I know, I know, it's been a long, long time. If it makes you feel any better, I've been bent over my laptop so much in the past two weeks (my supposed-to-be vacation!), I've got another fifteen or so chapters already typed, so you don't have to worry about months in between updates anymore (for a while, at least; I start school in two days, after all, which'll hinder my typing). As soon as I proofread them I'll put them up, one at a time. And sorry for the wait, honestly.

WARNING: By the way, if you haven't read Order of the Phoenix, I sincerely apologize (from the bottom of my cold, black heart, be sure) for the Spoilers. I had to (HAD to, remember) do it. This is now officially MINE. ALL MINE I promise from now on it will be different from the books.

Poll: Is there anyone especially attached to Ginny Weasley? So attached that if anything were to…say, happen to her you would hate me?

Chapter 29, And the Truth Shall Set You Free

Three days later, when Harry was preparing to levitate his few remaining candies back to the Slytherin dorms, after, of course, telling his story to Professor Snape, Vanella, Draco, Ron, Hermione, the Weasley twins, and, presumably, the whole school because of these individuals, he received another visit from Dumbledore. Bad news, of course. He'd been due for some anyway, apparently.

"Harry," he said, watching the boy pack his items into as little containers as possible, getting rid of the empty containers and half-eaten chocolates. "Professor Snape recently came to me with his idea about your lodgings for the summer. I was hoping we could get it out of the way before now, but, I regret to say, it's not a conversation either of us will enjoy."

This did cause Harry to stop packing. "Pardon…sir?"

The Headmaster sighed. "Severus wishes you to spend the entire summer with him at his family's manor. That, I'm afraid, I cannot allow. I need you to spend at least a month with your aunt and uncle."

"But you…how can…why?" Harry sputtered, unable to finish sentences. "Why make me go back there, knowing they don't want me?" he managed finally.

"It would not be for the whole summer, I assure you. Just the last month of it, then you can take the Hogwarts Express back here with all of your friends."

Harry was breathing somewhat raggedly.

"Calm down, Harry, you don't want Poppy making you stay here longer, do you?"

The boy continued to stare down the old man.

Finally, Harry asked, "Why must I go back?"

Dumbledore sighed. "It is not something I am willing to discuss with you now, Harry. Maybe some other time, when you are older." He turned to leave.

"No!" yelled Harry, reaching out to grab the departing man's cloaked arm. "No. I won't go back without an explanation. I refuse."

Dumbledore stared at him for some time before saying, "Very well. Finish taking care of your things and come to my office. Then you will go to the leaving feast. I will be waiting."

And he left, leaving Harry to resume his packing.

squiggly line, star, et cetera

Harry paused in front of the stone gargoyle. How was he to get in without the password? But he needn't worry, because, as if it were waiting for him, the gargoyle moved aside after a few seconds. Harry took the magical escalator up to Dumbledore's door.

He knocked, and heard a swift, "Come in, child." He obeyed. The elderly Headmaster was waiting for him behind the massive desk, looking a bit solemn. He waved an arm to the chair in front of him, indicating 'sit'. Harry, once again, obeyed.

They stared at each other for a few moments, before Dumbledore decided to get right to the point.

"I would not send you back there without good reason, Harry, you know that."

"No, I thought I knew that."

"Harry…"

"What? What do you want to do to me now? You rescued me from that life because you, for some reason or another, cared; I thought I could trust you completely, and now you're trying to get a couple of Muggles who hate me to take me in and basically kill all my chances at happiness."

"You know that's not what I'm trying to do."

Harry let his anger loose. "Oh, come on! You send me there when I'm a baby, knowing they hated my mother and father, and they hate wizardry, then finally when something good happens for me, a house and a family, you want to send me back to the people who hate me! What did I do to you?"

"Harry, you know that's not how this is working. I have a perfectly good reason for—"

"Then what is that reason, pray tell?"

Dumbledore sighed. Not his usual sigh of needing to take a big breath just for the sake of it, but an actual, tired, sad, regretful sigh.

Harry furrowed his eyebrows. This was very unlike Dumbledore, he knew, even if he had only known the man for ten or so months. The Headmaster's character rarely wavered, not even a little bit.

"Did I ever tell you, in detail, of your parents' deaths, Harry?"

Harry shook his head, frowning. "I was told by Professor Snape."

"Did he say Voldemort went to kill your parents or you?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"He didn't. I assumed he went to kill my parents, as I never really had opposed him as a one-year-old."

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "One would think that, wouldn't they? Well, he went there to kill you, not your parents. Your parents needn't have died, but they did, Harry."

"Thanks for the reminder, sir, though I'm well aware that they are dead."

Dumbledore shook his head. "Why do you think they died?"

"Because they defied the 'Dark Lord' in some absurd way. Remember? 'Anyone who defied him was destroyed'. That's what I've been told, by everyone and everything."

He shook it again. "They died trying to protect you."

"Oh. So it was my fault they died. Thank you, Professor, that makes me feel much better."

The Headmaster let out an exasperated sigh. "No, Harry, your parents loved you. By dying for you like they did they unknowingly cast an ancient magic over you. Your mother's love for you is protection of the strongest sort, child. Voldemort couldn't touch you right now if he tried."

"I don't see what this has to do with going back to the Dursleys', Professor?"

"No? Well, let me help you understand." Dumbledore leaned forward, setting his elbows on his desk and steepling his old fingers. "Your mother's life, Harry, was sacrificed, just for you. In doing this she gave you this protection—this protection that Voldemort wouldn't—couldn't—ever expect, for he doesn't believe in love. This protection flows through your veins, even to this day. I put my trust in your mother's blood, that it would save you. I delivered you to your aunt, your mother's only remaining relative."

"She doesn't love me," Harry said. "How can this protection, this love, be held up by someone who hates me, and all that I am? She doesn't care about—"

"But she took you," Dumbledore interrupted. "She may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm I placed upon you. Your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield I could give you."

"But then why—"

"While you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by Voldemort. He shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. Her blood became your refuge. You need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. Your aunt knows this. I explained what I had done in the letter I left, with you, on her doorstep. She knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the eleven years you have been."

Harry sat a little straighter in his chair, looking at Dumbledore dumbly. "But, sir, I've never really called that place home. It's always just been… that place. It's where I lived, but I never truly lived there. I was a visitor, just there for the sake of being there."

"Be that as it may, Harry, you were safe. And, though I hadn't foreseen your sudden departure from your family's presence when you received that letter, I believe I made the right choice."

"Either way, Professor, they wouldn't take me back, now. Especially now, since I've learned wizardry, despite their efforts."

"On the contrary, Harry, I'm sure I could persuade your aunt. She took you in the first time, didn't she? She, no matter how much she hates our 'kind', wouldn't completely turn her back on her blood."

Harry's anger boiled again. "So, wait, if it's not 'turning her back', what exactly would you call leaving someone sitting in an alleyway, with a box and a blindfold?"

"Child, I've looked into it, and it was mostly your uncle that made that decision. Your aunt only went along with it because she knew it would be impossible to change Vernon Dursley's rash mind, and she does thoroughly agree that we are 'filth'.

"I'm still not going back there," Harry said stubbornly.

"Don't be daft, child! You must."

"It's not worth it. I would rather be in danger with people I like, that like me, than safe with people who hate me, and whom I hate. Besides, Voldemort is not in power. I don't see how I am in danger."

Dumbledore let loose another of those out-of-character sighs and gently placed his head in his hands.

Harry looked at him curiously. "Sir? Sir!"

Albus Dumbledore looked up. "Harry, there is something I've left out. Don't you find it curious that one of the most powerful wizards of our time came after you, a barely one-year-old infant, for no apparent reason?"

Harry shook his head slowly and said, "From what I've heard…sir…he killed many people, raiding villages and homes, not necessarily with a cause other than 'dirty blood'. I thought…I thought that that was what happened to me and my parents."

The Headmaster shook his old head. "He came for you, with a very intent purpose. He went to kill you."

"Why? Why me?"

"That, child, that is where all the answers lie. The question is whether it would be productive to tell you or not."

"You raised the issue; you can't just say now that you're not going to tell me!"

Albus shook his head again. "I didn't want to tell you this young, Harry. You're very young, much to young for the burden that has been set upon you."

"What burden? What are you—"

"But you have proved yourself able of things above your age. You can handle whatever you put your mind to. Your age, to be frank, is merely to make people underestimate you. Your maturity is much higher. Usually." He shook his head, sadly. "Child, you are destined for great things. Even Mr. Ollivander said so, remember? But what great things, that is completely unknown."

"How do you know this, when I don't?"

Dumbledore re-steepled his fingers. "There is a sector of magic called Divination. In your third year you have the opportunity to take it, but the years before that you don't. The basic principle of Divination is prophecy, or telling of the future, as in the reading of tea leaves and crystal balls. A very obscure portion of magic if I do say so myself, never having really learned it. I'm really not one for Divination. I don't have the 'Sight'."

"I don't at all understand why this pertains to why—"

"The practicers of Divination are called 'Seers.' These 'Seers' make prophecies, using their abilities in Divination. This pertains to you, Harry, because a prophecy was made shortly after your birth. Voldemort tried to kill you because of this certain prophecy. He knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. He set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. He discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. Of course, since his…misfortune…he's been desperate about hearing that prophecy. But it's location—the Department of Mysteries, where all prophecies are kept—is in the middle of the Ministry of Magic, and, frankly, quite impossible for him to reach. Therefore, here is another reason for him to desperately want his body back: to get that prophecy."

"What makes this prophecy about me? Can't it be wrong?"

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "It is most definitely you, child."

"How can anyone be sure? Can't I go hear this prophecy?"

Dumbledore nodded silently and got to his feet, walking past Harry to the black cabinet that stood beside Fawkes's perch. He bent down, slid back a catch, and took from inside it a shallow stone basin, covered with runes around the edges. The Headmaster walked back to the desk, placed the Pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. From it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. He sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the Pensieve for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

A figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behinde her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. Harry had seen very little of her, but knew she was a Professor at the school. But when she spoke, it was harsh, hoarse tones that did not befit the person Harry was seeing.

"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES…BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES…AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT…AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER, FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES…. THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES…"

The slowly revolving woman sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

The silence within the office was absolute. Neither Dumbledore nor Harry nor any of the portraits on the wall made a sound. Even Fawkes had fallen silent.

"Professor Dumbledore?" Harry said very quietly, for Dumbledore appeared to be quite lost in thought, still staring at the Pensieve. "It…did that mean…what exactly does that mean?"

"It means," said Dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly twelve years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times."

"Me," Harry said quietly, suddenly feeling very constricted. "No doubt at all."

Dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.

"The odd thing is, Harry," he said softly, "that it may not have meant you at all. Sibyll Trelawney's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of July that year, both of whom had parents in the Order of the Phoenix, an order attempting to conquer Lord Voldemort, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other was Neville Longbottom."

"But then…but then why are you so positive that it's me?"

"Because, child, you're forgetting the last part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish Voldemort…. Voldemort himself would mark him as his equal. And so he did, Harry. He chose you, not Neville. He gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse."

"But he might have chosen wrong!" said Harry. "He might have marked the wrong person!"

"He chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said Dumbledore. "And notice this, Harry. He chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. He saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him, something I think you have not done for the last time this year."

"Why did he do it, then?" said Harry. "Why did he try and kill me as a baby? He could've—should have—waited to see whether Neville or I looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then—"

"That might, indeed, have been the more practical course," said Dumbledore, "except that Voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete, as I said. The Hog's Head Inn, where I heard the prophecy from one of my prospective Divination teachers, as I was hiring, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the Three Broomsticks. It is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. Of course, I had not dreamed, when I set out to meet Sibyll Trelawney, that I would hear anything worth overhearing. My—our—one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building."

"So he only heard…?"

"He heard only the first part, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in July to parents who had thrice defied Voldemort. Consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you—again marking you as his equal. So Voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait or to learn more. He did not know that you would have 'power the Dark Lord knows not'—"

"But I don't!" said Harry in a strangled voice. "I haven't any powers he hasn't got, I can't possess people or—or kill them—"

"Ah, but you can," interrupted Dumbledore. "But you haven't yet learned to. You see, Harry, there is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. The power that saved you from Voldemort in the first place. The power that protected you from possession by Voldemort, because he cannot stand to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. You have heart, Harry. You can love."

"What do you mean… that—that I can possess people, that I have power…?"

"You do. Your own willpower mixed with love can do things no one would ever suspect."

"How can… how can love possibly enable me to do things like that?"

"It's hard to explain, actually. Love, though you may doubt it, Harry, can do impossible things."

"That doesn't explain…Voldemort can do these things with raw power…ability," said Harry. "But I…I have…love?"

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "You do things because you love. You do them for the good, the safety, of the people that you love. Your love is strong enough to back up your willpower, making your willpower to back up your 'raw' power. Harry, you are perfectly capable. You just don't yet know how to harness these things."

"Then…then get someone to teach me. You can teach me. I'm a learner, remember? I'll do anything."

Dumbledore was frowning.

"And…." Suddenly it hit him. "The last part of the prophecy… 'neither can live…'"

"'…while the other survives'," finished Dumbledore.

"Which means that… that I have to kill him, or he has to kill me, eventually," said Harry bitterly.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly.

Harry suddenly sat straighter in his chair. "Please, then teach me. If one of us has to die, I would rather it be him."

"I cannot teach you now. It's a few short days you'll be leaving for you aunt's."

"No! I don't have to go back there. Remember? Love? The power I have so much of? They make me hate! They're lessening my love."

"I am sorry, Harry, but even at this point it is not up to you. We cannot be sure of your safety otherwise. You do not know how to harness the power that Voldemort has supplied you with yet well enough to be safe without your mother's protection."

"If you would prefer, then, Professor Dumbledore, I will stay at Hogwarts and you can train me to harness this…this power. Hogwarts is the safest place other than Gringotts, anyways." Harry was ready to try anything. "Don't make me go back where they don't want me. I don't want to go back there. Anything else, please. And if I stay here I can stay with Professor Snape, as he will be my father eventually anyway and—and he can help me learn and you can too and the other professors if they want—"

"Harry!" Dumbledore cut off Harry's rant, rendering him silent. Then he pondered this plead. "It would have it's benefits, I suppose. It would enable us to protect you while you learn how to control your own abilities…" He leaned forward and assessed some papers. "I shall discuss it with Severus."

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Harry watched the other students board the Hogwarts Express at the station. He was staying at Hogwarts over the summer, taking extra defense classes from Professor Snape while Dumbledore trained him how to focus and control his power. The Gryffindors had wished him luck on his entire summer with Snape, while the Slytherins laughed and wished him luck at having to take classes all summer.

Vanella hugged him and said, "Have fun, Harry. I'm sorry you're stuck at Hogwarts all summer, but like you said, it could be worse, right? I'll owl, promise, and we'll go to Diagon Alley together with Ron and Hermione and Draco when we get our lists." Then she boarded the train.

Hermione, Ron, and Draco all did almost the same thing, only Ron's and Draco's didn't include hugs. Harry watched the train leave the station with a mixture of sadness and relief, and stood there for a long time after the station was empty.

Finally Snape came up and began pulling him back to Hogwarts. "Come, Harry, we'll get you settled in my quarters."

Harry nodded and they left.

squiggly line, star, et cetera

Author's Note: Aha, so the first book is now summed. So the next post will be during Harry's summer… unfortunately not mine anymore (very sad). But anyways, there'll be a lot of good duel scenes coming up; I've been researching and rechecking my Latin phrases...

Anyhow, there won't be another chapter this weekend, apologies, but I'm going to my dad's because I was on vacation during my birthday and now I want to see him.

I'm not answering reviews tonight because I want to put this up tonight. But there have been a lot of them in the past update-less month, and I apologize for this not going up sooner. I was uninspired, unfortunately. But I found the muses! They were hiding in Maine. And at the risk of sounding completely insane, they're back now. I'm actually writing chapter forty-four about now, so be happy.

Cheers.

Next Chapter: Training Starts (up ASAP, scout's honor)