27 Chapter - 27 : Intrigue

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"It is good to see you feeling better, Albus," McGonagall greeted her lifelong acquaintance. Then asked in sober seriousness, "Is there any news on your attacker?"

"I have learned this muggle Dark Lord is based out of Kentucky, where he is apparently well known, and have lodged a formal protest with the United States for not keeping him properly contained." Albus returned with equal seriousness. "Their ambassador, however, had the effrontery to laugh at my brief. I spoke with him quite severely that Dark Lords operating this openly are a threat to all, but in return he assured me that Colonel Harland Sanders was a threat to no one."

"A threat to no one? After your attack?" McGonagall's eyebrows lifted.

"Yes," Dumbledore agreed, nodding seriously. "It makes me fear how greatly this Colonel's influence has corrupted their Ministry, as in practically the same breath he also vowed that Colonel Sander's influence would be felt so long as chickens roamed the Earth - which, I must admit, is a form of Dark Immortality I was previously unaware of. Just to be cautious, I have ordered Hagrid to dispose of his flock. Perhaps the Dark Colonel's influence will not be able to reach us here, so long as there are no chickens upon the grounds."

"A wise precaution, Albus," McGonagall agreed, before allowing, "Although we may miss the eggs."

"I shall have them shipped to us every morning in time for breakfast," her superior of long years allowed, comfortingly. "I feel sure that, so long as they remain unhatched, they should expose us to no danger. After all, it is the chicken, and not the egg, that we must fear."

"Very comforting, I'm sure." Minerva chose not to speak of doubts of what if her mentor was wrong. "Has Severus made any progress on identifying the poison?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. He has come to me, revealing eleven herbs and spices, but cannot, even with all his experience, explain the secret of why they had such a profound effect upon me, even in combination. He is working on that mystery, even as we speak."

And, indeed, many of the Slytherin students walking past Snape's office on their way to the Great Hall felt strange emotions as they inhaled prevailing fumes emitting from under the crack of his door and, upon reaching their destination, attacked their breakfasts with unusual hunger.

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Harry successfully fought down a smirk on seeing the red/purple lines on the Headmaster's arm as he sat at breakfast.

While Dumbledore had survived the experience of the chicken bone stabbing, rather inevitable given where he'd been when it happened, there remained several dark purple marks around the wound, representing buried slivers of chicken bone that had wormed their way out from the immediate injury, steadily working their way into the rest of his body.

Dark curses on those slivers made them resistant to most magic in a very dastardly way - they would simply explode if spells were cast on them, or if magic got too close, like potions being drunk and assimilated by the body or the arm with those slivers in it being used to cast a spell. And the explosion ought to be quite sufficient to blow off the Headmaster's arm.

He could check in with a muggle surgeon to get those removed straight away, but somehow Harry knew that Dumbledore wouldn't do that, if on the remote chance it did get suggested to him.

Wizards regarded muggle medicine with some amount of horror, just like most muggles regarded the leech and snake-oil wielding quacks of centuries gone by. They were not only certain that it couldn't possibly offer benefit to them, but they found it more than a bit disturbing, relying as it did on a concept they found revolting: Being cut apart and sewn back together like a garment.

It also made no sense to them, like if you'd gone in to see a doctor about an earache and the solution he proposed was to cut off your leg.

No, wizards saw muggle doctors as the most dangerously deranged sort of quacks imaginable. And, to be fair, muggle surgeons did a fair amount of cutting off of body parts to treat things wizards could cure with a simple potion (cancer surgery was one example). But there was an extra, added element of risk to it, as accidental magic was extremely possible, even for mature wizards, when their bodies were undergoing great stresses - like from being cut open and someone reaching in to manipulate their insides.

It didn't take much of a spark of magic to ignite dangerous gasses used to anesthetize surgical patients. So surgery for wizards almost guaranteed an explosion. So there was a fair amount of honest and respectable truth to the basis of their fear of muggle medicine.

So, unless the Headmaster wanted to lose an arm, he ought to be avoiding much magic use for a while.

That ought to be a significant benefit to anyone wanting to avoid him. It did not, could not, shut him down entirely, as he still possessed great influence, but it did offer a nice amount of help to people like Harry.

The other ideal thing about having his own house elf, Harry felt, was the opportunities for smuggling that it opened up.

He knew with absolute certainty that the Headmaster was watching his mail. There was no doubt of that. Harry had checked out the mail wards over him himself, and everything they didn't block entirely got routed to Dumbledore for screening. It was not possible for him to receive any mail that the Dark Ravenclaw hadn't seen and approved of first.

Part of that was information, mostly it was a control. Stop the boy from getting in contact with anyone the Headmaster hadn't personally selected, and all of that. Keep him isolated and alone and he'll stay reliant on you.

There were also wards in plenty around the Hogwarts property, and only a few of those had to do with protecting the place. Most of the castle's actual defenses were presently inactive (which was the only way to explain all of the villains that got on the place over and over and over again!). No, mostly the wards had been converted over into a vast information net, and one of the things they monitored most carefully was who came in and went out.

However, Hogwarts did not grow its own food. Those greenhouses were for other purposes, teaching classes and creating potions ingredients, and so on. So, by having Dobby leave as part of the grocery pickup crew every morning, and pick up some actual groceries before coming back, Harry could send or deliver packages through his personal house elf, and it came under one of the few blind spots in the information network.

Albus did track house elves, but there was such a large body of information there that he couldn't possibly recover data from that unless he was looking hard at just the right place, and so far Dobby was just another elf leaving in the morning as part of the grocery pickup crew. Totally unremarkable. It had been one of Dobby's assignments before Harry had bonded him.

So, through Dobby, Harry was now able to get packages in and out.

"Thank you, Dobby." Harry accepted the latest package. "Is there anything I can do to reward you for this?" he asked curiously.

"Dobby is so grateful to serve Harry Potter, sir!" The elf's eyes shone. "And now Harry Potter sir wants to reward him? Harry Potter sir is the kindest wizard ever!"

The elf suddenly tensed and vanished, just as Hermione came into the little alcove that Harry had been receiving his clandestine merchandise in. She came in, nervously looking over her shoulder. "Harry! It's only our second day and that's the third time we've seen Filch since breakfast! It's like he's hovering around, watching us!"

"Pay it no mind, Hermione. He's probably hoping to catch us going to a broom closet, so he can give us detentions." Harry answered with a grin.

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