Arthur had shown up three days into the new semester asking to see his children. Augusta conceded to his requested because he was asking. Not demanding. Nor did he ask to see Harry at the same time. Besides which, his entire body language screamed heart break. Not revenge.
So she had called the youngest two Weaselys to her office and let them visit with their father though she didn't leave them alone with him. He asked them, "How did this happen? Albus assured us everything was going fine between you. He said Harry was dating you now, Ginny, but he was keeping an eye on things making sure it didn't go too far too fast. And he said you, Hermione and Harry were all tight friends again, Ron. But the twins said he marked her too. And she got expelled for cheating. I don't understand this. What happened?"
Ron sighed and hung his head. "First off, we got cocky. Figured since he hadn't caught on to us being paid to be around him or just helping ourselves to his stuff yet, we didn't need to be so careful about what we said or did. I mean, when I think back I can see we weren't exactly subtle or cautious about what we were doing. And there were several times when he caught us red handed going through his stuff. But we just blew it off and pretended we weren't doing anything wrong. And he just let it go, you know. So we assumed he didn't know. Just like we assumed he didn't understand what we truly thought about him. Hermione kept telling us how stupid and blind he is. I guess we just came to believe it, you know."
Ginny was nodding as she added, "But he isn't. Not stupid and definitely not blind. He knew exactly what kind of 'friends' we actually were."
Ron spoke around her continuing his tale. "So when we couldn't get into the vaults at the end of summer and Mum couldn't get us good stuff for this year or new clothes, we put our heads together. Figured we get him to give us back our access and then, on the first Hogsmeade weekend, put his money to our use again. We thought we were so smart, see. Since we've spent all our time here helping our former Headmaster set up his training scenarios and driving Harry into them which allowed the old headmaster to keep his control over Harry and his reputation, we really did think we could do anything we wanted. Any time one of the teachers started getting onto us, Dumbledore would handle it for us and keep us out of trouble. So yeah. We got cocky."
"We decided to confront him about it. Rather stupid of us, now that I think about it. I mean, we were cocky because we thought he was too stupid to know we were being paid from his vaults. Yet we were going to go straight to him and browbeat and bully him into giving us new keys when our old ones didn't work any more." He shook his head as if amazed at how stupid he could be.
"As if he actually had our keys in his pocket," muttered Ginny snorting derisively. "He's not a damn goblin and we all knew the goblins recalled our old keys. We also knew only a goblin can hand out a new key. Yet we confronted him and demanded like children asking for candy that he hand over our keys. Hands out to him and everything. We were so stupid."
Ron nodded flushing with embarrassment. "Mione said he owed us because it was his need to be the Hero that always got us into tight spots where our lives were in danger and neither of us questioned that at all. We should have because we both knew it wasn't true. I mean we set those damn things up so we knew how dangerous they really were. And we always chose to go with him because Harry always tried to stay out of the dangerous part of things. He always wanted to go get a teacher and just tell them what we knew about things. So the teachers could take care of the problem. We never let him because Dumbledore wanted to be able to show the public he was the hero they could count on. And none of us were actually in any danger that we didn't bring onto ourselves. I mean, yeah Gin was in danger her first year here and Mione and I found ourselves in plenty of tight spots over the years. But that wasn't Harry's fault. If it was anyone's, it was Dumbledore's because he insisted we push Harry to solve each years trouble."
"But anyhow, the first time we knew Dumbledore was out of the Castle,"
Ginny interrupted with a frown, "He's been gone a lot this year for some odd reason. He's usually never gone when school's in session. Sometimes he'll go somewhere for a few hours but usually never for a full day. But this year he's gone more than he's here."