104 Chapter 104: Of Burning Light
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5 December 1992, Hogwarts
It took two days of intense days of deals and explanations for Dumbledore to make the entire thing go away. And even then, he had to make a lot of concessions and offer a few favours, and the best result he had gone with is the fact that the boy who lived wasn't going to be arrested, nor is he going to be expelled. To be completely honest, Albus didn't really care about the Weasley boy and would have let him deal with the consequences of his actions. Alas, he needed young Neville to be close, and he couldn't really let him off while leaving his friend to the wolves. That would scream of favouritism. That boy really was a headache sometimes.
But that didn't compare to the headache he had when he explained the situation to the boys' guardians. The Granger girl was a simple matter of sending a letter saying that she had an official warning after breaking the rules and using an illegal potion and that she would be serving detention until the end of the semester.
However, since the two boys were the ones in deeper trouble, he preferred to explain to them the situation in person and well, the Weasley Matriarch started screaming halfway through, and barely let him talk while she kept yelling at her son, telling him that his brothers were never this stupid and that he was ruining his life. No wonder the boy had an inferiority complex the size of Mount Olympus.
The Longbottom Matriarch, on the other hand, just gave her grandson a withering look filled with disappointment that made him droop into his seat with shame. Soon after explaining the situation, he dismissed them, telling them that he would try to help them privately. Afterwards, he summoned the Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode family heads, who had been informed about what happened from their children.
Albus didn't want to make this a public scandal, at least not as much as it already was, but after some negotiations, the Crabbe and Goyle family heads were appeased with some monetary compensation, which Augusta Longbottom was more than willing to pay, however, the Bulstrode family had just asked for a favour from him to be claimed at another date since they didn't think a muggleborn could offer them much politically. This was by far the worst concession so far. Promising a favour to a family in Lucius Malfoy's pocket, now that was something that pained him to do. What has the world come to, when he, Albus Dumbledore, the champion of light, promised a boon to a family that followed a Dark Lord? He only hoped that the Longbottom boy was worth all this mess because Albus was really close to just killing the boy and using the breaking of the prophecy in a ritual or another.
Augusta Longbottom seemed satisfied with his efforts, enough that she promised to pay the Weasley's side of things as well since the family's finances were in a very bad state. They definitely didn't have enough to pay five thousand galleons to avoid their son going to Azkaban. So, long story short, Albus managed to get the aggrieved families to not press any charges in the ministry or talk about it in public.
So, with that done, the impersonation aspect of the Gryffindors' crimes was removed and adding in the fact that any trace of Polyjuice was removed, all it came back to, is just breaking into another common room, which is strictly under the school's purview.
Now, the only hurdle in his efforts was the fact that Rita Skeeter had somehow managed to find out about it, probably from a letter sent by a Slytherin student, and the public was in an uproar. It didn't help that young Neville had publicly broken the law when came to school with a flying car. Albus needed to call in a few favours to make sure that the article wouldn't be too damaging, and that no other would follow it. He wanted to remove the article altogether, but the information was out there, and Albus didn't want to look too heavy handed with his involvement.
And maybe that was a good thing, in the long run. The article itself actually praised Dumbledore's impartial actions in suspending the boy who lived despite his celebrity status and was more talking about the reckless actions of the boy himself, and how he easily disregarded the laws of the nation. Perhaps the public's opinion could pressure young Neville at doing better and thinking before doing something like this again.
And Albus had already lost a lot of goodwill with the Daily Prophet by telling them not to publish the petrifications and the chamber of secrets being opened. He didn't need to make an issue He would deal with it later, but the main issue he had to deal with was the cold glares his staff were giving him.
It turned out that giving full access to a few students and forgetting about it had made them angry. He would never say it out loud, but he would admit that he messed up with that one. Giving the children full access to the wards meant that they had full access to their professors' private rooms, and that was just a breach of privacy. Albus had done it before many times to test a few students that he later invited into his Order of the Phoenix when they graduated. The only problem was that a few of them accidentally used that connection to build a real map of the castle with all the people registered in the wards inside and see their movements in real-time. These Marauders really could be accidentally brilliant sometimes.
He didn't say that to Severus, of course, the man was already furious at him risking his charges' privacy, and the younger man had to speak with the Slytherin court to reassure them that they weren't at risk anymore. It didn't help that Albus practically forced the potion master to stay in the school in his stead during the winter holidays to investigate the opening of the chamber, instead of going home.
Still, Albus was so preoccupied in the last few days that he only just had time to satisfy his curiosity about the Potter boy. The young Slytherin knew too much but didn't seem intent to share that knowledge, except for when young Neville and his friends asked him about it.
The fact that the boy so readily gave out information that he intentionally didn't spread before, one that would have given him a lot of prestige in his house, led to a single conclusion. Harry Potter knew that the Crabbe, Goyle, and Bulstrode scions were imposters, and more specifically, that they were young Neville and his friends. And even then, he had revealed just enough to make the Longbottom scion think that he had gotten one over the Potter boy, only to only have the information that his 'rival' had allowed him to have, a facet of the truth orchestrated by the boy in seconds.
Honestly, the thought of just obliviating the boy did come across Albus' mind, but the damage to a young mind, especially one that was defended enough that he would need to overpower, could be irreparable. Oh, Albus would do it in a heartbeat, but Harry Potter was an asset in the making, one that he wouldn't throw away needlessly. After all, Albus is many things, but he is not wasteful. The boy was intelligent and his position in Slytherin could be leveraged to act as a spy when Lord Voldemort inevitably returns.
And here he was, the child with Lily Potter's eyes, and James Potter's face, staring at him with an intelligent glint in his eyes, "So, Professor Snape didn't say why you summoned me, Headmaster. I assume it has to do with Longbottom's, how do I say it, indiscrete actions…"
"That would be correct, Harry. Young Neville told me that he fooled you into revealing dangerous information…"
"Ah yes, Polyjuice is quite the potion, isn't it? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that he didn't use Polyjuice. The Daily Prophet said that it was an illusion spell, right? I have to say that whatever it was, I was completely fooled, Longbottom would make a great Auror one day," the boy answered with a small smile on his face.
"For some reason, I have a hard time believing you, my boy. But the question was, why did you reveal such important information without thinking twice about it," the headmaster asked.
"They simply asked, and I find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it," the boy responded with the same infuriating smile on his face.
Albus did his best to not visibly grit his teeth; the boy was directly quoting him, now, "But certain information is dangerous to be shared, like the nature of Slytherin's monster. Out of curiosity, how did you come to figure it out?"
"Mostly through deduction. With enough information, one could understand the world, and maybe even predict the future. I only needed to find any mention of the chamber of secrets in past Daily Prophet articles, and I had an accurate list of the attacks that happened fifty years ago, adding in that Longbottom was a Parselmouth and had been following a voice during the first attack, it's easy to figure out what it was."
"And what do you plan to do with that information," Albus asked.
"Nothing. Revealing it would cause mass panic. Hogwarts would close but the main issue is that whoever is responsible could start acting rashly, and other mistakes could start happening, like young Myrtle Warren, for example. So, I'm leaving it to you to do your job."
Yes, the boy figured out that the beast was probably a Basilisk, "And how do you know that figure out the identity of the beast?"
"If a student with less than two years of magical education, no matter how brilliant, figured out in a couple of months what you couldn't do in decades, then I would have a lot of questions about your competence and your general intelligence. And you are many things, Albus Dumbledore, but unintelligence is not one of them."
"And, if the information was so dangerous, why did you give it away so readily?" The headmaster asked.
"I had a good feeling about it…"
No, you little brat. You knew exactly that Neville was there and told him about him purposefully, while making sure not to reveal the identity of the beast, just enough clues for the boy to figure out on his own.
Alas, Dumbledore didn't think confronting the Potter scion about it would achieve much. He was too guarded and the boy's occlumency was competent enough to stop a passive Legilimency probe, so he couldn't find out more about his motivations, only his results.
"And you said that Hagrid was framed. What's your proof?" the champion of light asked, deciding the change the subject.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle," the boy simply replied.
Dumbledore stiffened, "How do you know that name?"
"He's the one that caught Hagrid with an Acromantula, which cannot petrify people. Marvolo is a Gaunt traditional name, who are descendants of Slytherin, so that makes him the prime suspect. People with sociopathic tendencies often like to get involved in the investigation, sometimes out of arrogance, and sometimes out of fear. And if you rearrange the letters in the name, you get the name of a certain Dark Lord. Adding in the fact that the Dark Lord was rumoured to be a Parselmouth and a descendant of Slytherin, the pattern fits."
As the boy continued speaking, Albus started to get paler and paler, "That is very dangerous information, young Harry."
"You mean that since Riddle isn't a wizarding family name, the Dark Lord is probably a half-blood which means that his entire cause was probably a lie to grab power?"
"Yes, he does not take kindly to those who look deeply into his past. You have seen the past year what happens when he is irritated, he would be infuriated if he figured out that someone knew of the past that he has been trying to hide for so long."
The boy looked pensive for a second, "Understandable, to be honest, and I had no plans on doing so. I'm just pointing it out to remind you why he started attacking muggleborns in the first place and actively didn't kill them. A Basilisk's gaze is a very easy method of killing, especially discreetly. But instead, he chose to cultivate this fear, to create this infamous personality of the heir of Slytherin."
"The gaze was redirected…" Dumbledore started.
"Every time? One is a happenstance, twice a coincidence, but twelve times, for twelve attacks, you can't seriously believe that? You don't see it, do you? After all this time, decades of thoughts, you still didn't understand why Tom Riddle decided to open the Chamber of Secrets in this manner, and how this time, it's very different, even if it looked the same."
"And do you care to enlighten me?" Dumbledore asked with an amused tone, even if he was inwardly disturbed.
"Oh, you don't see it, do you? Who am I to take away your enlightenment? I have given you the clues to figure it out yourself. Who knows, Headmaster, perhaps by the time you realize his motivation, you'll understand him a little better. This was a lovely talk, Headmaster, but I believe you have a lot on your mind, Headmaster. Good night."
The boy actually turned and walked towards the entrance, leaving a gaping old man. He scratched Fawkes on the way back and left without saying another word. The sheer audacity of that boy…
Still, it did give him a lot to think about…
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