Dumbledore, Removed
Part One
Summary: Harry, Hermione and Ron return to Hogwarts in
their fifth year to find that the only concrete thing in their lives is amiss.
Posted ???
Author's Note: I own no one and nothing, except for a few
characters that will be popping up randomly, but even they are based on ideas
by J.K. Rowling, author of this whole beautiful series. But if you don't already know that, one
might wonder why you are even here.
Harry Potter fanfiction is wasted on non-enthusiasts. I haven't written
in a very, very long time. This idea
came to me just after I was finished writing my Time Told series, which can be
found on my web page. All right then, on with the very-un-my-style piece of
work…viola!
Harry,
Hermione and Ron all sighed at the compartment door slid shut with an angry thwack. Hermione miserably stared at her hands while
Ron threw a string of curses to the walls, under his breath. Harry simply looked out the window, hoping
the train ride would be over soon. They
had been told off for fighting.
"Well,"
said Hermione in a small voice, "This is a lovely way to start off a year. A detention! And we're not even in the CASTLE yet!" Her voice cracked a little as she pulled her knees up and glared
at the scenery outside.
"Oh, hush
up, Hermione…you're upset over anything that marks up your bloody perfect
record."
"Don't get
sore at me! I wasn't the one who
punched you…is it really that hard to remember? Malfoy and I don't hold a large resemblance!" Hermione spat her words angrily, but in a
hissed tone, so as not to attract the attention of the witch who pushed the
snack cart. Harry made an impatient
noise and turned his thoughts back to the whispered row his two best friends
were having.
"Both of
you, pipe down!" he burst out, and they fell silently back, alternating glares
at Harry and glares at each other.
Harry sighed and thought back to the way the train ride had begun.
Twenty Minutes Earlier…
"Well, well, well.
Look what we have here…" Draco trailed off, his predictable and
old-as-dirt comment bouncing around the compartment and the heads of the three
friends seated inside. Know-it-all
Granger was already reading her course books, while Potty and the Weasel were
playing a game of Exploding Snap on the bench across from her. On spotting him, however, the two boys stood
up, fire in their eyes and oblivious to the girl who had a hand on each other
their backs, holding them steady.
"Welcome
back," spat Ron, his face nearly matching his hair. Harry was equally enraged, although Draco found it interesting
that his anger was all hands and lips.
Bloodless lips and bloodless knuckles.
Ron plunged on. "Did you have a
good break? I can see it now…Monday:
Malfoy lies out on the beach. Tuesday:
Malfoy plays a nice game of cricket.
Wednesday: Malfoy has a little meeting with You-Know-Who. Thursday: Malfoy goes horseback riding. Friday: Malfoy watches PEOPLE DIE!" Hermione was positively straining now to
grasp the boys' back. Draco gave an
indignant huff.
"Well, I
never! How dare you insinuate such
things! You all know perfectly well
that I do NOT play cricket!"
Everyone in the compartment was
agreed; there wasn't any doubt that Draco had been an active part in the Muggle
and half-blood killings over the summer.
Hermione scowled and looked like she was debating letting Ron and Harry
go, but Draco didn't let the alarm show on his face. No need to let them know that Crabbe and Goyle weren't available
right now. All he allowed through were
the thick waves of smug glee. What did
they really expect? Voldemort had to
leave some sort of calling card.
"I've said
it before and obviously I'll have to say it again. You can think anything you want, but you're the last person I
would enlighten as to my summer whereabouts.
I'll give you one tip though," Draco paused, suddenly grinned wickedly
and raising his eyes past Ron's heaving figure to the struggling girl in the
background. "I would keep this one
accounted for. After all, it was her
kind that was getting massacred out there.
And we wouldn't want anything to happen, would we?"
There was dead silence for a beat, then a roar that rocked the
sliding glass-paned door. Hermione had
let Ron and Harry loose, and with them, it seemed all the powers of hell. Standing a bit back, Hermione watched the
revolving mass of limbs. Yelps and
sharp sounds of skin-on-skin contact punctuated her silence; it was the first
time she had ever approved of fighting.
But the summer had been one of firsts.
The sound
of approaching authority snapped her into action. She sent off a few disarming spells with her wand, but she was
too afraid of hurting Ron or Harry to do anything further. There was a rap on the glass, and Hermione
looked nervously up to see Ryan Brunet, the new Head Boy. She gulped and stepped back from the
still-strong tangle of limbs, thinking guiltily of the Prefect badge pinned to
her robes, but Ryan had already opened the door and yelled darkly into the
compartment. In a flash the Harry and
Ron were pinned to different corners of the small room, with Hermione standing
like a deer in headlights towards the middle.
Draco sniggered from his hiding place, four compartments away. Yes, a lot of his training was going to come
in handy…
"I
can't BELIEVE he didn't believe me!" raged Hermione, speaking of Brunet's
little speech once the dust had cleared.
There had been harsh words and a great deal of confusion as the three
tried desperately to convince Brunet that Malfoy had been in the room. The anger grew as Brunet became sure that
Harry, Ron and Hermione were being fresh to him, to avoid punishment, and his
first act as Head Boy was the giving of three detentions, one of them being to
a brand-new Prefect. Hermione was in disgrace.
"Where did
that bloody git learn to Disappearate, anyway?" Ron muttered as he gingerly
tested a large bruise that was spreading over his right eye.
"Same place
he learned the Cruciatus curse," said Harry shortly, referring to one of the
common torture signs that had been found on the victims of the killing
sprees. The same killing sprees that
had marked the return of the Dark Mark, of the very fear that Mr. Weasley had
spoken off at the Quidditch Cup last year.
The papers had been full of statistics and stories and awful, gory pictures. The Muggles were baffled, but the Daily
Prophet had been known to ask one question of late: What is You-Know-Who's
Next Move?
"I thought
we agreed we wouldn't discuss this anymore," intoned Hermione from her
corner. Her year five spellbook was abandoned,
facedown on the floor, and she looked small with her knees drawn up to her
chest and her hair billowing around her downcast-head. As had become the tradition, all the friends
had met at the Burrow for the last two weeks of summer vacation, and as had
become the tradition, they had spent the time nervously discussing the oddities
of the current situation. Apart from
traditions, the entire wizarding world had been on alert this summer and every
bit of every article had been digested and again digested until even Hermione
couldn't think rationally. It was clear
the whole ordeal scared her quite a bit, but she was stubbornly not allowing
her fear to show through.
"Hermione,
we simply ran out of new things to talk about.
Malfoy, however unpleasant, is something new to discuss. Although, the ones I really want to talk to
are up at the castle- Hagrid, Sirius, Lupin, even Dumbledore…they've all been
out of contact all summer!"
"Harry, I
know. We all know! But there isn't anything that we can do
about it until we get there, so lets have a few more minutes of peace before we
rush headlong into what promises to be a tumultuous year." Crossing her arms huffily, Hermione turned
so she was directly facing out the window and proceeded to ignore Ron's
murmured comments about "High and Mighty vocabularies".
When the
time came for them to change into their robes, Harry and Ron did so rather
quietly. No one spoke much, all
thoughts ahead half-an-hour to when they would quite possibly get some answers
at last. Hermione, who was already
changed, took her time retrieving her spellbook from the floor. Everything and everyone seemed to be torn
between wanting to stay in an uninvolved, uninformed state, and wanting to rush
to the safe, warm castle, get some answers and some advice, and begin figuring
out how to undo everything that had been done.
But the time for decision was there, and all three suddenly realized the
reason for Mrs. Weasley's tears at King's Cross. Even though they were still children, they no longer had the
privilege of being treated so. It was
go time.
They
hurried off the train and in the direction that the crowd jostled them,
searching over the heads of students for Hagrid's bulky form. The weather was a bit rough, and a light
rain had started down as Harry, Ron and Hermione darted back and forth through
the students, squirming their way round and round, until, finally, Ron spotted
him.
"Hagrid!"
he called, waving his hands over his head.
"Hagrid, over here!" Hermione
and Harry at his elbows in seconds, the group fought over to where the giant of
a man was standing, unusually quiet.
The first years hurried past, unconcerned with the suspicious behavior,
but Harry, Hermione and Ron were alert in seconds. As he turned to face them, the beaming smile they had expected
was nowhere to be found; Hagrid was positively disheartening, and looked very
near to tears.
"Oh, hello
all you. I've missed you, I have." His voice was soft and low and something
bordering monotone.
"Hagrid!" Hermione threw herself at him in
hug-form. "What's wrong? We've been writing to you all summer! No one's answered our letters, no one's told
us anything! All we've had to go off of
were Daily Prophet articles!"
Hagrid
gripped Hermione tightly, tears showing themselves now. "You and me both, love. You and me both." Hermione looked up, her face a mask of confusion.
"What do
you mean?" probed Harry. "Haven't you
been…you and Dumbledore and…and Snuffles…" Hagrid was sobbing now, and tears
poured down on Hermione's head, mingling with the raindrops already there.
"Something's
gone wrong, kids…and it's really quite terrible. I can't…can't explain it, but you'll see soon enough. Once you get up there, you'll see."
Ron, Harry
and Hermione stared up at their friend, trying to read between his shaky lines,
but at the moment, the carriages at the front of the line were taking off, and
they had to sprint to the back of the line to find one that was empty. As they clambered in, Hermione bit her lip and
Ron and Harry stared confusedly at one another. Silence ensued.
"What was
all that about?" asked Ron finally, looking worriedly at Hermione, who was
fighting tears. Hagrid's cryptic
message had shaken them all up.
"I don't
know, but I bet we'll find out soon," Harry intoned dully. The beautiful castle was coming into view
through a small window sullied by raindrops.
As the hordes of students piled up the steps and into the magnificent
entrance hall, everyone seemed to notice the slightest of slight
differences. It was very odd, but the
castle seemed almost too warm…as if the temperature had been raised just a few
degrees. At any rate, the chill of the
rainy air was whisked away quickly, and there was little dallying as the sea of
black hats sorted itself into four tables.
"Well…"
said Hermione slowly, shrugging off her cloak and sliding into a chair,
"Nothing seems out of the ordinary, yet…" She quickly closed her mouth as she
surveyed the head table with Ron and Harry.
The normal three seats empty- Hagrid's, the new Defense Against the Dark
Arts teacher's, and Dumbledore's.
Everywhere around them, students were shedding their extra clothing and
calling greetings across the room, and Hermione, Ron and Harry shifted
impatiently, hoping for the normal silence to spread across the hall,
announcing the appearance of the Headmaster and the beginning of the
feast. They didn't have long to wait.
Slowly, in
a movement like a ripple, mouths closed and voices stopped vibrating. But the quiet was different, unnatural and
confused. Harry whipped around, and
found that his voice was no longer working, either. He tried to turn and exclaim to Ron, but his vocal chords seemed
frozen, and his heart was turned to ice.
The man making his way towards the head table was not Albus Dumbledore.
He was
tall, and wiry, with thick blonde hair that lay across his forehead in a
staggeringly dignified manner. His
mustache was thin and twisted above a malevolent grin, and his robes were
neatly pressed, with heavy ornamental embroidery wrapping around the hems. His
dirty, beaming smile almost took over his angled face as he caught the gaze of
several miserable-looking teachers, but they all pushed back their chairs and
stood as the stranger mounted the platform.
As much as he didn't want to, Harry felt his knees jerk, and he was
suddenly standing up, with his eyes respectfully down and his hands
respectfully folded. On either side of
him, Hermione and Ron popped up as well, eyebrows knitted together in
perplexity. Nothing was of their own
accord- they were being sickeningly controlled.
The next
shock sent Hermione back into the battle of the tears once more. The tall man had changed his course on the
platform- he was bypassing the empty chair that everyone had expected him to go
to, and settled himself perfectly in the dead center. The Headmaster's seat.
There was a crack of joints as the students were thrown back into their
seats, and then the man began to talk.
"My name is
Professor J. Echion, and I am your new headmaster. Welcome back."
(*)
Later, as
Hermione looked back on that night, she realized that it was one of severely
mixed emotions. However upset, however
horrified she may have been, the closure was welcome and relieving. There was a basis, a square one, something
to start on, something to fix. And even
though she cried in front of Harry and Ron twice that evening (something she
didn't like to do) she was so pleased that she finally knew what she was crying
about. The cruel "welcoming" speech
Echion had delivered still managed to give her chills.
"Many of
you many remember your previous headmaster, Professor Dumbledore." The name was
spoken darkly with sardonic undertones.
"Well, he has…stepped down from the position, and left expressly detailed
instructions as to the running of the school and his predecessor, me!" Professor McGonagall looked as if she were
biting her tongue, and her eyes flashed darkly as Echion let out a little
laugh, continuing on. "Classes will
resume, with a few carefully tailored changes here and there, and the Defense
Against the Dark Arts classes will be run by me, as well. Now, on with the opening ceremonies!"
There was a gaggle of wet first
years standing by the door of the Great Hall, and they filed in, some with
tears in their eyes. Echion lined them
up, military style, and Hagrid sadly slipped in behind them, to his seat at the
head table. Every head in the hall was craned to look for the special sorting
hat and stool, but McGonagall resignedly stood up, yielding her clipboard and
quill.
"This year, I will call out your
name, and you will be given a house assignment by Professor Echion. Asherly, Sarah!"
There was a loud buzz of voices,
and everyone looked confused. A few
first years, whose features told tales of older siblings in the school, were
sending distressed glances in the direction of the house tables. Every person second year and up was glaring
and whispering, outraged, to their neighbor.
Actually, everyone was a bit of an overstatement. Several Slytherin students looked
suspiciously unaffected, Mister Malfoy among them.
Perhaps the oddest spectacle of the
new year, thus far, had to have been the sorting itself. As each student approached Echion to be
sorted, he would first examine them psychically, a process that was
disturbingly not unlike Muggle slave auctions of decades past. After the child had been put through that
particular hell, they were magically tested, and asked to perform several different
spells in front of the entire hall.
Harry thought briefly back to his
first day of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He knew that, like himself at that time,
many of the first years were still digesting the shock of there even being
a wizarding world. Therefore, he felt
very sorry for all the poor, blundering kids who were unprepared and
mortified.
As a finale to the show, each student was asked
about their family name, history and their connections to the wizarding
world. Hermione seethed as the open and
outright prejudice was exercised. It
was unsurprisingly not hard to see the Slytherin favoritism, and Hermione was
not alone in her convictions. Professor
McGonagall's mouth was in a thinner line than ever before, and Hermione would
have wagered on the fact that Echion was again utilizing his mysterious magic
to keep her under control.
Finally, all of the students were
sorted, and plenty of worse-for-the-wear children were sitting gingerly in
seats among sympathetic upperclassmen, ears still burning for shame. The usually grandiose feast was a meager
meal that looked as though it had been prepared half-heartedly.
Harry picked morosely at his limp greens while
Hermione tried to comfort a little girl next to her who had burst into
tears. The girl was a Muggle-born sprite
who was begging Hermione to take her home to her mother. Hermione turned to Ron and Harry for help,
but both shrugged rather helplessly, wondering what she was expecting them to
do. As the girl's tears subsided, the
plates began to clear away (no one felt much like eating) and Echion addressed
the crowd once more.
"Goodnight, my new friends and
acquaintances. This promises to be a year of intricate discovery. Discovery begins tomorrow morning at six
o'clock. If you are partial to breakfast,
I suggest you come down earlier than that in order to get something to eat."
With those horrible words, he bowed
deeply to them all and disappeared.
Apparently the Disapperation shields had been dismantled. With a weary sigh, the teachers invisible restraints
popped, and they began shepherding the children to the common rooms, nervously
hushing any complaints. Passwords were
handed out, knowing looks were exchanged, and first-years' tears were wiped
away before every teacher filtered back to their own offices.
"Well, er, I'm your new prefect,"
announced Hermione to the group of first years that she was showing the rooms
to. "I hope you realize that if you
ever need anything I will be here to help you out. I know tonight has been tough and scary, but all you need is a
little rest, and things will look much better in the morning."
Hermione hustled the boys up their
staircase, being careful to pretend that she had never been up there
before. She showed them how their
trunks had been brought up by the house elves and reminded them to set their
alarm clocks for early the next day.
The girls, who were patiently waiting on the landing where the staircase
split, smiled when they saw her.
"Are you going to sleep in the same
room as us?" asked one small girl hopefully, holding lightly onto the corner of
Hermione's robes. She recognized her as
the one who had been crying at dinner.
"No, I'm sorry, but you girls get a
room all to yourself! And I'm right
down the hall here, see?" Hermione led
them into their dorm and pointed to the fifth year's doorway, a couple paces
away.
"Well- okay," murmured the
girl. A couple of the other ones looked
on the verge of tears, too, and were looking around the room
apprehensively. Finally, one of them
threw herself across the bed in a huff.
"Girls, what's wrong?" Hermione
asked gently as the attitude spread.
They all sat down, and the same girl that had done all the talking so
far began to sniffle. "What's your name?"
As Hermione plopped down on the bed
next to her, the girl sat and brightened a bit. "I'm Hope." She grinned a
bit and self-consciously twisted one of her braids around her finger.
"Well, Hope, my name's
Hermione. I know that at first,
everything around here is strange and new and frightening. But I have been in this school for four
years, and believe me, once you get into the swing of things, it'll turn into
your favorite place. Just give it a
little time, give those friendships a chance to happen, and soon, you'll be
begging to stay for the holidays!"
As the young girls shared giggles
and smiles, Hermione consoled herself by thinking that, in all strictness, it
wasn't really a lie. After all,
what she had said was certainly true by normal standards. Yet, as she closed the door on the
now-chattering first years, she couldn't help wondering how long those girls
would be satisfied with the illusion they had been given. For Hermione, it was already gone.
