"So why are we not going back up to the castle?" asked Harry.
In order to calm down little Natalie, who had appeared to be on the brink of tears, Harry had sat down in the Quidditch stands with her and Luna. It was now fifteen minutes later, and the second year girl seemed to have calmed down enough for Harry to question their behaviour.
"Dumbledore's being a very bad man!" replied Natalie, firmly.
Harry stared at her for a moment before turning to Luna, hoping to get a better answer from her.
"The Headmaster has quite lost his capabilities of rational thought," replied Luna in a voice that those who knew her would be quite surprised to hear coming from her. "It seems that your recent rebellion has frightened him and in response he had decided to strip all students of their basic rights."
"When did I rebel?" asked Harry, genuinely puzzled.
"Ever since term started last week," replied Luna. "Though the wrackspurts say that it began long before then."
Harry thought for a moment before shaking his head and replying "I'm sorry, but I don't remember any of that."
"Of course you don't," said Luna. "Dumbledore caught you and used mind spells and potions to make you regret rebelling and force you to comply with his wishes."
Harry shook his head again, this time in outright disbelief.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But this is just ridiculous. This is Dumbledore that we're talking about, and you're making him out to be like Voldemort but in disguise."
Natalie flinched at the name, but Luna, surprisingly, did not.
"They are not entirely different people, Harry, if you think about it."
"This is crazy," said Harry. "You're crazy. I'm going back up to the castle."
"No!" shouted Natalie, grabbing him by the arm again.
"Get off me!" he snapped, shaking his arm in an effort to make her let go.
He succeeded in wrenching his arm out of her grasp and turned to leave, but he didn't get more than five steps away before he tripped and fell flat on his face.
With a grunt Harry forced himself to roll onto his back. Looking down at his legs he saw that they were locked together. He glared up at Luna who had her wand out, having cast the leg-locker curse on him.
"I'm sorry, Harry Potter, but you were doing too much good for me to just let you walk back into the castle."
"What good?" demanded Harry. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
"Then lie still and I will tell you," replied Luna.
Amelia Bones arrived in the Head Auror's Office at the DMLE and addressed her second in command.
"What news Rufus?"
Rufus Scrimgeour looked up from the notes he was making to reply. "Snape is currently locked up down in the Department of Mysteries where they are seeing to his wounds. He should be ready to talk in about another ten minutes or so."
"Excellent," replied Amelia. "I've waited a long time to wring a few truths out of the greasy bastard."
"You're not the only one," said Scrimgeour. "How were things at St Mungo's?"
"Messy. The healers can't work out what the spell he hit her with was or how to reverse its effects. If it weren't for the House Elf putting her under a stasis enchantment after tying up Snape than she would probably have bled out and died before we even got there."
"Yes, well, I for one will never underestimate House Elves again. Incidentally I had to call in your friend Cyrus Greengrass."
"Why?"
"Well, when Snape was brought here, a search revealed that he had a talisman of sorts upon his person. At first we assumed that it was an emergency portkey, but now we're not so sure so I asked Greengrass to take a look."
"Do you think it might be what caused the wards to fall?"
"It is," said a voice from the doorway. Amelia spun around and saw Cyrus Greengrass standing there "Forgive me," he said "but I couldn't help but overhear that last part of your conversation."
He approached Scrimgeour's desk and placed the talisman upon it. It was a disc made entirely of gold with a precious stone set in the middle. The stone was in a perfect circle and resembled the symbol of yin and yang, except one half was ruby red and the other emerald green, and did not have the dots in the larger ends. Around this central stone was a ring of sixteen smaller stones which ran in the order of sapphire, diamond, pearl and crystal before going back to sapphire again. A similar ring of stones was found along the edge of the talisman and on the back. A golden chain was affixed to the top.
"This thing causes wards to fail, you say?" asked Scrimgeour.
"It does, but only when activated which it currently is not," replied Greengrass. "And even if it were, we wouldn't have a lot to worry about here in the Ministry. This thing is far from strong enough to bring down the wards surrounding this building. I would imagine that it took several attempts for it to bring down the wards around the Abbott House as well."
"But it still did it quicker than a whole team of curse breakers," said Amelia. "So where did Snape get this thing?"
"Well I had some people down in the Department of Mysteries look it over to see if there are any traces of a magical signature on it" said Greengrass. "And they've come up with a name."
"Who?"
"Voldemort."
.....
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