After seeing Dumbledore at the head table, I wasn’t able to focus on anything else for the rest of the evening. I barely remembered to clap when Sarah was sorted into Ravenclaw. Hell, I almost missed the obvious frustration in the family when she refused to sit next to Sabah. While that tension was going to be a major issue moving forward, I didn’t know how to fix it, nor did I have the motivation to do so while we were being stared down by the most powerful mage of the century.

With all of these thoughts running through my head, I realized I couldn’t even taste the feast. In fact, I had to stop myself from thinking about popping away every time he turned his gaze to study us. Yet, as we cleaned up and were ushered towards the dormitories, nothing happened.

No summons.

No message.

Not even any additional visual interrogations, as he simply left with the rest of the teachers.

Had he managed to read our minds from across the great hall?

Did he already know everything and was just watching us squirm? I doubted I had been able to hide how nervous I was, and that might be all the proof he wanted.

Bloody Hell… this world wasn’t even cannon, maybe he had a technique I had never even considered.

I mean, with how hard we had been studying to guard our minds, I had assumed we would have been able to at least detect his attempts at Legilimency even if making eye contact wasn’t required in this world. While not a great plan, we didn’t actually have to defend ourselves from mind reading if we just ran away.

Yet none of my girls, nor apparently the golden trio, had indicated they felt even the slightest brush against their minds.

Really, I didn’t know what to think. Why was he suddenly so interested in us after all this time?

Was this because of what we did last year? But then why didn’t he study us last year?

Did he somehow connect us to the events on Yamatai?

That seemed unlikely, but if it wasn’t Yamatai or what happened last year then what had changed?

Was he simply worried because of how close we had become to Holly? She was arguably the chosen one if the prophecy could be taken at face value.

Maybe he had heard about the progressing friendship. We hadn’t exactly told Holly and Ginny to keep our friendship a secret from the rest of the Weasleys and Molly would have absolutely talked with Dumbledore. I mean, Ginny’s mother seemed to worship the ground he walked on. Then again, most of Britain did at this point in the story. Come to think of it, it was only after the end of Holly’s fourth year, when the newspaper and ministry attempt to destroy Dumbledore’s reputation, that people started to doubt him.

So did someone in the ministry give him information about us?

I winced. Or maybe he found out what we did to Petunia Evans since, just like we had suspected, she had started the divorce proceedings to leave Vernon. I hadn’t thought about that, but then again how would Dumbledore have heard about the divorce? I only knew because I had Dobby spying on them.

As we climbed the stairs to head to our common room, my mind considered even more unlikely scenarios. Did he somehow detect that we had contacted Sirius Black? I had moved him through our cottage in Hogsmeade, but if he had, why hadn’t he called the Aurors?

I blinked with an even worse thought. Did he somehow detect the changes to Tom’s soul fragment after Holly’s purification bath? Did he then deduce that we could manipulate souls?

I felt my panic continue to rise because, in the end, I didn’t know. I had been playing under Dumbledore’s nose and I had forgotten something I really should have remembered. Dumbledore was the only man that Tom actually feared. Plus, while we had gotten a LOT better and more powerful since last year, that was only a single year of growth. A single year of growth since being nearly wiped out by a mere memory of school-aged Tom, in a body he didn’t fully control.

I shook my head as I moved up the stairs, we would need contingencies. I had screwed up, but we could still salvage this.

Splitting with first the Ravenclaw girls who headed towards their own dorm and then the Gryffindor girls, I walked up the stairs to my own dorm room. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I walked in only to find Scabbers the rat being fussed over by a somewhat irritated Ron.

And that was another thing that I didn’t know how to deal with. We all wanted him caught, but we also didn’t want the investigation to blow back on us. The last thing we needed was more attention. Yet, I was tired of sleeping with a grown-ass man pretending to be a rat in the room.

Shaking my head, I put it all a side for now. I didn’t have the focus to come up with any ideas while I was this worked up. Better to sleep tonight and come at it when I could focus. I mean, I had options, right? Maybe I could learn the animagus detection charm or the animagus reversal transfiguration. I mean, it would be pretty weird that I knew them, since they were sixth year spells, but maybe if I made it clear I was really interested in studying to eventually be an animagus and asked for help…

I sighed, I just needed to sleep. I could try to think of ways of getting him caught publicly enough to get Sirius free while keeping attention away from us later.

Yet, despite all of my fears about Dumbledore, none of us were summoned to the headmaster’s office. Hell, not even the trio had even seen Dumbledore during the first month and a half of classes. True, Dumbledore didn’t talk to Holly too often either, but I would have expected him to at least keep an eye on us.

I felt like I should have been relieved, but honestly the waiting was almost worse. What did he know and what was he going to do?

On the other hand, having a competent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was wonderful. Better yet, he agreed to teach all of us the Patronus charm… well, after a lot of begging. Yet, despite being obviously overwhelmed to see my entire Family, the trio, Neville, Hannah, and about a dozen other students who overheard our plans, at his door he followed through with lessons every other Saturday.

Unfortunately, I was again disappointed to realize that, just like in the books, Lupin was still not talking to Holly about her parents. Watching it in our lessons, I realized it was something that was really bothering me. I mean, if I had friends close enough to call brothers, I would hope they would at least stop by occasionally to make sure my kids were ok. I mean, even if he couldn’t visit, writing a letter or a birthday gift wouldn’t have been too hard. Then, even if he couldn’t do that, I would have hoped he would tell them he knew me to build that connection.

I shook my head clear, I needed to focus. No time to think about the failures of the eternally melancholy man. This week was the first time we were planning on bringing Sarah into our full dueling practices.

In what should have been pretty obvious after only a few weeks of study, despite our attempts to help, she didn’t have anything besides a tickling, levitation, and lumos spell to work with. Yet while her spell roster was limited, she was both ruthless in her attempts to use them and more than happy to duck and dodge to get in close to try physical attacks. While the wizards would have considered it fighting dirty, it was about all she could do to us at the moment. However, the fact she instantly got competitive enough to try those tricks either said good things about her effort to catch up or bad things about her opinions of us… or both. Still, while she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of winning for a bit longer, I was still impressed with her work ethic.

It was towards the end of the day that the trio arrived to join for practice. They had decided to have some fun at Hogsmeade this morning, which made sense, Hermione’s 18th birthday was yesterday after all. We had all gotten her a few of the most unusual books we could find along with a cake we had requested from Dobby. However, there was a bit of tension between us that I didn’t fully understand and I didn’t have time to look into.

As the trio put down their bags and started stretching for our practice I ended my practice with Luna. It wasn’t the trio’s first time joining us for dueling practice, they had started at the end of last year, but they had gotten a lot more invested this year for what was probably some fairly obvious reasons. I mean, getting involved in a literal jungle war to help a childhood friend then hearing that Holly was destined to fight Tom seems to have kicked them all into high gear.

However, all three looked a little surprised, seeing Taylor and Ahri going at each other with a lot more advanced spells than we should have known as second years. I realized we hadn’t shown them off before now so it must have surprised them.

Hell, Holly and Ginny might not even know some of those. Last year we had studied ahead and gotten quite a ways into our second year material, but through the summer we hadn’t stopped. I expected that we had gotten a good way through the third year material, with a few spells picked out of the fourth. Obviously, Hermione probably still had us beat because she lived up to her book-self in being a walking spell encyclopedia, but we were likely making progress in catching up to her level.

As they lined up with Ginny going against Sabah and Hermione against Luna I smirked. The trio may have been more developed magically, but Ahri, Luna, Sabah, and Taylor in particular dueled way above their apparent weight classes.

The problem was Holly. Despite our overall greater variety of spells, experience dueling, and aggressive attitude… we couldn’t beat her one on one.

Oh, I am sure we might have stood a chance if we ambushed her and went straight to our lethal options, but fundamentally we didn’t have the power to stop her or bring her down directly. She also seemed to have a sixth sense for surprise attacks, which made Ahri’s illusions much less effective. I wasn’t sure how she was doing it. It might have been her magic protecting her, it might have been her instincts in an abusive home, it might have been her quidditch skills, or hell, it might have been the prophecy for all I knew. Regardless, she was good, damn good.

Her shields took longer to crack, while her shield breakers instantly shattered whatever we could throw up. It was both frustrating and disappointing. Were we really that weak? Even Luna, the strongest of our Family, wasn’t able to deal with her at anywhere near an even level. In fact, it seemed even more lopsided than my memories of our relative power levels last year.

I was a little happier to find that Ginny and Hermione were similarly overwhelmed by Holly, if not to the same degree. It made me a little less bad for myself when there were others struggling to even scratch her, even if it didn’t solve the mystery. Was this because Tom’s soul had been weakened, thus making her magic stronger? Was this because she was hitting some sort of magical growth spurt? Or was her determination now that she knew the prophecy somehow pushing her?

I was curious, but I didn’t feel it was right to ask. Instead, I teamed up with Ahri to slowly whittle her down. As strong as she was, she could only really shield and dodge Ahri’s attacks through the illusions while I kept up the long range pressure from the side. In the end, despite everything, she was still a third year and battlefield transfiguration capable of shaping and controlling the environment was beyond even her… for now.

As we finished up, I decided to bring up the elephant in the room again before we headed off to lunch.

“Does anyone have any new ideas on what to do to get Pettigrew caught and Sirius cleared?”

Holly grimaced. “I wish you would tell us where he is right now.”

I shook my head. “I have told you that he is hiding as an animal on the school grounds, but I want us to actually have a plan before I say anymore. We need to find a way of getting the Aurors called here to capture him, especially without letting everyone know we have seers. I don’t want him to get spooked and flee before we get the chance to capture him so any strange behavior around him would probably be noticed.”

Amy spoke up next. “What about an anonymous letter to someone in law enforcement?”

Hermione shook her head. “I thought about it, but unless you go to Hogsmeade to rent an owl, they will know it is from the school. Plus they might just ignore it if you just send it to the Auror department without a name.”

Sabah was the next to ask. “What if we send it to the head of the department directly? Wouldn’t Amelia Bones see it then?”

Once again, Hermione shook her head as she answered. “I wondered about that as well. Or, well more specifically, I wondered why the Aurors didn’t just send Sirius Black a letter with a tracking charm. Turns out that virtually everyone that is born in the magical world has a mail redirection ward on them. They are intent-based, so people who know you personally can send you letters”

I blinked in surprise. “Really?” That was one of the conspiracy theories in a lot of fanfictions. It was used to explain why Holly got virtually no mail from anyone despite how famous she was. Even Hermione seemed to get more mail from the public at large than Harry in the books.

To my side, most of my girls were also surprised, but Hermione just nodded. “It is something done to just about everyone to keep them safe from cursed letters or items.”

I felt my mouth hanging open and closed it before speaking. “I guess, that makes sense.” Honestly, it was something I really should have thought of. “If you were a terrorist trying to hurt a family during a war, the equivalent of a mail bomb with an owl who could track you wherever you went is perhaps the most straightforward way to get to them.”

Everyone winced, including me. This world had its own version of the IRA with its own bombings.

Trying to move the conversation along, I turned to Hermione. “What do Muggleborns do?”

Hermione looked a little indignant. “Apparently they are usually told about them eventually, but often it is after someone gets cursed.”

I frowned, was that why after getting exposed to undiluted bubotuber pus, we didn’t hear about the mail again after that… then again, maybe the magical world worked differently in the books.

I turned and asked Hermione. “What if we contacted someone directly, then asked for some sort of oath to leave us out of it.”

Hermione bit her lip, but Ginny spoke up next. “If you are serious about making sure you can’t be tracked then it wouldn’t work. No one would take an unbreakable vow to someone they don’t know, and just about any other type of oath could be broken after visiting a curse breaker.”

That was interesting enough for me to interject. “Is that why no one has tried to ensure that none of the people in the Wizengamot or Auror office were Death Eaters in the war? That anyone even suspected of being a Death Eater wasn’t forced to take a vow that they wouldn’t use the unforgivables or kill Muggles or Muggleborns.”

Ginny looked uncomfortable. “Well, sorta.” After a moment where she paused, obviously trying to decide how to continue, she explained. “The thing you need to understand is that it is the old families that hold almost all the power in our world. And those are both the type of people would never accept being compelled to any sort of vow or restriction and the ones able to block it from happening. Even the ‘light’ families would balk at the idea of being forced to take an oath like that.”

This was more or less what I expected, but it led into my next question. “I probably should have know, but while we are on the subject, why didn’t all of the trials just use veritaserum then? A truth serum should have ensured no one escaped justice or was falsely imprisoned.”

Ginny sighed. “It is hard to get permission to use veritaserum on a suspect. It is almost unheard of for it to be used on Purebloods. I think they usually give some sort of answer about preserving their family legacies and magic, but my Dad says even if they could, most of the people just bribed someone to have their case dismissed for insufficient evidence before they could be questioned.”

Again, that was more or less what I expected.

Ahri’s tails were waving back and forth in agitation as she asked. “But what about the Rat?”

I winced that would probably be enough for Holly to realize who Peter was, I hadn’t wanted to share that without a plan. The last thing I needed was Holly trying to take revenge for her parents herself. “We still need a way of bringing him to the Aurors without attracting attention to ourselves.”

From behind us a panel opened up, and it felt like my heart tried to rip itself out of my chest as I watched none other than Dumbledore walk out smiling a little smugly eyes twinkling. “Maybe I could help with that.”

I felt my blood run cold and my adrenaline spike. Dumbledore was here, wand out, and walking towards us. Before he could say anything else, I jumped up and yelled, “Back!”

We had been drilling this since the beginning of the summer and my Family shot into action.

Ahri threw up illusions that showed us standing up and backing away from where we were. However, instead of doing that, each of us threw ourselves to the sides before casting cannon blasts sounds, blinding lights, and horrible smells back at the Headmaster. ‘Back’ was the command for non-direct attacks, ‘Disengage’ involved a distraction with direct non-lethal attacks, while ‘Retreat’ was throwing everything we could down rage as we ran.

The trio who were confused, but unwilling to get involved, threw themselves to the side to make sure they weren’t hit in the crossfire while Holly put up a shield.

Starting to open a portal behind us to our cottage in Hogsmeade I yelled out, “5 more seconds.” It was frustrating to be this slow, but I still didn’t know how to get past the Hogwarts wards faster than that.

As I glanced behind me I noticed something that made the rest of the remaining blood drain from my face. Dumbledore was standing there making little flicks with his wand while just looking at each of us amused, Elder wand in hand.

I swallowed and made my decision. He wasn’t trying to hurt us so we wouldn't attack any harder, instead I just yelled “GO!”

Luna and Dinah looked at me amused, but jumped through the portal followed by Sarah, Sabah, Taylor, and Amy. Ahri threw out several more illusions while I threw some Peruvian instant darkness powder in front of us before following her through the portal and snapping it shut.

I was breathing hard as I looked around, wondering how long we had to grab our things and leave before the Headmaster tracked us down, when I felt the tale-tell yank of a portkey activating.

I only had a few seconds to wonder why my shirt had suddenly become a portkey before I felt myself landing in a pile with what had to be the rest of my girls.

Then I had barely processed that before I found myself staring up at the smirking face of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian -Bloody- Dumbledore.

Even through the panic, I had to admit he had gotten us good. The only reason I wasn’t in a complete blind panic was that I could still yank our soul portals close, leaving these bodies behind and be safe in our pocket home. Yet we only had four bodies to swap into back in the pocket home. With how careful we would have to be, it might be several days where my girls would be stuck in their gems while we either popped away to another world or carefully stole enough biomass to make another set of bodies for everyone. That was to say nothing of the lost opportunity of studying in this magical university, or the people we might be forced to leave behind, namely Sherrel, Sirius Black, and Lin. Yet I would do it before I let Dumbledore wipe our minds or something equally horrible.

As we stared at each other, my finger on the metaphorical button to abandon these bodies, Dumbledore just seemed to wait for me to watch me curiously.

Seeing my confusion and weariness, Dumbledore’s smile just got wider. “Everyone seems to forget that I have been here at Hogwarts for nearly 70 years. That is 70 years to learn her secrets, on top of the secrets I found here as a student.”

That answered the questions on how he snuck up on me, but how did he get us back here so easily despite everything we did to escape?

Apparently noticing my next question on my face or just expecting it, since I certainly wasn’t making eye contact, he continued. “They also seem to forget I am experienced enough to make just about anything a portkey. Even something that someone else is wearing.” His face looked like butter wouldn’t even melt in his mouth, and I felt my eye twitch.

At that point, his face changed as he actually looked somewhat impressed. “I also should be the only one who can make a portkey or anything similar to bypass the Hogwarts wards… so I have to admit that your display, while unnecessary, was quite impressive.”

That got me to at least swallow, even if I didn’t say anything.

Our stare-off went on for a few more seconds before I noticed Luna had gotten up and was pouting at Dumbledore.

That care-free stance was the sight that got me to relax, ever so slightly. I took a deep breath now that I actually remembered to breathe. “So… uh… Headmaster Dumbledore, what are you here for… and why did you feel the need to come through a secret passage and scare us all half to death.”

The chuckle Dumbledore gave actually made me relax a bit more. From what I could tell, it seemed like the chuckle of a man who was enjoying a bit of a practical joke. It also didn’t hurt that I was beginning to realize that he could have done just about anything to us while he was watching from the secrete passage or when we were throwing up our distractions, yet instead of cursing us in the back or binding us, he had simply surprised us and then asked if we needed help.

I swallowed, but I wasn’t sure where to start, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when Luna made the first move. She practically skipped closer to the Headmaster before she stopped and held out her open hand. Yet, despite everyone (except Dumbledore) having gotten to know Luna to one degree or another, I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who was confused. Not even Dumbledore seemed to know what she was asking for.

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That lasted only a few more moments, as her pouting cheeks got wider before she explained. “Everyone always says you offer them a lemon drop when you talk with them. I wanted to see if they have any sillisylphs inside… and to see if they taste good.”

That actually seemed to please Dumbledore, as he turned to face her fully and smiled. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a small number of lemon drops and handed Luna one before raising his eyebrow at the rest of us.

My first inclination was to refuse them, but then again, expecting to be potioned by candies he handed us was silly when he could simply have them put in our food any time in the last month and we wouldn’t have been the wiser. After all, We hadn’t even learned detection charms for that sort of thing yet.

Thinking back, that might have been a little foolish of us, based on how many fanfictions had Dumbledore creating loyalty and compulsions drafts to control the student body. Yet, on the other hand that was a little silly. If he had been doing it regularly to the entire Hogwarts student body, he would have been caught by now and while he could have theoretically been potioning only Holly and her friends, I was pretty sure that Luna or Dinah would have seen that coming.

Deciding that we were at his mercy anyway, I accepted a lemon drop before popping it into my mouth. To my surprise, I found that they were actually pretty good. Maybe a bit on the sour side for my personal taste, but it was definitely something I wouldn’t mind trying again.

Clearing my throat again before sighing, I gestured towards the chairs we had moved to one side of the room and asked. “Uh… should we take a seat then?”

Dumbledore smiled, eyes twinkling, and nodded so we all walked over and started pulling out chairs. I probably wasn’t completely over my shock, so when Dumbledore simply waved his wand and his chair became a high-backed modern recliner, I paused for only a moment before continuing to arrange our chairs.

Now once again staring at each other across a rough circle with the trio taking up positions between the two of us, I realized I probably would end up starting. Dumbledore seemed like the type of person who would simply out-wait the other side if given the chance.

Clearing my throat, I tapped my fingers across my knee for a moment, trying to decide how to approach this. He was obviously being accommodating and yet despite him obviously giving us the benefit of the doubt here by not being more aggressive in his interrogation, it was still a bit of an interrogation. Plus, for as accommodating as he was being, I still had trouble trusting him. I mean, almost all fanfictions of the Harry Potter books had him as a sociopathic ‘greater good’ manipulator. It seemed harsh until you really sat down and thought about how many times he either didn’t do something that he should have or controlled information others really needed to know.

Yet, we were at his mercy now. As I had already determined, the only thing to get us out of here was the equivalent of a panicked ejection from this reality and I was loathe to leave this school to burn from Tom’s second war if I could stop it. We had met too many people here that would probably die if we did nothing to not at least try to help.

Realizing that, I took a breath and started. “Headmaster Dumbledore… you obviously realize now that we… have some skills we haven’t shown, and you probably suspect that we have some information we haven’t shared.” He nodded giving Ahri in her human form with her multiple tails an amused look, so I continued. “Well, that is true, however… to be blunt, while we really want to help Holly and her friends… well, we aren’t really sure we can trust you.”

Despite my worries, he actually looked pleased at this. I watched as his eyes twinkled and he smirked as he stroked his beard. “I see, that is a problem, young man.”

I frowned at the non-answer, but seeing as he was taking this fairly well, I just decided to start laying it all out. “Ignoring issues like why you weren’t the secret keeper for the Potters and Longbottoms in the war. Why you didn’t stop the Death Eater from hearing the prophecy? Why you let the Death Eaters run free at the end of the last war. Why you put Holly with her aunt and uncle when Alice Longbottom, Holly’s godmother was still alive and well at the time? Why you didn’t check in on Holly more often as she was growing up? Especially as it was an emotionally abusive household. Then why would you send her back when we know she would have asked to go somewhere else? Why don't you stop or limit Snape’s obvious emotional abuse against anything not wearing green? Why don’t you stop those students obviously pushing pure-blood propaganda? Why you didn’t publicize that Tom is a half-blood at best? There are also questions on why you didn’t detect old Tom Moldyshorts on the back of Quirrel’s head. Why the so-called protections on the Philosopher’s Stone was so bad, the first years got through it? Why it took teenagers to find the chamber of secrets and stop the attacks….”

I paused as I realized that I was almost yelling as the ridiculousness of everything going on came up. I was surprised, but I realized that it was all starting to hit me now that I was here. It wasn’t just a story anymore, I had actually started to care for Holly, Hermione, Ginny, Luna and even some of our casual friends in class.

Looking back, I noticed Dumbledore’s eyes were wide, shoulders back in shock. “I… I am… sorry.” He swallowed and I watched as he slumped as if the world was all falling down on his shoulders and he sighed out long and low. “I am not sure anyone has pointed out how many failures I have made so clearly before… I could explain how busy I have been… but that really isn’t an excuse.”

Biting my lip I decided I had to continue, even if I made sure to keep my voice calm and even this time. “Look, leaving all of that to the side, we have had access to a few Seers. They have seen most of the future if we do nothing and it isn’t good. But before we get into all of that there are things that need to be fixed right now. First and foremost, Sirius Black is innocent. The traitor is here at Hogwarts and is a man everyone thinks is dead named Peter Pettigrew. Yes, that Peter Pettigrew.”

I watched as Dumbledore breathed in sharply, in obvious shock. “Are you sure?”

At my nod, he slumped back down and I kept explaining. “If we hadn’t stepped in, Sirius Black would have eventually tracked Peter down before the truth came out. However, in the confusion, Peter would have escaped. Snape tries to get Black kissed by a dementor, not listening to anyone who tried to tell him the truth. Under your direction, Holly and Hermione would save Sirius but he would have to return to life on the run. Meanwhile, Peter realizes that he had no remaining safe harbor here in Britain and leaves and goes out to find and help his master, the dark wanker. He succeeds in resurrecting him in just shy of two years from now… and you don’t do much to stop him.”

Again, I tried to keep my voice light, but I couldn’t stop it from getting a little accusing towards the end.

Yet as I talked, I could actually see the light in Dumbledore’s eyes dim. When I said Tom would return, I saw him visibly flinch.

There was nearly a minute of silence before Holly spoke up. “Am I really prophesied to have to fight him to the death?”

Dumbledore’s eyes widened. “Who told you that?”

I winced, but I wasn’t sure if Dumbledore noticed as Holly again burst to her feet and started to pace. “So it is true! Why the hell didn’t you tell me. I… I…”

This time my winced harder. Apparently, she hadn’t actually asked Dumbledore about what I had said until now. Maybe she had forgotten with all the excitement around the Chamber of Secrets and then Sirius Black… or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Sighing long and deeply Dumbledore looked all of his 113 years. “Yes, I had hoped to shield you from all of this for a little longer, let you have a little more of a childhood before you were forced to fight. However, as far as I can tell, yes, you are destined to confront one another until one of you has emerged the victor.”

I had to interrupt. “The bit of the prophecy we saw specifically said either would die at the hand of the other. Why can’t someone act as Holly’s hand and step in?”

Dumbledore rubbed his forehead. “That sort of symbolic transfer is not something prophecies usually allow for, but I suppose it is possible.”

I frowned and there were a few moments of silence as everyone thought that over.

Turning towards Dumbledore I decided I just needed to ask. “So, if Sirius Black was fighting with you all in the last war, why didn’t anyone ensure he got a trial?”

Dumbledore frowned, eyebrows furrowed. “You said he is innocent, but now you are saying he didn’t even get a trial.”

At my nod, he rubbed his forehead before slowly explaining. “I don’t know anything about the trial. I was not involved with any of those. Between my own efforts to find the remaining death eaters and protecting the school, which was still in session at the time, I just didn’t have time.”

Hermione was the next to ask a question. “But if you knew the prophecy was either about Holly or Neville and wanted to keep them safe, why weren’t you their secret keeper.”

Dumbledore smiled sadly at Hermione before speaking. “It was actually the same reason. I was just too busy, and both the Potters and Longbottoms assured me they could take care of it themselves.”

He once again visibly aged as he contemplated the past staring out into the distance. “I didn’t get involved with the trials, I wasn’t their secret keeper, and I didn’t even know to follow up with Sirius.” He sighed again. “So many lives lost, so much suffering…”

Waiting a moment to see if he would snap himself out of it, I considered what to ask about next. Deciding that I still wanted answers, I cleared my throat before asking my next question to get his attention back. “I guess that makes sense. School was in session when Tom attacked the Potters, and you wouldn’t want to have left the castle undefended for long. But that still leaves what happens now. Since you are the Chief Warlock, can you either clear Sirius’s name or at least get a trial for him?”

Dumbledore sighed again. “No, not directly. The Chielf Warlock position is more of a ceremonial role. I don’t just dictate policy like you seem to think. Power like that is firmly in the hands of the Minister of Magic. I believe if I had some sort of evidence I could point to, people would listen to me if I asked for them to review the court records. However I suspect without that, I might just be ignored. Especially with Mr Malfoy advising our dear minister so closely.”

I had to ask. “Then why don’t you run for that office? Surely you could do a better job than Fudge in preparing the public for the return of Tom.”

“I probably could, young man, but to be blunt… I am old. I don’t want to spend my remaining life trying to make backroom deals, often with the very men who would flock to Tom’s banner if he returned.”

I had to admit that was a good reason but I had to ask. “Then why do you have three jobs. If you want to leave it all behind and focus on teaching, why don’t you quit those other jobs.”

Dumbledore looked a little amused. “What makes you think I haven’t tried? This is something you will learn as you grow up. As the saying goes, good work is most often rewarded with more work. I am not even able to attend all the meetings, with either the ICW or the Wizengamot, and they still haven’t decided to sack me. Plus, I am still able to do some good when I can attend.”

That actually got a few chuckles from around the room.

Sighing, I hesitated only a few more moments before I decided to bring the topic around to the beginning again. “As I said, the real betrayer was Peter Pettigrew. Peter is a rat animagus. He blew up the street and hid when Sirius confronted him. He has been living as a pet rat, first with Percy Weasley and now with Ron. He is actually in the Gryffindor second-year boy’s dorm room as we speak.”

Instantly Ginny went deathly pale as she processed what I just said. I didn’t blame her, the fact she had been living with a Death Eater moving around unrestricted in her house for basically her entire life was pretty horrific. Even if he hadn’t done anything, I was pretty sure Ginny would have changed clothes in front of the rat at some point. It was a kind of violation that I had trouble imagining. Finding out you were vulnerable in a place you considered home would probably make you feel even more violated.

Despite his usually relaxed demeanor, Dumbledore did seem to get visibly upset at this revelation and, after a moment, I felt the stirrings of his magic being brought up. Once again, it was almost incredible at how strong he was. Even without the fabled Elder Wand in play, just in sheer magical might, it felt like we were small oaks looking up at a towering redwood. Yet the display only lasted a second or two before it was gone again.

Dumbledore seemed to breathe deeply for a few more seconds before he turned and looked at me again, waiting.

Yet I didn’t really want to fill that silence. I wanted to see what he would say after all of that.

In the end, it wasn’t either of us that filled the silence. It was Hermione who spoke up next. “Why was he able to enter the castle, Headmaster? Shouldn’t the wards have done something or at least detected him?”

Dumbledore sighed. “As you all know, Professor McGonagall is an animagus. She enjoyes shocking the first years at the beginning of each year after all.”

We all smiled slightly and nodded.

Dumbledore paused and then tilted his head. “What do you know about wards?”

I shrugged, followed by most of the girls. We had obviously started studying them as I really wanted to add them into our pocket home’s defenses, but the intro books we had looked up hadn’t let us get very far. In fact, just like enchanting, they were something that could be incredibly useful moving forward.

Hermione however, actually raised her hand, which visibly amused Dumbledore. “There are fundamentally only three types of wards. Proscription Wards, Permission Wards, Perception Wards. The consequences of breaking those wards can be just about anything, though.”

At his nod, Hermione continued. “Proscription wards make something impossible within the region. This almost always effects everyone in the ward equally, like making it impossible to apparate on Hogwarts grounds. The second is permission wards, it is generally used like a barrier that keeps people out unless they have a key or password. The Perception wards stops others from noticing something about you or lets you perceive something about them.”

Dumbledore nodded. “So therein lies the problem. I can’t forbid animagus from being on the school grounds. Even if I carefully exempted Professor McGonagall, any other visitor would be excluded entry. With how many visitors we have, I can’t create a permission ward with a password or key to control who enters or leaves without a lot of effort and backlash from the public. I suspect they would claim I was turning it into a prison. I can’t even make a ward that blocks the dark mark as Lucius Malfoy is on the school board. I also can’t hide the school without doing the same. The only option left is to monitor intent when they enter the school. In that, Hogwarts has some of the best Wards possible for a public space like this. Yet even that is tricky as I can’t easily monitor all the different emotions of everyone here. If I did, I would get a false positive every time a professor assigned a paper or a student pranked another. However that does mean it is difficult to detect when someone already on the school grounds changes, even dramatic changes if they are done slowly enough.”

I nodded slowly but I couldn’t help but wonder out loud. “Yet shouldn’t there be a way of watching everyone who has such ill intentions?”

Dumbledore nodded, a little twinkle returning to his eye. “There are, you have seen our vast collection of artwork, have you not? Or perhaps you might have noticed the various ghosts who call our halls home? You might have even missed our small little friends, the house elves.”

I blinked and then actually had to facepalm… well DAMN, and we had thought we were being so sneaky too. Apparently, like everyone else who thought they could sneak around behind the professor’s backs, we had forgotten the other monitoring options. This school really didn’t have much privacy at all. Although it did make me wonder. “Then how did Tom and Lockhart move around the last two years?”

Dumbledore sighed, a little of his good mood diminishing. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there are spells to keep house elves away and to temporarily freeze paintings, while the ghosts often ignore things that aren’t clearly wrong.”

Shaking my head, I tried to consider what we had just learned.

Yet as the silence stretched, it was Taylor who decided to speak up. “So what are you going to do now?”

Dumbledore blinked, obviously confused. “You were the ones to bring this to my attention. I figured it would be a good idea to get your opinion first.” He sighed again before popping another lemon drop in his mouth. “As we have just proven, I am not infallible.”

I swallowed. He was willing to let us give the direction we were going to go. That was… generous and not at all what I expected of him. Did he want us to plan something only to let it fail to teach us a lesson?

No, that was pessimistic even for me. I was probably just overwhelmed with how badly we had been underestimating him.

Finally, I sat back and shrugged. “Ok, so we don’t really know… We have been changing things dramatically, so it is sometimes hard to know what to do, and it isn’t like the possible future we saw is much help in these situations.”

Dumbledore interrupted me, a little worried. “... Did Holly not defeat him?”

I winced. “Well, yes, Holly won the war at the end…”

I could see Dumbledore and Holly perk up at that, but I really couldn’t let them think it was a solution we could use. “But only after you are killed, Professor…”

To his credit, Dumbledore didn’t look particularly worried about that, but his face fell as I continued. “Along with a large percentage of the Muggleborns and half bloods in the entire country after they were rounded up into concentration camps, and perhaps a fourth of the students at Hogwarts because the final battle took place here. That is on top of the literal torture those students went through the final year before the battle as the school was being run by Death Eaters.”

The trio and Dumbledore all looked truly horrified and I wished I hadn’t had to spell it out like that.

Breathing in deeply, I looked around. “Our goal is to catch him as he tries to get his body back. We are almost certain he will want to use Holly’s blood in his resurrection ritual to remove his vulnerability to her touch so he will send some of his servants to try to capture her. If we can follow them back, then we can prepare and defeat him permanently before he can establish himself again. We are also considering ways to strip his support base out from underneath him as well, just in case.”

Dumbledore hummed, looking a little worried. “May I ask why you haven’t come to me with this information before now?”

I frowned but had to admit that was a good question. “Well, like I said… we didn’t quite trust you…”

That made Dumbledore pause before he sighed. “I have something to ask, young man.”

As much as I wanted him to just continue his question, I had to admit I was glad he wasn’t calling me ‘Max, my boy’.

“What would it take for you all to trust me? I feel like it would be foolish in the extreme to ignore help freely offered when enemies so surround us.”

I paused and blinked. Swallowing, I turned and looked at my girls. My eyes moved around as I looked at each of them before I came to Sarah and thought about the oaths we had made her take.

Turning back to Dumbledore, I slowly answered. “I am not sure, but I think an oath to not try to harm, thought action or inaction, or control our family. Probably with an oath to explain your plans about Holly to Holly herself… something like that would probably be sufficient. I just don’t know what the wording would have to be. I admire your intelligence too much to believe anything we came up with would really stop you if you meant us real harm.”

Dumbledore looked at me, really studying me through his spectacles, for so long that I had to stop myself from fidgeting. Finally, his smile returned, albeit dimmed. “I see. You care about your… family… deeply which is good.” He studied our faces and despite not feeling any mind reading probes I felt like he was looking into our souls. “I think that you might jump to violence too quickly.” Pausing, Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair. “That said, after all I have seen in my life I understand my self fairly well. I merely don’t want to hurt anyone anymore if I can help it, even as I can admit that my desire to give others second chances has sometimes come back to hurt those I care about.”

Watching, I saw Dumbledore once again turn to look out into the distance, obviously lost in thought.

I turned to look at Amy who tiled her head in confusion. Gesturing, I tried to ask if she would be willing to be a lie detector. After a moment of confusion she realized what I was asking and nodded.

“Headmaster?” That once again popped Dumbledore out of his thoughts. “I am not sure if we are willing to trust you completely, but we would be willing to trust a lot more if you would be willing to let Amy hold your hand while we ask you a few questions. She is able to detect lies as long as she is holding that person’s hand.”

Dumbledore looked surprised and then amused before he nodded. “I don’t see the harm.”

I kept my face blank. Normally, having Amy touching anyone was a checkmate, however the instinctual resistance a person’s magic seemed to have against Amy’s powers made it a lot less of a guaranteed here.

I sat for a few more seconds as Amy moved over her chair and gently touched his hand before I gestured towards Dumbledore. “Do you have any desires or plans to hurt, control, or manipulate me or my Family? Do you have any about Holly, Ginny, or Hermione?”

Dumbledore smiled sadly. “No, nothing other than trying to keep you all safe, letting you learn like young adults should, and trying to make sure you don’t stain your souls with violence and dark magic if I can help it.”

There was a lot to unpack there, but it was a good start. “Were you really too busy to correct any of the issues we talked about before?”

Dumbledore sighed. “As the Muggles say, hindsight is 20/20. I probably could have made time for all of those issues, especially if I had understood what was happening beforehand, but I didn’t, and I didn’t.”

“What about Professor’s Snape and the Slytherin’s bullying Muggleborns?”

There was a wince and some hesitation, but he still answered. “I am most often traveling and I admit I haven’t really looked into it.” He sighed. “I suppose you might already know about the connection between Professor Snape and Holly’s father.” At our nod he continued. “He wasn’t too bad when he started. However, if what you say is true then I suppose Minerva and I have dropped the ball there as well. I will look into it.”

That was pretty good, but I kept pushing. “I understand you had trouble tracking down what was happening second year. We had the direct help of seers, but still struggled. However, during Holly’s first year, why did you make an obstacle course that first years could beat the way to protect the Philosopher's Stone? And why didn’t you detect Tom on the back of Professor Quirrell’s head?”

Dumbledore sighed, but there was a slight twinkle in his eye. “For Holly’s first year, we had to make sure that any students who got into the corridor wouldn’t actually be killed, no matter what. That said, the challenges actually scaled themselves based on the student’s age. Even Hagrid’s dog Fluffy was trained to only bite and restrain. And while true I was blindsighted that Tom came here in person, so-to-speak, concealed by that turban with some truly inspired enchantment, there was something you missed. Why do you think that the Philosopher’s stone was ever here in the first place?”

All of us blinked, but it was Holly that predictably threw up her hands and blurted out. “Why the hell didn’t you tell any of us that then? You even told me that the Flamels were going to die.”

Dumbledore sighed. “No one was supposed to know. I didn’t even tell the professors that the stone was a decoy. What better way to keep Nicolas and Perenelle safe than to make everyone believe the stone was destroyed and the two now deceased?”

Holly looked a little abashed. As much as she probably wanted to know the truth, it was clear she realized she didn’t really have a right to know all of his plans and secrets when not even all the professors knew. Especially not when it endangered one of Dumbledore’s friends.

Dumbledore sighed. “That said, I suspect that Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Flitwick figured it out before the end of the year. On that note, I would like to apologize for the staff as a whole, I suspect our dear Minerva let the fact the stone was fake lead her into ignoring your warning when you came to warn her about Severus stealing the stone. While I am at it, I should also apologize about the detention in the forbidden forest. Again, there was some miscommunication. I gave Minerva the idea to have you walk around the edge of the forest for your detention to make it clear that being out of the castle at night was dangerous. Yet, I suspect Hagrid didn’t understand how far was too far and how dangerous was too dangerous for a first year.

Holly Hermione and Ginny all blinked before looking at each other in confusion. That probably changed those interactions dramatically in their minds.

Dumbledore only paused a moment before he continued. “The stone was just supposed to lead him to find the mirror, which was supposed to hold the thief’s attention long enough for me to arrive and allow me to question him to find out his goals. Like I said, I didn’t think that it was Tom himself. I thought it was just someone either trying to steal the stone for themselves or perhaps at worst take it back to Tom.”

I leaned back and breathed deeply. I still wanted an oath before we trusted him with more of our secrets, but I also felt a little foolish.

Did we really need to avoid authority figures? We had arguably gotten lucky, but with Dumbledore’s help we now could actually do something about the corruption in the wizarding world. Maybe we needed to think through our priorities in contacting the authorities moving forward.

Looking over at Luna, I saw her and Dinah looking at me worried. I would need to follow up with that later.

Deciding to move forward with the original topic I changed the subject. “I don’t really have any good ideas on catching Pettigrew that won’t lead the ministry back to us.”

Dumbledore just waited and so I continued. “In general, we just want him caught in such a way that it displays his dark mark so we can push for questions on Sirius’s guilt. If it is public enough we should be able to get them to reopen that case.”

Dumbledore slowly nodded before he raised an eyebrow. “What were you thinking?”

I gestured towards Dumbledore. “I have five rough ideas. The first is Holly shares the information found on the Maurader’s Map. It shows Peter's name and shouldn’t be able to be faked, well… not directly. Based on what you said, the map probably links into the wards of the school somehow and either perceives what each person's name is or maybe what each person believes their name is… so it probably isn’t proof by itself. Yet, maybe we could get Aurors here to investigate if we let them inspect it.”

Dumbledore looked impressed at the idea, and we had to pause for a moment while he inspected the map, looking more and more intrigued as he did.

After a few minutes, Dumbledore turned back to us and I continued. “The second is the faculty deciding to give a lecture on animagus and asking for a pet to demonstrate the animagus detection spell on. Obviously, either they test is either done directly on Scabbers there, or one of us goes back to our dorm room and does it later. This plan is a bit more dangerous, though, as he might realize he is caught and switch back to human before trying to fight his way out.”

Dumbledore looked particularly unhappy with that idea of putting the students at risk.

“The next idea is that you have the elves ‘Detect’ that something is wrong with Scabbers and they just bring him to you.”

Dumbledore hummed before shaking his head slowly. “That is reasonable, but the ministry won’t take a house elf’s word on where Peter was found or what he was doing.”

I grimaced at the reminder of how badly house elves are usually treated. “We could have a pet inspection and just have one of the professors notice something was wrong.”

Dumbledore just nodded and I finished up. “The final method we considered was just to get Pettigrew and Lupin in the same room as each other and let Lupin get a good look at the rat. He should recognize Pettigrew if he gets the chance to study him carefully.”

There was a hum before Dumbledore nodded. “Those are not bad ideas. But what about finding Sirius to let him know?”

I winced along with all of my girls plus Holly. At Dumbledore’s raised bushy eyebrow, I shrugged. “When you know someone is innocent and starving on the streets while you have the ability to help and heal them without getting caught… well, you take it.”

For the first time in this conversation I saw Dumbledore actually genuinely smile and something in my stomach finally relaxed. I think that proved we really did want to help people here.

That was when I saw the mischievous side of the old man rear-up. “For services to the school and catching a dangerous fugitive we will, of course, have to give you an award for ‘services to the school’.”

I felt my eyebrow twitch and I saw the conflicted faces everyone else was making as well. No one here really wanted to be famous or the center of attention. Especially for something like this. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor I cut in. “Uh… why don’t we talk about the details later.”

Dumbledore chuckled before he looked tired. “You would all have several already… but the board of directors has been blocking them. I suspect that Lucius Malfoy in particular doesn’t want attention on what has happened here in the last two years.”

I nodded before taking a deep breath and nodded to Amy to pay attention. “After that, I would like to speak to you about the connection Tom has with Holly and what we can do about it.”

Dumbledore looked confused before his eyes widened, obviously worried, as he turned to look at Holly and dread in his voice. “Merlin’s Beard… Tom, you didn’t…”

Amy looked at me and shook her head.

That did it. He didn’t know, not until now… maybe other versions of Dumbledore knew before he got Tom’s diary, but apparently, while this one might have suspected, he never got that diary and thus didn’t know until now.

Holly obviously couldn’t stop the questions. “What exactly are you talking about? What is going on?”

I looked at Dumbledore, watching to see how he would handle this.

Dumbledore once again looked like he had aged a decade. “I am sorry my dear. This is something I do not want to be wrong about. As many books as I have read, I do not remember everything. Let me look a few things up before I say anything more.”

That didn’t improve Holly’s frustration, but it only took a few minutes for her to cool back down while we discussed the options for exposing Pettigrew.

As Dumbledore and then the trio walked away after our discussion, I pulled my girls away towards the Room of Requirement. Now that I knew we were being watched, the last thing I wanted to do was to start opening up portals everywhere willy-nilly.

Once we were inside the RoR with the room making a copy of the sitting room from own pocket home, we got back to the questions at hand.

“Ok, first things first. How did he manage to sneak up on us?”

Dinah shrugged. “I think he might be doing something to block me, at least a little. It is hard to get specifics. I can still get general stuff like that he is still very unlikely to attack… or even inconvenience us at the moment, but nothing too detailed”

Luna shrugged as well. “The bee continues to fly around collecting honey, making connections, and attempting to build the hive for the good of all. He is too surrounded by heliospores to get more details, though.”

Taylor grimaced and was obviously kicking herself pretty hard. “There are so many people walking around and secrete passages that I didn’t think to check the walls for an intruder.”

Realizing how badly she was blaming herself, I shook my head. “We have been using that classroom for nearly a year, we all thought it was secure. Plus, if he can get past the seers and wanted to sneak up on us then he also was probably using some sort of invisibility and odor suppression. I suspect you wouldn’t have found him unless you were actively focusing on looking.”

There was silence for a few minutes before I sighed. “Well, we messed up, and it is something we should improve on, but we aren’t perfect. Especially not yet. The good news is, despite what I said in the room, I am moderately comfortable believing that this Dumbledore will be reasonable.”

I sighed slowly and slumped back in my chair. “Dumbledore finding us was something I have been afraid of for quite some time because we really couldn’t do anything to him. I mean, he is beloved, respected, and overwhelmingly powerful. What could we do if he tried to do something to us? well , besides the nuclear option of trying to ambush him and getting incredibly, unbelievably lucky the only thing I can think of to get rid of him would be telling him about the ring horcrux and hoping it would kill him like it did in the books…. But that was also the point in the books where everything seemed to go to hell. So yeah, having an overworked and unaware Dumbledore who was willing to work with us is very nearly the best possible option we could have hoped for on this end.”

We all paused before there was a chorus of nods. Luna only tilting her head briefly. “Well, we could have also not had the Rotfang Conspiracy or the massive cloud of Nargles at the Ministry, but this is pretty good.”

I paused to try to parse that, but as I felt my adrenalin begin to crash, I put it out of mind for now. It could wait for later.

I clapped my hands. “Well, that is that… although I think we should plan on practicing our dueling in the room of requirement from now on. While I like the idea of keeping this room secret for as long as possible, I like the idea of being safe when we practice more. Plus… voyeurs are so unpleasant”

There were some rolled eyes, but there were mostly smiles as we all headed down for lunch.

Interlude Luna:

Luna knew it would hurt Dinah, but this was the best option.

They wouldn’t be here for very much longer, but it would be better afterwards.

Plus she couldn’t help but notice they would be back and with creatures they had never seen before. Maybe the crumple-horned snorkack would be there as well.

Wherever ‘there’ was.

It would be an adventure.

Interlude Sherrel:

Sherrel hummed as she got out of her bath and wrapped a towel around herself.

If she was going to be treating this as her own home like Max had said, she wasn’t going to bother getting dressed unless she wanted to.

As she arrived in the dinning room for breakfast, she took a look around. It was already mid-morning and she had to admit that the light filtering through the kitchen window was moderately pleasant.

Looking to the other side, she noticed that the other man Lin had been taking care of was already in the dining room table.

She couldn’t help but notice that the man was doing a bit of a spit-take at her choice of clothes followed by some not-so-subtle leering, but mama didn’t raise no shrinking violet.

Giving the man a leer back, enjoying his unbuttoned shirt and well toned arms she sat down before the house elf creature popped with some bacon and eggs.

As she dug in she couldn’t help but notice that the man hadn’t actually stopped staring, but he had at least he had moved his inspection up to her face.

Tilting her head, she considered for a few moments… that was pretty good, a lot of men couldn’t tear their eyes from her admittedly amble and perky tits.

Maybe she would give this one a chance, it wasn’t like there was much else to do here in the middle of nowhere.