Chapter 74: Deliberation
When Ryan entered the Headmaster's office, he found five people waiting: Dumbledore and the heads of the four Hogwarts houses.
"I wasn't expecting all the Heads of House to be here," he said by way of greeting.
"To think that Voldemort has been circulating cursed Galleons right under our noses, and none of us even noticed!" Professor McGonagall's voice trembled with a mixture of anger and shame. "It is a gross dereliction of our duty."
"Now, Minerva, none of us could have predicted Voldemort would resort to such a subtle method to sow chaos within these walls," Dumbledore said, removing his half-moon spectacles to polish them. "If it weren't for Mr. Weasley's courage in coming forward, we would likely still be completely in the dark. As it is, he is still in the hospital wing, under Madam Pomfrey's care."
Ron is still in the hospital wing? Ryan wondered. Was Dumbledore using Ron as bait to see if Quirrell, who often assisted there, would make a move? Or did he trust Quirrell enough to allow him to supervise Ron's recovery? Either way, placing the two of them in proximity was a bold move that could yield fascinating results. Ryan had to hand it to him; Dumbledore was a crafty old schemer.
Professor Snape sat silently, his sleek, shoulder-length hair framing his face. He cradled a peculiar bamboo teacup, an oddity for a proper British gentleman, though he made no move to drink from it. Instead, he stared intently into the cup, as if trying to scry the future from the tea leaves within.
Professor Flitwick stood perched atop a stack of miscellaneous chests, tapping his wand against his palm as he mentally cycled through various charms, likely trying to devise a spell to locate and destroy all of Voldemort's cursed coins at once.
Professor Sprout had a worried expression. Ryan knew that a number of rare magical plants were being cultivated in the greenhouses at the moment. He suspected that on top of her concern for the students, she was also fretting that this late-night meeting would prevent her from tending to her nocturnal specimens.
"Albus, what is to be done?" McGonagall pressed. "I believe we should organize the prefects and conduct a thorough search of every student."
"We must afford the children their privacy, Minerva," Dumbledore replied, shaking his head. "A school-wide search could easily get out of hand, especially among the younger years. What begins as a search could devolve into bullying and false accusations."
"Veritaserum," Snape said suddenly, his voice a low drawl.
"It has not come to that, Severus," Dumbledore said quickly. "It has not come to that. For now, just sit and have some tea."
"What about a Summoning Charm?" a voice suggested, proposing a solution that blatantly disregarded wizarding law. No one needed to look to know it was Ryan.
According to Ministry regulations, it was illegal to use charms like Accio to acquire another's money, and most currency was enchanted with counter-charms to prevent such theft. While the powerful wizards in the room could easily bypass the standard, mass-produced counter-charms on a normal Galleon, openly flouting the law was another matter.
And yet, the four Heads of House nodded thoughtfully. Since when did a little rule-bending stop a Hogwarts professor?
Dumbledore, however, dismissed the idea. "We could ignore the charms on an ordinary Galleon," he explained, producing the cursed coin Ron had found. "But this is a different matter. Voldemort has layered it with his own powerful counter-charms and defensive wards."
He passed the coin around. The professors examined it in turn, each shaking their head. The dark magic woven into the gold was sophisticated. While they could likely dismantle the enchantments with time and effort, simply summoning the coin with brute force was out of the question.
"Well then, we could invent a pretext," Ryan suggested, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Announce a new 'scholastic excellence fund' and require a 'charitable donation' from every student. We tell them the money will be returned in full at the end of the year. We return the clean Galleons and keep the cursed ones."
"Hmm... I don't believe we are quite that desperate yet," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. He was not about to tarnish Hogwarts's millennium-old reputation with a scheme worthy of a goblin. "Besides, there's no guarantee it would work. A student from a wealthy family in possession of a cursed Galleon could simply donate a different one."
"Perhaps we should focus on protecting the students first," Professor Sprout offered. "We can place additional defensive charms on them and simply wait. Let the trail of coins go cold until Voldemort is forced to make another move."
It was a sound strategy of attrition, but it came with a terrible risk. No one in the room would dare claim they could best Voldemort in the Dark Arts. They could not offer an absolute guarantee of the students' safety. The Dark Lord had clearly regained his cunning, and his mastery of dark magic was arguably the greatest in the world. In his hands, any spell could become a weapon. Ryan sometimes wondered if Voldemort could even cast a Patronus Charm. While he lacked the capacity for joy or hope, he possessed an abundance of pure hatred and murderous intent. Could such powerful dark emotions fuel a twisted, reverse-engineered version of the spell? Not a Patronus Charm, but a Destructor's Charm, powered by pure darkness.
"So that won't work, and that won't work," Snape sneered. "Well, Dumbledore? What is your grand solution?"
All eyes turned to the Headmaster.
"Our challenge is threefold," Dumbledore stated, breaking the problem down. "First, we must ensure the students are not harmed. Second, we must find a way to make them give up the cursed Galleons voluntarily. And third, we must be prepared for Voldemort's inevitable counterattack when he realizes his plan has been discovered."
He sighed. As the defenders of Hogwarts—the very heart of the British wizarding world—their hands were tied. Voldemort, as the hidden aggressor, could act with impunity. The situation was, Dumbledore mused, far more disgusting than accidentally biting into a real, high-protein cockroach instead of a Cockroach Cluster.
Just then, Ryan's eyes lit up. "Headmaster, Professors," he said suddenly. "I have another idea. I don't know if it will work, but..."
~~~
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