35 Chapter - 35 : Distrust Part - 2
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"Minerva," Albus entered his deputy's office with a slight knock on her door. "I was just getting back to my duties after my convalescence, and have only just overheard a most distressing rumor that I hope you could lay to rest. Is it true that Harry and Miss Granger are seeing each other in a romantic sense? I'd previously understood they were just study partners."
McGonagall looked up from reading a copy of Teen Witch Weekly she'd confiscated earlier that day, and, blushing slightly, hid it under her desk while Albus pretended not to notice.
She smiled for him. "Oh, Albus, Miss Granger explained that to me yesterday. No, they are not seeing each other. That was an excuse. Harry thought it up so they would not seem suspicious slipping off together to use their Time Turners to visit their extra classes. I thought it was really quite ingenious, actually, and awarded them twenty points for their original thinking."
Dumbledore's face had gone grave. "I wish you had brought this to me earlier, Minerva."
Sliding her purloined magazine discretely into a drawer, Minerva looked up to him, puzzled, "But Albus, whatever could be the matter? They are doing well in all of their classes, and behaving responsibly with the items entrusted to them. They were even quite imaginative in finding an excuse that no one could question. I should think you'd be pleased with them."
Inwardly, Dumbledore was seething. However, as always the potions overrode his natural urges to curse and rave over their disobedience, and he answered his deputy in soft and kindly tones. "Ah, Minerva. No, that is not my concern. What frightens me is the possibility of their ruse becoming real. Affection, except in the rarest cases, cannot be faked for long before it rises in truth."
Albus himself was, he knew, one of those rare exceptions. Tom Riddle another.
McGonagall was shaking her head. "I still fail to see the trouble, Albus. What should it matter that two friends may eventually marry? They rather remind me of James and Lily. To be honest, I am rather looking forward to them discovering affection for each other."
Albus shook his head gravely. "But Minerva, I fear you fail to understand the extent to which they are already taking it. Hogwarts informs me they are already sharing a set of rooms together."
"And Miss Granger explained that as well, Albus," Minerva took out a stack of homework and put on her reading glasses. "She repeated an argument Harry had given her, in which he pointed out that to compensate for the extra time they are working, they must also catch a proportionate amount of extra sleep and down time, which out of necessity they must take away from the regular dormitories. I found her logic reasonable, and agreed with them both on their decision. She invited me to look over their rooms, a set of former VIP quarters near the greenhouses, and I placed a set of protective charms around her suite identical to the charms warding the girls dormitories. Really, Albus, I've rarely met a pair of third years so responsible, and fail to see what you are making yourself so upset over."
Then his Deputy Headmistress began reading homework, her way of telling him she did not agree with him, and effectively closing their little interview.
It was rare she was so bold. Something would have to be done to humble her.
The Headmaster could see where this was going, and nodded, speaking in sad tones, "I do hope your trust in them is not displaced, Minerva."
Then he left, smirking inside as she glanced up in apprehension.
There, a seed of doubt had been planted. Now, whatever catastrophe he arranged to break up the budding relationship could also be used to bolster his deputy's trust in him, as she'd see that he'd been right all along. He'd done this enough times that it was rare anymore than she showed signs of thinking on her own. But it was best to nip that in the bud, as it were.
Blast it!
Harry was far too powerful, but could be kept ignorant so long as he was properly isolated and neglected. That he had saved young Granger's life was unfortunate, as from that day they'd become friends, in spite of all the work done to keep them separate!
The Headmaster reached his office and called for a House Elf to fetch down Trelawney from her tower. The gifts of a seer were unpredictable and vague but the priests at Delphi had long ago perfected magic for prompting their rare skills to be provoked at need.
Spells he naturally knew, was quite accomplished at, actually.
He let her keep a couple of junk prophecies in her head, falsies to distract. The rest had to be erased, for secrecy. It damaged her gift substantially, to have her mind adjusted regularly like that, but Albus wasn't going to pass up any resource so useful as his own pocket seer!
One of the chief vulnerabilities of one able to see the future was an inability to see their own, so the young lady had fallen into his trap nicely, thinking she was merely interviewing at a school for a job to pass on her ability, when nothing could have been further from Dumbledore's mind.
No, he had been consulting with her for years over every important issue, ever since that day he'd granted her an interview right there, in his office at Hogwarts, where he did all of his interviewing.
It had been she who'd warned him in that interview that the child of Lily and James Potter would surpass him, if they were alive to raise it. It had been Trelawney who'd told him that Harry could lead the entire magical world into a golden age of peace and prosperity... something that had to be stopped if Albus wanted to preserve his own power and position in it, not just because of Harry's star eclipsing Dumbledore's own, but because his manipulations could not survive in such an environment.
She hadn't put it in those words, of course. The interpretation was his own, but what else was he to expect on hearing the greatest wizard of the age was about to be born?
The greatest was HIM! Dumbledore had to remain on top to perform what he did, and could not afford any rivals!
No, she'd proven so useful he'd hired her on the spot. But even so, he hadn't been able to resist planting a trap with her as the bait, and arranged for a second interview down at Hogsmead, in a tavern he knew was frequented by Death Eaters, knowing one of them could be fooled into listening in so that Voldemort would become interested in destroying Dumbledore's rival for him!
Trelawney had been such an eager and able young thing, back then. At times he almost regretted the damage his meddling was doing to her mind and gift, as she was getting increasingly vague over the years. But really, it was for the Greater Good. True Divination was too dangerous a science to be allowed in any hands but his!
After all, who could keep secrets from a seer?
No, Albus relied upon lies and secrets too dearly for anyone to be permitted to see through them. So the magical art of Divination had to disappear, and what better way to discredit it than to have it taught incompetently by a lady whose gift he had very nearly destroyed?
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