A Slytherin Potter.
Escorted by Madam Bones back through the Ministry to the atrium where he would be allowed to leave for Hogwarts, Harry was lost in thought about what had happened, and he found he couldn't quite wrap his brain around what had happened. Voldemort was gone for good this time, and the Death Eaters would soon follow. But he had no idea what the Ministry would do in that time, but hopefully, he'd be prepared in case they got ideas in their heads. Overall, Harry was looking forward to getting back to Hogwarts where he could just get to bed. The meeting with Madam Bones had been perhaps one of the most adult conversations he had ever had in the magical world, although he was uncertain what would happen down the line.
While she had been annoyed and frustrated he couldn't tell her everything until she had rounded up the Death Eaters and discovered Peter Pettigrew for herself so she would have the means of finally overturning that stupid kiss on sight order against Sirius, there was just no denying Bones was intrigued and yet delighted by the fact the monster who had massacred so many people was gone. But she didn't know how he had done it, that was what frustrated her.
Harry hadn't told her about the spell he had used. He had learnt the hard way the only way the magical world would accept the truth was if it danced right in front of them. There was no point telling her about Sirius, although he had considered it. He wanted her to see Pettigrew for herself before that part of the story came out.
Bones had been horrified when she had learnt about the horcruxes of course, that was natural. Harry was relieved the older witch knew of them, but he guessed it made sense the Head of the DMLE knew of them, and what they did. Bones was concerned about his health, which was nice - aside from Sirius nobody had ever cared before - and she had taken him down to the Department of Mysteries. The Unspeakables were relieved their department was undamaged from the appearance of the Death Eaters.
One of the reasons Harry trusted her slightly more than he trusted adults was because Sirius Black and Amelia had once been an item. He had told her that Amelia wasn't interested in politics but given the job she had to play the game sometimes. In any case, Amelia was an unusually thoughtful witch, she wasn't the type of person to throw accusations or throw someone into Azkaban without a trial on a whim. Harry had known when he and Sirius came up with the plan to end Voldemort, there was a chance someone would speak to him. Sirius had advised him with a great deal of debate about the wisdom to speak to Madam Bones.
Harry had not liked that.
He had a simple policy about talking to authority figures; trust no one. His life was full of examples where he'd trusted too much, and it usually ended badly for him. He did not want to give a powerfully connected witch too much information; he could end up in Azkaban if he did. But Sirius had assuaged that by sending letters to Amelia, and eventually meeting with her in the hopes of getting himself freed. It was those meetings and the fact he hadn't been turned into Azkaban that made him trust the woman. Unfortunately, she couldn't free him, not without positive proof of Pettigrew's survival. Fudge had taken over the case with an obsessive interest that Bones knew would be hard to shake. Harry hoped the little bastard was found soon.
The good news was Amelia had been there to speak to him.
It hadn't been easy.
He had needed to keep the Death Eaters busy with looking for him in the Hall of Prophecy but since he had kept himself under a disillusionment charm to prevent being found hiding wasn't a problem. The good news was they were interested in scoring points against him and each other while at the same time completing their mission. Too bad for them when Voldemort arrived he had dealt with their precious master.
The Unspeakables had confirmed the horcrux was gone. But truthfully Harry knew there was an ulterior motive for the whole thing. Bones had been worried a piece of Voldemort would remain and fester inside of him, waiting for an opportunity to return and plunge the magical world into yet another war, but Harry was pleased the older witch hadn't decided to stab him in the back as so many others had done to him over the years. I would have done the same, he thought.
But now, Amelia was escorting him personally to the atrium where she would personally take him back to Hogwarts. Along the way, the pair of them chatted a little. Harry learnt to his surprise Amelia had known Lily and James Potter, and he spent the next few minutes asking her for information about his parents and told her how there was an information embargo that prevented him from learning too much about his family. Bones had been surprised by that and horrified someone would deliberately withhold information about an orphans family from them.
It was the truth.
Ever since the day he had walked into Hogwarts, information about his family was as hard to come across as real gold and not iron pyrites. Sirius had given him some bits and pieces, but he had learnt Dumbledore had, for some unimaginable and incomprehensible reason, imposed sanctions on what he could and could not know. Harry did not understand the logic. He didn't understand why the old wizard was taking his need to control him to such levels, but he knew it was frustrating. It was one of the reasons why he and Sirius did not have a closer relationship; Sirius might have helped him with the horcrux and helped him with the spell, but truthfully they did not know each other. Dumbledore had seen to that by constantly sending him back to the Dursleys, while at Headquarters for that ridiculous little vigilante group Dumbledore headed the members including Hermione and Ron went out of their way to keep him and Sirius separated. It was another reason for his loathing for them. Their control of him and stopping him from being free was another major reason, and it was bad enough the Order had meddled so much with his life, but when they hemmed him in in such a manner… it was unforgivable.
Being with Amelia Bones now tempted Harry to see if there was any way he could get a lawsuit on the Order members to teach them all a valuable lesson they would never be able to forget so they never got it in their heads to do it to others.
In the end, he had decided 'what the fuck, just go through with it!'
And so for the next ten minutes on the way to the atrium, Harry was regaled with dozens of stories about his parents. He had already known there was more to their stories than met the eye. At the same time, he had told the older witch about his suspicions of Dumbledore's minions stalking him and she immediately checked him over with her wand.
Needless to say, Harry learnt thirty-six new curses and was given another reason to hate the Order.
When he had been growing up Harry had received more than a large number of injuries via the abuse he had suffered, mental and physical. So why hadn't he told anyone?
He had.
He had tried to speak to a police officer, a teacher, a librarian, and a doctor. When he spoke to them about what was happening, they promised to look into the matter. But when he got back to them, they would call him an attention-seeking liar and then it would be left at that. The police officer had tried looking into it, and it had resulted in a terrible beating when the police officers and Social Services announced it was a 'misunderstanding.'
And then they had left. But the more persistent ones… for some bizarre reason they found themselves arrested for crimes Harry knew they had not committed, and anyone with common sense would know they hadn't committed any crimes.
After that, he had given up. He had stopped trying to get away from the Dursleys with the help of others. But now he was suspicious now he knew of Dumbledore's interference if the old wizard and his cronies had anything to do with it. Amelia had been horrified by what Harry told her and when he had revealed some of his worse injuries and scars, and she was furious when he confirmed a few of her own department was in Dumbledore's order, and she immediately checked over him using her extensive repertoire.
It was worse than he had imagined, but for now he just wanted to get out of here, although he swore Dumbledore, the Order, and the Dursleys would regret it.
It was long past the time people paid the price. But for now, Harry wanted to be left alone. He was tired and all he wanted was to sleep in peace. Unfortunately by the time he returned to the Ministry atrium, Fudge was waiting.
"Ah, Harry my dear boy!" Fudge gushed as he ambled over to Harry, grinning while the Daily Prophet reporters who had appeared out of nowhere in the last hour took notes while their photographers took pictures (it reminded him of the invasive way Skeeter and her stupid cameraman and lackey, Bozo, had poked around in the Triwizard Tournament last year; if he saw that idiot photographer he wouldn't be held responsible). "It's so wonderful to see you again."
"Minister," Harry greeted without any feeling, hoping his lack of interest in Fudge would make it clear to the blundering oaf this meeting would not be happening in an ideal world, but then again he knew ideal worlds did not exist. He wasn't surprised by Fudge's 360-degree turn. He had learnt over the last few years Fudge was a man who desired publicity, and would do anything to get it.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here, and you've just defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Amazing!" Fudge went on, either ignoring or blissfully ignorant of Harry's manner. The boy's body language and tone alone said he did not want to be near Fudge. Amelia sighed and rolled her eyes at the Minister's lack of common sense and terrible observational skills.
Amelia had spent a whole year listening to Fudge telling everyone how Harry Potter was a lying attention-seeker, using the newspaper to spread nasty little remarks about the famous young wizard. She had heard over the years the boy was a younger version of Albus Dumbledore, forgiving to the bone, but as she looked at the young wizard now Amelia could see that those rumours were either a lie or something other wizards just wanted to see.
Personally, she was unsurprised the wizard was anything but, considering what she had heard from Susan over the last two years, of how Harry had sometimes cursed other students who crossed the line with him which should have been a pretty strong sign the boy wasn't forgiving.
Amelia wondered what the boy was going to do now. She knew there was little doubt he held little love for Fudge. She could see it in his face, his eyes, and she could read his body language, the boy was tired and he was prepared for another fight.
She just wasn't sure whether or not to look forward to it. Fudge needed a dose of reality and he needed to answer for the year of libel against the Boy-Who-Lived, and she could tell the same thought occurred to Harry. But the boy just wanted to get out.
"Yes, well I did what I needed to do in order to end a war before it even happened. I don't want any thanks."
If Fudge noticed the coolness in Harry's voice, he ignored it."Ah, modest to the last, eh my boy? We need to do an interview-."
"No, we don't," Harry interrupted harshly, finally tired of Fudge's inability to grasp a simple message. Leave me alone. It wasn't a hard thing to grasp. He was putting out the signs that were so obvious even Colin Creevey could see it. "I refuse to spend more than six seconds of my time with you."
The look of shock and confusion on Fudge's face was completely at home on his pudgy face. "B-But why not my boy-!"
"DON'T!" Harry raised his voice, gazing with blazing eyes as his temper began to snap thanks to his exhaustion, startling everyone and making Fudge actually take a step back when he saw Harry's face. The boy was incandescent with anger. The aurors stepped forward, raising their wands in warning and threat, but the boy visibly calmed down. "Don't you dare, don't you ever dare call me your boy! I hate being called that. I repeat, I refuse to spend more than six seconds of my time with you. Hopefully having it repeated will be simple for you to understand."
Harry regretted losing his temper in such a public way. His occlumency barriers were still up, but his exhaustion and every single thought in his mind concerning the Dursleys, Voldemort, and the possibility the Order had been conspiring on keeping him chained up had caused him to forget himself and make him more reckless than normal. But it was too late now.
In any case, a part of him had longed to say a great deal to Fudge.
Fudge, typically, tried to rein in the problems and push them under the rug. Harry knew it was a show. Fudge, like so many other people in Hogwarts, had a hair-trigger attitude. But in front of the reporters, the idiotic wizard knew he had to tread carefully. He knew it was only a matter of time before he had to answer for everything he had done. But if he could get on Harry Potter's good side, the Minister knew he could succeed.
Schooling his expression into something he hoped was more friendly and forgiving, Fudge said, "Now, come on Harry, I know there have been misunderstandings."
Harry's voice was full of mocking sarcasm. "Misunderstandings? Wow, big word. Did you have your idiot toy boy Percy Weatherby look that up in a dictionary? I'd be surprised, considering how much of an imbecile he is. Guess what they say about opposites attracting is wrong."
Fudge flushed with anger and embarrassment at the Potter brat's insinuations about his sexual preferences. "Harry-."
That was final.
It was time to play dirty.
"' February the 3rd, a young witch from one of the older pureblood families gave birth out of wedlock. Let us hope her name is not Lily, and her child is not named Harry," Harry quoted from the Daily Prophet, lifting an eyebrow when he saw how uncomfortable Fudge was getting and how he was nervously looking around. "'February the 17th, an auror was attacked in a patrol in Diagon Alley by a drunk, requiring minor healing spells from St. Mungo's. Does he need glasses, and is his name James? I've gotten into the habit of collecting the insults contained in the Daily Prophet. You never know when you're confronted by some idiot reporter or an even bigger moron politician and you want to embarrass them. Believe me, Minister. I've been looking. I have collected a lot of offhand, nasty little quotes from the newspaper over the past year, Fudge. Insults not only to me but insults to my parents. You remember them, right?" Harry sneered at Fudge, who was paralysed. "Lily and James Potter. War heroes, you arrogant, dishonourable little fuck!"
Amelia wasn't sure whether to wince with sympathy for Fudge who's expression of horror was so sudden she knew he would not last long any more than the Prophet who'd printed those stories in the first place and expected to get away with it or clap in delight that the little moron was finally getting payback for his reckless stupidity. How many times had she been tempted herself to curse the bastard for what he'd done to Lily and James' memory while Malfoy, Percy Weasley, and Dolores Umbridge cheered him on.
Thankfully, those are two of the milder ones, even though one of them hinted I was a bastard. But I've got many more of them. I committed them to memory so then if I ever had to deal with you again, I'd have something to shove down your throat if you proved your lack of common sense by asking for help. Somehow they suit you and your MO quite wonderfully. After all, the Prophet seems happy writing in nasty spiteful and petty insults, something they are truly going to regret by the time I'm finished with them."
"Yes, well," Fudge knew waving it off would be a foolish move even though the reporters were nervous about the threat. "I didn't tell them to say that."
"Maybe not," Harry's voice was silky as he smiled amicably, but anyone with a quarter of a brain in their skull would tell the boy was far from happy. "But you put them up to it."
"You can't prove I told the Prophet to say that about your parents."
"Ah, but you did. You're the Minister for Magic, you have the authorisation to do it. And you've been making it your life's mission to get me kicked out of Hogwarts. I definitely know that you were the one who orchestrated the slander campaign in the Daily Prophet. All those pathetic, petty little put-downs were down to you," Harry glared at Fudge coldly as the fool typically tried to shove the blame somewhere else. He was unsurprised by the tactic. It seemed to be written into the mentality of the British wizarding world. He had decided he wasn't going to bother reminding Fudge his parents had died while the rest of the magical world had been prepared to drop their wands and surrender to Voldemort. "You signed the order. The Prophet took it too far. They took what you told them to do and they ran with it. Y'see, I finally realised what kind of man you really were when you did that. All those snide little remarks, put in offhandedly, insulting not only myself but my parents as well. War heroes, Fudge! Did you really think I was gonna forget about that or are you so unbelievably stupid you would think I was obtuse enough to ignore it? Or not even see it? You're so finite, it's pathetic."
Fudge could do nothing but watch as this boy practically tore down his career. Even in his most obtuse moments, Cornelius Fudge recognised full well his career as the Minister for Magic of Great Britain was dead and buried and there was nothing he could do about it.
"I'll take your silence as a yes," Harry said, although he would have said it was regardless. "Good luck being Minister for another year. I think you're tired personally."
Harry nodded farewell to Madam Bones and he walked over to where Dumbledore was standing. The aged Headmaster had been standing to the side after appearing in the Ministry to see what was going on. One of the first things he had noticed were the remains he knew was what was left of Voldemort. Dumbledore was determined to get answers from the boy, but he could see, looking at Harry's face, the boy was too tired and was running on what he had in reserve.
Silently the old headmaster took Harry back to Hogwarts. He would get the story one way or another.
X
The duo arrived back in the Hogwarts Headmaster's office, and Harry cursed as his knees made contact with the floor of the office. He hated magical travel completely; every single time he used the floo, or a portkey, this happened. It was not only painful, but it was also embarrassing. Harry sensed rather than saw Dumbledore step away from him and walk towards the desk. Thanks for the concern.
"I would like to discuss with you your actions in the Ministry, Harry," Dumbledore spoke as if Harry had just lit off a firework in the potions classroom and the old wizard was disciplining him, and not for something more serious. "I would like to know how you did it."
Yeah, that's all you care about; your damn wars. You don't seem to give a damn about what it took for me to have done it unless of course it's because your fucking plans are now meaningless, Harry thought.
This was not a good time for this kind of discussion. The old wizard must surely notice how tired he was unless he was truly out of it. Reinforcing his occlumency barriers so then he spoke well-chosen words Dumbledore wouldn't become suspicious of, Harry mentally prepared himself for another interrogation.
"Okay. I asked Sirius for help," Harry admitted, deciding to tell the old wizard some of the truth without leading him down the path the whole point of this plan was to just get Voldemort off of his back for good. "I became so tired of the stupid visions and nightmares in my head, so I asked him if there was anything he could do about it. When were you going to tell me there was something like that in my scar?"
Dumbledore was rendered speechless. It was clear he hadn't expected or anticipated something like that.
But Harry refused to let it go. "Well, when were you fucking well going to tell me a horcrux was in my scar?"
The portraits on the walls of the Headmaster's office all spoke at once, some of them protesting against Dumbledore's treatment of a student without bothering to properly help. Others just sent nasty comments towards Harry, but the teenager refused to say or do anything about them since the portraits were dead and their owner's opinions were nothing.
"SILENCE!" Dumbledore yelled, and instantly the portraits quietened down. Harry was impressed, and for a long moment, he asked himself if the portraits were really memories of people and not extensions of Dumbledore's personality. He knew they spied on the students and provided Dumbledore with knowledge of what was happening in the castle but was that as far it went?
"I was going to tell you, Harry. However the information and the circumstances behind it were incredibly delicate," Dumbledore took him out of his thoughts and made him refocus his attention on the conversation. "You needed to be ready."
But Harry wasn't certain he trusted the headmaster, not now he knew the full extent of the other wizard's secrets. "Really? And when would that have been, when Voldemort had killed me?"
"Harry-."
"No, I'm done listening to you, especially since it would be exactly like you to tell something critical to someone at the last minute, without giving a thought at all about the fact they wouldn't have had a second to prepare for it. For a whole year, you have allowed Umbridge to go through the school. Did you even know the toad has spent the whole year using torture implements on the students which cut their hands open? I was lucky to get out of it because I've been keeping my head down, and not saying a word about Voldemort's return, but I took note of it; just because Fudge was leaning on getting you kicked out of Hogwarts didn't mean you couldn't have done anything, although I am surprised nobody has at least alerted their parents to what the bitch has been doing," he added, looking pointedly at Dumbledore who remained silent although the accusations were clear, "and she has gone out of her way to cause troubles in other parts of the school."
"Dolores Umbridge will likely be recalled from the school at the end of this year, Harry," Dumbledore replied in what he assumed was a reassuring tone.
"Really, and what about the students she tortured? How come they didn't do anything to alert the Ministry, or even their parents while she was here?"
"You could have done the same."
"And who would have believed a nutter?" Harry countered, referring to the Daily Prophet's articles. Dumbledore and he had lost a lot of their credibility over the course of the year, thanks to Fudge's pettiness propaganda machine.
Harry sighed. This whole argument was pointless, and besides, he didn't want to be here for too long; it was likely only a few hours to dawn, and he wanted to be in bed by that point. "When I was with Sirius he checked my scar, and he discovered the horcrux in it. He told me a lot of interesting things about the horcrux, and what they did. The Black family made sure their children over the generations did not make any of them as they damaged the soul, but they were still taught about them anyway to ensure they didn't make them. The Black's had a good number of texts relating to dark magic, and it took Sirius a while to find a book where a witch living in Greece had come up with a spell that turned the magic of the horcrux's creator against itself.
"The witch had found a horcrux while studying at their country's version of the Department of Mysteries. As she worked, a lot was found by studying the horcrux in a single month than what most wizards studying soul magic find in a decade. The book described the spell which turned the horcrux's magic back over itself and it would turn back onto its creator in a feedback loop. The trouble is I had to cast the spell twice, both at my scar and at Voldemort himself while he was duelling you." Harry sent him a bitter and dark look. He was still smarting from Dumbledore's sudden attack on him.
It had come when he had been preparing the spell to destroy Voldemort used in conjunction with another old spell he had found thanks to Sirius granting him access to the Black family library. It was said in muggle myths magicians in legend could create portals linking distant points together, and Harry had discovered it was the truth, although why nobody had continued using and developing the spell until it could be used in place of apparition or using portkeys to travel he didn't know.
You just stepped through one and you instantly found yourself somewhere else.
But while portals were capable of transporting someone or something from point a to point z, they also had clear cut applications in a war. All you needed was to keep the destination in mind, and you could cut a path or paths if you were using multiple portals to confuse the enemy as you got closer to them or angled yourself so you could just hit them hard and then retreat.
And that was what Harry did.
When he had been battling Voldemort, Harry had been preparing to kill the bastard by using the portals to get closer to him so he could cast the spell, or at least fire the spell through one portal and opening it close to him so there was nothing Voldemort could do to escape.
The Dark Lord had gotten lucky so many times, just as Harry had. It was long past the time for him to finally run out of that luck.
"Ah," Dumbledore nodded in understanding as he remembered being alerted to what was going on in the Ministry before he found Voldemort locked in a battle with Harry. He had broken it up, and he had engaged Voldemort in a direct magical battle for the first time in nearly twenty years. He had done it for two reasons. The first, to remind the growing audience outside he was a powerful and learned wizard. He had been criticised a great deal over the last decade, so it would do for younger generations to know that he, Albus Dumbledore, was still a powerful man and should not be trifled with. The message had definitely sunk in before Voldemort was hit in the back with that spell and then died right with Harry Potter standing over him.
The second reason was just as simple. It was to ensure Harry Potter's survival. At the time he had been thinking about ensuring the boy lived to see the end of Voldemort through. Well, it had happened, but he hadn't expected it to happen on the same night.
Dumbledore completely missed the fact Harry had not been behind either himself or Voldemort. No, he had been on the ceiling struts of the atrium of the Ministry, preparing to cast the spell. He had opened a portal from his spot on the ground, taking advantage of Dumbledore and the crowds' distraction to the battle to get up there, and from there the rest was obvious.
"So you cast the spell twice, to ensure Voldemort was finished? You used the spell once on him to reach the other horcruxes, and the same spell on your scar to remove the connection forever?"
"Yes," Harry replied with a nod, keeping his inner thoughts to himself. "I wanted to make sure there was nothing left of that damn thing in my head. At the same time, I had no idea if the horcrux in my scar would be enough, so I hit him at the same time."
"That sounds logical enough to me, Harry. I am disappointed you took such a dangerous step, but-," Dumbledore was saying but Harry shook his head and spat scornfully back into Dumbledore's face, furious with the old man's hypocrisy.
"A dangerous step? Don't even go there, Professor. Ever. I did what I needed to do to stop Voldemort from coming after me again, and I didn't kill the bastard for you, for anyone in the magical world. I did it for the people he's murdered while the Ministry and to an extent, you, slapped the wrists of the Death Eaters and let them go free while you spat on their victim's graves while you stupidly believed the war was nothing more than a schoolyard game, which was stupid in itself. And I did it for my parents, but most of all I wanted him to answer for his crimes. Voldemort was killed, killed, and killed, he has abused the laws of magic, poisoned the minds of thousands while he sees nothing wrong with committing mass genocide. And now he has paid the price.
"And as for taking a dangerous step, that's rich coming from you. Ever since I started at this school you allowed me to be harmed not only by teachers and students alike, but Voldemort, a basilisk where I was poisoned and came dangerously close to being killed - if it wasn't for Fawkes I would be dead by now, but you didn't care about that while you were passing on useless points and a special award for services to the school - exposed to dementors and shoved into a dangerous tournament where I was isolated by the entire school's scorn. I have never been safe, you're just too narrow-minded to see it," Harry snapped.
"That's enough, Harry," Dumbledore retorted firmly.
"Why should I?" Harry's voice was calm while his body felt like it was a deep breathe away from falling to the ground into an exhausted sleep. "It's true and you know it."
Dumbledore knew there was nothing he could say to Harry since it was the truth. At that point, Dumbledore considered if he should tell the boy about the prophecy and what it had once entailed, but did it matter now? Voldemort was dead now, he had verified that while Harry had been speaking to Amelia Bones - a meeting he had neither wanted to happen nor had he sanctioned - but he had been left confused by what to do now.
"What about you, Harry? What do you have planned?" Dumbledore deftly moved the subject along, deciding to watch over the Death Eater's trials now while making sure Voldemort was truly gone - he was still sceptical a bit since he knew how far Voldemort had gone.
Harry knew he would need to be incredibly careful about what he was going to say here. Not only was it straying into delicate territory for him since the next month was going to involve him escaping Dumbledore and his Order. Reinforcing his occlumency barriers even more, Harry thought through the question.
"I don't know, yet," Harry replied.
"Oh, you mean you're planning on just carrying on with your education at Hogwarts?" Dumbledore was unable to hide the glee in his voice. "That's excellent, Harry my boy."
Harry ground his teeth at the so-called endearment. He had never liked being called boy, and it made him even more determined to make Vernon pay. His fucked up uncle had made it his life's mission to shatter Harry's spirit by calling him names while treating him like a slave. Sometimes he wondered if Dumbledore knew of the abuse and used the so-called endearment because he knew its effect on him. If that was true then Harry was looking forward to poisoning the old man.
X
Five Years Later.
Albus Dumbledore checked the time, and he sighed.
Five years.
Five years since the last time he had physically had any contact with Harry Potter.
Five years since he had learnt that for the entire time the Boy-Who-Lived had been in Hogwarts, he had been fooling everyone, including his two agents, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who had been given the task of ensuring Potter did not learn a great deal. It wasn't until he had met a few representatives to the magical education department of the Ministry he learnt that Harry Potter had not only scored 18 OWLs after going into different subjects offered, but he had also done the same with the NEWTs.
And he had done it all under their noses.
Dumbledore had spent many hours debating with the rest of the Order of the Phoenix about the unprecedented and unparalleled news, but they had been as shocked as he had been. Hermione, Ron, and McGonagall had been taken aback, and Ronald had thrown a Childs tantrum while McGonagall had been shaken that she had misjudged the Boy-Who-Lived; it was as Alastor and Nymphadora had claimed, the boy was was pure Slytherin.
But Dumbledore was still shaken by the news.
The boy had fooled them all. He had hidden in plain sight while presenting to the world the clueless facade of an imbecile who while charming and talented, wasn't really academic. And all that time he had spent five years laying down the plan to escape. As Dumbledore remembered going over what he had learnt on the fateful afternoon he had visited the Ministry of Magic and met the education department and all the debates, he realised that the boy had planned everything meticulously. He had prepared for contingencies, kept his head down while offering substandard average grades so as not to draw attention to himself except when the situation called for it.
The Dementors and the Triwizard Tournament sprang to mind; the boy had been enduring tremendous amounts of emotional turmoil as the disgusting wraiths which should have been destroyed long ago instead of being put in charge of guarding a prison drew out the memories of his parent's deaths, and the Tournament had required he survive. But since the boy had survived trying occasions before, Dumbledore was unsurprised he had needed to hit the books, but it wasn't until now he had taken the time to properly look back, the old wizard realised the boy had still kept his head down. There were the above-average defence grades, but that was it.
Dumbledore sighed and he pushed those thoughts aside. He had spent the last five years trying to find Harry Potter, but the boy had vanished off the face of the Earth. That was intolerable. Dumbledore remembered only too well another wizard half a century before leaving the country with perfect grades, only to return as Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore truly hoped and prayed Harry Potter did not return as a new Dark Lord, but he knew better than to think positively; he had driven the boy close to the edge over the years, it would make perfect sense for the boy to want to kill him and force Britain to pay for what they'd put him through.
And he was still waiting.
X
As he jogged lightly, puffing as he went along the seafront in San Francisco, Harry paused for a second so he could take a sip of water from the canteen he was carrying on his person while he cast his eyes out across the beauty of San Francisco bay. He had been in this city for the past six months, living through a combination of crime and what he was earning from a business he had set up in Britain a few years ago to support himself while he explored the country.
Harry grinned while he panted. He was still breathless, but it was okay as he enjoyed this view, enjoyed seeing the sun reflect off of the water's surface. For the past five years, Harry had been exploring the world, something he had longed to do ever since he had been a toddler and was old enough to understand there was more to the world than Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging but had been denied him. Not anymore, though. Now he was travelling the world without being held back. Now he could show his true face, his true personality without any kind of repercussion, although since he kept himself to himself really.
His smile faded a little as he considered the last few years. Despite his earlier vow, he hadn't yet had time to make the Order pay. But soon, pretty soon, everyone who had crossed him would pay for what they had done.
But for now, he would just enjoy his freedom.
There was plenty of time for the corpses to appear. For now... why not let them worry about it? He wasn't a Slytherin at heart for nothing. He just needed the right time, let him quarry believe he was gone, and then he would make them answer for everything they had done.
With a dark chuckle, Harry continued with his jog.
Author's Note - I admit, I was tempted to put in the scene showing Harry's grades shocking McGonagall and the others, but I felt the time-skip was a better way of doing it; not only would it show him in his new life, but he would let Dumbledore worry about what was coming. Dumbledore's faith in people is great, isn't it? But it never occurs to him Harry will only be interested in killing a small number of people.
I hope you've enjoyed it.