Or maybe he should see to it that the stone had an 'accident'. Such a powerful artefact might be better off not existing — far too much of a temptation.
On the other side of the room, the empty perch that normally hosted Fawkes, was still empty.
Dumbledore looked at the familiar trinket on his desk that reflected Fawkes' current life cycle phase. It was stuck on, 'chick,' and had been since Halloween. He sighed. Wherever Fawkes was, he doubted immortality was doing him much good at the moment.
Hermione pressed the final required button on the VCR's remote control and watched in satisfaction as a small flash of light filled the room and the door to the next room slowly ground open.
Harry gave her a proud nod, which made her visibly swell.
She and Daphne then spent the next thirty minutes twiddling their thumbs and going over their various plans one more time while Harry placed rune stones around the room and cast his own fidelius on the room.
Once Harry gave her the secret, Hermione glanced at the marauder's map, on loan again from the Weasley Twins, and saw that Dumbledore was still in his office. Harry stepped in front of her, took off his noble house ring, watched it vanish into thin air, and looked deep into her eyes.
Hermione took a deep breath, pointed her wand right between his eyes and said, "Obliviate." Images and memories from Harry's mental library shot through her mind, all fuzzy and indistinct, all but impossible for her to understand, but all related to her own current focus and all chosen by Harry before hand, everything about the philosopher's stone, about the third floor corridor, about their current mission. One by one, those memories were blocked and locked, enforced by Harry's own magic, like an autoimmune disease, a magical contract, or a particularly dark magical curse. There were two types of obliviate, memory locking and memory destruction. Memory destruction only worked on the most vulnerable — muggles, or those without intermediate level occlumency or noble house rings. This wasn't that.
Hermione finished the spell and lowered her wand.
Harry looked at her in mild confusion. "Hermione?"
She passed Harry the first of the pre-written instructions, secured by Harry's own fidelius signature.
Harry read the parchment, raised his eyebrows, and turned to Daphne. "Then lead on, my lady."
Daphne tied a blindfold around Harry's eyes, put on one half of the mirror ear piece pair and watched Hermione put on the other half. Hermione turned and headed back to the pipe network where she would stay until the end of the mission.
Her last sight of Harry and Daphne was Daphne leading Harry over to the now open door, hand clutched firmly in his, eyes aflame and determined.
Hermione climbed back into the still open pipe and into their first fidelius charm. Dumbledore was still in his office. She sat herself down right in front of her first set of fidelius instructions and waited.
A minute went by and then… something tripped.
…
Huh? Hermione looked around, puzzled. Why was she here? Wait. What's this? She picked up a piece of parchment that had been laying right in front of her and started to read.
Hermione Granger, this is Hermione Granger — code: step-by-step — signature: The second bookshelf in Harry's trunk is located next to the first bookshelf.
Hermione's eyes narrowed. So it was that, mmm? She took her wand, cut off the top of the parchment containing the code and fidelius signature, and burned it with a small incendio. She then started reading what was left.
Instruction one: Speak the following words — "Daphne, this is Hermione, I have found the step by step instructions."
Hermione took a breath. "Daphne, this is Hermione, I have found the step by step instructions." A voice came back through her ear. "Good. This is Daphne. Fidelius ID: The first bookshelf in Harry's trunk is located next to the second bookshelf."
Hermione nodded to herself and read the second instruction.
Instruction two: Keep looking at Dumbledore's position on the Marauder's Map for the next hour or until Daphne says the word's, 'F Down — all clear'.
If Dumbledore's position ever reaches the room left of the muggle studies defence room, speak the following words out loud, 'Dumbledore has reached the Snape room. Cloak and evacuate.'
Hermione scanned the Marauder's Map and saw that Dumbledore had left his office and was rapidly approaching the grand stairway. She scanned the rest of the parchment. Nothing more for her to do at the moment. She went back to watching Dumbledore.
[Moments earlier]
Dumbledore's eyes widened behind his moon shaped glasses. A warning light had flashed on his left lens. Someone, probably Tom, had tripped the fidelius charm again on the third floor. He stood up, put his tea cup down with a clink, and made for the door. He had to commend the man's persistence if nothing else, even in the face of a perfect defence, for there was no way around a fidelius charm once it was in place. No way at all.
Daphne gazed around the centre of the mirror room with her eye of Kilrogg while also gazing up at the massive stone statue of Severus Snape with her normal eyes. She kept her hand on Harry's and led him over to the bench, both of them under the invisibility cloak. Thank Merlin they'd found this little trick. Doing this while she was also affected by the fidelius would have been ridiculous.
A voice came through her ear. "Daphne, this is Hermione, I have found the step by step instructions."
Daphne nodded to herself. "Good. This is Daphne. Fidelius ID: The first bookshelf in Harry's trunk is located next to the second bookshelf."
She looked down at the parchment on the desk and at the small vial of colourless liquid sitting next to it. "Veritas affirmatio." The vial momentarily glowed a faint green colour. It was authentic. She picked it up along with the dropper next to it and administered three drops onto her tongue, before corking the vial back up and pocketing it. Hey, it was hard to get hold of this stuff.
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