Hello, guys!
Because of the holiday season, I want to celebrate with you in two ways.
The first is that, starting today, Monday the 22nd until Sunday, January 4th, I will publish daily chapters so you have plenty to read during these holidays.
After that date, I will return to my usual schedule.
The second surprise is that, starting December 24th, I will activate a 50% discount on all tiers of my Patreon.
The promotion will be active for 2 weeks, ending on January 6th.
If you wanted to read the advanced chapters, this is your chance.
Merry Christmas!
Mike.
Patreon / iLikeeMikee
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Chapter 36: An Unsettling Calm
The headmaster's office was silent.
Albus Dumbledore stood, not by his desk, but by the tall arched window, observing the Hogwarts grounds bathed in the pale light of the spring moon. Below, the castle was still. The Forbidden Forest was a dark, quiet smear, the Black Lake a sheet of motionless obsidian. There were no students running through the corridors after curfew. There were no screams. There was no panic.
And that was precisely what terrified him.
Fawkes, on his golden perch by the door, let out a soft, melancholic trill, a low note of concern that perfectly reflected his master's unease. Dumbledore stroked his silver beard, his blue eyes, usually twinkling, were clouded with worry.
His delicate silver instruments, which usually whirred and puffed smoke with the castle's magical activity, were almost inert. A few lazy wisps of green smoke rose from a spinning sphere, indicating nothing more than the residual magic of the common rooms and the prefects' patrols. It was the silence of an engine that has been turned off.
This was, without a doubt, the most peaceful school year of his headmastership.
There had been no attacks. There were no petrifications. There were no sinister messages written on the walls. Not a single panic-stricken letter from a terrified parent had reached his desk. After the crisis of the previous year—Quirrell's intrusion, Voldemort's near resurrection, the ordeal of the Philosopher's Stone—this absolute calm was not a relief. It was an anomaly. It felt wrong.
Dumbledore turned away from the window and paced his office. His thoughts went over the variables, the pieces of the puzzle that didn't fit. This deafening silence unsettled him deeply. It wasn't peace. It was containment. It was like watching a perfectly calm sea, knowing that an unimaginably powerful leviathan was moving just beneath the surface, out of sight. The war hadn't been avoided. It was simply being waged on a front he couldn't see.
He moved toward his desk, a magnificent claw-footed piece of furniture, and sat down. He sighed, the sound absorbed by the countless books in his office. For months, he had prepared for a crisis that never came.
With a wave of his hand, he opened a bottom drawer that no student, nor most professors, knew existed. It was protected by blood and fidelity charms. From inside, he didn't pull out a magical instrument, but a simple roll of parchment tied with a black ribbon. His own research. Years of painstaking and dangerous work gathering the memories of Tom Riddle's fall.
He had been sure. As sure as he was that the sun would rise in the morning.
He knew of the existence of Horcruxes, though the exact number remained a terrifying guess. And he knew, from his sources in the Ministry, that Lucius Malfoy had jealously guarded Tom's old school diary. He knew that Lucius, now that his old master was gone and he was desperate to purge any evidence of his loyalty, would seek to get rid of such a dark object. And what better way than slipping it into the cauldron of a first-year student, Arthur Weasley's daughter, no less. An act of malice and convenience that would unleash chaos at Hogwarts and discredit his rival at the Ministry.
Dumbledore had been prepared for it. He had spent the summer reinforcing the castle's wards, not against external threats, but against internal ones. He had instructed the ghosts to be more vigilant. He had tuned his own silver instruments to detect the slightest trace of dark soul magic. He expected the possession to begin in October, perhaps November. He expected the Chamber of Secrets to open.
And then... nothing. Nothing at all.
Months passed. Autumn turned into winter, and winter melted into a quiet spring. The instruments remained silent. The ghosts reported nothing more than Peeves' usual pranks. The portraits dozed.
Dumbledore stared at the blank parchment before him. His logical mind, the one that had served him for over a century, went over the possibilities.
Was it possible that Lucius had got cold feet at the last minute? Unlikely. Lucius's arrogance and his hatred for Arthur Weasley were too deep. He wouldn't have wasted such a perfect opportunity for humiliation.
Was it possible that the diary had failed? That the soul fragment inside it had extinguished over time? Unlikely. A Horcrux's magic was persistent, seductive, and fundamentally evil. It would have found a host. It would have acted.
That left him with only one conclusion, one that was much more unsettling than a monster on the loose.
The diary had entered Hogwarts. And someone, or something, inside these walls had intercepted it.
It hadn't been destroyed; he would have felt it. It wasn't simply hidden; the soul fragment would have "called" to a vulnerable student. No. It had been neutralized. Silenced. Taken off the board before it could make its first move.
Dumbledore felt a genuine chill. Who in this castle had the knowledge to identify a Horcrux, the power to subdue it, the discretion to tell no one, and the audacity to keep it for themselves?
His instinct, honed by decades of war and politics, screamed at him that the diary was in the castle, but had been intercepted. But by whom?
He poured himself a lemon tea, his hands steady, but his mind racing. He went through the list of candidates with the speed of a chess master analyzing the board.
Severus? Dumbledore almost smiled at the thought. Ridiculous. If Severus Snape had intercepted a Horcrux of Lord Voldemort, especially one that Lucius Malfoy had mishandled, Dumbledore would know. Severus would have been in his office within seconds, his pale face vibrating with a mix of triumph and scorn. He would have presented the diary on Dumbledore's desk like a cat dropping a dead mouse, expecting praise for his cunning and demanding that Lucius's incompetence be punished. Severus was many things, but subtle about his victories was not one of them.
Minerva? Impossible. Minerva McGonagall was brave, yes, but she was also a woman of order and protocol. If she had found an artifact of such darkness, she would have felt justified panic. She would have brought the diary straight to Dumbledore, wrapped in two dozen protective charms, and would have demanded a full search of the castle and, likely, the immediate evacuation of the students. Her first priority would have been safety, not secrecy.
Filius? He was a brilliant duelist and a sharp mind. He would recognize the threat. But, like Minerva, he was a man of structure. He would have seen it as a problem exceeding his authority and would have reported it immediately.
No. No member of his staff fit the profile. This hadn't been handled by a professor. This required a mindset that Dumbledore found increasingly familiar: someone who operated completely outside the established rules, someone who viewed an artifact of unspeakable darkness not as a threat to report, but as... something else.
His mind, inevitably, settled on the only new variable. The only anomaly. The only wildcard in the castle who was both a genius and a complete enigma: Timothy Hunter.
Dumbledore closed his eyes, his thoughts flying back to his meeting in that dusty Diagon Alley apartment during the summer. He remembered the boy's logical frustration, the controlled obsession. But, above all, he remembered the wall.
He remembered the sensation of his Legilimency, one of the most powerful in the world, hitting the boy's mental defenses. It hadn't been the frantic resistance of a scared teenager. It hadn't been a shield of brute force. It had been the impact against a conceptual fortress; cold, organized, perfect, and impenetrable as granite. And the boy, with terrifying calm, had claimed to have built it in a day.
A genuine shiver ran through the old wizard.
If any mind in this castle could touch a Horcrux —an artifact designed to seduce, possess, and corrupt—without being instantly consumed, it would be that one. A mind like a bank vault, an "Archive" that treated souls not as something sacred, but as data.
The motive fit with terrifying clarity. Hunter didn't seek power. He sought knowledge. And what greater prize for an archivist than the living consciousness of Tom Riddle? The key to a thousand-year mystery like the Chamber of Secrets?
Dumbledore's instinct solidified into a blood-chilling certainty. Hunter had the diary. Timothy Hunter was the reason the castle was at peace. And that was, by far, the most terrifying prospect Dumbledore had faced since the fall of Voldemort.
But Dumbledore needed proof. Logic demanded data. If a fifteen-year-old student, however prodigious, had intercepted and was fighting a Horcrux—a fragment of Lord Voldemort's soul—there would have to be signs.
There should be exhaustion. Paranoia. A descent into dark magic, perhaps. A repeat of that frenetic obsession that almost consumed him in his first year. There should be cracks in his facade.
Dumbledore reached out and consulted the boy's mid-year reports. He looked for those cracks.
And he found absolutely nothing.
It was this contradiction that transformed his unease into profound anxiety. The reports were impeccable. Minerva, though perpetually exasperated by him, reported a "casual mastery" and an "almost cosmic boredom" in Transfiguration, not a struggle. Filius was ecstatic, writing entire paragraphs about the "balance" Timothy had found, praising his decision to "relax" and socialize.
Even Severus's report was a dead end. Dumbledore had always trusted Snape's keen ability to detect arrogance and darkness. Hunter's Potions report was short and scathing, but revealing in its lack of accusation: "Impeccable. Soulless. Acceptable". Impeccable. There were no signs of struggle, just cold, perfect competence.
More than his staff's reports, Dumbledore trusted his own observations. He had watched the boy. He had seen Timothy sitting at the Gryffindor table, laughing quietly at something one of the Weasley twins had said. He had observed him in the library, having a seemingly friendly (though baffling) debate with Miss Granger about Gilderoy Lockhart.
The boy wasn't struggling. He wasn't paranoid. He wasn't exhausted. He seemed... happy. He was perfectly balanced, socialized, and getting "Outstandings" effortlessly.
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, facing a puzzle he couldn't solve. The pieces didn't fit.
His logical mind went over the possibilities.
One: If Timothy doesn't have the diary, where is it and why is the year so quiet? This was unlikely. The calm was too absolute.
Two: If Timothy has the diary and is actively fighting it, how is it possible that he is the most balanced, healthy, and academically perfect student in the school? This was a direct contradiction. No one, not even an adult, could fight Voldemort's corruption and maintain that flawless facade.
Or the third option. The option that sent a shiver running through the old wizard.
He remembered their summer conversation. He remembered that wall of Occlumency. Cold, perfect, and according to the boy, built in a day.
And what if... thought Dumbledore, ...what if Timothy found the diary, "archived" it, and defeated or subjugated that soul fragment so easily and completely that it didn't even interrupt his study routine?
Dumbledore looked out the window toward Ravenclaw Tower, his own silver instruments whirring softly, oblivious. The calm of the castle was no longer unsettling; it was terrifying. It was the calm of a chess board after an unknown piece, one that shouldn't even be in the game, has taken the enemy queen without anyone noticing.
Tom Riddle's diary had been neutralized. And the Headmaster of Hogwarts had no idea how.
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Mike.