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Chapter 1233: Part Cat
🕑 Added 2024-09-13 14:54:18 +0000 UTCIn the dim light, Dumbledore pushed open the gate and walked swiftly and silently up the garden path, Evan, Harry and Hermione at his heels, then pushed the front door very slowly, his wand raised and at the ready.
"Lumos!"
Dumbledore’s wand tip ignited, casting its light up a narrow hallway. To the left, another door stood open.
Holding his illuminated wand aloft, Dumbledore walked into the sitting room with the others behind him.
A scene of total devastation met their eyes, as if a fierce battle had just taken place.
A grandfather clock lay splintered at their feet, its face cracked, its pendulum lying a little farther away like a dropped sword. A piano was on its side, its keys strewn across the floor. The wreckage of a fallen chandelier glittered nearby. Cushions lay deflated, feathers oozing from slashes in their sides; fragments of glass and China lay like powder over everything.
Dumbledore raised his wand higher, so that its light was thrown upon the walls, where something darkly red and glutinous was spattered over the wallpaper — bloodstains.
Evan looked around, wand raised high, searching for Slughorn through the wreckage.
Hermione stood behind him, her body trembling slightly because of nervousness.
Harry gasped quietly, as if frightened by the scene before him. Dumbledore heard it and looked around.
“Not pretty, is it?” he said heavily. “Yes, something horrible has happened here.”
Dumbledore moved carefully into the middle of the room, scrutinizing the wreckage at his feet.
"Death Eaters?"
“It must’ve been them, Hermione. Maybe there was a fight and — and they dragged him off, Professor?" Harry suggested, trying not to imagine how badly wounded a man would have to be to leave those stains spattered halfway up the walls.
"I don't think so," said Dumbledore quietly, peering behind an overstuffed armchair lying on its side. "What do you think, Evan?"
"There’s no Dark Mark outside the house, which is very unusual and not like the style of the Death Eaters," said Evan, sniffing hard, "and there seems to be a smell of alcohol in the air, but I didn't see any knocked over wine glasses or bottles. The attacker didn’t take anything either. Maybe the person we’re looking for is still here."
"Evan, you mean he’s..."
"Yeah, he’s still here, for sure."
"How’s that possible? Where is he?"
"Not sure yet!" Evan said, and the light of his wand became stronger.
He had to admit, Slughorn was hiding very well.
Evan didn’t notice anything unusual. He was sure the person was still there but couldn’t remember how Slughorn concealed himself and couldn’t find him. Of course, if Evan were allowed to further wreck the living room with magic, he was confident he could force Slughorn out in a second.
“Still here, yes, I think so too,” said Dumbledore. And without warning, he swooped, plunging the tip of his wand into the seat of the overstuffed armchair, which yelled, “Ouch!”
"Good evening, Horace," said Dumbledore, straightening up again. "Long time no see."
Harry turned his head quickly, his jaw dropped. Evan and Hermione also looked there in astonishment.
Where a split second before, there had been an armchair, there now crouched an enormously fat, bald, old man who was massaging his lower belly and squinting up at Dumbledore with an aggrieved and watery eye.
“There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,” he said gruffly, clambering to his feet. “It hurt."
The wandlight sparkled on his shiny pate, his prominent eyes, his enormous, silver, walruslike mustache, and the highly polished buttons on the maroon velvet jacket he was wearing over a pair of lilac silk pajamas. The top of his head barely reached Dumbledore's chin.
"So it was the damned Dark Mark that gave it away?" he grunted as he staggered to his feet, still rubbing his lower belly, and looking at Evan rudely, seeming remarkably unabashed for a man who had just been discovered pretending to be an armchair.
"My dear Horace," said Dumbledore, looking amused. "Evan is right. If the Death Eaters really had come to call, the Dark Mark would have been set over the house."
“Knew there was something …” Slughorn muttered, clearly dissatisfied. "Ah, well. Wouldn’t have had time anyway, I’d only just put the finishing touches to my upholstery when you entered the room."
“There was also a faint smell of alcohol,” Evan added, “but I didn’t see any bottles, which was unusual.”
"Are you part cat, boy? How could you sniff that out?" Slughorn looked at Evan for a while, and heaved a great sigh that made the ends of his mustache flutter. "Yes, that's right. I was just having a drink … oak-aged wine. My last bottle, actually. I couldn’t bring myself to waste it."
“All right, Horace, would you like my assistance clearing up?" asked Dumbledore politely.
“Please,” he said bluntly.
The next second, they stood back to back, the tall thin wizard and the short round one, and waved their wands in one identical sweeping motion.
The furniture flew back to its original places; ornaments reformed in midair, feathers zoomed into their cushions; torn books repaired themselves as they landed upon their shelves; oil lanterns soared onto side tables and reignited; a vast collection of splintered silver picture frames flew glittering across the room and alighted, whole and untarnished, upon a desk; rips, cracks, and holes healed everywhere, and the walls wiped themselves clean, as though they had never been stained with blood.
"What kind of blood was that, incidentally?" asked Dumbledore loudly over the chiming of the newly unsmashed grandfather clock.
"On the walls? Dragon," shouted Horace, as, with a deafening grinding and tinkling, the chandelier screwed itself back into the ceiling.
There was a final plunk from the piano, and silence.
"Yes, Albus, dragon's blood," repeated the wizard conversationally, giving his wand a final flick. “You reminded me — my last bottle, and prices are sky-high at the moment. Still, it might be reusable. No point wasting it."
He stumped over to a small crystal bottle standing on top of a sideboard and held it up to the light, examining the thick liquid within.
"Hmm. Bit dusty."
He set the bottle back on the sideboard and sighed. It was then that his attention returned to Evan, Harry and Hermione.
“Albus, bringing these young ones to see me so late at night — are you planning a party?!"
"Well, I suppose we can have a drink, at least," said Dumbledore, "for old time’s sake."
