176. Jewels In Threat

"Cuddles, keep your eyes closed, okay. I will put the goggles on you." Magnus talked in Dragontongue.

"HISS..." Cuddles finally moved his head and stopped acting dead. He put the tongue back in his mouth and waited patiently like the good boy he was.

Magnus was talking to Dumbledore while tightly strapping the goggles on Cuddles.

"Well, this is Salazar Slytherin's pet, professor. He was under a charm for the past 1000 years, which made him crazy. He was instructed to kill all the muggle-borns in the school. As that was the will of Slytherin. Ah, he could only be controlled by an heir of Slytherin, so that heir must have studied in the school when the chamber was opened the last time." Magnus explained everything he knew.

But then he intently looked at Dumbledore and asked, "Do you know who it was? This heir of Slytherin?"

Dumbledore's eyes shined, he was thinking something and Magnus knew it. But Dumbledore didn't bother to share this person's identity with him, "No, I don't know about this monster in human skin. Only kids studied in my school at that time. At least that's what we thought."

Dumbledore tried to get away without lying. Because it was true that Tom Riddle was not a monster at that time, now, he was one, from inside and outside.

"Professor, how did the attacks stop the previous time?" Ragnar asked all of a sudden.

"They automatically stopped. Just when we were about to close the school because of all those attacks and the death of Myrtle, the attacks stopped." Dumbledore replied.

Ragnar rubbed his chin, "You know what this means?"

Severus ended his words, "He didn't want the school to close down."

Magnus agreed with this, "It is likely that this student did not have a home or maybe not a pleasant one. He'd rather stay here than go back."

Dumbledore's old heart panicked. Tom Riddle was his problem to solve. Voldemort is his problem to solve because if he had not brought him to the school, and had let him die in that orphanage, all this mess could have been avoided.

And he was very shocked to see the three boys so quickly making correct assumptions with just one sentence from him. ~They will inevitably know about his identity, I need to quicken my search for him.~

"Here, all done." Magnus finished putting the goggles on Cuddles. Now he happily opened his eyes and looked around.

"Professor, come, don't you want to touch him? You won't get to pat a 1000 years old Basilisk again, think about it." Magnus offered the old man.

Dumbledore stared at Cuddles' face, Cuddles was doing the same, wondering if he would get pats or not.

Dumbledore raised his hand hesitantly, he couldn't see the eyes though and that was a relief.

"Hisss..." Cuddles happily lowered his head to get the pats.

~So docile. It's nothing like what they are known for.~ he thought.

"What are you going to do with him now? The ministry will send people to take the body." Dumbledore asked him.

Magnus walked to Cuddles "Well, our boy Cuddles here will go missing. And guess who would be stealing? Death Eaters!"

Dumbledore silently nodded, already guessing everything Magnus was planning. But he still didn't know how Magnus was going to take this giant snake from here.

"Hehe, you must be wondering how I will take him?" Magnus asked.

~Have I become so predictable?~ Dumbledore questioned himself.

Magnus showed Newt's suitcase, "Come, Cuddles, get inside. It's time to take you home."

Cuddles happily jumped inside the case, knowing he'd be going back to Camelot, his new favourite place.

"And how will you be taking it outside and to where?" Dumbledore asked further.

Magnus didn't reveal this, "I can't tell where, but I know that you know how I'm going to take him outside. It's not possible that you did not investigate how I was able to get out of school sometimes. So let's not test each other, professor. I'll be back soon."

Dumbledore sighed, Magnus was proving to be even more problematic to handle than Newt or on a bad scale, Tom. But, at least Magnus was on his side.

Magnus right in front of him called Abe, the elf, and asked him to take him to Cuddles' home. He did not use the name Camelot.

After Magnus was gone, Ragnar and Severus were left. Dumbledore looked at them and asked, "Want a lift to the surface?"

Ragnar immediately ran to his side and grabbed his robes. They had not brought brooms this time and if they were left behind they'd be stuck here.

"Yes, professor... you are the best headmaster ever... thanks for the lift." He praised.

Dumbledore chuckled and apparated with them.

...

Camelot, Kitchen.

"Okay, my dear phoenixes. Today, I have gathered you for an important job. My sweet dear grandson will be coming soon. And he will need some precious tears from you. For this, I'm going to make you cry a little. Any problem?" Martha asked the hoard of Phoenixes.

Seeing no one complaining, she took out a bunch of onions and placed them near the phoenixes. "Here I go dears."

*SLASH*

She cut all the onions at the same time with some magic. Soon, the phoenixes started crying and making noises. A few of them were crying a little too loud and seemed too natural. Maybe they were just hiding their pain or sorrow behind these fake tears.

"OOOOOH! NINA! Why did you leave me for that outsider Phoenix? What did he have that I did not? WHY?" one phoenix cried.

Another phoenix beside him looked at him in disgust, "What are you saying? When did she leave you *sniff sniff* She was just your crush. As well as mine... NINAAAA! WHYYYY? What did that phoenix have?"

"OW NINAAAA..."

There were about 10 Phoenix among the 60 of them who were crying like crazy. They probably gave as many tears as the rest of them combined. Martha was happy that her grandson could be safer now. But she did worry about these sorrowful phoenixes.

Magnus arrived just then, "Grandma, I'm back. Cuddles will not be going anywhere now. Ah, hello, Phoenix friends."

"HE'S THE ONE. He brought that outsider here." The phoenixes complained in their language.

Magnus could not understand them. "What? What did I do? Why are you angry at me?"

"Ignore them, dear. Here, all these tears for you. Make sure you use them wisely. Oh, did you finish those cookies?" She inquired.

Magnus sweated, "No, Grandma. We still have some left. We will finish them soon, don't make more for now."

She happily dropped the dough, "Okay then,"

"You should go and meet mum and dad sometimes. It'll be a nice change for them. I bet they are tiring themselves with work these days." He suggested to her. Martha must also be bored here anyway.

*CLAP*

"Wonderful, I will make cookies for them and then go." She again got to cook.

Chuckling, Magnus left her to enjoy her favourite hobby and returned to school. For the whole day, all the students were trying to guess what had happened. But Magnus didn't answer, instead, he let them guess so that they may feel the shock the next morning.

...

The Next Day, Great hall.

Magnus happily ate his breakfast while the owls flew in with newspapers. Each table got a few copies and started reading them together. Magnus' newspapers were much more famous nowadays as he had poached most of the good staff from Daily Prophet and his newspaper was also free.

The first page had a big image, covering half of the page. It was of Magnus, Ragnar and Severus, with Cuddles behind them acting dead. At the top of the image was the headline.

"DRAGON KILLS THE SNAKE! THE BRAVE THREE FRIENDS!"

Now, Rita had gotten too good at writing these headlines. She had purposefully chosen this. Because Dragon kills the snake could also be interpreted as Magnus killing the Death Eaters. It was very annoying to the pureblood supremacists.

Below the picture was the full story of how Magnus and his friends defeated the strong 1000 years old Basilisk. Not to put Dumbeldore in trouble, the whole story behind Chamber of Secrets was explained. So, in the end, all the blame was put on Salazar Slytherin. The man was dead now and there was nobody to blame. So all they could do was glorify the event. Also, a big photo of Hagrid was there, it was an old photo from the time when he was imprisoned in Azkaban. The ministry was called out for this wrongful verdict.

Just below that was a picture of Eugenia and Hagrid, where Eugenia was seen shaking hands with Hagrid and handing him a big wand, signifying that the ministry accepted the mistake and resolved it.

Magnus made sure that none of his allies faced any problems from this. The plus point of this event was that now Magnus had won Hagrid's goodwill and potential loyalty.

But, amidst all this, there was someone very angry with Magnus, who was also sitting just beside him with a pout.

Magnus apologetically cut a slice of his pancake and brought the spoon to Emma's face, "Come on, I did not know that all this was going to happen. If I knew we would be fighting the Basilisk I would have taken you with me."

"Hmph! Do you think I am a fool? I heard you talking about some special work to do when you tried to push me out of your room." She argued angrily.

Magnus softly replied, "I was worried for your safety, Emma. You are a master quidditch player, not a fighter. What if you had gotten hurt."

He had now sacrificed himself to make her happy. He hated acting so fluffy like this. But then he saw the big smile on her face and felt it was worth it.

"REALLY? You were worried about me? *NON NOM*" her mood changed and she ate the pancake.

He nodded profusely, "Yes yes... I was. Now, why don't you eat?"

But Emma's face fell, "But... you feed me."

Magnus's brows rose, threatening to leave his forehead and tear the ceiling.

*Cough*

"Okay, here you go." He fed her the pancake.

But, while Magnus was doing this, he knew that Ragnar would say something crazy and make this situation a thousand times more embarrassing. So, he had taken precautions.

Currently, Ragnar was sitting on Magnus' other side, sweating heavily. Nobody could see but below the table, a wand's tip was touching his crotch. Of course, it was Magnus', who had mentally threatened him. His words were direct, "Say a word and you will never have a need to look at the dirty magazines again."

Ragnar loved his dirty magazines, so he stayed silent. But it was very tense to eat while having your family jewels threatened like this.

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