Harry Potter was a weedy, wiry young man with a messy mop of black hair, the fringes of which hung just at eye level. He wasn't quite sure whether he liked it that way or not. On the downside, it itched at his forehead. But on the upside, it hid a curiously lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. And he had had enough of people staring at it, thank you very much. Although at the moment there was nobody around to stare at him at all. Not while he was tucked (relatively) safely away in his room at Number 4 Privet drive.
Harry was sitting at his desk looking out of the open window and up at the large, full moon. His snowy owl, Hedwig, was floating way up there, flying free. Her silhouette a beautiful contrast with the bright light of the moon. She was on the hunt. And how Harry wished that he could be like her. Out. Free. On the hunt.
You see, just a short while ago, Harry saw his godfather's cousin murder him. And Harry swore that, even if it was the last thing he did, he would avenge Sirius. With his bare damn hands if he had to…but that's getting ahead of the picture, isn't it? Or behind the picture, depending on how you looked at it…
At the moment, Harry was contemplating his next move. He had already sent away for advanced warfare spellbooks, as well as some of the more basic ones. He was not coming out of the summer holidays without being better than he was before. The grief of losing his last real remaining link to his family had quickly given way to rage, to a well of furious determination within him that Harry did not know existed.
Harry had already blazed a trail through the books that he had ordered, and even had pages of notes on battle tactics and battle theory. A recently brand new copy of Sun Tzu's Art of War was at the top of the pile of books on Harry's desk, dog-eared and filled with notes in the margins. Harry was a man with a mission now. Two missions in one, actually: one, to kill Voldemort so definitely that there would be absolutely no coming back, not like last time; and two, to kill Bellatrix Lestrange (one of Voldemort's most favorite of minions). Oh yes, Harry would kill her dead. Not to mention whichever sorry bastard it was that almost killed Hermione.
What was his name again? Harry thought. Oh yeah, Dolohov.
Thoughts of Hermione and the Department of Mysteries soon turned to thoughts of all of his friends that were there with him. Ron, of course, Harry's best friend. Ginny, Ron's little sister. Neville, who almost had Harry's fate. Harry pondered on Neville.
He almost had my life. If Voldemort had chosen to attack Neville instead of me when he was a year old, it would be Neville sitting here, caged up like an animal by that damn "Order." Pfft, the Order. Damn the Order and damn Dumbledore too. What a right bastard, hiding something like this from me for so long. A prophecy, a damn bloody PROPHECY about me having to either kill or be killed by the most powerful sorcerer in recent history, and he does damn near NOTHING to prepare me. The fool.
Harry began seething so badly that pencil he was chewing (and now grinding with his teeth) caught on fire at the far end. Harry spit it out and toppled over in surprise, knocking papers and books everywhere on his way down, hitting his head (and hard) on the wood floor.
*~*~*
"Who the HELL fired at him?!"
"How did they get through the barrier?!"
Frantic sounding voices came in through the window. Dazed and disoriented, Harry lifted his head off of the ground. Thankfully, the fire had died out. But still, Harry was not a happy camper, hearing the idiocy coming from the outside world.
"Where did the spell come from? Anyone see it fired off?" Said a distinctly familiar, female voice.
Harry had had enough of the racket. If the Dursleys heard too much more of this, it would be his hide, protection or not.
"Oi, Tonks!" Harry yelled leaning out if the window, gripping the sides of the walls (only partly to hold himself up). "Would you lot shut up already? Bloody hell, if it was someone who fired at me, they'd know where every one of you dolts are! And it was just some accidental magic, so quiet down!"
And even as Tonks started to respond, Harry turned away and plopped down on his bed. So of course, Tonks being the precocious young woman she is, simply magicked her way into Harry's room, at the foot of his bed, and looking more than cross.
"What the bloody hell was that all about, Harry? We're only here trying to help and keep you safe, you don't have to go biting our heads off for it!" She said angrily.
Harry, for his part, kept his composure this time, as well as his eyes shut. And through gritted teeth, he said, "Well, Nymphadora…for one thing, I didn't ask you to be here, least of all in my room. Second of all, exactly what do you think Moody would say if he were here? And thirdly, keeping watch over me isn't nearly as damn important as the Order doing better work to dwindling Voldemort's forces. Besides, worst comes to worst, it would probably be easier if I stay at Hogwarts."
Tonks (despite being highly incensed at the mention of her first name) was sufficiently shut up with the thought of what Moody would have been like had he been there. But being Tonks, she didn't stay quiet for long.
"Harry…" She hesitated, which quite honestly was a very un-Tonks-like thing to do. "Harry…I still don't understand why you're so angry though. What did we do to make you so upset? You weren't like this at the train station two weeks ago…"
Harry, realizing that Tonks was not about to leave, decided to go ahead and answer her.
"I've had two weeks to think about why last year happened the way it did, Tonks," Harry said tiredly. "Two weeks to do nothing but pace in this hellhole of a cage that Dumbledore had me put in since my parents died. And do you want to know what I've had the time to finally consider, Tonks? Please, let me enlighten you: at the age of one year old, I had already seen the worst monster to walk the face of the earth, and watched that bastard kill my family. I watched my mother die screaming, Tonks. And I watched as that monster tried to kill me too. I still dream about it. It's what I see when dementors get near me, you know.
"Did you know that Hagrid was the one who found me? I actually remember that. He found me through the bloody, literally bloody, rubble of my house. And on Dumbledore's orders, he delivered me from one hell to another. Dumbledore knew what kind of people the Durlseys were…still are actually. They didn't want me, they hated me and they let me know that every damn day of my life. I thought that I was completely alone in this world, completely worthless. Until Hagrid came and rescued me again. Until I finally went to Hogwarts.
"You remember what happened that first year, right? I'm sure you must've heard about it. Voldemort was after the Philosopher's Stone that Dumbledore, the daft old codger, hid at a bloody school. Voldemort was, if you can believe this, hidden inside Professor Quirrell's turban the whole damn time."
Harry let out a derisive snort. "Can you believe that, Tonks?" He said, having trouble keeping a straight face at that point. "It's damn ridiculous! But there you have it: Dumbledore's greatest enemy was right under his senile old nose the whole damn time, and he didn't even notice. Hell, he had Quirrell help defend the Stone while he was at it!"
At this point, Harry just laughed outright at the ludicrousness of it all. And if you look at it like Harry did, well, who wouldn't find it hysterical?
Tonks, on the other hand, wore a look of outright mortification on her face, and understandably so. After all, here she was, standing in the bedroom of the youngest hero of the wizarding world, who was supposed to have been always respectful to his elders (at least those on the side of good…Snape notwithstanding of course), and here he was: not only questioning the oldest hero of the wizarding world, but mocking him too! What was a young auror to think?
"Ahh, well, if you get past that, then it did turn out alright, didn't it?" Said Harry, after finally regaining his composure. "Except for the part where myself, Ron and Hermione went after the Philosopher's Stone ourselves to protect it from Voldemort, considering nobody else in the school believed us when we said we knew when he was going to go after it. Not a single person did anything about it. But for we three…And let's not forget the fact that I killed someone because of it. Quirrell died from my very touch, Tonks. As soon he grabbed me to make me tell him where the Stone was, he started burning, burning until his hand turned to ash. And you know what I did then, Tonks?"
Tonks shook her head "no."
"I reached up with my hands and grabbed his whole damn face. I killed him with my own two hands, Tonks. Harry Potter, age eleven, already a killer twice over. Once, through pure magical reaction, through fate, and the second with all conscious thought…
"Want to move on to what I realized about second year now, Tonks?" Harry asked.
Tonks' only response was to sit down at the edge of Harry's bed and nod. If only her teachers from Hogwarts could see her now: it took a lot to keep Tonks quiet for long. And it took even more to make her utterly speechless.
"Second year was…confusing for me," Harry started slowly. "I thought I was going crazy because I kept hearing this voice that apparently nobody else could hear. Of course, that turned out to be because I'm a Parselmouth, and there was a basilisk running loose in the pipe system, petrifying people left and right.
"It was revealed fairly early one that I shared this…skill with Voldemort, and Dumbledore had to have known about it. There's barely an aspect of my life he doesn't make certain he knows about, I'm sure of it. Did he do anything about it? Did he try to help his wonderful little hero, his little pawn? Of course not, there was no actual, substantial help coming from him at all. Did he tell me about it? No. Did he help me to learn about it? No. Did he tell me there was nothing wrong with me? No, he didn't do any of these things until after the fact. And I'm not even going to start about him hiring Lockhart of all people.
"So, Tonks, now we have a basilisk, the dreadful monster from the Chamber of Secrets, running loose trying to kill people, we have Harry Potter who turned from hero in the eyes of the public to possible murderous lunatic (and I'll be honest with you, Tonks, I was beginning to believe it myself), we have young Ginny Weasley, first year, being routinely possessed by the very spirit of Voldemort's younger self from – get this – an enchanted diary he used, we have Gilderoy Lockhart, fraud extraordinaire, and we have Dumbledore. Normally, the fact that we had Dumbledore would instill a decent amount of safety in the general population, but the damn fool had already become so used to reacting to things that he just doesn't do anything correctly to prevent things anymore."
Harry had to stop and catch his breath. He sat up with his legs out on the bed in front of him, his back to the wall. He leaned his head back onto the wall and continued.
"Finally, Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort to you) got around to taking Ginny down to the Chamber of Secrets (which we got to by saying 'open up' in Parseltongue in a specific girls' loo, btw…don't ask). Dumbledore had, at his point of course, already been escorted off the premises by order of the school governors (who were threatened by Lucius Malfoy, of course, and don't worry: we'll be getting to the Malfoys soon enough). Lockhart, after realizing that Ron and myself figured out he was a fraud, first tried running away so he wouldn't have to try to find Ginny, then tried to obliviate us so we wouldn't tell anyone his secret. Thankfully, that backfired on him, leaving me free to go find Ginny myself.
"When I got to Ginny, Riddle was almost corporeal and ready to fully manifest. Sure, the process would kill Ginny, but what the hell did he care? To make a long story less long, Riddle summoned his basilisk to attack me so I killed it. Don't ask."
Tonks now had a look of utter and complete shock on her face. A boy of twelve facing a basilisk and not only surviving, but emerging the victor? That was unheard of! But the conviction and candor with which Harry spoke made her easily believe him. It didn't make it any less of a shock though.
Harry continued with his story.
"So after the basilisk lay dead and bleeding, I found myself bleeding as well: one of its fangs had pierced right through my arm. So what was I going to do? Die myself and let Ginny die too? I ripped it out of my arm and stabbed the diary with it. I dunno why I did it, but it worked. The memory-spirit of Tom Riddle was no more. And once again, Dumbledore did nothing to help.
"Alright, third year. It was a tough year, that. I thought that Voldemort's favorite lieutenant, the great betrayer of my family, was on the loose again and trying to kill me. Of course, it turned out that everyone was wrong, mostly. You know the story though, don't you, Tonks? Peter Pettigrew, betrayer of my family, lapdog of Voldemort (far from favorite) was the one who was always loose, and he framed Sirius ages ago. Humph…weird, isn't it? From Pettigrew's betrayal, both Sirius' and my family, my parents, were murdered, and instead of Pettigrew paying the price, both Sirius and I were sentenced to hellish prisons for more than a decade.
"Anyway, Dumbledore could have averted all of this, and I might have even been able to grow up with Sirius had he not been in prison, if Dumbledore would have just looked into the matter when Sirius was brought in to the Ministry of Magic. But no, he sat back and watched it all happen. That bastard. Only decent thing he did was to hire Lupin and to give me and Hermione the idea to use her time-turner so that we could help ourselves out. Thankfully, that worked. But then came fourth year."
Harry sighed and got up off his bed and leaned on the windowsill again, looking out at the moon. Tonks made no movement, but just let her eyes follow him.
"Fourth year, Tonks…fourth year was tough," Harry started. "I had to participate in a competition I didn't want to be in, my best friends and I were this close to never speaking to each other again, and every day it seemed like Hermione was taking Ron's side more and more…Not to mention the third time Dumbledore hired someone less than…worthy. Another time Dumbledore was tricked by something so simple as a polyjuice potion and a portkey. Another example of his foolishness almost getting me killed, time and again.
"And it recently occurred to me that all I had to do was participate in the competition, I didn't have to try to win it. I probably shouldn't have tried at all. Hell, that way, maybe…maybe Cedric wouldn't have had to die and maybe Voldemort wouldn't have even been able to remanifest with a…well, with his new body anyway, can't really say a human body 'cause he's not a human anymore…but that's beside the point.
"Anyway, Dumbledore knew the rules of the competition, but he didn't try to help me at all. He knew that every school cheats in the Triwizard Tournament, but no, his overdeveloped sense of 'nobility' wouldn't let him even help me to survive the damn thing!"
Breathing hard with rage and frustration at his whole situation, Harry hung his head, and tried to calm himself down.
"Right, back to point," Harry said. "As it turned out, the Moody that we knew then wasn't the real Moody, but Barty Crouch Jr. taking polyjuice potion, fooling everyone, including Dumbledore. After being taken to the Riddle Manor graveyard by Crouch's portkey/trophy, watching Cedric get murdered, surviving torture and Voldemort himself, and bringing Cedric's body back, Crouch tried to kill me himself. Dumbledore finally did something right and helped out, just in the nick of time. Good for him.
"So Voldemort came back, and the ministry started vilifying me instead of taking any precaution whatsoever. Tell me, Tonks, is the whole damn wizarding world that full of cowardice and stupidity? No, never mind, don't answer, I already know. With the combined forces of Dumbledores foolishness and lack of common sense, Fudge's cowardice and outright lack of intelligence, and Voldemort's manpower and uncanny ability to stay one step ahead of us every damn time, I'm surprised he hasn't already won the damn war. If he hadn't been so preoccupied with finding out what that prophecy said about us, who knows how badly we'd be suffering right now.
"And Dumbledore let himself get bullied by the Daily Prophet and Fudge…Fudge! Of all damn people, Dumbledore let himself get pushed around by that damn idiot! And that marks another time that an unfit teacher held position at Hogwarts. Did Dumbledore…did he…did he do anything right in all these years, Tonks? Or do people just assume he knows what he's doing because he defeated Grindelwald all those years ago? Hell…he barely even looked at me all last year, and then I find out that he knew the prophecy that was made about me and Voldemort all these years, and that bastard HID IT FROM ME!"
"Oi! Shut the bloody hell up, boy! I don't care if your freak friends are out there or not, don't think you won't get the belt buckle for it!" Uncle Vernon yelled up the stairs. Harry could clearly picture his face purple with rage. It always perplexed Harry how anybody could change colors like that…maybe he's actually a closeted metamorphmagus like Tonks, Harry thought, smirking.
"Anyway," Harry quietly continued, "Dumbledore hid it from me. Dumbledore did nothing to help our situation, not in Hogwarts and not in the outside world. As leader of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore did not do as he should have. Dumbledore caged me here once again. Dumbledore never started training me for what I have to do. Dumbledore is either a failure, a fraud, or just senile. I'm not sure which one is the most likely at this point, Tonks.
"So there you have it, that's what changed with me over the last two weeks. That's why I'm so damn angry now. So there are your answers."
With that, Harry walked over to his bed again, laid down, and turned to face the wall, closing his eyes.
Tonks sat there in silence for what seemed like hours to her. She was shocked, sad, upset, and even angry on Harry's behalf. Finally, it dawned on her.
"Harry," she said quietly, cautiously. "Harry, you said Albus hasn't been training you for 'what you have to do.' What is it that you have to do? What did the prophecy say?"
Harry didn't turn around. Staying in place for little longer than a moment, he gave her one last answer.
"I am going to kill Tom Riddle, Tonks."