I don't own Harry Potter, so please let me know what you think.
X
From Hell's Heart, I stab at thee.
Harry seethed angrily as he left the Headmaster's office.
What a joke.
What a stupid, pointless meeting.
While he hadn't liked the thought of spending any more time with the senile old fossil, especially since he still refused to look him (Harry) in the eye so nothing had really changed since the year before, and he had ensured those useless so-called best friends of his showed their true colours by following his commands like the puppets they were, by making them not send any messages for the entire summer which Harry had anticipated and prepared for by going on that unauthorised holiday to Australia for the best part of a month by himself, Harry had assumed, wrongly it now seemed, that Dumbledore had learnt from his mistakes and would give him the information he would need.
How wrong he was.
The memory of the time he had left Britain and went to Australia was a welcome relief, and best of all he had the Dursleys permission to leave. They didn't want him around although in their shortsightedness they wouldn't have anyone to clean up their shit and cook their meals, but the thought of getting rid of him, a freak, overrode that reality, and Harry hadn't been stupid enough to point it out to them. But he had permission, and best of all he had gotten permission from his guardians, people Dumbledore had given him to in the first place, so if that wasn't the best sign of mockery towards Dumbledore's terrible choices, Harry didn't know what wasn't.
There was nothing anyone could do. No magical authority would send him back to Britain, not if he had permission and he had no desire to get on the wrong side of a magical authority. Harry had had fun in Australia; he had learnt how to swim and he had enjoyed swimming in the waters by the Great Barrier Reef, and he had seen many beautiful sights while he had stayed in Sidney and Melbourne, and he had also visited New Zealand.
He hadn't told anyone where he was going; the Order of the Phoenix just could not be trusted, especially after learning how far they had been prepared to take the stupid information embargo, and Diggle's presence hadn't helped since he remembered the beating Vernon had given him after the stupid fool shook his hand in the street without realising what it looked like.
And then there was Sirius.
Harry hadn't spoken to his godfather in a long time. He had gotten the message; Sirius had tried to speak to him whenever he was at HQ despite the efforts of the Order to keep them apart, but Harry avoided the older man. Sirius had let him down by not asking him how he was, just telling him to keep his head down and not leave his prison.
After that Harry had just ignored him, proving he didn't want anything to do with the man.
When he had returned from his holiday, Harry had arrived a week before his sixth year began and he had received the expected letters from different members of the Order for going away without telling them. Their letters annoyed him; they reminded him of the useless letters Sirius had written to him the year before, telling him to stay put. Harry had ignored them all, just like he had ignored his so-called friends. He had been giving Ron and Hermione a great deal of thought over the last two years now, and he had started to see they were not friends, not with the way they had betrayed him in the past and how they still did it with their lies and their acts.
The way Hermione went behind his back in their third year about the Firebolt.
Ron's betrayal in Fourth year with the Triwizard Tournament. Harry had 'forgiven' him because Ron knew far too much about him, and the last thing he wanted was more grief from Skeeter for possessing a Firebolt from Sirius Black, or the Marauder's Map, or the Invisibility Cloak which Ron would talk about in a rant without engaging his brain and letting his selfishness get the better of him.
The way Granger and Weasley just followed Dumbledore's orders not to send him mail.
Dumbledore wasn't happy with the way he had left Britain without telling anyone, believing that Harry was just acting childish and not listening to his word, but if the old wizard thought for one moment he was going to just stay inside a house for a month with people who hated and feared him because he was a wizard, then he was more delusional and senile than Harry imagined.
But Dumbledore's senility aside and the way he still refused to look the boy in the eye although now he had a better idea of why that was because of the risk of Voldemort still hijacking his mind, Harry had learnt the old wizard was finally going to teach him how to fight Voldemort.
Harry had always known he would be the one expected to fight Voldemort. There had been simply too many clues for it to not be clear to him. Voldemort had tried to kill him as a child, and he wouldn't stop; Riddle had proven that quite adequately when he was much younger and nobody else would lift a finger. The prophecy only confirmed it, but he had hoped Dumbledore would give him more help than what he had right now.
But he had been wrong. Dumbledore had indeed been giving him lessons… in learning more about Voldemort's past. But Dumbledore didn't realise the truth.
Once Harry had learnt Lord Voldemort had once gone by the name of Tom Marvolo Riddle, a brilliant Slytherin student from the 1940s, he had gone to the Room of Requirement to discover more about the wizard who simply would not leave him alone. He had discovered the Room many months before his battle with the basilisk in the Chamber when he had visited the House Elves in the kitchen and asked them if there was a place within the school where he could practice and learn magic freely without being in a public place. That was vital because at the time everyone was turning against him because of his faux pas with parseltongue, and they had described the Room of Requirement and where it was in the castle and how to use it.
The Room of Requirement was a great resource and once Harry had discovered what the Room could do, he used it frequently. In the summer before his third year, Harry had visited the library of Little Whinging and he had learnt of wormholes, bends in space/time which could shorten the gaps in time and space, and he had theorised the Room made use of such wormholes to bring whatever the user of the room wanted to them. It didn't conjure them out of thin air, it brought the objects and resources to the user.
Thanks to the Room's abilities, Harry had gained dozens of books and resources to help him become a wizard. He was able to summon books on Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Defence, even the Dark Arts, and when he had learnt he could speak Parseltongue, he had looked up information on the magical art many considered evil, and he had found books on Parselmagic; with Voldemort out there, he had felt that he had needed all the help he could get. And he had learnt many things, although he had needed to be extremely careful; with Hermione telling the teachers everything he was doing, he was worried too many of his secrets would get out and they would make people assume he was dark and evil.
After he had learnt about Voldemort's past, Harry had used the Room again in the first week of his Third Year. He had discovered more about Voldemort's past, and he had learnt Voldemort had created Horcruxes, soul fragments. He had learnt about this a long time before Dumbledore had even given him the information, but while the old wizard had it, Harry had hoped the old man had clues about where the Horcruxes were. The Room had told him what Voldemort had used for some of them, but that was it. There was some powerful magic woven into the Room which prevented it from bringing anything dangerous or hazardous like a Horcrux into it, a safety net.
But Dumbledore was useless. And now he had to get the memory from Slughorn. He didn't want to since the old fool was playing his stupid games, once more. But Harry felt it was time to remind others of the realities around them.
X
Professor Slughorn had been marking homework when the door knocked. He was pleased by the reprieve. Honestly, what was Dumbledore thinking when he had appointed Snape as Potions Master? Slughorn remembered Snape as a genius, but he had the habit of looking down his nose at anyone who didn't meet his so-called standards. That arrogance did not make him a good teacher, and sometimes Slughorn questioned Dumbledore's sanity.
Slughorn flicked his wand at the door. To his surprise Harry Potter was standing in the doorway. "Mr Potter?" He uttered in surprise. "What are you doing-? Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes, It's time for you to tell the truth. Don't get up, I want to show you something."
Puzzled Slughorn did as he was told. He remained sitting in his chair while the boy took out his wand and pressed the tip at his temple as if he were about to withdraw a memory and insert it into a pensieve. Instead Harry pointed his wand upwards.
Slughorn jumped back in horror as he saw for the first time the image of Voldemort as he was stuck to the back of a man's head, followed closely by the spectre of the young Tom Riddle, gloating that he would return very much alive, to the resurrection. Slughorn was unable to move. He wanted to run as far and as fast as he could.
"I was 11 when I heard the truth of what happened to my family, Professor; before that, the muggles I lived with told me my parents were killed in a car crash. They made them out to be drunken, irresponsible criminals and that they believed I'd grow to become like that. They spent 10 years pushing me into becoming that, tormenting me daily with mental and physical abuse," Harry said conversationally, not even blinking as his concentration 'slipped' showing the truth of what he was saying. "And all because of your former student."
Slughorn looked sick. Harry was pleased with his reaction.
"I am sick and tired of playing games with the magical world, Professor. I have a useless Head of House, I have a scheming, manipulative moron of a Headmaster pushing me into becoming a super weapon to end Voldemort's life. I have you with information about Voldemort's Horcruxes. Yes, I know about them, and so do you. I want that memory. Take a good hard look at the consequences of Voldemort on everyone, Professor. Do the right thing for a change. Either you give the memory freely, or I hurt you to get it," Harry's voice dropped to a low, menacing whisper to prove to Slughorn he meant every word he said. "I don't want to, but if you play games with me, you will regret it."
Slughorn couldn't take his eyes off of the scene of Vernon Dursley's over-zealousness as he tried to beat the younger Harry, and he bowed his head.
"Very well, and I'm sorry for everything you've gone through."