Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures - H.P.S.T Chapter 1511: A Chat with Dumbledore

“My heart has been in it!” said Malfoy vehemently. “I’ve been working on it all year, and tonight —”

At this moment, a muffled yell came from somewhere in the depths of the castle below. Malfoy stiffened and glanced over his shoulder.

His trembling wand shifted off-target. If Dumbledore moved forward at this time — no, Harry felt that Dumbledore wouldn’t even need to rush; just walking over would be enough; Malfoy wouldn’t resist at all. But Dumbledore didn’t move. He leaned heavily on the Twin Serpent Staff, using it to support his weight, and said conversationally, “Somebody is putting up a good fight. But you were saying … yes, you have managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school, which, I admit, I thought impossible. … How did you do it?”

But Malfoy said nothing: He was still listening to whatever was happening below, and did not even turn his head to look at Dumbledore.

He seemed almost as paralyzed as Harry was.

“That won’t do, Draco, that won’t do. Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone,” suggested Dumbledore. “Although there are many of you here tonight, what if your backup has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realized, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight too, more than you expected. And after all, you don’t really need help. … I have no wand at the moment. … I cannot defend myself.”

Malfoy turned back again and merely stared at him.

Then, his eyes moved to the Twin Serpent Staff Dumbledore was leaning on.

He looked at the two green serpents at the top, and his expression slowly turned to one of horror, as if he’d only just noticed them.

“Don’t mind them. You can regard this staff as a decoration. Trust me, it won’t do you the slightest bit of harm,” said Dumbledore kindly. Seeing that Malfoy neither moved nor spoke, he nodded slightly. “Ah, I see. You are afraid to act until they join you.”

“I’m not afraid!” snarled Malfoy, like an angry cat, though he still made no move to hurt Dumbledore. “It’s you who should be scared!”

“But why? I don’t think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe. … So tell me, while we wait for your friends … how did you smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it.”

Malfoy looked as though he was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit.

He gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at Dumbledore, his wand pointing directly at the latter’s heart. Then, as though he could not help himself, he said, “I had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one’s used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year.”

“Aaaah.” Dumbledore’s sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment. “So this is why you spent most of your time in the Room of Requirement. That was clever. … There is a pair, I take it?”   

“In Borgin and Burkes,” said Malfoy, “and they make a kind of passage between them. Montague told me that when he was stuck in the Hogwarts one, he was trapped in limbo but sometimes he could hear what was going on at school, and sometimes what was going on in the shop, as if the cabinet was traveling between them, but he couldn’t make anyone hear him. … In the end, he managed to Apparate out, even though he’d never passed his test. He nearly died doing it. Everyone thought it was a really good story, but I was the only one who realized what it meant — even Borgin didn’t know — I was the one who realized there could be a way into Hogwarts through the cabinets if I fixed the broken one.”

“Very good,” murmured Dumbledore. “So the Death Eaters were able to pass from Borgin and Burkes into the school to help you. … A clever plan, a very clever plan … and, as you say, right under my nose…”

“Yeah,” said Malfoy, who bizarrely seemed to draw courage and comfort from Dumbledore’s praise. “Yeah, it was!”

“Very clever indeed, but I must correct one thing — it wasn’t just you who figured it out. In fact, Evan warned me about this several times over the past year.”

“What?!” Hearing this, Malfoy’s courage that had just risen up vanished in an instant. His expression turned panicked, as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. “Y-you mean Mason already knew?! He — he knew about the Vanishing Cabinet in advance?!”

“I guess you found out that Harry kept trying to follow you into the Room of Requirement to figure out what you were doing. He didn’t succeed, but he was not the only one trying.”

“M-Mason went in there too?!” Malfoy asked in horror.

“Not at the same time, but he should have guessed that you went to that room,” said Dumbledore kindly. “In the past few years, he has been the one using that room the most. No one is more familiar with the Room of Requirement than he is. He guessed where you were going, went in after you left, and discovered the Vanishing Cabinet. …”

“That’s impossible!” said Malfoy in disbelief. “There’s so much stuff in that room. I was careful every time — I made sure! He couldn’t have known the secret of the Cabinet — he just couldn’t have. …”

“Magic is actually not as simple as you think, Draco, you still have a lot to learn. In fact, I still say that what you did was too obvious and lame. Even without Evan’s warnings, I would have found out it was you. I suspect there were times, weren’t there, when you were not sure you would succeed in mending the Vanishing Cabinet? And you resorted to crude and badly judged measures such as sending me a cursed necklace that was bound to reach the wrong hands … poisoning mead there was only the slightest chance I might drink. …”

“Yeah, well, you still didn’t realize who was behind that stuff, did you?” sneered Malfoy.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” said Dumbledore, who slid a little down the ramparts, the strength in his legs apparently fading. “I was sure it was you.”

“Impossible, you couldn’t have known, impossible, this is impossible! If you found out everything, why didn’t you stop me?” Malfoy asked loudly, his panicked speech becoming more and more rapid, “Why did you let me do those things?!”

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