Well, the bad news is that this is four days later than I said. The good news is that it's well over double the average length. Sorry about the delay. Annoying, but unavoidable.
Well, I won't keep you waiting any longer. Hopefully this answers your questions. It took me a while to wrestle this into submission, but I am finally happy with the results.
DISCLAIMER IN CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 31
Tale
Harry passed the gargoyle with Snape and Flitwick behind him. Voices could be heard from a room that opened off of the headmaster's office. Voices that abruptly ceased as soon as Harry entered the room, which appeared to be some type of formal meeting room, complete with a long table surrounded by high-backed chairs. Harry scanned the room, noticing without surprise that every eye was firmly glued on him. Minerva McGonagall, who Harry hadn't seen in over six years, was seated along one side of the table along with the majority of the Hogwarts staff. Hermione and Ron sat on that side, while the rest of the Weasley family faced them along the opposite side. Scattered throughout were people that Harry didn't know, along with others that he did recognize, like Alastor Moody and Draco Malfoy. Empty seats were scattered around as well, and Harry wondered if members were just absent, or if casualties had caused holes to appear in their ranks. Moody was the first to break the ever-lengthening silence. "Well, Snape?"
Snape moved from behind Harry, seeming to don his sarcastic and cold Slytherin mask as he went. "The wards are still intact." He didn't comment on who held them.
A young woman called out from near Sirius. "And Professor Dumbledore?"
Flitwick answered that one as both he and Snape found their seats around the table. "He's fine. Sleeping, actually. However, we seem to lack a problem to discuss. Mr. Potter here now has the wards."
Every eye snapped back to Harry, who had so far been content just to stand in the shadows next to the door. Moody leapt to his feet and faced Harry, wand in hand and pointing at Harry's face. "Trying to take over from a dying man, boy?"
Harry really didn't care for the name 'boy'. Bad memories, all. But Harry bit back the urge to fight with the old auror and answered calmly. "He was in pain, and mere minutes away from loosing them entirely. If you like, I'll be happy to let them go and you can reconstruct them the way that you would have been if I hadn't been here."
Moody blinked, but the wand didn't waver. Harry was amused to see Sirius' wand focused squarely on Moody's back. He appreciated the thought, but he really didn't need the help. Moody looked at him with blatant distrust. "So, what do you plan on doing with your new acquisitions?"
Harry eyes narrowed in response. "Hold them until you find me someone to give them to."
Moody looked skeptical. "Are you sure you have the power for that, boy?"
Harry just looked at him. "Yes." The response was unequivocal. Moody lowered the wand grudgingly. Conversation exploded around the table, as it seemed like nearly every person present had an opinion that needed urgent airing. Sirius caught Harry's eye and waved him over to a seat near him. Harry moved around the table and sat between Sirius and the young woman that had spoken up earlier.
Sirius leaned closer to Harry and chuckled slightly. "You do know how to make a first impression. It must run in the family. Speaking of which, the graceful lady to your left is my cousin, Nymphadora Tonks."
The woman, who was currently sporting a rather strange hairdo in an even stranger magenta color, just sent Sirius a piercing glare and then smiled at Harry. "Siri's a liar, I hope you know. I'm not at all graceful. And please…" She stressed the word. "…call me Tonks."
Harry shook her hand. "Harry Potter."
Tonks grinned, pulled her hand back and promptly knocked over her water glass. She ignored it as she commented with a laugh. "I never would have guessed." Harry quickly stopped the water from flowing into her lap. "Oh, thanks."
"I didn't know… Siri… had any family." Harry grinned as Sirius winced at the use of the nickname.
Remus leaned over and interjected. "Family, yes. Family he wants to claim, not very much."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "I can't help it if the majority of my relatives were all pureblooded bigots."
Across the table and down a bit, Hermione watched in great relief as Harry interacted with the people around him, and especially Sirius. She had wondered why both he and Remus had seemed to be in such good moods, and now she knew.
Harry just sat and listened to the babble around him for a few minutes. The main problem seemed to be that everyone was cautious of Harry, and rightfully so, they didn't understand how he did what he did, and they knew that he had plenty of reasons to dislike them. Everyone was nervous. Finally loosing patience with waiting for some one to get up the nerve to actually ask him some of the questions that they were asking everyone else, Harry spoke up. "If no one has any questions for me, I'm going home."
Everyone looked at Remus in surprise as he took control of the situation. Harry got the idea that he normally hadn't been one to speak up much. "I think the concern here is that we have very little idea of what we are dealing with when you say that you have the wards. Especially since that for all that we've ever heard of, it would be impossible to transfer the wards in the fifteen minutes or so that you had."
Harry helpfully inserted a fact. "It wasn't just the wards, he gave me control of the castle as well."
McGonagall choked. "He made you Headmaster?" Harry nodded.
Snape broke in. "It wasn't even fifteen minutes either, it was only ten. He spoke to me in the hall first."
Harry sighed. "Look. This is a really long story. I will explain, but listen up, because I will not be repeating this. Ever." Silence reigned supreme. "Most of you probably know that I had a connection with Voldemort. Visions and dreams, specifically. My imprisonment only enhanced that wonderful little aspect of my life. I don't really know if it was the dementors that brought it on stronger or if it would have done the same on the outside, but it doesn't matter. I was having a lot of visions." He shrugged. "Daily, sometimes even more frequently than that. They were frequently bloody, the dementors were affecting me very badly, and well, to make a long story short, I don't remember much past the first couple of weeks. It got to where I welcomed the visions, because the dementors didn't affect me there, and I could keep from going totally insane."
He winced slightly, a pained look flashing across his face for a split second. "Like I said, I don't remember details, but I did know that Voldemort was planning something huge. That was about the extent of my thought processes for a little over two years." The table at large winced along with him, and Sirius clenched his fists tight under the table. Harry seemed to randomly change the subject. "What do you know about haltia?"
Almost everyone looked blank, but Hermione came through as usual. "A powerful magic user from either another world, or another dimension, depending on who's retelling the story. A Finnish legend, I think, or Nordic."
"It's not a legend. And it's really from another reality. The crossover gives them some powers here that approach infinity, just as we would have in their reality if we were called over. Voldemort figured out how to do it." Silence reigned as everyone considered Voldemort with infinite power at his disposal.
Moody spoke up loudly. "If this is all true, then why haven't we heard of other people trying this? Every dark lord wannabe would be doing it!"
Harry didn't take offense at Moody's obvious skepticism, and answered the question. "It takes a lot of power. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but Voldemort, Dumbledore and myself are very likely the only ones who could attempt it, and even then, it's necessary to go through a two year blood ritual first. That's why Voldemort was so quiet. He considered me an immediate threat but had had really bad luck with trying to kill me. Once I was out of the way, he could take as much time as he needed to gather power. The other reason it's not commonly done is that it tends to backfire. The haltia are not comfortable in our realm, and tend to take it out on the one that called them here, therefore the ritual to try to control them. On top of that, this reality is not theirs, obviously, so they comprehend things differently, which causes even more problems."
Everyone listened quietly as Harry continued. "Anyway, you can read up on them if you like, but back to the explanations. I don't know the date exactly, but Voldemort had to go through that ritual, so it was more than two years into my imprisonment. Voldemort held the summoning, and I was lucky enough to be there in spirit, as it were. One thing that they don't tell you in the legends is that haltia are bound to the person they see first, not the actual person who did the calling." A small smirk spread across Harry's face. "That and the fact that they don't see any difference between a physical being and a spirit. Like a dream visitor."
Harry's smirk was echoed around the table as the majority of the members caught on. Harry remembered the horror of watching Voldemort summon the haltia, knowing in the pitiful shards of his injured mind that this was really, really bad, and then the shock of watching the luminescent figure of the haltia flicker into being and then flicker out again. Harry hadn't even managed to feel relieved, the dementors took the feeling away even if he was dreaming, but he had watched as Voldemort raged over his ruined plans. "Anyway, I guess the haltia saw me first."
The entire table began talking at once, most asking some variation of, "So what happened?"
Harry was silent for a moment and then finished his story rather abruptly. "The dementors no longer affected me as badly, I regained my sanity, and through some magic I'm not sure I can even describe, much less explain, I learned a lot. Including some shortcuts in magical theory. Large shortcuts. I gained ways to do things faster and with less energy expended. I had no wand, so I had to learn wandless magic."
"All of this just didn't happen, it was a process that I had to go through. And now that I was sane, I spent quite a bit of time visiting Voldemort in visions. Not that he knew about it or anything. It all worked out quite well. I was getting close to the point where I was just going to break out and rain a little holy hell down on Voldemort. I had planned on working my way through his ranks, and doing it that way, but your little 'oh yeah, we're idiots' realization changed that." Harry's hand reached out and caught Sirius' head before he could slam it into the table. Snape smirked.
Hermione looked puzzled. "I understand all that, and it does explain quite a lot, but why the insane act? From what you say, you hadn't had any mental problems for years, why act insane to us?"
Harry's eyes went a few degrees colder than it was comfortable for anyone to be looking at him. "One part revenge, one part caution. You may or may not have known this, but Voldemort was getting information about you beyond what Snape was giving you. I have reason to believe that he had been working on a spell that recorded interesting information and played it back for him. I couldn't be sure that the spell wasn't on one of you, and I needed the element of surprise."
"Why?" This was Sirius' cousin, Tonks. "From what it sounds like, you could have taken him down anyway."
Harry blushed faintly, feeling a little uncomfortable with what seemed to him as bragging. "Well, maybe. But getting into a full blown wizards duel would have been risky, and I can almost guarantee that there would have been injuries if not deaths from bystanders. I didn't want to take that chance, so I took the less honorable, and much safer route."
"How very Slytherin of you." McGonagall looked faintly disapproving. Harry ignored the comment. Snape smirked again.
Harry stood. "So, find someone to take the headmastership and I'll hand it over." He headed back towards the office, needing to be away from all the curious eyes for a bit. Talking about Azkaban had been necessary, but it had been like flouting an intensely personal part of him for a roomful of people that he barely trusted.
Harry didn't hear Snape's side comment to McGonagall, but Hermione did as she rose with Ron to make sure Harry was OK. Snape spoke quietly. "I vote we don't look very hard."
McGonagall looked surprised by this remark, obviously remembering that Snape and the Potters had a bit of an unpleasant history. "YOU want HIM to be Headmaster?"
Snape narrowed his eyes and shot her a disbelieving look. "Can't you tell? He's Dumbledore 100 years younger. Albus didn't have to release the headmaster abilities to him, so he trusts him. The ministry definitely won't be taking over under him, and he's intelligent, powerful and a leader. He'll do what needs to be done. Who better?" If McGonagall had been surprised at his earlier comment, she nearly choked on this one.
Meanwhile, Hermione and Ron, the latter with great caution, entered the office to find that Sirius had beaten them to Harry. Harry looked up as they entered but didn't say anything, so Hermione took that as permission to stay. Ron seemed stuck between staying and leaving, managing to just sway in the doorway.
Sirius spoke quietly. "Harry, there's something you're not telling. You don't have to if you don't want to… but… well, I'll listen." He knew that there was something, there had been a pause as he spoke of the haltia helping him, a pause telling of avoidance of an issue, but not revealing any more than that.
Hermione spoke. "Sorry, we're interrupting, we'll leave."
But as she turned to go Harry spoke up. "No, you might as well stay. Both, all of you. You are the only people that I really want knowing this anyway." He looked up. "Ron." Said personage gulped slightly. "Sit down, you're making me nervous."
Ron sat and muttered. "The feeling is mutual." And then gaped as Harry chuckled at the unintended sarcasm in his voice.
Hermione just smiled in relief. Harry had laughed. A real laugh. She could have sung. Sure, it was at Ron, but it was a laugh, and everyone tended to laugh at Ron now and then. Harry steepled his fingers and looked at Sirius. "It didn't exactly go as smoothly as I implied. The haltia was severely unhappy with being uprooted. The thing is that haltia are bound to give the caller obedience for three tasks, and then the haltia can go home. The dangerous part is that not only do they not see things the way that we would, they have a grudge. One has to be very, very careful about wording and the like."
Hermione looked thoughtful. "I wonder if that's where the legends of the muggle genie in a bottle came from. Or maybe the stories of the d'Jinn in Persian folklore."
Harry shrugged. "I have no idea." He didn't care either, but figured that was too rude to say.
Ron was still trying to understand. "So, did you say something wrong?"
Harry shook his head, eyes unreadable but full of some unnamed emotion. "I released it."
Sirius shut his eyes, understanding sweeping over him. He had shared a few of the same feelings at one point or another during his incarceration. But he was the only one that had it figured out. For once, Hermione was just as confused as Ron was. "Why on earth would you do that? You had wishes, er, tasks. You could have been free."
Harry sent her a blank look. "And on the run…"
Sirius finally found his voice. "Oh, Merlin, Harry, you thought…" Harry just looked at him, the eyes of two innocents meeting in a terrible understanding.
Harry nodded. "I guess you were right when you said you'd understand better than anyone."
"You know it's not true!" Sirius needed to be reassured.
Ron looked back and forth between them. "Um, what are you two talking about?"
Harry turned back to the pair, but couldn't say the words. So Sirius said them for him, never taking his eyes off of his godson. "The dementors… they… He thought that he deserved Azkaban. That's why he let the haltia go."
Harry spoke before either Ron or Hermione could gasp in horror and shower him with platitudes that he already understood. His voice came out almost pouting, as he wrestled his memories and emotions under control. "But it wouldn't go, darn the thing. It owed me, it said, and then I think it read my mind, realized I wasn't the person that had yanked it from its world and then it had the nerve to feel sorry for me!" His sarcastic tone lightened the heavy tension brought on by Sirius' words. Harry knew that Ron and Hermione didn't understand, and hoped that they never would.
"So it fulfilled the tasks anyway?" This was Hermione again, voice full of characteristic curiosity.
Harry nodded. "It didn't make a lot of sense at the time, but I had a lot of time to think about it and I think it just pulled three things out of my mind. It didn't free me, because that wasn't exactly even on my mind at the time. It stopped the dementors from effecting me, told me the location of the home I'm now living in, and helped me along the way to my biggest desire, which was kicking some serious Riddle arse."
"Which you did quite well." Ron was still looking rather nervous, like he expected Harry to pounce on him at any moment. Harry just looked at him, seeing an old friend and wondering what kind of a man Ron had matured into. He wasn't sure that either Ron or Hermione were going to be his best friends ever again. Forgiven, yes. Trusted, probably. Everything back to normal and the trio is together forever, unlikely.
Hermione jumped in to fill the awkward silence. "Actually, Harry, I have a bone to pick with you!" Her voice was annoyed. Harry blinked and shifted attention to her, not having any clue what she was talking about. "You, you… Marauder!"
Sirius' attention flew to Harry. "What'd he do?" Far from concerned, his voice sounded eager.
Hermione stood and shook her finger in Harry's face. "Don't even bother denying it, Harry Potter! You gave Maxwell and Andrews the Marauder's Map. Four times! Four times I've been pranked in the last week!"
Harry assumed an innocent and affronted look and pulled the original map from his pocket. "You mean this map?"
Hermione blinked. "Oh."
Ron chuckled. "Oh, good one, 'Mione, just accuse him of something he didn't d…" His voice trailed off as he realized what he was saying and that bringing up that probably wasn't a good idea.
Hermione turned and glared at Ron. "Shut up!"
Harry laughed. "Nice to know you haven't changed any, Ron. Still have a hard time walking with your foot in your mouth half the time?"
Ron looked embarrassed. "Sorry, Harry. Really, I'm sorry." His tone made it clear he wasn't only talking about his little slip of the tongue.
Harry stared at him for a long, tense moment. "Don't do it again." He shifted his eyes to Hermione. "That goes for you as well."
They nodded, gathering from his tone the subtext of the comment. They were forgiven, but on probation. They both looked very relieved. Harry knew that he would need to take their relationship slowly. He was still hurt at what they had believed of him, and he wasn't yet ready to make either of them welcome in his life on a daily basis. He really didn't even know them any more. They had been through their shaping and formative years without him. People change far more in between 15 and 21 than they do in almost any other six years of time. He would have to almost just start over with them. Maybe things could get repaired… eventually. He hadn't yet had as much contact with them as he had his godfather and former professor, and time definitely was a factor in his working past painful issues.
He could wait. If they couldn't… well, that would be their loss.
Unintentionally interrupting the moment, Remus poked his head in the doorway and motioned to the group. "Harry, we have a few additional questions for you, now that we've had a chance to talk things over a bit. Do you mind?"
Harry shook his head, he didn't care, but he literally had no idea what they wanted to ask him. He rose to follow Ron and Hermione out of the room, but Sirius caught his arm. "Harry, you do know you didn't deserve Azkaban, right? You were just a boy. There is nothing you could have possibly done that would deserve that. And before you say it, Cedric was in no way your fault." Harry nodded, he did know that, but it was nice to hear someone else say it. Unfortunately, Sirius didn't stop there. "I am so sorry, H…"
"All right, that's it. Sirius, I know that you are sorry, and I appreciate you being here for me now and all that, but I swear that if you apologize to me once more I am going to put you through the nearest wall." Harry leaned closer and glared. "Without magic." Sirius blinked and decided to not apologize anymore. "It's over, and I'm not angry at you anymore. I trust you. Relax, OK? You're about to drive me insane, and I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt." Sirius looked blank. Harry sighed. "Muggle expression, sorry…" He smirked and lowered his voice to a secretive whisper. "And you might be interested to know that, yes, there are two young men getting a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Pass it along, I'm sure Remus will be properly appalled."
Sirius grinned widely as they walked back into the Order room and sat. "Appalled? He's not a professor anymore, remember?"
Grinning slightly, Harry looked around the table questioningly. "What's the problem?"
Remus seemed to be the one elected to tell him. "Well, Harry, we would like to know if you would consider keeping the Headmaster position for Hogwarts." Harry's jaw dropped slightly. Remus went on to say something about them discussing the matter and him being the best candidate, but Harry didn't really comprehend much of it. They wanted him to stay? The Order of the Phoenix wanted him to be in charge of the next generation of magical children?
Harry realized that everyone was waiting for his response to Remus' little speech and struggled to find something to say. "Uh." He knew that he could do better than that. "I'm honored, but do you really know what you are getting into?"
Mr. Weasley spoke up. "You are young, but you have been through more than most people. Experience is far more important than age, especially in a position like this."
Remus added. "You care about people, and are willing to do what is necessary to either protect them or straighten out their ways. That is a very good quality for a Headmaster to have."
Snape put in his two knuts. "You aren't even blatantly one house anymore. We can trust you to be fair to all houses."
Tonks spoke up, waving her hands wildly and only just missing her water glass. "You won't let the Ministry take over, and that's definitely a good thing!"
Moody finished up, stating gruffly. "And Dumbledore wouldn't have had to give you what he did. He obviously wanted you, and that's good enough for me."
Harry took all this in with a calm expression and a roiling mind. Unsure of what to say, he stalled. "I thought that the Governors had to decide this kind of thing."
McGonagall spoke up. "Hogwarts was established far before the Ministry was. The Board of Governors has some power over us, yes, but not nearly as much as they think that they do. The school rarely bothers reminding them of this, but it can be done. The Governors chose most of the headmasters in recent history, but traditionally, the current headmaster passed it on to a protégée of his, with the approval of the staff. If we force the issue, the Board of Governors should along with us."
"They will." Draco spoke up from the corner, where he had been quietly listening to every nuance of the conversation. "I inherited Father's seat."
Harry raised an amused eyebrow at the blonde. "And if they don't?"
Draco's sneer was so perfect that it had to have been practiced in front of a mirror. "They'll wish they had." Harry accepted that as truth, he didn't doubt in the slightest that Draco was quite capable of taking over the reins of power that Lucius had let fall with his death. Better him than some other, more darkly inclined pureblood.
Harry took a moment to think. Was this something that he wanted? A place to belong, a place to make a difference, a place to influence the future? It seemed right. He knew that he could do it, knew as well that there were likely to be a few candidates over the years that he could pass on his rather peculiar knowledge of magic to. He shut his eyes for a moment, extending his mind along the link that connected him to Hogwarts. The school was almost sentient, and seemed to welcome him as he wandered mentally. It was quite fascinating, really, knowing that the Squid was currently in the north end of the lake, and that the boggart had moved over a dungeon since he'd last checked. The Room of Requirement was currently unoccupied, and Harry felt that there was something very familiar about it, but couldn't quite place what it was. He shrugged it off, knowing that it would come to him eventually. He could sense that Sirius and McGonagall were both animagi, and Remus… was one too? He would have to talk to him about that, it must be a side effect of the cure. Harry wondered, not for the first time, whether his connection to the old castle was greater than that of previous Headmasters because of his abnormal magical training.
And then he realized that he had just thought of himself as Headmaster. It had been normal. It had felt right. It was right.
He opened his eyes. Everyone was watching him. "Fine." Conversation began again. "But…" He raised a hand for silence and was rewarded with it instantly. He sent them a slow, sarcastic smirk that forcibly reminded most of the older members of James Potter. His green eyes sparkled with laughter. "But… one of you has to explain to the rest of the world just why you want a Headmaster that never even sat the OWL's."
END
Whew. Well, that's pretty much it. There will be an epilogue coming soon, but it isn't looking like it will very long. Let me know if I missed any major questions, and if I did, I'll try to get them answered one way or another. Thank you for your reviews. I still can't quite believe that this story has been as popular as it has been. Thanks again, krtshadow.
