Penelope Clearwater

Albus was finished with a meeting between the governors and school staff for the upcoming 1996-1997 school year. Now he was heading back to his office to continue monitoring the silver instruments on his desk. One of them monitored the tracking charm he placed on Harry Potter while the other one monitored the blood charms around the Dursleys house on Privet Drive. Upon arriving back in his office, Albus saw that the silver instruments on his desk were gone. Then the headmaster spotted Harry sitting on one of the chairs in front of his desk, while the other chair was occupied by a woman with bright-blonde hair hanging down. Upon making it back to his chair, Dumbledore saw that the woman was Penelope Clearwater (a former Ravenclaw student who graduated two years ago), or Penny as she was known by her friends and family. She and Harry were wearing some kind of goggles or something because the headmaster couldn't see their eyes.

"Miss Clearwater, what may I do for you and Harry?" asked Albus in his grandfatherly voice.

"Some bones to pick with you, headmaster," Penny replied, rather coolly. "And they all involve Harry."

"When did you meet Harry, Miss Clearwater?" asked Dumbledore.

"A few weeks before the Christmas holidays of my final year here, like four months after I ended my relationship with Percy since he was always career driven," Penny explained. "When I came across him lamenting over his lack of guardian permission to visit Hogsmeade. It took some time for him to warm up to me and used that opportunity to properly meet and even thank him for saving me from the Chamber of Secrets fiasco, since I was the only prefect and half-blood to become petrified. Harry even had his emotions bottled up in some way and I encouraged him to let it all out, since keeping your feelings bottled up like that would make it even more stressful. After Harry poured his heart out to me, it was enough for me to feel tears streaming down my face and I even gave him a comforting hug to let him know he'd be in safe hands. I even noticed that he flinched with physically contact even if he did hug me back, which was enough to make me extremely suspicious. I had an intuition that his guardians abused and even neglected him, especially when it took him some time to warm up to me."

"I've told you several times what kind of people the Dursleys were, professor," Harry reminded Dumbledore, yet again. "But you always ignored my complaints and continued to send me back there."

"Now, Harry," Dumbledore replied softly. "I'm sure you're just exaggerating. The Dursleys are your family, after all, and they love you with all their heart."

"So you're calling Harry a liar?" asked Penny incredulously.

"Not at all, Miss Clearwater." Albus lied.

"It looks like it to me!" snapped Penny, rather bluntly. "If you think you can hide valuable information from a student who was in Ravenclaw, then you've made a terrible decision."

"That's right, professor," Harry told the headmaster, with contempt dripping from his voice. "Penny was one of those people willing to listen to me, unlike Ron and Hermione as they were more concerned with listening to your no-so-wise instructions. I found other friends willing to listen to me, but I don't have any intentions to tell you because you don't deserve to know. There were so many things wrong with my life and the fact that you seemed to know that without me telling you is also suspicious. If I'd known that Ron and Hermione were your spies to help you keep me in line, I would've turned down their friendship at the start. I've even come to realize that my first meeting with Ron, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley was all a setup because they broke the statute of magical secrecy on my first day to Hogwarts. Mrs. Weasley finished a sentence with 'packed with muggles' within earshot of passersby. Then she asked what the name of the platform the Hogwarts Express was on, with Ginny answering that correctly and immediately, also within earshot of passersby. Ron even asked me to join me in the compartment by claiming that everywhere else was full. I wouldn't be surprised that you've been manipulating Hagrid as much as you've manipulated me."

"Come now, Harry," Dumbledore replied, trying his best to stay cool and calm. "Your meeting with those three Weasleys was a coincidence."

"You've lost it, Albus!" growled Penny. "If that was a coincidence, those Weasleys wouldn't have behaved in a suspicious manner. I wouldn't even be surprised that Miss Granger was one your carefully groomed spies to keep Harry in line for what you claim is his destiny. Why else would a muggle-born student no more spells before starting Hogwarts than the average pure-blood?"

"Not only that, professor," Harry ranted. "But the danger I was put in near the end of every year was all orchestrated by you because you wanted me to fulfill that prophecy you told me about. I refuse to be a pawn in this plan and you have no right to tell me otherwise. There was a time I believed that I was destined for rotten luck forever, but with Penny's help, I realized that I wasn't. I even thought the wizarding world was a dark and cruel place, but I also realized that the only thing dark and cruel about our world is people like you and Voldemort. You even claimed that Mrs. Weasley, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were the best people ever, but that turned out to be ironic. Ron was more concerned about being the best mate to the Boy-Who-Lived, Hermione wanted to use my fame as a means of making friends since otherwise she would've been an outcast, and Ginny just wanted me for my fame."

"Harry, Miss Weasley will make a wonderful wife for you." Albus bluffed.

"Like I'll believe that!" Harry retorted. Then he continued his rant, "Ginny was the ultimate fangirl of the Boy-Who-Lived from the start. I know that anytime she defends my honour, she was really just sucking up to me because she went back to ignoring me 95% of the time. Didn't it ever occur to you that Ginny was setting that basilisk free several times after writing in a cursed diary? No, because you just assumed she was possessed by whatever was inside that diary. There's no way a pure-blood would've gone through that whole year not knowing that the diary was cursed. Being a pure-blood, Ginny should've known better than to trust an inanimate object capable of thinking for itself, even more so with Mr. Weasley working for the ministry and Bill working as a curse breaker for Gringotts, so Ginny knew what she was doing. That diary had to have been writing back to her with so-called instructions on how to win the Boy-Who-Lived's affection and Ginny going with it without hesitating and not caring about the lives of those at Hogwarts."

"Miss Weasley was a child, Harry," Dumbledore tried 'reasoning' with Harry while trying to conceal his collywobbles. "She didn't know any better."

"Ginny knew better, professor, as she was eleven at the time!" snapped Harry. Then he resumed his tirade, "She was old enough to know right from wrong. Even if Lucius slipped that diary in her cauldron, Ginny chose to help in wiping the school of muggle-borns and had the gall to play victim every time. She even tried to dispose of that diary in a girls' lavatory where it could've ended up in the hands of another innocent student. I came across the diary before the situation could escalate and even investigated it, but I didn't write in it after that and instead keep it hidden away. Ginny even spotted that diary falling out of my schoolbag and waited until I wasn't around to steal it back because she didn't want me to find out what she had been writing in it. The next thing that happened, Hermione and Penny turned up petrified since Ginny allowed the ordeal to repeat itself. When Professor McGonagall imposed those new rules, she even told me and the rest of my housemates that the school was likely to close unless the culprit behind the attacks was caught. Ginny chose to keep it to herself instead of fessing up to McGonagall because Ginny didn't want to be expelled. Then finding here in the Chamber of Secrets made me realize that she set me up to rescue her by deliberately making herself to be the damsel-in-distress just so she could seal her so-called happily ever after. Even when she was confronted for it, she even had the nerve to whine about it by lying to her parents that she didn't know what was going on. She was even more concerned with expulsion from Hogwarts than the safety of everybody in the school. That proved to me that Ginny was totally irredeemable."

"Yes, Albus." Penny told him in a firm voice. "That meant that Ginny was guilty of aiding and abetting, reckless endangerment, and multiple counts of attempted 1st degree murder for the petrifying of several students including me. She planned for it to happen despite knowing that waiting until she was at Hogwarts for that to happen was a form of planning in advance. After Harry told me of his suspicions in the Chamber of Secrets disaster and how his heroic deeds being orchestrated by you, he and I even went to Amelia at the ministry to inform her. Then she, Mr. Weasley and a few aurors headed for the Burrow to talk with Mrs. Weasley, Ron and Ginny. The aurors arrested Ginny first for her crimes in the Chamber of Secrets fiasco, where she even used the 'I was possessed' defence to get out of suffering the consequences. Then Ron and Mrs. Weasley were arrested for being spies for you to keep watch over Harry without his consent. Amelia then mentioned that she would even have Hermione arrested because she was also a spy for you."

"As it turned out," Harry told a now-terrified Dumbledore (who was paste-white and looked like he needed to change into a cleaner set of robes). "Ginny was never possessed by that thing inside Tom Riddle's diary. She won't be walking free anymore, as Amelia informed Penny and myself that Ginny will be kept under supervision in the mental institution of the juvenile ward at St. Mungo's hospital until she's seventeen when she can get a retrial and then a hearing to decide her eventual punishment. Ron's punishment will be six months in the wizarding juvenile detention centre, during which he'll be suspended from Hogwarts and have a juvenile tutor come to him. Then he'll spend the next five years on supervised probation. Mrs. Weasley will also be sentenced to eighteen months in Azkaban and after that be on five years of probation. We don't yet know what Hermione's punishment is yet. It's time for you to take responsibility for your actions."

"But what do those glasses have to do with you two confronting me?" asked Albus.

"They're just sunglasses, Albus," stated Penny. "They're mirrored for a good reason. But that's for me and Harry to know and for you to never find out."

Dumbledore tried using legilimency on Penny to find out how much more she was told of Harry's suspicions that he was being used as a pawn. The headmaster realized too late why the sunglasses were mirrored because his use of legilimency bounced back to him, giving the ole coot a massive headache. It resulted in Dumbledore putting his head down on the desk while grasping his head and squeezing his eyes shut tight. A knock at the door was heard, with Harry getting up to answer it. It was Amelia and the aurors. Harry and Penny even gave Amelia the silver instruments that Dumbledore used to keep track of Harry's whereabouts and the bond of blood charm on the Dursleys house. As Dumbledore was pulled up onto his feet to be placed in magic-suppression handcuffs, a strange wand fell out of his robe pocket.

"Amelia, what kind of wand is that?" asked Penny.

"I have no clue, Penny," stated Amelia, pocketing the wand. "But I think the unspeakables need to see it and research it."

"Great idea," Penny concurred. "I'd hate to think that that could be a powerful artefact or something."

"Albus Dumbledore, you're under arrest for the many crimes committed against Harry," Amelia informed the soon-to-be former headmaster, as he was placed in magic-suppression handcuffs. "You don't have to say anything, for it may harm your defence. Anything you choose to say can be given in evidence."

Albus was led away to be taken into ministry custody. Once Dumbledore was no longer in sight, Harry and Penny took their respective pairs of sunglasses off while grinning in relief, now that Harry's manipulators were finally dealt with.

"How would you like to come to my apartment and watch movies with me while eating ice cream?" Penny offered.

"What kind of movies?" asked Harry.

"You can pick, Harry," Penny suggested. "Since you've never got to have an experience like this."

"Yes, I'd like to." said Harry, accepting the offer with a smile.

Then he and Penny left the headmaster's office to head over to the Three Broomsticks and floo to Penny's apartment. Penny even wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders to let him know he was in safe hands, something Harry found to be very comforting. Now that Dumbledore was facing justice with the rest of the manipulators, Harry was now free to live life on his terms. For the first time, luck was on his side.

The End!

Author's note: I'd like to give a shoutout to the user 'magitech' for suggesting the idea used for the one-shot!