A Young Slytherin: A Barnaby Lee Story -Hogwarts Mystery

Dumbledore's Deal

Barnaby knew he wasn't clever enough to find the cursed vaults by himself. He thought briefly about asking Spellman to help him, but ultimately decided against it. She was a Gryffindor for one thing, and Gryffindors were the cruelest students to him by far. Also, now that he had a renewed purpose for staying at Hogwarts, he didn't want his Gran finding out he was associating with her. She might pull him out as soon as she heard. And of course, there was the fact that everybody believed she was cursed. He wanted no part of that.

That left Merula as his only option. His primary goal became finding a way to impress her enough to accept his help. He knew he'd never become intelligent enough for her, but he hoped his strength and combat skills might when her favor. He figured that surely a quest to find secret, cursed vaults would involve battling dark magic. At the very least, it might involve lifting something heavy.

He made sure to challenge people to fights during free periods when she was around, and always made sure to sit near her in Defense Against the Dark Arts, the only class he was any good at.

All this strategy did was earn him yet more detentions, as prefects and teachers repeatedly caught him pummeling the other students. The rest of the year passed in this fashion. Barnaby made little progress in his studies and even less progress with Merula. Once again, he'd nearly forgotten his quest for power and resorted to fighting because it was the only thing he was good at.

He finally went too far the weekend before the end of year exams, when Snape showed up by the lake in time to witness him taking on three Gryffindors at once.

"Lee! Cease this idiocy at once."

Barnaby heard the oily voice just as he was about to toss one of the boys into the lake. It was too late to stop his momentum. Splash!

Barnaby only managed to toss him in a couple feet, and the boy sat in the shallow water, coughing and spluttering.

"Get him out of there," Snape ordered the other two boys. They waded in after their friend.

"I've had enough of you, boy," said Snape. He grabbed Barnaby roughly by the shoulder and pushed him to walk ahead. "We're going to see the Headmaster."

Snape made Barnaby wait outside the door to Dumbledore's office. The wooden doors were quite thick, but Snape's voice was loud enough for Barnaby to hear parts of what he said.

"Constantly picking fights...doesn't bother with homework...a menace...send him on the train and don't let him come back!"

Finally, the doors opened and Snape strode out. He didn't glance at Barnaby as he descended the staircase.

"Come in, Mr. Lee," came the headmaster's voice.

It was the last thing he wanted to do, but Barnaby went through the doors.

Dumbledore was sitting at his desk. He smiled over his half-moon spectacles at Barnaby. "Ah, Mr. Lee. We haven't had much chance to get properly acquainted yet. Come come, sit down."

Barnaby sat a finely carved armchair in front of Dumbledore's desk. The old wizard opened a silver jar and offered it to Barnaby. It was full of some kind of sugary, yellow sweet.

"Would you care for a lemon drop?"

"A what?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

Barnaby wasn't sure if this was the moment for lemon drops, but he was quite hungry. He hadn't eaten since lunch, and that had to be about two hours ago now.

"Thank you." He popped one of the sweets into his mouth and felt a bit better.

Dumbledore took a couple lemon drops for himself before closing the jar and setting it aside.