Harry stared blankly at the email for several long minutes trying to process what it said.
Finally, he pulled out his emergency cellphone, hit the speed dial option 1 then listened to the phone ring. After too long, she picked up.
"I'm sorry, you want me to do what?" he demanded.
"First off," Jennifer started, "This order comes directly from the Prime Minister so there's no wanting here. You're going to do it."
"But it's insane!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, it is and eventually they'll catch the real culprit, everyone will realize that they were insane to think this, and your reputation will get back on track. In the meantime, though you'll play along."
"Play along," he deadpanned. "Play along with people thinking that I'm petrifying everyone. That I want to kill muggleborns. Play along." His voice had gotten rather high-pitched towards the end.
"As I said, this comes from the Prime Minister. You will do this."
Harry sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. After a moment he lengthened it to give him more to tug on.
"It just… it seems so insane! You want me to turn the whole of the wizarding world against me!"
"Think this through Harry, what can this gain us?"
Harry growled in frustration, not in the mood to think things through, "Who cares what it gains you! It'll gain me being treated like crap, being cursed, being thought insane!"
Jennifer sighed, "I appreciate that, I do. But what it'll mean for the magical world is chaos. You're their savior. If you turn against them, or we make them think so people will start to freak out. Crazy laws will be proposed, friend will turn against friends. And at the end, when it's revealed that you are actually the savior people thought you were they won't want to admit that they were acting crazy and they'll either have to continue to go along with the crazy things they put into place or admit they were wrong, thus diminishing their reputation."
"That's crazy! You know that's crazy!"
"And you know what the Prime Minister's goal is. This helps things along tremendously. I know what you're being asked to do is hard but sometimes we have to do hard things, whether we like it or not."
HARRY POTTER THE HEIR OF SLYTHERIN?
That was the title of the newspaper the next day with the photos he'd sent along front and center.
He stared at the headline for a while longer, ignoring Hermione reading it aloud for Ron, and then allowed his head to land on his still empty plate. Ron awkwardly patted his back.
It didn't matter that this was the plan. It didn't matter that this caused unrest and unease in a country they were trying to destabilize.
The plan sucked.
After Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick had been petrified the day before, after he had spoken to the Headmaster and been reassured that he didn't think he had done it, though no one else knew what they'd said to each other. After all that this newspaper article was not a good look.
Listening to Hermione reading the article aloud the writer had clearly gone and gotten more sources, rather than just using the dry recitation of facts Harry had printed up for her. Now they were using all kinds of circumstantial evidence to tie him to the crimes. The fact that he'd never wanted to go to quidditch matches, the fact that he had 'set a snake' on Justin.
It was all too much.
He got up to leave, his stomach feeling like lead when he was stopped by an owl with an angry red letter that was smoking. Recognizing the letter for what it was Harry shakily reached out and pulled it off the owl.
The letter exploded causing a man's booming voice to echo across the Great Hall. "A DISGRACE! THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE! YOUR PARENTS WOULD BE SO ASHAMED!"
As the letter continued to rant another owl with an equally red and smoking letter came winging towards him. Behind it Harry could see plenty more owls headed his way, some also carrying red letters.
He fled.
Things grew even worse than they had been the day before. People were terrified of him, scrambling to get away from him and he had to sit at the far end of the table in the Great Hall to eat, both to allow people to give him a wide birth and to escape quickly when his letters inevitably caught up with him.
In the halls he learned to be on guard at all times, ready to spring away at even the slightest hint that someone might cast a spell on him. More than once he had to go to the Hospital Wing to get a pair of antlers removed or his skin turned back to the right color.
On the final day of term, when nearly everyone, and he did mean nearly everyone, was getting ready to leave, a group of people walked into the Great Hall at breakfast, all wearing red robes. Alastor, Dumbledore's lackey, was with them.
"Aurors," he heard whispered around the Great Hall and his stomach dropped.
He'd known this plan to drive people crazy would attract attention but from the police? And not even just the police, the elite dark wizard fighting force.
Everyone in the Hall seemed to be in agreement that they were there to arrest Harry.
The group of people walked down the main walkway and approached the Professor's table and spoke quietly with the Headmaster who soon led them out of the Hall. Professor McGonagall approached him.
"With me, Mr. Potter," she said briskly and Harry stood up, full of dread. As he followed her he wished, not for the first time, that the professors had his back. The Headmaster had said in that very first meeting that Harry couldn't have done it, and yet none of them seemed to know what to make of him.
They entered a sitting room that was next door to the Headmaster's office and he was instructed to wait there. "If I have to come to find you again it'll be detention." Harry nodded and watched as she left the room.
It was a half hour before Professor McGonagall came back with an Auror in tow.
"Hello, Mr. Potter," the kind-looking man said. He didn't seem to think Harry was a threat and Harry relaxed some.
"I'm here just to ask some questions and then I'll be gone."
Harry swallowed, "So you don't think I did it then?"
The man smiled and shook his head, "Much too young if you ask me, but no one did. Now there are two options, we can use a truth spell or we can use a truth potion. The truth potion, Virtaserium, is the one that holds up in court but it also forces the user to tell the truth while the spell simply shows us if you're telling the truth or not. Which would you like?"
Without having to think too much about it Harry said, "The potion."
The man seemed happy with that and pulled out a potion. "Put your tongue out, just two drops will do the trick, there we go."
As Harry's head spun and the world grew foggy the man pulled out a notebook and quill and then asked, "Have you ever petrified anyone?"
"No," the word fell from his mouth before he could even think about it.
"Have you ever asked for anyone to be petrified?"
"No."
"Have you ever ordered anyone to be petrified?"
"No."
"Do you know who is petrifying people?"
Harry hesitated then said, "I think it's Draco Malfoy."
"Why were you at the scene of the crime when Justin Finch-Fletchley was petrified?"
"I just stumbled across him. I was walking down the hall, I turned a corner, and I tripped over him."
"How did you get your parseltongue ability?"
"I don't know. The books say it's inherited."
"Well, that's all," the man said cheerfully. "Open your mouth, stick your tongue out, one drop should do it, how do you feel?"
The world cleared and suddenly Harry was sitting in the Sitting Room again. "Fine," he murmured, feeling light. "So I'm not going to be arrested?"
"Oh no, that was never really on the table. We were just doing this to clear your name."
Harry relaxed completely.
That done Harry went to the library and checked out the two books on Zoolingualism and eight books on Salazar Slytherin. Harry spent the day reading and scanning books, feeling light and happy.
The Aurors were seen stalking around the scenes of the crimes. By the end of the day, they'd removed the paint from the wall so that the message was no longer visible, questioned a good portion of the student body, and scanned all the victims.
At lunch that day they announced that Harry Potter was not a suspect and when they saw the hate mail Harry was getting they advised him to get an owl ward put up attached to a P.O. Box.
With that done, Harry felt the last of his worries wash away, especially as everyone left to go home.
The Christmas holidays were serene, peaceful even.
On the first day Professor McGonagall, who looked much more relaxed now, took him to a Post Office where he signed up for a P.O. Box. After having the owl ward put up he was given a box that he would be able to pull his mail out of no matter where he was. He even paid extra to have any cursed mail or howlers filtered out. When they got back to Hogwarts Harry sent the box home to the Research Facility.
After that Harry spent all his time scanning books into the computer, practicing his Metamorphagus abilities, or working on a new potion for his Animagus training. He, unfortunately, couldn't camp out in a disused corner of the library and directly scan books in because Hermione was far too nosy for that to work.
Still, it was a good holiday.