with Lycanthropy take proper precautions, I wouldn't treat them negatively. Professor Lupin, from my view, took those proper precautions and made sure that the surrounding people wouldn't be affected," answered Quinn, speaking things from his heart. "I don't think that just because Professor Lupin was something he can't do anything about, he should be segregated. As for why I didn't reveal his identity? He and the faculty were clearly trying to keep it a secret. I can read the room, so I kept quiet. Of course, if he had been a danger to the students. I would've revealed his identity to the entire school and have him kicked out of the school."

Quinn had already spoken these things at the Shrieking Shack, so he didn't mind repeating them. Anything to keep the conversation where and how Quinn wanted to go.

"Let's talk about the fact that you intercepted the terrorist."

But, Dumbledore was an experienced old goat. Even with Quinn's little tactics to keep the conversation moving in the direction he wanted, Dumbledore simply used blunt questions and his position as the Headmaster to force the conversation back where he wanted.

'Hmm... I wanted a little more time before we got here, but things are still within my expectations,' thought Quinn and once again waited for Dumbledore to front a question.

"From what James described, the man that held Harry hostage got out of the room, the door suddenly shut close, and when the others got out, you were on top of the man and beating his face red with your fists," recalled Dumbledore.

The Headmaster took a conscious pause in which he stared at Quinn before asking.

"You didn't have your wand in your hands, Mr. West. How were you able to shut the door that was clearly shut with magic?"

Quinn stared at Dumbledore for a good few moments before raising his hand and pointing it at the folder of parchments that Dumbledore was previously reading from.

His face scrunched up in concentration as one... two... five seconds went by before the folder flew up from the table and zoomed into Quinn's hand.

Quinn breathed out a heavy breathe and lightly smiled. "I-I can do a little wandless magic, Headmasters. At that moment, I thought it was the best option for everyone if I separated the man from his associates."

'There, I established my limit,' internally smiled Quinn.

He looked down at the folder and opened it to read what Dumbledore had on him, but the speed at which he turned the pages made it seem like he was simply turning pages.

"I can't do any more than that. And that man had a wand pointed at Harry Potter, so I chose the physical route and forced him away from Harry, and then to make sure that he didn't have any other moment, I punched him." Quinn looked up from the parchments and continued. "I've been told that you can't stop after an initial blow. You've to keep going until the hostile is no longer, well.... hostile."

Quinn rubbed his upper arm with his opposite hand and whispered, "I was scared and just followed what came to me instinctually."

Feeling frightened in that situation was natural, and Quinn, on some level, was scared. Even if he had planned things to ensure that he was safe, Quinn still felt the fear that the situation could go wrong. So, right now, Quinn was simply using that slight feeling of fear to portray a dread that brought out his instincts.

"... I understand, Mr. West. Things must've been terrifying for you at that moment. I will tell you something that I've heard from several Aurors and Hit Wizards I have met. Most of them told me that even after doing what they do for years, they still fear afraid before going into a dangerous situation. They tell me that fear is what keeps them on their toes and keeps their mind cautious."

Quinn nodded, whole-heartedly agreeing with the fact that a healthy dose of fear helped in dangerous situations.

...

Dumbledore observed Quinn with an inspecting gaze.

There was something about Quinn that was bothering him. Ever since Quinn had entered the room, there was something that had been bothering Dumbledore. Something that he couldn't put his finger on.

Quinn didn't show any signs of nervousness or worry about being in his office. And while Dumbledore wasn't trying to make anyone nervous, he understood that his position and reputation did bring that something in people when they met him.

Then there was the fact that Quinn had shown that even though he wasn't reluctant to talk, his answers told him that Quinn wasn't going to completely open up.

Dumbledore wasn't dense or a greenhorn; he understood what Quinn was trying to do. Short and vague answers... going off topics... trying to interrupt the conversations... not providing anything new that he didn't already know.

He had deduced that Quinn used wandless magic to close the door. There was no other reasoning for the door suddenly closing. And Quinn had simply confirmed the clear fact by showcasing that he had wandless capabilities just enough to shut a door.

Quinn simply confirmed that he punched the man to stop him. Dumbledore already knew that. Other than a few additional background facts, Quinn hadn't told him anything that would add to the narrative.

Even before the two started to talk about the incident, Quinn had simply agreed with statements that he had put forward.

Lockhart gave him an all-access pass to the Restricted Section for an entire year.

Quinn's answer? Yes. Short and simply confirming a recorded fact.

Why? I don't know, maybe he liked me. Vague conjecture and nothing definitive.

What did he study? Advance concepts. Everything in Restricted Section was advance. Once again, too broad of an answer.

He provided similar answers when asked about his Healing lesson with Poppy.

Dumbledore thought about it what didn't fit into place.

'He is prepared, a bit too prepared. He is too relaxed,' noticed Dumbledore.

But when he thought about Quinn's background and what he had learned from his faculty. It was just barely within an acceptable behavior from Quinn.

'He is too accepting,' thought Dumbledore. 'Yes, that's it. He transitioned a bit too quickly.'

When Quinn spoke about fear, he showed some emotion that would be normal given the situation he had been through.

'But when I told him about Aurors and Hit Wizards. He accepted it too easily,' recalled Dumbledore and reflected on it. 'The look in his eyes wasn't relief at not being judged. It was as if he already knew it and was showing his agreement.'

This tipped the scales in Dumbledore's head. He wanted to know what Quinn West was thinking.

Here in front of him was George West's grandson. The grandson of the person with immense wealth and resources, who he had tried to bring to his side.

Dumbledore had failed to persuade George West to join his side and his cause. Fortunately for him, George West had also refused to go to the other side and join Voldemort. If George West had joined Voldemort, then Malfoy's financial support would have seemed like pocket money allowance.

Dumbledore's bubbling curiosity about Quinn, along with his family background, made Dumbledore decide his next course of action. He was going to use some magic to see what was going inside Quinn's head.

...

Quinn was looking around Dumbledore's office when he noticed something from the corner of his eyes.

'Hmm?'

He turned to face Dumbledore and saw the Headmaster's eyes glittering and shining with an unnatural light.

'Ah! He is using magic to attract my eyes to his,' thought Quinn. 'He is going to use Legilimency!'

But Quinn wasn't scared.

Not at all.

Instead, he was excited.

Except for Alan, his teacher, no person had ever challenged his mental Occlumency shields. He wanted to see if Dumbledore's attack could pass through.

'The invisible, omnipresent radiation matter is also ready and present in my mind,' thought Quinn and thought about the latest addition to his mindscape. 'Let's see if he can even get to that point.'

Quinn slightly raised his chin in confidence and locked his eyes with Dumbledore. With a barely noticeable smile gracing his lips, his shields went into active mode as they solidified, and the radiation edges started emitting waves of mental probe degradation magic.

Dumbledore, who saw Quinn lock eyes with him, gathered his magic and engaged his mental magic to cast Legilimency.

The mental probe went forward and was about to reach Quinn's mind when the two parties heard a pop.

Dumbledore and Quinn broke eye contact and looked towards the direction of the sound. There they saw a house-elf standing with a letter in his hands.

'I guess my ticket is here,' thought Quinn when he saw the letter in the house-elves hands. 'It came at the right time. It's good to see I know him well.'

"What is Galry?" asked Dumbledore to the house-elf who had the responsibility to clean up his office and was the only elf who was allowed to enter the Headmaster's office.

"A letter came for the Headymaster," said Galry the house-elf and handed the letter to Dumbledore. "One of me kind pop to Hogwarts and told us house-elves to give this to you and give it fast."

Galry then twirled his fingers and spoke in a distracted voice.

"She wore pretty toga and was so pretty. Like the best elf, Darly had ever seen... so pretty."

Quinn's eyes smiled when he heard the little house-elf spoke in a dreamy tone. 'Of course, she is pretty.'

Dumbledore opened the letter as the Garly the Hogwarts house-elf popped away. He began reading it, and Quinn didn't see any reaction on the Headmaster's face before he looked up and spoke.

"It seems your grandfather doesn't want me to speak to you without his presence, Mr. West."

"I see."

Rewinding back time to the moment Quinn had opened the door in the Shrieking Shack.

The second Quinn saw the men inside the room, he was sure of one thing, one thing that was sure to happen.

Quinn thought about the future, and no matter what decision he took, every path led to him meeting the old man in the tower and talking about what happened today.

All paths lead to Albus Dumbledore.

And at that time, the meeting with Dumbledore became his main priority, and Quinn started to prepare for it.

The first thing Quinn had to do was to get out of there alive. And make sure Harry Potter wasn't hurt and taken away. Doing this was easy enough. But when he added Dumbledore to the equation, Quinn had to select his methods.

He took the physical way rather than the magical way. Quinn started by discreetly disarming the hostage-taker. The door shutting close made sure that no one noticed that fact, meaning if Dumbledore examined the memory, he wouldn't find a wand flying because Quinn made sure that the wand went in a direction that wasn't visible to the Marauders.

Quinn didn't want to show his actual magical capabilities to Dumbledore. But because the door was closed with magic, Quinn decided to use his reputation as a prodigious student to explain that he had enough wandless skills to close the door.

But that was it. Quinn couldn't show anymore, so he turned to his trusty fists and battered the man into submission.

Going physical and hurting wasn't only to hide his magic. Quinn needed time to prepare. He made sure the Marauders knew he was hurt so they would take him to the hospital wing.

This went great because Harry Potter was unconscious and needed medical attention, and Quinn simply tagged along.

The reason Quinn wanted to go to the hospital wing was to separate from James Potter. He didn't want to meet Dumbledore right off the bat and wanted to prepare his exit ticket in advance.

In the hospital wing, there were two options:

Number one, Dumbledore would come to the hospital wing and talk to him there. In this option, Quinn wasn't able to set up the exit ticket, but he would have an audience who would see him and Dumbledore talk.

He would have Poppy and most probably the rest of the Potter family in the hospital wing. If Dumbledore asked to talk in private, Quinn would've refused and would reply that they could talk about it in front of everyone. That he trusted Poppy and that the Potter family deserved to know what happened.

This way, Dumbledore would've to carefully tread if he tried some hanky-panky.

The second option was Quinn being called into the Headmaster's office. Which was the version of events that happened.

In this option, Quinn had further sub-possibilities. The possibility was the messenger, who would escort him to Dumbledore. On the scale, Quinn had someone like Severus Snape who wouldn't listen to any of his requests on one side and someone like Filius Flitwick, who was much more empathetic and would allow Quinn to go into his office. With everyone else in between these two people.

Quinn's blood-stained clothes weren't an incident. He could have come out of the mess without a single speck of dust on him. Quinn needed to go to his office so that he could prepare his exit ticket.

The exit ticket was a MagiFax mail sent to every MagiFax unit inside the West Manor. Quinn had sent the same two pages that he drafted while changing clothes to Ms. Rosey, Elliot, his grandfather, and to the MagiFax unit for general use at West Manor.

The two pages covered the events, what was about to happen, and some instructions.

If Snape had come to escort Quinn and had refused his request to change clothes, Quinn would have directly called Polly, who was the one who had delivered the letter to the Hogwarts house-elves and would have given her a short message for his grandfather.

Quinn was confident that even with a short message, his grandfather would've pulled off the same thing as he had done now, and he would get his exit ticket.

Quinn had used MagiFax because Filius, the charms master, was sitting right outside. Quinn wasn't sure if Filius would be able to detect a sudden ward that Quinn would have cast to silence the elf-apparate pop of Polly arriving to collect the pages.

He was okay with Snape seeing him speaking to Polly because after being refused a change of clothes, Quinn had the justification of complaining to his grandfather.

Then came the talk with Dumbledore.

Quinn didn't know what would happen in the office. The talk could have gone pleasantly where he and Dumbledore could've exchanged pleasantries, and after making sure that Quinn was fine, Dumbledore allowing Quinn to leave and rest.

But Dumbledore pulled out a file on Quinn and started to ask questions that didn't have anything to do with today's incident. Dumbledore brought up everything from his grades to his thoughts about various subjects and his activities.

Quinn knew that there was a possibility that Dumbledore would try something, and thus he wanted to get out of the office, and his grandfather's letter was enough to accomplish that. But to make sure that it got here in time, Quinn had to make sure that he extended the conversation without revealing too much.

Dumbledore using Legilimency was within Quinn's expectations. Quinn knew the power of Legilimency: he used it every day. So, he knew that if Dumbledore could, he would use Legilimency because if Quinn was in his place, he would have done the same thing.

Sure Quinn was confident in his Occlumency, but his opponent was Dumbledore, and Quinn knew that the over hundred-year-old man was strong. That is why Quinn went to all the trouble to create an exit ticket.

In the words of George West, the exit ticket told Albus Dumbledore to back off and leave his grandson alone.

Albus Dumbledore was magically and politically powerful, but he lacked the financial wealth that George West had plenty of. If Dumbledore refused to heed his warning, George would make his life difficult.

The saying that money made the world go round was built on solid ground.

Dumbledore looked up from the letter towards Quinn stated, "It seems your grandfather is aware of the incident."

"So it seems," nodded Quinn.

"I wonder how he got to know them so quickly," inquired Dumbledore.

"I wouldn't know, Headmaster. My grandfather is a resourceful man. I'm sure he has his way," replied Quinn, not admitting that he was the source.

Quinn put the folder which held the information on him back on the desk. He had already glanced at it and just needed to use Occlumency to strengthen what his eyes saw.

"It seems we would've to end our talk, sir," smiled Quinn as he got up from his chair. "As much as I enjoyed our talk, my grandfather has the authority to ground me for the entire summer, and I don't want that."

Dumbledore glanced between the letter and Quinn and nodded.

Quinn turned back and walked towards the door but stopped when he heard Dumbledore speak.

"Detentions till the end of the term, Mr. West. For sneaking outside the castle without permission."

Quinn didn't turn back and simply replied with: "I understand, sir." And then walked out of the office, leaving behind Albus Dumbledore alone, with the letter from George West.

Outside the office, Quinn took a deep breath with a big smile and thought.

'That went rather well.'

The first meeting between Albus Dumbledore and Quinn West had come to an end.

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Quinn West - MC - Mind games! Let's play mind games!

Albus Dumbledore - Headmaster, sir. - "... Quinn West, hmm..."

George West - Exit ticket - Back off! I don't want my grandson alone in a room with an old man.

Garly - Hogwarts house-elf - "... She was pretty."

Polly - West house-elf - Well dressed and pretty house-elf

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