A/N: So it's finally 12 am in some parts of America. Here's the last update for the 25th!
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Harry was forever thankful of Gornhack and the other Goblins of Gringotts. He couldn't remember what had happened just that he had been so angry at the way the Dursleys talked about his parents who had never done anything to them and Harry wondered they had left him all alone—
As it was, the Ministry detected another bout of underage magic in number 4 Privet Drive.
Harry only became aware of what had happened when the Minister himself was in front of him. Apparently, he had blown up his Aunt Marge until she floated into the sky, causing the Obliviation Squad to have to obliviate a lot of muggles. He only regretted that his magic didn't continue to blow her up until she popped like a rubber balloon.
Then he was "asked" to stay in the Leaky Cauldron until the 1st of September.
It was suspicious, of course, that the Minister would concern himself with Harry Potter. Even if he is the Boy-Who-Lived, he could not recall any sort of tie Cornelius Fudge had to the name Potter; nothing enough to warrant his focus.
But Griphook, his accounts manager, was more than happy to supply him information.
Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. His Godfather. He had a Godfather.
And from what the Goblins knew—and they knew absolutely everything about their clients—the man was never a Death Eater.
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Despite staying in the Leaky Cauldron—inside the truly wonderful magical world, where he should belong—for half of his summer and celebrating his birthday by assuming his role as his own Head of House, Harry missed Hogwarts terribly. He missed the ancient knowledge inscribed in the very essence of the castle, the tenderness Hogwarts herself lavished onto every student that trudged through her walls.
He always enjoyed the warm welcome she would give to every person entering her wards.
But this year, he had missed it.
And it was all because of the Dementors haunting the edges of the wards of Hogwarts, as if she could not defend her own.
He had a stronger reaction towards them than any other person. He'd had to relive the moment of his parents' death over and over again until their effects are chased away by the absence of the looming presence of a Dementor—
There's no good and evil—
It didn't matter that his magic could be considered sentient. It didn't matter that he had a natural alignment towards either types of magic. Dementors are creatures created by the worst of human kind—an anomaly of magic manifested in the same way as poltergeists.
They could never be destroyed, just as the entirety of humanity can never die.
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Staring at Ron's injured form, Harry felt a pang of… something.
The injury wasn't severe. It was just a sprained (perhaps broken) ankle, mauled when Sirius dragged him off into the passage hidden under the Whomping Willow. Nothing life threatening, not even an infected cut.
Ron was fine.
But as the Time Turner whisked him and Hermione away into a different time, Ron's fearful but determined face etched itself in his mind.
It was that fear and determination that Harry and Hermione had used when they saved Sirius and—yes, he would rather live with a man he never knew than be back with the Dursleys.
(And Harry had long since learned that good things would never come to someone like him.)
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Harry stared at the stone Gargoyle that served as the guard to the Headmaster's office. It stared right back at him with beady, statuesque eyes.
"May I come in?" Harry decided to break the awkward silence. "The Headmaster is expecting me." And he hadn't thought to give Harry the password.
The Gargoyle remained in its position.
Harry sighed and placed his hand on one of its bent knee, sending a pulse of his magic to convey his intention. If words didn't work, then perhaps this would.
And it did. The Gargoyle sprung to life and stepped aside, revealing the staircase that he had only ever stepped into once. He hadn't thought that he would need to again. The Headmaster was not one of the people he would like to see now despite his help in letting Sirius escape.
(It was the old man's fault in the first place. Harry couldn't—wouldn't ever forget that.)
With slight trepidation, he stepped up into the stairs and before he could knock on the door, it opened to reveal the Headmaster's office. Shelves upon shelves of books lined the walls and stacks of books and parchment littered every available surface. It was a hovel of knowledge that Harry wished to peruse at some time. The Potter Family Vault only held so much and Hogwarts' library held too little in the wealth of Gringotts.
His eyes caught that of the Headmaster's twinkling ones.
"My boy," Albus Dumbledore spoke as if it was a delight to see him. "It's wonderful that you could join me here. Care for some Sherbet Lemons?"
Harry shook his head. "No thank you, Headmaster."
"Ah, well, shame." The Headmaster popped one sweet in his mouth and hummed. Then he seemed to have noticed that Harry was only standing on the threshold. "Come in, come in! Don't be so shy my boy. Here, sit."
Harry did so reluctantly, torn between anger and calm. He could not forget that the man in front of him could be so callous as to manipulate a child's—perhaps even others'—mind. But it seems, for now at least, that the wily old man was content in what he is seeing.
Harry Potter never did anything to stray from the path set for him.
For him to do that was tantamount to harming himself.
But Harry lived his own separate life from Harry Potter.
(He ignored the insistent voice in his mind that told him—what's so different about you? You're nothing but a freak, nothing but a waste of space. You should have died with those good for nothing parents of yours.)
Because they are different.
Harry Potter would live and die for magic, blind to the faults of those who wish to use him.
Harry would live and die for magic, eyes wide open to what could happen.
There's no good and evil. There's only the choices one had to make and Harry would, and always will, choose magic above everything.
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(Posted: December 25, 2017)