Yo! Thank you to all readers so far!
Using his position as a professor, Marvolo got Cho out of school and into therapy with Dr Greyback. If he'd been able to help Bellatrix get over her trauma, he could certainly help a teenage girl, or so the Dark Lord thought. Cho hadn't argued, probably beginning to realize she'd done something wrong, and feeling grateful Harry wasn't willing to press charges against her, because he easily could have had he chosen to-and he would have won too, considering he was Harry bloody Potter.
At the same time, Marvolo and Harry began doing some planning. While Cho had been the one to write the fake letter from Voldemort that she then had sent to that asshole reporter, it was Dumbledore who had written the letter Harry had received and thought to be weird. Cho had been the one to confund Hedwig and have it delivered, but Dumbledore had written it. Which made sense, since the Voldemort in the letter had clearly claimed he was also Leo, but Cho herself hadn't actually been aware of that particular fact.
But they were having some trouble figuring out what exactly to plan. Though they now knew Dumbledore was the one behind this whole thing-as they honestly should have suspected from the very beginning, they weren't sure why he was doing this. If Dumbledore had had a problem with Harry and Voldemort writing to each other, why hadn't he done anything over the summer when it had all started?
At the earliest, he'd been made aware of it when Harry had sent him a copy of the Voldeclown drawing, since in the letter addressed to the Headmaster, he'd also clearly said he was sending a copy to Voldemort. And he'd even told Tonks the letter she saw Hedwig deliver to him while she was attempting to stalk him was from Voldemort, and she'd evidently gone to tell Dumbledore about it immediately.
And even if those two moments hadn't made it clear, there were plenty of others that had. Ron, Ginny, Mrs Weasley-all of them had read some of the letters too, and Harry wouldn't have put it past other Order members to have done the same. So why had he waited this long to do something about it? And why had he even bothered letting Marvolo (in disguise as Leo) into the castle as a professor anyway?
"Dumbledore's motivations make no sense," said Harry later that same day once they were far away from Trevor's domain and locked inside Professor Bright's private rooms instead.
"Have his motivations ever made sense?" Marvolo said in counter.
"Well, no, but-but they've made more sense than-than this, you know?"
Alright, yeah, that was pretty true. If Dumbledore really did want Voldemort defeated, then not only allowing Harry to continue writing to him, but letting him into the castle to teach made absolutely no sense at all! Surely he was after something here, but what?
"Why does it feel like he's trying to discredit me more than he's trying to get rid of you?" Harry asked suddenly.
Marvolo blinked. "I...had not noticed that," he admitted slowly. But now that he was thinking about it, it did seem like that, didn't it? Was that why Dumbledore was mostly ignoring his presence here? So he could use it to get to Harry? He voiced those thoughts to Harry.
"So...he's trying to get rid of me instead of you? But why?"
But the Dark Lord had already realized the answer to that. "If you are out of the picture, then he can defeat me himself."
Harry understood immediately, and balked. "Glory? He's doing this for glory!? Why the hell did he make me go through all this shit for all of these years if he was just going to try to get rid of me so he could have the glory of killing you himself!?"
"I believe so, yes." It was only speculation at this point, of course, but Marvolo was positive that they were right. It made the most sense to him, and knowing Dumbledore the way he did, having been around when Grindelwald had been defeated and imprisoned, Marvolo remembered the way Dumbledore had been treated at the time, the awe and gratitude people had showered him with. It seemed all too clear to him now that that same sort of attention was what Dumbledore was after again now.
And if getting Harry out of the picture, but any means necessary, was what would get him what he wanted, then so be it. It was just another form of manipulation-something Dumbledore was not only familiar, but extremely skilled at.
"So, do you have any idea how we can counter any of this?"
When Marvolo simply smirked, Harry knew he had his answer. The Dark Lord was definitely planning something.
That's it for now. Sorry if there are any typos. I haven't been getting much sleep the past few days. I think I've gotten a total of seven or eight hours of sleep over the past four days. It's been a while since my insomnia was this bad, so I'm seriously exhausted. Looking forward to reviews! Laterz!
