Through Harry's Eyes
Harry lay in bed in a very deep sleep. He was having a very enjoyable dream in
which he was grown up and living in his own house with his wife, Cho
Chang. He and Cho were just sitting
down to their evening meal when suddenly Harry's dream was pierced by a loud,
urgent voice. "Harry, Harry wake
up. We've got exactly five minutes to
get to breakfast!" Harry recognized Ron
Weasley's urgent voice immediately. He
opened his eyes blearily but could only just make out a blurry black-robed
shape with red hair. Harry reached out
for his glasses, which he always left on his bedside cabinet. He scrabbled around, knocking something to
the floor but couldn't find them. Ron
hurried over to help and picked up Harry's glasses from the floor in front of
the bedside cabinet. As he handed them
to Harry he said, "You seemed to be having a bad night, kept turning over and
over. I thought I heard something fall
in the middle of the night but I didn't want to disturb anyone by getting up to
see what it was". Feeling relieved, but
anxious at the same time to get to breakfast on time, Harry hurriedly put his
glasses on and Ron came into clearer focus.
He dressed hurriedly, picked up his head boy badge from the floor and
pinned it to the front of his robes.
Ron and Harry ran out of the dormitory and through the castle to the
great hall. Hermione, the head girl was
already seated at the Gryffindor table, eating toast and marmalade. As Harry and Ron sat down next to her Draco
Malfoy shouted out maliciously from the Slytherin table, "Four eyes and
mudblood getting all cosy together, how sweet".
At the end of Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts his eyesight
had suddenly begun to deteriorate until his old glasses hardly improved his
vision at all. During the summer the
Dursleys had become so tired of him continually walking into and breaking their
possessions that they had sent him to a muggle optician to get new
glasses. As far as the Dursleys were
concerned Harry had no money so they had been forced to pay for his new
glasses. The Dursleys hated spending
money on Harry so much that they had forced him to remain with them for the
summer doing all their housework in "payment" for the money they had spent on
his new glasses. They had even rejected
an offer from the Weasleys to have Harry to stay with them for the whole
summer.
Halfway through the summer Harry and Hermione had both
received letters from Hogwarts informing them that they had been chosen to be
head boy and head girl. They had both
been ecstatic. As soon as they had
arrived back at Hogwarts for the start of their final year and Malfoy had found
out who the new head boy and girl were he seemed to have one sole purpose in
life; to make Harry and Hermione's lives as difficult and miserable as possible. To almost everyone else in the school
it had been obvious how jealous Malfoy was of them both, so his constant
insults didn't have nearly as much effect as he would've liked. It still seemed that he would not rest until
he had completely ruined Harry and Hermione's last year at Hogwarts.
As Ron, Hermione and Harry finished their breakfast and
started to make their way out of the great hall Professor Dumbledore called out
"Harry, a word if you please". As Harry
approached the staff table Dumbledore indicated to him that he should follow
him. "I'd just like a word in my
office, Harry". When they reached the
hidden entrance to Dumbledore's office Dumbledore said "Chocolate frog" and
they stepped onto the moving staircase together.
When they entered Dumbledore's office Harry just had time to
notice that Fawkes the phoenix was missing from his usual place on his perch
beside the door before his attention became completely focused upon Dumbledore
who was looking unusually grave.
"I have brought you here to give you some terrible news",
said Dumbledore seriously. "Several
reliable sources have informed me that Voldemort is on his way to Hogwarts, in
the hope that he will be able to catch you off guard and finally kill you. The death eaters are too frightened to
follow Voldemort to Hogwarts but nobody knows what damage he could cause if he
manages to get inside Hogwarts, especially now that he is back to his full,
terrible strength". A cold fear gripped
Harry's heart, but he forced himself to listen to what Dumbledore was
saying. "I am telling you this Harry
for your own protection, in the hope that you will not go looking for
Voldemort. I also now believe that as
you are no longer a child, you are ready to know why Voldemort wishes to kill
you". In a way, Harry had wanted to
know this ever since his eleventh birthday, but in another way he didn't want
to know as he knew it would make him feel like he was no longer a child, who
could rely on being protected by those around him.
The sense of dread Harry felt was so intense that he had to
force himself to look at Dumbledore and focus on what he was saying. "Your parents were possibly the two greatest
Aurors who had ever lived. Together
they made an almost unbeatable team and in their time they exposed many dark
wizards for their true selves. When you
were born, Voldemort knew that if you had inherited powers from both your
parents and were trained by them, you would grow up to be one of the greatest
wizards and Aurors that had ever lived.
He felt that if this were allowed to happen, then he would be stopped
from carrying out his reign of terror.
This was why he turned up at your house that night and attempted to kill
you all".
Harry was so shocked and horrified by Dumbledore had just
told him that his vision became hazy and Dumbledore swum before his eyes as his
eyes filled with tears and he struggled to keep his feelings under
control. Dumbledore broke off from what
he was saying, got up from his seat and came around the desk to comfort Harry,
or so he thought.
There was a mad gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes which
Harry had never seen before. Dumbledore
whispered triumphantly, "For all these years everyone has believed that I have
been working against Voldemort when I have really been in league with him. Now I can show my true self and make the
greatest wizard who has ever lived proud of me by killing you at last". Harry stared at Dumbledore in complete shock
and horror at the man he had always thought was protecting him as he threw back
his head and laughed madly.
Dumbledore raised his wand and Harry instinctively dived
underneath the desk, landing awkwardly and losing his glasses. Dumbledore roared "Avada Kedavra" and there
was a blinding flash of green light and a deafeningly loud rushing sound. Harry's scar exploded with pain and combined
with the flash of green light almost blinded him for many seconds.
When Harry's vision eventually cleared he saw Dumbledore
lying on the floor of the office, apparently dead. Harry nervously approached the prone figure of Dumbledore and
realised that he wasn't breathing.
Harry was frantically trying to decide what to do when it
dawned on him that he couldn't feel his glasses on his nose, yet he could see
everything around him very clearly. He
saw his glasses lying under Dumbledore's desk, picked them up and put them in
his pocket and was trying to decide what to do when he heard phoenix song and
footsteps approaching the office.
Harry couldn't believe his eyes as he saw another Dumbledore
enter the room, with Fawkes the phoenix on his shoulder. Harry knew immediately that this was the
real Dumbledore when he saw the look of shear relief that was obvious on
Dumbledore's face.
Harry stammered, "Thank goodness you're here,
Professor. I thought that was you dead
on the floor. They took me up to your
office and told me that Voldemort had come to Hogwarts to try and finish me off
for good. Then they said that my
parents were the greatest Aurors that had ever lived and that I had inherited
great powers from both of them which was why Voldemort wants to kill me. Then they said that you'd been in league
with Voldemort for years and that you were finally going to kill me for him".
Dumbledore looked even older and more haggard than ever as
he began to speak to Harry. "Early this
morning Professor Snape woke me up and told me that I had to come quickly as he
believed Lord Voldemort may be hiding in the chamber that was once used to hide
the Philosophers Stone. Naturally, I
followed him straight there and the first thing I saw was Lord Voldemort
stirring a bubbling cauldron. Before I
could do anything Voldemort disarmed me and Snape bound and gagged me. The last thing I remember was Voldemort
cutting off part of my beard." Harry
looked at Dumbledore in horror as he continued to tell him his story, "I don't
know how long I was unconscious for but when I woke up Voldemort was gone and
Professor Snape had untied me and returned my wand. I can only conclude that Voldemort must have been controlling him
under the Imperius curse".
As Dumbledore finished speaking, the appearance of the dead
man on the floor began to change. His
long hair and beard were rapidly becoming shorter and changed from silver to
brown; his skin became much less wrinkled.
Harry and Dumbledore found themselves looking at the lifeless form of
Lord Voldemort. It seemed that he had
finally been killed.
Harry's brain was spinning with questions and he eventually
faltered, "Did I kill Voldemort this time?
Do I really have powers that mean he was frightened of me? I could see without my glasses as soon as he
was dead, how did that happen?"
There was the slightest hint of a smile on Dumbledore's face
as he surveyed Harry's puzzled expression through his half moon
spectacles. "What Voldemort told you
was correct, your parents were indeed the greatest aurors that have ever
lived. James was the best student this
school had ever produced in the area of Defence Against the Dark Arts so he was
exceptional at fighting dark wizards.
Lily had an extremely rare power in her eyes which meant that she could
sense if any given person was a dark wizard, working for Voldemort or being
controlled by the Cruciatus curse".
Harry listened engrossed as Dumbledore continued, "Together
they had caught many people and had them sent to Azkaban. When you were born they saw that you had
Lily's eyes and had almost certainly inherited James' powers as well. Voldemort wanted to kill your parents to
make sure they didn't capture him and he must have decided to kill you to make
sure that nobody would ever be able to stop him. I believe that the powers you have inherited from both your
parents meant that the curse rebounded upon him but as you were a baby it
didn't rebound quite strongly enough to kill him".
Harry's brain was spinning with what Dumbledore had just
told him but he managed to ask, "Why can I see without my glasses now? What do you think triggered that?" A strange, knowing expression appeared on
Dumbledore's face. "After your parents
had been killed and you survived I realised that you must have exceptional
powers, but you must not be allowed to use them until you were much older and a
fully trained wizard. I put a spell on
you to damage your eyesight so that you would need glasses. This would control your powers until you
were old enough to control and use them properly. I was planning to tell you all of this and lift the spell on your
eyes on your last day at Hogwarts".
Harry stared at Dumbledore's own half moon glasses and said,
"Why haven't you used the spell on yourself to improve your own eyesight?" Dumbledore replied; "Nobody else knows about
this spell. If anyone found out that I
had used it on you I would be in serious trouble with the Ministry of Magic as
the invention of new spells is very strictly controlled. I can't use it on myself as I suspect that
it would blind me. I only used it on
you for your own good, to save you from your powers until you were ready to use
them".
Harry's head was still spinning from what he had just been told,
but he was beginning to understand as he watched Dumbledore raise his wand and
point it at Voldemort. Voldemort's
lifeless body was raised up into the air as Dumbledore moved towards the door
and motioned to Harry to follow him.
Harry followed Dumbledore through the empty corridors and out of the
castle towards a distant part of the grounds, near to the Forbidden Forest.
Dumbledore said, looking thoughtful, "I think I will call
Miss Granger to help us dispose of his body".
Harry watched, feeling mystified as Dumbledore raised his wand and a
silvery bird shot out of it and disappeared towards the castle. In less than five minutes Hermione appeared,
hurrying towards them. She appeared
very taken aback when she saw the body on the ground but she listened to what
Dumbledore was saying. "Miss Granger,
we would like to dispose of this body completely and as one of your
specialities is conjuring flames I wonder if you would be kind enough to assist
us?" "Of course, Professor", said
Hermione apprehensively. She raised her
wand and sent jet after jet of bluish flame at Voldemort's body, which set it
alight from head to toe.
As the body burned, Hermione glanced at Harry and cried out
in shock, "Harry! Your scar, it-it's
disappearing!" As Voldemort's body was
reduced to nothing but a pile of ashes Dumbledore said wisely, "As Voldemort is
now truly gone, that scar has served its purpose so that is why it has gone".
