To BlakeyBlake5; my thanks for your compliment at the start of your last review, and my apologies for not being clear with the storyline. Hopefully, the start of this chapter will clear things up. I hope that you forgive me and continue reading my work.
The Treasure Hunter.
Harry woke up in the Room of Requirement nestled between two beautiful Indian witches. The air was heavy with the scent of sex and sweat, but as he held onto the two girls, smiling at the memory of how he'd had sex with them, Harry knew he would be savouring the memory for a long, time time. He was just relieved he had paid attention to his date and not been determined to spoil it for himself, as Ron Weasley had by pretending Hermione was going to suddenly go out with him when he hadn't even asked her.
In a parallel world, there was the likelihood he would be mooning over some other girl, and he had gone for either of the Patil twins as a last resort and he had made the night miserable for them. If that had happened, he knew his other self would be regretting it for a long, long time. But Harry was not like that.
As he wriggled in between Parvati and Padma, Harry had a moment to reflect on his life. Odd as it sounded, Harry was actually glad the Dursleys had tried to kill him; his mother's protection had been strong enough to fend off a killing curse, the bonfire of a muggle ceremony was nothing, but Harry knew enough about the Dursleys to know life would have been a living hell. Even with his mother's memories and knowledge, Harry knew the Dursleys would have transformed him into a House elf, and Dumbledore would never have done anything to stop it. When he had gone to a muggle foster home, Harry had subconsciously known not to say anything about the memories, or they would have locked him up and thrown away the key as he'd grown older.
He had become a thief simply because as he had started mastering the basics of wandless magic, Harry had known enough to know he would need to become strong and willing to do whatever he needed to defeat Voldemort and still have a life. Lily did not want her son to become a soldier, a mindless, soulless weapon, but she would have agreed he would need to become stronger. Lily would have wanted him to survive to live his life, not die ultimately for a world that wasn't worth it in the end, a world which just yielded to whatever scum threatened it.
He had started off small; petty stuff like pickpocketing, shoplifting, but as he had grown older Harry had started moving on to burglary. It was not his original intention to become some kind of globetrotting archaeologist, an Indiana Jones cracking his whip or a male-version of Lara Croft shooting his way through ancient tombs. It was just…after watching a few Indiana Jones movies and a few archaeological documentaries detailing the incredible histories and finds of Egypt, Pompeii, Rome, and SCUBA divers off the coast of the Caribbean and Africa, Harry had realised he could become a different kind of thief, a treasure-hunting thief. Okay, sure, there were 'treasures' in places like banks, diamond merchants, safety deposit boxes and the like, so there was a market.
And then he had come to Hogwarts. He had known the moment he had walked through the doors he had would facing the man who had left him in the muggle world and forgot he even existed. Dumbledore hadn't even realised he was not with the Dursleys, at least not until that point. By then it was already too late, whatever ward scheme the old wizard had dreamt up as an excuse to leave him with the Dursleys. In the meantime, Harry had met Hermione and Ron; when he had met Ron, he had known the redhead had given a terrible lie, but since his discovery, the other boy was one of seven kids he had thought it odd the Weasleys needed to ask about Platform Nine and Three Quarters. It wasn't until much later he realised the set-up, and it was beyond transparent.
In his first year, Harry had been faced with the mystery of the package Hagrid had shown him in Gringotts when the groundskeeper had taken him shopping, the questions about Nicholas Flamel, that horrific detention in the Forest where the possessed Quirrell had drunk unicorn blood to keep Voldemort alive for a little longer, but the real clincher for why he had come to see Ron and Hermione as spies for Dumbledore was the set of traps guarding the Stone. While Harry could admire the old wizard's attitude towards simplicity - the shopping trip where Hagrid would pique his interest in the package in that vault and the traps guarding the Stone - he felt the old wizard was being a bit too obvious for his liking. All of the traps were easy for him and the others to overcome since they all fit with their skills.
Second-year was a bit difficult with the Chamber of Secrets and how everyone had believed he was the Heir because of his parseltongue ability, but thanks to the way Malfoy had gotten a disarming charm through while he was occupied by that snake he hadn't had any choice but to reveal he was a parselmouth after that moron Lockhart had made things worse by agitating that snake. Harry had discovered his parseltongue ability during a trip to London Zoo by accident - he had met some really nice snakes and he had promised to free them as soon as he could, and he had in the summertime - but he had no idea he was a parselmouth until he was faced with a snake for real. His mother had really bad memories of Voldemort using parseltongue based spells in battle, so he knew the reputation the art had.
Harry had needed to use notice-me-not charms just to get from class to class. He had needed to bunk off a few of them. He was so disgusted by the prejudices in this stupid school and he'd finally had enough when he swore a magically binding oath he was not the Heir of Slytherin and he had also pointed out the stupidity of certain people.
His mother was muggle-born for crying out loud.
If he was really the Heir of Slytherin, would he advertise it so publicly? The real Heir was someone who was clever and smart enough to go hidden in the castle; they weren't likely to make such a stupid mistake and reveal their identity.
He couldn't prove it, but Harry was convinced Dumbledore was the one who had been behind the unveiling of his parseltongue abilities. The headmaster was the one who had allowed the Duelling Club to be started up. Snape had whispered the snake summoning spell to Malfoy and he had likely told the idiot to disarm him to make it hopeless for him. But he couldn't prove it, but it fit in with Harry's image of the puppet master who came up with plans and games and he found ways of carrying them out.
In Third Year, Harry had come face to face with the last three marauders. And he found two of them lacking. Pettigrew was a rat and a coward who'd sold the Potters out to Voldemort, but he had been the only one straight whereas Harry still found it hard to believe Sirius was stupid enough to just leave his godson behind like that. And Lupin… Harry sometimes wondered what would have happened if the Dursleys had succeeded in killing him by burning him alive. He sometimes wondered what Lupin would have done had they succeeded and how he would have reacted if he had heard his friend's only child was burnt by muggles, a muggle family that his precious Dumbledore had placed him with and just forgot about. It was with that thought firmly fixed in mind when he had come face to face with the werewolf that Harry had confronted him, his mind awash with his mother's memories of the man. Harry had known for a long time never to judge by his mother's experiences, but when he had bluntly shown the werewolf the slight scars on his back, the burn scars, Lupin had been horrified, but when Harry had asked him why he had never bothered to contact him, Lupin had offered the age-old sob stories his mother remembered.
It was all "You have no idea what it's like to be a werewolf" or "Dumbledore told me it was not a good idea to visit" but they were excuses in Harry's eyes, and they pretty much told him everything he needed to know about Remus Lupin. He hadn't bothered asking the man for lessons in the Patronus charm. If Lupin was going to be so fucking pathetic, he would rather be taught by somebody else. He had gone to Professor Flitwick instead, trusting the goblin teacher to help, and he had because he didn't want to spend a minute with Lupin and his pathetic inability to look beyond his curse; yes, Harry sympathised with Lupin, but up to a point. Harry had pointed out bluntly the werewolf would never have found out if he had died, not until years later. After that, he hadn't had anything to do with him. It was even worse with Sirius. Harry hadn't bothered telling his godfather about what the Dursleys had done. He had discovered that in the Daily Prophet editions, they weren't hard to find, and he had sent a dozen letters a week demanding answers. Harry had ignored them at first, but then he had written a blunt letter telling him what had happened and the Prophet was right. He had nearly died. He had been placed at the Dursleys and the muggles had tried to kill him, but nobody from the Wizarding World had bothered to check up on him and see if he was alright. He hadn't bothered levelling the blame at Sirius; he had found the best way of making someone sorry was not to point out their failings and it worked this time. In any case, Sirius had needed to face up to his irresponsibilities during that confrontation in the Shrieking Shack.
Did he hate Dumbledore? Yes. The old wizard was too fond of manipulating events, thinking he could see the big picture but being completely unaware that some of his decisions were reckless. But what Harry did not like about Dumbledore was how the Hogwarts Headmaster had placed himself up on a pedestal. He didn't deserve it. Harry had visited magical Europe during his third-year summer, and he had visited several places which had never recovered from the Grindelwald War. One of these places was a French chateau which disguised a large underground labyrinth of magical artefacts and libraries which contained a priceless collection of books, scrolls, tablets and portraits of some of the greatest minds of magical culture. Grindelwald brought down the wards of the chateau and attracted the attention of the German SS and cast a strong compulsion for them to destroy the chateau, which was the museum part of the whole labyrinth. The SS destroyed the whole place, taking the wizards and witches that worked there completely by surprise. They had locked down the rest of the place, but the damage was done.
Grindelwald used this and many other incidents like it, taking advantage of the chaos in World War 2 to attack and destroy schools, cultural centres, shopping alleys and villages and towns and using muggles to do the dirty work to prove his arguments about how the magical world needed to discard the Statute of Secrecy and take over the muggles and neutralise them before it was too late for the wizards. The hardest hit were the schools. Beauxbatons was the worst hit.
The French magical academy was attacked by the SS during the war, and it took the sacrifice of the Headteacher and three others to reactivate the wards and call for help. The Institute had a yearly week of remembrance, commemorating the sacrifice of the Headteacher and the others. Harry felt for them.
As he looked at the two girls nuzzled into his sides, Harry knew he would have to warn Parvati and Padma about the dangers of the Second Task. He checked the time on his watch, and he saw it was 7.40 in the morning.
He nudged them gently. "Wake up, you two," he said.
Padma groaned. "Too comfy….sleep…go back."
"Mmm, nice," Parvati sighed.
Harry shook his head. "This is important you two," he said, still nudging them, much to the frustration of both girls.
"Harry," Padma had her eyes closed as she knuckled them. "Why did you do that when we were both comfortable?"
"Yeah, I was having a nice dream of doing it with you again," Parvati added, making her twin shake her head.
"I'm sorry guys, but I needed to tell you something important," Harry's tone froze the two Indian twins, "it's about the Triwizard Tournament."
Padma and Parvati exchanged glances. Their experiences with Harry were limited, but they both knew him well enough to know when he said something was serious, it was. "What's wrong?" Padma asked while her more flighty sister was quieter.
Harry sighed and pulled himself up into a sitting position, exposing some of the burnt scar tissue on his side. "What do you know of the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament, Padma? Parvati?"
"Nothing much," Parvati shrugged.
But Padma was frowning thoughtfully. "According to the books on it, what few there were," the Ravenclaw twin said slowly although she couldn't hide her irritation at the fact there were few books on a subject she'd wanted to know about, "the Tasks are set up thus, one is to retrieve something, the second is…. To recover something important," she looked at Harry in confusion as she realised what the Second Task was about.
Seeing Padma was getting there, Harry explained for both girls' benefit. "When I found myself in the Tournament, I met up with Ludo Bagman. He was interested in giving me hints and tips about how to succeed. He's having problems with the goblins, he made the mistake of getting into gambling debts and he borrowed and lost lots of money from the goblins. Now they want it back."
"Oooh," Parvati shook her head, grimacing, "for his sake, I hope he gets that money, and fast. The goblins are not renowned for their patience."
Padma nodded in agreement. "What was he thinking, borrowing and losing so much money from the goblins in the first place? I'm more surprised the goblins haven't threatened a rebellion because the Ministry can't pay their workers who get into debt. Anyway, what did you learn from Bagman?"
Harry had thought about telling the twins what he had learnt involved truth serum but in the end, he decided to just get it over with. "I didn't play his game. I used a truth serum I'd taken from Snape to question him about the Tasks so I could prepare for them."
"You cheated!?" Parvati gasped.
"What potion did you use?"
"In order of your questions, yes, I did cheat. Secondly, it was a milder truth potion but it was still effective. I was thrown into this mess out of my depth and I knew better than to ask the teachers for help. Besides, I didn't cause him any kind of trauma. I only asked him a few questions about the tasks, and that was it. That was how I was so well prepared for the first task, and I want to keep that kind of momentum going for the Second. I know what it is and I'm worried you two will be used," Harry said.
Whatever Padma and Parvati expected it was not this. "What do you mean, us two might be used?" Parvati demanded.
Harry sighed. They were not going to like this. "You said the second task was to retrieve something important. The Champions are going to dive into the lake and retrieve hostages, they can be friends or dates."
"What?" Parvati gasped in horror.
"No," Padma shook her head. "Dumbledore and Flitwick would never do that-."
"Flitwick, perhaps not. But Dumbledore, yes. He'd do it in a heartbeat. Look I was tempted not to go to the damn Yule Ball. Why do you think it was set up in the first place? It was supposed to be used as a way of showing the organisers who they could use as hostages."
"You mean you knew this and yet you still asked me to dance with you?!" Padma asked angrily, but Harry shook his head.
"Padma, believe me, I don't want you to be used. In any case, I asked you to come with me to the Ball because I like you. I still do. I was fascinated by you and you were not like any of the girls I've met and known in this school and I wanted to know you better. In any case, for the tournament, I can stop it, believe me, I can. In any case, Dumbledore would have asked for somebody else to be put down there," Harry said.
"How could you stop it?" Parvati asked Harry quietly. She was not happy about the idea of either her or her twin being used as hostages - after seeing the dragon, they both wanted to steer clear of the Tournament - but she was willing to give her housemate the benefit of the doubt, knowing he would find a way to help them.
But even Parvati was stunned by what Harry had to say. "If you'll give me the chance, I'll contact your parents and inform them of what's going on. I can tell them I discovered what the Second Task entailed and I'm worried about Dumbledore's track record for not giving a damn about the potential consequences of his actions."
"You'll be lying or bending the truth about when you discovered the truth of the Second Task," Padma pointed out, forgiving Harry for it. She could see now she'd had a chance to calm down that Harry had been pushed into a corner. She was only just grateful he had told her and Parvati the truth.
"That's something the pair of you will have to accept," Harry replied.
"I don't understand what you have against Professor Dumbledore, Harry," Parvati shook her head, her eyes showing distress that warred with her own family's experiences with the old wizard, "I mean, I get that he left you on a doorstep and you….got burnt," she swallowed as she looked at the burn scars she could see from where she was sitting, "but why else do you hate him so much?"
Harry had to admit Parvati had just asked a good question. "I hate him because he causes pain without meaning to. I hate him because he claims to look to the bigger picture, and yet when there's a crisis going on he refuses to get involved. Two years ago the basilisk was released on the castle and not once did Dumbledore try to stop it. He has a phoenix, Parvati. With that, he should have been able to stop the snake in its tracks before it caused too much damage. How was that meant to help anyone?"
"He has a point," Padma whispered. "There are many students in other Houses, not only Ravenclaw, who think Dumbledore is well past his welcome in Hogwarts."
"Maybe," Parvati said, turning to Harry. "When do you want us to help you with the letter to our parents?"
"Maybe today? We could come back here after mentally going over what we'd want to write, and then write it out here where nobody will be watching and we can get it out?" Padma looked thoughtfully between her sister and their new lover. Both of them didn't have a problem with the suggestion.
As the pair of them smuggled back into bed when they decided to have a last bout of lovemaking, Harry hoped the Patils could do something. If not then he would have to resort to plan b. He hadn't told the twins about it, but if he had to then he would put his plan into operation.
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