Chapter Text
In spite of opportunities to attend multiple magical schools, around the world, Harry Potter had chosen to follow family tradition into Hogwarts, along with his godbrother Neville Longbottom, and their mundane-born friend, Hermione Granger. Some things are just fated, others not.
In spite of all the proofs of Voldemort's demise, Albus Dumbledore remained on as Headmaster, and also remained far too deeply habituated to manipulating people. Too many abnormal occurrences in First Year had caused their families to use the strange devices left with them during the summer holiday period when the children were at home.
A few days later, The Agent called at Potter Manor, and was briefed in detail on the Headmaster's inability to keep his meddling hands in his "cotton-pickin' pockets", a phrase Illya had acquired from his long time mundane partner, now retired, Napoleon Solo.
The Agent had called upon the Goblins and their intel had been forthcoming, unlike Dummy's. Since they were under Treaty to the Crown, regarding their status in Britain, which preceded the formation of the Ministry by a century or two, they were duty bound to respond to the proper questions, regardless of policy on customer privacy. Security of the Realm overrode anything else, and the Official Secrets Act was in play.
Many previously reported problems at the 'warts had continued, and no apparent effort to correct them had been undertaken. Indeed, all efforts to instigate corrective measures had been blocked by manipulations of the Headbastard.
Besides leaving paperwork for the "Golden Trio", and some additional friends, with their respective parents, Illya made a 'command decision'.
It was time to finish his "unfinished business".
Dumb-as-a-door had been given every reasonable chance to either clean up his act or retire gracefully, yet neither had occurred. He also felt himself invulnerable; the lesson and example the ends of Pettigrew and Voldemort had simply failed to impress anything on his calcified mind. He still considered himself the ultimate authority and was still convinced of his untouchability.
Thus it was that Illya ghosted across the vaunted wards of Hogwarts, undetected, or rather, unreported. That function had been negated by the very changes the Headmaster had himself made to the wardstones over the years. Runes had NOT been his weakest subject at the 'Warts, but it was very near the bottom, being useless for Alchemy.
The flying carpet Agent Kuryakin was using had been woven in Samarkand, along the famous Silk Road, sometime around 700 AD, and before the first Ollivander began mongering wands in England. They might have been making wands since 382 BCE, but not in London. Illya had acquired it while on a mission that took him into Baghdad in the 1960s. The price, including the life of the rug merchant's blood sworn enemy, would have been cheap at twice the price.
He had acquired his custom made backup wand nearby on the same trip. It was a jealously guarded secret that it was made of frankincense bush, with a yeti fur core. The onetime Illya had passed by, near Ollivander's shop, the ancient wand-monger had felt a distinct chill run down his spine for no apparent reason.
Landing atop the Administrative Tower, Illya descended to the high window of the Headmaster's office. It was fitted with a particularly shoddy lock, though that would have made no difference, but no one ever considered an assault through a 7th story window, in spite of brooms and flying carpets. Wixen generally had blind spots large enough to drive an articulated lorry through.
A wide area portrait-specific sleeping spell insured no portraits were in a position to sound any alarm or remember what occurred. Perhaps surprisingly Fawkes raised no ruckus either. Illya had been prepared to gift him with a burning day if necessary. An elf exclusion ward went up over the entire tower. As it was now 3 AM, no elves were in the tower to notice.
The silenced Agent descended into the sanctuary of the Headmaster, wearing both disillusionment charms and a bubblehead. Release of a powerful sleeping agent gas which passed around the unsealed edges of the doors into all side rooms covered the possibility of anyone interrupting his planned activities. Professionalism, as well as a long wizarding life, and pure luck had all combined to keep Illya alive in a dangerous profession.
His professionalism also required him to check the contents of the desk, including its hidden drawers, and the hidden wall safe, behind the books on the fifth bookshelf, just because he could. A number of new pieces of evidence had thus fallen into his hands, not that anything more had been needed.
After all, the Goblins despised a thief above all else, and the thieving Headmaster had not been nearly clever enough to deceive them. House Dumbledore was never rich, and would have been bankrupt ages ago had not steady streams of stolen gold found their way into his vaults.
Those god-awful robes he fancied did not come cheap, and he did not live an abstemious life in private either. When he dined alone, thick cuts of prime rib and glasses of fine (and expensive) wines, none of which appeared on the great hall tables, were the rule.
They had tracked his theft of money from the vaults of war orphans, whom he had assumed 'guardianship' over, through the network of account transfers, even through multiple mundane banks, and back into his accounts, for decades. Having drained the orphans of both the Grindelwald War and the Voldemort War, he was now reduced to pedaling drugs, neatly available through his resident Potions Master, in Knockturn Alley through various cat's-paws. Mundungus Fletcher and his friends had their uses.
The Goblins were fully prepared to seize his vaults and real estate, the jewels and rare books he had amassed, which would sell well, to reimburse as much as possible the accounts of the war orphans who were scraping by in either the magical or mundane worlds.
They had dreams of watching him waste away, either shoveling dragon dung or at even harder labor down in the mines, trying to earn his way out of servitude for the debts that could not be covered.
Illya's reappearance on the scene was most providential, from their point of view, and their suggestions had been carefully considered.