Several of the grown adults gave the elderly wizard nervous looks, as Lucius met the headmaster's stare straight on.
Watching as the meeting quickly drew to a close, he sensed a shift in the atmosphere; Dumbledore was no longer on the defensive, he was readying himself for war.
...
Closing the magical connection to the mirror it turned back to normal, unassuming glass, while he took a moment to consider this latest news, and how it would affect the political battlefield. Sure, Professor McGonagall becoming the new Headmistress was a good thing. She was strict, but fair, and that was something he respected; but at the same time he predicted that the elderly wizard would be back before too long, in fact as soon as the true mastermind was revealed he predicted.
But with the elderly wizard temporarily removed from the school, many previously discarded plans suddenly became tenable. Now that Dumbledore was gone, he finally had the chance to access and explore the Chamber of Secrets buried deep beneath the school and could now make contact with the ancient serpent within.
Turning back to his dressing table mirror, he activated the mirror's special charms and patiently waited and watched for Rita to pick up the 'call' he had made to her. Seconds later the mirror's surface rippled and changed as Rita appeared in a sheer black dressing gown made of form fitting acromantula silk. "My Lord," she greeted with a fake smile, he could just sense her annoyance at being called.
He smiled as he took in her form, now capable of appreciating her feminine beauty, "I just thought that you should know Rita that Professor Dumbledore is resigning as headmaster of Hogwarts and professor McGonagall is his chosen successor," he informed his servant.
He smiled as she saw her eyes light up for real at the prospect of a major story that she likely had the exclusive on, "How do you know this my lord?" she purred eagerly.
"I'd rather not say," he teased, as he examined Rita's soft feminine form once again. "But I'll show you this summer. I expect you'll make far better use of it than I will," he said, already having decided to use Rita to set up his spy network and operate it on his behalf for the foreseeable future.
Of course, he would put extremely well worded magical orders in place to make sure that she didn't use it against him, abuse it, or risk revealing it to the world by using it too extensively. This advantage would last only as long as it remained secret and he hoped to use it for many, many years to come.
"Sounds interesting, my lord," she voiced demurely, her robe opening slightly, showing a hint of her bare chest.
He didn't know if it was intentional or merely an accident, so he chose to ignore it for the time being rather than point out the slip. "Trust me Rita, if you use this right you will be the most feared reporter in the whole of Britain," he voiced.
"I'm already the most feared reporter in Britain my Lord. Even the Minister fears me and my quill, remember?" she announced with a smirk.
He smirked back at the chained reporter, once again immensely grateful for the binding magical oaths placed upon her to ensure her obedience and absolute loyalty to him. "How true," he noted after several long seconds of thought. "You will be even more feared then. Now I want it to seem that it was Lord Malfoy who leaked the story to you. I want Dumbledore believing that Lord Malfoy is behind it and I want Dumbledore to be focusing on Lord Malfoy to the exclusion of everything else."
"Of course my Lord, it should be easy enough," she noted, as an elaborate quill suddenly appeared in her hand. "I assume you want to set them at one another," Rita voiced, her self-inking quill dancing across her parchment.
Smiling back at his henchwomen, "Of course Rita, I want them at each other's throats, but don't paint Lord Malfoy in a positive light or anything, stay strictly neutral. But if you can, please subtly remind people of his questionable past and his links with You-Know-Who."
"Hmmm... that's makes it harder, but not impossible my lord," she noted, taking up the challenge he set for her.
"That's why you're the best my dear," he offered, stroking her ego.
"Is there anything else, my lord?" she asked.
Stroking his chin thoughtfully, "No Rita, but you should know that I'll be requesting an interview with the Prophet in the next week or so, after I'm resurrected from the dead. I'll specifically request that you do the interview, so make sure that you're in a position to accept the story from your boss when it comes," he ordered, as she bobbed her head in understanding.
"By the way, don't bother sending me a draft of your story for tomorrow's paper, there won't be enough time, so I'll trust your judgement on it."
"Yes my lord," she nodded with a proud smile at my small display of trust in her.
"Good, now I have to go, I'm meant to be dead after all," he voiced with a hint of amusement, "But do a good job and you'll be rewarded," he teased as he closed the connection.
Hopefully his intervention would add fuel to the fire between Lord Malfoy and the Chief Warlock, escalating their upcoming conflict and ensuring that when the time came for the man's arrest, there would be no mercy shown from Dumbledore and his faction.
After all, as it stood now he couldn't fight either of them directly and win; this way it got them both out of his hair for a time, buying him some much needed breathing room to rally his resources and seize opportunities while their attention was diverted.
As he looked around his bedroom he eyed the bookshelves for anything of interest, but found nothing that stirred his current desires and mood. He wanted to do something far more active and creative, rather than merely hiding in his room and reading all the while his godfather arranged a fake funeral for his dead godson.
Going over his list of active projects, he mentally ticked through his to-do list. He realized that he had not even begun to explore the long ago thought up idea of creating a potion grenade... It was time for some research, he thought excitedly, as he picked up his notepad and quill.
He then left his bedroom and made his way through the redecorated halls of Number 12, enjoying the light cream colours around the house, rather than the former gloomy, dark colours favoured by Sirius' ancestors.
It was truly amazing how a simple colour change could alter everyone's mood for the better, how the whole house was transformed to look far less depressing and dreary.
...
( Hogwarts Great Hall – Friday Morning )
Minerva gave a tired yawn as she sat down at the teacher's table for breakfast, along with the rest of the staff, as she looked over the grim faced student body. The previous day's events were still registering with some of her students, her Gryffindors quite sober at the poisoning of one of their own, but news that Neville would make a full recovery raised their spirits considerably.
But sadly it seemed that that was all they cared about; none of them seemed bothered by the death of a Ravenclaw student. She turned to look at the Ravenclaw table to see that it was a mixed bag even there. Clearly some of them were upset at the murder of one their housemates, but others didn't seem bothered at all.
The most vocal were the members of the Quidditch team, but even they were showing only annoyance at losing their 'star' seeker before they could win the house Quidditch tournament. However, it was also clear that one of their members didn't care a whit that one their own teammates had been murdered, but instead seemed rather cheerful at the recent turn of events. She never expected such unseemly behaviour from one her favourites and was forced to reconsider her favourable opinion of one Cho Chang.
Looking at the Asian student with new eyes, she decided the third year required close watching.
She then turned her gaze to examine Harry's small group of friends and saw that they were sitting by themselves passing quiet words between them. Their behaviour seemed absolutely normal for them, not at all the type of behaviour that she would attribute to acutely mourning the unexpected and sudden passing of a dear friend. However, before she could think on this oddity any longer the morning post owls suddenly flooded into the hall.
'They're certainly early today,' she noted whilst watching the owls deliver their precious loads as a fast approaching tawny barn owl dropped her own newspaper into her newly poured bowl of cereal, splashing her with milk and cereal. She immediately heard the beginnings of light giggles and chuckles at her expense...
Then she heard the first gasps of shock from her students, as they opened the Saturday morning newspaper and took in the headline. The first bits of idle gossip erupted around the great hall. Quickly unfolding her own newspaper to see what was causing this reaction, her eyes settled on the thick, bold, black ink of the headline.
..
Murder Most Foul At Hogwarts! The Heir to the Potter and Black Families Murdered! Attempted Murder of the Boy-Who-Lived!
Headmaster Resigns in Disgrace!
Pages 1-5
By Rita Skeeter
..
"How could she know this so quickly?!" Filius suddenly asked from further down the teacher's table, voicing her own thoughts at the headline.
"I don't know Filius, I just don't know," she expressed with a deep frown. "I thought the Board of Governors agreed to hold off on informing the press until the end of the weekend, so we would have time to prepare a response."
"This is awfully bad," Pomona voiced from besides her, the distress in her voice easily detectable to those who knew her.
"How bad is the article Pomona?" she asked the head of Hufflepuff house, who was quickly reading through the pages.
"Damning bad. It looks like she's trying to get us all hanged," she noted in distress, attracting alarmed looks from the rest of the staff. "Rita is calling for a full investigation into the day-to-day running of Hogwarts, and calls for all our resignations. I expect we will be receiving the first of many howlers by lunch time," the head of Hufflepuff voiced anxiously as she continued to skim through the pages, quickly reading all the referenced articles providing more information.
"Just great," she muttered, already knowing it was going to be a very long day.
She was just about to reply when she was suddenly interrupted, "Professor, this can't be true, can it?" Hermione Granger asked, suddenly appearing in front of the teacher's table in an obvious state of panic.
Not having the heart to take points for being rudely interrupted, she merely offered a sad smile, "Unfortunately, it is true Miss Granger; the headmaster has agreed to resign. He will be coming down in a couple of minutes to make a final statement and explain what's going to happen now."
"So is Hogwarts going to close?" Hermione asked in a state of panic, as the rest of great hall listened in.
"I don't know child, but not if I can help it," she strongly declared.
...
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