Back by popular demand, a follow-up to "The Purge." I might not own Harry Potter, but I present to you…
The Purge 2: Culled
Harry whistled happily to himself as he spread the petrol around the main dining room of the Avery family. Jarvis Avery had managed to smooth-talk his way out of an Azkaban sentence, and the Galleons he passed along to Fudge continued to assuage any of his more recent misdeeds.
"Harry, are you really sure you want to burn the place to the ground?" Hermione asked. Once she'd gotten over the initial horror of the fact that her friend was a psychotic murderer, she'd reasoned to herself that as long as he was only killing people who deserved it then she could overlook his actions as just another of the kooky things her best friend did in his spare time.
"After what's gone on in this house I don't want any reminders of the repugnant depths to which a human being can sink," Harry replied as casually as if he'd been discussing the weather.
"Are you talking about what you did to Avery or what Avery did to those Muggle children we found locked up in his basement?"
"The latter, obviously. I'm very well-aware of the depths to which I am willing to stoop. Has Sally finished getting those children out of there?"
"Yes, Harry. The only question left is would it be kinder to erase their memories of what happened or do we respect their rights to know the truth?"
"Well, leaving out the fact that our underage magic use would draw unwanted attention from the authorities, would you want to go through the rest of your life never knowing that some sick bastard did to you what Avery did to those children? Personally, I would want to know so that I could make sure the bastard got his comeuppance and use my hatred of people like that to drive me to be a better person."
"I see what you mean."
"No, no I don't think you really do, Hermione. It is a very interesting ethical question, are there some things people are better off not knowing? I also probably wouldn't have the stomach to tell any children of my own what I did for my personal fifth year project. That is, of course, if any woman would want to have children with me after finding out what I monster I am."
"You're not a monster, Harry."
"Try telling that to people if word of this gets out."
"Well, I don't think you should worry too much about finding a girl who will like you despite your…unsavory hobbies. I've seen the way that Tracey Davis has been eyeing you since Draco and his goons met with their most unfortunate demises."
"Probably because it's no different than what her father would have done once he found out what the tossers did to her."
"All the same, maybe you should ask her out to Hogsmeade?"
"Fine conversation you two are having," Sally-Anne said as she rejoined her co-conspirators. "Talking about ethics, murder, and dating all at the same time."
"Those things are probably more similar than I'd care to consider," said Harry. "Anyway, Sally, how are those kids doing?"
"Not so good, Harry. Several of them need medical treatment and two of the younger ones can't stop crying. I-I don't know what we're going to do."
"Have any of the children seen magic?"
"I think, considering how young they are, they might later figure out ways to rationalize what they went through, that any magic they witnessed or experienced was just how they adapted to the situation."
"Give them some Sleeping Draughts. We'll get them to a non-magical hospital. Dobby!"
The house elf who had been helping Harry Potter get away with some of his more difficult missions popped into view.
"Yes, Harry Potter sir?"
"There are six Muggle children who need to be taken to safety. When Sally gives them some Sleeping Draught, I want you to take them to the nearest non-magical hospital."
Dobby nodded and went with Sally-Anne back to where the children were. Several minutes later, when Sally-Anne and Dobby returned, Harry pulled out a small box of matches.
"Well, shall I?"
Six children woke up in a hospital the next morning, telling an incredible tale of how they had been abducted by an evil man, who did truly inhuman things to them during the time they'd been held prisoners. Once their families, relieved to find their children alive but horrified to hear what they'd been put through, arrived to collect the children who had been missing for over seven months, they agreed they were all forever indebted to the mysterious people that had rescued their children from the nightmare they had been subjected to. While the inclusion of strange things in the children's story, such as how the evil man had used some sort of magic stick to make them hurt, didn't add up at first, the doctors figured it was the children's imaginations making things they didn't understand fit what they experienced. After all, children at that age were known to be more open to the idea of magic.
The eldest two children, a twin brother and sister, absolutely stood by what they thought they had seen and experienced. When they received a pair of very special letters shortly after their eleventh birthday, they would soon find that a young man mentioned regularly in the papers looked strangely familiar.
The younger children, three girls and another boy, eventually accepted the doctors' suggestions that what they thought they saw was just their way of coping with the trauma. Each of the four had their own ways of dealing with what happened. Two of the girls later went into law enforcement, working side by side in the department that dealt with child victims, both never forgot what happened to them when they were little and both swore on the faint memories they had of the people who had rescued them that they would give the same justice to other children. The other girl later went into government, pushing for policies that would punish sex offenders more harshly; she would eventually be elected as Prime Minister and discover that the magic she had thought was nothing more than her imagination was actually real and that the man who had committed those crimes against her and the others had been killed in a manner that fit his crimes. The boy adjusted slower than the others, but he grew up to be a dedicated member of Child Services and later a loving father of three children, all of whom received acceptance letters to a very special school and were even escorted to obtain their school supplies by a professor whom their father thought he recognized from years earlier.
"Madam Bones, I'm afraid we haven't found anything at the Avery place since last week. All the perp left was ashes and a corpse."
"All right, Auror Shacklebolt, you can go," Amelia said. She'd been shocked to find out from the autopsy that Avery had been a marked Death Eater; sure, she'd had her suspicions about his claims of being Imperiused during the war, but he'd shown himself to be at least fairly reliable as an Auror.
"Madam Bones," said another Auror, "a letter's just arrived for you. It says it's from the perp."
"Hand it over, Auror Warbling." Amelia scanned the letter, her eyes widening at each new sentence. "Whoever it is, whoever took Avery down, I am going to buy that person a drink and get them an Order of Merlin." She looked up sharply at the Aurors in her office. "Seems Auror Jarvis Avery was keeping some things secret from us. Like the fact that he kidnapped Muggle children and did…did things like this to them." She paused in silent horror as she remembered how her niece Susan had said she didn't like how Avery looked at her whenever Susan came to the office with her. She'd just brushed it off at the time, but now…
"Boss!" another Auror yelled as she charged into the office. "Boss, we have to get to Hogwarts! There's been another one!"
"What happened, Auror Jennings? Tell me at once!"
"It was a professor this time."
"Who?"
Amelia had to stifle the wish that the victim was the Toa…erm, the Undersecretary to the Minister.
The night before…
Severus Snape struggled furiously against his restraints. He couldn't see anything with the sack that had been fastened over his head. Somehow, before his captor even started speaking, he knew it was all Potter's fault. Suddenly, he found water being repeatedly dumped over him, making him feel as though he were drowning.
After several minutes it stopped and the sack was yanked off, he rolled onto his side and coughed up the water that had been choking him.
"Hello, Snivellous."
Snape's eyes shifted up from where he lay tied up on the floor to where Potter sat, smiling pleasantly at him, on one of the classroom desks.
"I've been waiting a long time for this," said Harry. "Maybe if you'd acted like less of an arse the past few years I might have been persuaded to go a bit easier on you. Probably not, though. Once a Death Muncher, always a Death Muncher and all that."
"Potter! I'll have you expelled for this! Do you hear me, you arrogant twit?!"
"Yeah, that's likely. About as likely as Draco coming back and testifying against me."
Snape's eyes widened in horror.
"It can't be…You're the one who's been doing all this?!"
"Only natural that you'd be surprised, considering how much of a 'dunderhead' you always assumed I was. Pity you didn't take a bit of advice I once got from Mad-Eye Moody. 'Don't mess with the quiet one sitting in the corner who's just trying to have a drink undisturbed. Chances are he's the most dangerous bastard in the whole bar.' Now, you have some information that I want. If you don't answer, I'm afraid I'll have to up my interrogation techniques by breaking every bone in your hands. If that doesn't work, I'll call in my assistants to help me with some of the more…unpleasant methods."
"I won't tell you anything, you little brat!"
"Oh, I am so happy you said that. Means I don't have to wait to get down to business."
Snape turned out to be made of sterner stuff than Harry or his compatriots had expected. They ended up having to force him to drink Veritaserum (the bastard hadn't thought anyone would dare use it on him and didn't think to have taken an anti-serum before he'd been abducted). Harry didn't feel the faintest shred of remorse as he cut his Potions professor's arms and legs off with a dull saw. Harry then decided that the classroom they were in would look much nicer with Snape's innards decorating the walls. After all, from what Harry learned about the man that night, the evil prick really had it coming. Of course, it was nothing on what Dumbledore would experience for having let a man who had done those things into the school, knowing full well what he'd done.
"What a mess," Amelia muttered as she entered the crime scene. "This one seems far more personal than any of the others. More gruesome than most of what we've seen so far. Did the person who did this leave a message?"
"Yes, Madam Bones," said Kingsley nervously. "I-I'm not sure you want to read it, though, Ma'am."
"Auror Shacklebolt, at this point, nothing would surprise me."
"Okay," Kingsley said skeptically as he handed over the letter. "Just, let me tell you some of the main points. Seems that Snape here overheard a prophecy about Harry Potter being the one to defeat You-Know-Who and that he gladly took the prophecy to his master with a personal request that Snape would be allowed to keep Lily Potter as his personal sex slave."
"Did Dumbledore know about?" Amelia demanded.
"I…I hate to say this, but…he did. The letter says that Dumbledore kept Snape with him with the goal of 'redeeming' him. That's not all. The letter details every crime Snape ever committed, as a Death Eater and when he was still a student and even as a professor. And…Madam Bones, there were several cases in particular that Snape had a hand in."
"Which…" She stopped when she saw how Kingsley wouldn't meet her eyes and a pit seemed to form in her stomach. "Did…did it have something to do with…?"
"Snape gave away the location of your brother Edgar and his family to the Death Eaters," Kingsley said solemnly. "And your niece Susan is an orphan because your brother Andrew happened to be married to Mary Macdonald, a school friend of Lily Potter's who had tried to discourage Lily from remaining friends with Snape. Snape was apparently none too pleased about that and personally saw to their deaths."
Amelia, a war-hardened battle-axe of a witch, was shaking at the news. With a feeling of deep dread, sensing there was more to be heard, she asked Kingsley to continue.
"Well, you remember what happened to the McKinnon siblings?"
That was all he had to say. Amelia's hand collided with a nearby desk and a sickening 'crunch' was heard as her fist broke the wood to pieces. Michael McKinnon had been her fiancé, the one man she would ever love, and his sister Marlene had been one of her dearest friends. While Amelia knew they'd both died in a Death Eater raid, she hadn't known that Snape had been involved. Her only regret was that whoever had killed Snape had prevented Amelia from doing the deed herself.
"I think I need a moment."
Kingsley nodded and then quickly left the room, closing the door behind him and motioning the onlookers outside to get back.
Amelia leaned over the desk she had partially destroyed and took deep, steadying breaths. Her family, save Susan, had all been killed by Death Eaters. Her parents had been slaughtered by Voldemort himself, her brother Edgar and his family were butchered in their home because of Snape, Snape had personally done away with her brother Andrew and his wife, both Snape and Voldemort had been involved in the raid that cost Amelia both her fiancé and her friend, her godbrother James Potter and his wife were killed because Snape had brought a prophecy naming Harry Potter as the only one to defeat Voldemort to the Dark Bastard. She'd protested Dumbledore's employment of Snape for years, without even knowing all of his crimes, and had been ignored. When James and Lily had been killed and Sirius Black sent to Azkaban, she'd tried to get custody of young Harry and ensure he was kept safe, but again Dumbledore had blocked her attempts.
Her eyes roved over the dismembered remains of one of the three men responsible for her misery.
"And I'm fairly sure Harry Potter has first call on Voldemort's death, that leaves just one for me."
Unknown to Amelia, Harry Potter had ways of knowing things and realized his own revenge on Dumbledore could be dropped so Madam Bones could get some justice of her own as Harry had so insensitively denied her the chance to kill Snape herself.
Author's Note: Not too sure where this story is going, but it's strangely fun to write. Makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me. Homicidal!Harry is just kind of enjoyable to write, probably because he gives justice when there was virtually none in the books.
Maybe I'll have a follow-up chapter for this where Harry ambushes the Death Munchers at the Department of Mysteries, turning their scheme back around on them. Maybe have him getting rid of Umbitch.
Also, feel free to suggest Omakes or small ideas. I'm always eager to hear from my readers.
Omake:
"Harry, you wouldn't happen to know anything about the string of deaths in Hogwarts lately?" said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling.
"Now, Headmaster, even if I did would I tell you?" Harry said cheerfully. "Madam Bones isn't too happy with you lately, you know."
"Yes, Harry, I'm aware of Amelia's anger at my being reappointed as Headmaster."
"Not surprising since you allowed the man responsible for all but one member of her family being slaughtered to teach in a school full of children."
"Harry, I did what was necessary at the time. Severus proved to be a valuable ally in the end and it is a tragedy that he met such an unfortunate end."
"Even though he gladly killed innocent people until Voldemort decided to go after my mum? Even though he had routinely abused his position as a teacher and head of house? Even after the torment he inflicted on me and Neville? I also found out from Susan Bones that she was also victimized by Snape in the Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw Potions classes."
"Now, Harry-"
"I'm not finished yet, sir. After I heard the prophecy, I realized that a third candidate would have fit the bill."
"Really, Harry?" Dumbledore leaned in curiously.
"That is, of course, had Susan been born male. Seems there was more than one reason why Snape victimized her as well as me and Neville. He blamed her for being born the wrong gender just like he blamed Neville for not being the one Voldemort chose to go after. Interesting how these things work out, isn't it, sir?"
"Harry, you must understand-"
"I think we're done here, Headmaster. As far as I know about the deaths, seems the Death Eaters ticked off the wrong person. If that will be all, sir, I have a very lovely witch waiting for me to escort her to Hogsmeade."