Argus paid no mind to how Lupin and Harry were communicating with Dumbledore. His immediate priority was preparing for a potential trip back in time. This reversal would be far more complex than before—not just evading prying eyes, but executing a series of precise maneuvers. Without proper groundwork, failure could strand him forever, with no way back.
He held off on acting right away, unsure if Dumbledore might summon him for questioning. Instead, he lay on his bed, waiting quietly, and before long, drifted off to sleep. He figured the night would pass uneventfully.
The next morning, as Argus entered the Great Hall for breakfast, a wave of shocking news hit the tables: Harry was missing!
It was his close friend Ron who'd raised the alarm.
"Harry's gone? At Hogwarts?" Argus muttered, joining the murmurs.
"Impossible," someone nearby scoffed. "Dumbledore guards him like a hawk. How could anything like this happen here?"
Argus tuned in closely. He'd sworn an oath to Dumbledore to safeguard Harry's life—unless Harry courted disaster himself. The boundary was fuzzy, though. If trouble struck, Dumbledore would surely drag him into the fray. After all, the acolytes now dominated Britain's magical landscape, forcing even ancient pure-blood families to tread carefully around their influence. Dumbledore wouldn't shy from leveraging such power.
...
In the headmaster's office, Ron shrank into his chair like a cornered animal. The four heads of house—Snape, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout—along with Lupin, loomed over him. Oddly, Percy was there too.
Dumbledore sat behind his desk, face grave as stone.
"Mr. Weasley," he began, "you're saying Harry used the Invisibility Cloak last night to swipe Percy's Time-Turner?"
The Weasley connection complicated matters, leaving Dumbledore in a bind.
"Yeah... that's what happened," Ron stammered.
Flitwick frowned. "As I recall, Mr. Potter has no need for extra classes. Why would he want a Time-Turner?"
McGonagall and Sprout nodded, sharing the confusion.
Dumbledore and Snape exchanged knowing glances, suspecting the truth: Peter Pettigrew.
Ron darted looks at Dumbledore and the professors before continuing haltingly. "He'd mentioned it a few days back—asked me about Time-Turners. I brushed it off. Then last night, he snuck out with the cloak, mumbling about going back to save his parents. Something about the real traitor being..."
"And then?" Lupin cut in sharply. With Peter still at large, clearing Sirius's name was off-limits. The truth could unravel everything.
Ron swallowed. "He was heading back in time. That's all I got."
"Mr. Weasley," Sprout snapped, her voice laced with frustration, "if you suspected Harry was about to do something reckless, why didn't you stop him? Or alert the headmaster? The boy grew up Muggle-born—he knows nothing of Time-Turners' dangers. You should've known better!"
Ron flinched. His logic had been straightforward: Percy had used the device for ages without mishap. It couldn't be that perilous. Let Harry give it a shot; what if he actually rescued his parents? But Harry had vanished into the temporal rift without a trace.
Only that morning, waking alone with Harry's bed empty and the dormitory deserted, had Ron panicked. He'd rushed to Percy, who fetched McGonagall.
"Pomona, blaming him won't help," Dumbledore sighed, massaging his temples. "Harry didn't return on schedule—he's lost in the rift."
Flitwick elaborated gravely. "To retrieve him, we'd need to pinpoint the exact moment and place of his jump. Another wizard must pull him back to the proper timeline from that same point. But it's perilous—easy to get trapped in an alternate flow."
Sprout added, "Worse, the fragile timeline around a lost traveler can't handle an adult's magic. Only an underage wizard could manage it without shattering everything."
Eyes turned to Snape and Dumbledore. If anyone fit the bill, it was Argus.
Dumbledore hesitated, his mind churning. As the century's greatest white wizard, he knew the risks of timeline traversal all too well—near-suicidal odds. Yet Harry was pivotal to toppling Voldemort. Losing him wasn't an option.
But...
"No," McGonagall interjected firmly. "We can't send another underage student into danger! We won't stake one child's life on saving another, no matter Harry's destiny."
Sprout and Flitwick nodded in agreement, their silence heavy. Even for a prophesied savior, no minor wizard—Argus or otherwise—should trade their future for uncertainty.
"I wouldn't dream of it, Minerva," Dumbledore replied swiftly, preserving his reputation before students and staff. He wouldn't barter young lives for Harry's.
Yet he hadn't ruled out a voluntary rescue. If a student chose to brave the timelines on their own, that was different—no blame could fall on him.
Reluctantly, with no other options, they shelved involving minors. But abandoning Harry wasn't feasible. The group dove into a fierce debate, tossing out spells and strategies: tracking charms, temporal anchors, even theoretical alliances. Hours passed, but no viable plan emerged.
As the others filed out, Dumbledore halted Snape.
"Severus," he said quietly, "fetch Mr. Filch. Ask him to come to my office."
---
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