Chapter Six: In Which Children Are Attacked
"We did it, Professor!" Harry whispered with difficulty.
He looked up at the castle in the distance; Hogwarts was perfectly fine and whole. It was rather anticlimactic, really. He had half-expected it to be demolished or something, but it seemed Dumbledore's security had done its job.
"Sir, are you all right?"
"I've been better," said Dumbledore weakly, though the corners of his mouth twitched. "The Healer did tell me not to drink after the surgery, but I'm stubborn, eh?"
"Surgery?"
Dumbledore showed Harry his withered hand, except. . . . It wasn't withered anymore. It looked perfectly healthy, but it had a slight fake look to it.
"Oh, you got the hand replaced! That's wonderful, sir!"
"It is indeed. Now, how about we go back to the castle and have a nice drink? Some Firewhiskey would not go amiss. . . ."
They went back to the castle.
"Professor?" asked Harry. They were walking through corridors and passageways like nobody's business; Dumbledore was very good at navigating Hogwarts.
"Yes?"
"Do you have something to tell me?"
"I thought you'd never ask," said Dumbledore, grinning uncharacteristically. "Your concerns about Draco Malfoy were correct."
"They were?" said Harry, surprised that Dumbledore was saying this.
"Tonight, he planned to get Death Eaters into this school," he said calmly.
Silence followed this proclamation.
"Fortunately, a trap I had laid for them led to their downfall. As long as I'm Headmaster of this school, no Death Eater will be able to set foot inside Hogwarts."
More silence.
"Ah, here we are."
They were in the seventh-floor corridor.
"Are we — are we going to the Room of Requirement, sir?" inquired Harry.
Dumbledore did not reply; instead, he walked past the empty stretch of wall three times, back and forth. He opened the door that appeared, and a strange sight greeted them.
A cabinet had crashed to the floor, breaking into many pieces that were now strewn across the floor. Death Eaters were frozen in awkward positions here and there amidst the centuries worth of stuff that had been hidden in this very Room.
Harry took a step backwards and his foot landed on something squishy.
"Ahhh!" he screamed, looking down. "Oh, its Malfoy."
Malfoy looked like he had been opening something right before Dumbledore's trap had been sprung.
"So . . . Malfoy opened something. . . . Maybe he opened that cabinet!"
"Very astute. Go on, Harry," nodded Dumbledore.
"He opened that cabinet to let the Death Eaters in. . . . Something exploded and immobilised them at the same time, which is why they're sprawled on the floor like that," said Harry, feeling like a detective.
"That sounds about right," said Dumbledore walking around the room. "Time to go, Harry. We will find some use for them, I'm sure."
"But aren't we going to deliver them to law enforcement?"
"I'm afraid not. They are heavily influenced by Lord Voldemort. Tomorrow, we will let the press decide what to do with them."
The next day, every semi-sensible citizen of magical Britain was screaming for the Dementor's Kiss for the Death Eaters that had been caught red-handed trying to attack Hogwarts.
The Ministry was forced to convict them. Voldemort lost many of his supporters; no one wanted to associate themselves with someone who would attack children. His best fighters now worse than dead, Voldemort fled the country. That only resulted in him being called a coward by the public.
The British Ministry of Magic declared Tom Marvolo Riddle a.k.a. Lord Voldemort a national enemy. Aurors were constantly on the hunt for him. In other unrelated news, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes opened several new shops and trademarked the phrase - 'U-No-Poo'.
AN: In case anyone's wondering how Dumbledore got rid of the curse — he consulted multiple medical professionals (which he really should have done in canon) and one of them suggested cutting it off. He really didn't have much to lose, so he goes along with it and it works!