Unveiling the Mysteries

This year Harry was leaving with the other students. He was still ducking Oliver Wood who had made it something of a quest to bully Harry onto the Quidditch team. Harry was considering wearing his invisibility cloak for part of the journey... Perhaps not. Best not to let that secret get out.

He was thinking of how to find the train in London that would take him to Wales. The Hogwarts library contained nothing about trains not named the Hogwarts Express. Harry stopped walking when he saw Draco Malfoy's much older twin, or perhaps his father, arguing with Headmaster Flamel just outside the main doors of Hogwarts Castle.

"...resign your temporary post now, Flamel."

Harry kept moving so he wouldn't get stepped on, but he paused before he got to the carriages and turned around. He wanted to see what this turned into, damn his curiosity. Everyone else seemed to ignore it, especially the Slytherins.

"I have no great desire to serve as the Headmaster. I sat next to Perenelle when she served sixteen years at Beauxbatons as Headmistress. I myself founded the Franklin School in America, not that it was named after Franklin at that time. I have served as a governor of Durmstrang under one of its more progressive Highmasters. If you should find someone with better credentials than my wife and me, I will turn over the office at once. But you can't. Dregs are what you offer..."

"How dare you, you doddery clod of dust."

"Go suck on your mother's teat, small-child. Your plots are as transparent as the filled-and-wetted-diapers you probably still wear, piss boy." He was enjoying himself, smiling and nodding at the passing students while dishing his insults.

Malfoy was not amused. "You are a Frenchman and you are not qualified to serve as the Headmaster of Britain's most lauded school..."

"Is Malfoy not a French name, I wonder? A strange criticism from a man who eyes the Minister's seat for himself or at least someone he pushes into it."

Malfoy drew a wand from his cane.

Harry took a step back.

"Did you ever join the dueling circuit? I don't remember reading of any wins for a Malfoy...," Flamel asked.

"I learned to fight, not duel."

"Yes, yes, I remember something about that, black robes and bone white masks, very droll. Well, I can't risk the children being hurt by you, one known little for caring about those you damage."

"So you concede?"

"I find you repugnant."

"The children will suffer..."

"Not while I'm here. Adults fight the battles while children learn, that's my law, not some other permutation you might favor. So we'll try something else."

Flamel did not draw his wand. He just stared at Malfoy.

Malfoy snapped his own wand without seeming to realize it.

"I think you've rendered great insult to Hogwarts, haven't you?" Flamel asked.

"Yes."

Harry stepped around so he could look at Malfoy's eyes. They weren't glazed over, so not Imperius. But he no longer acted like himself.

"I think you should apologize in a substantive manner. Sell all your house-elves to the school for a knut."

"Yes."

Harry watched the ceremony of sale. It was simple and brutal. Three lives changed hands in less time than it took Harry to find and open a thick book.

"You did much damage to our community of witches and wizards in the last war. You claim to be a philanthropist, but everyone knows you benefit from your own donations. So, we shall make you a real philanthropist. Donate four hundred thousand galleons to Widow Grey's Hospital Fund, with the stipulation that St. Mungo's be relocated outside of London. Hogsmeade or Godric's Hollow or even Ottery St. Catchpole. So long as one can apparate there, take the Floo, or use the Knight Bus, it matters not. But the muggles will wonder about that site in London eventually."

"I will. Today," Malfoy vowed.

"And tell your heir to behave himself."

"I will."

"Donate the gold anonymously. No publicity at all. And no accusations of theft when you finally notice the gold is missing. If anyone wonders where all the gold went, you'll smile and be mysterious, as if it were some deep plot of yours."

"I will."

"Go. In three hours, you'll take to your bed for a day and not remember coming to Hogwarts or doing anything I've ordered you to do. You will think your house elves died, and you won't replace them or hire squibs."

"I obey."

"You will make your wife breakfast every day you're both still alive. Now go."

Malfoy walked down the path, slowly, and tried not to get splashed by the carriages.

How...

How had any of that happened?

The Headmaster glanced at Harry. "Now, Mr. Potter, perhaps you will keep what you observed to yourself? Though I would hope you won't forget this lesson."

What lesson was that? Don't anger a wizard older than you – or deeper in mysteries? "I won't talk of it, sir."

No one would believe him.

"You may wonder why?"

"I did." Harry had so many guesses. Hadn't that one elf Malfoy sold been Dobby?

"He was involved with that diary you discovered and turned in. He wriggled out of any punishment. Amelia Bones did what she could, but Malfoy did what he could. We wizards have long believed that might was right. Look at me and how few laws apply. I just turned up at Hogwarts and said I was headmaster. No one was willing to tell me 'no' a year ago..."

Was that how it had happened?

"The same for Dumbledore or any of a number of others, You-Know-Who for his first few years. Nowadays, might is taken as gold coins or whispers in ears. But sometimes might is actually might. Malfoy won't remember, of course, why ten years of his rents are gone from his vault. But you do."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't forget and don't ever be sloppy, Mr. Potter. Now off you go."

Harry walked away, but paused. Flamel now had three house-elves to deal with.

"I guess we can use some additional help cleaning up the school. There are so many rooms and floors in disrepair. And I have but a year to set this place to rights before my time is done here. Can you help, little ones?"

"Yes, Perfessy." The speaker did look like that crazed elf, Dobby. He seemed a touch more sane now. Just a touch.

"There we are. Most of the campaigns to seat someone at Hogwarts are now ended. Malfoy will be smarting, and mostly broke, for a decade to come – and he won't even know why. Enjoy your time at Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Perfessy."

Flamel returned inside the castle.

Harry got into a carriage with some older students from Ravenclaw who had been a bit further back from the Flamel-Malfoy tussle. Not one of them asked Harry what he overheard. They preferred to chat about summer plans. Harry just said he would travel a little. Others were a little more detailed. A month at Tintagel. A summer at the Wizard Palace outside Paris. A tour of the manor houses in St. Petersburg. It all sounded grand and a little boring. Well, maybe not Tintagel.

Harry waited in the Express for Hermione and Neville. They played cards, but not Exploding Snap. Hermione taught them all a game called poker. Harry had heard of it but never played it. He was terrible at first, but he had fun betting Every Flavor Beans.

Hermione also spoke of her plans for more secret classes for the coming year. She planned to spend a part of her summer sending letters to distinguished older Gryffindors to see who might be willing to come and teach for an evening.

"I think it sounds grand," Harry said. And he meant it. She had calmed down, too, as she had found her calling. She had also reconciled what she was supposed to think of the Ministry and what she knew it to be. She seemed happier now that she was more grounded. She would be a teacher of the truth. For now that meant finding speakers. In the future, perhaps she would be in front of a class herself.

Harry wondered what his contribution to all of this would be. He didn't know, but there was so much that didn't meet his highest hopes or even his lowest expectations. He just hadn't found the right path yet to change anything. He wouldn't stop looking.

.....

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