[007]
Sirius stepped into the dark room holding two cups of terrible coffee, walked right up to the bright glass mirror at which Amelia was standing and passed her a cup without saying a word.
He took a sip of the cursed bitter brew. Actually cursed. Five curse breakers could attest to that fact. All had tried to break the curse on the coffee machine in the Auror offices and all had failed. Most left with minor burns and one lost a pinkie finger but he'd been an idiot anyway.
The Auror coffee machine, not so affectionally named 'Helga,' was a monstrosity of brass pipes and steam powered cogs and she pumped out a thick black nectar in a near continuous stream. Helga was decades old and, in the time she had existed in the office, some bastard had laid a curse on it preventing her from ever being removed and ensuring it would always make terrible, if incredibly effective, coffee.
"How long has he been in there?" he asked his superior with a chin tilt to the image in the glass.
Amelia took a long sip from her mug. "'Bout an hour now."
Sirius whistled. "You sent me to talk to James and let him stew. Smart. No time to correlate their stories."
Amelia snorted. "Don't compliment your mother on her cleaning charms."
Sirius barked a laugh. "You've met my Mum. I wouldn't have compliment her dress if it was on fire."
They both stared at the figure in the glass and shared a moment of comradery and bad coffee.
"What did James say?" Amelia broke the silence.
Sirius frowned and took a moment to reply, the pause caused Amelia to glance at him in concern.
"He gave me some sob story about how Harry's magical core was damaged when You-Know-Who came to kill Jimmy." Sirius began. "Said that he had to be isolated from magic and magicals or it would only make his condition worse."
"I've never heard of something like that." Amelia frowned.
"I have." Sirius stared into the dark reflection in his cup. "There's a few Dark curses in the Black library that could, theoretically, do that sort of damage."
"You think he was telling the truth?"
"I think…" Sirius let out a drawn-out sigh. "I think that he believed it was the truth."
"But why keep it all secret?" Amelia pressed, like a good detective would.
"Fear… shame. I dunno. James claimed it was to protect Lily and me from ourselves and on a level; he was right. We both wouldn't have taken no for an answer and would have insisted on seeing Harry."
Amelia glanced at Sirius who was struggling to find the words.
"But I know James… He wouldn't have wanted anyone to know about Harry. Would have seen it as weakness. No. Not like that." He cut off Amelia as she opened her mouth to speak. "Not like my mum would have seen it as weakness. It's… it's a pride thing." He grimaced.
Sirius shuffled from foot-to-foot feeling like a hypocrite. Pride. They had all had it in spades. Each and every one of the Marauders and each in different ways. Time had softened those edges and Sirius liked to think he had grown. But damn if that wasn't the kettle calling the cauldron Black.
"And Dumbledore?" Amelia looked back at the figure in the glass and Sirius stared hard at the old, bearded man sitting at the small table in the other room.
"Set the whole thing up. Supposedly had a squib in the neighbourhood watching Harry."
Amelia nodded as if his words had confirmed something she already knew then drained the rest of her coffee, even though it was likely still too hot and always bitter. "Right. Let's go get some answers." She turned and strode with focused steps out of the room.
Sirius stared a moment more at the one-way mirror, watching the old man smiling jovially and the faint shadow of his own reflection stared back at him with hard eyes before he turned to follow. He set the half-drunk coffee on the table as he left the room. He had always hated the stuff.
"Amelia." Dumbledore stood with a smile to greet the woman as she entered the interrogation room. "Really, dear, if you wanted to chat you could have come seen me at my office."
"That's Director Bones at the moment, Warlock Dumbledore." Amelia frowned at his lack of decorum. "This is an official investigation."
Dumbledore's smile wavered for a moment before reaffirming itself. "Ah, once again. I'm surprised this time as the last year was actually unusually quiet."
Dumbledore remised on the last three times he had had to answer some difficult questions. A troll and a professor's death three years back, and then the whole petrified students debacle. It had taken his three prominent positions and some judicious use of favours to calm those waters, much to Director Bone's annoyance.
"Very well then, Director. What can this old man do to help?" He glanced to the side as Sirius Black entered to room and closed the door behind him.
"Sirius." Dumbledore said warmly yet it was met with a hard stare and Dumbledore sighed. "Really, still holding that old grudge?"
Sirius frowned. "You sent him to his death, Dumbledore. That's more than a grudge."
"He was doing what he could to help save us all. How could I deny him that?"
Sirius opened his mouth to reply yet this time it was Amelia who cut him off.
"Black."
One word. That's all it took to reign in his ire. "Right. We're not talking about Remus today, Dumbledore."
Dumbledore tilted his head, asking the silent question.
"Tell us, Warlock Dumbledore." Amelia pulled a chair out from the spelled metal table and sat down across from the old man. "Tell us about Harry Potter."
Dumbledore sagged, the weight of his years becoming more apparent. "Ah… Harry."
Sirius snorted, yet it wasn't a happy sound. "Yes, Harry."
"I'm assuming that given I haven't seen my groundskeeper since I sent him out this morning that the situation has somehow come to the attention of the authorities."
"There was a magical incident at number four Privet Drive, yes. It was during our investigation of the incident that we discovered that one, 'Harry James Potter' had been living there, yes." Amelia explained yet didn't expound on the exact reason for their presence.
"What sort of magical incident, if I may?" Dumbledore pressed for answers but Amelia wasn't forthcoming.
"Unfortunately, that's the subject of another ongoing investigation. Now, perhaps you could tell me why the supposedly dead brother of the Boy-Who-Lived was living with muggles in some no-name town called Little Whinging?" Amelia leant forward.
"Harry was placed with his muggle aunt and uncle as it was the best place for him." Dumbledore began yet was interrupted by Sirius' scoff.
"Best place for him?! The best place would be with his family, not with muggles who confessed under interrogation that they treated him worse than a slave." Sirius growled.
"Please, Sirius. That's an exaggeration, surely. I would have been informed had he actually been mistreated so. I didn't leave the boy unwatched." Albus scoffed and stroked his beard.
"Yes, a supposed Arabella Figg, yes? Unfortunately, we've been unable to find the woman. Her house is empty, stripped bare actually." Amelia pulled a specific page from the stack, this one showing an elderly woman with her hair in a messy bun."
"That is surprising, but I guess with her assignment no longer with us, she has chosen to pursue other matters." Dumbledore smiled genially.
Sirius frowned at the elderly man's wording. "What do you mean assignment?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer that." Albus said shortly.
"Well, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to insist." Amelia leant forward. "This is an active investigation."
Albus leant back in his chair and looked between the two of them. "I really do mean that I cannot answer no matter how much I wish too." He shook his head sadly then recited. "Per aspera ad astra."
"Wha-?" Sirius started to asked but Amelia's reaction was extreme.
"BASTARDS!" She slammed her hand down on the metal surface. "What the fuck are you playing at?"
"A-Amelia?" Sirius asked, shocked by her abrupt display of anger.
"Unfortunately, I cannot disclose that either." Dumbledore said contritely.
"He won't say anything and we can't make him." She spat. "The Department of Mysteries have their hand in this."
"The Department… is this still about that bloody prophecy?!" He whirled on Dumbledore. "That thing nearly killed my godson."
Dumbledore didn't answer. His eyes were filled with unshed tears. What was done was done. The reasons didn't matter in the end. He would bare their pain and anger on his shoulders for he was old and would soon lay them to rest.
"Answer the damn question, you old wanker!" Sirius was building up a head of steam when the lights suddenly went out, plunging the room into darkness and a second later the lights relit. Yet where there was once three people in the room; now there was four.
The newcomer was dressed in a heavily cowled robe of black trimmed in gold and with a heavy golden shield denoting their station hanging from their neck and the space within the hood was magically obscured, hiding his or her face with an impression of static in darkness. An Unspeakable had left the shadowed halls of the Department of Mysteries.
"Dumbledore." The newly arrived figure spoke, their voice oddly reverberated in such a way that you couldn't tell the age or gender of the one who was speaking. "You're not telling tall tales again, are you?"
Dumbledore shook his head and Sirius looked like he was about to scream but the thump of Amelia reaching back smacking his chest with the back of her hand held him in check.
"Unspeakable." Amelia addressed the cloaked figure.
The figure nodded at the Director of Magical Law Enforcement, or at least it looked like they did by the slight tip in their hood. "Chief Director Bones."
"Warlock Dumbledore was just answering a few questions about a —" Amelia said but was cut short.
"This line of questioning ends now. You will not speak of Arabella Figg nor will you speak of any ongoing prophecies." The figure stated as if their word was the end all and be all of the matter… and it was.
"Tsk!" Amelia clicked her tongue and Sirius displayed his small measure of maturity by simply glaring at the cloaked figure. He had heard stories of what the Unspeakables could, and had, done in the past.
"Very well." Amelia acknowledged and then turned back to Dumbledore, ignoring the grim spectre watching over the interrogation.
"Why was the child placed with the Dursley family?" Amelia brought the discussion back to their original line of questioning. "They were obviously a poor choice of guardians."
"And yet, having placed him anywhere else the boy would have been dead years ago." Dumbledore shook his head tiredly. "I wish I could have done more to help the boy and the news that he was treated poorly is concerning and alarming but the moment, I saw what Voldemort's curse had done I knew he was always going to suffer a short life"
The two flinched slightly when Dumbledore uttered the name of the last Dark Lord yet they recovered quickly while the Unspeakable was unmoved.
"Why was the child removed from his parents and placed with muggles." Amelia asked directly.
"He wasn't removed from his parents, Amelia." Dumbledore explained in a slightly reproving tone. "He was placed with his aunt and uncle with the knowledge and blessing of his Head of House."
Amelia and Sirius both clenched their teeth. The rights of the House Lords in how they raised their children were common sticking point between the Law Enforcement and the Wizengamot. Sirius, particularly, knew how much freedom the Lords had with their malice or their lack of care.
"Very well. Young Harry was placed with his aunt and uncle under the directive of Lord Potter. Still, that does not explain why?"
Dumbledore leant back and heaved another sigh. "The night Voldemort attacked the Potters he did more than just attempt to kill a child. A soul was damaged in that moment and, alas, it was poor Harry that suffered." Dumbledore's eyes flicked to the cowled figure. "The dark magic that had infected the boy had latched onto his very core and I could do nothing to save him and I tried… I truly did try to save him." Dumbledore's voice wavered, an old pain resurfacing.
"But why hide him? Why place him with those… people?" Amelia pressed.
Dumbledore took a deep shuddering breath before he answered. "Because he was still the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived. He could not remain with his family, it was simply too dangerous, yet if it was known that there was an undefended Potter child out there then the remnants of Voldemort's supporters would have swept in and killed him or worse." 'Like anoint him their Dark Lord reborn.' Dumbledore kept that thought to himself.
Amelia considered that answer and couldn't repudiate it. It had been a long two years after the war simply cleaning house and holding trials; trying to get charges to stick and failing more often than she liked to think about. If the grinding sound of Sirius' teeth was anything to go by, he couldn't overtly disagree either.
"While that may be the case, there are other issues that need to be discussed. Not only was the child's welfare horribly lacking, there were also evidence of wide spread charms and wards over the house." She wished she could be more specific but the magical eruption had near erased whatever wards and spells were in place.
"I was able to modify the lingering magic of the ritual that Lily performed to ward her children against Voldemort into a longer lasting protection. It only remained stable while Harry remained with a blood relative of Lily's but I am certain that it prevented any dark influences from seeking out the boy or affecting him." Dumbledore revealed, a tinge of pride in his voice.
"And Lily Potter agreed to this?" Amelia asked.
"Well… no. She was suffering the after-effects of her ritual at the time. It was a miracle that she even survived. By all accounts the arithmancy indicated that there would be an exchange of life; her's for her children's." Dumbledore admitted then tilted his head in consideration. "Merlin knows we've never been able to replicate it."
The hooded figure coughed, reminding everyone that they were still in the room, their presence oddly forgettable when no one was paying direct attention to them.
Dumbledore rolled his eyes. "Yet another matter I am not privy to discuss."
Amelia glared between the two and mentally reviewed her questions yet found that there wasn't much she could ask that hadn't already been discussed or was under the umbrella of the Unspeakables.
"When we finally locate Harry, we will have more questions for you, Warlock Dumbledore."
Dumbledore blinked. "I'm sorry. What do you mean? Harry died in the early hours of this morning."
"We are not certain of that. His body was not found and the Dursley's have no memory of the last time they saw him." Amelia frowned at that nugget of stupidity. "We also suspect there were others present in the household due to two odd magical signatures that were undefined." Seriously, a dragon and Veela? If she hadn't gone over the detection spells herself, she would have fired the idiot who reported that. Something didn't add up and the Magical Eruption was likely the key to it but while the Department of Mysteries were quite happy to throw the aurors into the fray when they suspected danger, they were also ridiculously tight lipped about explaining the 'why' and the 'how' of the matter.
Dumbledore glanced at the cloaked figure and something seemed to pass between them as he didn't ask any questions. "Very well. I look forward to hearing from you." He stood and bowed shallowly to both Amelia and Black and then walked out the door in a swirl of purple and gold robes.
The Unspeakable also nodded to the both and moved to follow the headmaster but not before leaving a warning. "Be careful, Bones. There is much you do not understand and more is at stake than you can imagine."
He left then leaving that enigmatic clue behind.
Amelia waved her wand and the door to the room closed. She waved her wand again and the monitoring charms on the interrogation room were cut, the glass mirror on one wall becoming a matt black.
"Amelia? Are we really just letting him go like that?" Sirius asked but Amelia didn't reply.
Instead, she whipped her wand in a vicious slash that sent the metal table hurling into the far wall with a cacophonous crash.
"Wha?!" Sirius jerked in surprise.
"Bloody, fucking, damned secretive BASTARDS!" Amelia cast curse after curse at the now mangled metal table. "Fucking Dumbledore! Fucking UNSPEAKABLES!"
"A-Amelia?" Sirius held out his hands as if do… well, he didn't know what.
Amelia stopped throwing dangerous magics and stood there panting for a second before straitening and returning what hairs had escaped her bun with a flick of her wand. "The Department of Mysteries have their hand in many, many dark dealings." She told Sirius. "When you eventually take on my role as Director, you will be let into some of those secrets. Just know that it's a knifes edge sometime between what you want to accomplish and what you can accomplish."
Sirius digested his boss's words yet there was a knock on the door that interrupted Sirius before he could reply to her.
Amelia gestured and the door opened to a tired looking Nymphadora holding a report. "What is it, Junior Auror Black?" Amelia asked, no hint of her earlier tantrum.
Nymphadora eyes the mangled table but was quick to answer. "There's been an incident in Diagon Alley. Two girls kidnapped off the street by masked men and a possible explosion at Gringotts"
Amelia sucked in a breath through her nose. The day was not getting better.
Seven floors downwards, Dumbledore entered a room containing thirteen doors that spun around him in a dizzying display of magic before they slowed to stop, he then he entered the one directly opposite him. He was expected after all.
In the room was an office of a sort. A large desk piled high with papers and books that almost obscured the hooded figure seated behind it. The walls were likewise lined with books and filing cabinets and a shelf displaying odds and ends. A broken wand. A fishbowl filled with stars. A small black statuette of an Egyptian cat. A bottle containing a writhing, undulating tentacle of something old. And more, many more oddities than could feasibly fit on a short shelf.
Dumbledore did not mince words, he simply sat on the chair across from the desk and picked up the lemon and honey tea that was waiting for him and took a fortifying gulp before speaking. "What happened?"
The Unspeakable reached up and pulled back their hood. She was old, with grizzled grey hair that was pulled into a hairnet to keep it tamed. As if called a large tabby cat appeared from the shadows of the room and leapt into her arms to curl into her lap. "Stars fell and the heart of a dragon was born."
Dumbledore put down his cup of tea. "So, there are two prophecies in play then. Do you know where he is?"
Arabella Figg shook her head. "The eruption knocked me out for a full three hours and made the area too unstable for temporal investigations. We already lost one of the trainees who attempted to turn back to the hour before the eruption. But you weren't wrong, Albus, all monitors confirmed it. He did die."
Albus felt a shiver crawl up his spine as he felt something he was wholly unused to feeling. He didn't know what to do. He could only hope that whatever was out there, be it the young Harry, a corpse possessed by a fragment of the Dark Lord's soul or some other abomination from beyond the Outer Walls, that it was not up to something nefarious.
A sudden need to sneeze almost distracted me from impressing my explosive aura into the mantle over the fireplace and froze with the flickering emerald light dancing around the stone and only relaxed when I was sure I still held it within my control.
"Pixie has gathered all gold and silver and all artifacts and books that don't have bad magic on thems." Pixie announced as she popped into the room along with three large traveling trunks. "Pixie retrieves Mistress Moon's bracelet from the vaults." She passed the silver bangle to Luna.
"Thank you Pixie. This will make getting home much easier." Luna smiled dreamily at the small elf who positively vibrated at the expression of thanks.
"I'm almost done here, are you sure your portkey will get us out?" I asked Luna.
"It should. Daddy was very particular about the enchantments."
"Alright then." I nodded. "Pixie, can you take the trunks somewhere away from the manor and then come to us when we get to Luna's?"
The elf nodded eagerly and then popped away with the trunks.
I pushed a bit more aura into the stone and felt the balance of energies about to shift. I had reached the point where the stone mantle couldn't take any more. I slowed the impression of aura and trickled it down to the point where I was just holding it all together.
I really wanted to just claim the manor as my own; mostly because I didn't have anywhere to live. But the wards here wouldn't just accept me like that and I couldn't guarantee my safety without control over them. That and it was likely that eventually someone would notice that four purebloods hadn't been seen in some time and start to investigate. I was unfortunately a long way from being able to cast the Fidelius charm… or any spell at all for that matter.
"I'm ready when you are, Luna." I said over my shoulder without taking my eyes off the stone which now had faint traces of green light running through minute cracks in its surface.
Luna placed a small hand on my neck, making sure her skin was touching mine. "Platypi aren't real."
'What kind of activation phrase is that?' I had time to think before the feeling of a being yanked upwards as if by a giant hook in my navel suddenly pulled us away in rushing swirl of colour and sound.
As we vanished my connection with the stone was interrupted and less than a second later the energies inside it unbalanced. An almighty eruption of fire and pressure exploded outward from the mantle. The room was consumed. The bodies left behind torn up and burned to a devastating degree. The entire manor shook with the explosion and from outside the manor it could be seen that an entire wing blew outwards in a shattering of windows and a wave of force and a whole floor of the manor sagged in on itself.
It was not just physical damage either but the wards too took a beating. They flickered to life in a spiderweb of golden threads that flared bright in an attempt to mitigate the damage to the manor yet they were never designed to match the force of a bomb and quickly flickered and died.
Muggles in the nearby town turned their heads as the repelling wards failed to contain the sound of the explosion and soon enough a few left to investigate. The discovery of an estate that no one could remember existing shocked them to their very core.
AN: I rewrote the interrogation scene three times before going with the original draft.
It's really hard to write Dumbledore actually answering direct questions without it being straight up incriminating.
If the wizarding world operated like our world then he would actually be charged for his crimes, but it doesn't.
I went for something like those scenes in movies and crime shows where the cops know that the criminal is guilty but don't have enough direct evidence and then during interrogation someone like a high-profile lawyer or a representative of the Mayor comes in and tells them to back off.
Even then, it does feel forced.