Chapter 67: Raids IV

As far as his mother was concerned, his godfather was a bit of a hound dog, a womanizer always chasing some girl's ass, trying to get into her knickers, then bragging about it like a jerk to his friends.

His mother's journal had found it ironic that should he have been known for being discreet about his various encounters that the dog would have had many more girls interested in him.

...

Leaving the mirrors behind, he turned his attention back to scanning the shelves for anything of interest, or use. A couple more minutes passed before he saw anything else that took his fancy. He saw a number of shelves with what appeared to be something similar to a muggle strong box on them, which probably meant that there was probably something valuable inside.

Quickly examining the ornate wooden boxes, the boxes were quite similar in design to the viewing boxes found in non-magical jewellery stores, with the glass serving as a viewing window for the contents inside. He silently vanished away all the dust on the boxes. Looking through the glass, he could see most of them contained various pieces of jewellery, affirming his hunch that this was the wizarding equivalent of a strongbox.

Examining the strong boxes in greater detail, he quickly concluded that most of the boxes contained lost jewellery that had fallen into the caretaker's possession by default, since most of them didn't have any brown name tags to indicate they had an identified owner. Most of the pieces appeared to be semi valuable, so he decided to take a crack at overcoming the security charms that were bound to be on the boxes.

First he tried an unlocking charm, on the off chance that it would work, but that failed much like he expected it would. So obviously the lock was charmed like the door in the room with the flying keys, meaning it only opened to the right key, which, no doubt, was in the caretaker's possession, or on the key rack in the other room, or simply gone.

Looking over the strong boxes, he found that they each had faint rune engravings on them which had worn down over time, mostly, it seemed, because they hadn't been properly maintained.

He couldn't help but shake his head in disappointment at how lazy wizards were, how often they used magic that they barely understood, and overall at the lack of effort that was made to protect their so-called valuables. It seemed that having the Goblins and their Cursebreakers protecting their wealth and exclusively fulfilling all their warding requirements had made them lazy and forgetful about the need to maintain runes to keep them functioning as intended.

He recognised that the runes were clearly Latin in origin, which was to be expected since Latin and Celtic runes were the two main rune scripts used primarily in Europe these days. This made his task considerably easier since he recognised several of the runes from his prior reading and his own self-study of the subject.

He quickly decided that the best thing he could do was to remove the individual runes he was most familiar with, hopefully that, coupled with its poor maintenance, and would disrupt the strong box's wards and magical protections.

He went back to one of the earlier shelves where he had seen a student level rune crafting knife of relatively good quality. He was tempted to simply banish the runes away like he did with the Mirror of Erised. He didn't for two reasons.

First, that would take a good deal of energy to accomplish, which he might need for later, considering the number of runes. Second, he wasn't entirely sure what the other runes actually did. He most certainly didn't want the banisher being sent right back at him, which would be rather painful at best and potentially deadly at worst.

It was only in hindsight, after studying how runes worked for a bit, that he had come to realize that destroying the key runes empowering and protecting the Mirror had been both monumentally stupid and ridiculously reckless. In fact, he was quite lucky to still be alive as his actions could have easily led to him being severely injured or killed outright.

Even a severe injury would have been deadly at that moment as only Merlin knows how long he'd have languished there before someone checked on the Mirror's security and got him medical attention. In his own defense, he had been extremely ignorant about runes at the time and was rather tired and therefore wasn't thinking clearly. His judgment was further impaired by his anger at being unable to solve the puzzle of the Mirror.

Finding the knife quickly on one of the earlier examined storage shelves where he had last seen it, he examined the dull blade closely before returning to the strong boxes so that he could begin chipping away at the faded runes. He knew it would be slow, tedious work to chip away at the runes, but it was the safest way to gain access to the valuables contained within.

Looking over his shoulder in the direction where he had last seen Penny, he saw that she was busy examining a book or something. Shaking his head in amusement, he turned back to his self-appointed task of chipping away the runes. He found himself giving voice to his humorous thoughts.

"A room full of secret treasures spanning a thousand years and the girl is looking at books. Merlin, help me."

...

Everything was back on track and his plan was progressing well for once, Albus reflected with distinct satisfaction. He had moved back to his office so that he could better monitor and direct the situation and was currently playing a game of chess using the charmed chess set connected to the life sized version down in the chamber.

He was deliberately playing a rather conservative game against Ron and his friends, in order to allow Quirrell the time to get further ahead of the first years and expend more energy against the defences before Neville would face him. After all, there were two trolls standing guard in the next room, and five first years could hardly battle them and live. Plus he couldn't risk Neville's life on a few simple trolls.

Sure, Neville had managed to confront one the previous Halloween, but it had been more luck in his personal opinion, and that Mr. Potter had been there.

Once again his thoughts turned to the enigmatic Mr. Potter. The first year was a curious and potent mix of Lion and Raven, having the impressive and laudable ability to use knowledge effectively, even while under acute stress.

Most of the Ravenclaws he had known over the course of his long life either froze or outright panicked when confronted by an unknown situation that they hadn't planned or prepared for.

Because of this inability to adapt and improvise to a changing situation, they were naturally rather lacking in duelling prowess. Whilst Gryffindors on the other hand would just charge into the mix without a plan, mostly relying on their quick wits and good old lady luck to see them through the fight. Most of the time, surprisingly, they came out reasonably well off for their efforts.

His mental evaluation of Mr. Potter was cut short as the trolls' life signs abruptly stopped. He breathed a 'sigh' of relief and hoped that at least one of them had at least managed to weaken or even injure Quirrell a bit. The wards then signalled again, indicating that Quirrell had moved on to Snape's potion challenge. The gem stone on his desk flashed gold and started glowing, confirming that the wards were ready to capture and imprison Tom's essence when he was forced out of his current host.

Everything was going as he had planned.

Focusing back on the game of chess, he decided that Ron and Dean's pieces would have to sacrifice themselves in order to gain victory. This way it would give Ron some fame, glory, and sense of self-worth, hopefully further securing his place within Neville's circle of close friends that the boy would rely upon well into the future. It would also teach the group about the value of self-sacrifice for the greater good, the price sometimes necessary to achieve victory, and hopefully would set him on the path Albus intended for him to walk in the years to come.

His first thoughts on this matter had been to swap Ron for Miss Granger, but he had quickly discarded that idea since she could easily help Neville with Severus' potions riddle, which he doubted that Ron or Neville would be able to solve on their own. After all it wouldn't do for the boy to drink some poison and get himself killed...well, before it was necessary.

Focusing back on the animated chess set, he watched as Ron did exactly as he desired, before smiling faintly when Dean's piece similarly moved forward to be sacrificed. "Good boys," he purred, happy that everything was finally going as he desired. He then lazily played out the remaining perfunctory moves of the game, just for Neville's piece to step forward to checkmate his king as he wanted; he idly knocked over his own king in a sign of defeat.

Getting up, he decided that it was time for the final checks. First he checked on the fake stone once again; he saw that his prey had already spent a good half an hour in the room already and should, by now, be fully under the effects of the potent power draining and dampening wards.

Now it was time he for him to play his own scripted part, as he got up from his chair.

Sparing a quick glance towards his office mirror to ensure that his robes were in perfect, awe inspiring order, he made sure that he was the very image of how a powerful grandfatherly wizard should be.

He decided to forgo putting on any dragonhide body amour beneath his robes. His custom made robes had numerous protection charms already placed upon them, these should easily provide more than enough protection against a weakened foe under effects of numerous wards.

Plus, going into battle in a full suite of body armour just didn't give the same impression of invincibility and overwhelming power and confidence as seemingly ordinary robes did. After all, a man walking into a battle with extensive body armour looks weak, and unsure of his own magical abilities to keep himself safe from harm.

He also had all the benefits of being in his stronghold working in his favor, as all the ancient wards were at his command, giving him a massive advantage.

'When confronting a foe, make sure you have a good, witty catch phrase ready to use. So much of magical duelling is about the show you put on beforehand. If you appear confident and sure of yourself, you start to undermine your foe's own confidence before the duel even begins, thus giving you the advantage.' The words of his very first duelling instructor echoed in his mind, bringing back the memories of his playful youth, before he took on the heavy burdens of leadership.

He decided to begin with a grand entrance. After all, this was the first time Neville and his companions would see him going into battle; it needed to have just the right balance of awe and fear to help firmly imprint the image of him as the grand, all powerful light-side mage into their young, impressionable minds. This image of him would grow to be untouchable.

"Fawkes," he spoke aloud. He immediately felt the soft flames of his companion engulf him and move him to the 3rd floor chess set so that he could begin saving the day.

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