Chapter 20
“Dumbledore placed me with the Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon so that he could use the blood wards.” At that you could hear a pin drop in the room as the reality of those words sunk in to James and Lily.
Harry could feel the anxiety that he had been suppressing all day begin to rise to the surface once again as the silence continued. He could see his moms face gradually turning more and more red becoming alarmingly close to the same shade as her hair. James seemed to be covering his anger slightly better his head had dropped so that Harry could no longer see his face however his shaking hands that kept clenching and unclenching gave away the anger that was coursing through him. Harry began rebuilding his occulemency walls. While he might have been able to pretend he was terrible at it so Snape wouldn’t go looking for things in his head, Harry actually had become fairly good at it after stumbling across a book about it in his research for the Triwizard tournament.
Lily finally noticing the signs of distress in the way her son was slowly folding his shoulders in on himself took a deep breath and in the calmest voice she could manage said, “Harry, I promise we are not mad at you. I am furious because there were so many other better options than to place you with my monster of a sister… Not to mention blood wards are inherently flawed in homes such as those, if you no longer consider that place your home the ward is deactivated… If Dumbledore had put two and two together he would have realized that was the most dangerous option he could have chosen.”
At this Harry’s face grew deathly pale and Ron and Hermione grabbed onto his hands in an attempt to ground him seeing the signs of a panic attack setting in, while Harry may have let his parents assume the one he had on his first few days in the world was a single occurrence that was nowhere near the truth, he was just better at hiding them most of the time. With gasping breaths, in a breaking tone Harry muttered, “You mean to tell me I was forced to live in that home for years for no reason. Dumbledore had to have known that it was not my home. Merlin anywhere else would have been more of a home than that place.” Upon making those statements that alarmed his parents even more than he realized the truth finally clicked into place for Harry and he could stay seated no longer. With a sharp gasp he jerked to his feet and began pacing, running his hand through his hair he began to speak, “He had to have known that he’s not dumb, not after I begged him to stay at Hogwarts during the summer. He also knew of the prophecy and what it meant, he wanted me to be moldable. That’s why he sent me back there every year and why he never told me what was going on. That also is why he didn’t want you two writing to me this summer, as long as he was my only source of support I would do what he wanted, that man knew exactly what he was doing when he placed me there, to begin with.”
While everyone else in the room was sitting stunned by the revelations that had just been made Hermione came and gave Harry the biggest hug that she could. At his quiet, “You knew didn’t you that’s why you didn’t listen to him and wrote me anyway isn’t it?” She gave a sad nod saying, “I'm sorry that I didn’t tell you Harry I just wasn’t sure that you would believe me until you figured it out for yourself.”
Surprisingly James was the first one to compose himself and made his way over to his son and his friend just as they ended their embrace. Immediately taking Hermione’s place he savored the height advantage that he still had on his son meaning that he could tuck Harrys head to his shoulder, he gave the only reassurance that he could, “I promise you will never have to go back there again, I'm so sorry son.”