Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or it's characters. These all belong to JK Rowling.
Harry walked out onto the marble steps of Gringotts bank, nodding politely to the ever-present goblin guards standing at the entrance to the grand building. Beside him loped a huge black dog, blue eyes shining and tongue lolling as it gazed at the boy.
It was a surprisingly warm day for a British almost-summer, and the azure sky was clear, but for a few fluffy white clouds drifting off to nowhere.
Turning to face the Alley, Harry stopped short at the sight of an old man, resplendent in sky blue robes decorated lavishly with dancing lemon drops, approaching the bank with a grandfatherly smile which didn't quite reach his eyes.
At the sight of him, the great black dog snarled, a rumbling growl building in his chest. Harry threaded his fingers into the rough fur with a whispered, "Hush, Padfoot". Subsiding, the dog fell silent, but watched the old man's every move with hard, intelligent eyes.
The old man stopped in front of them, and fixed Harry with twinkling eyes.
"Harry, dear boy? Shouldn't you be at your Aunt's house? The blood wards won't hold if you're not there."
Harry's eyes darkened momentarily when the blood wards were mentioned, but soon brightened to their usual emerald green as he gave his former headmaster a winning smile.
"Don't want to." He said, as if it explained everything.
Dumbledore's smile faded as he looked at the boy, before it returned full force. Already a small crowd of onlookers were gathering at the base of the marble steps, watching as their two 'saviours' argued with morbid delight.
"What do you mean, dear boy? You know that the blood wards will keep you safe- they were made from your mother's love, you don't want to waste that now, do you?"
If Dumbledore expected Harry to be guilt-tripped into obeying, the smirk which spread across the boy's face would have shattered all his expectations. As it was, the cold glint which entered the usually warm green eyes, was enough to tell the headmaster that he'd made a mistake- one he wouldn't be able to pay his way out of.
"But headmaster, I've looked into blood wards since you last mentioned them- I wouldn't want to do something wrong and undo them now, would I?" These words, coupled with the widening smirk on the boy's lips, told the defeater of Grindelwald without doubt that all his well-laid plans had been foiled.
"Blood wards created from love- like the ones on my Aunt's house- need a constant source of positive emotions from the one they are bound to, towards the building or place the are set around. In layman's terms, that means I would have to actually have some happy memories from my Aunts house, which would require my Aunt and I to at least like each other, and preferably love each other for the blood wards to work." Harry's smirk slipped, leaving a dark expression on his features.
"And let me tell you, Headmaster- there is no love lost between my relatives and I. My Aunt is a jealous and petty woman who does nothing but spy on the misfortunes and gossip about the faults of others, who probably do the same about her.
My Uncle is a fat, lazy man who likes nothing more than to drink, complain and have affairs with his secretaries, and whose favourite hobby is watching Dudley beat the heck out of me.
And my Cousin is a smaller version of my uncle, minus the cheating part- he has no-one to cheat on. He and his little friends have made a sport out of 'Harry-hunting', and got all the neighbourhood gangs involved. I have no doubts that if I were to die in one of the annual appearances of Voldemort or his followers at Hogwarts, there would be a celebration in that house.
"And so, Headmaster, I can assure you that any love-based blood ward placed on that house would have faded away years before now, when they started locking me in a cupboard to avoid having to give me a bedroom of my own, when my aunt would hit me over the head with a frying pan for burning the dinner I was too young to make and forbidden to eat, when they locked me in the bedroom they finally gave me for fear that wizards would find out about my life with them (which they never did), after first year with nothing to eat but a cold tin of soup each day."
Harry's voice grew steadily louder during his speech, and a large crowd of shoppers and reporters had gathered around the base of Gringotts' steps. His eyes glittered with restrained power, and beside him Padfoot began to growl, glaring at Dumbledore in an almost human way.
"My dear boy, are you sure you are not exaggerating a little? Let's get you back to their house, and we can work this out there, what do you say?" Dumbledore said, trying desperately to keep a grandfatherly expression on his face, although inside he was grimacing, not having expected the independence the boy was showing.
Harry looked to be about to respond, but suddenly noticed the gathering crowd drawn in by their little 'discussion'. With a grin, he spyed a familiar lime-green bowler hat among the crowd. He swiftly hid his smile, and turned back to Dumbledore.
"Excuse me, Headmaster, but I have something I need to do." Ignoring Dumbledore's stunned and angry expression at being so casually dismissed, Harry turned fully to the crowd, which began to quieten down and face their 'hero', whispering to each other in their excitement at being addressed.
"Sheeple of the Wizarding World!" He began, paying no attention to the confused and incensed looks the crowd were throwing at him.
"I have an important message for you all," he drew his wand, and pointed it at himself, causing whispers and mutters to break out again in the crowd.
"I, Hadrian James Potter-Black", he began to the amazement of the crowd, and shocked fury from Dumbledore, "hereby do declare on my magic that I will no longer bear the mantle or accept any responsibilities as the saviour of the Wizarding world."
A flash of light surrounded him for a moment, sealing the oath to his magical core. The mutters of the crowd turned to angry shouts as the gathered people protested the loss of their hero, "who will save us now?!", and "You can't just leave!" being yelled repeatedly by many tongues.
Harry just glared at them without any sympathy. "You are all pathetic. You have all graduated from Hogwarts, you all know magic. But instead of defeating the terrorists who threaten you and your families, you rely on a 15-year old, who hasn't even completed his training."
The crowd were still yelling, some calling him a coward, while others yelled at him to train. Rolling his eyes, Harry drew his wand again, and focussed on the short, stout figure wearing the lime—green bowler hat, his eyes briefly flickering behind him to where Dumbledore had just tried to approach, before being stopped by a snarling, glaring hound. With another roll of his eyes at the stupidity of wizards- especially ancient ones- he addressed the crowd again, his voice tight and strained with frustration and anger.
"Fine. You want someone to love and hate when the mood strikes you, and to solve all your problems?" He pointed his wand at the now-trembling figure, and gave a triumphant little smile.
"I, Hadrian James Potter-Black hereby nominate and bestow the title of Wizarding Saviour and 'Chosen One' on Cornelius Oswald Fudge, until the day that Britain no longer faces prejudice, so mote it be."
The flash encompassed the new Wizarding saviour, leaving him quaking, his hat having fallen and a very familiar lightning scar sitting on his forehead.
Harry looked at his handiwork and nodded in satisfaction. He paid no heed to the silent crowd, who were staring at Fudge with hungry eyes, or to Dumbledore's shocked (almost constipated-looking) expression.
"There. Now you have a hero again. One who has actually graduated from school. Now," he checked his watch and nodded, obviously pleased by what he saw. His dog stopped threatening the headmaster, and calmly trotted to his side. "I do believe it's time I went, in three, two, on-"
Both Harry and the dog disappeared in an instant, leaving a terrified-looking new saviour who was suddenly mobbed by the maddening crowd, and a frozen headmaster who could not look more shocked if he'd been mooned by a house-elf.
And beneath an old manor in the small town of Little Hangleton, a red-eyed parody of a man was suddenly bombarded with new unprotected memories, feelings and thoughts from the link he shared with his seventh Horcrux. Clutching his head and ignoring the 'worried' questions of his followers, Lord Voldemort let out a pain-filled cry against the accidental attack on his defences.
"DAMN YOU POTTER!"
A/N: Thank you for reading.
Positive reviews are welcome, as is constructive criticism. Flames are not so. This is the first story that I have posted on here, and so anything you can say to help me will be appreciated. But please do not just flame for the sake of it. Thank you.
Asrai