A/N [Standard 'I don't own anything' disclaimer.]
[Edited 29:06:2018]
Albus.
"Forget all you have heard about the old white-bearded man, for now you shall learn the truth."
"You have to remember that I have no ability to leave the area covered by the school wards. That being said, for the last forty years Albus Dumbledore has relied on this castle to be his personal stronghold; the one place where he could be himself." Blinky paused, "And that person is far from the kind grandfather image he has cultivated. To put it simply... Albus Dumbledore is a blood supremacist." Harry had a strange feeling of deja-vu as his face once more took on a shocked expression. "He is, obviously, far more covert about it, but no less ruthless or determined than any Dark Lord you know of. In fact... are you aware of a wizard by the name of Gellart Grindelwald?" Harry nodded, it was hard to forget the wizard responsible for World War 2. "And did you know that he and Albus were partners? In their goals as well as bed?"
"Didn't need to know that!" Harry yelled as he tried to purge the image of a naked Dumbledore from his mind.
"No, you did. That detail is important later." Blinky chastised him, "Now let me speak. As I said, Albus and Gellart were partners. They both had the opinion that wizards were inherently better than muggles and deserved to rule over them. The people who know of their association all believe that they parted their ways because Albus didn't agree with his lover's plans." Harry mock-retched, Blinky rolled her eyes.
"They did part their ways because of a difference in opinion. But it was not over what people believe. While both believed that wizards are better than everyone else, Albus insisted that some wizards were better than most. Gellart was of the opinion that any magical human should have equal rights, that are vastly superior to what non-magical humans have and still above magical non-humans. Albus was of the opinion that the oldest wizarding bloodlines deserved to rule over everyone and everything else by default. They had a fight over this and Albus' sister, Arianna, died during it." Harry was caught between shock and sheer disbelief; the man he had looked up to as the paragon of light was actually worse that one of the most hated Dark Lords in world history.
"How do you know all this?" Harry finally asked after several minutes of digesting this information.
Blinky gave him and honest-to-god evil smirk, "I may have been unable to talk to anyone but I could observe. And... if the old fool was stupid enough to place such sensitive memories inside a pensieve, where anyone can see them... well." she chuckled.
"A pensieve?"
"A runic device used to review memories. It can store them indefinitely and some can even project the content of the memories into a floating image anyone can see." the serpent again chuckled in a very human-like manner, "He might have been keeping these particular memories behind several dozen locks and wards but... I am the castle. There is no place within the wards I can't enter."
"Wow." Harry was still a bit overtaken about the truth behind Dumbledore. He had no idea Blinky was just starting.
"So, back to the story." Harry refocused himself, "After the two had parted ways, best I can gather is that Gellart went to Germany and begun to build his power base there." Harry nodded, that matched what he had read, "Albus returned to Hogwarts, this time as a teacher." more nodding.
"What you have to understand is that back at that time, same gender relationships were not merely frowned upon, they were seen as unnatural. So Albus had gotten very good at lying and hiding things about himself. He came to the school and convinced everyone he was here because of his desire and passion to teach. Now, I will not say he was a bad teacher, in fact, if not for his... evil side, I would call him one of the best Transfiguration teachers this school has ever had."
By this point Harry was actually surprised to hear anything good being told about Dumbledore. "Of course, the teaching was ultimately a cover for his true goal here: manipulation of general opinion. Why do you think Dumbledore favours muggleborn so?" Blinky looked at him expectantly.
Harry opened his mouth to answer... and closed it. He sat back and thought about this, Blinky giving him the time to do so. After several minutes of silence Harry had arrived at what he thought was the right answer, or close to it at least.
"It creates resentment." he begun, speaking slowly and considering his own thoughts at the same time, "By letting the purebloods to continue believing in their inherent superiority, yet openly favouring muggleborn, who as a note regularly outperform the purebloods, he causes them to resent the muggleborn. Then, when they grow up they will continue to resent them, but this time many of them have actual power to act on that resentment." Harry looked back down from the dark ceiling where his eyes had wandered as he spoke, "By favouring the muggleborn while in school he is ensuring that once they graduate they will be treated as second if not third class citizens."
"Very good Harry," Blinky spoke in a calm voice, "Ten points to Gryffindor."
Severus Snape was in a bad mood. Well, a worse one than usual; he had just been informed that he can't give Harry Potter detentions for not attending class because the brat is on a medically sanctioned leave. His mood was not helped by the fact that, just as he was passing it, ten rubies joined the Gryffindor points counter.
"That is the actual reason?" Harry was surprised, he thought there must be more to it, something he didn't know.
"Most of it." Blinky shifted her coils a bit, "I think he also gets some sort of sick enjoyment out of building up a muggleborn's hopes only to watch them fall apart." For being a Basilisk, Blinky was very good at adding venom to her voice. "There is more you need to know about this, and just how far he has gone, but that can wait. Now I have to talk about a subject I find... difficult. I think you can guess what that is." Harry did.
"I still don't know how far the manipulations went, was he just using an opportunity or did he create it in the first place... At any rate, the super-short version, the core of the matter; Albus Dumbledore created Voldemort." After hearing what he had today, and given what Harry knew about Tom's beliefs, it was not that surprising. "Tom Riddle grew up in a muggle orphanage." Harry's eyes widened at that, he had not known that. "His mother died at childbirth, his father... we'll come back to that. The strange thing is that when Tom came to Hogwarts he was already quite adept at wandless magic. And yet the Ministry of Magic had somehow missed all the times he had used his magic while at the orphanage."
Blinky paused and looked at Harry intently, "Albus would have people think that Tom came to Hogwarts already having developed a like for harming people. I know for a fact that the first time Tom Riddle used magic for anything other than self-defence was at Hogwarts. And the first time he intentionally attacked another person, or being for that matter, with it was then he was defending a muggleborn girl from several bullies."
Harry was left with his jaw hanging, Tom Riddle: Good guy? What? "Yess..." Blinky hissed, "He was actually very much like you; that is why I first thought he might be a descendant of Myradin, he was so different from the Traitor's line." Harry was genuinely terrified hearing this. It is one thing to have a Dark Lord after you; it is so much worse to know that his own life experiences were so similar.
"As his first year approached the end he petitioned to headmaster Dippet to be allowed to stay at Hogwarts for the summer. He was pretty desperate to do it, was willing to work for his keep, help the staff, anything to be allowed to stay." Blinky paused once more, "And there Albus Dumbledore saw an opportunity. You see... Tom Riddle was never supposed to do what he did."
Harry blinked at that, the question of 'What?' once more coming to the front. "Armello Dippet was a pureblood. But he was also old and had already chosen Albus to replace him in a few years. And so, it was at Albus' advice that Tom was denied the option to stay at the castle. Even though one of the core purposes of Hogwarts was to serve as home for people in just that kind of situation."
Harry could not find the words to describe his thoughts. The main, overarching theme of which was that at the end of his first year Harry had made that same petition. And, from the sound of it, the 'home' life of him and Tom was pretty much the same. "I know where your thoughts have gone, and yes, I am afraid that you are Albus' 'try 2'." Blinky looked at Harry not with pity but just pure sadness.
At that point Harry wanted to rage. He wanted to jump up, storm the office of that officious old goat and throw him out the window. Preferably after beating him senseless. After several minutes of pacing back and forth reason won out and Harry sat back down. "Given that I have no intention of dancing to the old bastard's tone, what can I do?" Harry turned back to the surprisingly helpful snake.
"You can listen as I finish telling the story." she responded rather calmly. "Now, as I was saying, Tom was sent back to his... 'home'. He was disappointed, obviously, but it didn't really create any true resentment. He saw it more like a figure of authority being unwilling to bend the rules, rather than a pureblood screwing him over on general principle. A few years later however, there was an attack. I, to my eternal regret, do not know how exactly it happened, but the muggleborn girl Tom had developed a close friendship with was killed. To make matters worse, she was killed by an of-age pureblood. From an old and rich family."
Harry kept paling further and further as his mind re-created the scene with him in the place of Tom and Hermione as the muggleborn. "The father of the pureblood bribed his way through the court and the killer got off with a rather literal slap on the wrist. Despite the fact that there was no question whatsoever that he was the one who killed her." Draco Malfoy had joined the re-creation. Harry knew where this was going. "It wasn't obvious at first, but Tom snapped after that." Harry, for the first time ever, understood the poor guy. It was not a happy thought.
"I didn't find out until years later, but he begun to research dark magic as well as pureblood history. Albus thought that his 'pet project' was coming along nicely. And then Tom discovered the truth. For all his life he had thought that his parents, or mother at the least, were nobodies, unimportant, with no real ancestry to their name." Harry remembered feeling much the same, at least up until that one talk with Sirius.
"He discovered that he was the heir to Salazar, heir to the founder of the house he had been sorted into. He came from one of the most revered bloodlines in the entire magical Britain, and yet the purebloods had treated him like trash. Albus Dumbledore had his resentment." Harry nodded, he had felt the same after Sirius had pointed out that not only were Potters much older than the Malfoy family, they were also several times richer. And, since Sirius could no longer have children, Harry stood to inherit the even older and richer family of Black. And Malfoy, as heir to a pureblood house, would have known that on their first meeting. Well, the Potter part at least. Nobody other than a handful of goblins knew that Harry was Sirius' heir, and aware of it.
"And now we get to the interesting part." Blinky shifted again, gazing at her 'old' body, "He did not, nor do I believe he does now, resent any particular group of magicals." That confused Harry. "Tom Riddle resents the magical world. Albus Dumbledore wanted to create a Dark Lord that would lead a muggleborn uprising, then he would let it simmer and spread, creating more and more resentment and anger, until he would lead the purebloods of Britain to crush the uprising and use the amassed society-level anger to begin part two of his master plan. To turn muggleborns into little more than slaves and begin infiltrating muggle governments." Harry was horrified. "Instead his plan backfired in a truly horrifying manner. Tom Riddle desires only to see the magical world burn." The chamber fell into silence, the only sound being the slow dripping of water into the central pool.
"And D... The old man intends for me to do that instead?" Harry whispered, the terror clear in his voice.
"Yes and no. He plans for you and Tom to kill each other, then for you to be made into a martyr figure to inspire the uprising. Beyond that, no, his plan has not really changed." Blinky spoke with an almost dead emotion-less voice. To her the idea that this one man could end any chance of there ever being another Lord Slytherin was utterly horrifying. She was born to serve their family, what would she be without it?
"Well... Shit." It was quite some time later that Harry finally came to the point where he was ready to move forward. "You mentioned something about how far Albus had gone?" he turned to Blinky, who seemed to have been deep in thought herself.
"What? Oh, yes. The whole thing is actually interlinked and the basis for what I believe would be your best option at striking back." That was enough to intrigue Harry. "How many muggleborn are in your year?"
Harry paused at the seemingly off-the-wall question. Blinky claimed to be aware of nearly everything that happened in the castle. How could she not know?
"Answer: Zero." She answered her own question before Harry could even start counting.
"What? No, no, no. There are several. I mean, Hermione is one..." Thinking of her caused a slight pang of sorrow in his chest.
"And that is just the thing." Blinky seemed to have recovered from her funk, "There are very, very few true muggleborn. Currently there are only five muggleborn in the whole castle, and one of them is a teacher." Harry had a hard time getting his head around that, "The truth is that the vast amount of 'muggleborn' that come to Hogwarts every year actually come from wizarding bloodlines that either are believed extinct, banished the squibs born into them or both."
Hearing the explanation, Harry had to admit that it made a lot of sense. He had always found it weird that magical children can be born to parents with seemingly no magical relation whatsoever. This made sense. "For a matter of perspective, over 2/3 of all magical births in Britain are classed as muggleborn. In reality it is only barely 1%." The sheer number of people that represented was mind-numbing.
"That is the truth about muggleborns. Now we come to what Albus Dumbledore has done to hide this truth. The goblins of Gringotts have a method of determining one's ancestry, including any magical houses they come from and, more importantly, what inheritable titles and vaults they hold." Harry had never heard of something like that. "The pureblood-run ministry, in its quest to hide this information, has not only created a treaty that prevents the goblins from offering this service, only providing it if explicitly asked, but even went so far as to completely ban blood magic, as the Inheritance Ritual is part of it, and also gutted Divination magic, as it could be used to achieve a similar result."
Harry was once more horrified, two whole branches of magic ruined just so the rich and powerful can keep the power? "None of these changes could have been done without Albus Dumbledore supporting them. In fact, Albus was the one to propose the gutting of Divination." One more crime against the magical world, one more strike against Albus Dumbledore. At this point Harry would not be surprised if the goatface was found mind-raping people. Had only he known...
"There is one last thing on this matter. One that is quite personal... for both of us." Salazar had mentioned something about his mother, Harry remembered. Also, if his mum was a descendant of Slytherin, shouldn't she have been able to talk to snakes? "Last night you passed out after I informed you of your mother's, and by extension your, heritage." Harry could swear the snake was holding back laughter. "What I didn't have the chance to tell was why it wasn't discovered."
Blinky turned serious, "During her first years at Hogwarts your mother maintained her friendship with Severus Snape. Yes, they were friends. As much as Snape and your father were foes. Anyway, during their first year Severus somehow managed to always have a steady supply of fresh poisons from various snake species to use in potion making. So did your mother." Harry suddenly remembered the spell that Malfoy had used during that ill-fated Duelling Club meeting. What was it... Serpensortia? "Dumbledore investigated and discovered that your mother was using her parselmouth abilities together with the Serpensortia spell to obtain basically unlimited amounts of snake poison. She would summon a snake, then talk with it to coax it to donate it's poison. Before sending it back to wherever it was summoned from she would feed it, as payment for the poison. It was all very... civilized."
Blinky took a moment to reminisce, before continuing, "When I saw what she was doing I was so sure that she could, and more importantly would help me. And then Dumbledore found her in the act. There were about a dozen snakes in the room, most of them still feeding after having given their poison. Lily was sorting the vials, by potency I believe, when Albus entered. She missed him at first, but one of the snakes spotted him and told her. When Albus heard her hissing a thanks to the snake he looked terrified. You see, Parselmouths are still very rare in Europe because the ritual to give a magical that ability comes from India. It wasn't until after the colonial era of the muggle world wound down that any meaningful amount of Parselmouths took residence at the 'old world'." Harry was fascinated to hear the origins of his ability. "Before then the only European wizards with the ability were either descendants of my father, or Dark wizards who took on this ability because of its applications in Dark magic. At the time, to be a British parselmouth was basically equalled with being a descendant of Salazar Slytherin." Harry suddenly realized where this was going.
"Dumbledore casually incinerated the snakes in the room, ignoring the terrified shouts of Lily before turning his wand on her. I am fairly sure you won't be surprised to hear that, despite having made sure it was banned, Dumbledore practises blood magic." Harry wasn't surprised. "He used blood magic to bind Lily's gift, her inheritance, and then erased any memory she had of ever having had it in the first place." Harry was horrified, again, but still wasn't surprised. In his mind Albus Dumbledore was now firmly a Dark Lord.
"A few days later he had to erase a considerable chunk of Severus's memories, causing that poor boy to eventually go dark." Harry blinked, The goat was responsible for Snape? Nope, still not surprised. "About a dozen more minor modifications took place over the school year. After the year ended he followed Lily to her home and erased any memories of her speaking to snakes from her non-magical family. That destroyed the acceptance Petunia Evans had for magic, but not the adoration the Evans parents had for Lily." And he was responsible for Aunt Petunia as well... Harry stared, was there anything crap in his life that Albus Dumbledore was not responsible for? Probably not.
"I personally believe that the reason he hasn't tried the same with you is that your ability was revealed in a very public setting, even he could not obliviate all of them without making mistakes. Although, according to his rants from after that event, he seems to have convinced himself that he had outright removed the ability from Lily and instead of being inherited, your ability comes from the soul shard you have lodged behind your scar."
Okay... That was a surprise.