Chapter 20: Operation sudo rm -rf /*

Finally it's looking like we have a solid plan. Two weeks after 'convincing' Lockhart to work with us, I am reasonably confident of my own memory charming ability. Despite being a total fraud, he turned out to be good at teaching that one spell.

"Checklist item 14: Polyjuice", I read.

"Potion and hair ready", Snape answered. He's going to be in disguise when we attack, just in case we fail and he's needed as a spy.

"15: Felix Felicis?"

"Four twenty-minute doses. Weren't cheap, but we got them."

"Okay, check and check. How's Fawkes?", I asked Dumbledore, whose black eye was already entirely gone. Ok, maybe the Hog's Head hadn't been the perfect location, but how was I supposed to know that the barman would react so badly to catching his brother sneaking around?

"He has fully recovered from his last burning day. Should we need him, he'll be there."

The bird in question agreed with a weird chirping sound.

"That's everything we thought of so far. Well, there's one other thing. It would be really helpful, but I kinda promised to keep it secret. Especially from you."

"What's that, Potter?"

"No matter what it is, Severus, it is clearly something that someone close to Harry has entrusted him with. If it's important for our mission, I will promise to act as if I was completely unaware of it."

Snape looked at Dumbledore, sighed after a moment, and concurred. "Fine. I will pretend like I don't know it either."

I opened my bag, got out a folded piece of parchment and touched it with my wand. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good."

Dumbledore looked at the unfolding clutter of lines and whistled. "Impressive. Your father's and his friends' creation?"

I nodded.

Snape stared at the map and mumbled: "So that's how they always got away with it…"

Dumbledore asked: "Am I correct to assume that the Weasley twins are amongst the users of this remarkable creation?"

Another nod. "They'd not be happy with me if they found out I showed it to you. I only borrowed it from them."

"Well, I did promise to ignore it. As did you, Severus."

Snape grudgingly agreed.

"With this, we know exactly where Quirrel is. He probably still has no idea that we've been onto him for months. We got a plan with a good chance of working. I say we don't delay any longer and proceed as soon as possible."

"I will contact Gilderoy, then."

-HP-HP-HP-

I sighed. This was not a conversation I had been looking forward to, but it was necessary.

"Hermione? We need to talk. It's about Quirrel. Muffliato. We have a plan that could permanently destroy Voldemort with a reasonably good chance of success. We're probably going to do it tonight. If everything goes well, it'll all be over by tomorrow. If things don't go well, the risk should still be minimal, Dumbledore is very capable and Voldemort should be very, very weak. There is a minor chance of a worst-case scenario though."

"Worst-case scenario?"

"Me dead, Dumbledore dead, Snape dead, Voldemort on the loose. We did absolutely everything we could think of to prevent that, but if it still happens, I'm giving you everything I have."

Hermione looked aghast. "You really think you could die?"

"A very low chance, but possible. Listen, I wrote a notebook. It's in Grimmauld. It contains every single important bit of information I have, including things not really appropriate for twelve year olds, like seriously dark magic."

The Prophecy. The Hallows. Horcruxes and where to find them, including those already recovered. If the worst happens and I die, destroying all the Horcruxes becomes a possibility, after all. And finally, the true nature of this world. I've always neglected to tell her that the books I read about her in the future hadn't exactly been in the 'wizarding history' section of the library.

"I instructed Kreacher to give it to you if, and only if, I die or otherwise become permanently unable to fight Voldemort. If that happens, which probably also means that Dumbledore is also dead since we're working together, I'm giving you the responsibility to use that information to organise a resistance. There's a list of trusted names included. Once you're done with that, use what's left of my money to get everyone who's not an adult or not willing to fight and move to someplace far, far away. You're not going to be fighting a war at age twelve. That's an order. Got everything?"

She was almost sobbing. "Worst-case. Kreacher. Notebook. Resistance. Evacuate."

I gave her a hug. "Good. Remember, we took every precaution we could. The chance of you needing to do anything is very, very low."

-HP-HP-HP-

Midnight. Most of the castle was asleep. Four wizards stood in a secret room, waiting.

The dot labeled "Quirinus Quirrel" moved through the third floor corridor and disappeared into the unmapped area.

I stowed away the map and informed the others: "He's in."

Snape replied: "Last night he made it all the way to question 5. Another week and he'd be at the Stone. We really didn't have much time left."

"We've got to do it tonight. No postponing now."

Dumbledore nodded. Gilderoy gulped. Snape reached into his pocket and retrieved several vials, one brown, one green and four with a small amount of golden liquid.

On the other side of the door we could hear someone shouting and statues moving. Quirrel had reached the chess set, again. McGonagall's chess AI had turned out to be deterministic, if you beat it once you could beat it again with exactly the same moves. Not intended for repeated usage.

Snape and Lockhart took the Polyjuice and adjusted their robes for their slightly changed sizes.

Quirrel's voice on the other side of the door started to answer the door's questions.

We all took our doses of Felix Felicis. The effect was astonishing, immediately I felt confident that this would work.

"What is the birthday of Queen Victoria?", the door revealed the next question.

"Merlin! How many of these stupid questions are there?", Quirrel shouted in anger. I immediately felt the joy of a creation of mine working exactly as intended, somewhat elevated by the potion in my system.

While opening the door from the outside required answering a dozen questions correctly, opening it from the inside required none of that. Dumbledore slammed the door open, revealing a very surprised Quirrel.

"Albus? What the.."

A flash from Dumbledore's wand, and Quirrel flew across the room that had formerly housed a troll and slammed him face-first into the wall. A mass of golden ropes followed, forming a web that held him there.

The hidden runework in the walls and ceiling came to life, glowing and pulsing and connectingto the golden web that held Quirrel in place, causing the golden threads to radiate brightly.

I had little time to admire Dumbledore's trap before another wand-wave caused the turban to just fade out of existence, revealing the ugly face of Voldemort below.

Snape didn't hesitate, pointed his wand at Voldemort and shouted "LEGILIMENS!". Dumbledore followed with the same spell.

Quick, do something. "My name is Harry Potter! You killed my parents! Prepare to die! OBLIVIATE!"

Describing how it feels to attack a mind is difficult. I could feel his mind, the barriers protecting it, the two other individuals inside it, probing the barriers.

There! Dumbledore's incredibly fast mental probe had found a gap, widened it, and I slipped in. A memory immediately threw itself at me. A ritual circle, a naked human body, blood everywhere, the screams - then the memory dissolved into nothingness as I instinctively wiped it before it made me puke. That's one way to thwart intruders.

I could vaguely hear noise from the real world, "GILDEROY NOW", "OBLIVIATE," then Lockhart's spell arrived with the force of a freight train and started destroying everything in his path.

While we were deleting as much as we could, Dumbledore was busy cracking a second series of barriers, revealing even more cluttered memories, even more traps, and another barrier - how many did Voldemort have?

A fraction of a second later - although they felt like much longer inside - we were all violently expelled from Voldemort's mind as if it had just ceased to exist.

Which it had, in a way. Black, oily smoke poured out of the back of Quirrel's head, the face there melting away. The smoke simply passed through the fine mesh of golden threads meant to keep Voldemort from escaping and condensed into a cloud - with a face on it.

"ALBUS DUMBLEDORE. HARRY POTTER.", it spoke. Then it moved away, passed through the wall, ignoring the vibrant runes, and disappeared.

"Reducto!" Lockhart cast in a heroic attempt to stop Voldemort from escaping, but all he accomplished was blasting a hole in the wall. Through it we could see the black cloud floating away, disappearing over the Forbidden Forest.

"Well, shit."

AN: Thought I'd let you have it that easy, did you?