Chapter 49

For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1. AN: Less than one week since the last update so you'll forgive me if it's a bit shorter, but I just had to get this out.

1991-09-03 03:00 UTC, Hogwarts

Quirrell, under direction from his guest/master, crept silently along the corridor outside his room. Walking quickly but silently, he made his way down the stairs towards the dungeons. He did not quite know what his master intended, but it was clear he meant serious harm to the potions professor. Maybe even death. Clearly, not finding whatever he had looked for in that strange room on the seventh floor, was the cause.

Voldemort, for his part, had already decided what he would do. Killing Slughorn outright would not help - he needed to first find out who else knew about this, and why Slughorn had told them. Once he had that information, he would torture the bastard to within an inch of his life, then kill him.

He was still debating whether to dispose of the body, hide it somewhere for someone to find much later, or to openly display it in the Great Hall, when they had reached Slughorn's quarters.

Unlocking the door (pathetic locking charms that a first year could undo, thought Voldemort) and walking in as quietly as he could force Quirrell to go, he peered in.

Slughorn appeared to be sleeping the sleep of the dead, but that was not what Voldemort noticed first.

He quickly left the room. He had, of course, heard about these things, but he had never imagined that at this age... he grimaced. No, he could not afford to take on both of them right now, in his "Quirrell" state. Time enough for all that after the stone was his, and that would have to wait till the weekend. There was a lot to do on the weekend - first the stone, then go check on his other horcruxes.

1991-09-03 08:00 UTC, Hogwarts

Breakfast that day was an unforgettable affair for the students. The fun had started long before breakfast, where some students from Slytherin and Hufflepuff, both housed in or close to the potions master's domain, had reported hearing loud shouting from Professor Slughorn.

Neither the exact cause of his ire nor his target were known, until a muggleborn Hufflepuff first year who had gone for a morning run around the lake reported coming back to his common room to see a dishevelled and extremely annoyed headmaster - in sleepwear - coming out of Professor Slughorn's living quarters.

(Interestingly, he was not initially believed about the sleepwear aspect, the logic being "what would a muggleborn know about wizarding wear - he may have mistaken a normal robe for a nightgown". It was a valid point, especially considering what Dumbledore normally wore.)

By the time 8am rolled around, and most of the kids were in the Great Hall, rumours of something major having happened last night had circulated through all four houses, and all seven years. Except for a few students, pretty much no one paid much attention to the sumptuous spread of breakfast items - sure they ate their breakfast, but their attention was on the head table, and the hall had the atmosphere of a theater audience waiting for the curtain to rise.

The staff table, meanwhile, appeared to be unaware of anything untoward having happened. The Hogwarts rumour mill, so efficient when bridging the divide between houses, was not so good at jumping from student to teacher. That would, and often did, happen, but not before classes were done for the day, and certainly not before breakfast! (In actual fact, detentions - which, now that Snape was gone, were less frequent and more friendly all-round - were the best times for this. In later years, some professors would take to giving Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil detentions just to be able to catch up with news around the castle!)

So, anyway, Professor McGonagall and a few others were sitting at the table, eating breakfast in a leisurely manner. All three heads, being the most experienced of those, could easily see that something had happened to put that expectant look on the students' faces, but they had no clue what it could be. The rest of the professors did not seem to have caught anything of this. In fact, one or two of them, especially Professor Quirrell, even appeared to be half-asleep.

(Despite Professor Sprout being head of Hufflepuff, her quarters were not near the Hufflepuff dorms. In fact none of the heads had quarters near the house they headed - only Slytherin, and that only because the potions lab happened to be in the dungeons).

When the curtain, figuratively speaking, rose, however, it was not so much "Act 1, Scene 1", as it was "Exeunt all stage left". At least as far as the students were concerned.

Minerva had never liked Slughorn. She knew all about his "people collecting" ways, and despised him for using them on students. The fact that he favoured students based on their current or potential future popularity, grated on her even more.

Slughorn, in turn, regarded her as an upstart child (she was nearly forty years younger than him) who should not have been given the role of deputy headmaster so early in life. He had always felt that role should have been his, and never made it a secret that he thought so.

Still, the rules said that the deputy was the person he should be dealing with at this time, so that is what he did. He walked up to Professor McGonagall, and slapped a folded piece of parchment next to her breakfast plate.

Having been caught mid-bite, McGonagall nodded at him, chewed, swallowed, then asked him what was the matter. Since she was quite unaware of what had happened or who might be involved, this is what she said.

"What is it Horace? Someone hurt your ego?"

While she had said it in a quiet enough voice that the students could not hear her, Slughorn had either not even thought about the students, or was past caring.

"I refuse to work in an atmosphere of sexual intimidation and harassment. I quit!", he shouted.

As soon as Slughorn had started speaking, Flitwick pulled his wand and raised a privacy spell to prevent the students form hearing anything, prompting a loud groan from a large number of students.

(But the damage had been done. Flitwick was slightly delayed by having to set down his knife and fork first, so that, by the time the spell took hold, the word "sexual" had been heard. The only reason it did not fuel intense speculation as to "who" was because it lent credence to the first year Hufflepuff who had described Dumbledore's attire as "sleepwear").

Both he and Minerva looked to Slughorn for some clarification. "What the hell do you mean?" said Minerva.

"Ask Dumbledore. I don't care to discuss it, since I can't explain it. All I will say is that I've got nothing against his proclivities, but I want no part of it myself."

"I see", said Minerva. Turning to Flitwick, she said, "Filius, it would seem the dementia that we thought he was suffering from has finally hit!"

Turning back to Slughorn, she said "Your contract does not allow you to leave at such short notice, Professor Slughorn". (She would have been glad to see him go, but twisting the knife was a better reward. Besides, if he simply left, how would they get the story out of him?)

"My contract only says I have to teach. It does not require me to be head of house. Put someone else on as head of Slytherin, and that will free me from the obligation to stay within the castle after classes. I will arrive after breakfast, and leave at 4pm, except on days when we have a staff meeting."

"That will be acceptable. Are you letting your resignation stand, then? That will give me one month to find a replacement for you. Or are you - with this arrangement - going to continue the year? I would be quite happy either way, but I need to know now if it is the former".

Slughorn thought for a moment. "I will stay the year."

This was probably the first time in Hogwarts history that such decisions were made in the Great Hall, instead of in either Professor McGonagall's office or the headmaster's office.

Anyway, everyone was happy, so all's well that ends well.

Well, not quite everyone. Voldemort was spitting nails. He had lost his opportunity to deal with Slughorn quietly, because doing anything between 8am and 4pm was very unlikely.

He would have to follow him to his home one weekend, but he had heard that Slughorn was intensely private, and no one except Dumbledore even knew where he lived. Not even the general area - it could be anywhere in Britain.

So, failing that, he would have to reveal himself in front of whatever students happened to be around him at the time he decided to do it.

On second thought, once he had the stone, did it really matter if he had to reveal himself?

1991-09-03 09:00 UTC, location unknown

"So what exactly did you do with him?" asked Penny.

"I'll tell you in a minute. First, I was wondering about something. You see, the night before last, at the school's opening feast, was the first that we heard about the third floor. But Professor McGonagall must have known at least a week or so earlier. So why didn't she mention this to anyone? I know she's good friends with Madam Marchbanks, and pretty close to the Minister and the Chief Witch. One of them in turn would have told us."

"Aah but you're forgetting one thing my good lad", said Nick. "Minerva does not know your story. As far as she knew, this would have been some hare-brained scheme of Dumbledore's, because he definitely would not have shared any details with her. Certainly he would not have even mentioned the stone."

Penny nodded. "In fact, it's quite possible he didn't even ask her. Or Professor Flitwick or Professor Sprout. Now quit stalling and tell us what you did!"

"Well, if the term had not started and the kids had not been in school, I would have put him in bed with Quirrellmort. You know - just give him the distinction of having slept with both the dark lords in his lifetime?", he chuckled.

Nick and Penny laughed out loud at the imagery. It's not that they had anything against their old student's leanings; it was more the specific individual he had been interested in that was the cause of their prejudice. And then his taking Snape under his wing, so to speak - that raised a whole bunch of other questions.

"Yeah that would not have been safe - who know how Voldemort would react! But it would have been fun! Makes me wish you had known about the third floor earlier!"

"Yes. So I picked the next best thing to a dark lord in the castle", said Hobby, as he started explaining. "I put him in the bed of someone who was responsible for telling Voldemort about horcruxes. I also replaced the stunner with a normal sleeping charm, to make sure Slughorn would wake up before Dumbledore did."

Nick and Penny laughed again, but quickly turned serious.

"So did you actually see what was hidden in the room behind the troll?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. After I had dealt with Dumbledore, I went back there and checked. It was a stone, but I think it's fake". Saying this, he pulled a small, red, stone out of his pocket and handed it to Nick.

Nick turned it over in his hand, held it up to the light, and then waved his wand over it a few times. Then he snagged a glass from the sideboard, held the stone over it, and tapped it three times with his wand while muttering an incantation.

A pale gray liquid flowed out of the stone until the glass was half-full.

"Hmm, that liquid should be pink. Gray does not bode well", he said.

He then raised it to his nose to smell it. Evidently satisfied, he summoned a dry leaf from the garden - autumn was on its way - and dropped it in the glass.

Nothing happened to the leaf, though you could detect a faint greening around the edge. He left it in the glass, and watched it for a while.

After about ten minutes, the green had spread only a little more inward from the edge. He nodded to himself, throwing away the liquid and the leaf.

"It's very close to one of our very early efforts than a fake, which is bad news. It means Dumbledore picked up enough from us to get this far, which - frankly - I find somewhat disturbing, now that I know more about him than I did then."

"But it seems to be missing some critical components", said Penny.

"What would be the effect of this stone? How soon would Voldemort figure out it was fake, if he managed to steal it?"

"Almost immediately. This stone is not powerful enough to give him a body. It couldn't even green one leaf after ten minutes."

"Plus, don't forget", said Penny, "the components that are missing cause this to have unexpected side effects".

"What side effects?"

"Well, we did not experiment on anyone, mind you, but from our arithmantic calculations, they do a lot of weird things. First, they would make him lose his grip on reality, while making him think it is everyone else that is losing it. He would essentially become a megalomaniac, thinking only he knew best, and so on".

"Hmm, that sounds pretty bad", said Hobby. "Do you think Dumbledore himself was drinking this? It sounds very like him!"

"No, I am pretty sure he is not. I may have mentioned that I could tell from his aging that it was natural. Besides, this stone has more problems. If the drinker was even mildly parochial to begin with, this would make him outright racist! I would hate for a pureblood sympathiser to drink this; he'd become like Malfoy in a few doses!"

"Unfortunately", she continued, "it will also give him incredible luck. The Felix Felicis part of our stone is definitely a fundamental part of it, and I can see it's there. That would make him - at least while the effect lasts - win against overwhelming odds. Of course Felix does not last - it's effects reduce exponentially with each use, so who knows how and when the end will come?"

"Hmm, all that sounds like Hitler. Do you think Grindelwald gave Hitler something like this?"

"You know, it's quite possible", said Nick, rubbing his chin. "I think we need to be watchful that the next Hitler does not rise using this stone, in case Dumbledore loses control of it. And I have just the thing in mind. Wait here". Saying this, Nick left the room, presumably to go down to his lab.

He returned a few minutes later with two syringes with some clear liquid in them.

"Let me make a small change to this stone - I just need to inject these liquids deep into the stone, and then you can put it back".

"What will your injection do?"

"Hitler did not work alone. He had a team, and - to some extent - they were loyal to each other. The first potion makes him lose all sense of loyalty, making him turn on his people at the drop of a hat - praise them one minute and curse them the next. He won't be able to retain anyone for the long haul."

Hobby nodded.

"Hitler was also a great orator. Combined with the megalomania and racism, the world may not survive a second Hitler. The second one will handicap him by forcing him to speak only in short, disjointed, ungrammatical, phrases. It will also give him the attention span of a toddler - he won't be able to read more than half-a-page of text without getting bored."

"Combined, they will make sure that the... well let's just say 'victim' for now, will not go unnoticed for long, and we can be on our guard", said Nick.

Hobby thought for a second. "You know, those signs are too subtle. I mean, the second one is less so, but still, we may miss them in the early stages. After all, the world is full of unscrupulous people attempting to claw themselves into a position of power. Could you add something more tangible, so that it's easier to watch for?"

"Excellent idea. Again, I think I have just the thing", and he went back to his lab, and came back a few minutes later with another syringe. He injected that also into the stone, and nodded to Hobby, indicating he could take it back now.

"What does this do?"

"Gives him orange hair."