Two hours of Amelia Bones fondly sharing her memories she had of my mother with me later, two stone faced aurors entered the infirmary in their battle robes. Madam Pomfrey gave them a vicious glare, and only then did the two shrink back their intimidating aura with wry smiles.
The two got closer, and one started to explain their findings while giving me a pitying smile.
"Seventeen magical signatures, seven registered at the ministry and curiously only one of those not from a staff member. The signatures were faint like you would suspect in such a magically rich environment, so we couldn't say if they were as recent as the assault or a little older."
Amelia nodded and looked at the older wizard of the pair, who I suspected to be the head auror Scrimgeour.
"Dumbledore told us in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't permit us to gather the magical signature of his students. 'They aren't criminals, and they are underage,' he said. Utter bullocks if you ask me. Half his students aren't underage, and there might very well be actual criminals among those 10 unidentified signatures. Not to mention their signature is registered when they hand over their wands at the ministry checkpoint for the first time anyway."
"Even when I was a student, the man always gave me the creeps with his smile. Wouldn't surprise me if Dumbledore knew more about this than he let on," the younger auror chimed in, and I immediately liked the bloke.
"Don't talk out of turn while in his hallowed halls," Scrimgeour barked, though he clearly had similar thoughts if his grim smirk was any indication.
"If you aren't allowed to gather the signatures, are you allowed to search their belongings? My pouch was destroyed, and I don't know what has been found yet or not... but a rather expensive ornate telescope I had in preparation for the Astronomy lesson that night was in it as well as several notebooks in my late mother's handwriting," I added when I noticed the conversation end.
"There's my textbooks, a padlock saturated in my magical signature from Charms demonstrations and a few muggle board and card games," I concluded, though I also quickly added: "If you find them on the Weasley twins, they have those very games because I gave it to them as a business arrangement. I can give you a list to double-check."
"Don't know, kid. The telescope and your mom's notes are well and good, but the rest could be on anybody. And even the first two: you're thinking they are kept as trophies, but your assailants could just claim they found these items in the corridors the morning after."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't want to tell you how to do your job anyway," I answered with a wry smile that seemed to rub the auror the wrong way as he glared at me with narrowed eyes.
"Don't argue with a 14 year old," Amelia chided and turned to me. "We'll see what we can do, but I don't have high hopes other than possibly getting you your belongings back with the way things are going."
"I don't think wizardkind was enlightened enough to create insurance policies yet... do I need to pay to replace my stuff all on my own?" I asked with an actual pained expression as I thought about my strained finances.
"You do," Scrimgeour answered with a shrug, and I felt my lips twitch.
"Should have gone to Beauxbaton," I muttered under my breath and earned a laugh from the three adults next to my bed.
A few minutes later of friendly reassurances, Amelia promised to come back once more in a day or two, so I downed the two potions Madam Pomfrey had set aside for me, quickly putting me back to sleep.
-----
Days later, on Saturday, Professor Flitwick came to the infirmary to pick me up for an impromptu shopping trip. His outrage has led to no actual justice since nobody was found guilty, but it did lead to every staff member looking at Dumbledore like he was a heartless fool.
A 'penniless' orphan lost almost everything he owned after getting viciously attacked, and the headmaster's only consideration seemed to be maintaining the schools image. As such, Dumbledore had visited me yesterday and handed me a new extended pouch in a grand benelovent gesture to offset my losses.
Not only was that thing merely half as big, which I found a particularly bitter insult, I also could never be sure what else Dumbledore had done to the thing. From tracking charms to wards that made me more reckless or dumber, I wouldn't put it past him to do anything to me after how he handled this attack against me. So I would never, in a million years, use that thing unless someone knowledgeable looked it over.
And forget the fact that Dumbledore had to have savings in the millions since he was one of only two Alchemy grandmasters in Europe and Britain. Him stiffing me on an equally as big extended bag was a major asshole move in my book.
"Somebody tipped off house Slytherin to the search. We found a few upper years dumping things into the black lake. By the time I arrived, we were able to conjure scraps and pieces from your mother's telescope. These Slytherin students were adamant that they were merely feeding the kraken in the lake," Flitwick explained as we walked toward his office in a rather slow manner.
And it wasn't because the half-goblin was so short, no. It was because nerve damage from 'Crucio' was actually a bitch and a half to heal. My left hand was still encased in heavy bandages courtesy of a healer from St Mungo who Madam Pomfrey had called in on Thursday.
All in all, I looked rather silly with my eyepatch and the half-unbuttoned dress shirt that wouldn't close over the bandages my upper body was in. Never mind my terrible pimp walk with the weird stiff movements. Flitwick had called me a pirate more than once to lighten the mood, and I could see where he was coming from. All I needed to complete the look was a hook sticking out of the bandage of my left hand, a hat, and maybe a cloak and a peg leg.
"And the aurors weren't allowed to investigate, I take it?" I asked with an amused expression that made Flitwick lift an eyebrow.
"You're taking it rather well," the professor observed out loud.
"Don't take this the wrong way, professor. But the moment our headmaster told me I had been unlucky and that finding the culprits wouldn't be so simple I immediately lost all hope for justice," I answered with a wry smile and scratched my head with my unbandaged right hand.
Flitwick's expression turned grim as we reached his office, and I saw his tiny fists clench.
"Miss Granger handed in your assignment," he eventually said as we stepped toward the floo. "Call out 'Leaky Cauldron'."
Without explaining further, Flitwick used the floo to teleport away, leaving me behind in his office with a fist full of weirdly colored powder and many pressing questions.
'Did he forget I was raised with muggles and don't necessarily know what a floo is? And how did... oh, right! Hermione asked me to read that assignment in the library before the dinner date! Doesn't that mean she has my mum's Charms notes, too, maybe? Ugh, I really hope she does...'
It turned out that my first floo travel was successful as I stepped into the Leaky Cauldron once more. A patiently waiting Flitwick nodded at me wordlessly and marched onward to Gringotts. I held a certain anticipation for how the professor would interact with fellow goblins.
"I'm pleased with your views on magic. I'll be taking you on as an apprentice once you're better. Madam Pomfrey told me you inquired about potions to strengthen a body. We'll start with that before we improve your magical skills: body conditioning," the professor said as he picked up the topic he interrupted by taking the floo earlier. "That is... if you still desire such an outcome?"
"I do," I immediately affirmed with an eager nod.
"Alright. We're going to Gringotts first to pick up some stuff from your vault?"
I nodded in confirmation. There was one thing I wanted to take that I would have otherwise asked Patrick to get soon.
"And we're having the goblins check your new pouch by the way you've been holding it like it contained the plague?"
A cold sweat ran down my spine, hoping he didn't figure out it was specifically because I didn't trust Dumbledore but rather a general paranoia I picked up after the assault.
Flitwick merely smirked when he sensed my unease and entered Gringotts ahead of me. He looked like a natural talking Gobbledegook, the guttural Goblin language, with the head teller and we were quickly brought to my family vault after one of the goblins took some money from Flitwick and removed some enchantments from the pouch. He couldn't tell me what they were - only that one of them sent out information somewhere.
Even Flitwick sighed in exasperation when he heard it but didn't comment.
Down in the vault, I picked up some more coins, noticing that a substantial amount was missing from before. So Spudmore, the creator of the firebolt, agreed to some form of plan or Patrick and the goblins straight up robbed me. I'm hoping it was the first.
I also packed a set of throwing knives and the ornamental Kopis, the Ancient Greece sword.
"The slight downward hook in the blade edge is to make deeper cuts during a slash when you pull back the sword," Flitwick had said and left it at that.
The professor didn't comment on me bringing a sword into school outside of that and it kind of made sense. What was a sword when I could just cast a 'Diffindo' to cut someone's windpipe from across the room anyway?
As we bought another robe that Madam Malkin gave me a heavy discount on when Flitwick told her what happened, I started noticing that the Charms professor was going to get me a bargain in any shop we were going to visit that day - and so he did. The new telescope was an older model that I barely paid half of what the newer one would cost.
The books I missed should have cost me a whole galleon more, but Flitwick told the clerk that the books for the next year might change so he should get rid of the stock before it was too late.
It made little sense since except for DADA, all books had stayed the same for decades, but somehow Flitwick made the clerk agree to his ridiculous bargain strategy.
And then there was only Ollivander's wand shop left. I knew nothing about what happened to my original wand, only that it wasn't with me these past few days and if it wasn't for Madam Pomfrey's books on healing that she let me browse, I would have lost my mind in boredom.
"Ah, Filius, Mister Macnair. I was wondering when you would allow me to rest my old bones once more," the wandmaker greeted when we entered the shop.
"You waited on us? Wait, your shop isn't open when it isn't Hogwarts shopping season?" I asked as I quickly made a connection and spoke it out loud.
"Heh, Ravenclaws. Think you have it all figured out just because you're a little smart," Ollivander scoffed with an amused smile. "Of course my shop is still open! But not only do I not run it and let my apprentice sit here to bore himself to death, I work on comissions and stock work by request through owl throughout the year. You won't find me here unless a special case like yours happens."
"Like mine? Don't I just try to find another wand like before?"
"That would be the case, Mister Macnair, if not for the fact that your head of house has found the tip of your wand and personally made me move my old bones to try my hand at restoring your wand," Ollivander explained as he gave Flitwick a respectful nod. "A new wand would certainly do you well should you find one. But a restored wand, especially one with a Unicorn Tail Hair core, would be beneficial to you like no other."
I looked toward Flitwick with a shocked look that quickly turned into a grin. I made myself an instrumental, influential, and loyal ally in this world.
"Here, take a look. It's not often I get to work with goblin silver."
My look toward Flitwick turned into shock once more as his grin turned savage.
"You know what that means, Talion?"
I dumbly nodded, but then I shook my head.
"Goblin silver is special to us. Every gram, every little item made out of the metal belongs to a bloodline because of how it is made which I cannot tell you. The silver left to me by my mother was merely gathering dust. Well, the silver I didn't leverage into a higher standing in goblin society. Once you die, it will go back to my lineage. Or your family will have to start a feud with mine."
"Don't take this the wrong way, professor, but... you have a family?"
Flitwick shook his head with a wry smile and answered, "I do. But I'm a private person. Ask me again when we spent a year together."
"Um, are you not interested in your restored wand, Mister Macnair?"
I turned back toward Ollivander and scratched my head.
"Sorry, Mister Ollivander. Where is it?"
"In this box," the old man replied and pointed to the box on the counter in front of him. "Like I said, I don't often work with goblin silver. Third time ever, in fact. And, luckily for you, my father's stock still held a piece of rosewood from the same source as your wand. I even managed to ask your groundskeeper Hagrid for a bush of tail hair from the same herd your original wand core came from, so thank him if you meet him next."
I picked up the wand that looked almost the same as the original, yet it held a finger-wide ring made out of goblin silver just at the part I considered the handle. The ring probably held the old wood part and the new part together, though I couldn't be sure. Some veins of silver were going down from the ring toward the original snapped part like they were filling fractures. Other than that, it still held the same warm brown color with the red hue.
"It all led to this. The wand should be even stronger than before. Not in small parts thanks to the goblin silver, but also because I combined the remaining old core with a new one. It's all magically sound, but it was a challenge. Let me tell you that," Ollivander explained with a wide grin. "Go on. Give it a wave, lad."
I looked toward Flitwick, who gave me a nod and cast the longest, most intricate 'Lumos Funicola' or light-rope charm I could muster. After it almost filled the entire quaint shop, I stopped providing magic to the spell and let it fizzle out with a silent 'Nox'.
"Glad to see this setback hasn't diminished your talent in Charms. I'd award you points for this display, alas we are not in school."
"Thanks, professor. I won't get in trouble because of the trace?"
"Is that why you gave me that look? No worries, then. You're in a magically satured place. The trace won't pick up your spellcasting in Diagon Alley," the professor explained and gave me a short guilty feeling since I asked to get more information on how the trace worked, not because I was worried.