I don't own Harry Potter.
The Treasure Hunter.
"You're pathetic!"
Harry was unable to hide the contempt in his voice as he listened to Dumbledore, and he cut across the old wizard with a glare of disgust.
"Harry-!"
"No, I repeat; you are pathetic. Look down there, you have a third Death Eater in this damn school, and you refuse to even discover what he's doing here. Although knowing you, you likely already know, right? He has been masquerading as your friend for the last few months, but instead of discovering what he's doing here, you refuse to take the initiative and question him with the DMLE present. But you can't do that, can you? You can't allow it because you're worried they might blab. You and your secrets…one of these days they're gonna kill you! I only hope you don't take anybody else with you!" Harry snapped.
It was hard to believe that 6 minutes before shortly after Crouch Jr and Snape appeared, Harry had been in the middle of a pointless round of questions and answers with the teachers. Harry had actually been keeping an eye on Snape during the course of the discussion and he had seen the Potions Master was looking decidedly ill. It wasn't unexpected. He had known the moment he had destroyed the vase containing Voldemort's soul pieces and the magic of the idiots who'd listened to the Dark Lord's teachings, they were going to die from the loss of their magic. Right now the loss was easy to liken to a barrel of water that had been drilled into along the bottom. In the same way, the Death Eaters, with the horcruxes gone and without Voldemort to mitigate the loss, were losing their own magic like water through a sieve of rice.
But Harry hadn't expected Moody to collapse along with Snape and the man's skin to bubble away leaving behind a man who was much less scarred and as badly maimed as the ex-auror had been. The discovery that Barty Crouch Jr was a Death Eater himself didn't really surprise him; Harry had worked out ages back somebody had put his name into the Goblet of Fire. And since all of the former DADA teachers had tried to kill him in some manner (even Lupin had done it; while the man was a former friend of James Potter, Harry still felt the man's reckless charge to the Shrieking Shack before he took the potion counted), why should this year be different?
Dumbledore, naturally, wanted to sweep the whole thing underneath a rug. Too bad for him Harry didn't. He wanted to know what Crouch was doing here in the first place. At the same time, he wanted to know some of Snape's dirty secrets. Unfortunately, he quickly realised the flaw in his own plans. For a start none of the teachers were responsible for law enforcement. For another, he remembered the massive botch up from last year. He would never forget the ease Pettigrew managed to use to escape, simply because Lupin was careless. But what made it worse was how nobody had thought to stun the little bastard, not even Harry or Hermione, or Lupin themselves, but in his personal defence, Harry had been excited at the chance to shove something embarrassing down the collective throats of the British Wizarding World and hopefully teach them a lesson which they would not be able to forget, or brush under the rugs in a hurry.
The end result?
Pettigrew had escaped.
And now a Death Eater had broken into Hogwarts again.
Harry did not want his plans jeopardised by anyone. He respected Flitwick and Sprout to a degree, but if either of them screwed this up, well he would be beyond angry. But at the same time he wanted the DMLE here, knowing if he left it to either Dumbledore or McGonagall, everything would be even more screwed. Or worse. Harry had voiced his opinion about having the DMLE here. He had used plain, clear logic that was so simple a child would understand. Unfortunately, he was dealing with a very old, but very powerful wizard who liked his secrets a little too much.
Dumbledore didn't want the DMLE in the castle. He presented the excuse of saying they could handle this quietly, and while he had the support of McGonagall, whose support was so blind it was truly pathetic of the old woman and made Harry wonder if Dumbledore was using some kind of potion on her without anybody's knowledge.
"So what's the great plan, Professor?" Harry demanded. "Are you just going to sweep this under the rug and forget it ever happened?"
"Of course not, my boy-."
"Please, do not call me that. I am not your boy, I never was. Listen very carefully, one of those men put my name into the Goblet of Fire and I want to know which one did it," Harry said. "I don't see what the problem is."
Dumbledore shook his head condescendingly, but inwardly he was cursing this whole situation. Of all the boys he had to be dealing with right now, why did it have to be one who didn't have any respect for him? "Harry, if the DMLE is brought into this, it will mean nothing but bad publicity for the school-."
"Bad publicity for you as well, especially since a Death Eater took the form of one of your own friends and you didn't even realise," Harry privately had little doubt in his mind the old wizard had known full well Moody, the real Moody, was being imprisoned somewhere while his imposter was left at liberty, but the old wizard had some scheme in mind so he hadn't made a move.
Dumbledore sighed. Not for the first time, he wished he had Harry's faith, but he had never really had it. Once again he wished he had been more on the ball where the boy was concerned. Dumbledore had known about what the Dursleys had tried to do shortly after the wards on Privet Drive had gone down and one of the first things he had done was check their minds. It had horrified Dumbledore when he had discovered the muggles had taken their hatred of magic to that kind of level, and he had genuinely assumed the boy wizard had died as a result. But fortunately, the instruments that showed the boy's life force were still working but he had no idea where Harry was.
So he had been left to flounder for a decade, wondering where Harry was.
Minerva had been right, he had made a terrible, terrible mistake in leaving Harry on the doorstep, but it was the safest place for him and he had left the boy on the doorstep to minimise any resentment the muggles would have felt towards magical kind. But now Dumbledore wished he had woken the Dursleys up and made it very clear if they did not look after the boy, he would make sure they were cursed for life.
Was it any wonder when Harry had arrived at Hogwarts he not only had no faith in Dumbledore or any adult for that matter, but he openly despised him, Albus Dumbledore?
It didn't help matters that the boy was absolutely right.
But it turned out a moment later he made the mistake of being silent for too long. Before he or any of the other teachers in the room had a chance to even react, Harry had his wand out and he cast a very strong light burst to disorientate them.
Stunned out of their minds and half-blinded by the light, all of the teachers began yelling questions which made it hard for Harry to concentrate on just one person, but he didn't care about what any of them were saying.
All of the questions had a running theme. They were all "What are you doing, Potter?" Or "Why would you do that?" And "What's going on?"
But he ignored them as he worked quickly, knowing he had only moments. He fired a banishing spell at the door, putting in more power than was absolutely necessary and tore the door off of its hinges to distract the teachers while he went for the window. He opened it while the teachers were milling about the door and he silently cast the Patronus charm.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" For the second time that night, Albus Dumbledore yelled the same question at him.
Harry pulled away from the window, shielding the opening with his back to it. "Doing what you refuse to do, Professor," he replied, knowing there was nothing Dumbledore could do. The Patronus messenger was too fast, and even though Dumbledore was a powerful wizard even he had to accept the message was too far away for him to do any good. It was pure magic, unaffected by things like wind or distance. It would act like magic teleporting to a different place. The DMLE would arrive soon, and if he knew Amelia Bones, the woman would not take Dumbledore's shit lightly.
"Who did you send the Patronus to?" Dumbledore asked. "Was it the DMLE?"
Harry didn't bother denying the question. "I did."
Dumbledore glared at him in disbelief before he began schooling his features. "Harry, my boy, there's no need for any of this. We can talk this over."
"It's gone beyond that, Professor," Harry interrupted. "I have had enough of the security of your school is an absolute joke. I'm sick of you hiding everything under a rug under the pretext of keeping everything a secret."
"With good reason, my boy. If people discover Lord Voldemort's survival, and if there was any kind of proof there will be mass hysteria. You don't know of the chaos that would ensue. The rise of Voldemort was a slow affair, marked by the murders and the disappearances of so many people who opposed him. For much of the 50s through to the 70s, there were dozens of disappearances while Voldemort tried his best to ensure nobody tied any of the crimes to him. But many magical families found his offers and his 'visions' of the magical world to be compelling, even as he used his Slytherin ancestry to his advantage. It gave him tremendous credibility, and there were many families who openly supported him while those who publicly spoke out were marked for death, but it wasn't until the war truly began in the 70s they were lost. When Voldemort began showing his true colours to the magical world, there was widespread panic as the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself destroyed one family after another. You didn't know who to trust; you might have a family member who actually supported Voldemort and was spying on people of importance, and every single day you were terrified of speaking out as the ones who had were among the first to be slaughtered. There were dozens of them; they were terrified of going home from Hogwarts when the term ended, or they were terrified of sitting in at meals and an owl bearing a black letter signifying their family were massacred from being delivered, or husbands returning home to discover their families had been murdered. But the magical world weren't the only ones who were suffering. The non-human magical races were also being threatened, and the Death Eaters began mass exterminations of Centaurs, Acromantulas, house-elves, dragons for their heartstrings which were used to make wands in bulk until there are now only a few sanctuaries left in Britain anymore. Imagine having to wage a full-scale war against people whom you didn't know if you could trust and having to prevent the war from leaking out into the muggle world, but muggles were being targeted as well. And now you want to reveal Voldemort's existence to the world?" Dumbledore looked seriously at Harry.
"I know how bad the war was, Headmaster. My mum left diaries, remember; she used words the same way a painter uses oils or watercolours to paint masterpieces. I was horrified when I read about the full extent of the war from those pages, so don't patronise me. I know how terrifying Voldemort was but at the same time it's stupid to bury everything that's happened. If you had made it clear Voldemort was still alive and handed over proof, you could have kicked out the Death Eater influence in the magical government and strengthened organisations like the DMLE," Harry's glare and voice were both incredibly intense. "But you didn't. What's wrong Professor, are you more interested in your own glory than in the greater good for the magical world?!"
The moment his outburst was finished Harry realised he had made a fatal mistake. Suddenly he found it hard to breathe with anything other than quick gasps, and he was aware of a terrifying weight on his shoulders that pressed him down to the ground.
"ALBUS, STOP IT! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Harry was dimly aware of someone yelling, but then he felt the pressure on his shoulders stop and he was able to stand up again, but he had his eyes closed as he became aware for the first time that his lungs were working freely again.
He lifted his gaze and he found that the teachers were looking awkwardly and uncertainly as if they had just been caught by their parents doing something naughty. Striding in the room was Amelia Bones, a tall, no-nonsense looking woman who appeared to be in her late thirties, with a monocle in her left eye, and she was not happy.
Dumbledore was not happy to see her either. "Ah, Amelia my dear, what you saw was nothing but a mere misunderstanding-."
"Save it. I saw everything. A lord level aura pressure against a minor? Even by your standards that is extreme and it shows a great deal about your mindset when it comes to keeping everything in this blasted school secret and students quiet. This is now a DMLE matter; do not get delusions of grandeur, thinking you can stop this investigation. I am in this room now, and if you try to impede me, your titles will not stop you from being brought up on a charge of obstructing justice. And considering the current situation, that is the last thing you should be doing."
Harry privately wondered if Dumbledore would even be touched, but then he remembered the ICW investigations and the investigations going on to discover what had happened when he'd been dumped on the Dursley doorstep and a good long hard check in discovering if any more magical orphans had been harmed in any way. At the same time, the investigation into Hogwarts was ongoing. He could understand Dumbledore's desperation to keep this little incident buried, but that plan had failed.
But Bones wasn't even finished. She merely speared Dumbledore and the teachers with a look that made Harry wonder if sharks and other fish felt the same thing whenever they saw a spear fisherman before the harpoon speared them. "Did it never occur to you if you came forward and demanded the questioning of a Death Eater, especially one thought to be dead and was clearly not your fault that he was alive, you would be heralded rather than despised or suspected of having another agenda?"
Harry almost laughed. But he held back as he stood in the background and watched as the aurors came into the room, barely sparing Dumbledore a look - a few of them were old enough to likely have become immune to Dumbledore's stupidity - oh, look, one of them was giving Dumbledore a look of contempt that was likely deeply buried in his mind - and he brought out a potions bottle and his wand, clearly expecting more trouble and was unafraid of making it clear he planned on fighting back.
But as he stood there in the background, Harry wondered to himself just what kind of secrets both Snape and Crouch possessed; he knew the Death Eaters had done many terrible things in the name of their insane philosophy which was so twisted that it couldn't work even in theory, but he wondered just how long he would be in the room to listen to it.
Please let me know what you think.
