Chapter Text
A full week after Dumbledore’s funeral, Headmistress Minerva McGonagall had finally deigned to relinquish the items stipulated in his will.
Acting Headmistress Minerva McGonagall.
As Percy journeyed to where Dumbledore’s effects were being held, he ruminated on how McGonagall had yet to be officially declared as the headmistress of Hogwarts. The Board of Governors, in the wake of Dumbledore’s death, had to first determine whether the school would continue its operations. The obvious answer was yes, what else would Hogwarts do? What would they do with hundreds of magical children? Consign them to a wandless, ignorant existence? They could be educated at home, but that was uncommon and ill-advised.
Percy’s own education at home consisted of learning to read and write, basic arithmetic, and little by the way of actual magic. Most of his knowledge of the magical world had, before Hogwarts, been acquired via osmosis, and by virtue of being raised in that world.
What recourse did a muggleborn child have? How would a muggle or squib parent teach that child magic? They couldn’t even get into Diagon Alley on their own.
Percy pressed the button for the lift, frowning at the unnecessary banging and clattering. Magical Maintenance had failed on multiple occasions to address the noise. They couldn’t identify the source of it, nor even what, if anything, to cast a silencing charm on, so everyone at the Ministry had to endure the commotion. As with the lilac-colored paper airplanes that flew around like swarms of gnats, the noisy lifts were something that was eventually relegated to the background.
Most of the time, Percy didn’t notice the noise. In this moment, when he was going down to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to view some items he had neither reason nor permission to view, Percy’s awareness was heightened.
Visiting Magical Law Enforcement carried with it a risk of encountering his father.
When the lift at long last arrived, Percy was pleased to see it was empty. He stepped in, then pressed the button for Level Two. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he could have taken the stairs. The lift shuddered, and began descending. The Ministry’s stairs were not so labyrinthine as those of Hogwarts, but once in a while something inexplicable happened behind the walls of the Ministry. Harry had pranced up and down the things at will. The few others who could navigate the staircases were in Magical Maintenance. And yet, they were defied by noisy lifts.
Arriving on Level Two was akin to stepping into a war room. The failure to locate the Azkaban escapees had eaten away at morale for months, but now there was a new manhunt at hand. Now, the Ministry was mobilized in its search for Severus Snape. The public was up in arms. They clamored for Professor Snape’s blood, for Azkaban, for the Kiss.
Percy waded through the uproar, the maelstrom of posters featuring an aloof Severus Snape, staring out at them as if judging this overreaction.
The response to Dumbledore’s death was not limited to Britain. The entire magical world was impacted by his demise. Albus Dumbledore was prominent not only in Britain, but was a force in the international magical committee. His historic defeat of Gellert Grindelwald, his advances in alchemy, his position in the International Confederation of Wizards; Dumbledore was the grandfatherly, slightly barmy headmaster of Hogwarts, but he was also acclaimed as the greatest living wizard. Rather, he had been. Now he was among the revered dead.
As such, the calls for Severus Snape’s capture were not limited to magical Britain. The entire magical world was out to get him. There was no safe place for Severus Snape, within Britain or without, not when every magical government was aligned in their desire to bring him to justice.
Percy skirted the furor of the Auror Office and discreetly made his way to where confiscated items were stored. No other magical governments would actually lend resources or offer aid in capturing Professor Snape. The threat of the Dark Lord, and the anticipated collapse of the Ministry, held them at a remove. If Professor Snape was seen abroad, they would take perfunctory action to capture him, but there would be no international coalition sweeping the whole of Britain to find the man. Not that anyone could; if they couldn’t catch Harry, there was no hope of catching his father.
Percy paused in front of the storage room. Being the assistant to the Minister offered myriad privileges, including access to nearly every part of the Ministry. Should something require retrieval at the Minister’s behest, Percy was readily available. This was not blanket permission. Dumbledore’s will was not a public document. There were, however, certain beneficiaries of interest to Percy. Of interest to Harry.
Percy opened the door.
Not wanting to dawdle, Percy made quick work of navigating the shelves.
Harry’s father was currently the most hated man in magical Britain. He was almost more hated than the Dark Lord, which was an achievement unto itself. Professor Snape had only killed one man. The Dark Lord had personally killed hundreds, muggle and magical alike, and was responsible for the deaths of thousands more. Their society had been on the brink of collapse. Were it not for the brave, selfless act of one mother protecting her son, the landscape of the magical world would have been completely altered. Of the entire world, if the Dark Lord instituted the genocide or enslavement of muggles. Perhaps the ICW would have staged a nuclear attack against Britain and, to the muggles, wiped it off the map rather than let it spread. Preserve the Statute of Secrecy. Let the Dark Lord have it.
Percy arrived at the correct box. The main financial beneficiaries of Dumbledore’s will were his brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, and his aunt’s family. The bulk of his estate went to them, and to an endowment for Hogwarts to provide for orphaned or otherwise impoverished students. A noble gesture. His more salable effects—his personal library, his collection of artifacts and trinkets, his papers—were left to Hogwarts and the Hogwarts Archives. In a curious act of the deceased, there were three items excluded from this generosity.
The first, and least reasonable, was the Sword of Gryffindor. No one knew where the Sword of Gryffindor was. No one had seen it in centuries. Despite this, with no explanation, Dumbledore had attempted to bequeath it to Neville Longbottom. McGonagall refused to hand it over simply because she couldn’t. The Sword of Gryffindor was said to present itself to any worthy Gryffindor, which made one question what made a Gryffindor worthy as the sword hadn’t decided anyone was in either living or dead memory.
The second item was a device of Dumbledore’s invention known as a Deluminator. As far as anyone could determine, it was a muggle cigarette lighter that consumed spheres of light. This Deluminator had been bequeathed to Luna Lovegood, and no one could deduce why.
The third, and most puzzling, bequeathment was a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. A book of fairy tales any magical child would know. Unlike most children with magical parents, Monty Potter had not been raised in the magical world. Why would Albus Dumbledore give that particular book to that particular boy? The only notable thing about the book was that it was a first edition copy, kept in excellent condition for five hundred years, and written entirely in runic script.
Monty did not take Ancient Runes.
Percy handled the book with care, flipping past stories he had heard from infancy. Ron’s favorite, Babbity Rabbity. Ginny’s favorite, The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. Percy’s favorite, The Fountain of Fair Fortune. A fountain that cured maladies that no Healers could. That would restore one’s health.
There was something else, though. Something which the Ministry’s inspectors had failed to notice. While every other page was in its original condition, unmarred, one of the stories had been marked. At the beginning of The Tale of Three Brothers, at the very top of the page, there was a symbol.
Percy straightened his glasses, then leaned closer to the book to get a better look. He knew he had seen the symbol before. A triangle inscribed with a circle, and a line bisecting both circle and triangle.
Percy’s eyes widened when he finally made the connection.
It was the mark of Grindelwald.
Troubled, and more confused by this book being gifted to Monty Potter, Percy closed it and moved to place it back in the box. As he did, a glorious, perfect feeling washed over him.
Every thought, worry, trouble, every aching part of him was swept away, like a window wiped clean of its stains. Percy was floating in a vat of contentment, of happiness, of completion. A pink, frothing vat in which he slowly drowned. He would never, ever resurface.
It was wrong.
Awareness slammed into Percy, and he swayed as he threw off the attempt to supplant his will. A cold sweat covered his body, and he was dizzy, painfully thirsty—the Imperius was an Unforgivable, powerful magic, it was too much, they would have killed him—but Percy returned the book to the box of Dumbledore’s bequeathments. He carefully withdrew his wand.
“Homenum revelio.”
There was a crash of falling shelves, and abrupt light as the door to the storage room sprang open. The culprit was fleeing the scene of the crime. Percy narrowed his eyes, then another wave of dizziness nearly swamped him. He leaned against the shelf. Even without occlumency he was too obstinate to Imperius, but it would have taken him longer to throw it off.
Weakened, he sank to the ground and searched his robes. Like Harry—Harry would be livid when he heard this—Percy was now in the habit of carrying around what potions he needed. He was not going to die in a stupid, preventable way. He withdrew a syringe and scarcely had the cap off before jamming it into his leg.
Percy sighed in relief, then slumped against the shelf.
A disturbance in the storage room.
If someone found him in here, he would say he heard a disturbance and was accosted. That would put the Ministry on higher alert. Right in the heart of the Magical Law Enforcement.
Whoever had tried to Imperius him was an idiot. His proximity to the Minister notwithstanding, he was Percy Prewett. Who did they think he was? He had never been more insulted in his life.
Percy let his eyes fall shut, and took deep, steadying breaths. He needed to report this. He needed to return to his desk. He needed to tell Harry about this failed attempt.
Someone had tried to take away his free will.
Even within this tangled mess of affairs, a single thought loomed menacingly in Percy’s mind.
It had begun.