Duel Enrollment

Plans in Peril

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(Oh you stupid brats.) Sasha thought as she watched the Hogwarts students frantically write down letters of Harry Potter's absence and release their owls. Less than one minute after the train stopped the sky was filled with owls ...

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Dumbledore retreated to his living quarters just off of his office where he could think in peace, "How the hell did any of this happen? What went wrong?" He said to himself. As he pondered everything he also tried to recall if any evidence leading back to him was left behind. He couldn't think of any loose ends right off, but he prepared to tread carefully especially around this new minister who seems smarter than he let on in the election "Fudge may be trouble in the future ... what?" The headmaster froze as he felt the magic in the castle shift. He moved over to a crystal ball. "Dammit, it's all true."

The crystal ball revealed that the whole hall of unused classrooms was transformed into a large suite. What was even worse is that the crystal ball would only show the outline of the room, but not the inside. It even showed Severus, Silvia and Sophia enter the room, but the three basically vanished. This infuriated the headmaster since it meant he couldn't track any of the wizards and witches as he pleases, which will make taking Julian back impossible.

However, the crystal ball did suddenly switch to an image that could provide a potential fix to this situation. It snapped to a view of his office, which showed the floo flare up as someone flooed into his office. As a clearly weakened and slightly crazed Sirius stumbled out of the floo Dumbledore got an idea ...

The headmaster smirked and used a little magic to open the door quietly so Sirius could hear, "I can't believe Harry- I'm mean Julian was abused." He said and watched Sirius through the crystal ball. He noticed Sirius heard the name and crept closer to the door. "I must be old if I failed in such a horrible way. Not just with Julian, but with Sirius as well. I should have known he was innocent ... I suppose it turned out for the best ... Sirius is to be freed after far too long and Julian is with a loving father." He said with a fake tone of sadness and regret as he watched the image of Sirius leaning closer to the door in the crystal ball. Sirius was wearing a look that clearly showed that Dumbledore was cleared of all wrong doing in the Black's eyes. "At least I hope that's the case ... how kind could a man be if he adopts Julian only to make a man he never met before hand Julian's godfather? And Severus Snape no less who is staying in the wing that used to have the unused classrooms! Is he-" Dumbledore smirked as he actually heard someone run out of his office.

Sirius was no doubt pissed at the news and being as unstable as he was he never stopped to consider what amazing timing it was. He just happened to floo in just as Dumbledore was talking out loud with the door open and giving all the details he needed. To Sirius he was just lucky the kind old headmaster was there. Never once did he even consider that it was all a trap ...

"Hopefully this will make an opening." Dumbledore said as he went to his own personal cabinet on the wall and pulled out a loyalty potion he made. Once there was an opening he will slip it to the boy and his adopted father.

Interestingly enough the crystal ball shut off not revealing Julian encountering Quirrell or the conversation between Brian and Julian or even Remus who managed to hobble out of the office chasing after Sirius's scent without the old wizard seeing him ...

So much was missed, but after coming out of his room and doing some research on other means of mind control Dumbledore did notice one thing, "Where'd my floo powder go?" He pondered, but shrugged it off and had a house elf get some more as he went to speak with the professors ... and hopefully watch some drama unfold ...

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Brian looked at Severus as they walked towards the infirmary with the others and the unconscious professor, "I think we should go to your honeymoon suite and quickly." He whispered urgently.