Again, Dumbledore was stunned silent. He had no defence or counter-argument to such a claim.
"As I've heard claimed before," said Croaker. "You really were pants at Divination, Albus. You withdrew from the subject within three weeks of your third year, did you not?"
Not even bothering to wait for the old man to even have a chance to respond, Croaker pressed on. "Well, our experts in the subject - Divination Masters, all - assure us our interpretation is about as correct as it gets. While your own interpretation? It has them laughing so hard it takes a calming potion down their throats to get any sense out of them for the next hour or so.
"To put it bluntly, Albus; you are meddling in affairs in which you have no right to do so. You are meddling in affairs of which you have no true knowledge of how to set on the correct path; and are, in fact... stupidly, because of your ignorance... trying to guide individuals away from.
"If it wasn't for that, we'd have just left you in Bonesy's 'care' and wouldn't have stepped in. However, there was always the risk one of your patsies, who think the sun shines out of your arse, would have found a way to free you; or, her people would have screwed up and killed you.
"That's why you're now here with us and not currently allowed to go out and play with the other boys and girls. You're too dangerous to be allowed free roam, for the moment."
Dumbledore thought for a bit before he asked, "How soon will I be able to get out of here?"
"That depends entirely on how helpful you are," replied Croaker.
What Dumbledore didn't know was, once he was no longer useful, Croaker was going to carry out Bones's threat. Albus Dumbledore was going to take a trip through the Veil.
From what Croaker had already learned; not just from his interrogation of the old man, but from his reading of Bones's own interrogations; the old bastard well and truly deserved both the 'title' of Dark Lord and a trip through the Veil. As far as he was concerned, Dumbledore deserved a great deal worse. However, he'd limit the punishment to that.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
Dumbledore had just been escorted out when an Unspeakable ducked in and quickly said, "Monitor says Monocle's just had the idea given to her to use a house elf to nab the old man and elf-pop him to her in her holding cells. We've got less than two minutes."
"Sssshit!" exclaimed Croaker. As he quickly ran from the room after the 're-bagged' old man, he thought, 'Why hadn't we thought of that?'
As soon as he saw him from behind he cast a temporary elf-avoidance charm on him and breathed a sigh of relief.
That gave him time to get the Unspeakable ward masters to set up a more permanent version of it, plus anything else she might try.
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
Standing in 'Dumbledore's' cell in the holding cell facility, Bones looked around and said, "This should do. Form a circle and, as soon as the old man appears, stun him. We've no idea if he's managed to get hold of another wand or not, or anything else."
'Let's hope this works,' she grimly thought.
With everyone in place she called for a DMLE holding cell elf. "Locky!"
When the elf popped in she said, "Do you remember the old man who last had this cell?"
"Yes, Mistress Bonesy," he replied.
"Right," she said. "Here's what I need you to do..."
Once she gave the elf its instructions and knew the elf knew what to do, she said, "Right; go get him."
The elf concentrated for a long moment with its eyes closed before it opened them again and stared at her in sadness. "Locky cannot finds him. Sorry, Mistress Bonesy."
She sighed and said, "Not you fault. Thank you, Locky; you can go."
When the elf popped away again, Moody said, "He must be under elf-avoidance wards. Illegal, but I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to erect them on himself."
"I thought it might have been a good idea," said Robards
"It was," she firmly said. "So were the rest of the ones you and Proudfoot came up with. We'll try them next."
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
When breakfast finished, the others were all invited up to the Potter apartment so they could see and try on for themselves the exercise clothes Monica had purchased and sent.
Hermione was quick to separate out the boys clothes from the girls and left the boys' on the couch. "That's yours and Neville's," she indicated the pile. "This lot is for us girls. We're going into my room to try them on."
Then, leading the other girls, she headed for her room.
Curious as to what was bought for them to wear, Neville went over to the boys' pile and had a look. He was shocked with what he found.
Amused, Harry went over and sorted them out between the two of them, while also explaining what each item of clothing was for. "These are briefs; they're a form of underwear that 'cups' what's needed to be protected. These are running shorts; yes, they keep the legs bare. These are lightweight, 'muscle' T-shirts similar to what I had you change into when we took you muggle shopping; just with shorter sleeves so the sleeves don't get in the way while exercising your upper arms. These are a set of tracksuits, useful when moving out in public and are donned over your exercise clothes. And these... are a pair of trainers, like you've seen me wear. They're rubber-soled and built with protections for your foot while running in them.
"Thankfully, Monica's labelled it all so we know whose is whose." Separating the piles further into one for each of them, he indicated one and said, "That's for you."
Holding up a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Neville asked, "This is all we wear while exercising?"
"That, plus socks and trainers; yes," replied Harry. "Don't worry; you'll get used to it, fast. The girls will be wearing something similar, I assure you."
_‗_
―==(oIo)==―
ˇ
Throughout the day, the aurors were trying every idea they could think of to locate one Albus Dumbledore. All ideas Harry had given - and demonstrated - to Madam Bones and the rest of the aurors were tried. Scrying, mail owl delivered tracking charms and even an attempt to include a tracking charm in a messenger Patronus were tried.
Unknown to Bones, the Unspeakables were quickly devising - read: 'madly scrambling for' - ways to block them as soon as they learned of them from her through their tiny, Fidelius-hidden monitors spread across the Ministry. In offices, such as hers, they had tiny mirrors using an idea 'sourced' - read: stolen - from the mirrors Harry and Sirius now used from back when the Marauders were still in Hogwarts.
That last one about tracking messenger Patronuses nearly gave the Unspeakables conniptions. They didn't know if it would work and, therefore, had no idea how to block it. Even so, Croaker immediately set a Charms Mastery team on trying to figure out if it was possible, after all. However, the ward Masters had no idea how to block even a messenger Patronus until someone hit on the idea of blocking only the audio component. That worked. After all, if Dumbledore was able to cast one wandlessly, he'd have been able to let one or more of his minions know where he was and organise to get him out.
The only ones getting any pleasure out of it were the Monitors in the Unspeakables' Ministry Observations team. They got to see the attempts by the aurors in time to warn those tasked with hiding the asset. Then watching the DoM's Ward Masters madly figuring out ways to block them. Bets were being made between them.
Oh, not on if the Aurors would succeed, but on how long it took for a possible working solution out of left field from the aurors to be voiced before the Unspeakable Ward Masters had a way to block it.
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