Atlas was a bit shocked at the news that the ministry was attacked and read the newspaper as fast as he could. Apparently, thirty masked people had stormed the ministry, attacking people left and right. Most attackers could be stopped by the aurors quite quickly, but three people had just run straight for the office of Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic. 'Luckily' Lucius Malfoy was talking with him at that time in his office and took the three attackers down in a fierce battle, saving the minister's life and making him the hero of the attack.
Atlas got more confused the more he read. He was sure that Voldemort was behind the attack, but he couldn't understand the reason behind that. Wasn't it smarter to revive and gather followers first before starting a war with the ministry? The question was answered at the end of the article. Two of the attackers managed to escape, but before they did that, they announced that they would come back the following day with ten times the numbers to kill the minister. A ridiculous statement if one considered the wizard population. Such a huge organization wouldn't have gone unnoticed for so long if they really had so many members, considering the total wizarding population in Britain. Naturally, Atlas couldn't exclude the possibility that the ministry was just terribly incompetent, but he was almost sure that it was a bluff. The other possibility, that Voldemort had really gathered so many followers, was a little frightening, because that would mean there was an incredibly high chance that the next day wouldn't go as planned, but after thinking about it for some time, he realized that the attackers were probably like the people who attacked them in the forbidden forest. People who were influenced by the imperius curse. If that were the case, then Voldemort needed just a few people who were really his followers to execute such an attack. The goal from there was also obvious. It was a distraction for Dumbledore. Cornelius, like the coward he was, would probably gather every Auror he could get and also invite Dumbledore to defend against that threat, and Dumbledore couldn't even reject him reasonably just on the suspicion that it was a trap. Unless, of course, Dumbledore told the Minister that he allowed Voldemort to teach for one year at Hogwarts because he wanted to test Harry.
Hermione was waiting patiently but worried at the side of his bed, waiting for him to finish the article. Atlas could hear how she couldn't keep her feet still and even saw her nervously biting her nails, which he had only seen her do the day before he attempted his animagus transformation. As soon as Atlas laid the newspaper away, she started asking him with a shaking voice, "He really is back, isn't he? A new war will begin soon, won't it? I belived... I hoped we would have more time. We aren't ready for this. When he really is powerful enough to attack the ministry in broad daylight, he is more powerful than we thought. Will we really be safe in Hogwarts? He always feared a confrontation with Dumbledore, didn't he? But what about summer vacation? Will we live here from now on? What about my parents? They wouldn't understand. What about your parents? Will your mother come here too? Will your family be safe?"
"Hermione, stop it." He said, and slowly took her in his arms as she was having a breakdown. "Calm down. Everything is fine."
"How?" she asked and started to cry on his shoulder while Atlas patted her back, feeling her tears fall onto his bare neck.
He hadn't expected Hermione to be so affected by it. She wasn't that affected when she learned that he might return, but she probably had read countless books about him since then, and knew what Voldemort had done in the past, and could just imagine how terrible it could be if he really returned. The attack in the forest and almost losing him had put her on edge, and the news of the attack on the ministry probably just pushed her over it, making her think that all the terrible things she pictured would happen if they failed to prevent his return would happen now that he "really" was back.
After giving her a minute to calm down a bit, he slowly began to answer her.
"Just think about it. If he really was back and was serious about the attack, then the minister would be dead by now. What he did there was and is just a massive distraction. He just wants to lure Dumbledore away and get the stone to heal himself. Otherwise, he wouldn't have announced the next attack in such a public way."
The task of preventing Voldemort from getting the stone remained unspoken. Atlas didn't want to stress Hermione with the prospect of fighting someone who could easily beat them, even in a weakened state. Naturally, he would tell her about it. At least about Quirrell trying to steal the stone for Voldemort. But that could wait for a few more hours. He would speak with Ethan before that, just so that they would use the same story to not get the others to notice that they knew about Quirrell being Voldemort. At least that was the plan until Hermione realized that someone needed to prevent Voldemort from getting the stone.
"We need to tell the professors! We need to tell Dumbledore!" She exclaimed.
"And tell them what? That we suspect that the attack on the ministry is just a distraction? That someone wants to steal the stone? Don't you think that Dumbledore is smart enough to realize that too? The stone is probably the most protected thing in Hogwarts because he knows that Voldemort wants to steal it, and I guess the other professors all did their part to increase the protection even more. I don't think they would even take us seriously if we told them."
Atlas wasn't really a great fan of the idea of talking to the professors out of fear that they would actually be reasonable and listen to them, but he knew that Hermione wasn't so easily convinced that a professor wouldn't even listen to them.
"But shouldn't we at least try?" asked Hermione, clinging to her view about professors.
"We can, or, to be more accurate, you can. I will talk with Madam Pomfrey so that I can get out of here a little sooner. You can go to McGonagall and talk to her. But don't tell her about Voldemort. If Dumbledore didn't think it was necessary to inform them, then we shouldn't either. After that, we can meet up in the room of requirements and plan what we can really do about the situation."
Hermione nodded at him and whipped the dried-up tears from her cheeks. She still looked a little distraught, and Atlas thought he saw a little disappointment or frustration in her eyes.
"Mione, before you go," said Atlas, and stood up in his human form for the first time since he was attacked. He could feel his skin on his back tighten, but not so much that the skin ripped apart again. "You forgot something." He said and gave her a deep kiss. It took Hermione a second to reciprocate the kiss, but he could feel the tension she felt was slowly vanishing. She was still far from relaxed, but it certainly calmed her down a lot. She even showed him a meek smile as she left the infirmary.
Atlas went as planned to Madam Pomfrey, who gave him another warning to not move too fast and to apply another tincture she gave him before he went to sleep, after he had shown her that he could slowly walk around and even stretch a little without problems. She also told him that if he wanted to remove the scar tissue, he should wait a few days and come to her if he needed help with that. An offer he would have accepted under other circumstances because the skin on his back was more scar tissue than normal skin.
After he left the infirmary, he immediately went to the room of requirements with his specially expanded suitcase. The lab he had built in there could barely be considered as such, as it looked like a plain but clean basement with a single shelf on the left side that barely had a handful of books on it and a few cupboards next to that shelf filled with ingredients. In the middle stood a small table with a cauldron on it, and on the right was a little workspace to prepare the ingredients. Next to the workplace was another shelf with a few empty racks and potion bottles. It was the first time Atlas had used the lab since getting the suitcase and taking the furnishings from the room where the Diadem had been. Even after Voldemort's tantrum there, the place had nothing, if not a lot of shelves and cupboards. The first thing he did was brew the potions and poisons he thought he needed. A few Wiggenweld potions, a few strength potions, a memory potion, a few antidotes, and a few poisons. A task that Snape's old potion book was incredibly helpful for. The only thing that he thought was lacking was the lethality of his poisons. While they would certainly kill the target within a few hours, they couldn't compare to the poison of a basilisk or even an acromantula. In hindsight, he could have bought a few muggle poisons like botox, rizin, or Vx, because they could kill within a few minutes. Maybe Ethan could survive longer with a non-functioning lung due to his breathing skills, but he would surely die within ten to twenty minutes. The problem with that was that if Ethan was able to pick a skill in the meantime, he could get something like poison resistance and maybe even survive that. For that reason, he mixed the sleeping draught, the strength potion, and the poisons he had so that he would instantly fall asleep and die from the poison even if he or Voldemort didn't kill him first. Sadly, he couldn't mix it with the wiggenweldpotion as it would counteract the sleeping draught and, to some degree, even the poison.
He put the different potions into vials that looked a lot like test tubes with a stopper on them. This design made it easy to take a potion even mid-combat, even if the thicker and more plump design from the wizards was a lot harder to destroy. But that was nothing a simple charm couldn't fix. He was about to place the poisoned vials in a special rack when he heard that someone had opened his suitcase. He could hear Hermione calling him from outside.
As he had predicted, or if he was honest with himself, just hoped, Professor McGonagall had told Hermione not to worry about the stone and told her it is well protected by the professors. Professor Flitwick had also told her the same, and even Professor Sprout stopped the discussion as soon as she mentioned the stone.
Atlas wasn't sure if Dumbledore had informed the professors about Voldemort and instructed them to act the way they did or if they really thought the stone was impossible to steal, but in the end, that didn't really matter.
The only thing he noticed was that their actions seemed to have crushed the idealized picture Hermione had of them. When she told Atlas about the professors' reactions, she even tried to curse them. It's important to note that she just tried, as the worst word she used was fools, as she described them as stubborn and careless.
When Atlas offered her to vent a little in a little spar, she declined because he wasn't fully healed and instead tried to fight against the wooden puppet, which didn't calm her down as the pupped beat her multiple times.
In the meantime, Atlas decided to do something that, hopefully, would be a waste of time. He wrote multiple letters that explained that Voldemort had six horcruxes, including Harry, and that he would probably make a seventh, which would probably be Nagini. He also described where they had been half a year ago, where the diadem currently was, and how they could be destroyed. He also wrote about Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, the chamber of secrets, and who he knew was a Death Eater. The first letter should obviously go to Dumbledore, and Atlas planned to place it on his bed before they would go to the trapdoor. The second one would go to Horace Slughorn. Not because he was particularly strong, but because Voldemort seems to have an interest in inviting him instead of killing him. The third one would go to his parents with the message to spread it anonymously in case Dumbledore died within the next year; the fourth one would go to professor McGonagall with a few extra thanks for her tutoring; one would go to Remus Lupin just in case Dumbledore thought it wasn't necessary to free Sirius; the sixth to Augusta Longbottom so that she could get revenge for Neville; and the last and longest one, the one that explained everything about him and his situation, to Hermione.
Writing these letters felt strange to Atlas, as they would only reach their recipients in case he died. He wrote these letters in the hope that if he failed his task and died trying, or if this world would continue to exist due to some kind of miracle, then it would have a real chance of peace. Naturally, he also added the task of killing Ethan Brown to every letter, except Hermione's, with the reasoning that Ethan assisted Voldemort in his revival. He would ask Harry to send the letters with Hedwig just before they would enter the trapdoor tomorrow, with the exception of the letters for the people in Hogwarts.
After lunch with Hermione, he went over to Ethan to talk with him. Now that he knew that he was also a reincarnator, it was quite easy, as Ethan would send Amy and Leona away if needed so that they could go together to the bathroom to talk alone.
"So just to be sure, you know that he will try to get the stone tomorrow?"
"Yes. If you have read the newspaper, he has already prepared the perfect distraction for Dumbledore. Hermione already tried to speak to the professors, but they wouldn't listen, so it all depends on us. I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard. I mean, the trials should be quite easy and basically have no real danger of death, so the only thing we need to care about is Quirrell. But he should be easy to beat if we get Harry close to him. So tomorrow one of us should pretend to have an enlightenment and point out that if Quirrell is a follower of Voldemort, then he would try to get the stone for him, so that Harry and the others go with us. By the way, do you have a chess skill, or do we need Ron to play the game?"
"Wait a moment. There is something I need to tell you." mumbled Ethan, quite ashamed and embarrassed and obviously guilty looking.
Author Note:
Thanks for reading.
So when I wrote this chapter, I realized that if I continue from there, I would basically spoil the end of the Interlude chapters. So I stopped the chapter there so that its worth it to read the Interlude chapter.