Albus had spent all night listening to Argus complain about students being out of bed and the treatment they had given Mrs Norris, he had originally gone to Minerva who had told Argus to tell Albus, he quite agreed with Argus about the students responsible needing punishment but wished the man could have come forth with his complaint in the morning when he was more awake.
In his youth Albus could go a fair few nights without rest as his magic was able to let his body rest even while his mind was awake, a useful skill for first the war with Gellert then later with Tom, however as he aged he found even his mighty magic struggled to compensate for lack of sleep, but despite his tiredness he dutifully went down to the trophy room to try and find out who was responsible, Argus had presented him with an eagle feather quill that he found at the scene of the crime and Albus was going to his colleagues if they knew of a student that used an eagle feather quill.
A quick scan for magic revealed a masked notice me not, a stasis and locking enchantments, both belonging to Draco Malfoy, a plethora of unlocking charms, some had Harry's and Ms Granger's signatures on while others were masked which Albus suspected belonged solely to Harry and finally a rough severing charm on the lock with Harry's signature that had the uncontrolled edge of accidental magic, Albus tested the door and came to the conclusion that the entire locking mechanism would need replacing as Harry's severing charm had damaged the lock to such an extent it would require more work to fix than it would take to replace it, due to it being damage done by accidental magic Albus would first have to purge the magic out of the entire locking mechanism then cast a repairing charm, in order to purge the magic the lock would have to be completely removed from the door in the first place and Albus couldn't see the point in wasting magic for such a minor reason.
Mentally deconstructing the scene Albus walked over to the notice me not residue and realised from this position he could see both the door and all the way down the corridor leading to the trophy room, he then imagined Mr Malfoy casting a very advanced locking enchantment, most likely taught to him by his father, Albus suspected one or more of Harry's friends had been locked inside, most likely alongside Mrs Norris, Harry and Ms Granger had then tried to unlock the door but due to the complexity of the enchantment Mr Malfoy had used they had no effect, as Harry started panicking his control of magic slipped and his signature became visible until his magic either acted on its own or with limited instruction and severed the entire lock on the door, despite the crudeness of the spell Albus admired the, albeit limited, creativity behind it, if the door can't be unlocked, simply break the lock.
Closer inspection of the door revealed Mr Malfoy's stasis enchantment was linked onto a possession rune within the trophy room, a possession rune only activated when an object was placed on top of it then deactivated when the object was removed, the stasis enchantment must have been placed first with the possession rune and an object on top, then with the stasis enchantment active overlay it with the locking enchantment, Harry's friends remove the object and the rune deactivates making the stasis fail and letting the locking enchantment to activate, a fairly effective trap, during the war with Voldemort some Death Eaters had used similar traps, of course those were far more lethal than this juvenile prank, the locking enchantment had been a favourite of an 'unknown' inner circle Death Eater, the enchantment itself was a thing of beauty as rather than a normal locking charm that would lock once and then resist the magic of whoever tried to unlock it this one would just constantly reapply itself, layering on one lock on top of the previous so despite the relatively low magical resistance it was often extremely time consuming to actually break it down, especially if it had been up for some time, it was not foolproof, the Order had quickly learned that a simple stasis charm would stop it reapplying itself, likewise the enchantment was useless if it had nothing to actually lock as Harry had discovered last night.
Overall Albus decided Mr Malfoy must have stolen something from Harry or one of his friends and placed it inside the trophy room alongside Mrs Norris, he then must have left a message telling Harry and his friends to collect it later that night and then tipped off Argus that students were in the trophy room, Mrs Norris would be bait to convince Argus to catch them, the problem would be proving it, ideally Mr Malfoy would be punished for this, not only had he most likely stolen, he had been out of bed after hours and had traumatised Mrs Norris while doing it, but should he try to punish Mr Malfoy his father, Lucius, would try to get him out of trouble and with so little evidence Albus doubted he could get any punishment to stick and even if he could Lucius would demand that Harry and his friends also be punished as they were also out after hours and had broken school property, if he were to punish Harry for doing the right thing then Harry would be less likely to trust him and that was the last thing Albus wanted, he wanted to ensure Harry was safe and happy and couldn't do that if the boy actively avoided him, Tom had never trusted him and look how that had turned out.
In the end, Albus decided there was nothing he could officially do about Mr Malfoy, of course, that didn't mean he couldn't tell Argus who he suspected had hurt his cat and Albus couldn't be held responsible if Harry just happened to teach Mr Malfoy a valuable lesson…
With the mystery of the trophy room finished he told Argus that while he had no evidence one of the portraits had told him they saw Mr Malfoy carrying Mrs Norris into the trophy room and that he suspected the quill he had found would belong to the boy as well, it was of course a complete fabrication as he had not even spoken to the portraits but he knew the importance of keeping powers and abilities secret and Argus had never been the most loyal to him or the school, with that matter dealt with Albus decided he would have a spot of breakfast before starting on the mountain of paperwork he had to complete before the next Wizengamot session, it was times like these that Albus was glad he had managed to acquire a time turner for without it he would never have the time to do anything.
Smaller chapter this week, mostly just filler I admit, expanding upon the magic of this world and Albus' character, next week chapter is almost twice the size of this one, normally I would just move some of the next chapter into this one but it would mess up the flow of that chapter.