Lord Sytherin

17

While Madam Bones had basically given Peter Pettigrew on a silver platter she and a few trusted Aurors were keeping it a secret as they researched everything they could think of before they made it public knowledge. Regulus made sure to keep his ears open knowing that when the news of Peter being found and being the Potters' Secret Keeper was made public he would hear about it. He would then be able to pass on the news to his older brother which would hopefully allow both of them to resume human form and stay that way.

Not knowing this Harry and his friends still met at least once every couple of days in the empty classroom that once held the Mirror of Erised to listen to any Chatter Boxes that had been filled up. After they had gotten the first Chatter Box back and found it had only contained a small bit of Fumbledork spilling some secrets while the rest was his normal day Blaise had helped George enchant the boxes so that it would read the small bit of magic that would be given off as the truth potion left the man's mouth when it was activated so they would only have to deal with his basic confessions on random shit.

Albus was both annoyed and furious for even after checking every food and drink he had taken in these last few weeks he had been unable to find the cause of him sharing his secrets. He had been rather lucky so far as only the first instance had been in front of witnesses after that he had either been alone or had been able to slip into an empty classroom as he found himself being unable to stop speaking. Adding to his annoyance was that when he was being forced to speak he could not cast any type of spell to end it, speaking obviously was easy to see why but even when he was screaming in his own mind telling himself to shut up he had been unable to cast non-verbal spells at all.

He had even gone to Poppy to check to see if she could find out what was going on. He had no fear of her outing his issue knowing her loyalty was absolute. When she had informed him that she could not find the source of his strange affliction he almost stomped all the way back to his office and swallowed a literal handful of his lemon drops, missing the smirking faces of the previous Heads of Hogwarts as he did so. "It has to be her fault somehow," Albus said his mind focusing on Poppy as the Truth Potion laced lemon drops latched onto that as the next topic of his forced confessions

A few hours later Albus was walking the ground of Hogwarts having felt something shift in the Hogwarts Wards the night before and was making sure none of his changes had been effected. Thankfully all of his additions to the Ward that he had added over the years were still working, including the one he had added for this year alone which if Harry was taking part in a Quidditch game it would allow the Dementors to breach the Wards and hopefully target the boy. That way his weapon would go about trying to find out about the Patronus Charm giving him another weapon to use against Tom's forces when the man eventually returned. Albus was just walking around the lake on his way back to the castle when the Truth Potion kicked in with a focus on Poppy.

"I knew I should have just gotten rid of the bitch. I mean how dare those old fools that ran this place think that she would have been a better Headstudent than I was," Albus said screaming inside his own mind as he starting speaking and unable to stop himself. "It had been a dumb rule anyway. The Headboy and Girl could not be from the same house to not show favoritism. If that rule had not been in place this would never have happened, or if they chose me instead of that goody-two-shoes Mary Poppins. But they did so of course I had to correct their mistake. It was not even that hard after seeing her on the shortlist during the last meeting of our Sixth-Year to become the Head Girl, ranked higher than I was on the list for Head Boy. Just a Confundus Charm on her as we boarded the train and told her that it might be a good idea to look at her father's records to see which Muggle families had signs of a child coming into Magic soon.

It was almost too easy to get her confounded mind to brew some Aging-Potion to appear older and got and show the kids some magic that would be part of their lives. Even better thanks to my ally Griselda Marchbanks placing the straight Muggle family Banks at the top of her lips. That had been a fun summer even when I had to use some Polyjuice Potion to watch her cast magic around the Banks family which she had moved in with for a time. As they were a straight Muggle family the Ministry would not send her owls warning her against the casting of spells until she had left them.