128 Chapter 128: Slithering Denouement
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15 April 1993, Hogwarts
Albus Dumbledore was, to put it mildly, feeling completely and utterly drained. His exhaustion ran bone-deep, a relentless weariness that easily ranked as one of the worst experiences of his long life. But this wasn't the kind of fatigue that a good night's sleep could remedy, as one might expect after a gruelling battle. Oh no, this weariness had a different source altogether – it was the lingering aftermath of the Chamber of Secrets catastrophe.
Now, you might wonder why a seasoned wizard like Dumbledore, who had faced countless challenges in his lifetime, would be so profoundly affected by recent events. Well, it wasn't just about the physical strain; it was the mental and emotional toll that weighed heavily on his shoulders.
Because even if most of the wizarding world had bought this farce that the Potter boy suggested, Dumbledore couldn't simply sweep away the complex complications and political entanglements that had emerged in the wake of the attacks on the student body. It was exhausting but Albus, as the head of Hogwarts and a key figure in the magical community, bore the burden of having to answer the questions of lesser minds. Well, calling them lesser minds was an exaggeration. They knew that there was something fishy going on and didn't fully believe what he had told them.
They were right, of course; Dumbledore knew a fragment of what happened, thanks to young Neville's memories, but even he did not grasp the truth of what really happened inside the chamber. The Potter boy had played his hand beautifully, so even Albus didn't know the full details about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, and he couldn't investigate it because that might reveal the fact that Albus lied about the events of the chamber.
Additionally, the fact that there wasn't an actual culprit to blame complicated things, and the end result was far from agreeable. And here he was, Headmaster of Hogwarts once more, having to deal with five students who missed a lot of coursework, a muggleborn girl whose soul was stuck in a diary, and no sign of Tom Riddle. Even the diary itself had the name 'Hermione J. Granger' inscribed in it. That's not to mention the national celebrity that people started questioning his sanity because that was the only way Albus could deny knowing that there was, in fact, a Basilisk in the school.
Why couldn't the brat just have enough common sense to know that he should keep his mouth shut? That boy was becoming more and more frustrating to work with.
This was a disaster.
Perhaps calling it a disaster was too weak a word after all. Thank Merlin, he had been suspended when this matter was resolved because he doubted that his tenure as the headmaster of Hogwarts would have survived. Thankfully, the moment the boy who lived disappeared, he was immediately reinstated in a hurry. Alas, Albus knew that it wouldn't be enough to avoid the political shitstorm, coming his way. The school Board was angry, and the Ministry wanted more influence over the castle, as they always did.
The reason why people were so angry wasn't that the event was traumatizing or even dangerous for the students, but the fact that even the Unspeakables couldn't do anything about the young Miss Granger's condition. They were still researching and experimenting, but they were genuinely baffled.
Parents were terrified that the only reason their children didn't share young Miss Granger's fate was pure luck.
And so, the Headmaster of Hogwarts was running everywhere trying to extinguish the fires. The whole thing had cost him a lot of favours, especially when the daily prophet was involved. Thankfully, things started to simmer down slightly, hence the meeting.
And now here he was, in his own office, facing three of the highest-ranked Ministry appointees, who were there for him to explain himself. They wouldn't do anything, and it was a formality for their own ego, but Albus had been playing politics for enough time to know that this was going nowhere. The fires had been extinguished; these people were just trying to get any advantage they could have.
"So, Albus, what in Merlin's name happened? We left you alone because you needed time to get things sorted out, but the ministry needs answers."
Say what you will about Fudge's corruption, there was still a reason he was elected as minister for magic. He wasn't the smartest man in the room and had a tendency to run away from problems or just go too far with them, but he knew enough about politics to have a hint of what really happened in the ugly background of the wizarding world.
He knew how to keep magical Britain stable, and he was an acceptable peacetime minister. He was good enough to keep things together, but flexible enough to let certain things slide and not upset the uneasy peace they had achieved after Lord Voldemort's defeat at the hand of Neville Longbottom.
Still, the man was a minor bureaucrat with very little magical talent, in a world where magic is might. And he came here to demand answers out of him, the Champion of Light?
Albus suppressed his rising fury and answered with a frosty tone, "I don't see how I was involved at all. Need I remind you that I was suspended when all of that happened?"
"Come on, Dumbledore," Amelia Bone interjected, "you can't possibly think that we bought this whole petrifying diary story. I've seen the victims, and there isn't a curse that could possibly petrify people seemingly indefinitely, especially not one that was done by a diary of all things."
Amelia Bones, on the other hand, was far more worryingly competent when it came to causing trouble. She was rigid, and militaristic in a way, which made sense since she was forged and trained in the last war. Albus had done his best to curtail her possible ascension to the title of Minister since she would quickly destabilize the whole place with her rigid mindset. She was a straight arrow, that one, which would possibly get her killed.
"It's a bit more complicated than that. The curse was not a petrifying one, but a time stasis one as well. I didn't want to say anything because temporal magics were frowned upon, but the actual petrifying curse is layered with some kind of time-freezing effect to make the petrification permanent. I had to personally disable that part of the curse so that we could administrate the Mandrake restoration potion. With the actual part of the petrification destroyed, the temporal layer of the curse had nothing to be founded upon, which made it fade away. I did not share the details of the curse because I didn't want to unnecessarily scare the parents after the situation was resolved."
Their anger seemed to abate, but as usual, Amelia Bones decided to ask something else, "That sounds possible, but how is a Diary of all things do something like this? Curses are not alive, Albus, they don't decide to petrify people or write messages in blood."
Albus suppressed the urge to groan and decided to use a modified version of the truth, "It does when you realize who made the diary in the first place."
"And might that be?" Bartemius Crouch asked.
Now that was a man that Albus actively disliked, a zealot that just killed anyone he thought was suspicious during the war. He had killed more innocent civilians because of his paranoia, than actual Death Eaters, and wasn't that tragic. He was celebrated as a war hero, of course, until it was found out that his son had attacked the Potters alongside the Lestranges and joined their fate. The man tried to protest and say that his son was probably helping the Potters, but a quick investigation revealed that young Barty was a very disturbed boy and was in fact a servant of Lord Voldemort. His wife committed suicide after hearing about the death of her son. It was a sad story, but Albus had used this to remove the man from his post as the head of the DMLE into the Department of International Magical Cooperation, a department that was virtually useless for most of the time, where his career started to slowly fade away. The only person the man hated more than Albus was probably Harry Potter.
"Tom Riddle, but that's what he was known when he attended these halls. You would know him as Lord Voldemort."
By their widened eyes and Fudge's squeaking, Albus knew that he had their attention now. He decided to press on, "As you probably know, the chamber was opened around fifty years ago. I was the transfiguration professor at the time, but I always suspected Tom Riddle since I knew that he was probably the only Parselmouth in the school. I told Headmaster Dippet of my suspicions, but he chose not to act on them, refusing that such a charming, orphaned boy would ever do something this heinous. When one of the victims died, the boy ended up framing Rubeus Hagrid since even then, the headmaster would have had to start looking into it severely. Petrification is one thing, but murder… He knew that we couldn't take a chance. I located the chamber and warded it off until the summer when I killed the beast inside, which happened to be a Basilisk."
"A BASILISK?" all three exclaimed at once.
"Yes. We were quite fortunate that there only had been a single casualty," Albus answered with a sombre tone, "I am telling you this because I can tell you with extreme certainty that I knew that the Chamber of Secrets was not opened. However, I did recognize the diary that Miss Granger was found with. It was Tom's. From what I could discern, he enchanted the Diary to possess anyone who touched it. He left a jumble of memories, a remnant of sorts of himself as a teenager to force them to petrify people. When he realized that the Basilisk was dead, he used the petrification curse to achieve a similar result, yet one I knew was slightly different since I was there for both occasions. Hermione Granger is the one who attacked everyone, and her Diary kept absorbing her until her soul was completely consumed. Young Neville was able to destroy the persona inside the Diary but failed to save young Hermione's soul. The battle occurred inside the Diary, in some kind of Astral mental plane, thus the moments of delusions the boy experienced."
The three ministry employees were openly gaping at him. The minister asked with an awed tone, "Then why the secrecy, why hide all of this."
"Miss Granger was as much of a victim of the attacks as the other petrified students, perhaps even more so. I did not want anyone to blame her for what happened. I just wanted to protect my students. I will admit that it was a mistake for us to release Neville from the hospital wing while he still experienced flashes of what happened when he fought Tom."
They all nodded, and Albus even saw a glimmer of appreciation in Amelia's eyes. Huh, that was very interesting, "What about the petrified victims?"
"Unfortunately, Mr Filch resigned, unable to cope with the loss of his cat, and feeling extremely paranoid about being attacked by students. As for the other victims, we have offered private lessons so that they could catch up on the classes they missed, and they have already caught up with their classmates, apart from Dean Thomas that is. The boy was petrified for months and there's a very good possibility that he would have to redo the entire year. We are prepared to continue tutoring him during the Summer and test him before the beginning of the first year. It will depend entirely on his dedication and his performance. Anyway, as compensation, every victim was given five thousand galleons for being attacked on school grounds, and everything was settled with the parents. Although we had to obliviate the Grangers of all magic, and into thinking their daughter died in a muggle accident. They didn't handle the news well. We will, of course, return their original memories should the girl ever recover."
The Bones Matriarch seemed suspicious, "And how did the Diary get past the wards? A muggleborn girl bringing you-know-who's diary is very unlikely."
"I believe that the diary never left the castle. Tom had made it inside the castle, in some kind of hidden room, and Miss Granger must have accidentally touched it. The Unspeakables are studying the diary so that might shed some light, and I will look over the wards personally to make sure that there wasn't a security breach."
Bartemius Crouch gritted his teeth, "You always have an answer for everything, don't you?"
"I take the safety of my students very seriously."
Well, he also practised this story for days, for this inevitable meeting. They seemed to have bought his misdirection, and his willingness to protect his students. The school year would continue normally.
Now, with that fiasco over, he had time to think about a way to get back at Lucius Malfoy. After all, he was removed – even if it was momentarily – from his seat of power. He couldn't let that stand without consequences, could he?
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AN:
The next chapter will be the last one for the second year. Again, I'm trying something a bit different for the third year, since it'll be pretty different than canon. As usual, let me know what you think, and I'm open to any suggestions you might have.
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
