"You have a magnificent beard, Headmaster Dumbledore," the boy said, breaking the silence. "It must be difficult to maintain."
"It's not easy," Dumbledore's lips curled upward. "But magic works wonders. Just a couple of passes with the wand in the morning, and the beard looks magnificent."
"It all reads like a forensic psychiatrist's report," Richard noted to himself. "The clothes, the behavior, the way he took the initiative in the conversation with the Minister. And I'm alone with this lunatic. My goodness... I just got away with Azkaban, and now this... Oh, my gut instinct tells me the headmaster wasn't just trying to get me off the hook. On the one hand, he was showing the Minister his authority over the school, on the other, he seemed to be doing the young lord a big favor, but in reality, he was simply fulfilling his duties as head of the educational institution. And although I wasn't really in any danger, since the charges were truly flimsy, to a child my age, such a situation must have seemed very dangerous. I'll think about the Minister's motives later. For now, I need to figure out what Dumbledore wanted from me."
"A phoenix," Richard remarked, turning his gaze to the bird. "A curious and very rare specimen of magical fauna. I've heard they can teleport with large loads."
"We wizards say 'apparate' or 'disapparate,'" Dumbledore corrected calmly, also looking at the phoenix. "Yes, Fawkes is an amazing bird, and his abilities are astounding."
The Headmaster turned back to Richie and said:
"Richard, magic power can be intoxicating sometimes. It seems like you can do anything and nothing will happen. But that's not really the case."
Richard didn't like where the headmaster was heading. He realized Dumbledore didn't believe in his innocence. He decided to ask:
- Headmaster Dumbledore, have you collected anything?
"Yes, my boy," Dumbledore replied. "I adore sweets and hope to try every one in the world."
"And I love comics, sir. They're those picture books with fairy tales about people with supernatural powers or fantastic devices."
"I know what comics are," the Headmaster said.
"When I learned about the wizarding world, I decided to collect items owned by comic book heroes. The wizarding workshop was created to create them. Just a collection, sir, nothing more. So the minister's accusation is as much news to me as it is to you. Don't bother lecturing me, Headmaster. For me, losing part of my collection is like losing your candy. It's livable, but it's not much fun."
"Well, Mr. Rich, I really hope that Muggles won't steal from you anymore," the headmaster said suggestively, looking at the boy with a heavy gaze.
- I hope so too.
Richie forced a dazzling smile onto his face. It was a huge effort. The boy felt the tension inside and was wary of the Headmaster, like any sane person in the company of a psychopath.
"Well, I won't keep you with my old man's grumbling," the Headmaster said. "Go on, my boy, and don't be naughty. Use your toys wisely and don't leave them lying around in the hallways..."
- Goodbye, sir. Thank you for the pleasant conversation.
Richard struggled to maintain his straight posture and impassive demeanor. Only after leaving the Headmaster's office and getting a good distance away did he allow himself to relax.
A swarm of goosebumps ran through his body, his muscles suddenly felt weak, and his limbs felt heavy, as if sandbags had been tied to his arms and legs. Richard hunched over, as if the air had been suddenly let out of him, like from a balloon. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, his head was pounding with a migraine, and it was hard to breathe.
The young lord leaned his back against the cold wall and tried to collect his thoughts, but after the stress he had experienced, his head refused to think.
Somehow gathering his will into a fist, Richie trudged to the hospital wing.
Richard was certain Dumbledore knew far more about Rich's workshop than ordinary wizards. Therefore, there was no doubt the headmaster had long ago guessed the identity of the troll's conqueror. His blatant allusion to the toys in the hallway... Few would have failed to realize he was referring to the robot's severed tentacles.
"The old man is very complex and dangerous, like any madman," Richard thought on the way to the healer. "He must either be brought down en masse, or we must reckon with him and dance to his tune. And what a convenient situation with Fudge... Everything went too well for Dumbledore, but badly for me. Now the Minister of Magic is against me. It all looks so much like a divide-and-conquer setup, as if someone deliberately put the Minister on the spot to arrest me, thereby creating a quarrel between Fudge and the Richs and, by extension, the royal family-in other words, the British government. I can feel it, I can feel it with every fiber of my being, Dumbledore's beard peeking out from behind this. But you can't attach feelings to the case; everything is so smooth that there is no evidence."
The school healer, Poppy Pomfrey, a blue-eyed, middle-aged woman in a purple dress with a white apron and a white cap, immediately began to fuss upon seeing Rich's condition. She administered calming and strengthening potions to the boy, then laid him down on a hospital bed and ordered him to rest.
Richard felt a little better after taking the potions. His head cleared, and he continued to think.
"Fudge's an idiot! If he'd addressed that note directly to me, everything might have been different. Fool! The minister only had to hint at possible legal troubles for me to get into trouble. I could have easily forked over a hefty bribe, and I could have been filling the minister's pockets on a regular basis. Is he really so stupid that he can't see the obvious?"
Richard had well-founded doubts that Fudge wasn't taking bribes. After all, it was well known that Lucius Malfoy pocketed the Minister at least five hundred Galleons every year. And here we were talking about tens of thousands of gold coins.
This again suggested that the entire situation had been deliberately orchestrated and orchestrated, like clockwork. Someone with power in the wizarding world, someone with a penchant for intrigue and manipulation. Which brings us back to the Doctor's characterization of Dumbledore.