It was a golden late afternoon at number four Privet Drive, and Harry Potter was Packing. Or, rather, Tonks was Packing, and Harry was enjoying dropping items on the floor and watching her pick them up.
"You'll love Potter Manor, Harry - I went once on a mission for the Order, and it's amazing. Chandeliers, a ballroom, a gilded bathtub, more house elves than you have odd socks and a home cinema."
Harry wondered how bored his parents must have been when they were in hiding. Although, knowing how young they'd had him, possibly they hadn't been bored at all.
"It sounds great, Tonks," Harry said with a smile, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Tonks frowned.
"Harry, what's wrong? Have you had second thoughts?"
Harry paused. He hadn't - not about becoming emancipated and taking up his collections of titles and inheritances. But he was sad that he didn't have his best friends beside him. They hadn't been able to see past Dumbledore's lies. At least he had Tonks, he thought, and gave her a warm smile that made her hair turn red.
"Enough of that," she said, throwing a box of chocolate frogs at him, "or we'll never get packed."
Harry laughed. He could certainly get used to this.
"And you're ok with coming to Potter Manor with me? No second thoughts?" he asked.
She smiled.
"Of course I am. None at all. The minute we soul-bonded, this was the outcome."
Of course, the soul-bonding thing. Harry choked back a laugh quite commendably.
"And the age difference doesn't put you off?" he probed further.
"You know," Tonks replied, thoughtfully, "I don't think age differences in a relationship have ever been a red line for me."
That was useful to know, although Harry felt sure he was missing something important.
It was at that moment that Albus Dumbledore Apparated into Harry's bedroom. Not for the first time, Harry wondered why Dumbledore couldn't use the front door, like an ordinary person, instead of violating his privacy. Imagine if he'd arrived that morning… things could have been very awkward indeed.
"Ah, Harry, there you are," Dumbledore beamed, as though Harry's bedroom was not a particularly likely place in which to find Harry.
"Professor, now really isn't the time," Harry started, not particularly wanting to call Dumbledore out in the Dursleys' smallest bedroom with his new soul-bonded life partner in the room.
"I'm here to discuss Grimmauld Place. You know that Sirius left it to the Order, but for some reason the Fidelius Charm has been broken, and I was a little concerned that…"
Dumbledore trailed off. He was staring at Harry, looking rather more shocked than Harry had ever seen the Headmaster before. Harry raised his hand to his face instinctively.
"I haven't got owl poop on my face, do I, sir? I'm sure I washed my hands after cleaning Hedwig out."
"I would have told you if you had. Probably," Tonks added, helpfully.
"Mr Potter," Dumbledore interrupted, looking as stern as possible for an old man in robes with an incredible beard and a ridiculous hat who has to peer over his spectacles, "What have you done?"
It was an instinctive reaction for Harry to feel guilty. He had broken his fair share of rules at Hogwarts, after all, and whilst it was usually Professor McGonagall who used that tone with him, there was something immediately and irrevocably quelling about it.
"Um, are you sure it wasn't Ron?" he deflected without hesitation.
"I'm fairly sure that Mr Weasley has nothing to do with the lack of Trace magic and surge in power that I can sense around you, Mr Potter," Dumbledore replied.
"Ah," Harry said.
"I didn't think that mystical magic-sensing was a canon part of our magic system, Professor," Tonks said, carefully, with a hint of a question.
"I don't think anything has seemed particularly realistic ever since I received that letter about Sirius' will: let's face it, I haven't done nearly enough sulking," Harry pointed out.
"Indeed, but plots must be progressed, mustn't they, Mr Potter and Miss Tonks?" Dumbledore beamed over his spectacles.
"Speaking of which," Harry continued, "I have become legally emancipated, and have inherited everything that comes with the name of Lord Black, Earl of Azkaban, Sir Potter, Marquis of Peverell, Heir of Snotsniffle. So there."
"I'm fairly sure it was 'Squigwiffle', Harry," Tonks whispered.
"He was the Forgotten Founder - I doubt anybody else remembers his name, so it surely doesn't matter if I don't," Harry reasoned.
Dumbledore looked aghast, although whether at Harry's revelation or lack of historical knowledge despite five years of History of Magic classes at his school was uncertain.
"You are not the man I thought you were, Harry. By making this unconsidered and poorly plotted decision, you have shown yourself to be an inconsiderate child who has no thought for the greater good."
There it was again. The greater good. Why did everyone associated with Dumbledore keep using this phrase? And why was it so menacing? And why had he not taken that extra sandwich at lunchtime?
It was at that moment, rather conveniently, that a Chocolate Frog card fell off of the pile on unpacked belongings next to Harry, to land at his feet. It was rather unfortunate, however, particularly in relation to the last question in Harry's mind, that there was no chocolate with it.
It was Dumbledore's card. And there, in black and white, was -
"- particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945!" Harry yelled triumphantly.
Dumbledore and Tonks shared a look of utter bemusement.
"The whole 'the greater good' thing? The foreshadowing that's been going on pretty nonstop since the start of this mess? Dumbledore obviously justifying actions that are ethically dubious by claiming utilitarianism?" Harry prompted, feeling a trifle frustrated. If he'd figured it out then the Hogwarts Headmaster and a fully trained Auror certainly should have.
"You stupid, stupid little boy," Dumbledore fumed, "You don't understand anything. This has always had only two possible outcomes: it's either you or Voldemort. I've been doing everything in my power, everything I can conceive of to ensure that you win the day. And you have the temerity to challenge me?"
Dumbledore drew his wand, and pointed it at Harry. Harry froze: this had gone from amusingly perplexing to seriously scary in three seconds flat. He felt the adrenaline flood his system as he stood at Dumbledore's wand point. And then, rather suddenly, Harry felt an oddly familiar feeling of dizziness and nausea hit him rather like the Knight Bus.
Dumbledore dropped his wand. His hands went to his throat, and he began coughing and spluttering. His face turned red, and his eyes bulged, and still his hands scrabbled against the invisible force that appeared to be strangling him. He seemed to trip, landing on his knees with a desperate expression.
Harry was Shocked. This strange, nausea-inducing power he had discovered could even drive someone like Dumbledore to his knees. The Shock, however, seemed enough to drive away the dizziness, and at once Dumbledore was able to breathe again.
"The Peverell Legacy," Dumbledore gasped.
"The who now?" Harry enquired. But, completely uncharacteristically, Dumbledore didn't feel the need to relieve Harry's ignorant state.
"Oh what have you done?" Dumbledore lamented, not able to meet Harry's gaze.
Harry had Had Enough. This old man only wanted to manipulate him, steal from him, and generally keep Harry under his thumb - but Harry was an Adult, and totally able to look after himself and fight his own battles. Particularly as the Prophecy seemed to hint that he would have to fight Voldemort on his own anyway.
"Look, Professor," Harry sighed in a world-weary fashion, "just give me the keys to Grimmauld Place and Potter Manor. And the rest as well. Now, before I call the Auror Office and report that you've tried to attack me."
"I was going to invite you along on my Horcrux-hunting mission and everything, you know," Dumbledore pouted as he fumbled in the pockets of his robes.
"Sir, you know that the pupil never becomes a master until they lose their mentor. Either I leave now to find my own path to victory, or you'll end up dead at an inopportune moment without having revealed all of the plan, and I'll end up wandering around the woods for months trying to figure out how to save the world," Harry said, firmly.
"Yeah, haven't you seen Star Wars?" Tonks interjected.
"Erm," Harry looked unconvinced, "Was there wood-wandering in Star Wars?"
"Not literally, bar the Ewoks, but figuratively there was the whole of The Empire Strikes Back," Tonks pointed out.
And with that insightful point, Dumbledore relinquished the keys to Harry.
"You'll regret this, Mr Potter," he said imperiously as he rose to his feet before promptly Disapparating.
It seemed that the Dursleys would only cope with so many raised voices, bangs, cracks and generally suspicious noises coming from Harry's bedroom. Mr Dursley burst through the door, his face rather puce, and whilst the sight of Tonks checked him for a moment - a pretty, older girl in Harry's bedroom? When had the fabric of the universe altered? - he soon rallied and demanded an Explanation.
"What the devil is going on in my house, boy!" he boomed.
Harry rubbed at the eardrum closest to Mr Dursley which he suspected no longer functioned. He had Had Enough - not just of Dumbledore's machinations, but of the prophecy, of Lord Voldemort, of his destiny and most of all of the Dursleys and their inability to either treat him like family or else leave him well alone.
"I'm moving out, Uncle Vernon," he said, in a way that brooked no argument.
Mr Dursley faltered. Part of him instinctively wanted to argue, to bar Harry from leaving simply because he had the power to. But a (very) slightly smarter part of him realised that this would be counterproductive to his own and his family's happiness, too. So, Mr Dursley harumphed a bit, and gave Harry a very Suspicious glare, but said absolutely nothing to the contrary. Instead he merely inspected Harry's belongings as they were removed, making entirely sure that the boy had taken nothing with him that he hadn't bought himself.
Harry wasn't entirely satisfied with the way he left things with Uncle Vernon. He had envisioned the man trying to hit him, and Harry using his awful new power to choke him half to death before receiving a full apology and admission of childhood neglect. He had wanted Vernon to respect him - to be afraid of him. He spent most of the quick trip in their flying taxi (why hadn't one of these been available during that infamous incident in his second year?) towards Potter Manor imagining much more pleasurable scenarios than reality. But he didn't have long to Brood over his horrible family, quite thankfully, or else he might have got into such a funk that he never found his way out again. His arrival at Potter Manor very soon took up all of Harry's attention.
"Wotcher, Harry," Tonks said with a grin as they gazed up at the palatial towers of their new home.