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Call Me Nymphadora: Chapter 14, Disorder of the Phoenix (1)
🕑 Added 2023-10-07 12:01:16 +0000 UTCNymphadora looked around the staff room of Hogwarts. There were a variety of characters present at this meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. Thanks to Albus, a great many of those present were former professors themselves. He tended to cycle his friends through the DADA position, giving most of his friends at least one year to add to their resumes.
If Nymphadora ever had anything to do with running Hogwarts, she would have taken the castle apart to its foundations to discover where the damn curse was housed. Defense Against the Dark Arts was arguably the most important practical class and Magical Britain hadn't had a proper professor for decades!
They were all seated around the room or leaning against the walls. The older members of the Weasley clan were huddled together in a corner, whispering among themselves while eyeing the others warily. The twins, Ron, and Ginny were not present.
Mad-Eye Moody was perched on a bench in the corner of the room, furthest from the door, where he could keep his 'eye' on everyone all at once.
Kingsley Shacklebolt and Hestia Jones conferred quietly with a few of the other aurors in attendance, though Nymphadora didn't recognize them. She hadn't had a long stint as a proper auror, in the end. A couple of years in the academy and one spent in the field under a few different senior aurors was all her experience amounted to.
There was an undeniable tension in the room. The glue that normally held them together, their leader, Albus Dumbledore, was missing. They'd come here today hoping for good news, but from the look on the faces of the current Hogwarts professors they knew they were in for disappointment.
Nymphadora had been practicing her legilimency in her spare time. That particular mind magic didn't work like she had expected in her previous life. She had always imagined it as something akin to telepathy. It was, to a small degree, but it was more limited in scope.
Legilimency could be used to walk the memories of others, but it wasn't great for the details, like a pensieve would be. Digging through memories was like trying to wade through a swamp. It was easy to get redirected and lost in scenes you didn't want to see.
She'd thought of trying to steal some of Dumbledore's memories, but even she had a couple cautious bones in her body. The old man was a master of the mind arts and she didn't want to give him the slightest hint of a chance. If he had gained access to her mind when she connected to his things would not have ended well for her.
She settled for attacking him with brute force legilimency spikes. A method that was not elegant and certainly not subtle.
Nymphadora could overpower another person's mind through the leglimency connection, but she couldn't browse through their minds with impunity. More impactful and important memories were easier to find, shining brightly in an otherwise dull sea of thought, but she would hardly be able to pick out one memory out of a sea of them without prompting the target to think about it first.
Occlumency was a perfect counter to legilimency for this exact reason. Not only did it allow advanced users to create mental barriers to passively resist intrusion, it also trained magicals to restructure their thoughts, hiding them away where amateur legilimens like her wouldn't be able to find them. More skilled occlumens could even create false memories and mental defenses to crush intruders.
Erasing and adding memories, on the other hand, was much easier.
Adding false memories was like grafting on scenes to a reel of film. Difficult, but it could be done by most. The hardest part of the process was the crafting of the false memories themselves, which required a decent skill at occlumency.
It made Nymphadora wonder how many of Dumbledore's followers had been stealthily modified to be more compliant with Albus' will. If he'd still been kicking, Nymphadora would have worried more about his skill with the mind arts than his magical prowess. Knowledge was power, after all.
Erasing memories was the easiest aspect of the mind arts, like pushing a delete button. If Lockhart could do it, then any idiot with a wand could as well. That was how she'd reprogrammed Bellatrix Lestrange into Bella Black. She had erased everything back to a certain point, then added false memories from there.
Above all of those aspects of the mind arts, the most important for those who sought power was passive legilimency. By meeting the eyes of the target, the surface thoughts could be gleaned.
This is what Nymphadora was attempting on the less vigilant members of the Order. Of the Weasleys, only Charlie was susceptible. Arthur, Molly, Bill, and, surprisingly, Percy all had at least rudimentary mind shields. They would all be able to detect any surface scans beyond the light whisper of magic she'd used to confirm their defenses.
Nymphadora made subtle eye contact with the second oldest Weasley sibling from across the room. He didn't need to be looking directly into her eyes. So long as she could see even a part of his eye she would have access to his thoughts. Wouldn't passive leglilimency be useless if the target could just stare in between your eyes to avoid it? Magic wasn't that asinine.
Where in Merlin's ballsack is Dumbledore?
Is this all there is to the Order?
Nymphadora is so fucking hot-
Damn right, Charlie. Not that she was interested in any of the Weasley brood. The men, at least. Maybe when Ginny was older...
After sneaking a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, Charlie turned his back on her to whisper into Bill's ear. His mind might've been distracting itself with its baser desires, but his anxiety was apparent. His hands were unable to stay still, his mood as restless as his other family members. They were a bundle of nerves, like a powder keg about to explode.
Bill was the only one of them who was alert and focused, helping coral the others. He was prepared for anything that might come his family's way. His training as a curse breaker was every bit as challenging as her auror training, if not more so.
Nymphadora couldn't imagine that the Goblins expected less from their employees than the Ministry. They didn't control all of the Wizarding World's money by permitting incompetence among their own.
The Weasley family only had even a modicum of respect and power because they served Dumbledore. Without his prestige and power to back them, they were helpless before the darker factions of Wizarding Britain. There were a few other houses they could claim as allies, but not nearly enough.
Nymphadora turned her attention to the rest of the room. The aurors and Moody had decent occlumency, so that left Dumbledore's older supporters and the heads of the Houses of Hogwarts, all of whom showed up for the meeting, except for Severus Snape. How curious.
Flitwick, McGonagall, and Sprout all had minds like steel traps so Nymphadora didn't even think of testing them. She had been surprised when she inherited Tonks' memories of the head of Hufflepuff.
Sprout was a mild-mannered woman, most of the time. However, if you threatened one of her badgers Nymphadora shuddered to think of the retribution the herbology professor would bring down upon the perpetrator. There was a reason bullies tended to stay away from students in yellow.
Their loyalty and solidarity were one deterrent, but a head of house that defended them like a mother her children was what truly protected them from the malice of their fellow students. Nymphadora liked her. It also helped that she was hot as fuck. The movies did not do her justice in the slightest.
She looked to be in her late forties at most, and she was gifted with a flawless complexion and physique. Merlin bless magic's effect of retarding the aging process. She usually wore bulky and unflattering robes when teaching, as did most of the older female professors. Horny teens were an annoyance that they wanted to avoid at all costs.
Elphias Doge, one of Dumbledore's supporters on the Wizengamot, had a mind that was wide open. He didn't even have basic occlumency shields and Nymphadora couldn't help but wonder how many people helped themselves to this poor idiot's mind on a daily basis. Occlumency should be a minimum requirement for being on the Wizengamot. She knew people like Malfoy and Dumbledore were unscrupulous in their usage of the mind arts.
Nymphadora had trouble seeing into his eyes as the old man was frantically pacing and nervously looking around the room. She could only pick up fragments.
-t's not what Albus said-
-no chance to make things ri-
-the truth!
Whatever was going on with Doge, Nymphadora knew he was desperate. The old man wasn't even trying to hide how terrified he was at Dumbledore's absence.
As Nymphadora made contact with a few of the other older minds in the room, she found that they were all in a similar state of panic, if not as intense as Doge. Aberforth Dumbledore was in attendance, amazingly. His mind was tightly shut, but his blatant unease and fear showed with labored every breath.
Not a single person was calm and collected. Even Mad-Eye was unsettled, his magic eye spinning around without focus far more often than normal.
The person giving off the most fear, though, was Mundungus Fletcher. The slimy thief was hunched over a table, unable to do more than shake in his seat. When Nymphadora touched his weak mind, she picked up one thought on repeat.
I'm dead...
Mundungus seemed awfully sure his life was over without the Headmaster around. Nymphadora made a note to track the man down later for a more thorough conversation. You never knew what tidbits of information men in Mundungus' circles would come across. For a thief, he was also a shit liar, by the looks of things. Dumbledore likely only kept him around because of his illegal contacts.
"Nymphadora!"
Her musings and not-so-legal mind magic were interrupted by the harsh, grating voice of Mad-Eye Moody. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but didn't object to his use of her name.
"Didn't you hear me calling for you, girl?" Moody questioned gruffly.
"Nope! Sorry Mad-Eye, I was day-dreamin'!" Nymphadora said brightly. She really hadn't noticed her old mentor speaking. She was getting in the bad habit of losing herself whenever she was focused on magic. She couldn't help it! It was magic.
Even though she possessed a lifetime of memories about growing up in the magic world, Nymphadora would never lose the wonder and yearning she felt for magic in her previous life.
"Well, get your ass over here. You might not be an auror any longer, but you're still one of the Order's most skilled members." He gestured with his cane, sharply.
"Sir, yes sir," Nymphadora saluted lazily. Keeping close to Mad-Eye would be a good idea. Whether he would be friend or foe in the future may still be up in the air and she would take any advantages that presented themselves to her.
Conversations died down and the various groups in the room began to congregate. Many attendees looked at Nymphadora strangely as she casually dropped onto a sofa near the aurors.
Many of them had worked closely with the young metamorph over the last year and they'd never seen her so blasé. Some of them had seen her after the deaths of her parents and she looked like the walking dead. Looking at her now, it was like she was a completely different person.
Seeing that nobody else would be joining them, Minerva cleared her throat and stepped forward, interrupting anyone that wanted to question Nymphadora.
"Hello, everyone," she began, her voice subdued, "I don't see as many people as I expected, but I suppose that can't be helped..." Minerva couldn't stop the glimmer of tears that flashed across her eyes as she trailed off. Never had she thought she would be at the head of one of these meetings.
"I suppose it's best to rip off the bandage, as the muggles would say," she gathered herself, taking a deep breath.
"Albus Dumbledore is dead."
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