(Ravenclaw Common Room)
The victory celebrations were well in hand as the house of knowledge and wisdom celebrated their one-sided victory over Slytherin.
They had won the game with a shocking 360-point lead, ending the game at 490 to 130, resulting in Ravenclaw achieving their biggest Quidditch victory over Slytherin house in over three decades. What was even funnier was their head of house dancing in the teacher's box as each goal was scored.
The only way it could have been better was if Professor Snape had been there to see the hyperactive charm master's impromptu dancing. Instead, the resident potions master had disappeared to personally attend to his godson in the hospital wing, and you didn't have to be a genius to know that there would be retaliation for their victory from both the potions master and the rest of his house.
'Sighing' audibly as she sipped some of her honeybrew mead, she was thankful that she wasn't the on-duty prefect responsible for keeping order tonight. This not-so-little party was more than about celebrating; it was about the house blowing off some much-needed steam with both exams approaching and the ever-present fear of the Chamber hanging over everybody's head.
"Penny, would you like to dance?" Reese Giles suddenly asked, taking her by surprise at the boy's sudden appearance, realizing that she had been daydreaming.
She considered the boy's request for a second, feeling a bit sorry for the guy after recovering from his potions accident, the magical scars still plainly visible on his hand. She answered by simply taking hold of his scarred hand and leading the way to the cleared area so that they could dance. After all, Reese wasn't too bad of a guy. In fact, he was friendly, knowledgeable, and had strong features, with nice dark hair, not too small, not too tall, 'just right' as Goldilocks would say. 'Better watch out for bears,' she thought, causing a smile to form on her lips.
"Penny, has anyone ever told you that you have really beautiful eyes? They're this brilliant blue with a hint of emerald green outlining them," Reese said, as they started to dance together.
She smiled at his compliment. "Thank you, Reese, you're not too bad yourself," she replied as they started to move to the music, her nose picking up a hint of firewhiskey on his breath. Looking over into the corner of the room, she saw that Harry was dancing with Padma, the two second years obviously enjoying themselves.
...
Dumbledore shifted uneasily in his padded chair as he sat at his antique wooden desk, just like the many headmasters that had come before him over the school's long history. His discomfort was caused by the newly erected wards that he had placed over the whole school. Not only were they proving to be ultimately ineffective, the information they were providing him was more emotionally heartbreaking than he ever imagined possible.
The new wards were telling him that there was a source of dark, destructive magical energy in the school, somewhere. It was so powerful that it was leaking out and tainting the whole castle and even the nearby grounds. This was alarming beyond measure. Only his calming draught-infused lemon drops managed to soothe his old heart.
He had always seen Hogwarts as a bastion of light and hope, of innocence and goodness. To know that there was such powerful dark magic at its very heart was heartbreaking and shook him to the core of his being. His beloved phoenix, sensing his distress, began to sing a soothing song, comforting his soul and raising his spirits. Looking over to Fawkes, his phoenix sat on his golden perch like a king would on a throne. The immortal firebird looked absolutely breathtaking in his reds and golds, the embodiment of a living flame. He muttered a silent thanks to his old friend and companion of many years and returned to his thoughts.
Exposure to dark magic could taint souls if it was strong enough; it brought out the darker aspects in one's personality, usually making people angrier, more hateful, and more destructive.
To know such a thing was here, at Hogwarts, tainting his innocent students, was quite simply disturbing. It was, in all probability, also affecting his staff members, like Severus, bringing out the man's darker emotions and impulses, and drawing on Severus' bad memories of his time in school. It was also, in all likelihood, why bullying was such a major problem in the school.
He would have to talk to Severus about this latest revelation, as Severus was far more knowledgeable and experienced with dark curses and their effects. Maybe he would be able to provide some insight into the matter and hopefully together they could find some means to counter it.
Regardless, he had to keep this quiet. It wouldn't do for parents to find out about the dark taint corrupting their precious children; that would be an unmitigated disaster, and in all likelihood see him removed from his position as Headmaster. History would look rather poorly on him for this failure should it come out.
Already he was firmly set on discovering the source of the corruption and rooting it out. He privately hoped that it was just the Chamber of Secrets being opened that was causing the cloud of darkness to fall over the school, but his old heart and shrewd mind told him otherwise.
All the magical readings provided by the wards suggested that the dark magic had been here at Hogwarts for a while. In fact, if the readings were correct, 'a while' spanned several decades. Decades spent slowly spreading like a cancer, an infestation. At the same time though, it also provided him with a possible explanation to one of his enduring problems of recent years, that of the Defence Against the Dark Arts position and the continuous need to find a new professor for the course each year.
Perhaps this was the source of the curse? Might breaking and cleansing the school of this darkness solve his DADA staffing problem? Merlin, he could only hope to be so lucky. However, he was just as disheartened to discover higher-than-average dark magic readings in both Gryffindor Tower and the Slytherin dungeons, readings high enough that it couldn't simply be dismissed as much as he wanted to.
The news of dark magic in his own former house of Gryffindor was devastating, considering the house had always had a reputation for being noble and light-aligned. This brought up many questions, the foremost being how this could have happened in the first place.
And ultimately who was responsible for it? Or was it several students? Were they corrupting the younger ones? What would happen if the knowledge spread that the school's resident white knights were practising the dark arts? The whole school would be shocked, the public at large as well; everything they believed they knew about the Hogwarts house system would be shaken.
It went without saying that this would make him personally look very bad, as it had happened under his watch. It would be even worse if Neville was somehow involved in this dark cancer infecting Gryffindor house. He once again considered whether Neville might be involved.
The dark magic readings in Slytherin, on the other hand, weren't all that much of a surprise. Throughout his many years of teaching at Hogwarts there had always been at least one student in that house who was actively learning the dark arts, despite his best efforts to stop it. Slytherins as a whole liked power and the allure of forbidden knowledge. The dark arts had long offered quick, easy power to those willing to pay the price.
There could be a few merely experimenting with it... He truly hoped that it was merely teens pushing boundaries, rebelling in their own way against the restrictions on what magic they could learn and practice. He would have to instruct Severus to watch his house more closely from now on, but to avoid direct investigation. Severus had to stay protected, so that he could resume spying when Voldemort inevitably returned.
On a positive note, if Slytherin was actually behind it, it would fall in the normal, more mundane scandal category. Everyone, whether they would admit it openly or not, expected that type of thing from the Slytherin students. It also had the benefit of reinforcing why Ron's efforts at keeping Neville away from Slytherin influences was so important.
The problem was that even with the school rules banning the study of the dark arts and the possession of dark objects, he couldn't just authorize a search of a student's belongings unless he had clear evidence and a reasonable suspicion. It would be a major political scandal if he just started searching the belongings of 'respectable heirs' without a very good reason to justify it.
He needed an excuse, a reason vague enough to authorize the search, but not point fingers. A school-wide search would allow him to conduct damage control.
He needed something to allow him to search all the houses at once, so that no one would think that there was anything odd about him searching Gryffindor house as well. He would conduct that search himself, to give him better control over the situation, but it could appear he was being unfair...
...
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