Authors Note: Thanks again for the reviews and following the story and so on.

Chapter 10

The next morning Ron sat at breakfast when Collin already handed him the pictures. Apart from the slight movement of breathing it wasn't noticeable that it was a wizarding picture, Ron grinned and looked around for an owl to use when he noticed his little owl stealing some food. "Pig," He said "Perfect timing" He got out a quill and wrote on the back while Harry started to look over his shoulder what he was doing, but was too late to see the front of the picture.

Ron wrote, 'Hurt him and I'll tell his you-know-who!' and then Ron drew an evil looking smiley and a snake before handing it to Pig with the words, "Drop that in front of Draco and get back here ASAP, I need to get some more going."

Ron took the next picture and passed it to Harry who looked at it before looking to Draco, who just grinned at the Gryffindor table after seeing the picture and reading the note. "Ron, you really need to get a life of your own."

"I will." Ron replied, "But for now I'm busy keeping you happy. After all, that is a full- time job."

After that Ron wrote on the back of the next one. 'I think you need to have a little one on one with baby Malfoy and warn him. Kind regards Ron.' He gave it to Pig with the order to send it to Snape and while Pig did that Ron got out a bit of parchment and stuck two of them to it with a spell before writing next to it, 'One is for you and one for Mister Malfoy, I'd be happy if you could pass it on. Kind regards, Ron Weasley. Ps: I told Draco that if he hurt Harry I would tell his you-know-who but he just grinned, so I assume he doesn't plan on hurting him which is something I guess.'

Once Pig was back Ron rolled up the parchment and gave it to the owl whispering the order to take it to Tom Marvolo Riddle aka the dark Lord.

After that he passed another one to Hermione and one to Neville, keeping the last one for himself.

"All the notes sending does remind me that I should be getting something," Harry said, "Isn't there supposed to be something for me arriving with the daily prophet?"

"Right." Hermione said and took her own copy of the daily prophet that she hadn't looked at yet because of the pictures and what Ron wrote on them. "Oh my god." She said after looking at the front page. "Harry, it's Wormtail, he's been caught yesterday morning in diagon ally and Siri is officially a free man!"

"No way." Harry said and grabbed the paper to read it and it seemed like that also was the last nail in Fudges coffin, since he already had earned a lot of displeasure from the Umbridge incident and now Wormtail had been found unconscious and a hearing under Veritaserum had not only proven Sirius' innocence but also the truth that Voldemort was indeed back, he did say that he looked like a snake and it seemed that he hadn't seen Harry's father since his change. It also made sure that neither Harry nor Dummyboredork where seen as crazy or attention seeking. It also had the side effect that all that made Fudge look even more stupid than usual, and that it is rather hard to achieve considering how stupid he usually seemed to be. Harry was unbelievably happy and hugged Hermione. "That means I can go and live with him this summer, right?"

"It does." She said and having read the paper a little more clearly ,especially the other pages that had some more details, while Harry was still grinning like a loon over the first page she added: "It is also mentioned here that Siri is already trying to become your guardian and that Lucius Malfoy is helping him with it."

"Awesome." Harry smiled surprised that Siri would work with Malfoy of all people but looked up towards Draco gesturing towards the paper happily. Maybe his father had forced Draco's dad to help Siri and Siri was probably just happy to have a chance to live with Harry. "I still can't believe that I don't have to go back there."

Harry had just finished that sentence when everyone at Gryffindor stared at Fawkes who showed up in a ball of flames in front of him and dropped a parchment. Harry read it mumbling, "Maybe Dummyboredork really is attention seeking after all." After reading the note he whispered to his sister, "Dummyboredork wants to talk to me after breakfast. I wanted to meet Draco, can you guys let him know that I won't be able to meet him right away? We wanted to go outside and sit by the lake some more, at least Ron clearly knows were we've been last night, so he could go and tell him that I'll be late thanks to Dummyboredork."

"Sure thing, Harry." Ron promised and Hermione agreed with it but tried to caution him out of going alone with no success. Harry quickly finished and then went up to Dummyboredork's office alone.

"Harry, my boy." Dumbledore said, "Would you like a lemon drop?"

"No thanks sir." Harry said smiling a little, "I have something planed and would like to get this over with so if you could please get to the point I'd be really grateful."

Dumbledore sighed before he said, "It's not something you'll like to hear. At least some of it you won't. I saw that picture that Ron sent to Severus. And I read the paper and thought that we two really need to have a little chat."

Harry sighed, certain that Dumbledore would try to interfere with his relationship with Draco. "Go ahead. It won't change a thing."

"Harry," Dumbledore sighed again and looked saddened, "I'm very sorry and I hoped to spare you, but I fear I must tell you that Draco is only using you. He doesn't really feel for you what you seem to feel for him."

"Really?" Harry asked sounding sad at first before asking more seriously, "I never knew you could read emotions like Sev can read my thoughts."

"I can't." Dumbledore chuckled still with a slightly sad look in his usually sparkling eyes. "But I have some informations that you don't have."

"Oh." Harry said, "In that case you're wrong, Draco loves me very much and I love him." Harry frowned for a moment he hadn't decided on that yet but it had just slipped out and it felt right and with a smile he decided that he would just have to tell Draco that his wish had come true. It was a pity that he hadn't been the first to hear but then again, Dumbledore had no idea how serious he had been when he said it, so it hardly counts.

"Harry," Dumbledore said sounding sad, "I wish I could spare you this pain, but Draco and his father are only helping you to get you to go to the ministry and take something for them. Something that Voldemort wants."

"Professor," Harry said sounding serious, "Do you trust me not to turn evil?"

"Of course Harry." Dumbledore said, "What a thought, why would you of all people turn evil?"

"I don't know, I seem to have a lot in common with Voldemort." Harry replied.

"I know." Dumbledore replied, "But you have something that he doesn't. You know how to love and how to forgive. To be frank with you, you are the single most loving and caring person I have ever met."

"Which are both things he could learn." Harry said, "Professor, I'm really sorry but I won't be able to fight him, at least not the way you mean because I decided that I can't fight anyone that way. I can't kill him, or vanquish him in the sense that he will be dead after that. I simply can't hate him enough to do that. I might not know every reason he had for everything bad he did but neither do you. Maybe some of the evil things weren't meant as such and just the result of a mistake. And the others, who knew what drove him to do the things he did? Why did he come to hate the way he does? There has to be a reason for all this madness and I refuse that fighting and killing can possibly be the answer to that."

"Harry," The older man said. "It's very good of you to hope for the best even in him, but I'm afraid that is not the case."

"Sorry sir." Harry replied, "But but with all due respect, you can't possibly know that."

"Trust me, Harry." He insisted, "I know a lot about him and do know."

"Like you knew that Siri had betrayed my parents." Harry asked. "Or like you knew that my aunt and uncle would take care of me?"

"They did, didn't they?" Dumbledore answered the safer one of those two points, or at least the one he believed to be save.

"That depends on if you consider being taken care off to be locked up in a cupboard for five days without food until your stomach feels like it's eating itself and you start to wonder if it will hurt more or less to chew your arm off than the pain in your belly and you seriously start to consider it because you are just THAT hungry. But of course I mustn't be unfair, it wasn't just any cupboard, it was the one under the stairs that was really my room, because Dudley needed two rooms. So there really was no other room left for me and I was just three at the time and my three year old cousin a growing boy, so I'm sure it really is considered being cared for since I was technically locked into my room rather then some cupboard. It's probably also being cared for when I was forced to play 'Harry hunting' and being turned into a punching bag after loosing that game and getting caught. Tell me, does it count as being taken care of when I learned my name during the first day of primary school because until then I thought my name was freak or boy, that I didn't deserve a real name like Dudley, because I was nothing but a burden? The little freak created by two drunks that drove their car while drunk and killed themselves just to burden good and hard working people like my aunt and uncle with me? Does it count as being taken care of if I have to do ALL the housework, and no I'm not exaggerating, I worked from dawn till dusk day after day after day, doing wrk like moving things I could hardly carry until every bone in my body hurt, because I really DID work and not waste time. Because if I wasn't done in time I didn't get any food. At the same time Dudley did nothing because again, he was the growing boy, and boy was he growing. Have you seen how he looks? Have you seen him next to me? There's no way anyone would guess we're the same age. But I'm sure it also counts as being taking care of that I never got a single birthday present or Christmas present. That I didn't even KNOW when my birthday was for years. Does it count as being taken care of if I have to wear my cousins old rags while he gets 37 presents for his birthday? Does all that count as being taken care of? Because if that is being taken care of, I'd rather take care of myself."

Dumbledore stared at him while Harry had tears in his eyes by now but then Dumbledore tried a weak fake smile and asked, sounding nearly begging "Are you sure your not exaggerating?"

"Yes I'm sure." Harry said. "And I can tell you that starving until you faint hurts worse than a bludger to your arm. Way worse. I'm sure you can use Legilimens so go ahead, I'll focus on those times and you tell me if I'm exaggerating."

Dumbledore did just that and this time Harry was hiding his father, not the abuse and made sure Dumbledore saw lots of memories where he was pushed, hit, degraded, locked up, starved or simply ignored. Including that time he had fainted at the tender age of three from hunger, and Dumbledore could see a bit of hair Harry had pulled out and tried to eat. No matter how hard Dumbledore tried he couldn't find a single happy memory with that family. After that he stared at Harry and then said, "I'm really sorry this happened to you," Dumbledore had the decency to truly look sorry and seemed to be fighting with tears, "Still we shouldn't tell anyone. People will just start thinking that all muggles are like that. Especially if it's about you, it will hit the papers and the other muggles would have to suffer."

"Is that what you told Voldemort when he was abused" Harry asked and after the surprised look on his Professors face he said, "Of cause I knew about that Professor. I've seen in that diary how he asked you if the school would be closed. Saw his fear of having to go back, telling you that he had nowhere to go but that orphanage. I've been abused, I can guess why he was afraid, more than that, I could see it in his eyes. It does explain a lot too, because no one is born without the ability to love and forgive. Some just never learned it. All they learn is that others don't care about them. That other care more about other people. Like you cared more about the muggles that abused him than about him. Professor if what I assume is true and you told something like that to other abused children, than it's no surprise that there is a dark Lord on the lose now. It was just a matter of time for one of them to be hurt enough and powerful enough to start to rebel against this system that forced him to endure it all. Professor, if he's a dark Lord, then you're the one who created him."

"I." Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "No, Harry. I don't think so. You never turned out that way. And that proves that it was his choice, not mine."

"But I had Ron and Hermione." Harry said, "I had the Weasleys and later Siri. Who did he have?"

Dumbledore was quiet once again and then Harry said, "We're also all different but we can all learn to love if we are shown how to. And like with Potions or Defense, some find learning to love and to forgive easier as others. Professor, if his talent in that area is like Neville's in potions, then we mustn't hurt him further, we must give him a chance once he asks for one. We must help him, and show him that we care, just like I know you care about me. Even if you want to send me back to the Dursleys."

"He won't ask." Dumbledore said, "Even if you are right, I'm afraid it's too late."

"And you know that like all the rest?" Harry asked skeptically. "Don't you see that you've done enough mistakes, that enough things have skipped your notice to give up and let us younger people work things out on our own? I know that Draco loves me, because I have informations you don't have, not the other way around. I was told not to tell you because others fear that YOU'LL hurt me. But I trust you Professor. I know that you've been told about a plan to get me to steal the prophecy. And yes, I know about it too or else I couldn't have been told that part now, could I? I might not know what exactly it says but it doesn't matter anymore, does it? Because I also know that this 'plan' was a lie. They wanted to help me for completely different reasons but they don't trust you anymore and wouldn't let you know the real reason. Like I said, they thought you'd hurt me." Harry grinned at the stunned look on his Professor's face. "And that is because of mistakes you've made."

Dumbledore stared at the child in front of him that didn't sound like a child his age at all. He sounded like a mature young man and Dumbledore was very proud but at the same time very worried what his mistakes had done to the poor boy to make him grow up so very soon. "I forgive you." Harry said seeing the sad look on his Professor's face take over. "But I'm asking you to trust me to know what I'm doing. You said yourself that I'm better in loving and forgiving than anyone else and I think, I'm better at it than I'm at Quidditch and Defense combined and I really want to help him get his life back and a chance to do what he wanted to do when all this started. Before he was frustrated with his own failure at doing what he really wanted."

"And what do you think does he want?" Dumbledore asked the boy.

"Protect children from abuse." Harry replied, "He doesn't want kids to go through what he's been through. He chose a lot of wrong turns but so did you. After everything you have done I could call you a dark Lord as easily as him."

"I don't understand." Dumbledore replied.

And Harry explained "You could have pulled me out last year. Of the tournament. I heard it was possible with just one signature from the Dursley's. If you had, Cedric might still be alive, meaning that you are to blame as much as Voldemort. I also heard that he might not have gotten as bad if someone hadn't taken his children away. I know that he cares for me, now that he knows and wouldn't hurt me anymore." Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Yes, I know. And so does my sister Hermione and Neville and his mother Bellatrix. You know that she'd never have hurt the Longbottoms if you hadn't forced them to take her son and given her the child back, or better yet, never taken them in the first place. She was a mother, desperate to find her child and refusing to believe him dead. A mother, that would let those that took him keep him, if that was what would make her son happy and even healed them just to please her son. You need to learn that we all can make mistakes, but that we all can also learn and that nothing is just black or white, Bellatrix might have done some pretty bad things but she loves her son more than anyone else ever will be able to do and the same goes for my father, my sister and me. Making mistakes and being able to learn includes you too, you know. You might be old and wise and know a hell of a lot more than most and probably more than me, but you are not all knowing and even a child like me can and sometimes does know things you don't and you need to remember that. I've once heard a primary teacher of mine saying that you keep learning until all of your fingers grew to have the same length and I'm pretty sure that will be right about never."

Dumbledore still looked surprised but at least he wasn't interrupting and didn't look like he was just indulging Harry, he seamed to really listen for once. "If you hadn't made some of those mistakes, I wouldn't have nearly been killed by my own father multiple times. I wouldn't have been living with the Dursley's and you know what that meant for me. I wouldn't have been alone most of my life, in pain and hungry. I would have been loved by my father and siblings, have my twin by my side and not have to fear for my life. If you hadn't abandoned, an abused and emotional tortured child, he might never have started to hurt others. My brother wouldn't have joined the dark Lord if someone else had saved him from his abuse. Like you said, it's too late to change the past, but it's never to late to start over. You should think about that, before you tell me to reconsider my relationship with my loving boyfriend. One that saved me from Umbridge because he loved me, okay he did that because he was told to write that letter by his father, my father and my big brother but it doesn't change that he loves me and he was happy that due to my father, his father won't kill him for loving me. By the way, did you ever consider that you can do both, show the world that muggles are like us, some are good, some are not so good and still save those children that need it? If it does hit the paper that I was abused by muggles I'll make damn sure to get it known that I had a very lovely teacher for a while that tried very hard to help me. I had Miss Figg, a squid that was always there for me when I needed it and that I know other muggles that are very loving and caring, like Hermione's parents. I'll make sure to get it into the heads of people that muggles are the same as we are, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. And all that due to reasons we don't always understand. Just like you never understood my father." And with that Harry stood up and walked towards the doors.

"Harry." Dumbledore said before the boy could open said door. "You're really telling me that I'm like the dark Lord?"

"I saw him recently, you know." Harry said. "He told me not to blame myself because of Cedric. But it WAS my choice to share the cup with him and no matter my intentions, he died for it. I guess that's the same as you did. I had a father that wanted nothing else for me then to be happy, that had Wormtail purposefully caught to get me away from the Dursley's because I told him not to harm them and he LISTENED. You took me from that father and I ended up with people that hate me and treated my like Malfoy treated Dobby." Harry saw Dumbledore pale. "I might still be alive but who knows how much longer I'd have survived them? You meant to do the right thing and protect me from what you thought couldn't be anything but an abusive father, but in the end it only caused me the abuse you wanted to save me from. When my father let the Basilisk loose the first time around, he wanted to petrify the muggleborns not kill them. He even wanted to be the last one to end up petrified, he wanted to stay that way until after the summer. He was just scared of the muggles and wanted to protect the others too, fearing about how many might be hurt at home."

"Did he tell you that he wants to take all Muggleborns from their loving home?" Dumbledore asked sounding more curious than angry.

"Wanted not wants." Harry said, "Even he can learn and you taught him what can go wrong if you do that. Now he wants all magical children checked regularly by healers, no matter where they come from. And at the very least in school after every stay at home and then he'll only take those that have a bad home life. I don't know what he plans on doing with all of them yet. I doubt he knows. But he doesn't want to be the one to tell them to just keep quiet and deal with abuse. He wants to help. How is that an evil intention? Professor, no one is born evil. We are what we are partly due to the way we were raised. Because of our experiences. And you were the one to paint a huge target sign on two little innocent babies for the greater good. Now tell me where ever have I heard that phrase before, oh right, it was Grindelwald. Another dark Lord with at least partly good intentions. Please Professor, you said that you don't think that I could ever truly turn evil, no matter how much I'm to blame for Cedric. Then trust me to be able to put a leash on my father instead of making me fight him. Because those are my only options right now. I can't let him keep killing people and I won't I'll stop him like I stopped him from killing the Dursley's or Umbridge when he was mad at them for hurting me. I'm already teaching him the right way to deal with things and Hermione is helping me. So please, don't make me fight him because frankly, I'd rather kill myself than become a murderer."

Dumbledore looked at the young boy at the door for a moment before smiling at him, the sparkle back in his eyes. "I'm very proud of you Harry, I won't ever be able to put into words how very proud I am of you and I promise to think about everything you said and you're definitely right with one thing, I should trust you. You've already proven that he hadn't harmed anyone that had hurt you and helped you differently, more than I ever have. After reading the paper not so long ago I had planned to fight Lucius and Sirius on your guardianship. But I promise you now that I won't. You clearly not only have more information than I do, but you've learned to use them and you'll always be the good and honest boy I know and for what it's worth, I'm sorry for my mistakes."

"Don't worry, Professor." Harry grinned at the older man, "It's me, so consider yourself forgiven."

Both men smiled at each other before Harry left the office to go to Draco.

Authors Note: I hope you liked the interaction between Harry and Dumbledore. Next chapter will be the last real chapter and after that a short epilogue and then the story ends. I hope you liked it so far and now I'll leave you to wonder what Dumbledore will do next and what Draco will think once Harry told him about his little chat with Dumbledore. Also I promise you that Neville will get to see his Mother next chapter so you can look forward to that.