Chapter 115

"Oh! And Hagrid, due to his size and weight, has the special chair on the end on my left. Same as he did when you were Headmaster; and Professor Flitwick has the special chair two to the right of Professor Sprout, due to his diminutive stature.

"Now, please do go and sit down. I wish to return to my lunch and being brought up to date as to the happenings of the school by Professor Sprout." Then she turned away from him to her right to return to her lunch and discussion with Sprout.

Angered by the rebuke and brush-off, Dumbledore had little choice but to stomp off towards her left down near Hagrid's chair. He sat in the one next to the half-giant's. However, Hagrid was not currently there.

No one was currently sitting near where he chose to sit.

Finally turning his attention towards the house tables, he was shocked to see just how few students actually remained. More than three quarters of the Slytherin students were missing, half of the Hufflepuffs, about a third of the Ravenclaws and about two thirds of the Gryffindors. Looking along the Gryffindor table he even saw that the Weasley children were missing. However, even more annoying for him, was that Harry Potter was missing. A second quick check and he saw that Miss Granger was not there, either.

He thought, 'That was right before I foolishly allowed my temper to escape my normally tight rein.' And frowned to himself.

'Everything was humming along exactly as planned,' he thought as he began to build a lunch plate for himself. 'Right up until the point young Harry entered the arena for the first task. Then everything turned into dragon dung.

'How had I missed it?' he wondered. 'How had Severus missed it?' And then remembered that Severus had told him the boy seemed to have natural Occlumency barriers.

'Not Occlumency barriers,' he thought, 'Barriers that existed because of the soul fragment of young Tom that resides in the boy's head.' He'd already figured out that it was the soul fragment that was blocking any Legilimency attempt on the boy, similar to how a werewolf's mind was protected by the inner wolf.

That's how they both came up with the idea of using Legilimency on young Ronald and the Granger girl. If they couldn't get Harry's thoughts and memories from him, they'd get them second-hand from the youngest Weasley boy or the girl.

It was not until the First Task he realised the boy was also keeping secrets from the both of them. He suspected that part of that was because he'd figured out that Molly, the foolish woman, had set in place her own plans for the boy. She too, it seems, was after the Potter fortune. That was something else he'd missed; but the boy, it also seemed, hadn't.

After finishing his meal he quietly left the Hall to return to his apartment in the Transfiguration corridor. Now that his new office and apartment had been set up and, as he had no classes to teach or assignments to mark, he was left with nothing to do within the school for the moment.

'Time to go talk to young Harry,' he thought. 'He needs to see reason and return to the safety of the school.'

He quickly checked his effects and found his private notebook, charmed so only he could open it. He flicked through it to the back where he had the addresses of certain people. One was the muggle address and apparation co-ordinates of the Granger girl. He quickly refreshed his memory of them both.

Using the floo in the office after first setting his password for it, he flooed out to the Leaky Cauldron. And, as soon as he stepped out of the floo at the other end, apparated away.

Moments later and for the second time that day, he found himself smacking hard into an anti-apparation barrier. Then everything went black.

_‗_

―==(oIo)==―

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Harry and Hermione were both checking to make sure they had everything they needed for a walk around the neighbourhood when there was a deep, reverberating two-tone sound of two gongs being struck.

The male auror who was with them snapped out an order. "Go into the servants' quarter's parlour and stay there! Do not come out until you're told to!"

Then, with his wand already drawn, he headed for the front door. The other auror, the female, had already reached it.

Seeing the stunned look on Hermione's face, Harry immediately grabbed her by her upper arm, to drag her along if necessary, and charged through the parlour into the transverse rear hallway, down the stairs and through to the servants' quarters as directed.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, as she was being dragged.

Ignoring her, he didn't let her go until they entered the quarters.