Chapter 5.4 The end of fifth year

"Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall said when he came out of a class, "Mr Dumbledore is here and has asked to speak with you."

"About what?"

"He hasn't said."

"Please make him tell you, then send him away."

"As you wish."

Rather than an answer, Harry received an owl the next day with a letter that said Dumbledore had information that was too sensitive to trust to others or to owl post. Harry reflected that he did have questions that he would like to ask, but that if he let Dumbledore dictate the terms for their meeting, then he wouldn't get the straight answers that Dumbledore had always been reluctant to give, so he decided to ignore the letter.

The next week he got another letter. It at least tried to be conciliatory, acknowledging that he had made mistakes where Harry was concerned, but that he had uncovered some disquieting information about a certain common enemy, and that he hoped they could find a way to work together to defeat him. Harry wrote a note to the Unspeakable Capodastro, attaching Dumbledore's letters, and asking if they would be willing to find out what Dumbledore wanted, because Harry didn't feel it was his job, and he was rather enjoying the first time in five years that his life hadn't been threatened for 6 whole months. He got a note back that Capodastro would contact Dumbledore.

Two weeks later, Capodastro sent Harry another note, that he had met with Dumbledore, who had been most insistent that what he had to say was for Harry only, and had refused to say anything of note. Although no-one would ever know, Dumbledore had found the Gaunt shack with evidence that it used to be heavily fortified, and had been trying to find out how much Harry knew about the disappearance of a potential horcrux, or whether Tom Riddle had retrieved it himself and hid it somewhere else. After not getting any answers from Harry he had attempted to get them from the next location where a horcrux had been, the cave with the fake locket, where Dumbledore had died, though it would be some time before anyone would even suspect.

Harry tried to study what wards Gringotts might be using to keep the horcrux detector from being able to find information on the contents of the vaults. Stanbeny helped him, agreeing that it was as good a project as any to learn about the incessant arms race between warders and curse-breakers. For the moment, the goblins were winning, though.

There was another broom-making workshop, during which they learned anti-jinxing enchantments. Harry had suggested the topic to the student who had organised that year's workshop. Because the global wizard population was so small, quidditch was the only professional sport, and broom development was one of the more active fields in development of enchantments. Therefore, it wasn't difficult to find an instructor or a company who were willing to offer training to the next generation of developers. They also learned that the anti-jinxing enchantments were what kept professionally made brooms from being shrinkable, as the enchantments repelled all charms.

The 6 weeks between Easter and exams were dedicated to OWLs. He still went to quidditch and fighting practice, and even spent time with Luna, but quidditch and fighting served only to help him deal with the stress of cramming knowledge into his head, and when he was with Luna he was distracted. In response, Luna was even more whimsical than usual. Harry didn't exactly like it; he wondered Luna whether was keeping him at arm's length to keep from getting hurt, but Harry couldn't summon enough acuity to change the way they interacted or to find out for sure whether they even really had a problem.

Exams passed in a blur. He did well in the practical exams and had worked at preventing the theory parts from dragging down his grades too much. He was glad when it was over, though.

After exams, duelling classes were cancelled, as Professor Algar was ill. Harry went to talk to Hagrid and Professor Sprout, explaining that he was doing a mastery in Runes and that he didn't think he could manage more that 5 NEWTS in addition to that, but that he would really like to know more about magical creatures and plants, and could he attend classes without writing the essays? Harry's reasoning was that the practical classes showed him what was there, and exposed him to things it would be quite complicated to catch up on once he graduated, and that, as a muggle-raised wizard, he didn't have the immersion in how things were done with magic to even know existed, while if in future he were to need to find some theoretical knowledge that he didn't have but knew was out there, he could buy a book easily enough. Hagrid warned him that if he failed his sixth-year exam, it might not be up to him whether he was allowed to continue into seventh-year class, while Professor Sprout told him he would still need to prepare for class, as she couldn't allow him to endanger himself and others by not knowing the correct safety procedures, but other than that both were open to his request.

During the last day of the schoolyear, the Weasley twins found Harry on his way to dinner. They took him to an empty classroom, where Harry asked them what their plans were now that they were graduating. They explained that they had already started an owl-order business of jokes and pranks, and were using that to save money with the goal of opening a shop. When Harry asked them for details about their financial outlook, they confessed that they had bet all their savings on the outcome of the Quidditch World Cup final 10 month previously, and though they had gotten the outcome of the match correct they had still lost their bet, because the bookie, Ludo Bagman, had reneged on his debt. Harry told them that if they thought a loan would help them get where they wanted to end up faster, he encouraged them to send a business proposal to Feslup.

When Harry asked whether that was what they wanted to talk about, they said that they had something else in mind. They told him that they had hoped to find students to take over the mantle of being the lead pranksters of Hogwarts, but failing that they had decided to give the Marauder's map to the person who had saved Ginny's life. Harry could only stare at the map, lost for words, making the twins nervously defend themselves, "we should have given it to you three years ago, right after you saved Ginny's life, but the map was made by pranksters for pranksters, and it didn't occur to us until after the fact that you might have been able to prevent your kidnapping last year if you had had it. We really feel terrible about it."

"No, don't worry about that," Harry said, to try and stop the twins from grovelling for some imagined slight, which was not what had him vainly grasping for words. "You couldn't have known that would happen. And anyway, we would have been watching the third task and not the map. You do know who the Marauders were?"

"Err, no?"

"Prongs was my dad, Padfoot is Sirius Black, Moony is Remus Lupin and Wormtail is Peter Pettigrew."

The twins went down on their knees, kow-towing to Harry, "The son of Prongs".

Once more trying to divert the theatrical twins, he asked, "do you know how the map works?"

"We never asked"

"how the map works,"

"but it answers questions."

"Let us show you."

Putting their wands to the map, they said, "We solemnly swear we are up to no good." "Tweedle-dee" "and tweedle-dum" "introduce the Son of Prongs."

It turned out that the map had been imbued with the personality of the Marauders in the same way that portraits were, but they had managed to make the map capable of writing rather than speaking. There was a lot more besides, which was going to take Harry time to study. It was as much a feat of magic as Harry's horcrux detectors were, and Harry tried not to think too deeply about the fact that they had built it to be able to prank their fellow students rather than to help with the civil war that had been in full swing at the time, because if he did, the logical and bitter conclusion was that the Marauders had had parents to shield them from getting too familiar with such dangerous knowledge. Not that he was unhappy with the way Sirius treated him now, just that it had started 11 years late. While Mrs Figg had been great in her own way, but the Dursleys had made sure that she could only mitigate the disaster that was Harry's childhood, not prevent it. Upon reflection, Harry also noted that he could allow himself to think such thoughts only because things were better now. Even if there was more to be done to get rid of Riddle, the end was starting to take form. At present only vaguely, but Dumbledore had stopped throwing him in the deep end without any preparation, and he actually had adults he could count on for help even though the situation could still turn deadly at any moment.