Happy October, everyone!
As usual, I don't own Harry Potter. Please let me know what you think.
Harry Potter: Thinking like a Thief.
The next morning at breakfast, everyone in the Great Hall was reading the morning edition of the Daily Prophet in surprise, but at the same time a more escalated version of 'who could have done this?' Was going on at the same time.
Malfoy manor had been burgled.
A group of aurors had been sent to the Malfoy property to learn as much as they could relating to the case of the deaths of so many pureblood students and people, only to discover Narcissa Malfoy had been burgled. By the time the aurors arrived along with a few curse breakers in case the team needed to fend off against the ward scheme and whatever other defences the manor possessed to stop people like them from calling, the woman had woken up and it was too late for her to get out, and so Narcissa simply did not have any choice but to cooperate with the team.
Narcissa had proven she was not as stupid as Lucius or Draco, although the former was debatable. She recognised when she should fight a battle, and when to just step back. The moment she realised the aurors were there, she knew she would have to talk while choosing her words carefully.
Unfortunately, that did not mean she had to like their questions the longer the investigation went on. And the aurors quickly realised she was just as shocked as they were the manor had been burgled, and this wasn't just a simple in through the window where only the jewellery was taken kind of burglary, this was the entire house. The portraits of the Malfoy family had been destroyed, erasing the essence of the Malfoy family's history for good, but everything of value and what was not cursed had been taken. But everything that was cursed was left on the premises, as well as the incriminating dark artefacts collection that the Malfoys had scattered throughout the house.
As he read through the Prophet he'd borrowed - he hadn't subscribed to the stupid newspaper - Harry was starting to wish he had put some kind of timer on the former Mrs Malfoy so she could have gotten out of the damn manor, although he felt a strong detachment from the whole thing. He was too busy thinking of the things he wanted to do with the gold he'd had his elves steal from the vaults of several of the newly dead Death Eaters. While he'd had the help of Dobby and several of the other elves he'd bonded with recently, Harry had had a few others steal the gold from underneath the goblins' noses.
While he had respect for the goblins, at the same time Harry did not trust them and he had few qualms about stealing from them as long as he stole from other people. And besides, how would they find out what he had done? So he wasn't worried about them discovering his crimes. Harry lifted his head and gazed at the staff table; like the students, they were focused completely on the newspapers in front of them, but he could see enough of their expressions to see their utter shock, or in the case of Dumbledore, worry, and anger written all over Umbridge's amphibian features, and a sneer on Snape's expression, although what the potions teacher was thinking, Harry did not know and did not particularly care.
Harry was just putting the newspaper away when Hermione looked up from her own copy. "This burglary's obviously connected to the fire in Hogsmeade," she said matter of factly.
Harry resisted the urge to sigh. Not only did Hermione have this irritating need to point the obvious out in a foolish belief she was more intelligent than everybody else in the room, but she also had this annoying need to play a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercule Poirot.
It was frustrating. Why did she have to care?
"We guessed," Harry's voice was curt; he would normally try to stick to his usual persona, but he couldn't.
He wasn't really bothered about the burglary or the magical world's reaction to it; of course, the burglaries were linked to the fires in Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley were related, who cared? His scar was giving him trouble. It was prickling and there was a steady burning sensation coming from it; he was mitigating the worst of the pain thanks to his occlumency control, but the trouble was you could spend a lot of time building barriers, it would still allow a bit of pain to bleed through.
Hermione sent him a look, but she carried on clearly under the impression he was in a bad mood and that it had nothing to do with his stupid scar since he wasn't rubbing it which was a sure sign the two stooges took to know was the scar was playing up. He had no intention of doing that, he would likely only rub his head or his eyes.
"As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted," Hermione paused to send Harry a look, "the burglary and the fires, but the question is why?"
Harry sighed under his breath. But this time he wasn't going to bother speaking unless he said or did something that sent up red flags for the two idiots. He looked around the hall, seeing the shock and even fear on the faces of the pureblood students, especially those whom he knew had sympathies for Voldemort's cause. They looked horrified now they knew that a family as powerful and as rotten to the core and was unashamed of their ties to the bone dead stupid fool who called himself a Dark Lord was vulnerable and lived in the real world enough to be burgled and virtually exterminated that it could happen to them as well. With a bit of luck, this would make sure these kids thought long and hard and thought twice about taking the Dark Mark or crowing their desire to become a Death Eater themselves.
Harry had to admit, he had not thought much about that as a potential consequence but now he could see the fear in the faces of the Junior Death Eater wannabes around the hall, he hoped some of the kids had stopped to think in ways those poison pen pamphlets never could unless he was looking for the long term.
Harry frowned as he thought about the pamphlets. He had decided to completely change the pamphlet plan so then he could focus more on the Death Eaters and steal everything that they owned, but right now his mind was too occupied with thinking about the other families he planned to rob in the future. He had no intention of putting the money into Gringotts unless he wanted to alert the goblins to what he had done. The Malfoy fortune was safely stored away inside a transdimensional trunk he had bought with the capacity of holding much more. When he had formed the plan to rob the magical world's Death Eater families and make pointers about how screwed up everything was, Harry had wondered for a long time about what he would need to do in order to sell the gold.
The first thing he would need to do was to melt the gold itself down into bullion. That or transfigure the Galleons and other magical insignias on the coins into ingots that he could readily sell without the magical authorities being aware of it. But really, they would be focusing on the magical world and not the muggle world. Once he had done something to the coins he'd stolen from the Malfoy vaults besides that little amount he had reserved for Narcissa, then he would be in a position to stash them somewhere for later sales. If it worked then he would be super-rich.
He hoped he had his opinions of the DMLE's scope right because if they discovered what he was really doing, then he was going to be in trouble.
To occupy his thoughts, Harry glanced at the teachers. He wasn't surprised to see the concern on the faces of Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Sprout but the intrigue on Flitwick's face intrigued Harry himself; he had little doubt after seeing the expression on the Charms professor's face Flitwick wondered just how far this was going to go, and what the long-term consequences were going to be.
It was a far cry from his colleagues who looked more stunned by the now than in the latter, but if Flitwick was intrigued then Snape and Umbridge were both casting more negative but nonetheless intriguing emotions.
Snape's eyes were narrowed and glinted darkly with an angry sneer on his face. The sneer surprised Harry, who had always assumed Snape and the Malfoys were friends if that was the correct term, but he had the feeling there was a little contempt there mixed in as well for some reason. It could be because of how easily Lucius and Draco had been killed and how poor the Malfoy's defences were from a mundane burglary. That would fit with Snape's mindset, the man liked to think highly of himself and believed he was the smartest man in the room. Harry might not like Snape that much, but he had to admit the man was intelligent and he struck Harry as being more practical than Dumbledore. Just by looking at the sneer on Snape's face, Harry could tell the man likely had his own money stored somewhere but was likely now beginning to think of other ways of hiding it in a less public place than a bank like Gringotts even if the goblins' had made sure the reputation the bank had was good although now it was compromised.
Harry blinked in surprise and worry when he registered that thought consciously. Thanks to the house-elves, he had just stolen a fortune from Gringotts. The goblins were unlikely to like that, and by now they were likely stepping up the defence schemes around the family vaults so this didn't happen again. Harry was now left wondering if he should leave the vaults on their own, but if he did that who would claim them?
The Ministry?
Voldemort?
Or somebody else?
Harry didn't like the thought or even the prospect of anyone else getting their hands on the money, especially if Voldemort himself found a way into Gringotts to get hold of the vaults; he had tried to do that when he had been without his original body, and now he had it back there was no telling what he would do now.
But Snape was not on the list of burglary targets, indeed he wasn't really on any kind of list as far as Harry was concerned. The Potions Master was of no consequence to him; to Harry, Snape was a childish, surly man who hated for no reason and lashed out like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. His pathetic fawning 'love' for Lily Potter only further proved his inferiority, in Harry's eyes. The man was weak. He failed to let go of his past. He failed to grow. He was content spending a lifetime wasting his energy holding onto grudges. And Sirius was only too happy to keep it going, the pathetic fool.
Harry turned to Umbridge. Unlike Snape, who kept most of his emotions under tightly controlled occlumency barriers, the woman had little in the way of self-control. The Ministry toady was red-faced with anger, but she was also shooting horrified and worried looks at the paper while her beady little eyes darted around the Great Hall as if she was worried someone was doing something shifty.
Quite by accident, and Harry would blame himself for this, Umbridge's eyes and Harry's eyes met. Now, this was not two lovebirds hoping to catch each others' gaze. This was two enemies showing their loathing and distaste for each other.
Harry didn't look away. He just fixed his stare unblinkingly on her, but inwardly he regretted even looking up at the teachers. Umbridge had been going out of her way to find something on him since she'd got here, and he may have inadvertently given her something to blame him for even though the teachers would know her accusations held water like a leaky boat.
Umbridge, unable to cope with the unblinking stare and the power hidden in the emerald green eyes, looked away. Harry did as well, already knowing he had made a big mistake just now but after a minute Harry mentally shrugged his shoulders; Umbridge might be stupid, but even she would not accuse him of stealing from the Malfoys. The Prophet had made it clear the ward scheme on the manor had not even been touched, and since Umbridge didn't have a favourable view of what he could do she would not point the finger at him, but she might be wondering and forming her own views of why he would look at her just now.
His next DADA lesson (for what it was worth) was in another 24 hours, but Harry knew Umbridge would likely continue with her stupid stalking games. Idly he checked his timetable, mentally grimacing when he saw he had potions today first thing, but Harry didn't doubt Snape was going to be in a classic bad mood. But he was not going to let the bastard cause problems, not today. If Snape wanted to be a child, then he could do it in the privacy of his own rooms, not spending his time bullying and harassing students for no reason.
As he and the others in his year worked through the day, Harry noted the increase in the workload, and he made plans to work on it and put a nice big dent during break. OWL year was seen and known to be one of the difficult years in a young wizard or witch's life, and this year was proving it. Harry knew the extra workloads were just a warm-up; the teachers wanted every single student to learn everything they could learn in order to achieve good results. For Harry, this was not an issue. He had been revising for his OWLs and NEWTs since before he stepped foot into Hogwarts, all in preparation for the day when he could wave goodbye to Dumbledore and rub in his face he was not going to let the old wizard meddle in his business anymore. In some ways, he welcomed the extra workload, because it gave him time to revise although thanks to the Room of Requirement last year, Harry had used the properties in the Room which summoned books on various subjects to him to help him revise, even muggle books the magical world largely ignored.
But at the same time…
Harry continued to check the newspapers for anything relating to Voldemort; while the Dark Lord was not stupid enough to blatantly reveal his return for all and sundry to see just yet, there had to be some signs, but there wasn't anything, either because the Prophet reporters were deliberately ignoring the truth, or because Fudge and the Ministry hadn't noticed anything.
And then it occurred to him.
He had access to the Room of Requirement, why couldn't he use it to help him fight Voldemort?
X
In his office after dinner, Dumbledore summoned the Heads of House to his office. This had the beauty of not having Umbridge anywhere near the meeting because what he had to say to his Heads, he did not want Umbridge near it. But he was prepared if the odious woman discovered the proceedings and invited herself, believing her rank in the Ministry meant anything. But it was going to be a waste of time because he had given strict orders to the Griffin statue below not to allow Umbridge up.
"Now that we're all here, we can begin," Dumbledore said as he looked around the office, wondering best how to go about these proceedings. Only two of the Heads were members of the Order, whereas Filius had made it clear while he opposed Voldemort, he would never join the Order at all, and Dumbledore had learnt long ago not to push the charms master.
Pomona on the other hand just didn't have the skills needed to oppose the Dark Lord.
"How did this happen? How did the Malfoy family fall so hard and so quickly?" Speak of the devil, Pomona had just asked the questions Dumbledore himself was asking.
"The fire in Hogsmeade and the burglary have to be connected," Dumbledore guessed he was the only person to note Flitwick roll his eyes at the obvious statement Minerva had given. "But who was behind them both?"
"What have the DMLE said about the fire, Headmaster?" Snape asked in his silky voice which was so low even Dumbledore couldn't tell what the Potions Master was thinking.
"Very little," Dumbledore made sure to inject a little tired frustration into his voice, although he knew Severus and Filius were not fooled; both of them knew he had sources in the Ministry who were loyal regardless of what Fudge was doing or trying to do to his reputation as well as Harry's. But right now he needed everyone to see Fudge's attacks on his reputation and influence had diminished him, rather than let his teachers know the full scope of his organisation.
It didn't really work since three out of the four Heads knew just how powerful he was influentially, but it worked to prove to them he had limits.
"Surely, you've heard something from your contacts, Albus?" Minerva asked.
"Oh, I have. Some of them are now being bullied by Fudge, who has found just enough time to cause them troubles but I have only heard the fires were potion based, and there is no magical signature on them," Dumbledore hoped that would be an end to that line of questioning, but it wasn't.
"It looks like your methods of passive-aggressiveness towards the Death Eaters hasn't really helped or done much good, have they, headmaster?" Flitwick said pointedly. "Did you know there was a brothel catering to their depravity on our doorstep or not?"
"No, I didn't," Dumbledore was halfway proud of the half-truth. Prior to the first fire in Knockturn Alley, Dumbledore had not even known about the brothel in Hogsmeade until Snape was pushed into a corner.
He knew now he could have dropped a little tipoff about the brothel to Amelia Bones, and let her clean up the mess and make it clear to the citizens of the magical world the DMLE would not stand for something like that, that disgusting. Unfortunately, it only registered in hindsight now. Between trying to gather allies and finding out what Voldemort was doing right now, all the time coping with the stumbling blocks thrown into his path by Umbridge and Fudge, Dumbledore had not found the time to do anything.
But at the same time, he had hoped if he ignored the issue it would go away on its own.
But it hadn't.
"How are the students handling the fire and the burglary?" Dumbledore asked, hoping to change the subject and move on to something different than his own failings.
"About as well as you might expect; many of the victims were not liked by their peers. I can count on both hands how many students are glad Mr Malfoy and some of his ilk are gone but don't forget there were other victims of the fire who nobody would have considered going for that kind of thing," Sprout visibly shuddered at the thought, although if she was shuddering at the violence of the deaths or how many of them were members of her own House, Dumbledore could not say.
"Are there any suspects?"
"No, and you should direct that kind of question to the DMLE; they can clean up the mess," Dumbledore said.
"We're not going to do anything about this?" Flitwick asked although he wasn't surprised since the charms master knew the Headmaster and the rest of the Hogwarts staff only had a finite number of resources at their disposal.
"No. But we are going to use this as an opportunity to discover who else in the castle holds the same type of views, and see what happens next. The perpetrator behind the fires and burglary must have a pretty extensive intelligence network, I want to know if they will make some kind of mistake later. I will need to give it some thought, but we cannot let someone just wantonly kill our students, regardless of their views. At the same time, I want all of you to keep an eye on the whole student body. They must know the limits and that certain behaviours must not be tolerated," Dumbledore went on.
He had given this a lot of thought. With the deaths of so many students, there was a chance some might take advantage and attack each other over their ridiculous beliefs. Normally Dumbledore would not care, believing adversity was good for strengthening character while ensuring the dark had enough allies for him and his own Order to fight, but there were too many uncertainties.
Damn it, he had hoped with so much going on he would have a chance to find a way of testing Harry, but unfortunately, it was not meant to be.
An astonished silence filled the air as the Heads of House wondered what he meant by that.
Dumbledore decided to lay it on the line. "From now on, there is to be a crackdown on bullying. I do not want this school to be torn to pieces because of the egos of the students, or their ideologies."
X
In her office in the Ministry of Magic, Amelia Bones wondered and asked loudly to herself more than once as she reviewed the crime scene reports of the fires in Knockturn Alley and Hogsmeade and the burglary in Malfoy Manor if being the Head of the DMLE was a good career move or not, since it meant she was under a lot of pressure to find out who was behind all of this.
Fudge was now breathing down her neck, panicking and bleating like a flock of sheep being chased by a werewolf, demanding she catch the people behind the fires and the burglary of Malfoy Manor. Fudge never failed to amaze Amelia; the man was always so desperate to protect his benefactors - it was an open secret Fudge was regularly bribed - but now the Malfoys had been taken out of the equation, Fudge was frightened of losing anyone else. It did not help the man was on thin ice as it was.
The ICW team, who were above and beyond Fudge and the Wizengamot of Britain were finalising their investigations, had made it clear to Fudge already that the Minister was on borrowed time. He didn't have long left, and Amelia was already counting down the days before the little fool was out of her life for good.
Already they had uncovered more crimes than just simple bribery, and Amelia had already been interviewed a dozen times about why she had allowed Fudge so much leeway, which had been another reason why she was starting to loath her job.
Unfortunately, he was not completely gone yet and she still had to report to him and the ICW regularly, which again made her ask that question 5-8 times a day. However she remembered the chaotic way Crouch Senior had gone out of his way to arrest and throw every Death Eater who looked at him in the wrong way into a prison cell in one of the most disgusting places on Earth, and Amelia remembered why she had become the Head, although she knew she would be questioning herself for the rest of her life.
She had begun to become a believer that Voldemort had returned.
Reason number one; while she didn't like Dumbledore that much since many of his decisions bordering on reckless abandon resulted in the deaths of many, including members of Amelia's own family, it made no sense for him to lie or exaggerate about something this important. At the same time, it was reckless for Fudge to simply dismiss the possibility of the evil wizard's return.
Reason number two; Fudge didn't want the news to get out, but the aurors (the few she had, thanks to Fudge listening to the piss-poor advice of people like Malfoy, who should never have been allowed to give it in the first place) had noted instances which had resulted in deaths and disappearances. On top of that, the dementors in Azkaban had been growing restless according to the warden reports from Azkaban. And there were rumours Greyback was on the prowl. Just the thought of the evil, violent werewolf being heard from again was enough for Amelia to feel physically sick.
Reason number three; the dementor attack in Little Whinging, the town the Boy-Who-Lived surprisingly lived in was a red flag in itself. Amelia had always hated the filthy demons, and she believed they should be destroyed. All of them. Right now. Without question. Unfortunately, so many who were too stupid to be allowed to own a wand believed otherwise, thinking they were loyal. The attack in Little Whinging to stay nothing of their behaviour in Hogwarts two years ago proved there was nothing good about them. But her preliminary findings with the aid of the ICW investigation team had shown someone within the Ministry had ordered them released to attack Little Whinging. The implications of someone was willing to kill a young wizard were horrifying.
And it made her wonder if the boy was right after all.
Reason number four; they had found too many people who had the Dark Mark burnt into their forearms, and they had not been on any list the Ministry had from the first war. Okay, a few of them had likely been missed even with the likes of people who gave evidence like Karkaroff, who had vanished into thin air, which was yet another red flag for them at the Ministry, but while Amelia believed that for older generations, some of those marked were barely out of Hogwarts a few years.
The idea of another war with the dark, particularly with this Dark Lord….it horrified her. She had lost her family, and so many friends had just died because of Voldemort. The idea of another war on the horizon was something she dreaded, but she was going to make sure she was ready for anything.