Chapter 6

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Bound Barriers

Chapter 6

6:00 PM, 4 November 1981, Hogwarts Dining Hall

–Albus Dumbledore–

Watching the minister waltz into his cabin, he maintained an amicable facade on the outside even though he was very much annoyed and frustrated at the lack of progress he was making on both the anomaly and the mystery of the absence of Tom's body in the Potter Manor.

It was possible that there was a blast of magic that rendered his body to ash but there were ways of checking even that and it seemed that Tom's body, a construct of magic at that point, just simply ceased to be. He was still not sure if Tom had truly died or not, especially not with his obsession with avoiding Death as Albert had told him. Nothing was too far for Tom if he thought he even had a chance of cheating Death. He might even..create Horcru..

He shut down that line of thought immediately because if that was true, they were still not out of danger and even in more danger because who knows how Tom might come back this time and what he might do.

"Minister Bagnold, what can I do for you this fine evening?" He asked the tall and broad man who exuded a natural sense of authority inside the room. His hair now bore streaks of silver as the pressure of leading a notoriously divided Ministry finally started showing its symptoms on his appearance. 

Mentally, he had long been broken down and became numb to the ongoing civil war within Wizarding Britain as his wife and only son were slaughtered in a mob by the Death Eaters. The only reason he had held on for as long as he had was due to his unyielding hatred for Tom that Tom found amusing for some reason, choosing to leave Bagnold alive instead of taking his life because he had multiple chances to do so.

His eyes were sharp and unyielding but his slumped shoulder told a different story.

"What I want, Dumbledore, is a bloody explanation other than the fluffy piece that the members of your secretive Order have pushed around in the already chaotic narrative," He nearly growled as he slammed his hands on his desk, breathing heavily.

He narrowed his eyes minutely at the thinly veiled desperation in his question. Minister Bagnold was one of the few people who had done the most he could, considering the situation and he was personally grateful for that. Many times they had been warned by his sources about certain changes the Ministry was about to enact that he had been too busy to know about.

So, even though he felt that he owed Bagnold a clear answer, he sighed and said, "I am sorry, Minister Bagnold. I truly am but the only thing I can confirm is that Voldemort is gone for now."

"Why do you keep saying that?" Bagnold asked him after a moment with narrowed eyes.

He sighed internally at the inquiry even though his face showed no emotion and he kept his silence at the question. Bagnold was sometimes too smart for his own good. Both he and the members of his Order had been sure to tell the same sentence while talking to any of their acquaintances, whether it be in the media or in the know. While he had not told anybody else of his suspicions, the members of the Order, especially Minerva, were smart enough to figure out that his silence was due to his own investigations being pending. That was why he was yet to give an official statement to the people at large despite knowing that his word alone was the only thing at this point that would simultaneously calm and relieve the common people and terrify the members of the Dark Faction as his words would finally confirm the news Wizarding Britain both feared and hoped to be true.

Tom's Death.

Even as his mind ran a thousand miles in every direction, he kept silent and his silence was answer enough. 

After a while, Bagnold's eyes widened in realisation as his shoulders slumped even more. He then sat down on the seat behind him and then looked at him with terror-induced eyes, "Please tell me he won't be back soon."

He shook his head and placed the book he was researching back in its place on the bookshelf, "I can't say for sure, Minister Bagnold. One of the reasons I have been absent from public places is because I have been desperately searching for confirmation. The confirmation that you and the public at large want from me is something I myself do not have. All I know is Voldemort is someone who went to great lengths to make sure that Death did not claim him and until proven otherwise, I believe it prudent to consider him just gone for a while instead of him being dead because I can assure you, the only people who could, without a shred of doubt, tell us that Voldemort was dead, are themselves dead."

"Then lie for all I care," Bagnold told him.

He shook his head. He had anticipated such a request from him because the public was still waiting for confirmation from him, someone who was said to be the only equal to Tom. Lying would weigh on his conscience but for the greater good, he could lie for the time being and once he had enough proof, he could present them to the Wizengamot so that official Ministry resources could be used to search for whatever method Tom had employed to escape Death and kill him once and for all.

He had made that mistake once and let someone go who could cause immense harm to the world if left unchecked. He refused to do it this time.

The very air inside the cabin felt suffocating to breathe in as Albus Dumbledore's magic unconscious escaped his tight control due to his thoughts.

Upon further pondering Bagnold's question, he sighed, "Very well, Minister. I will oblige your request. Very well, call for a press conference because I don't exactly have much time because, for all we know, Voldemort could be biding his time for a greater strike. While I am sure that with all his known close associates behind bars, he would have much greater difficulty getting anything done, we both know that not all of his followers are behind bars."

Bagnold sighed and seemed to have aged a decade in the span of a few minutes, "I am aware of them but there is nothing I can do about that. I probably have another term in me before I retire and you and both know that if the majority of the people in the Wizengamot have their way, the next minister would have a spine as strong as paper at best."

"Anyway," Bagnold began as he stood up and began fixing his appearance, "I have to go and assure the fools in the Wizengamot to stop them from tearing apart Magical Britain. If you are amenable to that, I can have the media in the Hogwarts Dining Hall in about an hour."

"I really don't think that would be–"

"Albus, I have not asked you for anything in a long time now and while I have forgiven you for my son's death, I am sure that you can grant me a couple of favours as sorry."

"*sigh* very well then"

In the Dining Hall of Hogwarts, in the span of an hour, an entire cadre of reporters was assembled, whispering together. Huddled together, they were looking around the Dining Hall, waiting for the man of the hour to show up.

When Albus Freaking Dumbledore calls for a press conference, that too in Hogwarts, there was no media publication in all of Magical Britain that didn't have reporters present on-site post haste.

Betty Braithwaite, a seasoned investigative journalist for the Daily Prophet was one such reporter present in the group of reporters that had dropped everything and taken the first floo trip to Hogwards that had been opened up for this special occasion.

She was the most invested in the story in the entire Daily Prophet as she was one who had uncovered the fact that the destruction of the Potter Manor had something to do with Voldemort's death because of a special magical item she had found in the Knockturn Alley. The only function of that device was to find out the intensity of magic that was used in a certain area for a span of 72 hours.

What she had found even on the outskirts of the Potter Manor had terrified her. The item was in the shape of a traditional compass but instead of showing directions, it indicated the level of magic that went up and down based on the ambient magic present in an area. She remembered from her days at Hogwarts that the type and intensity of a spell used in an area can affect the properties of the ambient magic for that area for periods sometimes longer than a week. The reason she was terrified was because she had tested that item in multiple places and even with many of her auror friends. It had worked appropriately and she even had a little bit of fun teasing her auror friends when even their strongest spells refused to make the lever go up by a level or two.

When she began approaching the Potter Manor, the compass began going up exponentially when finally, once she was standing on the boundary of what was once Potter Manor, the compass began heating up, uncomfortably so. Soon, with a yelp, she threw it to the ground where it exploded in a shower of smoke and light.

Once she had gained a sufficient distance from the center of that explosion, she high-tailed it out of there and went back to report her findings to the editor-in-chief of the Daily Prophet. They were the ones who had started the rumour that the reason Potter Manor had been razed to the ground was due to a fight that had ended in the demise of Voldemort.

It was their hope that at least after hearing the increasingly ludicrous rumours, Dumbledore would come out and clarify things as things would soon start becoming more and more chaotic as the general public would have no direction to turn to but even then, Dumbledore managed to stay out of the public shadow for over three days.

She had actually lost hope of Dumbledore clarifying anything when their chief received directives from the Minister of Magic's office that Albus Dumbledore was going to conduct an emergency press conference in Hogwarts. She had been the first to rush out of the office to the Ministry of Magic's floo station.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the abrupt silence that now filled the huge Dining Room of Hogwarts as the Minister of Magic, followed by Dumbledore arrived.

Almost instantly, there was a cacophony of questions that were thrown Dumbledore's way even before they had taken their seats.

"Professor Dumbledore, is it true that you were the one who vanquished You-Know-Who?"

"Are you high? Of course, it was him. Who else could do so?"

"Professor Dumbledore, is it true that the fight took place at the Potter Manor?"

"Professor Dumbledore, is it true that Lord Potter died as a result of your fight?"

"Professor Dumbledore, can you tell us why You-Know-Who was at the Potter Manor?"

"Alright, Ladies and Gentlemen, calm down, Professor Dumbledore will now answer some of your questions. One at a time, please."

As the noise started dying down, she scoffed internally while looking at all the newbie rookies that had now entered the reporting space. As soon as Bagnold stopped speaking, her hand was the first that went up.

"Yes Ms.Braithwaite"

"Can you confirm, for all of our sakes, if You-Know-Who is truly dead or not? And if he is, who killed him and how? Also when?"

Satisfied with the question, she sat down silently, preening at the gawking faces of all the other reporters present onsite. She had basically asked all the questions they had wanted to ask in a roundabout way, straightforwardly. Truly, it was a blessing that Daily Prophet had not sent someone like that rookie Rita for this meeting, or else they would have kissed their media licence goodbye.

Albus sighed and smiled, "You truly know how to ask the difficult questions, Ms.Braithwaite."

"First things first, yes, Voldemort is truly vanquished this time, I have personally seen to it that his body no longer exists in this world. No, I was not the one who killed him, and while I am not entirely sure how, I can tell you what I know."

She, along with all the reporters here had taken out their notepads and had started taking down notes as soon as Dumbledore had started speaking.

"As a stupendous achievement, one that I am personally proud of, Lily Potter was the one who had vanquished Voldemort."

There was pin-drop silence after that statement, as if the entire hall had held its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Part of it was due to the fact that someone was uttering "his" name out in the open and the other part of it was because Dumbledore, arguably the greatest wizard of their era, was telling them that Lily Potter, a muggle-born, was someone who had succeeded where Dumbledore himself had failed.

Killing You-know-Who.

She shook her head but before she could voice out her question, Dumbledore continued.

"I know none of you would or rather want to believe it but it is a fact. I would stake my entire career on the fact that had it not been for Lily Potter's brave sacrifice, Voldemort would not have been vanquished."

"Lily Potter had always been a very studious as well as talented child. A fact I am sure that any one of her classmates could corroborate, even amongst the ones sitting between you."

All of them looked towards one of the pureblooded nobles who was looking at Dumbledore, red-faced, whether in anger or shame, nobody knew. Seeing that everybody was looking at him, waiting for his confirmation, he nodded.

"She devised a ritual, derived from an archaic magic that had long been lost to time. Only parts of that spell were available in the ancient library of the House of Potter. She managed to turn that incomplete spell data into a working ritual and cast it on her newborn son. She turned the emotion of love, a love that a mother has towards her son, an unquantifiable emotion, into a weapon that speared through all of Voldemort's defenses in an instant, instantly killing him. Alas, such an achievement was not without sacrifice. James sacrificed himself to buy Lily the precious few seconds she needed to hastily activate the ritual and Lily gave herself up as a sacrifice to the ritual, empowering it to levels unknown."

It was clear that speaking about that event in this much detail was taking its toll on Albus' mind and soon, the Minister took over as Dumbledore left the room, followed by members of his staff who had the same expression as them on their faces.

One of absolute baff lament.

As Braithwaite wrote on her notepad, it seemed as if the quill was going to catch fire as she was sure that the article she was about to write and the Daily Prophet was about to publish tomorrow was going to be absolutely chaos-inducing.

Oh, she couldn't wait to see the expressions on the faces of all those haughty nobles once they realised who had done in their master.

Word Count - 2652

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