Location: Department of Mysteries Director’s Office, Floor 9, Ministry of Magic. Present: J. Crane, B. Bode, A. Dumbledore.
CRANE: So how is this foolishness going? What nonsense are we spending thousands on? The Mirror of Erised of all things –
DUMBLEDORE: Everything is going to plan.
CRANE: I think we’ll need more than that, Dumbledore.
DUMBLEDORE: Have I ever failed you, my dear Mr. Crane?
CRANE: You have, in fact. What in bloody hell is happening though? What is the meaning of it?
BODE: I can speak to that. We’ve been observing the boy nearly constantly for the entirety of the year, and we’ve been constructing a challenge ideally designed for his – capacities.
CRANE: And what are those?
BODE: Quite honestly, not much. He is a perfectly average eleven-year-old boy.
CRANE: So you’ve hidden the Stone behind a door that only opens when it’s covered in ejaculate?
DUMBLEDORE: I hadn’t thought of that. That would be most amusing.
BODE: Potter is a thoroughly average student. He shows no great aptitude in any of his subjects. His herbology is average, his charms and transfiguration mediocre, his potions quite subpar. He might display some competence in defensive magic, but he is unfortunately instructed by an idiot.
CRANE: Well, surely you’re not setting this up to be any sort of real challenge then? As I understand it, you’ll need that idiot to find his way through just as well as Potter.
DUMBLEDORE: Yes. Thankfully both targets have developed an interest in Severus Snape, and Severus is doing a marvellous job leading the both of them along the way. I do not believe that either of them know what exactly is being protected, but I suspect they are both on the verge of a breakthrough. I had hoped that I’d planted enough clues at this point, but as you’ve implied, they’re both rather – thick, as they say. Maybe I think too highly of my own subtleties. Flamel’s name no longer has the cache it once held, I suppose. Regardless, I plan to reveal the nature of the Stone soon enough, in my own way.
CRANE: In your own way.
BODE: The defences, as they are, are being tailored for Potter’s passage. One of his close friends at least seems to be quite intelligent. We’ve installed a bed of devil’s snare –
CRANE: First-year curriculum.
BODE: – a broomstick test –
CRANE: Better blunt it, I saw the tapes of that first match – I have money on that Tutshill deal, you know –
BODE: – a chess problem –
CRANE: The boy can play chess?
DUMBLEDORE: His friend knows the rules. The problem is – quite simple.
BODE: – a troll –
CRANE: Stunned this time, I hope.
BODE: – and a logic problem.
CRANE: A logic problem? What do you run, Dumbledore, a public school?
DUMBLEDORE: Professor Snape assures me that the boy is abysmal at potions.
CRANE: But he’s a young Aristotelian?
DUMBLEDORE: His close friend, a certain Ms. Granger, won a muggle essay-writing contest on the subject in her last year of primary school.
CRANE: They always did call you muggle-lover.
DUMBLEDORE: I do my part.
CRANE: So the boy goes in the hole – but how in hell does he get past the animal?
DUMBLEDORE: I passed him a flute embedded with a sleeping charm this Christmas. Along with his familial invisibility cloak.
CRANE: You have that? I thought it was destroyed.
DUMBLEDORE: Thank goodness, no. It is immensely valuable.
CRANE: Indeed. I’ve heard rumours –
DUMBLEDORE: Best they remain so.
CRANE: Well. So he goes through all this rigmarole, and you assure that his ickle friends do too, and that none of them panic and bollocks it all up – and then –
DUMBLEDORE: It’s quite simple. He arrives at the Mirror of Erised, and thus receives his prize.
BODE: We’ve enchanted the Mirror to reveal the Stone – or rather, the decoy – to Potter and Potter alone.
CRANE: [rubbing his eyes with his palms] And why in hell is this necessary?
BODE: The Prophet is ready to publish it to the front page. We have a story lined up with young Grinlow.
CRANE: She’s ours? She’s no Skeeter.
DUMBLEDORE: The event will bring publicity yes, but also – training.
CRANE: Ah yes. You are a pedagogue, after all.
DUMBLEDORE: We will be asking the boy to do quite a bit over the next seven years, if all goes to plan. He needs to be prepared.
CRANE: I think this folderol is hardly preparation for –
DUMBLEDORE: The zone of proximal development.
CRANE: The – ?
DUMBLEDORE: The zone of proximal development. The boy is, as we have noted, quite undeveloped. We can’t ask a first-year student to cast a patronus. We must push him to the next level but no further – even if that level is quite – low.
CRANE: I see. So he passes through these – challenges – and he finds, at the end?
DUMBLEDORE: Success.
BODE: And. Perhaps a challenge.
CRANE: That’s what I’m concerned about. The DMLE will have our arses if we botch their arrest. Surely that’s what this is for, too, yes? Yes?
BODE: We suspect that Quirrell will pass through the chambers too. Yes.
CRANE: On the same night?
BODE: We hope to create the conditions. Yes.
CRANE: And what if our boy is harmed? The man is a maniac, is he not? A maniacal idiot. My least favourite asset.
[An uncomfortable pause.]
CRANE: Surely you don’t think Potter will, just, defeat Quirrell in a duel? Surely you thought of this possibility?
[Pause.]
CRANE: I’m posting agents at Hogwarts, the night of. That’s an order. I’m putting them in the chamber. I’ll have them tail him in and blast his damn chess problem out of the way if they have to. I will not have this boy pass through all this damnable nonsense just to be killed by a lunatic. We’ve invested too much.
BODE: [to Dumbledore] He’s right. It’s sensible insurance. Protected as he might be, he could be harmed.
DUMBLEDORE: You have so little faith in the boy.
CRANE: That’s right.
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