CHAPTER TEN

Harry took all of his gold out of his vault at Gringotts and spent it on a top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art, best-of-the-best, cool-as-a-cucumber sniper rifle. His childhood dream was coming true, finally at the ripe old age of 12.

Then he asked Dumbledore how he could defeat Voldemort (he still lived at Hogwarts, so it was easy to ask Dumbledore). While he was in Dumbledore's office, he accidentally freed Dobby from the Malfoys. Dobby said that he was eternally greatful and would check in on Harry from time to time to make sure he was doing okay.

That dealt with, Harry resumed his conversation with Dumbledore about horcruxes. Dumbledore said that the horcruxes were no doubt well-protected from all wizarding magical methods of finding them, with defences against any wizards who might try to approach. He went on to explain about how Voldemort was the best wizard-proofer in the whole world. Then Dumbledore went off on a tangent about how house-elves were often underestimated, because they had their own brand of magic. Harry, being the bright person that he was, soon came up with a plan to collect the horcruxes.

"Dobby!" he yelled.

Dobby stepped out the shadows, where he had been lurking and watching Harry obsessively.

"ARGH!" yelled Dumbledore.

Harry ignored Dumbledore's heart-attack, and said to Dobby, "Can you collect all of Voldemort's horcruxes for me please?"

"Certainly," said Dobby, and clicked his fingers. A pile of horcruxes appeared in front of him. Dobby started muttering, "Now let's see here, that one belongs to Gellert, and that one I is pretty sure belongs to Dumbledore, so these 7 should… Harry? Why are you standing in my pile?"

Harry muttered an unintelligible explanation and stepped away from the pile.

"Oh!" squealed Dobby, "YOU is a horcrux! Why didn't you say so?"

Dobby snapped his fingers again and Harry was no longer a horcrux. Then Dobby quickly finished sorting the horcrux pile, sending those that weren't Voldemort's back where they came from.

"Can you destroy Voldemort's horcruxes?" asked Harry.

"No," said Dobby dejectedly.

Harry was disappointed and confused.

"Just joking," said Dobby. "But you could destroy them yourself with your cool new sniper rifle, if you wanted to try it out."

"AWESOME!" yelled Harry and pulled out his sniper rifle.

As Harry started shooting wildly, Dobby cowered, and hastened to say, "THAT WAS A JOKE, THAT WAS A JOKE!"

Harry continued shooting wildly, but in the direction of Dobby now. Unfortunately for Dobby, Harry had purchased a magical sniper rifle that never ran out of bullets. Dobby snapped his fingers and vanished, while with the same snap he destroyed all of Voldemort's horcruxes. Harry stopped shooting immediately, breathing hard. Dumbledore lay there, in need of medical attention (from his heart attack). Luckily, Dumbledore had a personal house-elf that just apparated him to Saint Mango's.

Meanwhile, Pettigrew tracked down Voldemort. He had seen the signs of insanity in both Hermione and Harry, so decided it was best to get out early before they decided they would like rat-fur earmuffs or something. Pettigrew didn't know about the blood protection, though, so he resurrected Voldemort without that part, and Harry wasn't kidnapped for the ritual. Pettigrew hadn't, however, run off before the Weasley family's trip to Egypt, so was pictured in the Daily Prophet. Consequently, Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban and went to find Harry at 4 Privet Drive. He thought Harry was fatter than he remembered, before realising that the fat kid was probably Harry's cousin. So he waited, and waited, until realising that Harry was probably staying at a friend's house or something.

So Sirius Black set off to Hogwarts to await the school year.

Meanwhile, Harry was looking for stray animals to practice his shooting on. Very, very fortunately, Steven Royce Daniels had owned a big, black, shaggy dog, so instead of shooting Sirius, Harry tried to adopt him. Sirius went along with it. Until, that is, Harry tried to call him "Blackie", like the dog from the book. Sirius, you see, was extremely racist, and did not appreciate being called "Blackie". This was also why he had disowned his family. Anyway, Sirius quickly transformed into a human and told Harry to call him either 'Padfoot' or 'Sirius' instead, then went back to going along with it. Harry, determined to own a big, black, shaggy dog, didn't concern himself with this brief transformation. But he did call it 'Sirius', lest it decide to transform into a human permanently and he be left with no dog at all.

Harry was surprised to learn of the escaped prisoner from Azkaban named Sirius. But it didn't occur to him that it could be his pet dog.

Before long, the school year began. Hermione and Ron came back, and Hermione was horrified to learn that Harry had spent all of his money on the sniper rifle. Then she came up with a clever idea.

"Harry!" she screeched excitedly, "We should loot graves together!"

"YES!" said Harry, "… wait. You're joking, aren't you?"

"No!" said Hermione, and they went on a looting spree that night, deciding not to tell Ron about it until the next morning because he was always a spoilsport.

They told Ron the next morning.

"WHAT?" said Ron, "… wait. You're joking, aren't you?"

"YES!" said Harry.

"NO!" said Hermione, who would never lie because that was morally wrong.

"NO!" said Harry, because Hermione was his moral compass.

Ron was understandably horrified.

He told them that they should not do it again. Also to return what they had looted, but Harry and Hermione ignored that part.