Harry Potter - Gamer Neighbour
Summary: The new neighbour over the street at Privet Drive number five seems pretty normal, but not Privet Drive normal. But is anyone with the power of the gamer ever even remotely normal? No fucking way.
Disclaimer: I do own some shit, but not any recognizable characters, places or settings in this particular fanfiction.
Chapter 19:
"Fin-a-fucking-ly!" Nick suddenly exclaimed as a flash of red from above the door to the back yard unexpectedly interrupted breakfast at Privet Drive Number Five. The man in question put down his coffee and almost jogged off towards his office, while Lily, Sirius and Violet just stared in bewilderment at each other.
"Wha?" Violet managed to get out through a mouth full of semi-chewed Swedish potato and onion pancake sprinkled with thin strips of bacon and in her particular case, a generous helping of ketchup which had caused Nick to shudder as he observed her almost burying a tall stack starch bombs and bacon underneath just mentioned ketchup.
The fact that the ketchup was homemade by him, was low on sugar and had a faint kick of roasted chillies didn't at all help with the disgusting imagery as Violet created her horrible abomination.
"Don't look at me. You've been here longer than I have, so if you're clueless, I'm completely out of the loop." Sirius protested, then looked at Lily to see if she had any idea about what was going on.
"No clue." she admitted and was about to stand up in order to investigate, but halted as Nick quickly reappeared from his office, carrying a small pile of newspapers and a few letters. He withdrew one of the newspapers and held up the front page towards the trio as he sat down.
It was The Daily Prophet and the entire front page was just one big headline and a single photograph of an old man shuffling around in a prison cell.
The man in the picture looked like any old harmless guy in his twilight years or possibly even near deathbed considering how worn and haggard he first appeared, but that image was completely dispelled as he stared right into the camera lens for a couple of seconds at the end, before the picture loop restarted. His eyes seemed to almost jump right out of the picture, such was the intensity, command, power and utter ruthlessness they conveyed, even through a Wizarding picture.
Grindewald tells all! Dumbledore's unnatural love life revealed!
"Now it begins." Nick announced with a big wide grin and put the newspapers down in the middle of the table, reaching for his cup of coffee to take a celebratory sip from it.
It had taken longer then expected for the story to break, but it appeared as if it finally had and contrary to his expectations, the Prophet had dropped the bomb at the same time as the international press. If he wasn't already swamped in work, Dumbledore would shortly be by far too busy to interfere, allowing Nick to finally set some of his actual plans into motion, rather then just impulsively pulling shit like resurrecting the dead on a whim and whatnot.
Not that bringing Lily back or jaunting off to bring Sirius back pretty much the moment he was located had been a bad thing, far from it, but Nick greatly preferred to work according to a proper plan rather then constantly having to shoot from the hip.
So to finally see the Rune Matrix he'd added to his owl mail box that would flash a red light if any incoming post had the word 'Grindewald' written anywhere in it finally be trigged, was a great relief.
Sirius, Lily and even Violet scrambled to grab newspapers in English. Nick settled for the magical edition of Italy's La Repubblica.
His Italian, much like his French, Spanish, Swedish and German, had rusted a bit from not having seen much use in recent years, but he understood enough to guestimate the parts he didn't know or wasn't quite sure of. Spending a few weeks immersing himself in foreign cultures and getting reacquainted with the languages he'd spoken in his youth would be nice, but that was just a pipe dream at the moment. There was far too much going on for him to just take a few weeks off to travel and practise foreign languages.
Besides, if he truly felt like it or there was a pressing need to become more fluent or even learn a completely new language, he could just spend some experience points to skill up. Something he might actually want to do, as the World Cup and Tri-Wizard was ever so slowly approaching.
He was still decently conversational, but when traveling around to set things up before coming back to meet Violet, he had noted just how out of practise he was. He'd taken Magic classes in both Swedish and Italian, spent six months studying in Germany during college and divided his university studies between England, Sweden, France and Australia.
No fucking way would he currently be able to take in university-level education in either Swedish or French without struggling like hell, so yeah, he was seriously out of practise.
The articles contained very few surprises for him, which was only to be expected.
After all, it was he who had conducted the first interview with Grindewald and then invited some reporters to take part as well. All in all, he'd had a day with Grindewald all by himself and two other days along with a small handful of international reporters who had been sworn to temporary secrecy and made to cooperate with each other, so all their newspapers would drop the bomb at the same time. One of them worked for an international magical press agency, which the Prophet occasionally used.
He had known it was a possibility that the Daily Prophet would run the story as well, but he hadn't been quite sure that they would have done so initially, taking a bit of wait and see approach as Dumbledore was such a prominent figure not just in Britain, but the entire Magical World.
He should have known that the Daily Prophet would just run with whatever was controversial and sold papers without a care for consequences.
His cover had been that he'd discovered that Grindewald was still alive when writing his unofficial biography on Dumbledore, figuring that it would only be fitting to go and see if the infamous Gellert Grindewald would be willing to share a bit of information on his old friend, lover, rival and enemy. Thanks to a small Scorpion Rune matrix he'd painted on his right foot underneath his sock that materialized a very simple Scorpion-like construct when activated, Gellert had indeed shared.
The scorpion-like construct had skittered over to Grindewald after materializing and injected him with a combination Babbling Potion and Truth Serum before evaporating, so Grindewald had been willing to share information after that and not just a bit either. The old guy had pretty much spilled the beans non-stop for three days, so both Nick and the reporters had gotten a lot of very juicy information.
Nick had also provided the reporters with some select bits from his research on Dumbledore, part of what he d amassed for his book, ensuring that they would have a LOT to write about and be able to make an entire series of articles about both Grindewald and Dumbledore.
Due to that, this was more then likely just the first of many bombs that would be dropped in the near future, ensuring that Dumbledore would be kept busy scrambling around working on damage control and reputation mending, between his actual jobs.
That it would also increase the general publics interest in Dumbledore and hopefully also make them more likely to buy Nicks book on Dumbledore, which he now could tell his publisher to release, was a nice little bonus.
He did so like to receive his pay checks and the fatter they were, the more he liked it.
It would be especially welcome now, as he'd been burning through his savings at a very brisk rate since awakening. Both his Vault at Gringotts and Muggle Bank accounts were starting to run a lot lower than he was comfortable with. The Quidditch World Cup would hopefully see his Vault getting a nice little boost at least, not just from legitimate earnings, but also from a little bit of betting.
From the odd hazy memories of a male child of Lily and James he had, which he now suspected were vague memory fragments of whatever world he had come from originally or something of the sort as his original memories were supposedly completely gone, Ireland would win but Krum would catch the Snitch.
The odds he'd gotten on Krum getting the Snitch hadn't been that impressive and a win for Ireland not that much better, but the combination bet on Ireland winning with Krum getting the Snitch, that should see his finances getting a significant boost if it actually happened in this world as well. He hadn't been willing to gamble a lot on it in case things would be different here, but he had put 500 Galleons down on it.
Hopefully, having made the bet through a respectable agency, he'd have better luck getting his winnings then he vaguely recalled George and Fred having.
If the game ended the way he figured it would, of course.
If not, well, 500 Galleons was gold that could have been better spent elsewhere for sure, but it wasn't exactly the end of the world if he never saw those coins again either.
There were no more major investments or expenditures coming up that he knew of, other then possibly a bit of betting around the Tri-Wizard Tournament and a shopping trip for Lily and some shopping to get Violet ready for the Yule Ball.
But placing a bet on a fourth Champion in the form of Violet Potter, should make for one seriously profitable bet. He wasn't sure what sort of odds a bet like that would get him, but it should win him at least fifty times his original bet, if not more.
A bet on the youngest contestant winning it all should also be profitable, though considering that Violet did have a bit of notoriety and fame attached to her name, probably not as profitable as a bet on there being a fourth Champion in the first place.
The lack of other memories regarding this world and the upcoming events in it was a bit disappointing, if he'd known about things other then what would be happening around Hogwarts, he could have invested in the stock market, made bets on Muggle Sports and whatnot.
He did wonder just what the heck he'd been doing in his original world, that had left him with notions of what had been happening around Hogwarts but pretty much nothing at all about the Muggle World. Had he been involved with events at Hogwarts somehow or had his original world been one where he spent more time in the Wizarding World then the Muggle one?
Heck, he wasn't even sure that they were actual memories. According to the game, his original memories had been torn apart and lost. Not just corrupted but eventually recoverable like the former demons, but just lost entirely. It felt like memories though and he had no other way of labelling them, so that's what he went with.
"This is... Incredible." Lily spoke up, jerking Nick out of his internal thoughts. "All of this is true?!"
"As far as Grindewald knows, at any rate." Nick replied, focusing on the now instead of thoughts about getting filthy rich by playing the Muggle stock market. Immense wealth wasn't really something he was going for anyway. If he had a comfortable existence and enough money to do the research he wanted, which he had when he wasn't jet setting around Europe trying to manipulate events, there simply wasn't a need to hoard more money then what was needed for that existence and research.
Though considering the fact that there was now Violet and Lily to consider, he might have to amend his way of thinking somewhat. Violet was well off and Lily would be too once her current dubious legal status had been taken care of, so it wasn't like he was required to support them for the rest of his life like some sort of Muggle head of the household from the nineteenth century. Heck, even without considering what resources they already had from the Potter side of things, they both probably had the potential to earn more money than him!
After all, his interests lay more on the theoretical side of things, though he wasn't a stranger to more practical applications. But the lions share of his research was devoted to the sort of advanced Magical Theory things that only a small number of magicals were actually interested in and capable of understanding.
His work on Runes had a more general appeal, but it still wasn't the sort of thing that would usually interest people other then advanced Rune Students, which was a very small minority of the entire Wizarding World and the Wizarding World wasn't very big to begin with.
His more practical real-world-application stuff had potential, but it wasn't like he felt like becoming a one-man etching assembly line, repeating the same Rune Matrixes over and over again in an attempt to fill the world with his air conditioning units or the like, was a very fun endeavour. Things like that was mostly something he considered doing short-term for a bit of extra cash now and then unless he hired some helpers to do the boring shit on a more permanent basis.
But Violet was a fucking celebrity. She didn't even need any real skills to earn money off her name and probably more money than he'd ever see from his deep delve into researching high Magic Theory. But she was also a deft hand at Quidditch, which had serious earning potential in the Wizarding World even if Nick felt like playing any sort of sport, Wizarding or Muggle, was a bullshit occupation.
Her smarts, personality, insight and fun-loving personality could also get her a successful career in customer/business or business/business relations. Basically, she had multiple possible ways to earn a serious amount of capital and if she decided to go the celebrity route, she didn't even really need anything other then her name to succeed.
Then there was her unique body and the cash-earning potential there. It would probably take her a year or two until she'd learned enough Alchemy to distil Phoenix Tears and Basilisk Venom from her own blood, but once she did that or nagged at him to do it for her, she could do it once or twice a year and live like a Queen from selling those two extremely rare substances alone.
Lily was also a scholar and researcher, much like him, but with a few key differences. When he'd researched her when looking into Violet before meeting her, he'd been impressed at what she'd managed to accomplish even in the midst of a Wizarding conflict, starting a family and being on the run from a crazy megalomaniac.
She'd shaved minutes and sometimes hours off brewing certain Potions by streamlining the process. The Pepper-Up Potion was now made with different and cheaper ingredients then it had been before Lily sunk her teeth into it. While she'd been six feet under while it happened, it was her initial research that had allowed others to create a more effective way of Floo Travel.
The new Floo Portals were still rare, few and far between, but required far less Floo Powder to operate, the lack of fireplace meant less ash to clean up and allowed above-human-sized and even non-living targets to Floo without a living target carrying them through.
So yeah, in terms of pure earning potential, he once again found himself completely outclassed. In spite of a fairly short and extremely busy time after her graduation, she had multiple notches in her 'developed shit that can earn heaps of gold' belt.
But in spite of believing himself to rank fairly high when it came to gender equality and the like when he wasn't bound by un-droppable Sub Quests, there was still some sort of protective instinct nagging away at him from his reptile brain, telling him that as a man, he should care and provide for the ladies in his life.
Even if they way he was bringing them into his life and keeping them there was a bit... Dubious.
He shook his head, he was getting distracted again! Right after he'd just decided to try and focus on the now! Overly focused tunnel vision or his attention being divided between a bazillion different things, his mind certainly seemed to favour the extremes rather then the middle ground.
"Dumbledore and Grindewald were childhood friends and lovers. Dumbledore was a budding semi-dark lord in the making." Lily concluded and just stared dazedly down at the newspaper. "I'm not sure which is the more shocking revelation."
"They say you should never meet and get to know your idols. The image you've created of them rarely match up with harsh reality." Nick mused and shrugged. "Growing up, I probably had a little man-crush on Dumbledore and resented my parents a bit for moving around so much instead of just settling down in Britain so I could attend Hogwarts and learn from the legendary Wizard Dumbledore. But learning more and more about him over the years have certainly tainted my view of him. I still respect his accomplishments and immense knowledge for sure! Whenever he finds the time to write something down and get it published, I'll read the fuck out of it the moment I get my hands on it. But while I respect Dumbledore the scholar and Wizard, I'm not so sure I can respect Dumbledore the person."
"Hm, yes..." Lily slowly agreed, somewhat dubiously and obviously somewhat confused.
Having had Violet and Nick explain what had happened in her absence had been shocking, but it hadn't truly registered in a permanent manner. She had experienced anger when hearing about Violet s life and desired to strangle Dumbledore with his own bloody beard for his parts in her daughter s misery, but it had been fleeting moments of anger and disappointment. They had come and gone, other things distracting her and causing her to nearly forget about it. The newspaper crinkled in her hands as she clenched it tightly, her lips pulling back into a fierce snarl as her anger and fury were rekindled.
"We know little to nothing about his motivations." Nick interjected and met her angry gaze as she shifted her focus to him. "I'm not saying that he hasn't messed up or committed what are basically crimes, but we don't know why." he reminded her.
Lily took a deep breath.
"What could they possibly be? What could possibly justify the hell Violet has had to live through?" Lily asked, causing both Sirius and Violet to look up from their respective newspapers. Lily was by far the quickest reader of the three, so she'd finished her reading well ahead of the two of them, who were still making their way through their reading.
"That, I have no answer to." Nick replied with an apologetic shrug. "Dumbledore isn't exactly known for being open with his motivations and reasonings behind his actions and inactions. Knowing what I now do about Voldemort and Horcruxes, I can somewhat guess that he probably has some sort of plan, but that's pretty much as far as it goes."
"Lily. The... Sybil thing... What about that?" Sirius hesitantly interjected.
"He knows about that." Lily nodded. "But you'd think that if he was doing something based off that hogwash, he'd take a greater interest in Violet having the best bloody upbringing and education possible, not having her brought up in isolation and misery, spottily educated by idiots and ghosts, facing danger at every turn instead of having a good learning environment and more to boot." she argued.
"The Sybil thing?" Violet asked, looking intently between Sirius and Lily.
Sirius averted his eyes and remained silent. Lily faced Violet in silence for nearly a full minute, before nodding to herself. Nick got a similar treatment, but was just stared at for fifteen seconds or so, before getting a faint nod.
"There's this bullshit Prophecy about you and that despicable dark turd. Dumbledore seemed to take great stock in it and was convinced Voldemort did as well. James and myself were a bit more dubious about it, but Dumbledore seemed to be correct about Voldemort believing in it, as he became an even greater pain in the arse after finding out about it." Lily admitted with a serious expression directed at Violet. "Basically, it says that you or him have to go down and that you have some sort of power or skill that he doesn't, giving you the edge."
"That's some skill." Nick commented. "I obviously haven't seen Voldemort in action myself, other than the soul fragment in Violet s head. But by all accounts, he was pretty much an unstoppable juggernaut, steamrolling almost everyone he encountered."
"Indeed. Other then Dumbledore, Mad-Eye Moody is probably the best single fighter I've ever met. He lived through his encounters with that shitface, but it was nearly always a close shave." Lily responded. "You're the Divination guy, right? How much stock should we put in Prophecy?"
Nick briefly winced at being referred to as a Divination guy, but shrugged it off.
"Prophecy has a way of coming true. The problem is that so many of them generally only make sense after they have come true and that people with knowledge about them, tend to do things to assist in that. It's as if everyone with knowledge of a Prophecy, becomes a part in fulfilling it." Nick explained, while privately reassessing what he thought he knew about Prophecy.
The addition of alternate realities, diverging timelines, Godlike beings, omniscience and the like to things he now knew were possible, somewhat fucked up several of his own long-held beliefs about how Prophecy and Divination actually worked.
"So, you believe it to be true?" Lily asked with an arched eyebrow.
"True Prophecy is always true, though not always in the way we've originally interpreted it. But I've never heard of a genuine Prophecy that's been proven to be completely false." Nick admitted.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... And the Dark Lord will mark the child as his equal, but the child will possess the power the Dark Lord knows not... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." Lily quoted the Prophecy in a chilly haunting tone of voice.
Nick nodded to himself a few times as he pondered the lines of the Prophecy. It was pretty much the same as he could faintly recall from his knowledge of a male Potter and the Prophecy regarding him.
"How would you interpret it? Dumbledore's take on it made my stomach churn." Sirius asked with a faint shudder. He hadn't liked hearing the Prophecy the first time around and hearing it once more merely confirmed that he hadn't grown fonder of it over the years.
"I wouldn't interpret it at all at this point. If it is true Prophecy, knowing what it means or not knowing, wouldn't impact it coming true or not." Nick replied with a shrug. "But if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to give it a shot right away, then well..." he continued and mused for a few moments longer, scratching his jaw as he mused over the wording of the Prophecy.
"If we consider it as one long coherent Prophecy about the same subject, then yes. The Dark Lord slayer is on the way, born late July to parents who had a bit of agreement issues with him. The Dark Lord will somehow recognize the slayer as his equal, though the slayer will have some kickass power the Dark Lord lacks, which doesn't feel very equal to me. The Dark Lord slayer must kill the Dark Lord or vice versa, because somehow they can't stand the thought of sharing the world with the other. Then it finished with a repetition of the slayer being born late July, as if the Prophecy believes the listener to be hard of hearing, forgetful or something." Nick declared.
"If we consider it as one long coherent Prophecy?" Lily hinted.
"Could be several separate Prophecies, which just happen to have been given at the same time. Perhaps the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord is approaching because he or she is travelling. Could even be something non-human, like a meteor or natural disaster of some sort. Someone is born to parents who have had issues with someone in the past. But we only assume that the one who was defied is the Dark Lord because the previous line mentions him, but this sentence does not specifically mention who was defied, so it could be someone else. Same goes for the newborn, we assume that it is the Dark Lord slayer, but it could be someone completely different." Nick responded with a helpless shrug.
"As the seventh month dies is also a bit iffy. We assume July, because that is the seventh month that we are used to. But what if it refers to the seventh month in some other calendar? When does a month die? Is it right at the very last minute or second of it? Does the process start earlier? Was the mortal blow struck earlier but the month lingered on for a while, before it finally croaked? Do we perhaps need to consider the phases of the moon during that month rather than simply look at the last day of the month?" Nick responded with a wry expression.
"Prophecy is generally worded somewhat vaguely and can be interpreted in multiple different ways, so my general advice is to just ignore it. Once everything is over and done with and the Prophecy somehow proven to be true, well, that's an excellent time to interpret it. It's much easier to do once you know exactly what has taken place." he finished.
"I was born on the 31st, my parents were too stubborn to flee the country and had to fight the Dark Bastard three times, this bloody thing on my forehead is a mark of sorts, the fucker certainly doesn't seem willing to leave me alone so one of us has to go. It certainly seems to refer to me..." Violet groused and pushed a small piece of bacon around on her plate and fanned herself with her newspaper. "Not so sure about this weird power I'm supposed to have though. I saw a bit of how he acted in the diary visions during my second year, he made himself out to be some sort of model super student. I can't really imagine anything I know of, that he hasn't learned as well." she admitted.
"Well, for one, I rather doubt he knows much about female hygiene, so there's something you know that he probably doesn't. The Prophecy mentions the power you have that he doesn't, but it doesn't specifically say that it's a power that is needed or even useful for his defeat. That you have the power to vanquish him, doesn't necessarily mean that you need anything other then his Horcruxes gone and a sharp knife after that to do the actual deed. Perhaps your ability to use a cell phone is your trump card, you could use it to call in a team of Muggle mercenaries who puts a sniper round in his head while he's distracted by your weird Muggle device." Nick mused and threw his arms out in a gesture of helplessness. "There are so many weird ways a Prophecy can be interpreted, that it's pretty much useless to even try."
Sirius suddenly laughed out loud and kept on doing it until he started to wheeze from a lack of air.
"What?" Lily asked with a suspicious expression, well familiar with the sort of weird tangents the old dogs mind could find itself drifting off to mid-conversation sometimes.
"Venom! Basilisk! Panties corroding! Tampon! Throw at Dark Lord!" Sirius managed to get out between guffaws and Lily rolled her eyes, then hit him with a Calming Charm to get the annoying laughing to stop. "Perhaps Vi's knowledge of female hygiene IS what can defeat him. If she throws a tampon soaked with her Basilisk-infused blood at him, it could actually kill him." he continued in a dull and monotone tone of voice.
"Stop giving me nightmare fuel! I'm having weird enough dreams as it is!" Violet snapped and slapped the back of Sirius's head so hard that he toppled forward and slammed his face onto the table, only just barely managing to twist his upper body enough to the side that he missed his breakfast plate.
"Ow." Sirius said in an oddly calm voice, still under the effects of Lily's Calming Charm.
"Probably not a viable tactic. Since her magic hates him so much, the restorative effects of the Phoenix Tears in her blood might actually not work on him and thus, the Basilisk Venom COULD be effective. But throwing a used tampon would be very inaccurate, slow and short-ranged. He'd probably just step out of the way." Nick commented with a sage nod and mock serious expression.
"Not to mention how disgusting it would be and how incredibly embarrassing even if it worked. 'Yeah, I defeated him. My soggy rag brought him down!'." Lily commented with a teasing grin, unable to help herself from adding a bit to the teasing.
"You three should know that I hate and despise you all." Violet groused and shook her head. "So, Dumbledore will be busy now. What's our next move?" she asked, trying to get the three wannabe jokers around the table to focus on something that didn't involve tactless and non-funny jokes involving her non-existent tampons. She was on the Potion damn it!
"I'll tell my publisher to release the unofficial Dumbledore biography. I'll get my lovely German assistant to send out an invitation to the arch-conservative tossers we don't want in the country for the emergency Wizengamot meeting. I'll see about getting Fudge onboard with the emergency session. I'll send out invitations to the non-arch-conservative tossers we do want in the country for the emergency meeting." Nick responded with a shrug.
"Shorty can work on Occlumency and we can see about renting a space for some duelling practise if you want some variation. Dogbreath work on getting Grimmauld Place habitable, preferably also getting some help with it so it can be done faster. Wondergirl work on getting back in shape and full health." he continued and scratched his jaw. "Depending on how much of an uproar this media circus causes, it may also be a good time to work on Wondergirls legal status, having an adult Potter around as Violet's rightful Guardian could be immensely useful if things don't go our way."
Nick looked over the final letter one last time, before he put it into an envelope and waxed it shut with the Jones family seal. Not the main family seal, but the less ornate one his somewhat disgraced branch of the family used. His correspondence over and done with, he took a deep breath and moved over to his safe, dropping off the outgoing mail in the outbox on his way. Instead of opening the safe, he bent down and retrieved a matchbox-sized wooden box from underneath it, where it had been sealed to the underside of the safe with some double-sided tape. There were four other boxes like it taped underneath the safe, but it was this particular one he was interested in at the moment.
As a firm believer in hiding shit in unexpected places and an even firmer believer in keeping handy shit close at hand, he kept the potentially useful arsenal not inside the safe but hidden underneath it. Anyone looking for shit would probably be more interested in cracking the safe then looking underneath it and if he needed a bit of extra oomph if the house was attacked, keeping those boxes out of the safe would shave valuable seconds off the time needed to retrieve them.
He brought the box over to the table and looked through the door and walls of his office with Mage Sight to ensure that nobody was heading in his direction right at this very moment. Once he figured the coast was clear, he deftly cancelled the shrinking spell on the box, causing it to expand until it was the size of a small old-model thick boy laptop, not the thin-arse current ones. He opened the box and was greeted with multiple piles of small wooden plaques, the very same ones that still caused Tonks to shudder whenever she spotted any laying around.
He didn't use to keep such an insane amount of his battle cards around, but he'd spent a great deal of time since his Awakening etching Rune Matrixes on big wood boards and then shrinking them down to a more manageable size in whatever spare time he'd had, until he felt he had enough of them to fight a small-scale war if need be.
Just because he had planned to stick to the background and side-lines, didn't mean that his plans would work out and it was quite possible that he'd find himself right smack dab in the midst of things when the shit hit the fan.
He removed the top two layers and set them aside, then picked up the third stack from the back in the third row. He removed the top two cards in his small stack and withdrew the third card, which was where he'd hidden a Rune Matrix he felt deserved a second look now when he had a chance to look it over.
He moved over to the wall and unshrunk not only the one he was interested in, but a few additional cards as well, so he could hide the incriminating one behind another one if the need for that arose.
Preparations done, he allowed his gaze to move across the Rune Matrix with a highly critical eye, trying to find fault in it.
It seemed kosher however.
He looked it over again, focusing on the amounts of Dopamine and Oxytocin that were produced when the matrix was triggered. Other then not adjusting the dosage according to the body mass of the ones hit by it and instead administering a dose suitable for an adult woman, there wasn't anything off there either.
Nothing widely out of the ordinary for a healthy human woman. Lily was dangerously underfed, though recovering swiftly, so perhaps she was hit a bit harder than Violet, who in turn could use a bit more meat on her bones and thus likely was hit a bit harder than Tonks, who had a pretty normal body mass for a grown woman.
But other then not considering the likelihood of a gaunt-like recently resurrected woman hanging around his home on the regular or paying heed to the fact that Violet was a bit smaller then normal, they weren't being hit with absurdly high dosages or something, just somewhat more then would be the case if their bodies produced those substances on their own without a magic trigger.
They were also being hit more often than what was normal, but even that shouldn't have adverse effects, it should just promote somewhat faster and stronger bonding between the people in the house.
He'd intended for it to just work on him and the two quest ladies whenever he got around to inviting them over. He hadn't counted on Sirius or Tonks hanging around the place as much as they did. Occasional female guests were fine, they'd just have an unexpectedly good time and likely find him a marvellous host and find his houseguest s unexpectedly pleasant company.
Tonks was more then just an occasional guest however, but it wasn't as if this put her in danger or something, it just made her more friendly towards everyone else and made her enjoy their company more.
Sirius was a man, so he wasn't directly affected by the matrix, but the ladies in the house would bond better with him too, which would likely deepen friendships faster then they otherwise would. Ladies being friendly towards him likely caused his own body to naturally release Oxytocin and Dopamine more frequently than it otherwise would have, but it would do so completely naturally.
The ladies were different.
Tonks was a frequent guest and she certainly seemed to become fast friends with both Violet and Lily. She'd also adapted and gotten used to Sirius pretty fast, but there wasn't anything unusual about that. Tonks was a social chameleon, as well as a physical one. She could get along with pretty much everyone and certainly didn't have any issues making new friends, so it was hard to say how much of an effect it had on her.
While traveling around or doing things together, both prior and after his Awakening, they'd done things like share a tent, sleep in the same room and whatnot. Her sleeping in the same bed as him was a bit of an outlier, but not completely unprecedented. It had happened before, if they hadn't managed to swing separate beds in whatever accommodations they'd gotten while travelling. So even that wasn't a clear sign of her getting unnaturally attached to him.
Not reacting aversely to being kissed by Violet wasn't any sort of indicator either when it came to Tonks. He'd rate Tonks as a solid '2' on the Kinsey scale. As far as he knew, she hadn't ever had a long-term relationship with another woman, but if the two of them were out for a night on the town and she failed to find any interesting males to put the moves on, she wasn't a stranger to bringing another girl home for the night instead. She did find other women attractive and wouldn't necessarily find advances from Violet unwelcome, just unexpected.
Lily was... It was hard to tell what was going on with her. She swung between extremes so much ever since being resurrected that it was hard to say how much she was being affected by the Matrix. Distrust, guilt issues, shock, PTSD, grief, anger and whatnot had turned her into a live emotional randomly primed hand grenade of sorts.
Considering the last couple of days from her point of view, it was pretty much a fucking miracle that she hadn't gone completely bonkers.
It was so easy to focus on what had happened after her resurrection, but one also had to consider that while she had hazy recollections of having looked in on Violet from time to time since her death, that had more or less felt like short dreams or brief daydreams rather than actual time passing.
That was why from her point of view, not only had she just been brought back from the dead in a horrible physical state, which she was slowly recovering from. But and perhaps more importantly, she'd also just experienced her own murder, the death of her husband, being betrayed by one of her closest friends and horror over what would be happening to her daughter once she was gone.
From her perspective, time hadn't really passed between her dying and being resurrected, so she'd pretty much had the shittiest of shitty weeks. He expected some sort of imminent meltdown, but she had so far proven remarkably resilient and relatively 'normal', beyond some rapid and extreme mood swings.
But sooner or later, she'd be forced to face what she had gone through and he suspected that it wouldn't be pretty.
Lily obviously cared a great deal for Violet, but that was completely natural. She had also gotten fast friends with Tonks, but she'd apparently known her as a child, so that probably wasn't odd either, even if it must be seriously uncomfortable not having seen the young child grow into an adult woman.
The periodic blushing and more recent lip touching seemed to indicate that she was feeling or thinking about something unmotherly towards Violet and possibly something beyond friendship for Tonks, but again, it was hard to tell for sure and even harder to determine how that came about.
That didn't necessarily have something to do with the Matrix and her not having the body mass to adequately deal with the dosage she got. It was probably a contributing factor to be sure, but it was unlikely to be the main cause of it.
Violet... A tad on the small side, not quite as filled out as she should be, but pretty close to normal body mass for her age. She should be able to handle the current dose with no issues.
But she was also a teenager, her body was already juiced up on hormones and experiencing frequent changes. She also had a bit of a crush on him and there were the massages to consider. She likely triggered the Rune Matrix on a fairly regular basis with very few rest periods between triggering it.
Heck, she was probably more or less permanently enjoying high levels of Dopamine and Oxytocin. If her dreams were also on the naughty side, she very likely was doped up 24/7 unless she left the house, which hadn't happened all that often since she first came around.
It wouldn't be the same sort of doped up as if she took hard drugs or anything or even something like the Aphrodisiac he'd mixed into the massage oil, but she was likely growing some pretty seriously strong bonds at a breakneck pace to not just him, but also Lily, Tonks and Sirius.
Perhaps the Dopamine might also in part be responsible for the weird way she had of shaking off disturbing news or concerning information, but based on what she had said about incidents in her past, she had been doing things like that for years, way before he came around and started messing with her internal chemical makeup.
There was also her extremely unique body composition. Phoenix Tears had a way of enhancing whatever they were mixed with, increasing the Potency of whatever it came into contact with. Because of how rare and expensive they were, the amount of research having been done on them were pretty much nil.
If they also increased the Potency of what the body naturally produced, well, she'd probably eventually feel close enough to the people in the house to wade through a sea of corpses of her own creation if she felt it was for their best.
Once again, since the effects of Dopamine and Oxytocin were a bit on the subtler side, it was hard to say what was natural and what was unnatural. Was that responsible for how quickly she had fixated on him and started trying to win him over, or was that just normal impulsive reckless Violet?
He stared at the Rune Matrix in silence for a long time, before eventually making a small change, lowering the dosage by half when it was triggered.
He was pretty sure that it had very little to do with Lily and Violets odd behaviours now when he'd looked it over again, but felt it was better safe then sorry, especially considering the Phoenix Tears permanently in Violet s system. The Basilisk Venom should take the edge of them, but they might still have enough juice left in them to make her react a lot more to the Matrix then she otherwise would have.
Changes done, he swiftly put everything back to rights and seated himself in his swivel chair, leaning back as he considered things for a few moments.
He'd ran a few dungeons right after waking up and gained another level from the experience he'd earned. A swift check right after that had revealed that the game system was now absorbing a tad more of himself then it had before he gained that level.
He wasn't sure how much the former demon would be helped by that increase or how much that increase in leeching of Nick would aid in the speed of the recovery process, even the former demon wasn't sure but it had seemed pleased to see some progress at least.
Nick took a deep breath.
He had mainly stuck to the dungeons he outlevelled by a bit up until now, playing a safe and long game. He had tried a few dungeons matching his own level a few times during the summer, but hadn't felt any real need to push himself or risk anything, so he'd mainly went for dungeons that were five to ten levels below his own current level.
That gave less experience, but he'd been happy enough with the low risk-low reward approach. It still made him level, it still earned him points to buy skills and purchase perks with and provided some interesting drops. Heck, he hadn't event spent all the points he'd earned, almost always keeping a few in reserve for a rainy day.
Even with that cautious approach, he'd still managed to advance by leaps and bounds. He possessed knowledge and skills that were decades if not even a century beyond his current age and real-world experience. He figured that by the time the Tri-Wizard was coming to a close, he would have gotten to a point where even Voldemort find him a challenge and he wasn't even intending to challenge Voldemort himself! So the cautious approach had been more then fine with him.
The same had pretty much went for how he went about handling Violet and Lily. Since he hadn't felt the pressure of any sort of a deadline in the near future, he'd been content not to rush things. So what if it took him the better part of the school year to complete the quest? As long as he completed it, all was well and good in his book.
Or so he'd thought.
Apparently, his libido was in disagreement and he suddenly found himself worrying about accidentally making a mess of things just because he might have a hard time keeping his dick in his pants at some future point. He hadn't intended to go much further then he already had with Violet until Lily had been won over and even now, that sounded like a sound notion to him.
But unlike before, he now felt the urge to speed things up because his base instincts were screaming for attention. Occlumency helped, no doubt about that, but bottling things up just wasn't healthy and could potentially blow up on him at some point.
If the former demon recovered a bit and more currently corrupt parts of the game started working again, that had the potential to help IMMENSELY with winning Lily over, which could lead to some well-needed relief.
If leveling faster helped with that, well...
Nick, now a level 76 Wizard with 37% left to 77, opened a level 80 dungeon. Not just a dungeon in his own level, but one supposedly four levels above his current level. If dungeons closer to his own level gave more experience, one a few levels above his own should provide even more then that in return for a greater challenge.
Or so he hoped. He'd never tried before.
After another deep breath, he entered the dungeon, hoping that he hadn't bitten off more then he could chew.
Albus Dumbledore took a sip from his tea, thoughtfully provided for him by one of the Hogwarts house elves as he was seated on a generously padded conjured recliner on top of the Astronomy tower, looking out over the countryside as he mulled things over well away from where anyone would usually try to look for the eccentric Headmaster if he wasn't in his office.
He'd even layered himself with various anti-scrying, anti-post owl and more countermeasures against everything that could aid someone in tracking him down. He usually made it a point to always leave at least some way for people to contact him in an emergency, always made a point of being available even in his absence.
But not right now.
Upon his own request, the tea had a generous splash of Fire Whisky added to it.
He wasn't a frequent or heavy drinker, but it certainly felt like this was a day for Fire Whisky, in spite of the day just having started.
"Gellert, Gellert, Gellert..." he mused out loud and slowly shook his head.
He wasn't even disappointed in his old friend. Somewhat perplexed, yes. Disappointed, no.
Gellert had stubbornly refused to share even a lick of information since his incarceration in the past. All anyone had ever been able to get out of him, had been vague grunts in response to direct questions coupled with vitriol and insults directed towards anyone Gellert felt was beneath him. Which was pretty much everyone.
Albus had visited on a few occasions and had been somewhat more successful, but even then getting any sort of pertinent information out of Gellert had been a Herculean task and a half and they had mostly talked about non-important things from their younger years or Albus updating Gellert on what was going on in the world outside his prison.
Now Gellert had suddenly up and decided to talk about pretty much everything, including plans, plots and motivations during his rampages across the world? With reporters?
Albus desperately wanted to just drop everything and go to see Gellert, see if this sudden change meant that he could hold an actual conversation with his old friend again and get some much-needed closure and clarification about past events.
There was so much Albus wanted to say to and hear from Gellert, but he'd never really been able to do so in past visits.
But no, no matter how much he wanted to just say to hell with everything, he couldn't bring himself to do so. Not right now.
He slowly stroked his beard and took deep breaths.
There were so many things he could and probably should be doing at the moment.
Back in his office here in school, there was a slew of paperwork that needed doing even if none were especially urgent at the moment. He was pretty up to date on his correspondence, but there was a bit of a backlog still left from yesterday and he didn't even want to imagine just how much mail he'd gotten today already and likely would continue to get throughout the day.
Today had been intended to have been a bit of a slow day, so he'd only had two meetings penned into his schedule. His office at the Wizengamot had a few things to read through and give brief responses to, but nothing too urgent. There was an ICW motion he'd intended to pick apart for faults and give a more detailed response to in his ICW office, but he had a few more days to do that.
All in all, he had kept on top of things and even worked ahead a bit in the last weeks, hoping that he could have a decently relaxed week now in preparation for the start of school. He'd even nursed faint hopes of having the entire weekend off, possibly also taking Friday and Monday off, for an extremely rare four-day holiday.
Those plans were all for naught now.
The priority now, should have been damage control.
He should be arranging meetings, talking to people not just here in Britain but all over the world. He should be giving out reassurances and explanations, he should be doing SOMETHING.
Instead, he took another sip from his cup and followed the flight of a bird in the distance, vaguely envious of its ability to just fly free over the world.
He would get on top of things before long. He was Albus Dumbledore. This wasn't the first time he was in hot water nor his first rodeo.
But he needed a brief breather first.
He sighed.
For the last two decades or so, Albus Dumbledore had wanted nothing else but to be able to retire in peace and comfort, live a life of zero responsibilities and just take it easy. For every year that passed, it got harder and harder to do what he did.
He loved the view from up here, truly he did. But he longed for a warm beach, a cold drink and a good book. He longed for days when he wouldn't have to reassure someone, explain something, read some asinine proposal or worry about what sort of heinous actions were being committed by Witches and Wizards who had lost their way.
He longed for a successor or three. People who could take his place and whom he felt comfortable handing over the reins to.
Minerva probably could take over Hogwarts and run the school successfully, he had faith in her abilities as an educator, administrator and privately thought that she'd likely make a better Head of the school then he'd ever been. But with Voldemort on the loose and aiming to make a comeback, his attention partly on Hogwarts and some of the students in particular? No, Albus Dumbledore was needed at Hogwarts still. Minerva wasn't ready for that.
The Wizengamot? Amos Diggory would likely make a fine Chief Warlock, arguably a better one then Albus. In peacetime, that is. With what felt like a war brewing on the Horizon, with half the Wizengamot seats filled by wrinkled bums from the Dark families?
He knew that Dark didn't necessarily mean evil, but he was no fool either. He knew that some of those bums on those ever so important seats were full-on Voldemort supporters, some were willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder and some would support Voldemort if they got pressured by external factors.
The Light families also had their fair share of rotten apples, making the Wizengamot a viper s nest of plots, intrigue and backstabbing. Amos could handle most of it, but try as he might, Albus just couldn't see Amos taking his place successfully in these turbulent times. Albus Dumbledore was needed at the Wizengamot still.
If the Wizengamot was bad, the ICW was worse. Not only was it a bigger organization with multiple sub-departments, with far more wrinkled bums placed on important ornate seats. But it was also nationalistic wrinkled bums from all over the world.
Even if someone managed to get rid of all the bureaucracy, signing documents in quadruple copies and getting approval left, right and centre even for the smallest of things, it would still be a political body made up by some real hardasses who all thought they and their country was the greatest thing since sliced bread and would be willing to walk over corpses to keep things that way and get benefits for their home countries.
There were a few people who Albus felt could take up the position as a somewhat neutral Chief Warlock to great success, but none from Britain. None who would be willing to consider the Dark Lord Voldemort as their greatest priority, when none of them counted Great Britain as their home or even all that important in the great scheme of things.
Being neutral and objective was one thing, prioritizing a situation in England was quite another. No, Albus Dumbledore was needed at the ICW still as long as Voldemort was a factor.
Voldemort...
He had hoped that the Dark Lord would have remained in the shadows for at the very least another decade, to give Violet Potter a chance to grow into her own. He had so desperately wanted for her to have as normal a childhood as possible, but it just hadn't been in the cards, in spite of his attempts to make it so.
He had been hopeful that Lily's sister would display some of those wonderful caring qualities that Lily had possessed in spades, that when given an opportunity to shine, she would grab it with both hands and provide Violet with a caring nurturing environment to grow up in.
Those hopes had been squashed, but by the time he'd reluctantly given up on those hopes, it had been too late to change things. The Protections had settled nicely around Number Five and he hadn't been able to figure out a way to move them to another place and family.
That was why in spite of the Dursley home being far from an ideal home for a young magical child to grow up, he had decided to leave Violet there.
He had on multiple occasions contemplated showing up in person to really scold the Dursley's and pressure them into behaving like decent human beings, but just hadn't been able to bring himself to do it, couldn't bear to use the same kind of threatening blackmailing behaviour he so detested in others.
He'd thought about informing Minerva or someone else who could act on his behalf about what was happening to Violet in the Dursley household so they could do it for him, but had buried those plans as well. He just couldn't be sure that they would just put the Dursley's on the right track and not remove Violet from number four entirely once they found out about just how badly she was neglected there.
In spite of that environment or perhaps because of it, Violet had grown up strong. He had never seen someone so young possessing such an indomitable willpower, sheer persistence and unshakeable force of personality.
He had been watching for even the slightest hints of Violet going down a dark route, similar to what had happened to Tom in the orphanage, but Violet hadn't fallen.
Sure, she was impulsive and perhaps a little too quick to and comfortable with anger, but she was also friendly, caring, helpful and dare he say it, heroic and selfless.
He regretted that he couldn't have given her a better childhood, but wasn't entirely displeased with the results of the one she'd had.
Violets first year at Hogwarts had been one disaster after another, but somehow the landing had been stuck none the less. He'd hoped to lure in Voldemort's shade with the appealing bait he'd laid down, but certainly hadn't counted on the children getting involved.
He'd hoped to discover the shade of Voldemort and somehow trap or exorcise it on his own, possibly with Violet being able to observe it so she'd be aware of the threat lurking in the shadows to motivate her for the future. Worst case scenario, he could have shown her a memory of the shade.
But Voldemort had possessed Quirrel and remained hidden until the very end and the children had discovered the presence of the stone, the means that had been employed to protect it and gotten involved. Disaster upon disaster upon disaster, but Violet had somehow managed to overcome all odds in order to protect the stone, banish Voldemort from Quirrel and survive the encounter. He regretted so many of his decisions that year, but things had turned out mostly alright almost in spite of his efforts.
Second year was much the same. So many regrets for him, but the year had been enlightening and turned out mostly okay in the end. His greatest regret was that once again, children had been involved. Under his watch, students had been petrified, Ginerva had almost been consumed by the diary, a teacher had assaulted students when they brought him along for help and Violet had to fight a thousand-year-old Basilisk. Disaster upon disaster.
Yet, at the end, the students had recovered from their petrification s, Ginerva had been saved in time, Lockheart had received a truly horrific punishment, Violet had won and he'd finally gotten confirmation as to how Voldemort had survived.
Third year, once again a series of disasters that had been mostly averted. He'd obviously failed Sirius something fierce, allowing an innocent man to spend over a decade in the hellhole that was Azkaban because he'd been too busy to look into the situation at the time and simply forgotten about it later.
Sirius was now 'free' and well away from the dangers that awaited him in Britain. He'd lost track of Sirius in the south of France, but was confident in the old trickster s ability to stay incognito and well away from any authorities.
He wished that he could give the man the trial and exoneration he so richly deserved, but he just couldn't risk it. There was just no way in hell that Sirius would allow Violet to stay with the Dursley's under the protections there. A free Sirius would take her away from those protections in a heartbeat if he so much as suspected half of what was happening underneath them.
Dumbledore wasn't actually quite sure what those protections were and how they worked, but first year had given him confirmation of just how incredibly powerful they were. They had been powerful enough that Quirrel had been set on fire just by Violet touching him!
He'd squirreled away the corpse and studied it after the confrontation was over, but hadn't been given much chance to do so as the corpse had resisted all his efforts to preserve or put it in stasis for study. In less then two days, there was just inert dust left and no traces left he could find something out from.
The protections were immensely powerful, if horrific in nature, but could be just the thing that could give Violet the edge she so sorely needed over Voldemort.
A power the Dark Lord knows not, so to speak.
No, Sirius deserved to be free, but Dumbledore and Violet couldn't afford a completely free and exonerated Sirius. Away from Britain, he could be free and allowed to recover from his ordeals and Violet would have her protections recharged by staying at the Dursleys.
Dumbledore resolved to try and do everything in his power to make Sirius as comfortable as possible on the run, once he managed to track him down again. Food, shelter, medical aid, Sirius would have it all and have no reason to return to Britain.
This summer had seen incredible results. The last time he'd glanced at the instruments he'd set up to monitor the Protections, they had recovered far more quickly in strength then ever before. They still weren't up to the level they had been when Violet confronted Quirrel, but they were well on their way there.
He wasn't quite sure why, but took heart in the fact that Violet would have ample protection in case she needed it. He even dared to hope that perhaps Petunia had FINALLY decided to treat Violet better, that perhaps this summer Violet had FINALLY been able to have the childhood she so richly deserved.
Sadly, Arabella was on vacation, so he hadn't gotten any fresh updates on the situation on Privet Drive. He'd considered popping over himself for a brief visit or sending someone to covertly do it for him, but things had been far too busy for something like that most of the time and with the rapid way the protections were recovering, it hadn't seemed all that urgent.
Not only were the protections recovering at previously unseen speeds, but Violet herself was in better health and from what he was able to interpret from his instruments, truly and honestly happy where she was. It warmed his heart to 'see' a child who had been robbed of so much, finally seeming to catch a well-deserved break. He only wished that he had the time to witness it with his own old eyes.
Hopefully, she would also get to have a decently relaxing and yet not boring school year for once. With the Tri-wizard tournament to follow and the halls of Hogwarts filled with foreign students, the year should be anything but boring. He'd invested a lot of time and effort in trying to make the tournament fun, exciting and a whole lot safer than previous ones.
That was quite the task and one he hadn t fully succeeded in.
Krakoff wanted the opposite, he wanted to crank the danger levels up to what Dumbledore considered to be insane degrees. Krakoff would no doubt enter Victor Krum and the Durmstrang Headmaster had complete confidence in his star student, so he wanted Victor to be presented with incredible challenges to overcome in front of the whole world to see. The greater the challenge, the greater the fame Victor and by association Krakoff would get.
Madame Maxime was harder to pin down the motivations for. Either she had complete faith in her students ability to overcome whatever the tournament could throw at them or perhaps her half-giant nature made it harder to realize just how challenging some things could be for full humans. He'd certainly noticed that tendency in Rubeus. In spite of repeated talks with him, Rubeus Hagrid just seemed incapable of understanding just how frail and brittle young students could be in comparison to him. He'd thought it was just a Rubeus thing, but he was starting to suspect that it may just be a giant heritage kind of thing, because Olympe certainly didn't seem to have a problem with some suggested tasks that Dumbledore felt were too dangerous a challenge for young children.
He sighed. He hadn't succeeded as well as he'd hoped in keeping the tournament safe for the participants, but at least he felt adequate safety measures had been put in place for the observers. He did not want Hogwarts to see a repeat of some of the previous tournament s grave incidents, were not just participants but also onlookers had perished.
There had also been a whole slew of extra activities surrounding the Tournament, competitions and various exhibitions of sorts that traditionally hadn t been part of it. Albus had tried to veto all of them, just seeing it as even more work for very little payoff.
He hadn t been all that successful, Maxime in particular had been very supportive of a lot of those proposals and as everything was taking place, Albus had to privately admit that perhaps he d been wrong to just dismiss everything out of hand.
Some of the proposed activities had attracted the attention of potential sponsors and it now looked as if the tournament would be a whole lot better funded then he d ever imagined. It meant more work, but perhaps it would be all worth it.
But yes, the year should be anything but boring and with the tournament restricted to older students, hopefully a safe and somewhat relaxing one for Violet. She deserved a bit of a break after her first three years at the school he was supposed to keep safe for students.
Hopefully it would give her a chance to keep on growing into the fine young woman he envisioned as one day being able to be his successor for the task of keeping Britain safe from both internal and external threats, the one who did what the Ministry and DMLE couldn't.
He doubted she'd ever become someone he could turn over the Wizengamot or ICW to, she just didn't have the patience and inclinations needed for that. The school, perhaps, but that was well into the future and most likely something that someone other then him would have to decide upon.
But his unofficial unpaid fourth job as Britain s unshakeable rock, its protector and guardian, the shining guiding star for the rest of Britain to seek inspiration from? For that 'job', he could see no other successor then Violet Potter. If she kept on growing and developed as he envisioned, then future Violet would make a far better 'him' then Albus Dumbledore had ever been.
If... If she actually could survive the upcoming prophesised encounter with Voldemort. That scar was... He didn't even dare to put words to what he suspected and so far, he hadn't tried to confirm it one way or the other. The diary though, that had made him even more worried then ever before. He hoped that he was wrong about it. He hoped he was wrong about the scar. He hoped that Violet would survive and remain able to take over for him.
He allowed himself a few moments to bask in the fantasy of a future where everything that currently concerned him was well in hand by others, then let out a weary and drawn-out sigh as he returned to the present instead of hopes for the future.
He stood up and got rid of his conjured seat, drained the last dregs left in his cup and let the house elf that suddenly appeared beside him take the cup back to the kitchen. He took one final long look out over the Scottish countryside. He couldn't afford to dilly-dally any longer, it was time to do some damage control and see if there wasn't some way to use the current mess to benefit himself and his plans in some way.
Just because he despised the current state of things and the underhanded way some of his political opponents maneuvered, didn't mean that he himself wasn't capable of doing the same. No doubt the Ministry, Wizengamot and even the ICW was in a terribly confused state at the moment. That was the perfect time to try and slip some motions and appeals through under the fog of confusion. He'd have to try and keep his own name out of them, of course.
But if one of the people he needed to speak with anyway over the course of the upcoming days would be willing to put something forth in their own name that Albus had worked on, well...
Albus certainly didn't want more recognition, so he was fine with others taking the credit for what would be mostly his own work. If some liberal proposals just happened to go through because people were too concerned with the past of one Albus Dumbledore, he'd consider Gellert suddenly deciding to spill the beans a very, very good thing.
All for the Greater Good, one might even say.