Friday, March 13, 1995 – Afternoon
“Welcome to our staff meeting for March. I hope we are all still excited with the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It has been getting a lot of press coverage and the movie highlights that the Tournament committee released have been very popular.” Dumbledore smiled happily at the assembled staff.
No one smiled back. Snape had his usual carved-from-stone face on. There were no comments. The highlights were so edited that they showed almost nothing.
“Oh! Come now! What has happened to my happy, enthusiastic teachers?” Dumbledore’s eyes lost their twinkle as he scanned the meeting room.
“We are still the same happy, enthusiastic teachers that we were at the beginning of the year, headmaster. If you feel that anything has changed, may I suggest that you examine the details of some the events surrounding the Tournament tasks.” Professor Sinistra did not often speak in meetings. She was a junior teacher who was conscious of the peripheral status of her subject, which was Astronomy.
Professor Sprout spoke. “There is a matter of student welfare that I am going to raise, I did ask for it to be put on the agenda.” Dumbledore briefly glared at Professor Sprout. A teacher raising an item for discussion on their own initiative was not welcome in Dumbledore’s view.
Then Dumbledore saw it. Professor Sprout was wearing a ring. It was a small ring on the ring finger of her right hand. She never wore it before. Dumbledore was afraid that he knew what it was.
“What is that ring you are wearing, Pomona? I have not seen you wearing it before.” The headmaster suddenly lost his grandfatherly tone.
“Oh! This is my Graham family heir’s ring. I haven’t worn it for years, I found it in my old box of things lost and found and I decided to wear it. My father is still vital and healthy and wearing his Head of House ring, but it will come to me one day and I want to be ready to wear it.” Professor Sprout smiled at Dumbledore with her own twinkling eyes.
“You know very well that I have forbidden family house business at Hogwarts. Please take that ring off immediately.” Dumbledore commanded. He used the word ‘please’, but that was purely for show.
“Headmaster, since I put this ring on, I have had a most interesting time. You know that I am much less confused about some things, my occlumency is much stronger and I can keep my resolve to take action over some aggravating issues within Hufflepuff. I am certainly going to make sure that my Hufflepuffs are better educated about protecting their minds from attack by Confundus and other similar spells.” Professor Sprout smiled at Dumbledore.
“I’m afraid headmaster that I have to remind you that commanding an heir to remove their heir’s ring is an offence under wizard law. That has been in the law books since the Wizengamot was created. There are no circumstances which allow you or any other person to tell me to take it off.”
Professor Sprout looked like she was having fun.
“You know of course about the benefits of wearing heir’s and lord’s rings for the rightful owner. My ring assists to protect me from Legilimency and Confundus attacks and most other mind magics. My ring also assists my own Occlumency. So, my answer is, no headmaster, I will not remove my heir’s ring.”
Silence.
Dumbledore slowly scanned the assembled professors. They were all looking at him waiting for something to happen.
Then Dumbledore saw it. Professor McGonagall was wearing her own Ross family lord’s ring. Professor Flitwick was wearing a Goblin Nation Ambassadorial ring. Almost every professor had a powerful protective ring on their fingers. Those that had no ring were wearing a shiny new medallion around their necks or pinned to their cloaks.
Even Rubeus Hagrid was playing with his new trinket. He was happier than he had been in a long time.
Snape looked at Dumbledore and slowly shook his head.
The Great Hogwarts Professors Revolt was under way.
--ooOOoo—
Cyrus Greengrass welcomed his visitors. Boris Krum was shorter than he expected. The magical aura about him was as powerful as he had felt from any wizard. Tatiana Krum was taller than her husband and carried herself with regal poise.
They proceeded to the formal reception room.
“Would you take something to drink?” Olivia asked.
“Tea would be good, thank you.” Tatiana replied with a smile.
“We have heard a lot about Viktor from our daughters. He has made a good impression on them.” Cyrus smiled. “They are not easy to impress, usually.”
“Viktor has written to us about his times with the Merlin House people. I would say that he has been impressed as well.” Tatiana replied.
“We have seen the movies and important memories from the Tournament, let me say that the British Ministry is not going to get away with this. They promised us safety and security. It turns out that their plan was to make all the promises then sit back and hope that nothing goes wrong. Dumbledore in particular is a problem. He seems to be distracted all the time and when he is engaged relies on his magical power without considering the normal human feelings of everyone else. He is secretive, but I’m afraid that his secrets are not worth worrying about.” Boris was angry. This was not unusual.
“I’m guessing that Viktor has told you about Luna Lovegood. Have you been told anything about her?” Cyrus smiled.
“Yes, Viktor said that she is an Oracle of Apollo. If that is true, why aren’t Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic hanging on her every word?” Boris seemed to be genuinely puzzled.
“I afraid that the reasons are complex. Dumbledore doesn’t want to concede that there is an authority other than himself. He doesn’t want to let any of the almost mystical adoration directed at him dissipated by the messages coming through one third year Hogwarts student. Maybe I’m being unfair to him. Maybe he struggles to accept that the Gods of Olympus are being so active. He gives very little away about his motives. The Minister of Magic is limited, to say the least.”
“You know that there was a prophecy about Tom Riddle and his demise.” Cyrus waited for Boris to respond.
“No, I haven’t heard of that.” Boris waited.
“There was. Now, I am deeply sceptical about the whole prophecy business. I am afraid that Dumbledore and Tom Riddle are both deeply influenced by anything prophetic. They will take the wording literally.” Cyrus stopped shook his head.
“I will give you the text of the prophecy. What it says is that Harry Potter and Tom Riddle will oppose each other. Harry will have some kind of power that Riddle doesn’t understand. It seems to imply that there will be a final showdown where they will fight it out, wand against wand.” Cyrus shook his head again.
“Harry is a strong wizard, but he isn’t someone who can go toe to toe against Riddle. Also, Riddle is a killer. Harry is not. I and my friends who study this business think that the Gods are trying to motivate the people around Harry to do a variety of things that Harry will initiate. Those various actions will combine to finish Riddle. It will be a complex team effort with Harry taking a leading role.”
“About today, Luna told us that you have something vital to tell us. Do you feel that you can give us that?” Cyrus smiled.
“After what you have given me, of course. Let me tell you the story.” Boris collected his thoughts.
“It is about Riddle’s familiar. The snake, he calls her Nagini. That is a name that was made up for her. We do not know her proper name.
She is a Naga. They are a race of demi-gods whose realm is in the far east. We know very little of them. The Naga all transform into snakes. They are not animagi. Their transformation is natural for them, not learned. The Naga are usually friendly and helpful to humans.
Nagini broke a law. We don’t know what it was. Her family expelled her from the Naga realm. She was crippled. Her magic was bound. She was cursed to transform into her snake form for longer and longer periods. She was passed around to different criminal wizards who used her until she eventually came under the control of Riddle.
Riddle created a Horcrux. It was put into a ring. He forced Nagini to put the ring on, then he cursed her to transform permanently into her snake form. The Horcrux is trapped inside her snake body.
He uses Legilimency, and the control that the Horcrux gives him to control Nagini. She has no will of her own. She is completely enslaved.”
Boris stopped to sip his tea.
“I found all this out from sources in Albania. Riddle takes no notice of mundane authorities. The Albanian authorities were aware of him. He left a trail of dead bodies when he was supposedly hiding there. They reported all of this to me. Riddle has torn up the Statute of Secrecy. Security services all over Europe are aware of him.
I searched for where Nagini came from. I found her story. I found that there are wizards in Indonesia who have a connection to her family. I contacted them and asked for help. They talked to the Naga and found that Nagini has been forgiven. They are willing to take her back. They have given me a gem which has a charm on it which will break the transformation curse.
We have to get to Nagini, touch her with this gem, or a magical copy of it, and she will transform back into her human form. Then we can deal with the Horcrux.
If we manage to do that, then we may have a chance to deal with Riddle, unless he has made more Horcruces.”
Cyrus looked at Boris. “Well! About that, there is another story.”
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