Sitting in the headmaster's office, in Dumbledore's throne—his symbol of power—gave me great pleasure, especially with Dumbledore sitting on the ground, his magic bound and stripped of any and all of his magical artifacts—of which, he had a lot…
He had been sitting there since he arrived yesterday. He looked completely haggard, and with the silencing spell on him, he could only glare daggers at me; the malice in his eyes would frighten even Voldemort.
Instead of ignoring him, I goaded him further by walking over and pulling his beard twice in a row. The first was for the old me, and the second for the current me.
The door to the office opened, and all the professors entered. As soon as McGonagall saw Dumbledore's situation, she tried to move toward him but found she couldn't.
The reason for her inability was simple: the area of the office where Dumbledore sat was warded off by Hogwarts itself—it's one of the new upgrades.
I still haven't had the time to check on everything yet, so I am not sure what more it could do at the moment. Still, McGonagall is nothing if not persistent, so she tried and failed several times while the rest of the staff just watched her as they sat down on their designated chairs.
When she finally got tired of failing, she turned sharply to me—I know that look, and I didn't want to hear anything from her for now, so I snapped my fingers, silencing her with a spell so quick that she didn't even see it, let alone react to it. I then gestured for her to sit down, which she did, albeit reluctantly.
I then turned my attention to the rest of the staff; almost all of them were here—except for Professor Trelawney, who I think was still drunk somewhere— I mean, even Madam Pomfrey was here, when—in my opinion—she didn't need to be, not for anything else other than the fact that she still scares the hell out of me for some reason…
'Anyhow, let's start this meeting and get this over with,' I thought in slight annoyance…
"Thank you all for coming," I stated politely. "I know you have a lot of questions, and I will answer the ones I can, but first, I am going to need you to swear some vows. You just need to do a normal magic vow swearing not to share the information with anyone, willingly or not, but add the phrase 'and may Hogwarts be a witness' at the end of it. That's it."
That last part made me receive some weird looks, but I couldn't find it in me to elaborate because they would know as soon as they completed the vow, so there was no need.
I opened my Grimoire to see if the new level of study material had already been analyzed. You see, even though I already have Voldemort's knowledge of magic, I still started studying from scratch again, dividing everything by levels, like old Hogwarts student level, postgraduate level, professors'/master level, true master level, and so on and so forth… Still, that didn't mean I wasn't paying attention to the vows that were taking place…
The looks on the professors' faces when they realized that Hogwarts did indeed bear witness and their vows, which were now unbreakable, were worth all the weird looks I received earlier.
Smiling at them, I asked, "Now, who wants to go first?"
"Mr. Potter, I'll go first. Why is the Headmaster sitting there like that? Or better yet, can you just explain what happened from the beginning?" Of course, it had to be Madam Pomfrey who asked first… Now I can't make fun of McGonagall or Snape anymore.
"Ahem, yes, Madam Pomfrey. Good to see you…."
She cut me off, eyes squinting at me, and said, "And don't forget to come to the hospital wing later for a check-up."
I could only smile stiffly at her request before continuing.
"Of course, Madam Pomfrey. Now, back to the topic at hand. Where do I start? Hmmm... I know, why not start from the very beginning…" I, of course, couldn't leave the theatrics aside; otherwise, it would be boring…
"You see, before I was born, the headmaster heard a prophecy. Now, a normal person would think it was a hoax and go about their day.
A normal wizard should at least know that most prophecies are self-fulfilling and try to leave them alone—but not our esteemed headmaster,"
the sarcasm in my voice was plainly evident to all of them…
"The headmaster, though, did the opposite—he rescheduled a meeting with Professor Trelawney and ensured her prophecy was delivered to Voldemort. Now, if he had stopped there, he might have saved himself, but no. He was the Great Albus 'too many names for one person' Dumbledore—how could he have any semblance of self-control? He decided to interfere more and made sure the prophecy was self-fulfilled.
Still, he could have called it quits there too, but we all know he didn't. No, he subtly interfered, thinking he would come out on top." My voice dripped with exaggeration, ridicule, and sarcasm.
"Now, here's the thing—if you don't know—self-fulfilling prophecies are the worst kind of prophecies because they garner a debt of fate. In this case, I'm the one who has to pay this debt to fate for saving me that night. This also meant that fate had a debt to Voldemort, which had been paid in full by protecting him too until his resurrection.
This meant he couldn't be killed before his resurrection no matter what…
Now, let's get back to the headmaster's role in this. He believed he could manipulate fate in his favor, and as we all know, fate is a b**ch that always has other plans. So, when he decided I was no longer useful and should die in Azkaban, he added oil to the fire and f**ked himself over without even knowing it." I glanced at Dumbledore as I said this, and I could almost see the gears in his head turning as he came to the realization that what I said was true.
The look he had made me so happy, I think this will be one of the memories I use when summoning a patronus…
Getting back on track, I directed my attention back to the professors and continued: "Now, I will not explain what happened when I was in Azkaban, but just know that someone decided to have me killed using a Death Eater as a scapegoat, and that set in motion the events that led me here." If my suspicious staring at Dumbledore while saying this didn't give them the clues they needed, then that's on them.
"Now, back to why the headmaster is confined here. You see, our esteemed headmaster, in his infinite wisdom, came into contact with some very nasty rituals some 40 years ago. Had he been as smart as he thought he was, he would have noticed that the ritual was too good to be true or that it contained demonic runes.
I don't know if it was an oversight or just sheer stupidity, but he decided to use it. Had he succeeded, he would have turned himself into a divine demonic vassal of some kind. Now, I'm not a master in ritual arts yet—not by a long shot—but runes? Now that's a different story.
Anyhow, after I let myself out of Azkaban, I came here to continue my studies and training. By sheer luck, I discovered that Hogwarts was sentient. Or maybe it was fate? I don't know.
So, while studying runes, I asked Hogwarts about them, and she told me about the headmaster's ritual room. Yesterday, I repurposed said ritual to turn Hogwarts into a semi-divine artifact and mistakenly gained the position of headmaster once it was done. Now, any more questions?"
The only answer was silence—the room was so quiet that I thought they had forgotten to breathe. Was it the shock of it all? Or was it disbelief? I don't know, and frankly, I don't care either…
Of course, this didn't last long as one Severus Snape decided to open his mouth.
"Potter, all we have until now are your words. We don't have any evidence to support your claims. For all we know, this could be a fabricated story so that you can carry out your revenge." His obnoxious voice echoed through the room.
I saw some light in Dumbledore's eyes as well as some thoughtful looks appear on the professors' faces, so I had to squish this argument fast…
"Heh, it's funny that you think of yourself as important enough to ask for evidence or for me to even consider lying to you.
You see, I truly don't care what you believe, because you're neither strong nor educated enough in magic for me to care. I could give you the memory of the events or even the ritual he, Dumbledore, intended to use, but I do not trust you not to do something stupid with said knowledge….
And since you're the first to talk, I'll just warn you: start getting your affairs in order because as long as you have that mark on you, Voldemort will be able to kill you no matter where you go or what you do." I told him, my voice becoming increasingly sadistic by the end.
He looked as if he had eaten something foul. And that brought me happiness…
The other professors, though, looked solemn, and none chose to speak, so I decided to cut the conversation short for now and tend to my other affairs.
"Well, seeing as you all learned some heavy news today, plus I have other things to attend to, you can excuse yourselves for now. If you have more questions, please ask them later." I said as I stood up and started leaving the office first, not forgetting to drag Dumbledore out with me.
I'll deal with him later, though. For now, I just have to place him somewhere, and Hogwarts will take care of the rest…
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