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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 224: The Dangerous Expert
Albus Dumbledore saw the green flames in his fireplace lighting up and waited patiently for the other person to enter his office.
As soon as James came into sight, he welcomed him with a warm smile.
"Hello, James. Thank you for coming on such short notice."
He cleaned the soot off his robes and glanced at the old Headmaster. It was immediately apparent that the man was very tired.
"For you to call me like that, it must be very important."
Dumbledore nodded and pointed to a chair. "I'm afraid it is. And I didn't dare to send this information through owl."
"That's fine. I do prefer to discuss things in person." James sat down. "I'm assuming the theme of the conversation is the Dark Lord."
"It's about what happened in Azkaban the other day," Dumbledore said.
James became interested immediately. He had been wanting to ask the Headmaster about it, as he had no doubt he had many contacts among the Auror Department.
"Do you know who escaped the prison?"
"I'm sure you are already aware of one of them." Dumbledore gave him a knowing look.
Of course, Dumbledore would know that he went there with Sirius and the others. After all, they all had their identities checked and recorded when they arrived. "Are the Aurors looking for us?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "They have more important preoccupations at this moment."
"Okay, so other than Walburga Black, who else did they take?" James asked.
"Given the fact you don't seem to know…" Dumbledore started. "I take it that this was not supposed to happen."
"Many things weren't supposed to happen…but no," James said. It wasn't as if he had intended to make these changes in the timeline.
He didn't even ask to come here in the first place, and was now trying to make the best of the situation.
Dumbledore appeared to guess what James was thinking right now. "I am not blaming you for anything, James. Well… maybe for destroying part of my school, but not for this."
"I appreciate it. But we should go back to the topic: who is the missing prisoner?," James requested politely.
"Does the name Morvan Graves ring a bell?" Dumbledore asked.
"Mmmm?..." James tried to think back to his old life. He had met hundreds of interesting individuals, but if his memory still served him well, that name was completely unknown to him.
"Can't say I have. But I'm fairly sure that the last name 'Graves' does not belong to any old wizard family of this country."
"You would be correct. This man came from a muggle family," Dumbledore told him.
"A muggleborn?" He found it surprising that Voldemort would take the risk of breaking into Azkaban to free one muggleborn. "Was there no one else?"
"No. Those men knew exactly what they wanted. They went directly for Morvan Graves' cell, took him out, and left. As well as Lady Black, of course."
"Rescuing Walburga was only a side task." James was convinced of that, as the woman held little value to the Dark Lord at this point.
He couldn't even use her blood to find the new House of Black. Pollux had already made sure that the same trick could not be used again against them.
"So, who is this man?" James asked.
Dumbledore answered him by passing him a small stack of parchment papers.
James only needed a single look to understand that Dumbledore had somehow gotten him a copy of the prisoner's files. It contained all the information he could possibly need, so he began reading it with care as he didn't want to miss anything important.
Five minutes later, he placed the papers down and sighed. "Now I understand."
This muggleborn was indeed a very dangerous individual, but not for his combat skills. After all, he was a very old man in his early 100s, who had spent the last forty years in jail.
It was his knowledge about forbidden pieces of magic that made him dangerous, and what had gotten him arrested in the first place.
Forty years ago, Morvan Graves was considered by many as the country's leading expert in dark rituals.
Using his forbidden expertise, he had managed to enhance his body and mind to superhuman levels during his younger years and became nearly unstoppable.
This was no longer the case. Forty years locked in a cell and surrounded by dementors would take a toll on anyone's body.
And by the picture attached to the file, James could tell that this man was very close to his 'grave'.
"The Dark Lord has become very interested in rituals. It's no wonder he would want the help of that man. There is no one more suited to help him on that task."
"Is that old man still sane? The files don't mention anything about it." James asked.
Dumbledore shrugged. "Let's hope not. He was basically forgotten in that prison. No one paid much attention to him. I'm sure most guards didn't even know about his past and just thought of him as a decrepit old man."
James noted a look in Dumbledore's eyes. "Is there more?"
Dumbledore nodded. "Recently, you advised your father to keep an eye on dragon reserves. So we did…"
"And?"
"It happened at the Hebridean Dragon Sanctuary, located on an island off the coast of Scotland. They have—"
"The Hebridean Black," James added. "A very aggressive type of black dragon."
"Indeed. The sanctuary had an elder dragon in their possession, as they had for the last couple of centuries. Three days ago, a large group of white-masked men launched an assault against the facility, killed two of the employees, injured eight, and took off with this elder dragon," Dumbledore explained.
James sighed. "I figured that he was going to need something like that for his ritual. He likely has everything he needs now."
"Is he trying to become something like that dark witch you fought?"
"Yes… I may have spooked him into resorting to desperate measures," James lamented.
"I see… will you still be able to stop him?" Dumbledore asked.
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