Chapter 182

"Safe!?" Harry's indignant voice reached a new height of pitch. "How am I supposed to keep him safe!? He's planning to jump off a tower!"

"Ah. That little stunt. I do not think you will have any issues with that Harry," Dumbledore said, making Harry seriously question his sanity, "I would recommend trying to discourage him, and if that is not possible, I'm sure Miss Hedwig would easily be able to keep him safe. Again, I say to you that I do realize that I am asking too much of you Harry, but keep in mind that you have unprecedented mobility in and around the school, and that you are one of the best spellcasters Hogwarts has seen in a century. I have complete trust in you."

Ping!

Quest Alert!

Keep Lockhart alive and awesome-looking until the end of January!

Reward,

50,000 Exp

10 stat points

Skill book!

Failure,

Possible death amongst the Hogwarts students

YES/NO?

It took Harry a few silent moments of consideration, before he simply nodded to Dumbledore and pressed yes onto the quest.

The headmaster gave him a smile before he waved his wand. The suitcase, that had been sitting on the table a bit off to the side, shrunk to the size of a matchbox. Dumbledore stood up, pocketed the now tiny suitcase, pulled out a travelling cloak from one of the claw footed desk's many drawers and made his way over to the large arched window.

"So you are really leaving?" Harry asked, getting up from his own chair and following him.

"Indeed I am Harry," the Professor replied.

"You could stay in the school, hidden," Harry proposed, thinking of the Room of Requirement, "The Governors would never realize it."

Dumbledore shook his head, "I would not be of much use Harry. While my skills with magic are…forgive my lack of modesty…quite considerable, they are useless against a foe that I cannot even sense. I would be of much more help trying to find a way to break whatever form of Fidelius the heir is using, and finding a way to protect the students of my school. Besides, this little gap of time proves to be an invaluable period for myself to investigate the whereabouts of our mutual not-quite-dead acquaintance."

It took a second for Harry to realize who he was talking about, "Voldemort," he whispered comprehendingly.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said, waving his wand and sending the pensieve flying back into its cabinet before opening the window behind him. A majestic looking Fawkes glided into the office, and flew a few circles around the office, trilling an uplifting greeting to Harry.

Dumbledore put on his travelling cloak, and his phoenix companion alighted on his shoulder.

There was a gentle smile on the old man's face as he tipped the brim of his hat to Harry, "And thus Harry, I must take leave of you and Hogwarts, at least for now. Good luck my boy."

"Wait!" Harry hurriedly said, "Why? Why tell me all this…how do you even know that I'm not the heir? How do you know you can trust me?"

There was a short pause before Dumbledore said anything. His eyes noticeably flicked over to Harry's right hand before his smile turned mischievous, and said, "I have a very good feeling that you already know the answer to that Harry. Goodbye."

With a melodious trill from Fawkes, the Professor and his phoenix burst into flames and disappeared from the office. Harry looked around at the empty office, before he brought up his right hand and looked at it.

On the middle finger, innocuously glinting against the firelight, rested the golden ring form of Gandiva the bow.

It took Harry a few more moments to pull himself together and finally reach the conclusion that Dumbledore knew more about his…extra-normal skills than he had ever expected him to.

After reaching that particular conclusion, Harry decided to immediately wake Hedwig; who had been sleeping blissfully in his pocket through this entire ordeal; and immediately took her help to flame back directly to the Ravenclaw boy's dorm, where he had almost instantaneously been swarmed by his dorm-mates, curious as newborn foxes.

Finding out the reason Dumbledore called him was pretty much the only thing that was on their minds.

"He just wanted to let me know that Fawkes won't be able to help me take care of Hedwig anymore," Harry told his curious house-mates, "Gave me a few tips and all, nothing much"

They took some persuading, but they finally relented and let him be. A few hours later, four of the five boys in the dormitory were fast asleep.

Harry lay awake in his bed, full of nervous tension and energy. His mind was continuously creating, considering and dismissing various grim worst case scenarios.

The school was up against an enemy that not even the most powerful wizard of the age could detect, and the only thing that he knew of that was protecting the school from a killing spree was the reputation of a fraud writer.

Bugger.

Lockhart could somehow get hurt, or he could somehow screwed himself up in such a way that it could become blindingly obvious that he was a fraud, or heck, the heir could just decide that Lockhart wasn't a viable threat any more. An enemy that no one could see, hear or sense in any way…It wasn't exactly hard to see the many ways this entire thing could go tits up.

With a loud huff, Harry sat up in his bed.

He needed to do something. Keep himself a bit occupied. Lying here doing absolutely nothing and letting all the depressing thoughts and scenarios wash over him was doing more harm than good. He had to do something productive with his time.

Pulling up his skill window, Harry scrolled through, looking for skills that needed to be worked on, taking mental notes on how he could use his IDs at night to train up a bit. A quick look at his stat window showed him that he was incredibly close to levelling up.

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