Chapter 64: Chapter 64
o—o
"So, let's go through this chronologically. I was attacked in the Forbidden Forest by an Acromantula under highly suspicious circumstances, and the evidence suggests that someone iced the thing with a Killing Curse—highly advanced dark magic. The only people nearby were Quirrell, Hagrid, and Harry. As Hagrid can't do magic and we can obviously rule out Harry, that points to Quirrell—" (Milo traced a blue line from Quirrell to Acromantula on his chart).
"That can't be your only reason for ruling out Hagrid," Harry said, offended.
"—but that's no reason to believe it wasn't Snape, hiding somewhere in the forest," (Milo traced a line to Snape) "which kicks things up the ladder to Lucius, as, thanks to my furry friend, we now know is Snape's secret master, and eventually Lord Voldewhatsit.
"Next," Milo continued over Hermione's objections, "someone tried to poison my breakfast and missed. This poisoning was facilitated by the elves in the kitchen staff; nobody else could have got close to the food" (Milo pointed at their name on the chart, "under instructions from Draco, Snape, or Lucius during Draco's Quidditch distraction.)
"But I thought you said—" Ron said, but was cut off.
"While it is true that I did confront Draco about this and decided it wasn't him, my view changed when I found out that his father, Lucius, was having covert meetings with Snape in the Forbidden Forest. Lucius ordered Snape to have me expelled, presumably so Lucius can kill me while I'm no longer protected by the wards and Dumbledore. 'Maybe,' I realized, 'it's time we stopped ignoring Draco as a legitimate threat.' I'd bet—no, in fact, I'm certain of the fact that Draco's up to something devious, and likely highly dangerous, as we speak."
o—o
"So, I wrote Father and asked him to ensure that there was a Cannons victory on Hallowe'en—he, of course, did so without question or hesitation—to make Firebolt look bad and make Milo crack. And Merlin did it ever work!" Draco said exuberantly. "The nutter tried to end things for himself by the tried-and-true suicide by Troll method. Shame Snape was there to save him; really, I'd have thought better of him."
Draco paused to catch his breath.
"So," he said with a hint of finality, "we need to act, fast, before he can recover. Milo's had far too long with Potter to study the prototype for my liking. We need to stop that now. The Friday Quidditch match with Gryffindor is the perfect opportunity."
o—o
"And then," Milo continued, "someone released a Troll on Hallowe'en. While this would point pretty clearly to Quirrell, who seems to be a bit of an expert on Trolls, it just doesn't fit. Why would Quirrell release one right after teaching us all how to defend ourselves against Trolls? And besides," he added, "Snape's behaviour was more than suspicious. As soon as he heard about the Troll, he rushed, not to the second floor, where the Troll was supposed to be, but to the third floor, where we suspect they're hiding the Philosopher's Stone."
Even Hermione frowned at that.
"That is a little odd," she said at last. "You don't think... you don't think Professor Snape is trying to get the Stone?"
"A bit slow on the uptake, are we?" Milo asked. Hermione turned a bit pink. "Snape used the Troll as a distraction to get to the Stone and, likely, to kill me. He nearly succeeded on both counts."
Milo traced a line from the Troll to Snape to the Stone.
"Snape's backup plan, however, was already in the works. He'd devised a potion to oust me as a different type of wizard and have me expelled from Hogwarts which is when I met Fudge, your Minister for Magic. At first, I couldn't tell if he was pawn or chessmaster, but eventually it became clear. He really wanted me expelled, which means he's either got an agenda of his own, or he's working with Lucius. Now, he's not on Harry's list, meaning he was introduced too late to be a new, independent party. That means he was working on behalf of Lucius—but, fortunately, the whole Ministry's probably not in on it, or there would be all sorts of signs: wrongful imprisonment of sympathetic characters, horrific beings of death and fear in their employ, mysterious rooms in their basement full of gateways to evil dimensions, disagreements with Dumbledore, that kind of thing. Also, probably spikes on the Ministry roof—hey, Ron, your dad works there; has he ever mentioned spikes on the Ministry roof?"
"Nope," Ron said. "He says the desk corners are pretty pointy, mind."
"Hmmm. I don't think that's quite enough. So I'm putting them down for blatant corruption and incompetence rather than outright Evilness. Incidentally, this is probably why obviously Evil wizards like Snape and, frankly, the parents of the entire Slytherin house are so rarely raided by Aurors. Which brings me back to Snape: he is clearly trying to get the Stone for Lucius, who will present it to You-Know-Who in return for a position of power in the new world order. But his well-laid plans were foiled by you three and Quirrell. So," Milo paused to catch his breath, "we need to act, fast, before he can recover. The Friday Quidditch match with Slytherin is the perfect opportunity."
o—o
"I've got it all planned out," Malfoy said confidently. "I'll ask Father to anonymously donate a team's set of Nimbus Two Thousands to Slytherin, but they'll all have the names filed off and we'll leak to the Daily Prophet that the Slytherin team is testing a new Firebolt design."
"But," said Crabbe, "I thought you just said they'd be Nimbus Two—"
"Yes, yes, but they're in disguise. So it'll be a big thing, because everyone wants to see Firebolt's answer to the Two Thousand, so the Prophet and Which Broomstick and all of them will have people at the game to see how well it does. And here," Malfoy said modestly, "is where it gets really clever. Milo will have no choice but to try and rig the game so Gryffindor loses, or else his secret master, Firebolt, will look bad."
Goyle frowned.
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