Tortured Students

The knock on her office door startled Amelia Bones and she spilled tea on some papers and her lap. Even though she was expecting visitors, she hadn't expected them so soon. After taking a few moments to mop up spilt tea, she called out, "come."

"Auror Broadmeer, ma'am," the oldest auror told her. "I have Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape here as requested."

"Thank you, Auror Broadmeer," Madame Bones quickly recovered from her surprise. Knowing Dumbledore as she did, she had expected the canny old wizard to try and stall their arrival as long as possible. "Please bring Dumbledore in and escort Professor Snape down to a holding cell."

"Yes Madame Bones," he turned to fulfil her orders and then remembered the message that Harry Potter had asked to be passed on. "Ma'am, I also have a message for you from Mr. Potter. He requested that whoever is sent to pick him up for the hearings, that it not be Auror Tonks."

Madame Bones made a note on her calendar on the date she had scheduled for Snape's and Umbridge's hearings for Auror Shacklebolt to pick up Mr. Potter and if he wasn't available for Broadmeer to do it. "I have taken care of it. Thank you again Auror Broadmeer."

"Thank you ma'am."

As the Auror left, Dumbledore came in.

"Tea Albus?" Madame Bones asked.

"That would be lovely, Amelia." Dumbledore was relieved to see the evidence of civility. Maybe things weren't as bad as he had envisioned. "I am surprised that Severus is not allowed to join us."

"He is being taken to a holding cell." Amelia told him as she handed him a cup of tea. "I have a few questions to ask you before you join him there."

After taking a sip of his tea, Dumbledore asked, "May I ask what I am being charged with?"

"You are being charged as an accessory to the crime of assault and mind rape by Professor Severus Snape upon the person of Harry James Potter. You may also be charged with negligence with regards to Madame Umbridge's actions during the year she was teaching at Hogwarts." Madame Bones told him. "And until today, if anyone had ever told me I would be arresting Albus Dumbledore for instigating an assault upon one of his students, I would have said they were mad."

There was a pause before Madame Bones looked him in the eye as she asked. "What I want to know is how could you stand by during Mr Potter's fifth year and allow Snape and Umbridge's actions toward the boy to go on unchecked?"

Dumbledore sipped his tea in silence for several minutes, his mind working frantically, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Finally he had to admit, "I'm afraid I do not know anything about the assault you are referring to, Amelia. The only task I assigned Severus outside his normal teaching duties was to teach Harry Occlumency in an effort to try and protect his mind from Voldemort. As for Delores Umbridge, I know from Minerva that Harry had a lot of detentions with her, but from what I was told she just had him writing lines."

Madame Bones stared at him in disbelief. "Do you think I'm that gullible, Albus?"

Dumbledore stared at her shocked. What had he said that was wrong?

Madame Bones continued before he could say a word. "I may not know everything about how the wards in and around Hogwarts work, but I do know the Headmaster or Headmistress is linked to them so that they have an early warning system in case of danger.

The Sorting Hat links all students into the wards at the time they are Sorted so that if a student is in 'real' danger and it's not just a matter of two students throwing hexes at each other in a fit of anger, he or she is supposed to be alerted. Are you trying to tell me that you knew nothing about the attacks by Snape upon Mr. Potter, or the fact that Delores Umbridge brought an instrument of torture into your school and used it on him and other students as well?"

"What instrument of torture?" Dumbledore growled.

"She brought a Blood Quill into the school and used it upon a minor, several minors in fact. Not only that, but she threatened Mr. Potter with the Cruciatus curse." Madame Bones told him then asked. "What happened Albus? How could the wards not have told you what she and Snape were doing to that boy?"

Dumbledore looked shocked at hearing that Umbridge had managed to bring a Blood Quill into his school. The wards shouldn't have missed it. He tried to remember if the wards had gone off during Potter's fifth year and couldn't remember any alarms coming from them.

There had been a numbers of times the wards had gone off during Potter's first and second year, and he had largely ignored them unless Mr. Potter had been in danger of losing his life.

He thought back trying to remember the last time they had gone off when Mr. Potter or any other student had been in danger and that had been near the end of his third year, when the Dementors had nearly killed him along with the Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger, but the wards had also told him that a second Harry was out there on the grounds dealing with the situation. That had let him know that he had allowed Miss Granger to tell Harry about her time turner and that they had gone back to fix things.

But they hadn't gone off when Sirius had tried to attack Pettigrew in Ron's bed and that had been a situation where a child had been in danger. Sirius might have easily missed Pettigrew and stabbed Ron and yet there had been no tremor in the wards.

Had the fact that he ignored the castle's warnings because he needed to mould Mr. Potter into the warrior/weapon that would destroy Voldemort made Hogwarts think he wasn't interested in knowing about the danger his children were in until it was almost too late to help them? Had he made the castle think it had to take steps to protect the children since he wouldn't? He would have to have a talk with the Hogwarts about keeping secrets from him when he got back.

"Well Albus?" Amelia Bones had gotten tired of silence from the older wizard.

Dumbledore felt embarrassed when he admitted, "I'm sorry Amelia, but the wards never went off. I don't know why they didn't alert me.'

"Could it be because you were so busy trying to mould your weapon, that the castle thought you didn't give a damn about your primary responsibility which was to protect the students of that school?" It seemed as though Madame Bones had guessed the direction of his thoughts quite well.

"In all honesty," Dumbledore looked weary, "I don't know."

Amelia Bones just stared at him not fooled for a moment. "You honest! Oh please, Albus don't make me laugh. You have more secrets than Cornelius Fudge and you hide them better. I don't think you've told the whole truth to anyone in the last hundred years. I'm fairly certain you didn't tell the Wizengamot the whole truth about why you wanted to force Potter to go back to Hogwarts, but we did agree with the few valid reasons you did give which is why we enacted that legislation for you."

"So what happens now?" Dumbledore asked her.

"If you are done with your tea, you will join Professor Snape in a holding cell." Madame Bones told him. "Do you wish me to owl your solicitor?"

....

Join my P*atreon for early access to 60+ chapters ahead of the public release. 

Free members can get 2+ advanced chapters FOR FREE.

Link : pa*treon.com/thebookaddict (Remove the *)