Chapter 33: Post Obsequies Requiescat
Dumbledore rubbed his arms and legs vigorously as the potion wore off – not a moment too soon – in the second chamber prepared in the Chamber of Secrets.
"Ouch, am I bruised!" he laughed.
"Better bruised than dead" said Krait severely. "I say, Severus, I see what you mean about side effects."
Dumbledore was his own self save for the fact that he was a bright blue all over.
"It'll wear off in a day or two" shrugged Severus "And he wasn't planning on going anywhere anyway."
Dumbledore smiled.
"Well, that was instructive enough to be well worth being blue, even if it never wore off" he said. "Yaxley has his pride still I see; the Imperius curse always was his speciality. Now I know what to do."
"What you have to do is stay put and out of sight" said Krait, frowning. "No risks, remember?"
"Then you will have to do it for me, Severus" said Dumbledore "Place in Pius Thicknesse a release code from the Imperius curse so he knows what he's been doing when someone shouts the code word at him…Yaxley is NOT a good enough legilimens to find something you implant."
"Pius Thicknesse is too dim to understand" said Severus "He'll do what the law says because the law says it; even if he's changed it under the Imperius curse. It'd take a decade to penetrate his dutiful and mile-thick skull that he has been used. Oh all right, I'll do it; but don't blame me if you have to talk at him for a straight year afterwards to explain it all."
"Oh I shan't blame you in the least, Severus" laughed Dumbledore. "You know, the colour is growing on me – do you think I should get a wardrobe to tone with it or contrast?"
Severus gave Dumbledore a helpless look.
"You're incorrigible, Albus!" he said.
-/-
Bathilda Bagshot was a very old woman, rambling on about her memories; and Krait listened as patiently as she could, whilst wanting to cry out from time to time how wrong the old woman was!
She related how standoffish Kendra Dumbledore was; and how strange was the way she treated her daughter, keeping her inside most of the time, but taking her out in the garden for exercise at night, keeping a tight hold on the girl. Kendra had even slammed the door in Bathilda's face when the Dumbledores first arrived, bringing cakes which had made her resentful to start with; thereafter she only saw the two boys and it was quite two years before she caught sight of Ariana, and then only because the older witch had been picking herbs by moonlight. Bathilda was of the opinion that Ariana was a squib, since nobody had ever seen her perform magic, and that Kendra had made the decision to move to Godric's Hollow to hide the shame and let people forget she even had a daughter. She pointed out that the girl would have been about seven when she vanished, the age at which normal children started to exhibit some powers; and whatever the boys said about Ariana being too delicate and frail to go to school, she, Bathilda, did not think the girl looked frail at all.
It was Bathilda too who had introduced Dumbledore to Grindelwald. She explained what a charming boy he had seemed, visiting her, his great aunt, there in Godric's Hollow, and what a good idea it seemed to be to introduce him to the young Dumbledore, all alone with his supposedly frail sister. They got on, as Bathilda described it, like a cauldron on fire, even exchanging ideas in dead of night by way of owls, for she often heard the tap of a beak on her nephew's window. It had seemed odd at the time that such a nice boy should have been expelled from Durmstrang, but there, with what he became… but it turned out that the ideas he and young Albus were discussing were most unsavoury. Bathilda Bagshot hobbled to a bureau and got out a letter she had kept, that Albus had sent to his friend Gellert.
It expressed agreement with the German boy's ideas abut ruling muggles for their own good; and Albus' insistence that when the pair of them seized power they should only use as much force as necessary – saying that exceeding this had been Gellert's mistake at Durmstrang, though had he not, they should not have met!
It was an outpouring of youthful admiration, reiterating 'the greater good' with a pomposity that showed the eighteen year old Albus Dumbledore to have as much sense, Krait thought, as a boy several years his junior. And it showed some insights into how even a clever caring man might be caught by a charismatic and unscrupulous type.
Bathilda burbled on about how it was Ariana's death that caused problems between the friends, upsetting her poor nephew who hurried back, begging her to prepare a portkey for him. She spoke of how upset Albus was; how grief affected the two brothers to the extent that Aberforth broke Albus' nose at the funeral. She shook her head over what Kendra would have thought of her boys fighting like that. She thought it a terrible shame dear Gellert could not have come to the funeral to support his dear friend.
It was harmless enough to the ears of one who had heard the story from the lips of Dumbledore himself; but Krait could see how it could be presented as quite damning.
She allowed herself to be given a cup of tea and chatted cheerfully for a while to the lonely old witch and escaped to plan how to write up this tale as a calumny which might yet be seen through as such once her father was dead and Dumbledore reinstated.
The best way would be to make it seem that poor old Bathilda Bagshot was half senile already, and eaten up with resentment over Kendra Dumbledore's initial rejection of her friendly – or nosy – overtures. By writing perhaps 'young Dumbledore was doubtless with his mother when she finally passed the veil; who can say what passed between them, what secrets or vows he made' implying an unbreakable vow to an implacable mother. The whole story might come out when Albus died for real; but he must be able to be shown to have good motives towards his sister. His alliance with Grindelwald was another matter. All that could be hoped was that if the letter were printed in its entirety, most would see it for what it was, the infatuated outpourings of a youth still young enough to be in love with his own self importance. That he backed muggle rights later was surely enough indication to those with sense that he was heartily ashamed of his youthful leanings. Well she would pour out spite and venom; and the more spite and venom she could put into the article, the less sensible people were likely to believe it.
It was just a pity that magical folk, like muggles, were very rarely sensible about the crap they read in such rags as the News of the World or Daily Prophet!
-/-
With Pius Thicknesse under the Imperius Curse and Severus installed as Hogwarts' new headmaster, the wizarding world suddenly became much darker.
The Office for Muggleborn registration was born; and it was headed by Yaxley. He was aided by a poisonous little wizard called Runcorn who had needed no Imperius Curse to happily join in the degradation of muggleborn.
Every muggleborn witch or wizard was to register with the office and investigations were to be undertaken over how they came to steal their magical powers. The official notice was that the Ministry wanted better to understand how muggles might have obtained magical powers; the notice in the Prophet said that the Department of Mysteries had revealed that magic passed from person to person through reproduction; and so where no proven wizarding ancestry existed, it was imperative to find out if the so-called muggle-born obtained their powers by theft or force.
"Meh" said Krait "Ain't they never heard of hidden genes?"
"What are the state of ones nether garments to do with it?" asked Severus "It is jeans isn't it you call them?"
"G-E-N-E-S" said Krait patiently "The means by which heritance is passed….you can have, say a black slave in the days of slavery who birthed a child of a white master and the great grandchildren look totally white, but if two people then get together of similar heritance they can have a dark skinned baby. And I guess magic works the same way, and two people who carry it from so far back there's no proof that can be found have enough magic between them to produce a magically active baby. I thought that was obvious."
"Actually no" said Severus "I think muggles have done more research into heritence then we have; having special words for it is somewhat indicative."
"Well with the human genome pretty much mapped – and I guess wizarding powers will constitute some of the genes they can't find a use for – we know pretty much how various features are passed on" said Krait. "This is silliness; but we have to let it run its course I suppose and let people be terrorised until Albus in his less than infinite wisdom is prepared to act."
"People tend to believe those in authority" said Severus "We need to show them that it can be bad before they will fully back us. People's memories are short, their loyalties fickle. Only a good scare will show them the truth."
"Does he think people will let this happen?"
"My dear, it IS happening; they are rounding up the muggle born already, those that have not already fled" said Severus "The most vulnerable are being got away by our friends."
"I hate this… I wish we could move on him."
"Soon….very soon" he reassured her.
Naturally this rounding up would have included Hermione and many others at Hogwarts; and Neville came up with the idea of using the Room of Requirements to live in, as it was formed of wizarding space and would provide as much room as was required. It even opened a passage to the Hogs' Head in Hogsmead, where Aberforth Dumbledore provided food, and also sent other refugees to join the secret group in Hogwarts.
Voldemort was delighted with the way things were going.
"I don't see why most people don't see the logical inconsistency though" said Krait to Severus "We're making out Dumbledore to be a secret muggle hater; and then attacking muggles and muggleborn. Isn't there a flaw in the logic of castigating him for something the deatheaters are doing themselves?"
"Fishface doesn't CARE if there's a logical inconsistency" said Severus "He wants people to feel betrayed by Dumbledore, to think him a liar; and to be too scared of the ministry in case they have to prove their own blood to be able to think straight."
Krait snorted.
If she had been a megalomaniac who wanted to rule the world she felt sure she could have done it with more subtlety and finesse; and said so.
"But you, my dear" said Severus softly "Are not labouring under the handicap of having split your soul into several parts; you are quite sane and emotionally stable. He is neither. And, think on, though he has a certain subtlety of method – using people's weaknesses and vanities against them – he is NOT subtle enough to understand any but the crudest of emotions. He would never have understood your rather lukewarm pity for poor Peter; nor ever believed you might act to aid him. He could not understand my love for Lily was – and is – enduring. I love you as well; perhaps even more than I loved Lily for what we have done together. I also love Sirri; though I cannot love her as well as perhaps she deserves to be loved. Maybe she needs to be loved at least somewhat to teach her to find a true, long lasting love. And that he could not understand; that we can love her with compassion that does not include pity enough to give a part of ourselves. I did not put Lily out of my mind as he expected me to do. Love – true love – does not work like that."
"And as well the nasty little swipe doesn't understand; or it'd be curtains for us. Merlin's bedsocks, I'm not going to enjoy working with the Carrows" said Krait. "They are just so crude."
Severus shrugged.
"He wished them onto me" he said. "Alecto teaching Muggle studies – which is to say, how muggles are little better than animals – and Amycus teaching curses under the guise of Defence against the Dark Arts."
"Hmmm" said Krait "And what's to stop us overpowering them and inserting two of our own into their positions? HE will learn what WE want him to of what's going on at Hogwarts; Crabbe and Goyle can be confunded easily enough, I've done it before!"
Severus nodded.
"I agree" he said. "And I have an even better idea; let's make Harry into Amycus so he's here to hand AND protected by the rest of us all in one go!"
Krait chuckled.
"I like" she said. "Hermione to take over Alecto I think? She'll do a good job of teaching muggle studies actually."
Severus nodded.
"And tied to us by blood, both of them" he said. "Yes, I think that will do very nicely. It will not be for long; we only need a significant demonstration. Oh, Lucius told me about the prisoner Fishface had been torturing – it's poor old Ollivander. He's got pretty much all out of him that he wants, Lucius has been surreptitiously healing him up and making sure he's all right. Your father wants him alive for his knowledge; he's not about to murder him, so it's safest to leave him where he is. Lucius won't let him come to any harm."
"Poor old boy…are we going to hold the final fight at the school or at Malfoy Manor?"
"Well in my opinion we have more resources at the school…not just the staff, many fine wizards, but the magical defences built into the castle itself. The armour animates for any of the staff you know, if the place is in danger."
Krait nodded.
"David and his commandos will probably be more useful than the rusting memory of ancient knights, but it all adds to the general level of merriment" she said. "Why don't we have a Governors' meeting and have Lucius here with his wives and family – we can slip the little ones in with our youngsters – and have the Wizarding Wireless present and let Draco strut his stuff live? THAT ought to make him hit the ground running!"
"We shall have to time the wearing off of the Polyjuice Potion precisely for Harry to do his thing too."
"Will it wear off just like that if the principal is dead?" asked Krait.
"I - do you know, I really don't know!" said Severus.
"Well, I shall arrange for them to die anyway" said Krait "Or at least be rendered inoperative – I can go basilisk at them – and you can give Harry an antidote to take at an appropriate moment."
Severus nodded.
"And we will pass out the vials of Felix to all our troops" he said. "So much to plan…."
"But you and I are more efficient plotters than my limited father" said Krait.