"The identity of the person who gave you this potion is a confidence I must maintain, Anduin," Dumbledore stated gently, his eyes holding no trace of deception, only absolute certainty.
"It is a gift given with profound good intent and high regard for your abilities. To refuse it would be disrespectful to your friend, and frankly, a disservice to your own impressive intellectual development. I assure you of its safety and quality."
Anduin understood immediately. The necessity for the friend's anonymity—likely Severus Snape, given his expertise and temperament—was paramount. He was not a person to unnecessarily offend. Beyond that, the potion itself was too tantalizing to reject.
The Buffet Mind-Awakening Potion was the ultimate study aid, a magical shortcut to mental mastery he couldn't afford to ignore.
"I understand, Headmaster. Please convey my deepest gratitude to that anonymous friend," Anduin conceded, carefully placing the delicate crystal vial into his secure satchel, right next to the Rune Atlas.
"I shall pass on the message." Dumbledore smiled. "Now, onto the news from your other friends. The Potters and Sirius have been asking after you. I've been constantly writing and traveling lately—dealing with the inevitable bureaucratic and strategic fallout from recent events—and haven't had much time to keep up with my students. Do you have any messages for them?"
"Yes, please," Anduin said. "First, tell Sirius that he is absolutely forbidden from messing up the study room I spent hours organizing and cleaning at his house again. Anduin looked serious.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he nodded, accepting the odd chore.
"Second, please tell James and Lily that I am perfectly well and that I deeply appreciate their extraordinary gift—the Rune Disk. Finally, and this is important, please remind them to be exceptionally careful and to maintain the highest levels of vigilance against any further Death Eater attacks."
Anduin spoke with genuine concern. His presence over Christmas had changed the past, but he knew the Prophecy marked the Potters. He worried that his intervention had merely deferred the attack or spurred the Dark Lord to take more drastic measures. Dumbledore's counsel, he reasoned, would carry far more weight than his own repeated warnings.
"Ah?" Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, his expression turning deeply thoughtful as he leaned slightly forward. "And why, Anduin, do you single out the Potters as the target? What specific intelligence leads you to believe they, and not say, the Bones family or the Longbottoms, would be the primary focus of such an ambush?"
Anduin was surprised by the test, but he responded with cold, logical clarity. "It's simple deduction, Headmaster. During the Christmas attack, a significant faction of Death Eaters, including a very reckless individual using the highly unstable Berserk Potion, completely bypassed the main battlefront. Their objective was clearly the ambush site where Lily Potter and Alice Longbottom were present. If they had been solely focused on winning the main battle, that insane potion should have been deployed there to turn the tide. The fact that the highest-risk individual was deployed in the ambush, ignoring the central conflict, proves their mission was personal—it was about securing a specific, non-military target."
"And who were those targets?" Dumbledore prompted, his expression one of profound appreciation for the student's intellect.
"It was Augusta, Alice, Lily, myself, and the two children," Anduin ticked off. "Augusta Longbottom and I were not high-value targets for an assassination attempt. The children, while valuable, would be easier to target at home. The tactical decision to send a high-risk operative to that specific location strongly suggests the primary targets were Lily or Alice—or perhaps, what they represent."
Dumbledore paused, his gaze fixed on Anduin, his usual whimsicality entirely absent. He then gave a solemn, decisive nod. "Your analysis is flawless, Anduin. You may put your mind at ease. I assure you, your friends have been made safe. I have taken comprehensive measures to ensure their protection. You will not need to worry about the security of the Potter family moving forward."
Hearing Dumbledore's guarantee—a clear statement that the Potters were now secured by his full magical might—Anduin felt a wave of relief. He stood up. "Then my business is concluded, Headmaster. Thank you for your time."
"Go well, Anduin," Dumbledore said, watching him leave.
As the door closed behind Anduin, one of the portraits behind the desk, a shrewd-looking wizard with pointed features, spoke up. It was Phineas Nigellus Black, the portrait that had been glowering at Anduin earlier.
"A thoroughly clever, if cold, boy, Albus. No wonder the Sorting Hat placed him in Slytherin. He possesses the necessary cunning and ambition," Phineas remarked, shaking his head slightly.
Dumbledore smiled, reaching for another handful of Lemon Sorbet. "Clever, yes, Phineas. But I must correct you on a minor point of lineage. This particular Slytherin wizard is Muggle-born."
Phineas Nigellus's eyes snapped wide open. "Impossible! I refuse to believe it! How could a House of pure ambition and lineage accept a Mudblood? The Hat must have made a catastrophic error! His ancestors must be of noble blood, somehow traced back!" he roared, scandalized.
"That is not necessarily true, Phineas," interrupted another voice from a portrait several frames away. It belonged to Dexter Fortescue, a scholarly-looking man. "I recall one case, during my tenure, where a Muggle-born was placed in Slytherin. It is rare, yes, but not entirely unprecedented. Ambition and resourcefulness sometimes outweigh heritage for the Hat."
"Silence, Dexter! You will not dishonor the legacy of Salazar Slytherin with such heresy!" Phineas howled, clutching his framed velvet robes in outrage.
Dumbledore sat back in his chair, munching contentedly on his sweets, listening to the cacophony of the arguing former Headmasters. He merely smiled, a silent spectator to the eternal friction between tradition and truth.
Time flowed easily outside the political storms of the Ministry. The heavy winter broke, the ice and snow receded, and the grounds of Hogwarts were transformed by the rich greens of spring.
Anduin's routine was now one of rigorous, self-imposed discipline, deeply enhanced by the Buffet Mind-Awakening Potion. He took his regulated dose each morning, experiencing an astonishing clarity and mental stamina that made his long hours of study feel effortless.
His daily schedule was intense:
Occlumency Mastery: His mental shield, the Sentinel, was no longer just a projection; it was an instantaneous, second-nature reflex. He could transition to the blank, cold stillness of total mental defense in less than a heartbeat, feeling the final layers of mastery click into place. He was now confident enough to begin preliminary research on Legilimency itself.
Runic Engineering: The Rune Atlas combined with the Rune Disk was revolutionary. He spent hours concretizing the rare, high-level runic combinations, transforming abstract theory into observable, tangible magical structures.
He could now easily compress his Barrier Charm into the devastating Barrier Orb and had shifted his focus to designing the precise, controlled Destabilization Sequence needed to trigger a kinetic explosion upon impact.
Hagrid's Garden: An additional, unexpected task had been added: helping Hagrid with his vegetable garden. Anduin, recognizing the value of the nutrient-rich, magically-grown food, eagerly assisted.
He used subtle Charms to break up clods of earth, helped transplant seedlings, and often spent time pruning the enormous, sprawling plants with surprising delicacy. It was a grounding physical activity that provided a welcome break from his intense mental labor.
With the two-week Easter break fast approaching, Anduin followed up on his earlier communications. He wrote immediately to Sirius and the Potters, proposing a visit to continue his training.
Sirius responded almost immediately, but the tone was harried and rushed. His message was brief and stressed: he was extremely busy and his old house was no longer safe, advising Anduin to stay away from London altogether this holiday.
The letters to the Potters, however, never returned. The owls simply failed to deliver, disappearing with the parchment as if the destination no longer existed or was unreachable by magical means.
Anduin then asked Sirius directly about Lily and James. Sirius confirmed Dumbledore's earlier assurance: the Potter family was safe, hidden away by powerful magic where no one—not even their own owls—could locate them. This confirmed Anduin's suspicion that Dumbledore had utilized the most extreme protective measures, likely the Fidelius Charm, to secure them entirely from the rising conflict.
With his friends safely out of reach and the outside world too volatile, Anduin decided to spend the Easter break at Hogwarts.
"This is a perfect, uninterrupted opportunity," Anduin thought, planning his time with ruthless efficiency. "Occlumency is functionally mastered. My runic research is entering its experimental phase. And I have two weeks of dedicated time to focus on the development of the Spells Club projects."
He recalled the last session of the Spells Club. Quirrell's Enhancement Charm—designed to amplify sensory input—had progressed rapidly. Quirrell could now significantly enhance his audio reception, detecting sounds from a specific direction with unusual clarity.
However, the flaw Anduin had predicted was now painfully apparent: the final incantation was so long and convoluted that it was impossible to recite in a single, continuous breath. The sheer length of the required spell was a fatal weakness in a duel. He needs to learn Runic Substitution to condense that charm, Anduin realized, but he may be too focused on raw incantation to see it.