Green Sludge
Disclaimer : NOT MINE. J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter also WB should get the claim for their movies.
Summary : One shot. What do Dumbledore, Paintings, and a game of Squatter have to do with anything? Read and find out. Not for Dumbledore Lovers.
Hermione walked towards the desk in the study hall, all excited with news, when she heard an almighty shout "Bloody hell Harry, not another drought", as Ron exclaimed disgustedly, and started moving pens of sheep from the board game that he and Harry Potter were so engrossed in that they did not hear Hermione approaching.
As Hermione neared the desk, she could see the game with little plastic sheep heads in coloured squares, and piles of play money, most of it in front of Harry, and asked Harry what the game was that they were playing.
"It's a game called Squatter that Bluey, that red-headed Australian wizard from Darwin brought back from his holidays" Harry explained. "You own a sheep station, and have to buy and sell sheep, shear them, and suffer all the consequences that sheep farmers have to put up with, it's really great".
Hermione stared at her two companions, and wondered to herself just how these two could waste so much study time on trivial pursuits.
"Well, I have extraordinary news" Hermione stated, and started placing pages of notes and sketches all over the sheep stations, which subsequently caused Ron to swear under his breath.
Hermione said "You remember when I asked Professor Dumbledore about how the living portrait people survived, and he just tried to explain about two dimensional beings not needing to eat".
Harry and Ron both remembered this conversation, but had very little interest in it with so many other distractions, and Ron said" Who cares Hermione, it rates up there with your silly badges for Elf's. We didn't care then, and we certainly don't care now".
Hermione sent a withering glance at Ron and said "you should care Ron, and you too Harry. Most of these portraits have corpulent occupants, and they obviously need nourishment from somewhere, and I have spent the last three months finding the truth".
"I noticed that the trees and shrubs in the background of the portraits are disappearing, and I sent some scrapings off to a Muggle laboratory for analysis, and the green pigment has a base of flesh and bones". Hermione said breathlessly in the eagerness of trying to maintain the attention of the two young easily distracted wizards.
"The laboratory report says that the DNA contains mostly human remains, but appear to differ with other ingredients that they can't determine" Hermione added. "And I searched through the library, and found that a whole senior class from the Welsh Academy disappeared in 1874, and the only person who was found was Albus Dumbledore.
Harry and Ron started packing up the game while they waited for Hermione to continue.
"In the old parchment reports after the disappearance, Dumbledore claims that he can't remember anything about it, but I think he was involved" Hermione continued with her explanation.
"He had just completed his lessons in cauldron brewing when they all went missing, and I believe Dumbledore cast a fainting spell on his classmates, and boiled them in the cauldron, added some green dye from the Swampart plant, and hid the green sludge in paint bottles, because the inventory from the Department of Wizardry shows a large consignment of green paint being shipped from Wales in September 1874. This paint was used to rejuvenate all the portrait backgrounds in all Academy portraits in 1875."
Ron looked at Harry with a shocked look on his face, and Harry's brow furrowed so much that it wrinkled his scar, concern clearly indicated by both at Hermione's insistence of Dumbledore's possible guilt.
Hermione, seeing the looks between the two boys said "I have also found out that the other classes at the Welsh Academy had doubts about Dumbledore's innocence, and started calling him Dumblegore, and this went on so long, that Dumbledore left that academy, and finished his studies here".
Hermione had the boys complete attention, when Harry said " So, Hermione, what you are saying is that Professor Dumbledore killed his classmates, boiled them into green pigment, and this has been painted onto all the living portraits, and the people in these pictures eat the shrubbery to keep alive, sort of, and nobody has ever found out except you?"
Just as Harry finished saying this, the three students heard footsteps coming in the study room, and turned ashen when they realised that Professor Dumbledore had overheard some of the conversation.
Ron stood, and began shuffling backwards, Harry slumped in his chair, and Hermione started shaking, when Professor Dumbledore said, "Well, well, my past has been discovered" as he waved his wand and said" The paintings need another little touch up of green, not too much though, just a few pints will do, and the three students began to feel faint.