Albus Dumbledore wanted to believe that he was only having a bad twenty-four hours and that all these problems would go away soon, but he expected otherwise.
First, last night Harry had outright dismissed the Dursleys as family and completely negated the blood wards he established; there was now no way to get Harry into that household to properly mold his personality into the sweet-spot of self-worth where Harry would not be suicidal, but could easily be convinced to die for his home.
Now it seemed that the boy had gone to the press with the events of last year. This could not have been a response to last night – this Harry was prone to rash action, and an article like this would have taken time to prepare. No doubt Harry had simply struck up a conversation with Luna Lovegood and she had asked about last year.
Dumbledore was the headmaster of Hogwarts, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, not to mention a certified Grand Sorcerer. With the authority and weight of all these titles, when he'd told the press that the incident last year had been a tragic accident and nothing more, they had believed him. Now his only hope to escape multiple inquiries was to rely on the Quibbler's own reputation.
Arguably worse than that, the article had drawn the attention of the staff. The reason that they had agreed to protect the Philosopher's Stone in the first place was that they'd believed that the full extent of their talents would be put to use. They'd believed that Potter, Longbottom, and Granger were prodigies for getting past the puzzles; now the truth was out amongst them that he had lowered the difficulty and lethality of the obstacles to guarantee that Harry would confront the thief – although even Dumbledore had not known that Tom would be possessing Quirrell.
Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose. The staff did not trust him now. The only one he could rely on was Severus, and even that was not true loyalty, but rather blackmail material. Dumbledore was not as naive as he let on. He knew that Severus didn't regret anything he'd done as a Death Eater except that it had cost him the woman he most desired, Lily Evans Potter, and that the man would be quite happy to kill Harry, Neville, or really just about any of the students. No, Dumbledore kept Snape on a tight leash, and Severus tolerated it because they both knew that if it came out that it was information from him that made the Dark Lord target the Potters and Longbottoms, he'd be lynched in the streets.
He sighed as he sat at his desk and pet Fawkes. Harry had to choose to die for Wizarding Britain so that he could invoke the same sacrificial magic that his mother had and apply it to the entire population. That would break the power of the Dark-aligned families by rendering all of their spells useless, and then the country could enter a new golden age once the pureblood bigots inbred themselves to extinction. He'd planned for this to be a quiet year that would endear the magical world and Hogwarts in particular to Harry. Now those plans had gone up in flames.
At least it couldn't get any worse.
Meanwhile, in the formerly forbidden corridor, Harry and his friends were doing some independent studying. Harry, Neville, and Luna were all sharing Harry's copies of The 52 Elemental Curses and The Four Humours of Magick. Hermione could read and understand things much faster, and so was reading the copies Harry had ordered for her on her own, periodically taking notes.
Luna was hanging around the trio as much as she could, something that made Harry happy for many reasons, some of which he still did not understand. Her things had stopped disappearing, if only because Harry quietly and invisibly kept making bad things happen to the people who took them. Some of the smarter Ravenclaws suspected that Luna's new friendship with Harry had something to do with all the unpleasant hexes plaguing their housemates, but far stronger than any house loyalty was a sense of self-preservation. Harry was apparently strong enough to break a hitherto unbroken law of magic by breathing fire without the aid of any sort of potion or enchantment; as the Hogwarts motto declared, one did not tickle a sleeping dragon.
"I think you'll like this ritual Harry. It sounds like something you'd need if the headmaster tries to abduct you again."
Hermione had taken time to accept that Dumbledore would do something as evil as take Harry away from the family he'd grown up with because of everything she'd read painting him as a great man, but Harry was her friend and had fought a troll for her. In the end, loyalty won out over book learning in her mind.
Harry flipped to the page she was on and read out, "The Rite of Anchoring is a Melancholic Ritual intended to imbue the soul of a magus with the immovability of mountain stones. Performed successfully, none may move the chosen magus by means of magick against his wishes, be the attacker's method wandwork, enchantment, or even a phoenix's fire…" The rest of the entry went on to detail the required materials and actions, along with some historical background. Apparently, this ritual had been quite common before the witch hunts, but the unintended result was that many families and friends could not save those who had performed the ritual for themselves, and had no choice but to abandon them to their fates. The end result was that it had fallen from favor and been largely forgotten by the time of the book's creation, when the unknown author decided to gather as much forgotten lore as possible to be preserved against the ever-burying sands of time.
"It sounds easy as rituals go, but where are we going to find a stone that hasn't moved in a long time?" Neville asked. "How would we even know if we found one?"
Luna was the one to make the startlingly obvious suggestion, "It says the stone needs to have been in a magical place for a long time. Hogwarts is made of stone and has stood for a thousand years. We could just select any of the stones in the walls and use that for the ritual. We just need to make sure it isn't home to any gulping plimpies first."
Harry simply nodded even as his other two friends gave Luna another odd look.
"Harry, I have to say that this book is quite large," this statement coming from Hermione made Harry and Neville gawk at her. They had seen her definition of "light reading."
"Oh, don't look at me like that, I just mean its charmed to have more pages than it ought to be able to hold. How are you ever going to be able to find helpful rituals in a timely manner?"
Harry hadn't actually realized that, or thought about that problem. He attempted to shrug it off, saying, "It can't be that bad. The book only goes on until page," here he flipped the book over and opened the back cover, "…two-thousand-seventy-three. Never mind, you have a point."
"Well, you could always let magic decide." And before any of them could ask Luna what she meant, she sent a weak gust of wind at the book, opening it and blowing a multitude of pages to the other side of the book.
Realizing that Luna meant what muggles called dumb luck, Harry looked to the entry most prominent on the page the book opened to and read, "The Rite of Rippling Fate is a Phlegmatic Ritual that essentially implores the entities variously known as the Moirai, Parcae, Sudice, Nornir, or Fates to lessen the burden on an individual…" It went on to describe a ludicrously complex ritual that could only be performed near a large body of water during a full moon that required many rare and expensive ingredients, and some manner of sacrifice. It did not require a blood sacrifice, but an emotional one; the person to benefit from the ritual would have to surrender an object they loved dearly, for the Fates – or whatever impersonal force they represented – could not be swayed save by an intense display of love and sacrifice.
The entry ended with a note, seemingly written by someone else. Harry couldn't place why, but the diction and word choices just felt different. Regardless, the note said that destiny had never been conclusively proven to exist, and that innumerable prophecies had been created and then never fulfilled for one reason or another. Some prophecies were fulfilled by accident, others by choice, and more still set in motion by those attempting to change their foretold fate. According to the writer of the note, there were two things that appeared to drive a prophecy – belief and action. A prophecy believed in had a greater chance of occurring than one that was dismissed, but a prophecy acted upon – to achieve or defy did not seem to matter – had a far greater chance succeed and thus perpetuate belief in fate and divination.
For some reason, the entry on the Rite of Rippling Fate disturbed all of them, but none more so than Harry. He'd had a horrible thought as he read the ritual requirements; it did not need a blood sacrifice, but it also did not forbid it. Was this the ritual that his parents had used to keep him alive? If Fate could be changed through love and sacrifice, would the deaths of two people for their child be enough to save an infant from certain doom? It couldn't possibly be, his parents had died on Halloween, and the full moon prior to that had been… a week previously. And they certainly couldn't stall the sacrifice in a ritual… could they?
The Fates were moved by love and sacrifice. Was it possible that they had been so moved by the thought of Harry's parents offering up their lives on his behalf that they had been willing to wait for their payment?
As Harry thought all this through his friends simply watched him and waited. Something about the look on his face told them that it would be wrong to interrupt. Finally, he released a breath he hadn't known he was holding and conjured a ribbon as black as his thoughts to use as a bookmark. The Rite of Rippling Fate disturbed him, but someday it could be useful.
At the same time, Arthur Weasley was putting the finishing touches on Jet Jaguar.
"There, now you should be able to function perfectly for Professor Dumbledore when he comes to get you!"
As the eccentric tinkerer left, Jet Jaguar tested his fine motor control, everything from simply wiggling his fingers to performing a few celebratory flips and somersaults, earning a few soft honks he believed was a form of quiet applause from the Ford Anglia. He still couldn't remember how to make himself grow, but he could leave at any time if he wanted to… but now he couldn't, not because he was incapable, but because he needed to stick to his plan.
He suspected that Dumbledore would take him to his office, believing him to be firmly under magical control. While Dumbledore's status as a wizard made him unique, Jet Jaguar had encountered his type before. The headmaster no doubt believed his office to be unassailable, and it would contain the documents detailing his actions and plans. The only problem was the bird. Fawkes, as he'd heard it was called, needed to be taken out quickly, before it could teleport away and warn its master. Jet Jaguar didn't doubt that he could do that, it was a simple matter of shattering its bones, and he was capable of that, he just hadn't thought he'd needed to all those months ago.
He reviewed his plan over and over as he waited. Get into the office, kill the bird, then begin searching for the most securely locked drawer or safe in the room. Then, depending on the precise architecture of the room, either fly out the window with the evidence, or fight his way out of the castle. The second option was extremely risky, but if the office had no windows then it was a risk he had to take.
Suddenly, Mr. Weasley came back into the garage, set to get tinkering again.
"Apparently, the headmaster doesn't need you anymore. Said the ICW had figured out the problem and sent him a new one, but he gave you to me as compensation for all the time I spent working on you. Now, for a golem you have a lot of muggle parts in you, so now that you're mine, I think I'll have to take you apart. Maybe this time I'll finally figure out how eckeltricity works!"
Jet Jaguar discovered that he had the emotional capacity to wish he had a way of vocally cursing. The plan was no longer going to work. There was only one way out now: violence.
He dashed forward and karate chopped the man in the temple. Jet Jaguar had heard enough from Arthur during his work to know that he was a good man, he just didn't know what he'd gotten into. That strike would leave him out cold just long enough for him to flee.
As he began making for the door, the car pulled towards him, honking desperately. It seemed that the Ford Anglia wanted to be free. The android almost left the vehicle behind, but then he remembered something Hagrid had mentioned over a year ago: Hogwarts' wards prevented speedy entry, so he wouldn't be able to fly there at mach three in the first place.
Deciding to damn the consequences, Jet Jaguar hopped into the semi-sapient vehicle and started driving. They burst out of the garage, and the robot pressed the buttons the car highlighted, which made it turn invisible and begin flying respectively.
They set off for the Scottish Highlands, Jet Jaguar focused on getting justice, and the Ford Anglia focused on its newfound freedom.
Author's Notes: First off, please leave long reviews. I'd like to know what I've done right and wrong with this story.
Moving on, now you've had some time with Dumbledore, Harry, and Jet Jaguar. I know that it isn't exactly original to make Snape as evil as he appears to be, but I can't stand the number of stories there are that try to make him likeable, so he is now as I always imagined him: an unrepentant Death Eater bound to serve Dumbledore by powerful blackmail material.
Speaking of Dumbledore, most of my reviewers seem not to like him at all, so on a scale of 1 to 10, how infuriating is his plan? A 1 means that you are itchy right now, but can easily scratch it, while 10 means that you must UNLEASH YOUR RAGE UPON THE INTERNET IN COMMENTS WITH ALL CAPS!
And I know you all wanted Jet Jaguar to escape, but were any of you expecting him to ride off in the Weasley's magically modified car?
Finally, while I'm not aware of anybody who has paid attention to this offer, but in the next few minutes I'll be posting this chapter on my DeviantArt with some additional commentary, so if you want greater insight into my mind, feel free to head over. If you want to see my profile, it's Gojirahkiin over there too.
Anyway, next chapter is Halloween at Hogwarts, and Harry Potter fans know what that means...