Harry Potter and the Puppetmaster of Hogwarts, Chapter 15

Sorry for the wait; I hope that you can forgive me.

"What?!" Harry burst out.

"There is two girls in the Chamber!" Dobby repeated, eyes wide.

The trio looked at each other, and then at Professor Snape, and then back at Dobby. Hermione drew her wand. "Right. We'll be right there."

In moments, they had left Professor Snape's bedside and hurried into the main Chamber, wands out, expecting attack every moment. Only to see...

"Ginny?" Harry asked in disbelief, staring at the girl. "Luna?"

"They've kicked Dumbledore out of Hogwarts," said Ginny breathlessly, eyes wide. "There are more of those horrible old educational decrees pinned up everywhere, and Umbridge was torturing Luna!"

Harry stared, unable to focus. Beside him, Ron's mouth was gaping. Even Hermione's wand-arm was shaking a little as she lowered her wand, but, fortunately or not, she managed to pull herself together faster than the boys.

"That bitch is using the blood quill on Luna? And what do you mean Dumbledore's kicked out of Hogwarts? Was it the aurors or the Ministry? How did you even get into the Chamber?"

The two girls stared at her. "Yes, yes, it was the Ministry, and I'm a parselmouth," Ginny said promptly.

That threw even Hermione for a loop. She had been in the middle of fumbling in her bag when she dropped it, all at once, letting the contents spill out all over the Chamber floor, potion vials and papers and quills and chocolate frogs tumbling about her feet. "You're a parselmouth?"

Ginny shuddered. "When Tom...when he...when I was...yeah, I can still speak it. I hate it, and I hate this place, but I had to get Luna somewhere where the Pink Bitch can't come!"

Hermione frowned, then abruptly picked up her bag again. "Here; what am I thinking!" she said, fumbling around and pulling out a cloth and a bottle filled with a murky yellow substance, the same things that she had used on Harry after his many detentions with the Blood Quill. Quickly, she dabbed the substance- murtlap essence, Harry realized- onto the cloth. "Here, Luna. Murtlap. It'll make the wounds stop hurting."

Luna took it with a smile and began rubbing it on her hand, while Ginny helped her. "Thank you."

"N-no problem," was Hermione's reply. "So what's this about Dumbledore kicked out of Hogwarts?"

"The Ministry came to 'remove him' but he just grabbed Fawkes and retreated. How in Merlin's name are we going to make it through NEWTS now?!"

"He just up and ran, like a coward?" Ron burst out.

"Flew," was Harry's response. "Although Merlin only knows why Fawkes sticks around..."

Ginny stared at them, although Luna, who of course had seen through the old man's facade, was not so incredulous. "Wait, what do you mean?" she asked. "Dumbledore's a great man!"

Harry swallowed, shooting a glance at the other two members of the Golden Trio. "Hermione, can you do the honors?"

Hermione frowned, then drew her wand. "All I can do is a diagnostic and maybe some minor cursebreaking." Then she flicked it in Ginny's general direction. She instantly found a wand pressed into the hollow of her throat. Both boys and Luna drew their wands, ready to stun her if necessary, but were careful not to approach. Besides, Hermione looked like she had it under control.

"What were you going to do?" Ginny hissed. Hermione, still a little wide-eyed, lowered her wand, but also refused to back away.

"Ginny, I need to check you for compulsions. All of us had some and it just occurred to me that you probably had some too."

"Why, because I respect Dumbledore?"

"No, because you're close to Harry, and he and most of his friends are in danger right now what with the ministry acting up."

Ginny slowly relaxed. "Alright. But for Merlin's sake, warn me if you're going to do anything like that again."

"I-I will. I'm casting a diagnostic right now, is that ok?"

"Yeah, ok." Ginny was still tense, but she wasn't thrusting her wand into Hermione's neck anymore either.

Hermione cautiously cast, and a slip of paper, rather like the one that had appeared during the diagnostic on Snape, but shorter, appeared. Hermione began to read it and grimaced almost at once. "Oh, Merlin."

"Can I see that?"

Hermione was about to give it to Ginny, though she was still reading it, when she saw something further along on the list that made her pale with fury and continue reading. "That old son of a bitch!"

"What is it?" Ron asked, approaching. Hermione gave him the paper, instead, seeming to feel that Ginny should probably not read it until the potions had worn off, which Harry definitely concurred with.

Diagnostic:

Patient: Female, fourteen years of age

Physical condition: good

* Propensity to nosebleeds

* Occasional migraines

* Feminine issues

Magical condition: poor

Obsession serum keyed to Harry Potter

Compulsion to write in Tom Riddle's diary and not stop, cast by Tom Riddle

Compulsion to write in Tom Riddle's diary, cast by Albus Dumbledore

Compulsion not to seek out help, cast by Albus Dumbledore

Soul-damage- untreated

Dark taint from possession

Carita Altera potion

Love potion keyed to Harry Potter

Trust potion, keyed to Albus Dumbledore

Loyalty potion, keyed to Albus Dumbledore

Ron, having read it, promptly punched the wall of the Chamber that happened to be closest to him, crumpling the paper involuntarily. "That slimy old bastard!"

"Who is the target of such language, Weasley?"

Four heads whipped around in shock; only Luna did not seem surprised that Snape had come up behind them.

Ron, however, recovered quickly. "I'm just talking about Albus Dumbledork," he snarled, rubbing his knuckles.

"I understand the sentiment, but what in particular has made you so angry at him?"

"He used a love potion keyed to Harry and Carita Altera potion on Ginny!"

Professor Snape's face twisted in a snarl, and Harry nearly exploded with anger, thinking about the old man trying to make the poor girl fall for him for what? Some twisted plan that probably wouldn't have even worked in the first place?

"Excuse me, sir, but what is that second potion?" that was Hermione who, even with her anger, was always interested in learning things.

Professor Snape opened his mouth to reply, but Ron beat him to it. "It's a traditional pureblood potion meant for correcting your, um...choice of partner," Ron said, blushing hotly. "Only like the Blacks or the Lestranges or some of the other the really uptight families use it anymore since we have same-sex conception potions." He paused, and then stared at Ginny, eyes widening as he seemed to realize what that meant, and then he blushed even more.

Hermione was blushing too, but not from embarrassment. "That's sick! You can't just mess with someone's head like that just for tradition! That's even worse than a regular love potion!" The others took a step back as sparks, bright orange as Crookshank's fur, flew off of her, crackling in the dank air of the Chamber. "The fact that that's not illegal is just a testament to how messed up the Ministry of Magic is! They outlawed the imperius, didn't they? So why haven't they outlawed all these horrible old potions!"

"Hermione!"

Hermione jerked her arm out of Ron's grip. "Don't you Hermione me!"

Ginny made an abortive attempt to step in, but no one was listening, and so Hermione just went on: "No, just stop and listen for a second. I agree. And as soon as we can, we'll petition for trying to outlaw all the really potent potions that have no good applications, but right now we have to figure out how to stop Dumbledore from doing what he did to Professor Snape and to Ginny to anyone else ever again. He's the biggest threat right now. The Ministry is the next biggest threat, but they are also doing some of our work for us, defaming Dumbledore and all that. Voldie's lying low right now, so we don't actually have to worry about him so much, more like just keep an eye on him while we get the Pink Bitch out of Hogwarts and make Dumblemort stay out."

Slowly, Hermione seemed to calm down, and the sparks stopped flying, although her frizzy hair was still standing almost on end from the angry magic. "Right. First things first though. We've got to figure out who else Dumbledore dosed with psychotropic potions and who else the Pink Bitch has been torturing in detention, and we've got to get them help. I don't trust Madame Pomfrey, though, since she would probably have figured out what Dumbledore was doing from the get-go, the first time someone needed an in-depth diagnostic, so until we figure out what's going on, we'll have to...wait, what will we do? Um...Professor Snape, are you well enough to help?"

"Yes. A few cleansing spells won't kill me," Professor Snape said calmly, still leaning against the wall of the Chamber, as he had been since before they had even been cognizant that he was watching.

Listening to all of this, Ginny was getting more and more frustrated at what, to her, must have seemed like a descent into madness. At last she couldn't restrain herself. "What in Merlin's name are you talking about?! What's going on? What was on that scan that you're getting so angry about?!"

"You might want to sit down," was Hermione's shaky reply.

Ginny did so reluctantly, holding her hand out for the diagnostic paper. "Let me see that; I should think that I have a right to..."

Hermione gave it to her without another word. She carefully smoothed out the wrinkles left-over from when Ron had crumpled it and then read it, growing paler and paler with each line. "I...is this real? It can't be, can it. Professor Dumbledore-"

"Is a right bastard," Ron interrupted, eyes still following the paper where it quivered in her shaking hands. "I didn't want to believe it at first, either, but he's not all you think."

"If...if I'm really under a loyalty potion, a purging potion will clean it away, won't it?" Ginny asked, sounding far too young and far too afraid.

"Yes Miss Weasley." That was Professor Snape.

"Then do you have one on hand?"

Snape hesitated, then drew a small vial of dirty brown potion out of the many pockets in his long black teaching robes. "Are you sure, Miss Weasley? A purging potion can be very unpleasant."

"So can the withdrawal from loyalty potions," she replied, proving herself more competent at potioncraft than any of the others (except perhaps Luna) would have expected. "I have to know."

Snape wordlessly gave her the potion, and she drank it down. Almost instantly, her face reddened with the fever of the potion working through her veins, flushing out foreign potions, and then she leant over and was violently sick. And then she straightened, shuddering. "Th-that meant it worked, right?" she asked cautiously, once Hermione had cleaned her up and vanished the vial. She blinked hard a few times, rubbed one hand over her face, and then reached out for the parchment diagnostic again. This time, she showed nothing but anger, reading it. She scanned it twice, as if to make sure that she was reading it right, and then she abruptly spat several words that Molly would most likely have scourgified her mouth for. "Right. So how did you figure out what he was doing?" she asked, turning back to the others. "I sure as hell wouldn't have suspected, and neither would pretty much any other wizard I know."

"That's a long story," Ron began. "I think it started with Harry having to go back to the classroom to retrieve his Potions textbook..."