4.6 Consequences and following up
4.6.1 Dispatch
"We've got a request for a wellness check," the witch in charge of dispatch announced as soon as the sergeant on duty opened the door to the ready room, freshly arrived for his Saturday morning shift.
"Already?" he groaned, having expected the usual light shift on early Saturday morning. Most of the usual suspects were too hungover from Friday night to cause trouble before noon.
"It's a leftover," the dispatcher explained. "A woman called in concerned that her grandmother had missed an appointment for dinner."
"Any indication of foul play?" the beat officer asked.
"Nothing yet," came the reply.
"Then shouldn't we have begged off for a few days?" he asked curiously. "I thought policy was to wait three days for adults with no indication of foul play, something about being constables rather than nursemaids, as I recall."
The dispatch-witch nodded, "Night shift tried to do that, but the woman apparently called in help from someone with connections. We've been instructed to check into it immediately, lest we be shat on from a great height."
"Ah, understood," the sergeant nodded. He raised his voice, "Constable!"
"Yes, Sergeant?" on the other side of the room, the man in question snapped to attention.
"You're with me, we've got a wellness check to take care of, a VIP."
"Yes, sir!"
4.6.2 Unexpected visitors
"What can I do for you, Constable?" Griselda Marchbanks asked her unexpected guest after her elf had shown him and his companion in. "I must admit, I am somewhat concerned that law enforcement would feel the need to visit my home this early on a Saturday morning."
"Thank you for having us, Madam," the ranking visitor, a blue-clad sergeant spoke from where he stood next to his junior colleague. "Sorry to bother you, but your granddaughter, Rosmerta, called the Department after you didn't show up at the Three Broomsticks for dinner last night, and we were sent out to perform a wellness check."
"Rosie was expecting me for dinner?" Griselda asked with a puzzled frown. "I don't remember…" The elderly woman's eyes narrowed in distress, "She's my granddaughter! How could I have forgotten?"
The sergeant gave a concerned frown in his own turn. "Madam, if you don't mind, might I ask what you remember doing yesterday."
"Oh, not at all," came the distracted reply. "I had a meeting with Mr. Lockhart. It went quite well."
"I see, and what did you discuss?" he pressed gently.
"I…" she trailed off with a frown. "I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't quite recall," Griselda replied fuzzily, "but it went quite well."
The sergeant's concern deepened. "Do you happen to recall why you were visiting him?"
"Of course! It was…" she trailed off uncertainly. "We were going to… I… I'm afraid I cannot recall… there must have been something…"
"Ma'am," the sergeant cut in, gently rescuing the increasingly distraught woman from her spiraling confusion, "Based on your demeanor, I suspect you might have been obliviated. Would you consent to visit St. Mungo's for an evaluation?"
"Do you think that is what it is?" the old woman looked up, an odd mix of hope and fear on her face. "I cannot say that I like the idea of having been obliviated, but it honestly sounds preferable to the possibility of forgetting my grandchildren." She shook her head, wobbling slightly in place, "Could I trouble you for an escort there? I just feel so fuzzy."
"Of course, Madam," the sergeant stepped forward briskly. "Smith," he spoke to his colleague as he steadied the elderly witch with a hand on her elbow, "head to the floo and call ahead to let the Healers know we're coming while I escort Madam Marchbanks."
The receiving hall soon flashed with the yellow-green light of an active floo connection.
4.6.3 Another parental visit
Another seven months, and like clockwork, another early morning trip to Hogwarts, Arthur was beginning to fear that this was to become his new routine.
Unlike the last time when the twins had stolen the family car, this one had been entirely unexpected, lacking as it did any obvious clues. Minerva's floo call had come out of the blue. Ginny had seemed fine over the break, and she was not generally the type to stir up trouble... not serious trouble, anyway. For that matter, the tone of Minerva's message had been quite different than the previous two, less exasperation and more trepidation.
All of this had conspired to leave the Weasley patriarch more than a little apprehensive as he walked the increasingly familiar path to the main gates. The expression on Minerva's face when she met him at the gate did nothing to alleviate that apprehension.
"Minerva, what has happened with my daughter?" he asked as he drew abreast and she turned to escort him into the school. "Your message was light on details."
"I do apologize for that, Arthur. I am afraid I was quite exhausted when I sent that request last night," the Scotswoman began as they walked. "I suppose the first thing is to assure you that your daughter is safe, and Poppy assures me she is well on the road to recovery."
"I am certainly glad to hear that my little girl is safe and recovering," he said, "though, I am much less happy about the fact that she needs to recover in the first place. I presume we will be going to see her now?"
"Of course, Arthur, we shall go to the infirmary presently," she agreed, "though Albus has asked that you meet with him as well. We do not expect your daughter to regain consciousness for some time, so after you have taken a moment to look in on her, he will be available near Poppy's office."
"Minerva, what happened?" the worried father asked as they rounded a corner and began mounting a set of steps that had just ground into place.
"She ran afoul of an enchanted diary," the Deputy Headmistress explained without further preamble. "An anchor for a soul, if I understood Albus' explanation correctly. Your daughter was possessed by the spirit within, which has controlled her actions for several months."
Arthur had frozen at the top of the staircase as soon as the word 'possessed' passed Minerva's lips. Noticing this, she paused. "Arthur? Arthur, are you alright?"
The stairwell was silent for a moment before the shocked man managed to find his voice.
"Ginny was possessed?" he ground out woodenly, slowly gaining speed as he processed that fact. "Is she free of its influence? How long ago did this start? Why didn't we notice?"
"If we might continue?" the Scotswoman prompted, which got the Weasley patriarch moving again. "We have not managed to determine when Miss Weasley acquired the diary, nor do we know how long she has been possessed, but we believe it stretches at least as far back as Halloween."
"Since Halloween?" Arthur breathed as they rounded another corner in the oft-labyrinthine castle. "But she was back in the Burrow since then, with her family! How did we not notice? How do you know she was possessed then?"
"That was the first incident with the monster... a basilisk, as I am certain you saw in the papers after it was killed by Mr. Potter," at his affirmative nod, she continued. "We have since learned that the possessing spirit was responsible for awakening the thing. As for how you could not notice, I can only hope that the control was intermittent, as I noticed nothing of the sort, either. Nor did her brothers, for that matter."
As they pair paused outside the infirmary after knocking to announce themselves and await the Healer's permission to enter, Arthur reiterated his earlier question, "And is she free of it now?"
"Oh yes," the Scotswoman said with a fierce sort of smile. "My colleagues and I made sure of it."
As the school Healer granted permission to enter her domain, any further questions were forgotten for the next few minutes as the Weasley patriarch assured himself that his darling little girl was intact and on the road to recovery. Nearly a quarter hour of concerned parental hovering later, the man had calmed enough that Minerva felt comfortable resuming their earlier conversation.
"Arthur," she began, "if you can bring yourself to step out for a moment, Albus would like a word."
"What if she wakes while I'm gone?" the apprehensive father demanded.
"Mr. Weasley, I remind you that your daughter is recovering from magical exhaustion," Poppy broke in with an explanation. "As part of her treatment for that condition, I am deliberately keeping her asleep to minimize energy expenditures. I guarantee she will not be waking within the next hour."
With that, Arthur finally allowed himself to be shuffled off to a nearby conference room where he found himself before Albus Dumbledore.
"Arthur, come in and take a seat," the elderly wizard welcomed him. "We have much to discuss."
When everyone was properly settled, the conversation began in earnest.
"Before we get to anything else, I have to ask," Arthur began, morbidly curious. "This possession went on for months, at least one of which was at home with our family, and no one noticed anything amiss with our daughter's behavior. What finally gave it away? I mean, how did you finally figure it out so you could take steps?"
He left unsaid the obvious corollary: was it our fault? Did we miss something obvious?
"Ah, it actually seems to have been a rather fortuitous bit of happenstance," the Headmaster explained. "I am sure you recall that business with the basilisk Mr. Potter killed last term?"
When Arthur nodded immediately — and rather predictably, the incident had been plastered across every publication in wizarding Europe for nearly two months — Albus continued. "From what we have been able to determine, it seems that the spirit possessing young Ginevra was not only responsible for the creature's awakening and release but was also rather unusually fond of the beast. So much so, that it apparently took rather violent exception to Mr. Potter killing it."
"Early yesterday afternoon, it managed to track down Mr. Potter and use your daughter to attack him from behind with a killing curse," the elder wizard reported. "Afterward, Miss Weasley passed out, unable to handle the strain of casting such a curse, and Mr. Potter was good enough to drop her off in my office for me to deal with."
Arthur had sucked in a sharp gasp at the name of the curse. "A killing curse, you say?" He let out that breath with an explosive sigh. "Thank Merlin she missed the poor boy; that would have been a tragedy. Ginny would never have forgiven herself, even if she wasn't in control."
"Oh no, Mr. Weasley," Albus interjected with a mischievous twinkle in his eye despite the gravity of the subject matter. "She most certainly did not miss. The curse was fired from perhaps a foot away, cast properly according to the trace on her wand, and her aim was spot on."
"Bloody hell!" the Weasley patriarch exclaimed, demonstrating where his youngest son had picked up the habit. "She hit him?"
"Indeed, Mr. Weasley," the elderly wizard nodded, "and then he proceeded to carry her across the school and up four flights of stairs to my office to drop her in my chair."
He chuckled at Arthur's dumbfounded expression. "Needless to say, Mr. Potter is made of rather sterner stuff than the average wizard."
"Well, I'll be…" the Weasley patriarch marveled, "I guess the boy-who-lived thing wasn't a fluke after all."
"Perhaps not," Albus allowed, "perhaps not. Yet that is neither here nor there. We are here to discuss your daughter and how her recent unfortunate situation came to pass."
He leaned forward intently, "We know how young Ginevra's ordeal ended, yet its beginning remains an open question. We know the vector, a cursed diary, but we do not know how it came to be in your daughter's possession. Do you have anything for us to go on, Arthur?"
Staring down at the clenched hands resting in his lap, Arthur slowly shook his head in the negative. "I have been struggling to figure that out ever since Minerva first mentioned it, and for the life of me, I haven't the foggiest!"
Looking up from his lap, the concerned father turned a frustrated eye on the Headmaster, "Ginevra was at the Burrow for nearly the entire summer, and those few times she was away, both Molly and I were with her the entire time. I can't imagine when she'd have had the opportunity to encounter such a thing!"
After one last searching look, the elderly Headmaster slumped back in his chair. "It seems then, that we are back where we started," he said with an irritable sigh. "I had hoped you would be able to share some additional insight."
"Wouldn't it make more sense to wait and ask Ginny when she wakes up?" Arthur asked.
"Unfortunately, no it would not," Albus denied with a grimace. "Given the stresses involved and the length of time the possessing spirit had unrestricted access to her mind, I do not expect young Ginny to be able to tell us much of anything when she wakes."
"The only other option I can think of is to ask Molly," Arthur offered. "She might have seen something I didn't. Failing that, maybe the boys might know something."
The Headmaster nodded at the suggestion. "I suppose that I shall need to avail myself of your hospitality in the near future, then," the elder wizard agreed.
"You are always welcome at the Burrow, Albus," the younger man assured him. "Molly will be delighted to have guests."
He paused for a moment as a thought occurred to him. "On the topic of guests, might you be willing to bring Mr. Potter along? I'm certain Molly would agree with me that we owe him dearly for saving our little girl, doubly so for being such a good sport after she attacked him. Treating him to a good meal is the very least we could do."
The Headmaster smiled, "I see no issue with that, and I am certain Mr. Potter will quite appreciate the gesture. He is certainly not one to turn down food!"
Arthur chuckled. "I know how boys are at that age; why I remem…"
Arthur cut off mid-word when Poppy announced that her patient would be regaining consciousness shortly. Any further conversation would wait for a later date.
4.6.4 Further developments
"What have we learned?" the detective asked as he met with the sergeant whose preliminary report on the situation with Madam Marchbanks had prompted this sudden assignment from Investigations.
The two men stood outside the Spell Damage ward at St. Mungo's, where the sergeant had been acting as security ever since the preliminary Healer's report had come back with a strong indication of foul play.
"The Healers are now certain that Madam Marchbanks was obliviated," the sergeant began. "Fortunately, they believe her memories will be recoverable with the help of a specialist."
"I see," the detective nodded, jotting down notes as he spoke. Reversibility was a strong indication of skill in obliviation, which would be a helpful filter for determining the identity of the perpetrator. Unskilled casters tended to leave an unrecoverable mess. "Dispatch has contacted the victim's secretary to obtain her itinerary. She was scheduled to meet with two of our retired fellows and a Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart last night."
"You think it's one of ours, sir?" the sergeant asked, sounding a little ill at the thought. "They'd have the skill for it, and I wouldn't think Lockhart would, would he?" At the detective's curious look, the sergeant hurried to explain, "I mean, I don't know much about Lockhart aside from the fact that my sister is all in a tizzy whenever a new book of his comes out, but I don't recall her saying anything about him knowing that sort of thing, and obliviation's pretty tricky work."
"I'll not rule out one of ours having gone bad," the detective began, "not without further information, anyway, but Lockhart is certainly still on the suspect list. He doesn't noise it about much, but he retired from the Obliviators a number of years back. As far as I'm concerned, it might be either of our former aurors, Mr. Lockhart, or a third party that the victim hadn't been scheduled to meet with. We still don't have enough information to rule out that possibility."
"I see, sir," the sergeant agreed. "What do you need me to do?"
"You're on duty here; keep an eye on things until dispatch recalls you or sends relief," the detective told him. "Until we know more about the perpetrator and the motive, we need to keep protective custody on the good Madam. We've already got three teams out looking for our two aurors and Mr. Lockhart. Hopefully you won't be here too long."
"Understood," the sergeant saluted briskly. "Good luck, sir!"
4.6.5 Drunk and disorderly
"I want you all ready," the auror team captain told his subordinates as they prepared to enter the modest wards around an otherwise unremarkable magical residence. "We don't know the circumstances, and until we do, we need to be prepared for resistance. Our targets may have retired, but they are still two of ours. You all know what that means."
Indeed, they did, and it was for that reason that the entire team was in combat robes and fully kitted-out. The suspects in question were auror-trained, and even if they proved to be non-hostile, it was best to be armored up when surprising them. Armor would help to minimize the long-term consequences of any potential accidents or misunderstandings.
When the team reached the door, however, it became apparent that something unusual was afoot.
"Gah!" the point man grimaced as he tried the door, swinging it open easily as it was unlocked. "What a stench!"
With the front door unsealed, a horrible odor escaped the home, the sort of stink one might expect from a particularly rowdy bar that hadn't been properly cleaned for a week.
The point man looked back to his captain for confirmation before calling out. "Hello in there! This is law enforcement!"
The team waited tensely for a response for a few moments before the captain nodded to the point man again, indicating that he should enter. The door was unlocked after all, no need to force entry.
The man nudged the door open with his free hand, keeping his wand trained on the opening as he cautiously cleared the entry before his partner moved suddenly through the door as he covered it in a practiced entry maneuver.
"Clear!"
The rest of the team followed along as the stench got progressively worse. They proceeded through two more rooms before finding their quarry.
"What the hell is this, then?"
There, passed out in puddles of their own vomit and surrounded on all sides by a pile of empty bottles that had drifted nearly two feet high, were their two suspects. It was a far cry from the professionalism they tended to expect from their own, though it was far preferable to a shootout with good men gone bad.
The captain deliberated for a moment before nodding to one of his men, "Get them sobered up so we can ask them what's going on." It was a bit rude to cast uninvited, but he was sure the men would understand, they were former aurors themselves, so…
"Sir!" His subordinate looked up from his casting with a panicked look on his face. "The sobering charm isn't working! That means…"
The captain's eyes widened as he followed the man's train of thought.
"We need to get them to the Healers, now!"
4.6.6 Labor
Rivets groaned, steam hissed, tools clattered, steel rang, and men shouted as all worked together to bring new life into the world. Soon and for the first time, the train barn which had long served strictly as a maintenance facility for Hogs Haulage, would birth from its cavernous interior a brand-new locomotive rather than refurbish an existing one. The entire staff of perhaps two dozen engineers and technicians swarmed over Maintenance Bay 19 busily ensuring that everything about the new prototype would be in fine working order for the auspicious event.
"Seals on Number 3 check out!" one of the engineers called out from his position half-buried in the innards of the locomotive. "Get the equipment over to Number Five, then we can start getting the high-pressure section buttoned down."
There was a loud hiss of compressed air as the test rig was detached and the pressure bled off.
"Found the problem with the steam injection plate!" another voice called. "Built up some scale; I'll have it cleaned in a mo'."
Even in the final stretch, there was a lot of hard work involved in preparing a prototype locomotive for its grand debut as an integral whole.
Standing off to one side of the scrum, the senior engineering team, accompanied by a few clipboard-wielding administrative types, proudly oversaw the controlled chaos in the maintenance bay, occasionally shouting out reminders or answering questions.
"She's coming together beautifully," one commented, his native Scottish accent just barely in evidence. "It's amazing what those technicians have managed over the years with those piston seals. Bloody works of art, they are. As far as steam losses go, they're just as tight as the piston walls!"
"To be honest, David, I'm more impressed by their so-called 'imperturbable' enchantments," L. D. Porta, the second senior engineer replied with the Spanish lilt of his native Argentina. "I never thought I'd see an ideal thermal insulator outside of a textbook. It makes me look forward to the performance analysis from this test run. With the ACE project, we broke even with diesel on total cost of operation, and that was essentially using my combustion system and the same precision machining used for the diesel engines themselves. With these new updates to the mechanicals, we will be closing some of worst remaining inefficiencies."
"Ha!" the Scotsman laughed. "So much for steam being obsolete. We'll show 'em all!"
"Yes, yes," the Argentinian acknowledged with a chuckle. "Shall we see about contacting Mr. Potter to set a date for the prototype's shakedown run? I suspect the boy would enjoy it, and he deserves at least that much for giving us this chance."
A note was quickly taken, and a message sent.
4.6.7 A break in the case
"What do we know?" Amelia Bones demanded as she walked into Conference Room 7 at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, showing admirable professionalism despite it being early on a Monday morning.
"It started with a request from Madam Rosmerta for a wellness check on her grandmother Friday night after the woman failed to show up for a scheduled dinner," the investigating detective explained. "As there was no indication of foul play, the request was delayed until the next morning when some pressure to investigate came down from on high in the Ministry…"
"From whom?" the Director demanded immediately, wanting to know who was meddling with her department.
"We started looking as soon as it came through, and it seems the grandmother's secretary called in a few favors at Madam Rosmerta's request," the investigator relayed, shuffling through a docket of papers as he verified that there had been no new developments. "No apparent links elsewhere in the Ministry that we could see."
"Very well, continue," Bones prompted, mentally filing the issue away for later investigation.
"On Saturday morning, the sergeant on duty was dispatched to check up on the grandmother, Madam Marchbanks from Education, and found her safe in her home," the detective relayed. "The sergeant reports that she exhibited memory difficulties and distress, so he escorted her to St. Mungo's for a checkup where she was diagnosed with a recent obliviation, judged to be reversible, given enough effort."
"Hmm," Amelia gestured for her subordinate to continue as she digested the information.
"With the new evidence of foul play, I was assigned to the case, and we contacted the victim's secretary to learn more about her Friday itinerary," the detective explained. "She had been scheduled to meet with two former aurors for lunch — confirmed by Madam Rosmerta; the first part of the meeting took place in her pub — before going on to Hogwarts to meet with Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart."
"I see," the witch acknowledged. "What have you learned from them?"
"We dispatched three teams, two auror teams to approach our retirees at their listed addresses, and a standard team to Hogwarts for Lockhart." The investigator grimaced. "Our two retirees were found together in one of their homes, drunk to an almost unbelievable degree. The auror team that found them rushed the pair to St. Mungo's, where they were treated for alcohol poisoning…"
"Alcohol poisoning?" the Director demanded incredulously. "In a wizard?"
The detective nodded gravely, "Yes, ma'am, alcohol poisoning and some minor magical interaction issues from mixing different magical alcohols. Since a wizard has to work hard to get that drunk, the Healers were somewhat concerned. When they had managed to sober up one of our retirees enough for him to wake up, he went after the medicinal alcohol before he could be restrained. At that point, they checked for compulsions."
"I take it they came back positive?"
The investigator nodded. "Some of the strongest they had seen, laid over an obliviation as well."
"Same caster as the one on Marchbanks?" Amelia asked, trying to piece together the sequence of events.
"Unknown. They had to break the compulsion immediately before the man got back into the alcohol and killed himself, so there was no opportunity to record the signature." The detective shook his head ruefully. "Apparently, even two years off the force and soused to the point of insensibility, aurors are too much for the Healers to handle."
"We do train them well," Amelia smirked. "And the obliviation?"
"They've given us a firm 'probably'. Apparently, the earmarks match, but detailed investigation of magical signatures must be done at the right point in the reversal, or you risk corrupting the obliviated memories," the investigator explained. "The specialist they called in for Madam Marchbanks tells us it will take at least a few months before the obliviation can be reversed, with magical identification becoming a viable option about two-thirds of the way through the process."
The Director of Magical Law Enforcement nodded slowly as she considered the situation. "So, what is your preliminary assessment?"
"We have three instances of obliviation cast on three people known to have been in contact with a former Ministry Obliviator at the appropriate time," the detective laid out the circumstances. "Two of those were also subjected to a potentially lethal compulsion charm. That makes for three counts of assault and possibly two counts of attempted murder; though, given that pains taken to make all three obliviations reversible, it would not be hard for a defendant to argue those last two down to reckless endangerment."
"Given the circumstances, Mr. Gilderoy Lockhart is our primary suspect. He was present at the right time and is in possession of the appropriate skills," the detective continued. "That said, we cannot say with certainty that he was responsible with the information we have now. The only way to be certain is to bring in Mr. Lockhart and compare his magical signature to those we find on the obliviation, assuming he doesn't choose to confess, of course."
"How are things going on that front?"
"We are still looking for him. The original team sent to Hogwarts could only determine that he was no longer on campus and that his professorial suite was locked. At that point, we had to apply for a warrant to search his professorial suite, which we obtained. Now, we are waiting on the search team to complete…" the detective began, only to be interrupted by a loud knock on the conference room door.
"What is it?" Amelia called.
A young woman from Dispatch opened the door. "The Hogwarts team just reported in, they found Lockhart's office cleaned out completely!"
"We'll need to get a specialist team from Forensics there immediately," the detective decided. "We should be able to pick up enough residue to scry…"
"No, sir," the young woman interrupted. "The team said Lockhart cleaned it out completely. Everything Lockhart owned looks to have been set on fire in an expanded trunk on the hearth, and he apparently gave the house elves orders to sanitize the place as he left. The team is certain there'll be nothing for Forensics to use."
"We will still have to try," Amelia broke in, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "It is our duty to see justice done. See to scheduling the specialists." As the young woman nodded and left to organize the team, the Director continued, "Where does that leave us regarding the man's guilt?"
"Almost certain," the detective admitted, "though the possibility of a third party kidnapping the man and muddying up the trail remains viable."
"Does that doubt change our course of action?" his commander asked.
"No," the investigator shook his head. "In either case the proper course of action is clear. The man must be found, either as a suspect or as a witness to the events. We'll need to put out an order to detain him as a person of interest."
"See it done."
4.6.8 Applied magic
The late morning sun smiled down of the rolling hills of rural Devonshire, illuminating a patchwork landscape of fields and pastures divided by dense hedgerows. The entire tableau was lush with springtime growth.
In the corner of one of those pastures, currently home to a small herd of cows lazily grazing, a mismatched pair of human figures suddenly appeared with a whoosh of displaced air, one an older man, the other a young boy. Before the sound had a chance to fade, the previously sedate cattle broke into a sprint for the far corner of the field.
Something was off with the new arrivals, and the cows wanted no part of it.
"I hate it when they do that," the smaller figure groused, looking wistfully after the fleeing animals. "I mean, I know why they do it, but…" he trailed off with a resigned sigh. Turning to his companion, he asked in a more upbeat tone, "So, where are we going?"
"The entrance is this way, Mr. Potter," AIbus Dumbledore gestured to the nearest hedgerow. "We have a fair walk ahead of us, so we had best get started. If you will follow me?"
The two set off briskly, quickly finding a narrow, partially overgrown path through the hedgerow and forging though.
"Um, Mr. Dumbledore," Harry began tentatively as they pushed aside yet another springy branch, "if we needed to be on the other side of the hedge, why didn't you just set the portkey to end over there?"
"That is because we do not need to go to the other side of the hedge, Mr. Potter," the older wizard chuckled as they entered a slightly wider section of the path. "Our destination is right here."
He pushed aside one last branch revealing an oak tree. Old and gnarled, the tree's trunk was wider than the height of a man. Closer inspection revealed it to be made of two different specimens which had entwined as they grew, merging into the single twisted giant that stood before them now.
"Hey, is that some kind of magic tree?" the last Potter asked curiously. "It's got some glowy bits to it."
"The tree is not itself magical, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore explained as he intently examined a series of lumps on the misshapen trunk. "It does, however, serve as the physical anchor for a rather substantial enchantment."
The currently human-shaped dragon cocked his head curiously. "What kind of enchantment?"
"A rather extensive space expansion charm," the elderly wizard replied. "In much the same way that the expanded space containing Diagon Alley is anchored in the wall behind the Leaky Cauldron, the one containing the wizarding hamlet of Ottery St.-Catchpole is anchored within the hollow center of this tree."
"Neat!" Harry exclaimed enthusiastically, then his green eyes widened appreciatively as his companion's wand found the right pattern, and the tree seemed to unwind, the two original trunks separating from each other and straightening to reveal an opening between them. Beyond lay a neatly paved path leading into a sunny meadow.
Albus set off as soon as the entrance opened, and his younger companion scrambled to follow.
"Wicked!" the young dragon exclaimed as he looked about, fascinated. "That's so cool looking! I never knew spatial expansion charms looked like that." He turned to his elder companion. "Hey Mr. Dumbledore, why doesn't Diagon Alley look like this? I mean, if it's the same sort of magic, shouldn't it look the same?"
"Well, Mr. Potter, I cannot say with certainty, as the methodology you utilize to see magical flows remains a mystery to us," Dumbledore qualified. "Yet were I to hazard a guess, I would venture that it is due to the relative quality of the enchantments."
The path led them across a small footbridge as he continued, "Diagon Alley was created by a team of the finest enchanters in all of Europe. It has stood for more than half a millennium without the need for major maintenance. These charms," he gestured to the meadow around them, "were cast by the residents of Ottery-St. Catchpole, and judging by the spell residue I can sense, they have been renewed at least twice in the last year alone. The tighter spell work in Diagon Alley might well be less visible to your eyes."
Harry nodded thoughtfully. "I guess that makes sense…" his voice trailed off as he shot a suspicious look at the house they were approaching, a round stonework tower complete with ramparts and machicolations.
It looked a lot like the sort of place all the stories said knights liked to live.
"Hey Mr. Dumbledore," he asked nervously, gesturing to the house they were approaching, "is that where the Weasleys live?"
"No, that is the Lovegood home," Albus answered. "The Weasley home is farther down the lane."
"Good," Harry said emphatically, glad he wouldn't be going in there. He was feeling a bit on edge just being nearby. The thing looked like a knight ought to be bursting out the door with a lance any minute.
Wait, Lovegood? The young dragon finally registered the name and scowled at the suspicious tower. That guy. It figured he would be the one to have such a creepy house.
Harry shook his head and deliberately turned away. "Um, Mr. Dumbledore," he ventured, looking to change the subject, "I know you said the Weasleys invited me to lunch, but why did they do that?"
"Inviting you over for a meal is their way of thanking you, Mr. Potter," Albus explained as the path they were following turned gently to skirt a small hill.
"What for?" the last Potter asked.
He didn't remember having done anything in particular for the Weasleys recently.
"For saving their daughter from possession," the elderly wizard answered. "They love their daughter and were quite distressed about the whole business."
"Oh, that," the young dragon nodded. The Headmaster had explained that situation to him earlier. "Um, I didn't really do much on that, though. I mean, I basically just handed her off to you. You and the other professors did all the work of actually fixing her."
"And yet, we would not have known anything was amiss without your intervention," Albus countered.
"Fair enough," Harry allowed. "I'm really glad I decided to hold off on killing her until I checked with you. I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do, you know."
"So you have said, repeatedly," the Headmaster agreed, sounding mildly aggrieved.
When Albus had asked, Harry had not been shy about explaining the thought process behind his handling of the situation. It had been the focus of a fair few discussions over recent days, during which Albus had fervently tried to convince Harry that his brutally simplistic strategy of deterrence was deeply flawed. Unfortunately, in the face of the dragon's stubbornness and straightforward logic, the greatest wizard in Britain had made little headway, eventually tabling his efforts for a future date.
"On a related note, I would strongly recommend you not mention that possibility while we are with the girl's family," Albus advised. "I believe, in this instance at least, that discretion is the better path."
"Okay, Mr. Dumbledore!" came the cheerful acknowledgement.
The advice had been given just in time as it turned out, because their path had just brought then within sight of that destination. Almost as soon as they cleared the hill, a cry came from down the lane which they quickly traced back to the figure of a man down the road. Arthur Weasley had seen them from afar and had come to greet his guests at the gate.
"Welcome to the Burrow! AIbus, Mr. Potter, it is very good of you to visit," the redheaded man greeted them as they arrived. "Come in, come in! Molly's waiting in the kitchen."
He opened the gate and the group of two wizards and a dragon made its way through the front garden towards the Burrow proper.
Harry looked about with wide-eyed interest as he entered the property. The front garden was lush and well-tended, which was nice, but the really interesting bit was the house itself. The materials, timber frame and wattle-and-daub, were hardly unusual. The assembly, on the other hand, was anything but.
The edifice had probably originated as a cozy cottage, and it had stayed within the confines of that original foundation even as additional rooms were tacked on top haphazardly at odd angles and orientations. The upper floors weren't even centered over the foundation, cantilevered out asymmetrically over the side yard. In short, the whole thing really ought to have toppled over long ago, yet it did not. Instead it was actively held up by copious amounts of magic, magic that was quite visible to the Weasleys' newest visitor.
The young dragon had never realized magic could be used for such things. Hogwarts didn't, not that he knew of, and Gringotts certainly didn't, both of those buildings tended to stick to proper-looking, physically supported architecture, even if they used materials that were passively reinforced with magic, like the enchanted stone of Hogwarts. He'd looked into magical building materials when he started looking into warding for his Lair, since it had been mentioned as a consideration during ward design. That research had turned out to be of particular interest to him since he'd dug the Lair out of what the books termed 'living bedrock', which was very tricky to ward properly, but it had also explained a lot about how magically enhanced building materials worked in practice. The enchantments used in enchanted stone and the like were nearly as stable as the materials they were cast on, lasting without substantial maintenance for millennia.
By contrast, the enchantments used on the Weasleys' house looked to be actively supporting the structure, and they were slowly leaking magic all the while, if the strong glow Harry was seeing in the walls was any indication. They'd probably have to be renewed all the time, which Harry figured had to be pretty inconvenient. Who would want to have to worry about their house collapsing if they forgot to renew the charms for the week? But inconvenience aside, they'd managed to do something pretty impressive nonetheless.
That cantilevered second floor, projecting out away from the foundation as it did, was something even enchanted materials couldn't handle, not until you got into some really expensive alchemically created stuff like orichalcum or mithril. The Weasleys had managed it with completely normal sticks and mud, and that was pretty cool to Harry's mind.
He continued looking about in fascination, examining the enchantments and construction from varying angles until he reached the kitchen. At that point he encountered Molly Weasley, and with her came much more pressing concerns.
Chiefly hugs.
As soon as she saw him, the plump, matronly woman had wasted no time in showering the currently human-looking youngster with grateful affection, both in thanks for helping her daughter and simply because the slightly built, too-young-looking boy looked like he could use a good hug.
For his part, Harry had been taken by surprise, too engrossed in the architectural spell work to see her coming. By the time he managed to sort himself out and figure out what was going on, the Weasley matriarch had already finished her greeting.
"…thank you ever so much for saving our little girl," he managed to decipher just in time for the hug to be released.
"Um, it wasn't really a problem, Mrs. Weasley," he begged off. "I mean, I didn't really do much."
"Nonsense, dear, you did plenty!" she insisted, absently smoothing his perpetually tousled hair. "Without you, we might never have found out what was wrong in time to fix it. Now, you take a seat at the table while I finish our lunch."
Harry made his way over to the table and found the two adult wizards making small talk. Nothing obviously interesting was going on, so the young dragon eagerly resumed his examination of his surroundings. To that point, Harry's exposure to wizarding architecture had been restricted to institutional or commercial spaces, not private homes. The closest he had come was his visit to Madam Marchbanks, and even that had been in the formal receiving area of a Noble House, practically an institution in its own right.
The Weasley family kitchen was most assuredly not an institutional space.
Harry found he rather liked it.
The kitchen was a place of simple furnishings and mouthwatering smells, a homely space. The dinner table was a sizable affair taking up nearly a third of the expanded interior of the kitchen. Even when seating three as it currently did, it seemed almost empty. Above the table, an odd clock-shaped device hung on the wall. Its for too numerous, oddly-moving hands and glowy bits hinted that it was probably meant to do something other than tell time.
The rest of the room held plenty to look at too: counters and cupboards, jars of dried and otherwise preserved food, shelves of dishes and linens, an old-fashioned ice box — the kind that was actually used real ice — and all the other bits one might expect in a well-appointed country kitchen back before the advent of widespread modern utilities. All the bits except one, that is, an exception which caught the young dragon's attention and prompted him to rise from the table and walk over to take a closer look.
"Mrs. Weasley," he asked as he came to a stop next to the modern-looking gas stove, "how did you guys get gas service inside an expanded space?"
The older witch turned to her young guest with a puzzled frown, steadily stirring all the while. "I beg your pardon?"
"For the stove, I mean," Harry explained, gesturing to the device in question. "It's got the little blue jets of flame from the burners and stuff, and that means it burns natural gas to produce heat just like the one I've got back at the Lair burns wood. And if you're using gas, you've got to get it here somehow, and that usually means a gas pipeline, and I'd think that'd be pretty hard get installed when you live in an expanded space."
Molly's puzzled frown had only deepened during her guest's explanation, and after a moment's thought she decided to pass the buck. "I'm afraid I am not the one to ask. Arthur was the one who installed the stove. You should ask him, dear."
With an agreeable nod, Harry returned to the table and did just that.
"The stove is enchanted," Arthur explained in response to his young guest's question. "It absorbs and stores ambient magic, then converts it to heat on demand. We see them all the time at work."
He shook his head in exasperation. "So many who choose to live in the muggle world think they can use them wherever they want just because they look like muggle stoves, but unless you have the right infrastructure they're a dead giveaway, just like you noticed this one, Harry. We end up confiscating one every few months for violation of the Statute of Secrecy."
"Shall I assume that is where you obtained the rather high-end model you have here, Arthur?" Dumbledore asked his host with an amused smirk.
"Ah… well," the redhead scratched at his chin uncomfortably, visibly scrabbling for an excuse for his minor larceny. "They were just going to be destroyed anyway, and I wanted to give Molly something nice for our anniversary, so…"
"So does it use a runic construct or persistent charms or what?" Harry asked, oblivious to the byplay. "And how does it do the storage?"
"Ah… I'm not entirely certain," Arthur admitted, sounding grateful for the interruption yet a tad embarrassed at his inability to answer. "I'm afraid I only know enough to identify one."
His young guest nodded understandingly. "Do you think I could take it apart to look at it myself?"
"I rather think that my wife would object to the idea of disassembling her stove, Mr. Potter," Arthur said hurriedly, eyes wide with horror at the idea, "especially before she finishes preparing lunch."
As the boy's face fell, Arthur racked his brain for another option. He owed the boy for his daughter's life, after all, and that was worth much more than any stove.
"As I recall, I do have a small portable model out in the shed," Arthur offered after a moment's consideration. "I got it for camping trips with the boys, but we hardly get any use out of it now. You could take that one apart for a look."
"That'd be great!" green eyes lit with excitement. "Can we go now?"
Directing an apologetic shrug to his other guest, Arthur escorted the excitable boy to the back door.
"So, Mr. Potter, might I ask why you are so interested in my stove?" Arthur Weasley asked his young guest as he opened the door to the back yard. "Kitchen appliances were hardly the sort of thing that captured my attention when I was your age."
"Well, it's more that I want to know how the stove is using magic to make heat," the currently human-shaped boy explained. "You see, I was working on this thing…"
Harry's voice was cut off by the closing door, and the kitchen suddenly seemed much emptier.
Albus watched them go with aplomb. He had things to discuss with Molly, and now was as good a time as any. He rose and made his way over to the stove where the woman was still hard at work.
"Madam Weasley, I must confess to an ulterior motive in accompanying Mr. Potter on this visit," he admitted. "Might I ask you a few questions?"
"Is this about that dreadful diary?" Molly asked, looking up from her cooking momentarily. At his nod, she flashed him a warm smile and turned back to the food. "Then of course you may ask, Headmaster, and feel free to call me Molly. There's no need to stand on formality while we're standing about the kitchen and I'm half-covered in flour!"
"Only if you will call me Albus, madam," he agreed with a chuckle. "As I explained to your husband, I am attempting to track down the origins of that 'dreadful diary', as you put it. Do you have any idea where she might have come by such a thing? Young Ginevra seems to have no memory of acquiring it, saying that as far as she could remember she had simply always had it, which we believe to be the result of mental manipulation by the possessing spirit."
Molly scowled down at her pot of stew, giving it a particularly hard stir. "I've been thinking about it since Arthur told me you would be coming, and I haven't been able to place anything…" she trailed off, a horrified expression stealing across her face. "Albus, you mentioned mental manipulation, and the spirit was here with us over Christmas break. Do you think… "
"That... is a possibility I had not considered," Albus acknowledged with a troubled frown, "a rather unpleasant one at that."
It was also a possibility which would make any evidence they could give suspect.
"No need to worry, Molly," the elderly wizard hurried to reassure his hostess when she seemed to fold in on herself. "The truth will tell eventually. It always does."
He would have to approach the problem from a different angle... a subtler and more covert option, something the possessing spirit might not have anticipated. In the meantime, there was much still to discuss.
"On a more pleasant note, that smells delicious," he gestured to the pot Molly was still stirring. "Might I inquire as to the menu?"
"Oh, of course!" the Weasley matriarch assured him, sounding quite pleased. "I had heard from the boys that young Harry is quite the eater, so I…"
The meal continued to take shape, and so too did the conversation, ranging from food to schooling to the weather and finally to gardening.
"Oh, yes the garden has been quite lovely this year," Molly gushed after her guest complimented her on her work in the area. "It was truly a treat last summer! Why take those vines over there," she gestured out the kitchen window to the shed into which her husband had disappeared with Harry nearly half an hour earlier. The small outbuilding was entirely covered in a shaggy green mass of climbing vines.
The elderly wizard peered obediently at the vines in question. Honeysuckle if he was not mistaken... the name stirred something in the back of his mind.
"Come late summer, that is practically a solid wall of flowers! And the smell!" Molly paused to take a deep breath, as if admiring a scent, "We put the laundry out to dry nearby, and it makes everything smell so wonderful!"
"Late summer, you say?" he asked, that niggling trace of a memory suddenly snapping into clarity. "Would that have been about the time school started?"
She shook her head, "No, the flowers start to die off a week or so before then. It would have been about the time we took the children shopping for their school supplies."
Her face twisted into a slight scowl, as if reminded of an unpleasant memory. Something that did not escape her guest's notice.
"Did something unpleasant happen then?" he asked, probing gently.
"That Lucius Malfoy," Molly growled, "picked a fist fight of all things with my Arthur outside Flourish and Blotts. I have no idea what he was trying to prove with that stunt."
"How dreadful!" he commiserated, his mind racing to put everything together.
It was dreadful behavior indeed, but more importantly it was uncharacteristic behavior. Lucius Malfoy was not one to get his own hands dirty; there had to have been something else afoot.
"Fortunately, nothing much came of it," his hostess continued, "but it was still quite unconscionably rude."
"Molly, you mentioned that this altercation took place outside the bookstore," Albus began, following up on a hunch. "Was this before or after you purchased the children's books?"
"After," she answered immediately, "why do you ask?"
A rather terrible suspicion had begun to coil in Albus' gut; however, sharing it with the Weasley matriarch at this time would benefit no one. She and her family would feel compelled to act on it, and they were in no position to do so effectively. Best to be discreet for now.
"Ah, nothing important," he averred while gently flexing his magic into the subtle probing pattern of a fully mastered legilimency spell. The imagery it returned solidified his suspicions into certainty. "So, a fistfight with Lucius Malfoy, hmm? I would imagine that went poorly for Lucius."
Molly shot him a suspicious glance, the finely tuned bullshit detector of the mother of the Weasley twins pinging something fierce. She knew he had been after something with that line of questioning, but after holding her visitor's eye for a long moment, she shrugged and turned back to her nearly completed lunch, willing to allow Albus his deceit.
"Would you go let Arthur and Harry know lunch is nearly ready, Albus?"
"Of course, Molly! I would be delighted."
4.6.9 Correspondence
Later that evening, Albus Dumbledore had returned to his office sat at his desk. Behind him, his usual collection of magical trinkets spun, puffed, clinked, or burbled merrily according to their usual custom. They stood in sharp contrast to their owner's limp posture as he stared listlessly at the draft of a letter on the blotter and thought dark thoughts. His brooding was eventually interrupted, as it so often was, by a warble from his phoenix companion.
"What is it, Fawkes?" the elderly wizard asked, looking up from the parchment that had so absorbed his attention.
A pointed trill answered him.
"I am not brooding!" he protested. Albus endured the skeptical gaze from the living embodiment of flame for all of a few seconds before his resolve broke. "Very well, I suppose I am brooding."
Fawkes tweeted an interrogative.
"Well, old friend, I have recently come across a bit of information regarding one of those ultimately responsible Miss Weasley's ordeal, and I am torn on how to respond," the Headmaster of Hogwarts explained to his avian companion. "On the one hand, much as I would like to act rather precipitously, I am bound by the law. The information I have is not sufficient to stand up to legal standards. On the other, I know the information is reliable, and I am also bound to protect the students at this school. I am torn on which imperative to follow."
He was answered by a dismissive chirp and an avian sort of shrug.
"What do you mean, 'why not do both?'" the old man demanded irritably. "Did you not listen? The two options are mutually incompatible. If I defend my student by killing the perpetrator, I run afoul of the law, and I would have to face the consequences of that. I've spent far too much of my life putting that law in place to undermine it myself by ignoring it! How on earth am I supposed to…"
He was interrupted by a complicated sequence of twittering which he only partially understood.
"What was that last bit?" Albus asked. "I wasn't quite able to follow."
Fawkes repeated the twittering exchange, and, when met with an expression of obvious incomprehension, the bird-shaped flame fell silent, considering how to explain more simply. Just as the phoenix was about to flame them both over to the Lair to ask the resident dragon to translate, the wizard in the room made a suggestion.
"Could you demonstrate, perhaps?" Dumbledore suggested.
The living flame fell silent for just a moment before giving another of those peculiar avian shrugs accompanied by an affirmative sounding chirp. It was fortunate that Albus and the phoenix were alone in the office because the ensuing display from the immortal embodiment of fire would have left lesser wizards near-catatonic.
Albus, of course, was not a lesser wizard, and his only reaction was to calmly and thoughtfully stroke his long, white beard as he considered his companion's eloquent suggestion. Eventually, he nodded.
With a bit of planning and theater, it would do.
Shortly thereafter, a Hogwarts owl winged off into the distance carrying a formal invitation.
