Ian's homemade Marauder's Map showed a name with perfect clarity.
Aberforth Dumbledore.
It was, of course, still a Dumbledore—but not the Dumbledore everyone knew. The name hovered directly above the head of the only person in the Headmaster's Office.
"My damned insight is truly charming." Ian stared at the black dot in the Headmaster's Office, and the expression on his pursed lips did not change.
He had noticed something was off about Dumbledore long ago. He had sensed it back in the Forbidden Forest, and after arriving at the Headmaster's Office, that sense of wrongness had only become more apparent.
Perhaps Albus Dumbledore would, for certain reasons, temporarily allow Voldemort to operate in secret. But Dumbledore, as Headmaster, would never come up with eight hundred excuses to avoid searching for Voldemort with the other professors just so he could return to his office for a cup of tea. Ian had clearly sensed fear in the Forbidden Forest.
Dumbledore being afraid of Voldemort?
Of course not!
And for Ian to sense his emotions so easily was already extremely abnormal. Under normal circumstances, that would never happen before Albus Dumbledore lost control of his emotions.
Ian's powers of observation were quite sharp. He realized that ever since the Forbidden Forest, Dumbledore had acted as though everything could wait until later. The more he looked at it, the more it resembled the perfunctory attitude of a summer temp paid by the day—so long as the problem did not erupt during his "shift," he had won.
Such behavior was far too strange. It was nothing like the Headmaster Ian knew!
And although they had agreed to come to the Headmaster's Office to discuss Voldemort, Dumbledore had done nothing but drink tea after arriving. Not only had he failed to ask a single question about