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What-The-Hell-Was-I-Drinking Productions presents...
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The Best of Intentions
A Harry Potter Fanfiction
by Red Death
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Prologue
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That wasn't quite how I imagined it would be.
A bright sunshiny afternoon found the long-suffering Boy-Who-Lived lounging lazily at his bedroom window. With nothing else to do, and having been unable to obtain an exemption to the Restriction of Underage Magic from Headmaster Dumbledore or Minister Fudge, he'd found himself dealing with a unexpected surplus of spare time on his hands.
I was expecting a little more excitement.
His summer homework done, his daily mental exercises out of the way, and even his Dursley-assigned chores long since completed, there were whole heaps of nothing left on his daily agenda. Watching the clock tick away the slowly shrinking time remaining until his seventeenth birthday had become his main activity during the preceding days.
A little more reward for my anticipation.
In ten hours and eight minutes he'd be legally allowed the use of magic without interference from the Ministry of Morons. Over the course of the last year, ever since the "Dark Nincompoop" has made his presence known, the Ministry has made one bumbling step in the wrong direction after another. Even while the general public watched them flounder about like a fish out of water, their disbelief growing with every headline, the Ministry remained convinced in the rightness of their every action. Harry recalled some of their more interesting moves with an odd mix of bewilderment, astonishment, exasperation and frustration.
Perhaps more of a challenge.
The entirety of last year, in all its exhausting and body-aching glory, has been the best of his life to date. Headmaster Dumbledore had finally arranged for him to begin the vitally important training he would need for his fight against Voldemort, and Harry took to it like a starving vampire to a blood bank.
His skills had grown my leaps, bounds, strides and handsprings. Going toe-to-toe with trained Aurors was now a breeze for him. Child's play. A walk in the park. It was so easy that it began to worry him. Not about whether or not he was going too far in his training, but about just how good the Auror Corp really was.
If Harry could beat them using government-approved magic, some dirty tricks, and a touch of his style of creativity, he had to wonder just how they expected to counter the Death Eaters and their tactics.
It wasn't anything like I'd been told to expect.
With only minimal research (Thank you, Hermione!) he had been able to determine just how the Ministry Aurors were faring against Voldemort's forces. Losses amongst the Aurors were surprisingly light, thanks to their accepted tactics; at the first sign of dark magic the Aurors ran for the hills, with only a few notable exceptions. Only those fighters such as Moody, Shacklebolt, and perhaps two or three others ever stayed in the fight, and even then they frequently had to retreat once Voldemort's overwhelming numbers became an issue. Very few Death Eaters were captured, and none were ever killed. Those who did fall into the Ministry's hands quickly claimed the "Imperius Defense," made a generous donation or three and were quickly released with an apology.
Everyone said it would hard to do, but once I'd done it I'd be a whole new person.
Learning to combat the rising tide of darkness had become his single all-encompassing goal last year, to his friends' dismay. "Free time" had become a myth, and "relaxation" was something he'd read about in a book once. Compelled to give up Quidditch and even his free periods, he'd barely seen his friends for more than a few moments a day in their common room or Great Hall. As for dating, and pondering the enigma that is "girls?" Well, that was just a dream he'd had. Were it not for McGonagall firmly putting her foot down (right atop Moody's, and very painfully) Harry might not have even had regular meals with his housemates.
It wasn't even all that tiring!
When the year had passed and the spring term had come and gone without what had become a yearly tradition of someone or something trying their level best to do him in, he'd foolishly begun to hope that the coming summer might be a little easier to bear. Perhaps he could stay the summer with the Weasleys? Perhaps, as a poor second choice, with Remus at Grimmauld Place? Alas, it was not to be. With barely more than a rudimentary explanation he was back with the Dursleys before you could say "boo." The only bright spot in that regard was the fact that the Dursleys had taken to pretending he was invisible. That suited Harry just fine.
Just a few pulses, some grunting, and it was over.
With only the occasional letter from his friends, and even those were carefully worded and edited to avoid providing him any real information, Harry'd had more than enough time to sit and ponder his overall situation rather than simply react. His mind worked overtime this summer, sorting through the major things in his life, things that would have taken him forever to work through had he more to do at the moment. He wasn't about to pass up this chance to "figure-it-all-out," as it were. Sirius' death, the prophecy, Voldemort, and mind-numbing despair all featured prominently in his mental meanderings, although schoolwork, girls, his inheritances and the future all received a good amount of brain-time.
Certainly messier than I thought it would be.
Decisions were made, realizations were reached, and an epiphany or two were in the having. The homework planner Hermione had given him ('She so needs to get out more,' Harry thought) had proven priceless in accomplishing quite a bit of deduction regarding his plan-of-attack, so to speak, upon those stubborn obstacles that impeded his life. Plans were planned. Strategies were strategized. Plots were plotted and schemes were schemed. He had a way to win.
I thought once it happened something about me would change.
An exceedingly complex yet simple to orchestrate plan had formed in his mind, again with the help of that wonderful planner. It involved two diversions, a healthy amount of misinformation and misdirection, a spy, a trap and a large block of stone. The beauty of THE PLAN was its distinct lack of magic, something old Voldemonkey would not, could not fathom. It was genius. It was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Harry hadn't the foggiest idea where that observation had come from, but he had no doubt it was correct nonetheless.
That I'd be, you know, a 'man.'
He watched, quietly bored, as the incoming Ministry owl flew closer and closer, bringing him what he knew would be an unwelcome missive. One of the ever-loathed letters sent to children when they consciously and intentionally performed active magic of any kind, at any time. Undoubtedly they would once again attempt to have him expelled from Hogwarts, even chuck him into Azkaban. Idiots. Removing the Ministry letter from the owl now perched on his windowsill, he wondered how even the Ministry's owls managed to look sanctimonious.
All I felt afterwards was a little restless. Not to mention a bit hungry.
Harry knew that this letter signified the premature death of THE PLAN. It was a moot point now, even unnecessary. He mumbled quietly to himself while reading through the underage magic warning, scoffing as he absorbed the expected words. 'I should start a collection of these.' So engrossed in not laughing hysterically at the ludicrousness of the letter's timing, he nearly missed the arrival of Headmaster Dumbledore's own letter attached to the fiery phoenix, Fawkes. He wouldn't have noticed it at all, really, had Fawkes not taken it upon himself to perch upon Harry's head. Harry shook his head vigorously to dislodge the flaming avian from his hair.
I should probably get dressed and see to my 'guests.'
Dumbledore and his Order of Fried Chickens should be arriving any second now, he mused. With any luck they'll show up with the Aurors that the Ministry of Morons will no doubt send to arrest me. Unlike the incident two years prior, Harry wasn't the least bit concerned. It wasn't as if anyone really would throw him in prison for having done that.
Having again attired himself in the hand-me-down rags he called clothing, he returned once more to his seat at the window, patiently waiting for his ill-anticipated callers to appear. Sure enough, within moments the crack of a dozen or more apparitions broke the stifling silence. Once the incoming berobed intruders got their bearings and saw who'd arrive alongside them, the sounds of angry verbal confrontations wafted up to his position.
Maybe I should have covered them up afterwards.
The Minister for Magic found himself yelling at the Hogwarts Headmaster. The Headmaster calmly and confidently argued right back. Remus and Nymphadora Lupin held Auror Dawlish and Director Amelia Bones at bay with a pair of glares, returned to them in full by said law-enforcers. Arthur and Molly Weasley had already nearly come to blows with Undersecretary Delores Umbridge and Mrs. Constantina Fudge. A generous handful of others whom Harry barely recognized as more of Dumbledore's Fried Chickens were vociferously verbalizing their various opinions to an equal number of Aurors or other Ministry minions. It looked, not to mention sounded, like an angry schoolyard brawl. Everyone was facing off against someone else, determined to put their two Knuts in. Not a one was paying the slightest attention to any part of Number 4 Privet Drive.
I know I shouldn't have left them covered in goo like that.
Harry once again fixed his eyes upon Petunia Dursley's flower garden, directly beneath his window. The once-pristine rows and stands of brightly-colored flowers he'd worked so hard to nurture (and taken a secret pride in) were now in disastrous disarray. The stems and stalks that had gleefully reached for the warm summer sun now lay broken and bent. The multi-hued petals that had so captured the eyes and lightened the mind quickly wilted and turned black where they had been splattered with foully-tainted blood. He watched in a sad silence as the growing pool of blackish-red liquid continued to spread from the decapitated corpse of Lord Voldemort. The blackened, unmoving bodies of Lucius Malfoy and Peter Pettigrew lay beside their fallen master. The mess was staining the Dursley's driveway an unhealthy color.
I'm so not cleaning that up.