Saturday, December 5, 1994 – Morning
Breakfast was finishing in the Great Hall, Harry walked back to the Merlin House common room with his escort.
Malfoy and his cronies don’t come anywhere near me now. Ronald and Seamus have given up on trying to ambush me in the corridors. I wonder how Ginny is. She never came back to school. I’ll ask Luna.
Luna was walking just ahead of Harry. “Luna, do you know what Ginny Weasley is doing now? I just realised that she didn’t come back to school.”
Luna fell into step with Harry. “She is being home schooled. Her mother told my father that she could get Ginny through to her OWLS. They would work out what to do after that. The depth of feeling about you and the vassalages is extreme. Molly isn’t taking any notice of what anyone is trying to tell her about the why and the how of it all.”
“Oh.” Harry continued for several minutes. It was a long walk to Merlin Tower.
“Has anyone heard from Hermione?” Harry asked the group.
“I asked Professor McGonagall, she hasn’t heard anything after the transfer to Ilvermorny went through, I haven’t heard of any other contact.” Susan volunteered.
“I asked Padma Patil if Parvati or Lavender Brown had heard anything, but they haven’t heard a thing.” Su Li said.
“That’s sad. I tried writing to Hermione, but she didn’t reply. Professor Dawes put a trace charm on the last three parchments I sent. The trace showed that they were delivered to her, but then the parchment was burnt without being opened. I’m not writing to her again.” They walked on to the common room in silence.
This is different. I thought that talking about Hermione would drag me down. It is sad but I’m not down like I thought I would be. Professor Dawes said something about giving myself time. She said that the mind is amazing. It will find new pathways to go around problems if you give it time to find them.
A Hogwarts house-elf was asked to retrieve a piece of jewellery from the Come and Go Room. The request came with exact details of what the item was and where it was located. The house-elf was instructed not to touch the Diadem but to place it in a magical strong box using house-elf levitation.
A copy of the Diadem was made and put back in its place. The copy was free of any enchantments.
The strong box was delivered to Professor Dawes office. A Greengrass house-elf placed the strong box in the Chamber of Secrets. All of the Horcruces apart from Nagini had been collected.
The headmaster returned to Hogwarts. After two days he sent a message to Harry asking him to meet in the Headmaster’s Office after dinner. Harry showed the invitation to Professor Dawes, and she immediately volunteered to go to the meeting with Harry.
“This isn’t a matter of the headmaster meeting with a student, Harry. This is a meeting between a Headmaster and the owner of a rival school in this tournament. You need to have at least one friend in the room with you.” Professor Dawes looked at Harry with renewed interest.
“Harry, have you heard of Occlumency?”
“What’s that, something else I have to learn in a hurry?” Harry replied glumly.
“You might have heard it referred to as mind magic. Occlumency is the art of blocking intruders into your mind and memories. Legilimency is the art of entering and influencing another mind.”
“The thing is, Harry, the Headmaster and Professor Snape are experts at Occlumency and Legilimency. They can read your mind to see what you are thinking and rummage through your memories. It is illegal to do this, but it is well known that both of them regularly read students minds without their permission.” Professor Dawes paused to let Harry think about this.
“What does this mean? What are you suggesting?” Harry needed some help to catch up.
“When we go into this meeting, I want you to try to avoid looking into the headmaster’s eyes for as long as you can. That is when Legilimency attacks occur when the attacker is not using a wand. Try not to look at his eyes at all. We have a few secrets now and it will not help if Headmaster Dumbledore or Professor Snape knows about them. I’m talking about the Horcruces.” Professor Dawes waited for Harry to respond. Harry looked at her and said nothing.
“I know you have always respected the headmaster, but we simply must not let him start to promote his plans for you. We don’t know what those plans are and other people who trusted him in the past have suffered. Your parents, and many others would probably be alive, and Sirius would be free today if Headmaster Dumbledore wasn’t so convinced that he and he alone had the only right plan for the future.”
Harry slowly came to life. “I have already worked out for myself that letting him stare into my eyes usually ended badly for me. I have tried to avoid that for a long time now. You are sure that he is using Legilimency magic?”
“Yes Harry, there have been too many reports of secrets being discovered where the only common factor is contact with the headmaster. This isn’t me thinking this on my own. These suspicions come from a small team inside the Department of Mysteries investigating some unexplained security problems.” Professor Dawes stood and prepared to leave for dinner.
“Harry! Your Lord’s ring will protect you as long as you keep looking everywhere but at the headmaster. If Professor Snape is there, you must avoid his gaze as well. We will arrange for tuition for you to develop your Occlumency. You have to have some ability with Occlumency for your Lord’s ring to protect you fully.”
Harry nodded and stood to leave with Professor Dawes. He was not at all sure about regarding the headmaster as someone who was less than trustworthy.
The after-dinner meeting began slowly. Professor Snape was already sitting in the headmaster’s office when Harry and Professor Dawes arrived.
“My dear Professor Dawes, your presence at this meeting is not required. I wished to have a private conversation with Harry.” Dumbledore smiled.
“Headmaster, private conversations with Harry cannot be allowed. He is the owner of a rival school to Hogwarts in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Anything which may be discussed or decided in this meeting must be witnessed by a responsible person representing the interests of the Potter School of Magic. That person is me.” Miriam Dawes kept a steady glare at the headmaster. Dumbledore glared back without any sign of his trademark twinkling eyes. After minutes of some kind of staring contest, Dumbledore huffed and turned away. Miriam turned to Harry and smiled at him.
“This is insolent nonsense. Miss Dawes, you have been asked to leave.” Snape growled.
“Professor Snape, what are you doing here? If this is, as Headmaster Dumbledore stated, a private meeting, then you should be leaving.” Miriam glared at Snape with even more intensity. Snape averted his eyes and turned to face away from Professor Dawes.
Dumbledore leaned forward. “Harry! It seems that while I have been away certain developments have taken place which are most alarming. Do you know what I am talking about?”
“No Headmaster, I don’t. I have been working at preparing for the next task as well as keeping up with my regular lessons. Being a Tri-Wizard champion doesn’t exempt me from having to sit for my OWL tests next year.” Harry stared at the wall to the right of the headmaster.
“I’m talking about you meeting people like Lord Greengrass and Unspeakable Davis. Associating with them is not in your best interests Harry. The Greengrass family are very dark.” Dumbledore was becoming agitated.
“Lord Greengrass and his friend the Unspeakable have been very helpful to me. Their advice has been always helpful.” Harry glanced at Miriam Dawes who smiled at him.
“Headmaster, we are aware that the Hogwarts wards will always inform you of who is visiting the Merlin Tower, but I must point out that all of our visitors are parents of Merlin House students. It is not normal for anyone who is not a Merlin House parent to visit. Are you going to ban parents from visiting Merlin House students? If you do, then we will have to consider alternative accommodation, outside of the Hogwarts wards.” Miriam Dawes smiled at Dumbledore who looked stunned. He was not used to anyone talking back to him.
“Insolence!” Snape muttered.
“Harry, you mustn’t let it be known that Greengrass is talking to you. The stories about you being a dark wizard have not ceased after the first task. Speaking parseltongue to the dragon was very ill-advised.” Dumbledore was even more agitated.
“Dragons are not dark creatures, Headmaster. They are not friendly towards wizards certainly, but I have looked it up, no dragons ever fought for Voldemort. They agreed to help me when they found out that I am fighting against him.” Harry remained calm and shifted his gaze to a spot on the wall to the left of the headmaster.
The meeting broke up after some more insulting remarks about Lord Greengrass and the other Merlin House parents from Dumbledore and Snape.
Miriam Dawes and Harry had a debriefing in the Merlin Tower common room. All of the Merlin House students listened in. Luna asked a question. “Are the portraits in the common room and the office reporting to the headmaster?”
“The original ones were but I replaced them all with portraits from Greengrass Manor and the Department of Mysteries. The original portraits are stored in the lower cellars here in the tower.” Professor Dawes smirked.
“Professor, what was going on when the headmaster was staring at you?” Harry was genuinely intrigued.
“That was me blocking his Legilimency attack. The headmaster and Professor Snape both tried to attack me. I beat them both off. My Occlumency is good enough to keep them both out.” She smiled at the assembled students.
“You have to learn Occlumency Harry. My parents started teaching me when I was ten.” Daphne said.
Harry glumly nodded.
More to learn. More to do. But if I was back in Gryffindor, mooching along, not putting in any effort beyond the minimum required, I would be putty in Dumbledore’s and Snape’s hands.
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