Published at 30th of November 2019 10:41 pm

Chapter 87: Ritual

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Bone of the Centaur. Check

Blood of the caster. Check

5 Petals from a moonflower. Check

Dust from the wing of a Cornish Pixie. Check

Draught of New beginnings. Check.

After making double sure that he had everything from the list, he started drawing the circle for the ritual in the solitude of the Room of Requirement.

He had never been particularly good with rituals, hiss only other experience being the ritual that transferred the soul from the Diadem on to the Silver Mirror.

And that ritual, despite what some people might think, was fairly easy to perform.

This one was… a little harder.

Not that he was not confident his ability to perform the ritual but he knew that magic was a dangerous thing so he always exercised utmost caution whenever he tried to do something even remotely dangerous.

So he had double checked every ingredient. Every procedure. Every rune drawn on the ground.

And only when he was sure that he had not made any mistakes did he went ahead with the ritual.

The purpose of the ritual was very simple.

The ritual broke his connection with any other part of his body that was not connected with him.

Which meant that after the ritual was done, any strand of hair he'd left in his pillow, any drop of blood he'd dropped somewhere, any scrap of skin from his body. Every such thing will lose the magical essence of him that they had within them.

It meant that if anyone had stolen a bunch of hair strands from him and was planning on his those hair to create a polyjuice potion and impersonate him, they would fail.

It also meant that if anyone had taken his blood when he was young and was using that bit of blood to track his location, the the artifacts trying to track him will stop working at once as the blood will lose all connection with him.

So after making sure that everything was as it should be, he stepped within the ritual circle drawn with numerous intricate runes.

And five minutes later, half a dozen devices kept inside Dumbledore's office simply stopped working.

—————

"He didn't seemed very upset about the whole situation." Minerva commented as she sat on a chair besides the head of the three other houses in a round table as the Hogwarts house elves brought them refreshments without ever being seen.

"Oh come off it Minerva. We both know that he looked downright happy after Harry left." Pomona said with some anger. She had not known about Harry's past and had not taken the new information about his abusing relatives very well. "You have known him for the longest time among all of us. Do you have any idea why he looked so smug when he should be worried instead?"

Minerva took a sip of the pumpkin juice and said "I don't presume to know Albus any better than any of you do. But if I have to guess, then he must be happy because despite Mr Potter's harsh words, he did helped Hagrid a great deal and even went out of his way to hide the dragon's existence so that Hagrid won't go to Azkaban."

"Yes. So noble of the great Harry Potter." Snape drawled from the sidelines but this time his words lacked their usual bite and he seemed to be disparaging young Harry simply because of his old habits.

He had seemed a little out of it ever since he came to knew about Harry's terrible past.

Regardless, he was ignored by the other three head of houses as they continued on with their discussion.

"I can see why that would make Albus happy." Flitwick said "This was probably the first time Mr Potter had ever done something good for a person he didn't consider his friend simply because he could."

"The headmaster must have seen this as a sign that perhaps there's still some good in Harry's heart and that he could probably be brought to the light side and all the other things that the Headmaster usually goes on about." He added.

"Minerva." Pomona suddenly asked "Is it true that Mr Potter asked Headmaster Dumbledore to sign his resignation letter at the start of the school term and that the Headmaster refused his request?"

Both Snape and Flitwick glance at Minerva who suddenly looked a tad bit more uncomfortable under their scrutiny.

"Yes." She said after letting out a long sigh "Unfortunately. That is indeed the truth Pomona."

"And what about the other claims that the boy made?" Snape suddenly asked and the other three head of houses gave him a weird glance.

It was highly irregular of the Potions master to attend this meeting along with them as he usually chose to stay away from people and social interactions.

It was even more irregular for him to openly ask questions about the well being of Mr Potter.

Someone whom Snape seemed to have hated ever since the start of the term.

So such inquiry from him threw them off for a bit before the recovered and glanced at Minerva for answers.

Minerva quietly took another sip of Pumpkin juice before she let out another sigh and spoke "I do not know if what Mr Potter said was the truth or not. But I do know that Mr Dursley is currently spending 15 years of time in a prison for child abuse and neglect."

"How could you have let this happen Minerva?" Pomona asked with a disappointed gaze. "Wasn't it you who kept him wit those relatives of his. Don't tell me you didn't go and check upon the boy even once during all these years?"

Minerva wilted under those accusing glances and sniffed a bit.

"I wanted to." She finally confessed "I wanted to check upon him many times in these past eleven years. I knew that his relatives were not the good sort of muggles and that I might be condemning young Harry to a hard life by leaving him in their doorsteps but Albus told me that the boy could only remain safe as long as he lived under the protection of the blood wards. And the blood wards were connected with his aunt so the boy would have to live with them as well."

"Albus told me that it was the necessary thing to do and I believed in him."

"And later when I wanted to check upon Harry, he once again told me that Harry was living a good enough life with his relatives and that we wizards and witches should not bother him. I trusted his words and… and I didn't even check on little Harry even once." Minerva sobbed in her hands and Pomona's stern expression broke as she started to console the older woman.

They talked for some more time after that. Mostly discussing about what kind of penalty the half giant would have to pay for raising a dragon in his wooden hut.

They all knew that Hagrid's mistake would most likely be covered by the Headmaster and the aurors would likely never know that someone ever raised a dragon inside Hogwarts and they were okay with it. Because despite his foolishness, Hagrid was usually a kind and gentle bloke who would never intentionally harm another person.

After that talk they all dispersed back to their own rooms and even though it might seem like nothing have changed on the outside, they all knew that they would never be able to trust the headmaster anymore as they once did.

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