Chapter 59: The Investigative Headmaster

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4 June 1992, Hogwarts

"I will admit that such a method did enter my mind, but there were simply no signs of a ritual there, not even a single trace, which would have existed should something of this magnitude occur. Such a ritual would also not continue to protect you now. Sometimes, people tend to forget about the simple things in life. They make convoluted theories about complex subjects, forgetting how something as simple and as pure as love can even ignite the stars themselves. Isn't that right, Mr Potter?"

The Potter scion froze in panic. He was hidden by a curtain and hadn't moved or made a noise. How in the name of Magic did the headmaster know that he was awake? Gently, an old hand grasped his curtain, revealing Albus Dumbledore in all his glory.

The man chuckled at his shocked expression, "Do not be alarmed, my boy. The infirmary simply has charms to alert Madam Pomfrey when a student wakes up. As the headmaster of this illustrious school, I have the privilege to interact with these charms as well."

Harry wouldn't really know it. The mere idea of using any magic, even his Arcane Hearing seemed ill-advised. The young Slytherin could do nothing but groan and sit back on the hospital bed.

The man seemed to take this as permission to continue his conversation, and asked, "So, young Harry, I believe you had quite the encounter with Professor Quirrell. I have to say that thanks to your letter I was able to return to Hogwarts quickly enough to save Mr. Longbottom from a rather dire fate. In normal circumstances, I would have ignored the letter. I thought it might have slipped past my mail wards somehow, but your owl was very insistent that I take it. You have found yourself quite the remarkable companion, Mr Potter."

Wait a minute, Hedwig had bypassed his mail wards? How is that possible? And yet for all the impossibility of it all, Harry smiled slightly, "That she is, headmaster."

A second later, he remembered something that Dumbledore just said and pretended to be shocked, "Wait, that was really the Dark Lord? I thought he was just some impostor or something."

"No, I'm afraid that Lord Voldemort has yet to leave this mortal plane. I have to ask, though, young Harry, that you explain the events that led you to your current condition. This is not the first time you have overwhelmed your magical circuits, and continuing to that trend could end up crippling your magical potential in the long run."

Harry paled and started recounting the events of his encounter with Quirrell, "Well, I was asked to come in for my Defense practical exam. It started normally, with me demonstrating a few spells, but Professor Quirrell tried to curse me, and we duelled. I lost, very badly. He was different. He acted differently, even his eyes were red. I ended up disarmed, bound, and chained to a wall. He had started talking about his mission to turn the magical world into a utopia of understanding and wonder. He asked me to join him. It didn't really come out of the blue, with him trying to get me to accept him as a tutor a few months ago. I refused because I already had an agreement with Professor Flitwick about the duelling club, but he seemed quite vexed when I told him my decision."

Longbottom, who had stayed silent during the entire conversation, choked on his spit. Even the headmaster looked surprised, "And you didn't accept his offer?"

His voice had a tint of steel that wasn't there before. Was this the small taste of the true Albus Dumbledore, the Champion of Light? Was this core of steel what was under the image of an old amiable man?

Harry simply shook his head, "Of course, I didn't. He killed unicorns and drank their blood. Learning from someone capable of committing such horrors was just a bad idea in general."

The Potter scion noticed Dumbledore and Longbottom relax slightly and continued, "Well, as you can expect, he didn't really like my answer. He tried to convince me nicely, then he started to get frustrated. The last thing I remember is him casting a very painful curse at me. I think it was black, but he didn't say any incantations. I felt my magic fight against it, and weaken it slightly, but then when it hit, I felt like my energy was being drained from my body. I was horrible; it was like someone had replaced my blood with pure lava. It burned so much. I think I passed out from the pain."

Of course, Harry was lying about that last part. There was no reason for Dumbledore to know that he survived a killing curse. Well, his cloak allowed him to phase through the killing curse. The man was already obsessed with the Deathly Hallows. Harry didn't need the man to have even more of an interest in him.

And so, Harry projected his pain for that fraction of a second when the curse hit him, and only modified the colour of the spell. Dumbledore had flinched imperceptibly, meaning that he had used his Legilimency to try to get more information about the encounter. Harry could sense his probe slightly, and so arranged for him to get what he wanted.

There was a reason why Legilimency wasn't really admissible in magical court. It was nothing against the field, but the more skilled a user is in the mind arts, the more they can alter the projected memories. Changing the colour of a spell is easy, far easier than faking an entire conversation for that matter, but it could deeply affect a trial if it was taken into account. Simply changing the spell to the familiar sickly green of the killing curse would have anyone sent to Azkaban for life, and that wasn't feasible in any administration.

The headmaster seemed to buy it though since he nodded. The pain couldn't be fake, and he knew it. Faking something like this couldn't be done if it wasn't experienced in the first place. So, unless Harry kept getting his magic sucked dry by other artefacts, it was very likely that the man would take his words at face value. Really, learning Occlumency was one of his greater ideas, even if was barely a beginner. He knew how to shield his thoughts from preliminary Legilimency scans and project a few memories – with a few alterations of course. He would have been truly fucked if it wasn't for it, to be honest.

The headmaster spoke up, "Lord Voldemort had sunk to depths that I will admit to not even have known that they existed, to gain power. I do not know the spell you're describing, but I am not a master of the Dark Arts like him. However, the effects of the spell seemed to be temporary, putting you in a magical deprivation coma until you recover. But I will admit that I don't know how you knew to send me that letter."

Harry sheepishly looked down, "Well, I knew that Quirrell was the one who killed the unicorns. I recognized the wand, you see. So, every single time I met him, I told Hedwig to come see me if I don't return. The letter I gave you was written months ago. It had nothing to do with Longbottom, really. I didn't even know that he would try to retrieve the stone that day."

At Longbottom's attempted rebuttal, he continued, "Come on, you have hardly been subtle. Hermione point blank asked me in potions class who was Nicholas Flamel. It didn't take long for me to realize what was hidden in the corridor. And that Quirrell was looking for him."

"And why would you not have come to me sooner?" Dumbledore asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Someone who would be willing to slaughter a unicorn and drink its blood is without a doubt desperate. I trusted your defences on the stone and chose not to bring attention to myself, and risk dying. Not that it worked for that matter."

"I can see why the hat put you in Slytherin, then, Mr Potter," the headmaster retorted, "well, with that out of the way…"

Harry interrupted the headmaster, "Sir, I had a question."

The man motioned him to go on, "I have found that asking questions to be a worthwhile pursuit. What troubles you, young Potter?"

"Can you tell me about the fire of Godric's Hollow? It's just there was nothing I could find in the library. The newspapers just say that it was some kind of cursed fire."

The man's jovial disappeared immediately, "That's understandable. The fire of Godric's Hollow is one of the biggest tragedies in magical Britain during the last few decades, and it had very few witnesses. Even though I am not certain as to what happened, I have theories, all of which are very disturbing. But I will not reveal them. Pure truth is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution. You are too young to be burdened with this knowledge."

Harry motioned to protest but was silenced when the man raised his hand, "What I can tell you, for that matter, is that this fire was unlike anything I have ever seen, it was probably unlike anything the world has ever seen. It consumed everything, literally. It wasn't even hot. Simply everything it touched turned to dust. It certainly wasn't natural. There's a reason there aren't any ruins in Godric's Hollow. It's because they don't exist. I can also tell you that the flames were tinged with your mother's magical signature."

The man slowly turned and left the infirmary, leaving two silent boys. Longbottom seemed like he wanted to speak up, but Harry was too tired to deal with his prattling. He simply closed off the curtain. He needed to think.

It didn't take long for him to conclude that the whole encounter with Longbottom was staged. There were too many coincidences, and the ending was too close to the one from the stories for it not to be one. The man must have known that Quirrell was after the stone, or that he was the one killing the unicorn, at least. And yet he did nothing.

You could say what you wanted about the man. He was obviously manipulative, he had too much political power for a man who like to say he was uninterested in politics, he was slowly changing the magical world to his image with his control over Hogwarts and his changes to the curriculum, but he wasn't the senile old man he pretended to be. His mind was sharp, and it showed.

He used the Philosopher's Stone as a lure, that's for sure. He didn't know if the stone was real or not, but the Flamels would not have parted with it willingly. There was no reason to have the stone in a school for protection. For all its wards, Hogwarts was a public place, with many possible intruders. It simply wasn't safe. And if Longbottom was able to get past his challenges, they definitely weren't defined with a Dark Lord in mind. Dumbledore wanted Longbottom to go after the stone and make it only challenging enough for the boy to succeed after some effort. He designed the entire thing to have an encounter between him and Voldemort, but why?

Was he hoping to trap the wraith or something? Harry didn't know much about souls, but even if that was possible, it would be a temporary solution at best. Dumbledore wouldn't settle for something like this.

Was he hoping to confirm that Voldemort was still alive? No, it was too risky, he could have gone to Albania years before and tracked him down somehow. He definitely wasn't hoping that Longbottom would somehow finish him off. It was too farfetched for that to happen. Did he simply want to study the boy's protection by having it interact with Voldemort?

And most of all, could Harry even believe a word he said about the fire that killed his parents and razed an entire village off the face of the Earth?

Harry was consumed with these thoughts as he fell into the realm of Morpheus, still feeling tired from his encounter with Quirrell.

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