Kingsley stared at the boy before him. The unbelievable but true words he had spoken had shaken him to the core. The man he knew of as Albus Dumbledore would never have an innocent man sent to prison or threaten a man with death for wanting to visit his best friend's son. The great and good Albus Dumbledore would never use a child to destroy his only remaining family no matter how evil he was. Would he?
"He would and he did." Thomas said. Apparently Kingsley had unwittingly given voice to his thoughts. " Prophecies generally aren't worth the sphere they're recorded in, unless you actually work to set them in motion. Dumbledore had used the prophecy he had heard in an attempt to destroy Voldemort and Grindlewald's lines in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, things don't always go according to plan, and his plan to eliminate the lines of the worst Dark Lords of the last century ended up destroying the world. But, hey he was dead, so it wasn't his problem. I actually enjoyed blasting his portrait to kingdom come for what he did to my cousin. Harry had been like a brother to me until he broke. Afterwards, it was only the fact that I was blood that kept him from killing me like he did all of his friends when he destroyed the wizarding world."
"You mentioned Dumbledore being dead. How did that happen?" Moody asked.
"Well, it happened at the end of my and Harry's Sixth year. Dumbledore requested a mercy killing from Snape, and it was arranged in such a manner that the man (who was against Voldemort) had appeared to be one of the Dark Lord's greatest followers. Much like Sirius Black's supposed "betrayal" of the Potters. Snape was hunted by his own side at the final battle and left to rot by the Dark Lord and later the Order of the Pheonix. When Harry (who had learned of Snape's true leanings) had tried to have him declared a hero, he was met with a great deal of resistance. It was around then the first cracks really began to show their true depth, and his anger began to spill out." Thomas replied "Snape had protected Harry in his own way all of his life out of love for Lily even though he was torn by his hatred of James, and asked nothing of Harry in return. Harry had respected that, and had been angry that others hadn't."
"We need to finish this soon. People outside are becoming impatient." Moody said as his magical eye rotated and looked through the door.
"While Aunt Petunia showed us no affection during the day, and quietly snuck us food at night with a few kind words, Vernon worked us like slaves until the letters arrived. One for me, and about a thousand for Harry. Vernon had fled the letters, but he couldn't elude the messenger. Rubeus Hagrid came personally to deliver Harry's last letter and confirmation of something I had been telling him all along. Until Harry met Hagrid, he hadn't believed himself to be a wizard. We were taken to Diagon Alley on Harry's eleventh birthday, though it was apparent that Hagrid didn't want me along. When we got to the school on September first, we were separated for the first time in years. Harry had gone to Gryffindor, and I to Slytherin as was my birthright as the eldest grandson of the Heir of Slytherin and therefore the heir of the Heir of Slytherin. At the end of the year, I was injured before I could stop Harry from going after the Philosopher's Stone.
While Harry and I were still somewhat close, we weren't nearly as close as we were before. My being in Slytherin had been somewhat of a divisive issue. Harry's friends had always treated me as something that had to be tolerated for Harry's sake and never cared for me. They had warmed up to me slightly after they learned that my father was innocent.
During our second year, there was a series of attacks on the student populace that were attributed to a mysterious Heir of Slytherin who had unleashed the creature in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry was suspected to be the Heir of Slytherin, which when someone looks back on it, is rather ironic since he's technically the spare. Harry was once again dragged into a plot involving Voldemort. It was at the end of the school year, while I was locked in the Slytherin dormitories, that Harry had faced a piece of Voldemort that had been preserved in a diary. After nearly being killed by a crazed and rather ill Basilisk, Harry began to finish what he had unwittingly started as a toddler and destroyed the piece of Voldemort.
After having saved the damsel in distress, he was fed an outright lie by Dumbledore. This lie made Harry fear one of the natural abilities he had been born with. An ability he had actually inherited from his mother. Believing it to be an unnatural taint, Harry refused to use his ability to speak parceltounge even when it would've helped him greatly. The private conversations we used to have in the dark while the Dursley's were asleep were no more after second year.
It was shortly before our third year that Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban in his desparation to keep me and Harry safe. Almost everyone who had heard of his escape believed he was out to harm Harry except for the true guilty party and the man who sent an innocent person to jail. Since father was from a rather dark family and had (albiet unwittingly) married one of Voldemort's daughters, Dumbledore had never felt any remorse over his incarceration. Throughout that year my life was hell. If it hadn't been for my Godfather Remus who had been appointed Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor that year, I don't know what I would've done. For the six months that Harry truely believed that my father had betrayed his family, he did worse than give me the cold shoulder. His friends were even worse than he. At the end of that school year it was revealed that my father had been innocent and Ron's pet rat who turned out to be Peter Pettigrew was the true guilty party. Before my father's name could be cleared, Peter escaped. My father barely escaped with his life and soul. Harry couldn't apologise enough for his behavior during the time he believed my father to be guilty. His friends didn't apologise at all.
Fourth year was the Triwizard tournament and the return of Voldemort and his death eaters. Harry, who had never even entered, had been selected as the rather unexpected fourth candidate and had been forced to compete. All I could do was support him when the whole school had once again turned against him, and cheer him on during the tasks. I had wondered why Ron Weasley who had treated Harry most horribly for months had been the person he'd miss the most. I had never been so afraid as when Harry vanished upon touching the trophy at the center of the maze. When he returned with Cedric Diggory's body, I regret that I only felt relief that it wasn't Harry lying dead on the ground.
During our fifth year, the Ministry had decided to deny the fact that Voldemort had returned. Instead they had started a smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore. Harry had borne the brunt of it though. They had even tried him for the use of underage magic after he had defended Dudley from the dementors. Fortunately there had been two witnesses who could defend him. Throughout that year Harry was treated badly by his fellow students, and regularly tortured by a ministry official named Umbridge who had been appointed to the Defence Against the Dark Arts position. Throughout that year, when Voldemort did something, like when he broke his followers out of Azkaban, it was blamed on my father. When Harry had a vision that lured him to the Ministry of Magic, I along with his two friends and three members of the illegal study group he taught followed. I had been fighting one of the Carrows when my father fell into the veil in the department of mysteries after receiving a stunner from Bellatrix Lestrange. After seeing Voldemort with his own two eyes at the ministry, Minister Fudge finally believed Harry and tried to make nice with him. My father's name was cleared that year, but he, being dead, wasn't able to enjoy it.
During our sixth year, the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scringemor, had tried to get Harry to show support for the Ministry of Magic as it made ineffective gestures against Voldemort and his pureblood elite followers. It was also during that year that Draco Malfoy, having been ordered to kill the headmaster by Lord Voldemort, made several ineffective attempts on Dumbledore's life that ended up hurting innocent bystanders. Throughout the year, Dumbledore showed Harry a highly edited version of the life of the man who became Voldemort as he prepared him to hunt for Voldemort's horucruxes. It was towards the end of the year, while Dumbledore and Harry were retrieving a fake horucrux (the real one having been stolen by my father's younger brother in an attempt to destroy it) that Draco let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. There had been a battle that Dumbledore and Harry had joined towards the end in which Professor Snape killed Dumbledore in a rather elaborate assisted suicide/attempt to assist Draco who had failed in his task.
It was during the summer before what would've been our seventh year that the war against Voldemort began in earnest. He had taken control of the ministry in one fell swoop while Harry and I were at the Weasley's home. We (Harry, Ron, Hermione and I) had run when we were warned of an imminent attack. Someone in our small group said Voldemort's name shortly after our departure, unaware of the taboo that had been put on it, bringing the Death Eaters down upon us. It was my capture that had allowed Harry, Ron and Hermione to escape and begin their search for Voldemort's remaining horucruxes. Over the months that Harry was searching for pieces of Voldemort's soul to destroy, I was being tortured by the creature that I soon discovered was my grandfather for refusing to serve him. The culmination of this torture was the slow acting poison that burned through my insides. There was no actual antidot for this poison, but its effects could be virtually halted with proper treatment. Months after we were separated, Harry, Ron and Hermione were captured and taken to Malfoy Manor where we were finally reunited. We, with Olivander, Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, and Griphook the goblin managed to escape and find our way to Bill Weasley's home. It was there that we heard that Remus, who had married Tonks, had a son. Shortly, after a daring robbery and escape at Gringotts, we ended up at Hogwarts where the final battle took place. Many people lost their lives that day, including Remus and Tonks. Eventually, in a duel in the great hall, Harry won the day." Thomas said summarizing His and Harry's school careers.
"What does what you did in school have to do with anything?" Moody asked.
"I had not really been much involved in the events that shaped Harry as a wizard. At school, other than the occasional meeting and Christmas break, I moved in my circles and Harry in his. It was only during the summer that we were able to spend much time togehter, since we were at the Dursleys, it hadn't been much fun. I had allowed Harry's friends to chase me away over the years." Thomas began. "Had I been there, had we not become as distant as we had, Harry would've had support at the most critical moments from someone who actually knew what he was going through having gone through some of it. He may not have sought the revenge on the wizarding world that he did. Much of the destruction that came afterward may have been prevented."
"But still, why?" Moody growled out. He hadn't seen the point of summarizing an entire school career when the most important part of the story had come afterward in his view.
"Because, once I leave this room, what had happened won't happen again. Harry will know what he was truly up against. Things that could've happened differently will. People who had such a negative impact the last time around won't be in key places this time. This time, Harry won't break, and the wizarding world won't be destroyed." Thomas said with all of the conviction he could muster under the effects of veritaserum.
"So how exactly did Harry "break" in the first place?" Moody asked.
"It all started during the relative peace after the second Voldemort war when a former reporter named Rita Skeeter had found some adoption papers while doing actual research (after all what can be more shocking than the truth) for her book on Voldemort in France..."
