"Cornelius," Dumbledore interrupted Fudge's nervous muttering gently. "With all your years of experience in magical law enforcement, can't you determine what actually happened here? Your instincts must be telling you something."
Fudge exhaled heavily a long breath that misted in the air and revealed his frustration.
Of course, he could tell what had happened, at least in general terms. The residual dark magic aura soaking this entire location was as obvious and unmistakable as it could possibly be. Anyone with even basic magical sensitivity could feel it.
The only genuinely puzzling problem was that, let alone finding any dead or captured dark wizards to parade before the press, they hadn't even found a single corpse or body part at the scene despite the widespread destruction.
This was far too unusual, and too clean for such a violent battle.
It showed either the attackers had escaped cleanly which is unlikely given the damage or something else had happened.
To avoid unnecessary trouble and complications, Adrian and the others had chosen not to mention the existence of the Obscurus to anyone.
That information would only create problems with investigations, and regulations, attempts to take Amy into Ministry custody for "study" or "containment."
Fudge now only believed this to be an ordinary, if unusually destructive, dark wizard attack. Perhaps a raid by remaining Death Eaters testing defenses, or a revenge strike against the Order.
Perhaps due to Dumbledore's intervention and political pressure, combined with Fudge's own desire not to deal with complicated paperwork and explanations, the Ministry of Magic ultimately concluded their investigation hastily and superficially.
That same evening, after hours of repair work by multiple wizards, the ancestral manor of the Black family had already been restored to a reasonable, livable state.
The walls stood solid again, windows were replaced and most of the furniture had been repaired or replaced.
Unfortunately, because of this violent incident and the breach of security it represented, the place could no longer safely serve as one of the Order of the Phoenix's headquarters or meeting locations.
Too many people knew about it now. And the location was compromised.
Of course, there were other solutions available to salvage the situation, such as placing a Fidelius Charm.
This proposal, when Dumbledore raised it during a quick meeting, quickly gained everyone's instant and unanimous agreement.
Nobody wanted to lose such a useful safe house, and the Fidelius was the perfect solution.
Dumbledore was tentatively designated as the Secret-Keeper.
This choice was beyond question or debate.
As long as Dumbledore didn't die, this place would remain forever protected and hidden.
After a late dinner of soup and bread that Mrs. Weasley had somehow managed to prepare despite the chaos, Amy finally woke gradually from her deep unconscious state.
Her eyes fluttered open slowly, confusion and fear were appearing on her pale face before she seemed to remember where she was.
After taking the concentrated dose of the golden Vitality Restorative potion that Adrian had carefully prepared and measured, the child's complexion visibly improved right in front of everyone's watching eyes. Her skin tone became rosier, healthier, less corpse-like.
It was remarkable to witness such rapid recovery.
The good news was that Amy's emotional state appeared relatively stable, at least on the surface. She showed no violent or abnormal behavior, no signs of the Obscurus stirring. She could communicate normally or at least; she responded to questions in her own way.
She seemed calm, quiet, and withdrawn but not hostile.
The bad news, and the complicating factor was that she would only willingly interact directly with Adrian himself.
With anyone else, even kind Mrs. Weasley with her motherly warmth, Amy would simply stare silently, occasionally trembling if they got too close.
To carefully avoid stimulating the traumatized child or triggering memories of her abuse, everyone tactfully avoided mentioning anything directly related to magic.
They feared that even the word "magic" might cause the Obscurus within her to erupt again violently.
After all, Amy was currently in an extremely sensitive, fragile state.
Adrian was particularly cautious and gentle when communicating with her.
But rather than calling it genuine communication or conversation, it was more accurately like one-sided questioning—though it couldn't even really be called proper questioning since she rarely gave more than yes or no responses.
Their exchanges were limited and went something like this:
"Your name is Amy?" Adrian asked gently, crouching to her eye level.
Amy nodded once with a tiny movement.
"What about your parents? Do you know where they are?"
Amy shook her head slowly.
"Can you speak?" he tried.
Amy nodded again, but didn't actually speak aloud to demonstrate.
That was basically the situation.
Adrian couldn't help but feel somewhat troubled and inadequate to the task.
Beyond these most basic confirmations, Amy didn't answer most questions at all. She would simply stare, or look away.
She was truly an inscrutable, locked-away child.
It seemed clear that understanding this child's actual background, her history, her family situation would require some serious investigation and detective work.
However, in this particular regard, Dumbledore assured them that the Order of the Phoenix had established methods and contacts to accomplish this kind of research.
It would just take some time, perhaps days, perhaps weeks to trace her origins.
The current problem and the most pressing question, was who should actually take care of this child on a daily basis going forward.
She couldn't simply stay at Grimmauld Place indefinitely with rotating Order members.
Yet when this matter was brought up for discussion, everyone present in the room, Dumbledore, Sirius, the Weasleys, Moody all turned their unified gazes slowly toward Adrian.
Adrian was genuinely startled by this silent consensus, his eyes widened slightly.
He didn't think himself remotely suitable to be a babysitter or guardian of a traumatized child—he still had at least that much honest self-awareness about his capabilities and temperament.
"Adrian," at this moment, Dumbledore stood up from his chair with a soft creak and spoke gently, "regarding this matter, I think we need to talk alone, away from everyone else. Come outside with me for a moment."
He made an inviting gesture toward the door. Then he led the way without waiting for agreement.
Adrian followed after a moment's hesitation, glancing back once at Amy on the sofa.
The two wizards walked together out into the cold courtyard; their footsteps were crunching on frost.
The courtyard at night remained bitterly cold despite the warming charms on the house. The temperature had dropped further with nightfall. The cold wind carried fine, sparkling snow that had begun falling again from the dark sky, already covering the ground with a thin layer of white that sparkled in the light from the windows.
Their breath misted heavily in the chilly air.
"You know what I'm going to say, Adrian," Dumbledore spoke softly, his white breath was dissipating quickly in the cold mist. He didn't look at Adrian, instead was gazing up at the falling snow.
"About the Obscurus?" Adrian asked in return, though he already knew the answer. "About the danger it represents?"
Dumbledore nodded seriously, his expression becoming grave. "I hope you truly recognize its danger, Adrian. This isn't something to be taken lightly or experimented with."
"I'm not taking it lightly in the slightest," Adrian's voice sounded particularly calm and steady in the wind and snow, showing no fear or uncertainty.
"If I hadn't been present today, if I hadn't managed to contain it, that Obscurus could have easily destroyed all the buildings in this entire vicinity."
He paused, then added, "Even you would probably find it extremely difficult to stop once it reached full rampage."
Dumbledore didn't refute this assessment, couldn't honestly.
Even he, with all his considerable power and century of experience, had to acknowledge that an Obscurus was an extraordinarily troublesome and dangerous existence.
Perhaps the most dangerous magical phenomenon short of Fiendfyre.
"The destructive power of an Obscurus far exceeds your imagination," Dumbledore continued, his aged voice sounded heavy with memory.
His gaze looked through the falling snowflakes toward the distance, seeing something that wasn't there. "If allowed to fully erupt without any containment, it could easily destroy an entire city."
He paused, then added softly, "And there was once a person I knew who tried to control an Obscurus, wanting to utilize that terrible power for their own purposes..."
"Let me guess, that person didn't end well," Adrian said simply.
"Yes," Dumbledore confirmed heavily.
Dumbledore shook the accumulating snow off his shoulders with a casual gesture, deliberately not continuing deeper into this painful topic.
"In any case, what I want to say is this," he spoke seriously, turning to look directly at Adrian with his sharp blue eyes, "don't ever try to exploit the Obscurus within Amy. Don't try to weaponize it, study it, or use it. The temptation will be there; such power always tempts but resist it."
Adrian smiled slightly. "That would bring me no benefit at all, Professor Dumbledore. You should know me well enough by now to understand that."
He had never been willing to invite unnecessary trouble into his life, nor did he harbor such lofty, dangerous ambitions.
As long as everything proceeded smoothly and peacefully, that was genuinely enough for him.
Mastering or controlling the power of an Obscurus meant nothing to him personally—it offered no substantial benefit he couldn't achieve more safely through other means.
Why court disaster?
Dumbledore showed a gentle, relieved smile, the tension was leaving his shoulders. "I knew you would say exactly that. It's why I trust you."
This was precisely why he felt comfortable placing such responsibility on Adrian, he knew the young man's character.
"Well then, back to business," Adrian said, looking through the frost-covered window toward the warm interior, where he could still see Amy's small figure sitting on the sofa, wrapped in blankets. "What do you actually plan to do with Amy going forward? Will you have her study at Hogwarts?"
Although Adrian had successfully stopped and sealed the Obscurus within Amy, honestly speaking, he wasn't particularly knowledgeable about such things beyond theoretical basics.
He understood that Obscurials originally formed due to prolonged, severe suppression of one's magical nature combined with abuse.
Therefore, gradually learning to properly control magic in a safe environment should theoretically be necessary for recovery.
"That might be an ideal eventual choice for her future, but certainly not right now," Dumbledore shook his head lightly. "Hogwarts only accepts young witches and wizards who are at least eleven years old."
"Aren't you the Headmaster?" Adrian spread his hands in a gesture of apparent disbelief. "Surely you have at least that much privilege and authority to make exceptions."
"Rules exist for their own good reasons," Dumbledore continued shaking his head. "Moreover, an Obscurial cannot be settled or helped so simply by just attending school. Entering Hogwarts prematurely, surrounded by hundreds of students, all that noise and chaos and magical energy, would bring her no benefit. It might even trigger the Obscurus."
"Then what do we do?" Adrian frowned slightly, feeling the weight of responsibility on him. "Send her to an orphanage?"
This was obviously a somewhat sarcastic joke.
They naturally couldn't just abandon such a child to the orphanage.
Especially not a child with essentially a "nuclear bomb" hidden inside her that could detonate at any emotional trigger.
As for locating and reuniting Amy with her biological parents, neither of them held much realistic hope for that outcome.
Bellatrix was by no means a merciful person who left loose ends. The possibility of Amy's parents still being alive was slim to none.
They were almost certainly dead, probably murdered in front of her as part of the trauma that created the Obscurus.
"I know someone," Dumbledore said finally after pondering for a moment, his expression looked conflicted. He sighed heavily. "Someone with expertise in this area. He's been researching Obscurials for years and might be able to provide help."
Adrian keenly noticed something off in Dumbledore's tone—he seemed somewhat hesitant, uncertain, even reluctant.
That was unusual for Dumbledore.
"Is this person reliable?" he asked directly.
"Probably," Dumbledore's answer carried unusual uncertainty for him, which was telling. "But Obscurials haven't actually appeared for many years. His research should only exist in theory. I'm not certain…..."
"I'll leave it to you then," Adrian said decisively, and began turning to enter the house and escape the cold.
Regarding Dumbledore's judgment, he generally felt at ease and confident.
At worst, if things didn't work out, he could arrange for Amy's care himself.
It would just be somewhat troublesome and complicated.
Seeing this trust and Adrian's retreating back, Dumbledore shook his head helplessly.
Fine then. He'd give it a try first and see what happened.
He looked up at the falling snow, watching it accumulate, and wondered if he was making the right choice.
Only time would tell.
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