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Chapter 10

After running out of class, it hadn't taken long for Professor McGonagall to come looking for him. She was unsurprised to find him in distress in the Room of Requirement with Hermione. To be fair, Harry wasn't the type to get up and just walk out of class without being in distress. But also apparently McGonagall had been informed about what had happened to the Dursleys by the D.M.L.E. According to the letter she received, the D.M.L.E didn't want Harry to run off and do something stupid like surrender himself to terrorists who wouldn't let the Durselys go anyway.

No, what surprised Professor McGonagall was the space Harry had configured the room of Requirement into. A small cupboard wasn't exactly Harry's style, and her eyes noticed little details about the room: the mat on the floor for sleeping on, the child's crayon drawings on what looked like the underside of stairs. She also recalled Harry's words from a few years ago "S-stuff happened over the summer. No...that's not quite right. This stuff has always been happening, but on my last birthday, I-it was too much." She didn't reach the right conclusion but she did get pretty close, assuming that Harry recreated a cupboard he was often locked in as a punishment. It was something she had heard about in abusive families.

The headmistress coaxed Harry out of the room and took him and Hermione up to her office, where they all sat down in the more comfortable chairs and sofa the headmistress had installed near a large window so that she could enjoy the rather amazing view that you needed a broom to see any other way. At the headmistress' call, an elf popped in with a tray of tea and little cakes. Once everyone was served, it was onto the part of the job the long-time teacher always hated; helping a child dealing with loss. She hated how much practice she had had doing it, first during the original blood war and now what looked to be the second blood war ramping up, as the bereavements had already started. Miss Davis on Halloween hadn't been the first.

McGonagall got Harry talking about what he was feeling, and given that Harry hadn't lived with the Dursleys for over two years now he admitted that ever since he started Hogwarts as a first year, he saw his time at school as an escape from the very relatives who had been taken. Given that, McGonagall wasn't at all surprised that Harry felt no guilt or desire to save them and was just glad that Harry hadn't gone the other way and was actively cheering for their deaths. Harry also told her about his cousin and that the boy she had once seen hitting his mother for sweets now had no one except Harry. Dudley's parents were missing, his aunt was in prison, and his paternal grandparents had both died of heart failure when Harry was five (according to Harry a side effect of not eating anything that wasn't deep fried or frosted, or as they had boasted after a trip to America, sometimes deep fried AND frosted).

She turned to him and asked "So what do you want to do, Mr. Potter?"

"I don't know, professor," Harry replied. "I know I'm not going to surrender to Voldemort to save them. They made it clear that they didn't want me, and now they get that wish. I have no idea where they are so I can't try to save them, and even if I could it would be a trap." Harry hung his head low and finally McGonagall saw a hint of an emotion from him as a single tear fell from his face into his lap. "I think the best thing I can do is send Voldemort a letter telling him to kill them."

That shocked both McGonagall and Hermione, but Hermione threw her arms around Harry comfortingly before asking Harry to explain.

"Voldemort," the headmistress still shuddered at the name "and his Death Eaters will be torturing them, hoping that it will push me into surrendering myself. The only way I can think to help them is to inform Voldemort of enough of the truth that he realises they are worthless and just kills them instead of pushing them to insanity first," Harry explained.

Hermione hugged him tighter and McGonagall could see that Harry's emotional distress came from making a decision like that, not from the thought of his aunt and uncle's plight. As much as McGonagall wanted to refute what Harry was saying, his words had the ring of truth to them. Instead she said, "Harry, as long as they are alive there is a hope that the D.M.L.E. will find and rescue them."

Harry looked at her and she could see he was going to do this anyway. 'It was his call and he had made it.' She had seen that look on the faces of a number of great men in her life and even one great woman. War had a tendency to bring it out of the few people who had it, it was the quality she suspected made someone a leader. She just hoped that Harry took more after the woman whose face she had seen it on rather than any of the men. But given how the woman had been Harry's mother, she had high hopes.

-ϟϟϟ-

A couple of nights later, Harry used the Marauders' Map to corner Malfoy alone in one of the school's corridors. Technically it was after curfew, but as they were both Prefects they weren't actually breaking any rules, even if it wasn't either of their nights to patrol. It was only when Harry caught up with him that he realised Malfoy was headed to the prefect's bath.

"Malfoy. I need to talk to you for a moment," Harry called to the blond ponce.

Malfoy recognised Harry's voice and turned, drawing his wand to point it at Harry. He was half-expecting this reaction so ducked behind a suit of armour. "I'm just here to talk." Harry had his own wand out but it was pointed at the floor. "Lower your wand and after a quick conversation I'll leave you to whatever you are doing."

Malfoy lowered his wand a little, but only enough that it was pointed at the floor near Harry's feet rather than at Harry. "What do you want?"

Harry stepped out from behind the suit of armour. "I'm not gonna mince words here, I need a messenger." Draco scoffed but Harry continued. "We both know what side you and your father are on. Voldemort kidnapped my aunt and uncle and sent me a message. I need you to pass on my message back."

"And just what form does this message take?" The tension around the blond ponce amped up, and it took Harry a second to realise why. If Voldemort was sending a message it would likely have been in the form of a mangled corpse. Draco assumed Harry would do the same and Harry intended him to be the corpse.

"Just a letter. I want you to send it to your father and for him to pass it to the one-armed bandit." Harry saw the tension in Draco ebb away.

"A letter?" Draco asked cautiously.

"Yes, a letter. A piece of parchment with words written on it sent from one person to another with the hope of conveying information."

"I know what a letter is, Scarhead. Fine, give me the letter and I'll pass it on."

Harry pulled the letter he had written out of his robes and with a small flick of his wand sent it flying over to Draco. It sat floating in the air about a foot from Malfoy, who cast a bunch of detection magic on it before taking it. "No privacy charms on it?" he asked. "What's to stop me or my father reading it first?

"Nope, I assume Voldemort will be suspicious of anything I send his way with magic on it. As for what's stopping you, I can only guess what the limbless wonder will do to someone who reads his mail before him. But I won't stop you, go right ahead." And with that last statement, Harry backed away until he was able to slip down a side hallway, unwilling to give Malfoy a shot at his back.

Harry wasn't surprised when he had another encounter with his mum in his dreams that night. He ended up having an emotional breakdown as he told her about what was happening and what he had done to his aunt - her sister. What did surprise Harry was that his mother thanked him.

"Harry, there is no saving my sister now. I used to idolise my big sister Tuney, and a part of me still loves her. She is and always will be my sister. Right now she is suffering, and what you have done will end that suffering faster than anything else. You haven't caused their deaths, that was a forgone conclusion at this point. All you have done is reduce how much she will suffer first. It was an act of mercy, Harry. And while it's not one you should take pride in, you can take comfort from the knowledge that you did the best thing you could. Sometimes the best choice is just the least bad one available." As she spoke, the shade of his mum pulled Harry into a hug and held him just like he had always wished for as he grew up. "Now, Harry, I want you to take in your cousin like you did for Tracey."

"But mum, he's a bullying git who used to torment me. Why should I help him?" Had he been fully conscious, Harry would have been shocked to hear just how much like every other teenager he sounded as he complained about something his mother wanted him to do.

"Don't you 'But mum' me. You know he has nowhere else. With his parents classified as missing instead of dead by the normal authorities, he won't even be allowed to access accounts or sell any property to finish his education. But you can and will let him stay with you during the summer, and the rest of the time he can go to that fancy boarding school of his. You have more than enough gold to cover it. Think of it as your chance to prove you are better than my sister and her monster of a husband."

"But he is a bullying git!" Harry protested.

"Harry, he is fifteen just like you are. And he is only what his parents molded him to be. Give him a chance. He may even surprise you. Now I'm changing the subject. How did the medical exam at St Mungo's go?"

The change in subject took Harry by surprise so he answered truthfully without thinking. "I forgot to make an appointment," Harry said as he rubbed the back of his neck and avoided eye contact with his mum.

The red-haired woman let out an exasperated sigh before saying "What is it with you Potter men and refusing to go see a healer unless either your limb is falling off or you are knocked unconscious and dragged there? Your father was just the same, I'd have to nag him for weeks to get him to go for a simple checkup." If his mum had been hoping that her rant would make Harry feel bad, she was disappointed, as all it did was get Harry focus on the new bit of information about his father. He was just about to ask for more information about his dad when the baby-like representation of the remnants of Voldemort's curse started to scream like a child throwing a temper tantrum and to shoot off magic. It was not aimed shots to try and hit anything in particular, instead it was more like pseudopods made of dark shadow magic flailing about at random. However whenever a pseudopod tried to reach beyond the sides of the crib that contained the entity, a light would flash like a spell hitting a shield charm, and his mom would wince in pain like she was struck by a stinging hex.

Harry didn't sleep well for the rest of the night.

-ϟϟϟ-

Warlock Lucius Malfoy was sitting at home enjoying a brandy. His scheme to get the Potter brat to give himself up had been pure genius, and his Lord had agreed. Now Malfoy was enjoying having his Lord's favour again. He had experienced enough of his displeasure recently after his Lord had discovered the fate of the diary which he had entrusted to him.

One of the elves popped into the room and the Malfoy Warlock was just about to Crucio the thing (Dappy, if he remembered the name of this one correctly) for interrupting him when the elf held out a tray with two envelopes on it. "Master Draco is calling me's to bring these to you. The young master claims it's be urgent your Warlockness." The elf's voice was shaking from the fear but he still held the tray perfectly level.

Lucius Malfoy picked up the two envelopes, and while one was blank and unaddressed the other had his name on it clearly written in his son's hand. He picked the one addressed to him first, read it, and smiled. His son's letter explained how Potter had given the other to Draco to pass to him to pass to the Dark Lord. It had to be the lad's surrender. He was probably trapped in the castle and just needed a way out, then he would be theirs and the so-called Boy-Who-Lived would be no more. His death would do more to crush the resistance of the mudbloods and the plebeians than a thousand raids could accomplish. Deciding that taking the letter to his Lord was of utmost importance, he picked up the letter and made his way to the suite of rooms that the Dark Lord had commandeered in Malfoy Manor. It was an inconvenience having the Dark Lord here, but one Lucius was more than happy to accommodate as if gave him unfettered access to his Lord.

He knocked on the door to the study and waited to be summoned. He waited a while and was just considering knocking again when his Lord's voice called out for him to enter. Idly Malfoy wondered if his Lord had spent the time hiding plans he didn't want Lucius to see, or he was just unpresentable when he knocked and had taken the time to correct that. Or maybe Lucius was over thinking things and his master was just playing mind games.

Lucius found his master sitting next to the fire, the silver arm that had replaced the one cut off by Potter glistening in the firelight and one of the books on the Malfoy's family magic open in his lap. That annoyed Lucius a bit, reading the books of another's family magic without express permission was a great insult, but Lucius had pledged all that was his to his master's cause when he was a teenager and now there was nothing he could say.

He kneeled in front of his master and started to speak. "My Lord, I was just sent this by my son." He held up the letter. "It's a letter from Potter for you, my lord."

"Is that so?" Voldemort mused as he took the letter in his shiny silver left hand and examined the standard envelope that was available to all students at Hogwarts.

"My lord, according to my son, Potter cornered him when he was alone and gave him that envelope with instructions to pass it to me so I could pass it to you."

"And your son takes orders from the filth now, does he Lucius? I'm disappointed." The Dark Lord's voice was more dismissive than his words would suggest, though, indicating that he was just having a jest at Malfoy's expense.

"I assume, my lord, that my son is operating under the assumption that if someone wants to write you a letter, it is not his place to determine whether you wish to read it," Lucius answered calmly.

"True enough," Voldemort answered as he opened the letter after scanning it for traps. His eyes widened in shock as he read the first line.

To the one-armed bandit and his coterie of corpse munchers,

How are things? I got the message you sent through the D.M.L.E. after abducting my relatives. Unfortunately for you, a good trap requires quality bait, and the relations you have taken are more of a reason for me to stay away than surrender. If you're at all curious as to why, I will refer you to past issues of the Daily Prophet from last year. What you have are my abusers, not my family.

I do wonder why any of your people thought it was a good idea to kidnap those two when it was all over the Prophet last year that I was raised by abusive mundane people that I was related to. Whoever suggested this plan is an utter moron. But then again, inbreeding never leads to intelligence. I mean look at who are the two strongest wizards in Britain (at least according to the masses), Dumbledore and you Tom: both half bloods. Your diary revealed that little truth to me before I stabbed it with a basilisk fang, it was a nasty bit of work.

Anyway I'm rambling on here a little. So, to recap the main point: the Dursleys are my abusers. I'm not gonna hand myself over to you. Kill my bitch of an aunt and the walrus she calls a husband for all I care.

Harry Potter

Warlock Lucius Malfoy had no idea what was coming his way until he heard his master shout "Crucio!" because he had kept his head bowed while the man sitting above him read the letter in silence. So he only had an instant of understanding before suddenly his world was filled with nothing but pain and the desire to stop the pain by any way possible.

Just as Malfoy started to try and crawl away, the curse was let up and he was granted a reprieve so that his master could talk. "You have displeased me again, Malfoy. It looks like we will need to revisit some of your lessons. Crucio!" The sounds of Malfoy's screams continued to echo around his own manor for some time.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry told Hermione about his dream the next morning as he poured himself a strong cup of coffee with his breakfast. He had almost snapped at Ginny who had done nothing more than have the pot of hot sleep substitute next to her, rather than in the middle of the table where he could reach it. "So there I was, sitting and talking to mum when the weird little evil baby-like thing that we are sure is a leftover from the killing curse starts to go crazy throwing off magic. I wonder if that's what used to happen when I had visions of Voldemort. Only now, I got to watch mum's ghost or shade or imprint or whatever she is being able to take control over whatever protection she left me and keep it from happening this time," Harry explained and theorised.

Hermione sipped at her own mug of hot liquid (only hers contained tea) before answering. "It's possible, we know you had visions in the past. Or it could be something that stimulated the latent curse energy in you and it tried to finish its purpose. Either way I'm glad that the protections held and that you're okay." She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "Have you decided what you want to do about your cousin yet?" she asked, changing the subject to the one she knew he was avoiding.

Harry winced. "My mum wants me to take him in," he answered.

"So what? It's your life Harry, it was you he bullied relentlessly. It was you who he isolated from all the other kids you went to school with. It's you who will have to relive those memories when you see him, and most importantly it's your house he would be staying in. Because there isn't enough good will in the world to get me to let my parents invite him to move in with us in London. It's your choice Harry, and you should make it based on what you can live with. So what if the spoiled brat ends up in a foster home and going to a normal school. It'll probably teach him a lesson that he deserves to learn," Hermione said, barely hiding the hate in her voice. Her thoughts were very easy to discern: she hated Dudley for the things Harry had told her he had done to him, and she wanted Harry to walk away from the whole rotten lot of them. She wasn't, however, going to make the choice for him.

It became the major focus for Harry for weeks. Between focusing on his classes, his Runes project, learning French, and practicing his animagus transformation, he would be trying to decide what to do about Dudley. Harry had made some enquiries to Smeltings, saying who he was and that he was considering funding Dudley remaining at the school, and they had confirmed that Dudley's tuition was already paid for the full year so he had until the end of the school year to make a decision. If nothing had been arranged by then, Dudley would move into the foster care system and regular schools. It was easy for Harry to read between the lines. Smeltings was a boarding school so social services were more than happy to leave Dudley there as long as possible rather than have one more kid clogging up the system, and the school was happy to keep him as long as their fees were paid. But social services were never going to pay £5000 a term to keep Dudley in the school.

During this time Umbridge tried to put her stamp of authority on the school, but she was receiving a lot of pushback. The squat toad-faced woman seemed to think that screaming she was from the Ministry would be enough to get everyone to fall in line and do as she says. She had three teachers on probation already; Trelawney, Hagrid and Flitwick. Harry could understand Trelawney, she was a quack, but Hagrid and Flitwick both really knew their subjects. Yes, Hagrid had had his ups and downs his first year, but the Skrewts last year had been bred by the request of the Ministry for use in the tournament. Maybe Hagrid should have kept them for the NEWT students, but those were the very people who were supposed to enter the tournament. So Hagrid had used Harry's year instead; of course, fate likes to laugh at even the best laid plans, so Harry and Hermione had ended up in the tournament anyway.

She also tried to get all the lycanthropy students moved into one separate dorm and have them eat at a separate table, as well as trying to make first generation Wix and lycanthropy students pay more than everyone else for their tuition. The only thing she managed to get passed in the Ministry was a requirement that the lycanthropy students wear a silver-coloured band on the upper arm of their robes to signify that they were lycanthropes.

The first-generation and the more clued-in half bloods had found the idea disgusting. They could see the similarities between the silver band and yellow stars of Nazi Germany that they were taught about in their previous schools. They protested loudly, but those fell on mostly deaf ears. Umbridge had actually passed an educational decree mandating their use, and the people in charge didn't know the history enough to be concerned about what they saw only as a slight modification to a school uniform.

Another thing the ministry toad accomplished, however, was painting a target on her back. Every prankster and wannabe prankster in the castle decided that she was fair game. Barely a day went by when she wasn't the subject of some juvenile prank; her shoes would make farting noises as she walked down the hallways, she would try and speak and find her words were replaced by ribbits, her skin would break out in warts, her meals transfigured into a bowl of dead flies. And it was obviously getting to the woman. At the start of December she made her second education decree, and this time it was targeted at the whole school. 'Any student caught attacking the Ministry's school inspector will be punished under the authority of the school inspector and can include consequences as high as being expelled, their wands snapped and all knowledge of the magical world removed from their minds.'

What worried Harry and a number of the students was that the decree didn't specify exactly what attacking meant. The worry was that Umbridge would take any opportunity to enact this decree on any students she had a problem with, particularly the lycanthropy students and the first generation magicals. Some were even thinking that she would fabricate pranks on herself to punish some of the students. And as the toad with the fashion sense of a five year old girl seemed to lump Hermione in with the lycanthropy students as a "half breed", Harry was worried about his betrothed. He had also noticed Umbridge's using of the term 'half breeds', a term that was familiar to him because of the slip that came out of the Goblet of Fire bearing Hermione's, Fleur's, and his names. The investigation into who had put their names into the Goblet of Fire had stalled but he knew, thanks to what Tonks had told him, that the perpetrator had high level access in the Ministry, and whoever it was had a problem with people she saw as less than pure. In his mind, at least, Umbridge was a solid suspect. Now he just needed to find a way to keep Hermione safe from the woman.

A/N

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