The news of Dumbledore's death... ehm.. illness was kept under wraps by the people present.
Hogwarts remained as relaxed as ever.
Of course, they were mainly keeping it secret from the young wizards at Hogwarts.
As for Voldemort, naturally they had to make sure he heard about it.
And that task was handed over to Snape.
...
"Dumbledore doesn't have much time left?" Voldemort asked, looking at Snape across the table.
"Unless he uses the Philosopher's Stone. But Nicolas Flamel has already gone into seclusion, and even Dumbledore doesn't know where he is."
"As for Kasenhis, he is only proficient in traditional alchemy. He is still far from possessing Nicolas Flamel's level of ability," Snape said with a nod.
"Anything else?" Voldemort asked.
"I consulted some ancient texts and discovered that the Elder Wand, one of the Deathly Hallows, becomes almost impossible for anyone else to win the allegiance of if its master dies naturally rather than being defeated by another person... so..." Snape said.
"So I need to hurry, is that it?" Voldemort asked.
"Yes, my Lord." Snape nodded.
"Tell me... how should I obtain the Elder Wand?" Voldemort asked faintly.
"Naturally, by killing Dumbledore with your own hands," Snape replied.
"What if I had someone else defeat Dumbledore first, and then I defeated that person?" Voldemort asked.
"That would naturally work as well," Snape agreed.
Voldemort suddenly fell silent.
If Dumbledore had been the only true enemy at Hogwarts, he would have sacrificed Snape's life without hesitation in exchange for the Elder Wand.
But Hogwarts no longer had only Dumbledore.
There was Kasenhis, Grindelwald, and that damned skeleton of a man. Any one of them could fight him back and forth without being overwhelmed.
Keeping Snape alive was still necessary.
He still needed Snape to provide him with intelligence from Hogwarts.
"Prepare Polyjuice Potion for me. I'll have one of my clones personally visit Hogwarts and seize the Elder Wand," Voldemort said.
...
"That's the situation. So now we need to prepare Dumbledore's fake death. The corpse has to be convincing enough to fool a lot of people," Snape said to the others in Dumbledore's office.
"We should release the news that Dumbledore is gravely ill right now. That way, when Voldemort kills him, everyone will assume Voldemort only managed it because Dumbledore was already seriously ill, rather than because Voldemort was overwhelmingly powerful. That should reduce unnecessary panic," Kasenhis suggested.
Everyone agreed with the idea.
"Oh, have any of you thought about who should become the next Headmaster after the Headmaster of Hogwarts dies?" Dumbledore asked while eating pizza.
At that moment, Kasenhis coughed, straightened his clothes, and very naturally stood up.
"I think..."
"You can't."
Dumbledore immediately pulled Kasenhis back down.
"The Headmaster can only be succeeded by a Head of House, so there are only four candidates."
"Oh... honestly, I'm guessing Severus. If it isn't you, Voldemort will definitely go after the other three Heads of House like a rabid dog. At that point, even if it wasn't supposed to be you, it'll end up being you anyway," Kasenhis said helplessly.
"I'm unwilling. If I become Headmaster, Hogwarts would be no different from being half-occupied. Unless I openly broke with the Dark Lord, but that wouldn't be worth it," Snape said, shaking his head.
"Why do you even need Hogwarts to choose a new Headmaster? Dumbledore's fake death is only meant to let Voldemort obtain the Elder Wand, then cast a Killing Curse at Harry Potter."
"We could simply make sure Voldemort never even leaves Hogwarts and arrange for him to meet Harry directly. The instant the Killing Curse leaves Voldemort's wand, he can die," Grindelwald said.
Everyone looked at one another.
"Good idea!"
"I'm going back to my office to make the puppet. Hopefully Voldemort won't notice anything," Kasenhis said, standing up first.
"That's easy. All I need to do is keep the lights off in the Headmaster's office," Dumbledore offered, giving an extremely simple but practical solution.
Still...
Kasenhis sat in his office and somewhat helplessly used a small button he had made to summon Harry, asking him to find Steve somewhere in Hogwarts and send him over.
Before long, he heard a familiar doo-doo-da-doo-doo-da sound.
"What did you call me here for?" Steve asked.
"How about I use alchemy to make you an armour summoner?" Kasenhis asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Huh??? What do you mean?"
Since Steve had asked, Kasenhis directly explained Dumbledore's fake-death plan and the plan to remove Voldemort's Horcrux fragment from inside Harry.
"So what you mean is, you want to make me a set of Dumbledore armour?" Steve asked.
"More or less. What do you think?" Kasenhis said with a grin.
"You're not good at this kind of thing, are you? Wouldn't this require actual flesh and blood? Don't tell me you're planning to make some cheap garbage where I just wear a shell over myself. If that's all, you don't even need me. Just grab any tall, thin guy," Steve said.
"Ahem. Well, earlier I went over to Hagrid's place to watch him make Hippo Stir-Fried with Elephant," Kasenhis said with a grin.
"...So?" Steve still didn't understand what that had to do with anything.
"What I mean is, while I was watching him cut the meat, I accidentally unlocked a new mod," Kasenhis said, still grinning.
"A new mod still doesn't have anything to do with my situation, does it?"
Kasenhis shrugged.
"The mod I unlocked is Fragile Bones."
[Note: Of course I know Fragile Bones is the name of the modpack, but come on, that name is way too memorable! If I said I unlocked the Chest Cavity mod instead, not many people would know what I was talking about.]
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