Disclaimer: I have Harry Potter in my pocket. He is helpless to my commands. He is...
Oh wait, that's J. K. Rowling. Sorry. J. K. Rowling has Harry Potter in her pocket. He is helpless to her commands. He is a puppet on a string.
Oh wait, that's Neil Cicierega. Snape, Snape, Severus Snape... I should really shut up now.
Summary: This will likely not be in Hogwarts Connect Book 5, though some parts are definitely part of my alternate universe. It's a small point of diversion that effectively leads nowhere, except a Hogwarts Rock Opera - Harry Potter's Musical Version of the War of the Wizards, read by Alan Rickman. Who would listen to that?
Rated T for language.
"Me mam didn't want me to come back to Hogwarts this year."
Harry stopped and looked at Seamus in surprise. He hadn't thought Mrs Finnigan was the paranoid type, and surely she realised Hogwarts was possibly the safest place in the country.
"Why?" he asked.
"Er, let me see. Because of you!" Seamus replied.
"She believes the Daily Prophet? She believes I'm a liar?"
"Well, no-one else was there the night Cedric died. Look, what did happen that night?"
"Why don't you read the Prophet like your stupid mother? That'll tell you everything you need to know."
"Don't have a go at my mother!"
"I'll have a go at anyone who calls me a liar!"
Suddenly the portrait hole opened and Ron and Hermione came in with the first years. Both stopped at the sight of Harry and Seamus glaring at each other, clearly in the middle of a shouting match, and the whole common room.
"Harry," said Ron, "What's going on?"
"He's having a go at my mother!" Seamus exclaimed. "Look, you don't believe the rubbish he's spewing out about You-Know-Who, do you?"
"Yeah, I do," Ron replied. Hermione poked him.
"Not in front of the first years," she said. Harry, however, had had enough.
"This is like second year all over again," he said. "I'm going to nip this one in the bud after all." He strode to the fireplace in the common room, pointing his wand at his throat and saying "Sonorus!", watched by a nonplussed Ron and an absolutely flabbergasted Hermione. Neville, however, smiled at his friend.
"Right," he said, turning to face the room, the fire blazing behind him, casting his silhouette across the room. "Who here believes the Daily Prophet? Put your hand up, don't be shy. That goes for all of you," he said, nodding to the first years. To their credit, none of their hands went up, although half of the people across the room raised a hand.
"Half of you, it seems. So much for Gryffindor will be your family. Families stick together! When have the rumours about me been true in the past?"
"The one about you saving the Philosopher's Stone was true," a smirking Fred Weasley pointed out.
"Except nobody believes that one, because they'd much rather believe You-Know-Who was dead," his twin added.
"Yes, well, apart from that one. I didn't go around petrifying Muggleborns three years ago, did I?"
"Says you," groused a sixth year in the corner.
"Shut up, Cormac," said Katie Bell.
"No, I won't," replied Cormac. "Why should we believe you, Potter? You come out of that maze, holding Cedric Diggory's body, proclaiming that Lord Voldemort has returned from the dead. How do we know it wasn't you?"
Harry's blood boiled, but he forced himself to take deep, calming breaths. The sound of rushing air filled the room like the snores of a sleeping dragon.
"Look, I'm not here to talk about Cedric. I don't want to talk about how he died. You don't know what it's like, watching a friend die, right in front of you. I'm not talking about it, and if you want to hear about it, you can go fuck yourselves. I'm here to warn those of you that are going to listen."
He stopped, and for possibly the first time in the history of Gryffindor house, there was total silence in the Gryffindor common room in the evening of September the first, save for the noise of Harry taking a breath.
"No one would have believed, in the last months of 1995, that wizarding affairs were being watched by a recently reborn Lord Voldemort. No one could have dreamed that our society was being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men were willing to consider the possibility of Lord Voldemort rising again, and yet, many miles away, across the country, magic immeasurably more powerful than any of ours was being crafted, as slowly, but surely, he drew his plans against us."
There was another silence throughout the room, but it was broken momentarily by Fred and George, in unison.
"DUN DUN DUUUUN!" they sang. Most of the Muggleborns laughed, but stopped when Harry spoke up.
"You think it's funny?" he said. "Do you remember how long the humans lasted? Maybe you didn't hear the stories of the first war. Voldemort doesn't spare anyone, and if you keep your head in the sand while he comes after you, you're dead - or you become a Death Eater, doesn't matter really."
"It's really that bad?" asked Colin Creevey. "Do we really have so little chance?"
"Last time, back in the seventies, he was starting from scratch with nobody, and yet eleven years later, he was close to taking over the country. We can beat him this time, we have a fighting chance, but if the Ministry keeps their head down like this, well, look at Lucius Malfoy! He's nearly in complete control of Fudge - what with his "charitable donations" placed masterfully throughout the Wizarding World."
"Lucius Malfoy's a Death Eater?" asked a third year girl who Harry thought might be Demelza Robins.
"Yep," said Harry.
"Always knew he was a slimy bastard," nodded Kenneth Towler. "Who else? Avery?"
"Yep," said Harry.
"What about Karkaroff, he used to be one, didn't he?" asked Vicky Frobisher. Several people looked shocked at this.
"Actually, no, he's being hunted down for betraying everyone else. That's why he ran, and good luck to him."
"Sirius Black?" asked one of the first years.
"I didn't see him there," said Harry, "and he called everyone with the Dark Mark on their arm. I don't know where he was." Thankfully, nobody questioned him further about Sirius.
"Is everyone satisfied?" he asked. Most people nodded. He touched his wand to his throat, muttered "Quietus", then walked back over to Ron and Hermione. The latter hit him. The first years giggled.
"You all believed me, right? That makes you better people than those idiots over there," said Harry, smiling down at them. Most of them frowned at him.
"You didn't have to quote War of the Worlds at them," said Hermione. "That album is creepy." Some of the first years nodded along with her.
"Yes, you did," sniggered Ron. "That was brilliant."
"THE CHANCES OF VOLDEMORT RISING AGAIN IS A MILLION TO ONE - sorry, Harry," sang Fred and George as Harry turned to glare at them.
As Ron and Hermione dispatched the first years to their rooms, Harry collapsed into an armchair, and was soon joined by Ginny.
"That was inspired, Harry," she said to him. "You should put it on a record. What gave you the idea?"
"Remus," he said. "You could see it in his eyes. He said my parents went with him to the premiere, and then it all happened to him."
"Poor Remus," she said. "Anyway, who would be the Thunder Child?"
"Dumbledore," replied Harry. "You know he thinks he's got less than three years left, that stupid Jubilee Line Extension. He's probably going to die saving the students - seeing as that's what he's being trying to do for the last fifty years. Can't you see Sirius being the Artilleryman?"
Ginny smiled.
"Anyway, I should be going to bed. See you tomorrow," he said to her as he got up and headed up the spiral staircase to the dormitories.
"Inspired, Harry," said Dean. "You've got most of the Gryffindor first years terrified now. By tomorrow morning, the whole school will be quaking in their boots."
"Shut up, Dean," said Harry.
At midnight on the 12th of January, a green flare burst forth at Azkaban Prison and sped towards Britain. Across 200 million millimetres of Scotland, invisibly hurtling towards us, came Dolohov, the first of the Death Eaters that were to cause so much calamity to Hogwarts. As I watched, there was another flare of light. It was Bellatrix Lestrange, starting on her way. Just like her cousin, exceedingly arrogant, strutting across the country... Fudge the Minister assured the Wizarding Public that there was no need to panic. He was convinced there could be no possible threat coming from that remote, forbidding island.
The Lestranges must have seen them,
As they strode along the shore,
Standing firm between them,
There stood Dumbledore!
Anyone want to write this plot bunny, or will this remain a lonely oneshot?