Now that the curse problem had been successfully resolved, Tver felt as though even the sunlight outside looked brighter.
Of course, the afternoon sun was always harsher than the morning sun. That was just common sense...
Still, he had already experienced this kind of joy once before, so he quickly reined in his excitement and looked at the aggrieved Marvolio.
"All right, it's not as if you've never split your soul before. Do you really need to look that miserable?"
"My soul only just got put back together after endless hardship! Even if it's only a tiny bit, it's still a piece of soul I finally got back!" Marvolio protested loudly, very conveniently failing to mention that it had actually been Tver who helped him find the Horcruxes.
"All right, all right. It's just a tiny bit of soul. Once we catch Voldemort, I'll give you his."
"Forget it. His soul is so tattered now I don't even want it," Marvolio said with renewed disdain.
"But aren't you still going to keep teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts? What then? You can't just keep splitting my soul forever, can you?"
Tver immediately turned to him with a broad smile.
"..."
Marvolio fell silent.
"...I think I'd better start learning how to purify the soul."
Seeing how sensible Marvolio was being, Tver nodded in satisfaction.
"By the way, you mentioned Dumbledore just now. What about him?"
"Oh-ho!" Marvolio immediately sprang to his feet in swaggering fashion and pointed at...
himself.
"Dumbledore has realized something's wrong with Dawlish, or rather, with me. He may already have figured out my identity!"
"Really?" Tver took a casual sip of pumpkin juice. "How did Dumbledore figure it out?"
Something was off.
Marvolio did not need to ask to know that Tver's current attitude was completely out of proportion to the seriousness of the matter.
But since he still could not tell what Tver was playing at, he could only continue.
"As soon as Hogwarts went on holiday, Dumbledore started dropping by the Ministry from time to time."
"At first, he slipped in under your name. The department he visited was the Department of Mysteries, and in the Ministry, apart from Fudge. No, not even Fudge could really throw him out."
"Then one day he came to the Auror Office to chat with Kingsley, and looked at me with this very strange smile while sizing me up!"
To be honest, ever since their very first meeting at the orphanage, Marvolio had always been a little wary of Dumbledore.
And with Dumbledore seeing through scheme after scheme of his back when he was still Tom Riddle, that feeling had only grown deeper with each passing year.
Otherwise, he would never have consistently avoided attacking Hogwarts while Dumbledore was there.
And he would never have treated defeating Dumbledore as the single most important goal of his entire enterprise.
Tver stared blankly at the pumpkin juice in his teacup, seemingly lost in thought.
"And then? Maybe Dumbledore had simply spotted an outstanding Hogwarts graduate?" he asked absentmindedly.
"No, no, no. That smile was full of meaning. It was just like the smile you wear every time you're plotting against someone. Calm, confident, and with that sort of evil look that says you've already thought through every move your opponent might make."
"..." Tver finally snapped out of it and rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"That's called planning, not evil."
"No, can't you show a little urgency here?" Marvolio said, utterly unable to understand Tver's composure. "That's Dumbledore!"
"Dumbledore has discovered that I exist. Discovered that a piece of Voldemort's soul is walking around as Head of the Auror Office!"
"And that soul is closely tied to you!"
"I was so scared I put Dawlish back and hid in this tiny office!" Marvolio said with lingering dread, patting his chest as though the pressure Dumbledore put on him was still hanging there.
"If this has already annoyed Dumbledore, I'd like to see how you're supposed to pull him into the camp that wants to overturn the Statute of Secrecy!"
"So what? Your identity was going to come out sooner or later. Hiding will only make Dumbledore more suspicious. Better to lay things out early."
Tver looked utterly relaxed, even a little inscrutable.
"In fact, as early as two years ago, I was already trying to get Dumbledore to notice you..."
"?!"
Marvolio's eyes flew wide open. His mouth dropped open as well, and all he could do was stare at Tver in utter disbelief.
What kind of twist was this?
He had done everything he could to make himself as invisible as possible in front of Dumbledore, while Tver had...
Wait.
Two years ago?
Marvolio started going over the events of the past few years in his head, especially his very limited interactions with Dumbledore.
"Thought of it?" Tver's lips curled into a smug smile.
"I spent two whole years gradually getting Dumbledore to accept your existence. There's no need to be so shocked."
"Two and a half years ago, Fudge put me in charge of discussing the Dementors being stationed at Hogwarts with Dumbledore..." Marvolio muttered.
"And I, despite agreeing to go there with you, exposed your presence to Dumbledore. That was the first time I started thinking about this plan."
"Half a year later, I gathered all the evidence against Gilderoy Lockhart..."
"And I was the one who had you come over personally to arrest Lockhart. Dumbledore probably officially noticed something strange about you at that point."
"Half a year ago, I had only just been revived, and yet you insisted I come personally to arrest Barty Crouch Jr...."
"At that time you had only just regained your body and still weren't used to it. Your Transfiguration was nowhere near polished. As long as Dumbledore wasn't blind, he would have noticed the difference between you then and you before."
As he and Tver went back and forth through these events, Marvolio suddenly realized that all three of his meetings with Dumbledore over the past two and a half years had been deliberately arranged by Tver.
"This was all for your own good. After all, with the face you have now, other people might not recognize you, but Dumbledore definitely would," Tver said leisurely, looking at Marvolio's dumbstruck expression.
"Rather than hiding and waiting for Dumbledore to notice, it was better to let him know this way. I was never planning to hide you in the first place. Your actions all had perfectly good reasons behind them, and that actually helps dispel his concerns."
"But the problem is..."
After a long while, Marvolio finally came back to himself, though he still felt as if his brain could not quite keep up.
"Why hasn't Dumbledore exposed it yet? You want him to know, and he knows you want him to know. If it's all this complicated, why not just lay it all out openly?!"
"But you don't know, Marvolio."
Tver smiled smugly, and for a moment he truly did look a little like what Marvolio had described earlier...
evil.
"We all know you're the one being kept in the dark. Every move you make at the Ministry is being watched by Dumbledore..."
"And it's because of what you do under those circumstances that Dumbledore has the patience to observe you, and why he didn't get angry with us immediately."
"As long as your behavior doesn't go too far and doesn't resemble Voldemort's brutal nature, Dumbledore is willing to accept the goodwill I'm offering."
"..." Marvolio looked at Tver with deep grievance written all over his face.
"The minds of people who play strategy are filthy."