I don't own Harry Potter, I just own this story - you should know the drill by now.
Anyway, the Second Task is almost done, which I know will please some people but I'd wanted to have little challenges within the task to spice things up a bit. Also, this chapter...I was tempted to have the memory showing Charlotte murdering the Dursleys in accordance with my original plan, but I hope you enjoy what I've got here, including the little tidbits in the chapter where more conflict awaits.
Enjoy!
The Hell of Fourth Year.
Dumbledore felt paralysed with horror as he stared at the memories playing out, his mind in between denial and acceptance of what he was witnessing. No, this couldn't be. But he knew it was so. He knew the memory projection spell which he and the other organisers had enchanted in this particular challenge was to always show the true memory of the Champions to make them confront their own horrendous memories.
"I told you."
Dumbledore was snapped out of his thoughts, only to receive a stinging slap to the cheek. Wincing in pain, it took a moment for the aged wizard to push the pain aside to focus on whomever it was who had slapped him. And he focused on Minerva McGonagall, tears sliding down her cheeks while she was visibly shaking with rage.
Dumbledore sighed.
He should have expected this but truthfully until the Champions themselves had reached this level of the Tournament - why they had needed to have so many obstacles for them, just to 'spice things up' he would never know, but he had tried to tell the other organisers of the tournament that what they were planning was a bad idea, but no. They wouldn't have it.
They had wanted to make the Second Task more complicated than it had needed to be. They had shoved the Champions into the Task to tackle one obstacle after another, but when they had come up with this one after they had spent weeks and weeks together going over numerous old spells which could give them a Task they could, as they say 'spice things up,' he had protested. Dumbledore didn't have a problem with looking into the minds of others. Indeed, it was one of his favourite information-gathering tactics, but he drew the line when it came to projecting memories for the world to see, just to watch if the Champion collapsed in horror.
Well, he guessed this was inevitable.
"I told you, Albus!" Minerva was so angry her voice was hoarse; that surprised Dumbledore since he knew when his Deputy Headmistress and longtime friend and former apprentice was angry, her Scottish brogue became more prominent, but she must have been so enraged she could hardly speak. "I told you those were the worst sort of muggles imaginable, but you never listen, do you!? You are always so sure of your own view, you never stop to listen to anyone!"
Dumbledore remembered the night where he, Minerva and Hagrid dropped off little Charlotte on the doorstep of Number 4 Privet Drive shortly after Lily and James…. died. He had ignored what she had said about the Dursleys and how they were the worst sort of muggles imaginable. Minerva hadn't realised it but Dumbledore already knew that about the Dursleys. He had spent years receiving letters from Petunia Dursley nee Evans, who had begged and begged him to let her attend Hogwarts even if she didn't even have magic.
Dumbledore had long since known you could tell a great deal about the mindset of people from how they wrote to you, and after a number of letters he had found Petunia Evans to be nothing more than a bigot who hated everything she didn't understand, but she just wanted to get one up on her sister, Lily.
"They were her only relatives, Minerva," Dumbledore answered at last while he slipped his wand from his inner pocket out to remind Minerva that while he wouldn't sink so low to hit her back, he was still a master wizard and he was not going to let anyone try that again. "She had become a celebrity overnight following the murder of her family, and if she became a ward of the Ministry or was given off to one of the dark families, she would either have died long ago, or she would have become nothing more than a puppet, and then you would have lashed out at me for allowing that. I didn't know about the abuse!"
"Don't try to wriggle your way out of this!" Minerva hissed, although what he had said had struck a nerve. She knew he was right. She knew the Ministry, had they gotten their hands on the last Potter who had become the Girl Who Lived, would have paraded her up and down to follow their whims like a puppy playing tricks. They wouldn't have cared for her as a young witch, they would never have allowed her to develop as a person, but a tool especially when You-Know-Who returned from wherever he had gone hiding.
Minerva knew the Ministry, especially Fudge and Umbridge, had no love for Charlotte, but they would have flocked to her because it was politically convenient. But when they had sucked her dry, once her purpose was fulfilled….
Minerva had no idea what would have happened to Charlotte if that had happened, but she knew Lily and James would never forgive the Magical world for allowing their only child to suffer like that.
They had died for her. They wouldn't have wanted her to become an unthinking puppet of the Ministry, let alone be a victim because someone stupidly placed her with one of the dark families, and as much as Dumbledore had angered her, he had a point and she knew it.
Charlotte could very well have died had she been handed over to one of the more extreme dark families who wouldn't have cared one iota if they were murdering an innocent baby whose only crime was surviving against their sick master.
But that didn't excuse Dumbledore allowing this abuse. After everything she had seen this year and during Charlottes' time at Hogwarts, Minerva had come to realise whenever it came to Charlotte Potter, Albus Dumbledore had his own agenda for her and he didn't seem to really care or think about the long term harm he could be causing to her.
"I know you, Albus. You have some kind of long-term plan for Charlotte, and it involves him," she spat, referencing Voldemort without speaking of him with anything other than the contempt the Dark Lord deserved. "You have also talked about putting Charlotte into homes she really doesn't want to live in, for her safety. You have meddled in her life, even going as far as to say who she can date when it has got nothing to do with you! I refuse to believe you hadn't placed some kind of watch around the Dursleys, I also remember the way you reacted when we found out they'd died. You were panicking, muttering that Charlotte needed to be safe."
"I was!" Dumbledore knew this argument was getting them nowhere, but what he really wanted to do was to stop it being broadcasted around the entire magical world. The magical communities watching this Task not only watched and listened to the Champions so they felt as if they were there with them, but they also listened to the commentary of the judges themselves as they watched and critiqued the performance of the Champions. The last thing Dumbledore wanted was for this to be broadcasted, especially since it would make many people realise he hadn't only placed one of his own students even if it was known now Charlotte had resigned from Hogwarts in an abusive environment, he must have known about the abuse, but he had done nothing about it. "I didn't know this was happening. I would have stopped it!" he finished, hoping everyone bought his little white lie.
Oh, he might have stopped the rape, but not the abuse.
No, the abuse had been essential for his plan to ensure Charlotte was conditioned the way he had needed her to be. He had known had she been raised in the magical world, as a ward of the Ministry or one of the other families who would claim relation to her, then Charlotte would have been spoilt, wilful. He hadn't wanted that although he was disgusted with the steps he had needed to take to create a weapon capable of ending Voldemort once and for all.
Dumbledore had always known Charlotte would have been abused by the Dursleys.
In fact, it had been the main reason why he had placed her there in the first place. It was disgusting what he had done, placing a child in an abusive house to deal with a situation which he knew should have been dealt with a long time ago. And he knew if they returned and discovered what he had done, then they would destroy everything he had tried to do mostly for his own benefit.
But abuse had always been in the cards.
Petunia and Vernon Dursley had both been disgusting people, he had known that after taking one look into their incredibly bigoted minds that wouldn't have been out of place amongst the Death Eaters. Dumbledore had known from the moment he had dropped Charlotte off on the doorstep of that seemingly ordinary, boring muggle house (why they had to live like that, he had never worked out) she would be abused.
He had long since hoped this particular dirty little secret out of a whole collection of dirty little secrets never got out. He had hoped, if his plans had gone through the way he had long wished they had, then he could give Charlotte the excuse he hadn't wanted her to be a spoilt little princess but that she had survived a long, hard life at the Dursleys instead.
But he had no intention of saying out aloud.
Many people were already criticising him for the poor mismanagement of things at Hogwarts, starting from how he had allowed bullying to become so serious the Girl Who Lived herself had been maimed in the eye, the loss of one of the oldest patrons of Hogwarts whose family had enriched the school for centuries, but he had also been accused of forcing a union between Charlotte and a boy who had bullied and harassed her since this mess had started.
The outcry towards the Weasley family had been severe due to Ronald's actions, but Dumbledore hadn't bothered trying to defend the boy. He had decided to separate himself from them, although he had no idea how much good it would do.
In short, Dumbledore knew things did not look good.
So, the last thing he needed was for it to get out he had not only placed young Charlotte Potter in an abusive house, but he had known what things were like there, and he hadn't bothered to check on her. Dumbledore knew only too well what could happen if they received that information on top of everything else.
He could be kicked out of Hogwarts for good. That was unacceptable, especially since Hogwarts was the perfect base for Dumbledore's plans and operations, and from there he could rule from behind the scenes, which Fudge and many of his mindless imbeciles simply didn't realise, and he was sure even clever and cunning wizards like Lucius Malfoy didn't even realise because he was influencing the minds of the next generations of witches and wizards.
In the past, it hadn't been a problem. Many times in the last thirty years or so, many people had tried to get him evicted from Hogwarts. They had failed. But that was only because their accusations and their reasons were proven to be unfounded.
But allowing child abuse against a specific young witch and knowing that the bullying against one specific student who happened to be that specific young witch who was the last heiress of a very old and powerful magical family even if the Potters had kept away from politics was going on, and refusing to do anything about it or even going as far as to punish the perpetrators despite knowing how bad it was getting, would make the bullies think they were untouchable - he had read more than one article where foreign magical reporters used their intelligence to work out the flaws in his policy of blanket forgiveness to show people the light - which resulted in the loss of one of her eyes would mean his many political enemies would finally have the leverage they would need to kick him out at last.
Dumbledore had worked hard for the last few weeks to make sure that didn't happen.
Alas, it looked like his efforts had failed. Everything, as the muggles would say, had gone down the drain.
He only wished nothing else happened, and Minerva kept her mouth shut.
Minerva shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks as she glared scornfully at him. "I don't believe you," she spat scornfully. "You have never cared about her before, why should you start now?"
"Oh, and I suppose you have the moral high ground in this mess, do you, Minerva?" Dumbledore refused to be just the only other person who was responsible for this mess, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw several people already taking note of this. "You yourself knew where Charlotte was, all the time. You could have left Hogwarts for a day or so, and visited her to see how she was doing. I know full well you never did, even though I came into your office a few times, gazing wistfully at a photograph of Charlotte."
Dumbledore saw with some sadistic satisfaction Minerva took a step back. Good, he thought to himself, hopefully, that will teach her her place.
McGonagall could not believe what Dumbledore had just said, but no matter what he said couldn't be refuted. Dumbledore was right. She had not only known where Charlotte was or so she believed since it had been a terrible blow to find out Charlotte had vanished and the Dursleys were dead.
But the personal stain on her soul disgusted her.
She had known the Dursleys were unfit as guardians for Charlotte, especially since she had received a few letters from Petunia Dursley, begging to come to Hogwarts, and how the muggle was so desperate that she didn't bother to correct her bigoted language, and the horrible things she had said in those letters had eventually annoyed Minerva so much especially when the stupid muggle girl had written if you let in a freak like perfect Lily into your freaky school, I deserve to come, too, she had sent a Howler to the Evans' home so the elder Evanses found out what their daughter had done.
Minerva didn't know and frankly did not care what the stupid girl received for that stunt, but she had made sure the girls' parents knew how much of a bigot Petunia was. She knew Lily had grown to despise Petunia over the years, although that was easy really, she had no idea what her actions had done to their relationship on the whole.
But having her own stupidity thrown back into her face….
Minerva could see why Dumbledore had done it, he wanted her to stop going on about while adopting a kind of moral high ground. Minerva knew Dumbledore very well, and she knew he never did anything without a reason. He wanted some of the blame to be passed onto her since she had known where the girl was living originally, but she knew better than to say he had told her to grow up without any knowledge of the magical world to burden her with.
Like with many things that came from Dumbledore, Minerva hadn't seen the point behind the order, but as always she had followed the command believing Albus Dumbledore knew best.
She hadn't expected him to do this, and she had no idea what was going to come next. All she knew was this would not be well received by anybody in the magical world.
XXX
"Petunia, that….bitch!"
"I know."
"She-!"
"I know," the man sighed, shaking his head. "But what I can't understand is how it happened."
"And her history…," the woman shook her head in wonder and horror. "What I want to know is what happened to Charlotte after we were so sure she had been killed a month before Voldemort showed up."
The man closed his eyes. "When Dumbledore told us about that…. I thought I was going to die. That little girl….she was…is the apple of my eye. When Dumbledore showed the proof, I believed it. The bastard lied to us, Lily. The bastard lied!"
Lily Potter nodded, tears rolling down her face. "What amazes me is the fact he is still acting all holier than thou, claiming he didn't know anything about the abuse. I don't believe him."
"Neither do I, especially after what I've heard," James sighed. "What the fuck was McGonagall thinking, if she knew where Dumbledore had dumped Charlotte, why didn't she check on her?"
"What?" Lily scoffed, making her husband turn to her. "Minerva McGonagall, defying Dumbledore? Using her own initiative? James, the woman is a weak-willed joke! Everyone muggle-born in my day knew better than to trust the teachers when those damn junior Death Eaters simply would not leave us alone. Okay, some of them made some effort to help, but McGonagall was not one of them. She turned away a muggle-born girl who was eleven years old when she told the so-called Head of the Lions she was being harassed by a bunch of boys, who had gotten away with slaps on the wrist. She was almost raped before I stepped in. I had a screaming match with McGonagall over that, but even then the woman said that Dumbledore had everything under control. I lost any respect I had for her, and the laughable thing about it was the stupid bitch thought I respected her and believed she was my favourite professor. Yeah, right, in her dreams!
"There's no doubt in my mind, James; McGonagall was either told to stay away from the Dursleys or more likely Dumbledore spun her some stupid lie to keep her away. In any case, you've read the news as I have; Charlotte was a Gryffindor, and yet she lost her eye because Dumbledore in all of his wisdom decided to just allow her to be bullied because of his stupid games which have now blown up in his face and because they weren't punished one of them took it too far. She's left Hogwarts, James, disowned it. And she has taken the Potter family out of Hogwarts. For good!"
James shook his head. "I don't care about that. All I care about is that my daughter, my Charlotte, has been hurt. That fat pig raped her, and you're right, Dumbledore would have spun some shit and made Vernon Dursley out to be a saint!"
"Are the arrangements ready?" Lily said, not wanting to think of her obese thug of a brother in law. "Almost," James sighed and looked down for a second before he raised his head again. "What are we going to say to Jason?"
Lily sighed and looked away. "I don't know," she whispered, walking a few meters away from her husband. "He's still jealous of her, James. Sometimes I wish we'd never shown him those memories."
"We didn't have that much choice, Lily," James hugged her around her waist. "When we told him he had a sister, he was enthusiastic, but he was jealous of her because her accidental magic was stronger than his when she was younger, and that was before you factor in that damn prophecy. I shouldn't have said anything about it."
"No," Lily sighed. "We thought with Charlotte gone and the prophecy no longer hanging over our heads, it didn't make any difference. After watching those Star Wars movies, and Lord of the Rings, Jason's gotten it into his mind anyone meant to do something against evil is a hero. He feels inadequate. I think it's our fault, mainly," she whispered and turned to face her husband, "but after what we thought had happened to Charlotte, I didn't want to lose another baby especially to a dark wizard with delusions of grandeur."
"I know. But ever since we found out Charlotte was alive, he's been sulky and brooding. He was okay before, but now we know she's alive and we're moving to Britain, he's acting like a typical teen. He just doesn't want to leave his friends behind," James said.
"I'm just dreading what he'll be like when we move back. Jason is jealous of Charlotte, especially after seeing what she's been doing in the tournament, and he has gone out of his way to study magic to make himself better. And Charlotte has had an awful life. What worries me the most is he'll find out his sister was raped, he'll think he's better than her for some sick reason I dread to imagine what's going to happen when they meet; if Jason tries to do anything with her, especially after everything she's been through, she might kill him. That's what I'm afraid of."
XXX
Sirius was watching the mirror in horror. "That….that filthy muggle!"
Remus looked at his friend in horror at what they had just seen.
"That filthy muggle touched my goddaughter!"
"I know, Sirius," Lupin's voice was choked, tears rolling out of his near atrophied tear ducts which had seen so many salty tears leak out of his eyes and making their way down his face. He had sobbed over how his family had treated him after Greyback bit him and transformed him into a monster. He had sobbed when he had been so sure Snape would tell everyone about his secret. He had cried when Lily and James had both died, and he had cried harder when he had learnt Sirius had supposedly betrayed them all while he hadn't spared Charlotte a single thought.
He had cried when he had realised the depths of his mistake thanks to Dumbledore's insane orders, but now he was crying that Charlotte was paying the price for the hubris of the Marauders. Remus had come to the conclusion the Marauders, on the whole, had been foolish and careless, and they had lacked the mentality to truly take anything seriously.
But the tragic thing was Lupin had never seen it like that. It was only now where everything had been torn apart with so many things now shown to be nothing but senseless lies like Pettigrew betraying them all to Voldemort, Lily and James' equally senseless deaths and Charlotte being abandoned by all of them, although could it be called that if Sirius had been locked away?
Remus had begun to think so.
Sirius, if you looked at it from a certain angle, one Charlotte was definitely seeing things now, had walked away from Charlotte, letting his hotheaded temper get the better of him, and he had gotten thrown into Azkaban. Even now Lupin was amazed Pettigrew had even found the cunning needed to pull something like that off, and he wondered if it had always been there, hidden underneath the facade of meekness and cowardice the little piece of vermin (pun intended) showed off.
As for him, he had just walked away from everything and everyone whom he had cared about, including Charlotte. Not once had he given her much thought, although there had been fleeting moments. But thanks to Dumbledore telling him to stay away, he had done exactly what he had always done; just bowed his head and meekly did as he was told.
Lupin wanted nothing more than to go out and commit suicide. He'd been free, he could have defied Dumbledore's orders, he could have gone to see Charlotte just once as she was growing up. He closed his eyes, thinking about what could have been. He could have seen Charlotte, and he could have smelt the abuse easily enough, and he could have gotten her out, but he hadn't cared enough about the child of one of his friends who had died thinking his friends would show some loyalty and help look after and raise his only child when the opportunity for more had been snatched from by a genocidal maniac.
"Sirius, there's nothing we can do," Lupin stood up and went to his friend, although he did so cautiously since Sirius had been hitting the bottle frequently, and his moods were more volatile than ever.
Sirius turned to face him. Lupin took a step back out of reflex when he saw the expression in his face. "You….you could have helped her! WHY DIDN'T YOU?"
Lupin lowered his head. "Dumbledore. He said-."
"Dumbledore! Dumbledore says this and Dumbledore says that!" Sirius leapt to his feet, almost foaming at the mouth with rage, the classic picture of a mad dog. Somehow it fitted him perfectly. "Doesn't anyone think for themselves?"
"Oh, and you do?!" Lupin yelled back, refusing to accept that. And besides, he was tired of this. Lupin had been blamed for quite a bit from Sirius recently since he made a convenient cursing bag, and he had had enough. "You went after Pettigrew without giving Charlotte a second thought. Even when you were in Azkaban, you could have used your animagus form to slip out at any moment, but you only bothered when you recognised the little bastard in that newspaper article which was a one hundred to one chance at all! You didn't give any thought about Charlotte at all, just Pettigrew and your hotheaded desire for revenge and your fucking pride! I don't remember you saying anything when Dumbledore told us to fight the way we did during the war. When did you say no when he told us to abandon her when her name came out of the Goblet? We've brought this whole mess down on us, Sirius! There is nothing we can do, and blaming me for everything won't get you anywhere!"
Lupin's argument made Sirius wilt with each word, and he collapsed back in his seat, crying.
XXX
The Champions were feeling sick as more and more of Charlotte's memories appeared; Charlotte being bullied in school where her own cousin would bully and beat up anyone who dared try to be nice to the small black-haired girl, Charlotte living on the streets suffering from colds or being chased away by other homeless kids who saw her as a threat, fights on the streets where she was lucky to get out alive….
"Enough is enough!" Charlotte suddenly snapped startling all of them, and she waved her twin wands around them all. The Chamber they were in suddenly cracked with the cracks growing larger and wider until the entire Chamber cracked but instead of collapsing all around them it all disappeared showing they were in a forest near a podium with an old football on it.
Charlotte sighed and looked at her wands in relief, but she was shaking from both shock and anger at the same time. She hadn't expected Dumbledore to go that far. Yes, he was a nosey bastard with delusions of grandeur and loved telling people what to do with their lives, but she had never expected him to go as far as to set up a challenge in the Tournament where their memories would be exposed to the world.
Was it just her or was privacy an alien concept in the magical world? It never failed to amaze her with just how far people would go when they wanted to know something just because they felt they had the right. When she had found out Rita Skeeter was nosing her way around the castle after she'd insulted the arrogant reporter, Charlotte had changed into her cat form to spy on her. It hadn't taken her long to find her either, although Charlotte was surprised the woman was an animagus. But her surprise quickly faded; the woman was ambitious, arrogant, and she loved causing pain to people but she wasn't stupid. She knew that while there were spells on homes to prevent eavesdropping, there were few preventing animagi to spy on people.
That was how Rita used her form. It was simple, but it worked far better than her blunt approach ever did. Truly, the woman would have been an exceptional spy if she wasn't so dedicated to gossip-mongering.
In cat form, Charlotte had hunted her down by using her scent after she had used the Marauder's Map to find out where she was. After that, she simply transformed into her cat form and hunted the reporter down by scent. She hadn't injured the beetle animagus, just played with her even if the disgusted insect had tried valiantly to escape from the cat who was playing roughly with her before giving up and changed back into her human form to drive her away. The best thing about beetle animagi was they didn't have the same smelling capability of a cat, showing which one was truly better. Rita never even realised the cat who'd played with her was Charlotte Potter and the teenager now knew of her secret.
But this was different.
This was an invasion on a higher level. Charlotte didn't care who knew about the abuse she'd suffered at the hands of the Dursleys. In fact, the more people that did know, the more damage it would cause to the fools who believed muggles were harmless people although she hoped the extremists didn't go too far although she knew it was a vain hope. Everyone in the magical community worldwide had witnessed a magical child be abused in terrible ways, seeing everything from the 'birthday presents' the Dursleys gave her, their anniversary gifts for her parents' deaths, and even the murder of that cat. She was just relieved they hadn't seen her memory of what she had done to the Dursleys.
Or to…..them.
Charlotte instantly clamped down on those memories. She hadn't given any thought at all to that filthy muggle family, if family was the right word to describe them in years, but she would never forget the people who had crossed the line the Dursleys had never even seen. She had always thought the Dursleys to be the worst muggle filth ever, but those people… She was just thankful her occlumency barriers around the whole horrible event had kept the spell which had projected her memories to every corner of the magical world hadn't pierced them. If the world saw that….
Pushing those thoughts aside for now although she would need a moment or an hour to properly examine what to do about those memories, Charlotte had other things to consider. She honestly had no idea what the magical world would make of what they had seen long term, but she hoped they didn't do anything extreme with the muggles, who would react and lash out at the magical world if wizards revealed themselves.
She turned her mind to the spell which had done this in the first place. When she had scanned the chamber, she hadn't just done a cursory scan like Fleur. No, she had also added another nifty spell which would use the scan to find the best way to cancel the spell out.
"Charlotte-," Cedric said and she looked solemnly at him. The older boy looked like his entire world had been shattered, and the pitying way he was looking at her was touching but it didn't annoy her.
"Let's just get out of here," she said. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Does anybody else know?" Fleur asked.
"Those muggles shouldn't get away with what they'd done!" Krum snarled insistently.
Charlotte yanked off her sunglasses revealing her single eye which glared at the Champions. "Those muggles are dead! They no longer matter to me, not that they ever did. And in any case, its in the past and you can't undo it. In any case, now the Wizarding world is concerned? How many abused children have there been in other countries? Dozens most likely, but does anyone help in the long term? No. I've learnt something about the whole world in general, muggle and magical.…no-one gives a damn."
She slipped the shades back on, shaking with anger. She wasn't angry with them. She was angry her privacy had just been torn apart, burnt down, and then thrown in the bin to be sent to a landfill site.
"Come on, let's just go. I want to finish this up before we die of old age," she whispered while she struggled to keep her emotions under control before she headed for the Portkey. But as the others reached it and touched it with their own fingers, Charlotte knew, despite her best hopes, she would likely be answering questions and not just from the Champions but from others.
She sighed with relief when the Portkey activated….
XXX
When the pirates cocked their pistols and held up their swords as they arrived Charlotte and the Champions, who were all recovering quickly from the Portkey travel, Charlotte was surprised by what they had to deal with.
Pirates? I didn't think that was Dumbledore's style. What inspired them to take this course?
A scream came from above, making the pirates laugh in glee while the Champions looked up one of the masts. To their horror, they saw the hostages they were here to rescue, and they were awake, screaming down from the mast to the Champions.
The last challenge of the Tri-wizard Tournament had begun.
