A new morning
The sun rose over Britain on a cold November Wednesday. The skies were clear and light shone through the windows of Gryffindor tower. Normally, Harry wouldn’t sleep that long during the week, but the previous day had drained him thoroughly - and he didn’t have a class in the morning either way. He turned to his nightstand and reached for his pocket watch… and realised that it was almost eight o’clock. If he’d hurry, he could still manage to reach the Great Hall before the Daily Prophet arrived.
Ronald was still snoring, and Seamus was asleep as well. Both had been partying yesterday evening, that much Harry still remembered from sneaking across the room under the cloak. Neville wasn’t in here anymore, but Dean was. He looked up from his comic book and smiled once he saw Harry opening the curtains around his bed.
“Morning, Harry. I guess you slept well?”
“Oh yes. That was totally necessary. Those two went a bit crazy yesterday?”
Dean nodded.
“Yeah. Seamus was just having a bit of fun and Ron… I think he was enjoying the spiked punch and the Firewhisky to cope with his frustration. Honestly, I believe he wanted to see you embarrass yourself yesterday. You two were really a good influence on him, now his real side is showing again. Remember how rude and impulsive he was in first year? And Merlin be damned, he’s stubborn.”
“You’re right, he is. But it’s not just that. His brothers are smart and successful, while he is lazy. I have money, and he doesn’t - but he doesn’t get how much I’d love to have a family. A fallout was inevitable. Anyway… got to hurry, the Daily Prophet will be delivered soon. That’s gonna be fun.”
He reached into his trunk and chose his clothes for the day. From now on he could be a bit less careful regarding his daywear. Few had noticed his inherited watch or new wand holster, and if someone saw it they kept it to themselves, but now this cloak and dagger mentality was over. His utility belt went around his hips and tied the robe together, and instead of the plain black cloak he chose the self-sizing cloak, black as well but with a Gryffindor-red lining and a subtle golden embroidery around the edges, forming the Potter Coat of Arms at the collar. This was still within the clothing guidelines, worn rather rarely, but it wouldn’t stand out that much. Slytherin and Ravenclaw had - mostly older - students wearing similar clothes, and even few Hufflepuffs did so (Cedric for example, quite often this year). Younger students from Noble Houses tended to wear normal cloaks, simply because self-sizing clothing was very expensive, and the more the charms had to re-size, the faster it wore out. Such a piece of clothing wouldn’t survive seven years of growth, and this was truly a waste of money for such a high-quality piece. Thankfully, the Potters were very skilled at runic enchantments. His dad wore that one throughout school and it was still functioning.
After Harry had taken a quick shower, brushed his teeth and got dressed, he hurried into the Common Room. There weren’t many people in here (the majority were either still sleeping due to the partying or already at breakfast), but those few sitting in here turned towards Harry and raised an eyebrow.
And then he saw her.
Hermione sat in the corner, with a book in her lap, looking up and smiling at him with her gorgeous brown eyes. Her smile made Harry’s heart flutter, proving him beyond all doubt that he was madly in love with his best friend.
To him it felt like his heart was much lighter than ever before, so much trouble and so much worry was just gone. Someone else would deal with Voldemort. He could just live. Adults who cared and actively did something were finally in his life (no offence to the Weasleys, they were just great, but when it came to dealing with Voldemort and co., they just couldn’t help him).
Harry sat down next to her, maybe a bit closer than he would have done just weeks prior, and leaned over.
“Good morning.”
She smiled at him and for a brief moment all he could think about was just how gorgeous her lips looked. Very kissable probably. Not that Harry had any experience with that, but he got the feeling that it would be divine.
And then, after an intense moment of tension, both teens snapped out of it - too many people around. They blushed.
“Hey you. Slept alright? You seemed pretty done yesterday.”
“Yeah, everything fine. It was just a long day, I needed that. Breakfast?”
Hermione laughed.
“You just want to see the faces when the morning paper arrives. Let’s go, pretty boy. Love the cloak by the way. Gorgeous.”
If Harry would be able to see himself in the mirror right now, he’d see a mild blush on his face. But no. He was completely oblivious to that. Just as he was oblivious to several students shaking their heads in disbelief (“those idiots really thought they were not being noticed”) or exchanging coins. The love life of the infamous golden trio was one of many topics with ongoing betting pools. A few of the sixth and seventh year Gryffindors would certainly adjust their bets in the school-wide betting pools. Ronald Weasley would probably finish last in fourth year (not Vincent Crabbe or Gregory Goyle), Harry Potter wouldn’t take Cho Chang or Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball and so on.
To an extent, it surprised Minerva McGonagall, that the Headmaster was strangely absent at breakfast, but on the other hand, he just took a major political hit. There would certainly be something in the morning paper.
And then she saw Harry Potter and Hermione Granger enter the Great Hall with smiling faces and walking so close to each other that their hands were almost touching. She’d have to bet more money on that Yule Ball pairing - only her, Bathsheda, Filius and Irma voted for that (Poppy was still undecided). Most staff members followed Hagrid’s vote for Miss Weasley, and Sibyll betted on Cho Chang.
Minerva knew that she was going to be in for a surprise with the paper, Mr Potter said as much, but now she was beyond curious. He was more than happy, actually even grinning. Oh no. That was almost a flashback to James Potter and his very impressive pranks. Like that one time every student in the Great Hall turned yellow, red, green and blue respectively. And the entire staff turned purple. Even now she didn’t know how the Marauders managed that.
“I feel impending doom. Am I the only one?”
“I get what you mean, Filius. That smile looks like an unhealthy combination of James Potter’s anticipation of a good prank and Lily being plainly terrifying.”
But both Severus Snape and Bahtsheda Babbling disagreed.
“It seems like you don’t recognise a happy Slytherin, Minerva, Filius. That’s nothing like James Potter waiting for a laugh. This is joy at utter destruction of an enemy and a rise to power. A tactician seeing his success. Sirius Black exonerated, Dumbledore dragged through the mud, the Minister and DMLE listening to every word he says and effectively leader of a majority in the Wizengamot. Everyone from Longbottom to Malfoy falling in line behind a Potter-Black alliance. You’ve got a snake in the lions’ den, Minerva.”
Bathsheda nodded.
“I double-checked whether Henry Potter actually was a Gryffindor - which he was. I fully believe both he and our Mr Potter manipulated the Sorting Hat. But hey, he’s a good kid, and Sirius Black deserves his freedom. So they succeeded yesterday, Severus?”
The Potions Professor wasn’t willing to formally confirm, but everyone knew he had his sources. His silence was confirmation enough. Whispers broke out, because not everyone had known the truth about Sirius Black and what was going on behind the scenes - several teachers, core subjects aside, had little to no contact to Potter and his friends.
“And there we go!”
Minerva with her good hearing (cat animagus be blessed) perceived the teenager’s happy exclamation, looked up and saw the owls entering the Great Hall. It took a lot of mental strength to not rudely summon a newspaper or leap forward and rip it out of their claws.
Strangely, the format was a bit bigger than usual, which made sense the moment she unfolded it and looked at the big front page. It was split in the middle, with “Potter triumphs” separating the upper and lower half from each other. The upper half depicted the fight against the dragon (“Defeating a dragon…”), and the lower half was a picture of Harry and Sirius hugging, with Fudge, Bones, Malfoy, Augusta Longbottom and Remus Lupin standing in the background and smiling (“... and proving, that Sirius Black is innocent”).
In a few words, to make the pictures as big and impressive as possible, Rita Skeeter told a tale of the Potter heir impressively beating a dragon against all odds and clearing Sirius Black’s name. With quotes from the Minister, Lady Bones, Lady Longbottom and Lord Malfoy they all condemned the horrible mistakes that happened during the war and showed relief about the truth coming out. It was an article that could - and probably would - sway the public opinion even more in Harry Potter’s favour. Skeeter’s very talented writing mixed with an unusually high amount of facts and quotes made the whole thing very believable, and the pictures were chosen well. Not even her, one of Skeeter’s vocal critics among the staff, doubted the veracity of the article.
She put the newspaper aside after skimming the next few articles detailing the trial and providing a timeline of Sirius Black’s story and got up. Harry Potter, grinning broadly, was already expecting her.
“Oh, sometimes you are nothing like your parents, Mr Potter. I hear you resemble Henry Potter very much. Good for you. Twenty points for thinking before acting. I believe I have to write a letter to your new guardian - sort of - now, as your Head of House, informing him about your performance at school.”
Professor McGonagall sighed - clearly joking, which caused many students to question whether they were dreaming. The Great Hall was on the verge of exploding with noise, now that nearly everyone had gotten a look at the Daily Prophet. She definitely didn’t mind leaving now before it turned chaotic.
“Oh, have fun, Professor. Add a little twirl to the glitter charm so it will explode into his face when he opens the letter, and if you add “infinitas” to the incantation, a normal Finite won’t vanish it.”
She just raised an eyebrow.
“Interesting. Have Remus Lupin send a memory to me, I will have to try that out and want to see the outcome.”
Harry suppressed a snort.
“Sure thing. I’ll let him know.”
“Thank you. Take five points for Gryffindor.”
And then she just walked out of the Great Hall, while everyone was wondering whether Minerva McGonagall just gave points for a planned prank or not.
During this very surreal seeming interaction and the chaos the news brought with them, few, if any at all, noticed the letter a huge brown owl dropped in front of Hermione Granger. It was a very well-cared for animal and the envelope was quite expensive and noble looking. Harry of course knew what this was going to be. Lucius Malfoy hadn’t waited at all and sent his formal apology.
“Harry? Is that the…”
“Not here, Mione. Library? I need to talk to grandpa either way.”
The girl nodded, carefully put the letter into her satchel and finished the remainder of her breakfast while Harry was trying his best to avoid annoying questions from everyone. Thankfully, Professor Flitwick gently reminded the students to calm down and leave him be, and the Weasley twins might have made a few threats about pranks - strangely, no staff member, not even Professor Snape seemed to have heard them. A mystery.
Not much later the duo made their way to the library - which was turning into one of their favourite places in recent times. Irma Pince greeted them with a smile on her face, after reading the Daily Prophet she was even more proud of them than before.
“Good morning, you two. My congrats on a job well done. Go right through, if the Headmaster looks for you I’ll send him away and give him a piece of my mind.”
Henry was already waiting for them. After the wonderful tale of the first task he was confident in Harry’s plans, but nonetheless. The old rune master was worried that in the end, corruption and people with self-serving motives would win, instead of the truth. But no, this worry was unfounded. Harry was clearly happy.
“Oh look at that. Someone was successful yesterday.”
Harry just nodded enthusiastically and began to tell him all about the Wizengamot meeting. Henry was very happy to hear that Lucius Malfoy acted as they had expected - now major parts of the dark faction would at least be willing to discuss politics with them and withdraw their support from the Dark Lord. Many of them wanted to go back to the times, where you could actually discuss and make compromises in the Wizengamot. This way you created laws everyone could somehow agree to. But with the rise of Dumbledore, not just as a skilled warlock, but as a politician, that decreased. That man was just not willing to talk. He always claimed he had the moral high ground and plainly refused everything against his agenda without even debating. And with the amount of followers he amassed, he made the Wizengamot almost defunct. Light and Dark didn’t even talk to each other and just opposed everything - if only out of spite - while the remaining centre faction was despised by the other two factions. And at the same time, they needed their votes for a majority.
But now many who left the centre to either side would return, with a powerful leadership from Houses with a lot of sway they would be a real political power again, only needing a few other votes for a majority. Before, all three factions had about a third of the votes, with the centre being a bit smaller than the others (something between 25 and 30 percent). Now, with Harry and Sirius, as well as the returning Houses they would end up with almost 45 percent. This was a bit more than back in the day, simply because Bones, Longbottom and Potter shifted from light to centre, and Black moved to the middle as well. And then they had people willing to talk on both the light and dark side, like Malfoy, Abbott, Doge or Greengrass. With those Houses, and their respective allies who would fall in line behind them, they wouldn’t have many issues to create majorities. From now on people wouldn’t have to default to either Dumbledore’s or Malfoy’s leadership and guidance.
And now, with a win in the Tournament and the Wizengamot, Harry could finally focus on other important things. There were still so many things to learn, he’d have to decrypt the hint from the egg, start his dancing lessons with Hermione, study more runes and go looking for the hidden Horcrux. Yes, Remus and Sirius had told him about that, first somehow cryptic in a letter, but when they met in person, they filled him in on the missing soul pieces. The one in Gringotts was destroyed, there was the snake and some strange artefact under old wards, the one at Hogwarts and his scar.
The Scarcrux - at least that was what Harry called the abomination in his forehead - would at least be gone around Yule. Originally they wanted to take it out before Yule to give him more time to regenerate, but they didn’t find the time before the Ball. At least the potions were doing its job, Filius checked in on him at least twice a week and relayed everything to Gringotts. The exorcism would almost certainly do its job.
For the snake they would have to come up with a proper plan, until then this would be the least important soul piece. Regarding the unknown object Sirius and Remus were researching which homes of old families were abandoned and had a relation to Voldemort. Now, with Sirius exonerated, they could check the Ministry records for the Gaunts (very reclusive, died out with the exception of Voldemort and rumoured to be related to the Slytherins and Peverells - certainly various options for relicts there) and work through the entire list of known or potential Death Eaters from very old yet impoverished or died out Houses. The fact that Voldemort put up real nasty wards on top of practically collapsed, very old and most likely abandoned family wards limited their pool of suspects massively.
Maybe, at a later point, they could try to consult Albus Dumbledore, but currently neither of them trusted him, be it Sirius and Remus, Amelia and her Ministry allies, or Harry and his friends (plus the staff members and Henry). No one wanted to get closer to the Headmaster at this point in time, afraid that he’d do something stupid. What his motives were was still unknown to them.
But for now they had to do everything without involving the old man. Which, to be fair, maybe wasn’t the worst thing. He was for sure powerful and knowledgeable, but also manipulative and secretive. Besides, they were probably doing fine for now.
And so Harry just continued with his life. Studying was a lot of fun, especially with his great-grandfather helping them out so much. Harry felt smarter than ever, and slowly he began to comprehend Hermione’s desire for knowledge. It wasn’t just about following in his family’s footsteps, it was about him being just so fascinated by what magic could create. Runes and enchantments opened up so many possibilities for him, and with his advanced comprehension of Charms and Transfiguration (thanks Henry for being a great teacher… and well, drinking tea with Flitwick and McGonagall led to very complicated and abstract discussions) it truly felt like he was opening his eyes for the first time. Even Potions was fun. Well, it was still to be determined how Snape was going to act following the chaos of the past days, but nonetheless, Harry understood the subject. Together with a newfound ability to think before acting he was able to deal with Snape’s interesting teaching style and perform more than adequately.
Albus Dumbledore was acting slightly erratic and moody. Nothing was working the way it should and if things were to continue like that, Magical Britain would see a second blood war, followed by a dictatorship by Tom. The prophecy was clear. Harry could vanquish him, but only Harry. If the teenager were to fail, they were all doomed.
He would have to intervene. After a short letter to Sirius, stating the need to have a discussion about the fight against Voldemort, he left his office and headed towards the library. Harry and his friends had often disappeared in the past weeks, and while he didn’t know where to, he had some ideas. Irma Pince was one of the young teenager’s biggest supporters among the staff, together with Filius and Bathsheda. If Harry and his friends managed to study and prepare so intensely, and without getting noticed, the private reading room in the library was a likely candidate. Not even he, as headmaster and someone with tremendous power, could force his way into those rooms. But luckily the teenagers would have Charms class in just a little while, so he would just wait for them in the library. Or maybe he could convince Irma to let him in.
No, probably not. Stubborn librarians.
Minutes later the Headmaster stood in front of Irma Pince’s desk. As always, she had more books stacked there than Albus had in his office. She was always reading some randomly selected book, writing a paper or working out a way to rearrange one shelf or another. On top of that she was busy with all the books students checked out or brought back. On the one hand it was a tedious job, on the other hand, she had a lot of time and resources for research. At times, Albus envied her. He would probably miss the power and influence, but because of all his jobs and duties he hadn’t made a significant scientific discovery since before Tom surfaced for the first time. Quite depressing, to be honest.
“Irma?”
He looked around, but the librarian was nowhere in sight. For a moment at least. Then she came walking up to him, a stack of books in her arms. She didn’t really seem amused to see him.
“Albus. What can I do for you?”
“Can you point me to the general direction of Mr Potter and his friends? I assume you gave him entrance to the reading room?”
She glared at him.
“I won’t let you in there. And because I know that you wouldn’t fire me, and if you would, I could find a job literally anywhere - I have a standing offer from the MACUSA archives for example - I’ll be honest with you. We don’t know whether you are evil, negligent or manipulative. Are you an enemy, or just too happy sacrificing everyone for the Greater Good? The poor boy didn’t know anything about his family, his place in society, nothing. Him talking to Henry Potter made him so happy. Unkind relatives and being kept clueless. Risking his life over and over again. As if you were convinced that he wouldn’t see the end of this war either way.”
And then the Headmaster blanched. Exactly what Irma was looking for. That was all but an answer to his motives.
“Ah. That makes a lot of sense. You know he won’t live, so how he feels and what he goes through is of no matter. He is a pawn that has to be sacrificed. But you are wrong, Albus. I am a lot more knowledgeable than you, and the goblins’ blood magic is very smart. You didn’t even consider asking other experts, did you? Well, soul magic is nothing I’ll openly talk about in a public setting, but… let’s just say, it wasn’t the first, or second or even fifth one. Just calculate the size and contemplate what a heavy potions regime to counteract the mistreatment followed by an exorcism could do. After Yule he’ll be fine. Knowing that, just imagine what everyone thinks of you. Leave them be. Besides, from what I’ve heard, Sirius Black and Amelia Bones, together with a few allies in the Ministry and Gringotts, have been more efficient than you since 1981. Now please, go before they come past here or before I can’t bear to look at you without resorting to physical violence.”
Dumbledore didn’t even hesitate for a second and basically stormed off. He was feeling sick. If Irma was correct, and if they truly knew about the Horcruxes, and if the Goblins were correct, then he had made a grave mistake. If there truly was a way to keep Harry alive, a simple way, not some absurd theory with blood connections and killing curses (it was a wild theory, to be fair, but it was the only way he found), then he had destroyed a kid’s life for nothing.
To him there was one true fact. A Horcrux could only be destroyed if the container was destroyed beyond salvaging. He was of the opinion that Harry would have to die. Bringing him back from the dead was the only idea he could come up with.
But if Irma was correct and the Horcrux was number six, made by accident without the proper procedure, then it might actually be so small and weak that an exorcism could solve it. With the right potions to strengthen him at least. He would need to check the Arithmancy for that. But it sounded plausible.
Merlin be damned. On the one hand, he felt relieved, on the other hand, he felt appalled with himself. And he understood why Sirius hated him with such a passion. He hated himself at least as much.
Now he would have to write another letter to Sirius. Mail could still be intercepted, but an apology that he would understand together with his research on the Gaunt family and on the orphanage was more than appropriate. Maybe they would find the Horcruxes then - it sounded like they already made progress, if he understood that correctly.
Maybe it was time to let go of some duties. It seemed like he really wasn’t fit to lead anymore. Right now he couldn’t even stand looking in the mirror. He hated himself with such a passion. He didn’t deserve forgiveness. Otherwise he would have written a letter to Harry, not to Sirius. He felt like he really wasn’t worth forgiveness.
For Albus Dumbledore, everything began to crumble and fall apart. He wasn’t a good person. He had failed.