43

Chapter 43: Things are starting to escalateNotes:

Good morning everyone,

I'm happy to announce that I've finally finished the story, after this chapter just two more and an epilogue, but don't worry, I have a new story coming up too.

As always, have fun reading :)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The morning after his letter to Dumbledore, Ronald Weasley got a letter via owl post in the morning, It was not an owl he knew, and one that left immediately after delivery, and so he, Arthur and Ginny just looked at it curiously. Ron opened it up and immediately saw a magical text - only visible to him - appear on the backside of the envelope.

Undetectable extension charm, open only when alone. Blackthorn and unicorn hair, twelve inch, flexible. It has no trace. Thank you - AD

Little did he know that the letter made its way through three floos (two of them illegal) during the night and was hurried a lot since it had priority for the Lord of Nurmengard.

"Ronald?"

"Uhm…that's…doesn't matter."

He stuttered that and tried his best to blush a little, and Ginny immediately took the bait.

"Oh, does little Ron have a secret admirer? Or a cute girlfriend we don't know about?"

"Shut up, Gin, not your business."

With that he grabbed his plate and the letter and rushed upstairs into his room. Once he was out of sight, he grinned. It had worked.

The wand he plucked out of the envelope was quite fancy, a nice blackthorn wand looking a bit like that ponce Malfoy's had been (or still was, since he was home schooled Ron hadn't seen him in two years - luckily), and as soon as he gripped it, he felt its strength. Yes, not a damn perfect match, but it had the same core as his usual wand and he could work well enough with it. 

After trying out a few little spells (including silencing on his door and an alarm ward - a weak one though, he just knew the basic theory) he took out the included letter, clearly written by the headmaster. Ronald had seen Dumbledore's writing a few times on letters to his mother that gave her orders, like the one telling them to find Potter at King's Cross.

He quickly read it and his grin got bigger and bigger. Dumbledore wanted to meet him today, apparently the headmaster would wait for him at the ruins of Tintagel Castle, which Ron hadn't finished searching yet. What he wanted from him, that he didn't know, but Albus Dumbledore wasn't a man one kept waiting.

At Nurmengard, Albus was just packing the last few things he'd take to Britain with him, most importantly the potion he himself had brewed. It was an expensive and complicated brew, taking all night to make, which made the person taking it quite easy to influence - at least for him. No one else would and could notice it. So what his plan was, was to give it to Arthur Weasley via his son, and then Arthur would suddenly decide to run for Minister despite his original refusal. He was much more popular than Jacob Ogden, especially his "tragic betrayal by his wife" and the "horrors suffered at Albus Dumbledore's hand" made him the ideal candidate for the new era the British Wizarding World had reached in the past few years.

He would meet Ronald later today and then stay in one of Dedalus' old boltholes until the right spot was found. If he first put a new Minister of Magic in place or got Merlin's Wand…well, that was still to be determined, but he wanted both.

The portkey Gareth had gotten him was not even an illegal one (portkeying into Britain was monitored by wards), but a legal one under the same alias he had used in the US. Yes, in the UK, people would start noticing him after a few minutes, so he had to travel to a portkey checkpoint guarded by some of their followers, and luckily Macmillan had been able to pull a few strings and get just some of his people on said shift this morning. 

The very familiar pull of the portkey dragged Albus halfway across Europe and for the first time in over two years onto the British Isles. He was back.

Two wizards greeted him, they immediately knew who he was yet accepted his bogus identity on the travel documents before letting him go. Now that Albus was inside the UK his portkeying and apparating wouldn't be noticed anymore, the security system was just to protect their borders. 

With a flick of his wand he disillusioned himself and apparated to the peninsula where Tintagel Castle was located. Yes, he was a bit early and would probably have to wait a while for Ronald Weasley, but that was okay. 

Ernie and Stan brought Ron to the peninsula too, a bit less than an hour after Albus Dumbledore's arrival. And while Ronald couldn't see or detect the old wizard - despite using a rather advanced "homenum revelio" spell, the old wizard was able to see the young redhead from afar. His magical core was softly glowing, not extraordinarily strong like Potter or Granger, but also not weak. He was a strong wizard.

"Mr. Weasley!"

Ronald flinched as Albus Dumbledore - though no longer looking like an old grandfather but rather a serious and dangerous man - appeared out of nowhere and walked up to him.

"Headmaster?"

"Oh no, I'm no longer the headmaster, just call me Mr. Dumbledore. How are you?"

"I'm fine, hea…Mr. Dumbledore. Finished my OWLs, and I think I'll be rather successful. Oh and I trained a lot to fight Potter one day."

"Good. I have something for you."

"Really?"

Albus pulled a vial out of his pocket and handed it to the young man.

"Give that to your father and then hand him this letter. It's a suggestibility potion that'll make him listen to me. I want him to run for Minister and whenever I talk to him or send a letter he'll obey me. And with that we can dismantle the whole alliance from the inside while I keep looking for…the artefact I need to defeat Potter."

"That's…brilliant. I'll give it to him this evening, alright? He's at the Ministry now."

Albus nodded and then proceeded to chat with Ronald about his magical skills and see a few spells he learned, to evaluate how good the boy actually was. And the result actually was that Ronald was beyond his age in Defense and Combat Magic, Transfiguration was a bit beyond OWL level. The rest of the relevant fields of magic were okay too, Dumbledore decided. Ronald was good, and one day he could be a head auror or something like that under the Dumbledore regime.

Once the whole business with Ronald was finished, Albus apparated into Dedalus' bolthole, located somewhere in the east of England in the middle of nowhere. It was not much more than a cabin, hidden and reinforced but barely furnished. Thankfully he had enough food in his bag with an undetectable extension charm, because Dedalus hadn't left any food, not even under the stasis charms.

It was definitely not the nicest place to stay, but it would do. Sure, he could have asked any of his followers, but this place here was guaranteed safe. And not even the luxury at Lord Macmillan's mansion could outweigh the security risk of staying there. 

Albus spent most of the day reading a bit, because there was not much he could do. In the US his alias had worked, but here people knew him from more than just pictures, after so many years as a headmaster and teacher before there was barely anyone who hadn't seen him in person, the eldest of their population excluded, But with most of those he was familiar too. So he couldn't really go outside, because even the strongest disillusionment would eventually fade or fail.

He checked that the gem really was in his pocket, because his hope was that someone would find the spot soon and he could get to Avalon.

By the evening, Ronald Weasley was back home and waiting for his father to return. He had made sure to know if the potion could be mixed with any kind of liquid, and since this was the case, he bought a more or less expensive bottle of wine (he got money from Albus to finish his mission) and put it on his father's office desk with a mild compulsion to drink on it, the letter closed next to it. He would tell his father that an owl came - sent by Lord Black - with this bottle and the letter, hoping that the charm would work and he would first drink and then open the letter.

Arthur arrived after a while from work, seemingly exhausted. He greeted his son, the only other person here currently (Ginny left this morning to go on a trip with her boyfriend Chris Shacklebolt, a fourth-year Ravenclaw and nephew to Kingsley) and then was about to go upstairs when Ron told him about the bottle of wine and the letter, which did confuse Arthur. He had just spoken to Sirius in regards to their campaign for Jacob Ogden, so why would he send him an owl now? 

In his office he just had to walk towards the bottle and look at it. Nothing too special, but not cheap either, and the letter next to it had "Lord Sirius Orion Black" as a sender written on the envelope. 

The biggest mistake he made was to grab the bottle, because that's when the charm took its effect and he just had to drink a glass of it. 

What Albus Dumbledore hadn't considered though was that Arthur wore a protective ring, something that he had never done before. But being freed from the potions had made him a bit more careful when it came to that. His head of house ring wouldn't notice this potion, the Weasley ring just wasn't one of the stronger ones. 

But the anti-potion ring Amelia and Sirius had gifted him after the trials was much stronger. It didn't warn him, no, but it immediately purged him from any potions as soon as they were in his system.

And so, after taking the first sip of the wine, Arthur's hand started shaking, causing the glass to fall down, and he collapsed while vomiting. It was painful, but effective.

Once his strength came back and he managed to stand on his own two feet again, he cast all the basic curse-breaking charms Bill had shown him at the bottle, breaking the compulsion and giving Arthur a very familiar magical signature as the culprit - Ron. Arthur felt the famous Weasley temper in him starting to show and he ripped open the letter (after declaring it curse-free).

Arthur,

I thank you for your obedience and order you to never mention any of my orders or even my existence to anyone excluding me or those I specifically identify as my associates from now on. 

This potion, even if expensive and rather unknown, hasn't got any of the side-effects of those your lovely wife had given you, making it much better. You'll still be yourself, not a mindless puppet, weak and tame, like then. No, but when I order something, you obey. You know you're being influenced and manipulated, but you're still going to be a willing participant. It's hard to explain, but you'll understand it.

Your son, Ronald, works with me, you can trust him and share your orders with him.

Arthur, I want you to reconsider your decision about the post of Minister of Magic. You inform Amelia, Jacob and the others of the alliance that you'll run for Minister, your reason will be that you reconsidered to fulfil your dream of equality.

And then you'll be my Minister of Magic, so I can make my grand return and correct the wrongs you've been doing since I am gone.

Oh and one more order: don't show this letter to anyone.

Yours sincerely,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,

New Lord of Nurmengard

By now Arthur's temper was beyond a point where he could still hold it back so he put the letter back onto the desk - Amelia and Kingsley would want to see that - and grabbed his wand.

When Ronald heard his father storm down the stairs, he became a bit nervous and reached out for his wand. Righteously so, since his door - protected by wards - burst open and his father threw a stunning spell at him, which only luck helped him block. 

Arthur was definitely not a combat mage, but he was able to attack and defend himself and his raw magical power was bigger than Ron's, so it was not too uneven.

Ronald's first move after blocking the stunner and throwing back a few spells was to take a step back and move closer to the wall. Then, once he saw a bludgeoning curse head for him he didn't block it yet deflected it into the - admittedly very weak - wall of the room. With the additional power thanks to his deflection it created a hole big enough for him to jump out of backwards and slow his fall before using his emergency portkey to Cormac. Once the mission for Dumbledore started he handed him a portkey to escape if anyone ever got ahold of him, and now that moment had come.

Arthur saw Ron disappear into thin air while his blasting curse ended up hitting the ground. His son had tried to poison him and was working with Dumbledore? What the hell was going on?

With the letter and the bottle of wine in his hands he stepped towards the floo and called "Grimmauld Place."

Kreacher popped into the living room where Sirius was spending the evening with Amy to inform him that they had Lord Weasley asking for entry via the floo. Sirius nodded and both of them got up to greet Arthur, who did seem rather…exhausted and stressed.

Handing Amelia the letter wordlessly Arthur proceeded to walk into the living room and drop onto the couch. He was absolutely done. 

Just seconds after he sat down he heard Amelia scream out in rage, followed by a growl from Sirius.

"Arthur? What is that?"

"The ring you gave me purged the potion immediately and I confronted Ron. He managed to escape via portkey and now I have a hole in my wall. He had an unregistered wand. Here is the bottle."

While Sirius stayed back and looked after Arthur, Amy flooed into Kingsley's home, where she was greeted by Professor Vector. 

"Good evening Septima, I need to talk to Kingsley. It's important."

The head of the DMLE came walking in as soon as he heard Amelia's voice and looked at her questioningly.

"Boss?"

"Here, take that, get it analysed and assemble a taskforce. And you better find Ronald Weasley."

"What happened?"

"Dumbledore happened. He's alive and meddling."

And Kingsley summed the whole situation up with a loud "FUCK!"

As the whole Dumbledore situation was still unclear, Amelia and Sirius decided against alarming Harry and Hermione at this moment, especially because they deserved that quiet time. The potion and the magical signature embedded in the letter confirmed Dumbledore's involvement and the DMLE sent out inquiries to the Austrian Ministry about what was going on at Nurmengard prison, but they didn't reach anyone there until the morning.

Ronald Weasley was nowhere to be found currently, it seemed like he was hiding underneath wards. They tried establishing how he got his wand and how he communicated, but that was unclear too.

Basically, they could right now just wait until the Austrians responded, if Ronald Weasley was somehow found or if Dumbledore made a move. It was a stupid situation.

Percy Weasley, though, started looking into the "Dumbledorians" under the assumption that they had been in contact with the old meddler, and found several strange trips to Austria. Not enough to make an arrest yet, but it was something.

And while all hell seemed to break loose in Wizarding Britain, Harry and Hermione were enjoying their time at Potter Castle. Mione for example loved to spend a lot of time at the coast of the Island. There was a beautiful location where you had to go down a narrow set of stairs down a cliff, a spot that was ideal for reading in the sun.

But to be honest, the biggest amount of time they spent laying around on couches and cuddling (or more), Harry also annoyed the house elves a lot with spending quite some time in the kitchen. His grandfather Fleamont had renovated the old castle's kitchen, so it was more or less modern (though that was a relative term), and Harry did a lot of cooking for and with his girlfriend. They also continued discovering the castle and its secret passages, Harry spent some time talking with Salazar's basilisk living in the catacombs and they did some reading in the library.

Their highlight though probably was what they did on the evening Arthur and Ronald got into their duel, and where they were later glad that no one interrupted them. The two teens were thoroughly enjoying the massive bathtub in the Lord's Chambers. Thank god wizarding plumbing could heat the water via runes, because a hot bath late in the evening was an incredible thing.

After an hour or so they got out of the water and back downstairs to have a lovely dinner the elves had prepared for them. This magnificent dinner was followed by dancing to music in the living room, in front of the fireplace.

All in all, a perfect evening for the two lovebirds that ended with them falling asleep in each other's arms, exhausted and smiling. 

In the morning Amelia received a floo call from the Austrian Minister, a relatively young muggleborn wizard, who seemed a little stressed. 

"Minister Bones!"

"Minister Fuchs, good to hear from you. Did you get our letters?"

"Yes, we did, and we're at a loss here. You know that we are just a small community, with barely any resources for a military strike against Nurmengard, but even if we could, it's impossible. The castle is under such heavy wards, and as you know one can only reach it by apparition. Our curse breakers can't get in there, it has a signature ward."

"Damn. But you can confirm that he's there?"

"We can confirm that something is happening there, but no details. We're working as hard as we can, but without external help we can't do much. I'm sorry."

"Send a petition to the ICW for intervention. That might take a month, maybe more, but if we're held up by the potential situation here then international help would be great. I'll check in with France too, but they are busy with rebel forces in their Caribbean colonies."

"You'll send help once you've cleared the situation in your country?"

"Yes, Minister, we will."

"Thank you. Now I better get back to work, the Parliament probably has some questions I can't answer."

"Good luck."

Amelia was a bit annoyed, she wanted to resign in a few days and now Dumbledore was apparently back, had followers, and the Austrians were not equipped well enough to storm Nurmengard. Sure, once everything was safe here, she would follow Minister Fuchs' cry for help and storm the compound with her aurors, but right now she didn't know how big the threat in Britain was. 

Justin Abbott, son of Lord Abbott and older cousin of Hannah, was another one of the "true believers." Under Albus Dumbledore's reign, everything was better. Muggleborns were somehow accepted - to a degree, not too much please - and purebloods got away with everything. They were still better, a secluded group ruling over wizarding Britain.

He was rather unaware of the chaos in the Ministry right now, but still working down a list of locations to check for Dumbledore. Since he had finished Hogwarts just this June and would get a job from his father, he had no studying or anything else to do aside from checking those spots. With a bit of apparition and a disillusioned brom (the location charm was working merely on a two-dimensional level, so the ring would still heat up if he was fifty feet above ground) he was much faster than Ronald for example - not that he knew of the youngest Weasley boy and his mission.

Currently he was flying across Somerset, still a bit tired, but the cool wind in his face was keeping him from falling asleep. Out of nowhere though his finger started burning for a second, before stopping abruptly. 

Was that…?

Could it really be?

He turned around and yes, there it was. The ring heated up once again, and so Justin started to descend. It didn't take him long to pinpoint exactly where he was. Even in the magical community, the mystery around Glastonbury Tor was fascinating scholars up to this day. He wasn't really familiar with the whole topic, but he knew the spot. 

Once he was on the ground he looked for the exact spot, which was just a few metres in front of the tower ruins on top of the hill. 

Justin grinned.

Oh yes, he would definitely get rewarded by Dumbledore.

Now Justin grabbed the piece of parchment in his pocket and wrote a few lines on it.

Got it. Glastonbury Tor, on top of the hill just before the tower.

- Justin Abbott

Albus had taken the ledger filled with protean-charmed pages with him, and so he saw the book lighting up while having breakfast. He put aside his cup of tea and reached for the ledger to check whose page had lightened up and if it was a false alarm like with Ronald Weasley or if someone had found it.

Once he opened the ledger and saw that it was indeed someone finding the location, he smiled and began writing a message back to Nurmengard. He wanted at least one of the former Death Eaters with him if he encountered anything strange or unforeseeable on Avalon.

Gareth was not really happy right now, both the British and the Austrians were annoying him right now, trying to find their access to the UK, their associates and even trying to enter Nurmengard, and now he had to get the two Death Eaters into the UK. Now with their people probably being watched, he would have to make a risky move and not smuggle them in in secret. If Dumbledore - as he said - really believed that they could move any moment now, he'd have whatever he was looking for by the end of the day, then Gareth would just send Rookwood and Parkinson via illegal portkey and risk detection. The Ministry was probably so busy the two could escape before anyone would notice.

And yes, that actually worked. With them having a manhunt for Ronald Weasley and Albus Dumbledore, looking for incoming (instead of outgoing) illegal portkeys was not a priority, and while a team was dispatched, that happened half an hour later as the aurors were busy knocking at the doors of the Dumbledorians and look for both the old meddler and Ronald Weasley. 

What Gareth hadn't known about those wards notifying the British Ministry of illegal portkeys was that they recorded the magical signature (the signature of the legally arriving travellers, like Dumbledore, wasn't recorded though) and so a very stressed Amelia Bones got a message from a very worried Magical Transportation Official, telling her that Augustus Rookwood and Nathaniel Parkinson portkeyed into the country this morning.

And now, at that point in time, she just had to inform Harry and Hermione of the situation. 

The floo of the Castle was on lockdown, yes, but she circumvented that with a Patronus message asking them to open the floo for her.

Harry was not really amused by that as he and Hermione were having breakfast in bed and had no motivation whatsoever to get up, but if the Minister of Magic wants to talk to you, then you better comply, even as the Master of Death. 

About twenty minutes Harry and Hermione were dressed and awaiting Amy to enter via floo, which she did just minutes later. And she didn't even hesitate to overwhelm them with information.

"I'm sorry for interrupting, but we have a problem. To be blunt, Dumbles isn't dead, he's got allies in the country and Ron Weasley tried to potion Arthur on his orders so he'd have a brainwashed Minister of Magic. We don't know where either of them are, they're fugitives. Oh and both Augustus Rookwood and Nathaniel Parkinson used an illegal portkey to enter the country, presumably from Nurmengard where the old meddler is working from, they're on the run too."

For the first time in her life - probably - Hermione was speechless, and so was Harry. But before either of them was able to reply to Amy in any way, a loud noise, like from a bell, sounded through the castle and a sword hanging over the fireplace started to glow. Harry apparently - having the family magic - knew what that meant and started to get visibly upset.

"No no no no no, don't you dare, you old fucker. He's after Merlin's wand."

"He's after WHAT?"

"Merlin's wand. You know I spoke with him in the afterlife, I know where it is. His grave on the island of Avalon, a magical island. You can only reach it with a special object, I know there's a gemstone, a crown, a dagger and a few more. It acts as a location-based portkey and brings you to the shore from which you can cross the water. Without the item it's a normal place and you won't even see the island, it had something to do with the objects having magical crystals from Avalon embedded."

Now he got them even more confused, so Harry explained again. Those items, embedded with crystals coming from Avalon, were portkeys that only worked from one spot. They took you to the shore from which you could take a boat to Avalon. This shore was magically hidden and just visible if you had the item with you. That was how you got onto Avalon.

"And why do we hear this ringing sound, Harry?"

"Because Avalon falls under the protection of Lord Gryffindor. Get me Sirius and Remus, oh and Filius too. I need some duellers, then we take my portkey."

And while Amelia sent for those three, Albus Dumbledore greeted Justin Abbott at Glastonbury Tor before sending him back home and promising him his reward once the mission was completed.

Just minutes later, Albus' favourite two Death Eaters apparated to him, everyone now in anticipation of what would happen. They knew he was after Merlin's wand, and neither of them had any intention of fighting him for it. He was still stronger than either of them, and even together they failed to take him down. Besides, he was a man that valued knowledge and power even more than the Dark Lord, and he was and would be adored, not feared. Under such a - stable - government with them in the DoM etc. was the best that could happen to those two scholars. No more murder and torture, no more running, but a steady ministry job at the highest level and access to everything.

So they followed Dumbledore. Rookwood to have his post back and get back into research, and while Nathaniel wanted the knowledge too, he also wanted a reunion with his family. And from first-hand experience they could tell that Dumbledore could do that.

On the spot where the rings with the location charms started glowing, both put a hand on Dumbledore's shoulders and he reached out for the gem in his pocket, which did indeed start glowing.

Just moments later the portkey pulled them away.

Albus opened his eyes and couldn't believe it.

And Augustus, well, he started bursting out in laughter.

Notes:

So, anyone care to take a guess what's so funny that Augustus bursts out laughing?

Anyway, hope you liked that chapter, let me know in the comments. Until next week :)