Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [6]

⚡️ Chapter 4 ⚡️

"I suppose we can have a drink, at least?" Dumbledore asked. "For old time's sake?" Vega watched as Slughorn hesitated for a moment.

"All right then, one drink," Slughorn said ungraciously.

Dumbledore smiled at Vega and Harry, and directed them toward a pair of chairs not unlike the one that Slughorn had so recently impersonated, which stood right beside the newly burning fire and a brightly glowing oil lamp.

Vega took her seat with a very distinct impression that Dumbledore, for some reason, wanted to keep both her and Harry as visible as possible.

Certainly, when Slughorn, who had been busy with decanters and glasses, turned to face the room again, his eyes fell immediately upon the teenagers.

"Hmpf," Slughorn said, looking away quickly as though frightened of hurting his eyes. "Here –" He gave a drink to Dumbledore, who had sat down without invitation, thrust the tray at Vega and Harry, and then sank into the cushions of the repaired sofa and a disgruntled silence. His legs were so short they did not touch the floor.

"Well, how have you been keeping, Horace?" Dumbledore asked.

"Not so well," Slughorn said at once. "Weak chest. Wheezy. Rheumatism too. Can't move like I used to. Well, that's to be expected. Old age. Fatigue,"

"And yet you must have moved fairly quickly to prepare such a welcome for us at such short notice," Dumbledore pointed out.

"You can't have had more than three minutes' warning?" Slughorn said, half irritably, half proudly, "Two. Didn't hear my Intruder Charm go off, I was taking a bath. Still," He added sternly, seeming to pull himself back together again. "The fact remains that I'm an old man, Albus. A tired old man who's earned the right to a quiet life and a few creature comforts,"

At these words, Vega glanced around the room once again – he certainly had those.

It was stuffy and cluttered, yet nobody could say it was uncomfortable; there were soft chairs and footstools, drinks and books, boxes of chocolates and plump cushions. Vega thought it was okay but all of this was far from the style that she liked.

"You're not yet as old as I am, Horace," Dumbledore told him.

"Well, maybe you ought to think about retirement yourself," Slughorn said bluntly. His pale gooseberry eyes had found Dumbledore's injured hand. "Reactions not what they were, I see,"

"You're quite right," Dumbledore said serenely, shaking back his sleeve to reveal the tips of those burned and blackened fingers. "I am undoubtedly slower than I was. But on the other hand, ..."

As Dumbledore shrugged and spread his hands wide, as though to say that age had its compensations, Vega noticed that he was wearing a strange ring on his uninjured hand – it wasn't anything that she had seen him wear before.

When Vega looked away, she caught sight of Slughorn, and she noticed that his eyes lingered for a moment on the ring too, and a tiny frown momentarily creased his wide forehead. She wondered if the ring held any significance between the two.

"So, all these precautions against intruders, Horace..." Dumbledore continued onward. "Are they for the Death Eaters' benefit, or mine?"

"What would the Death Eaters want with a poor broken-down old buffer like me?" Slughorn demanded, and even Vega knew at once something was up.

Why else would someone be so hostile?

"I imagine that they would want you to turn your considerable talents to coercion, torture, and murder," Dumbledore said. "Are you really telling me that they haven't come recruiting yet?"