CHAPTER 7:

DUMBLEDORE'S CONFESSION

Harry was appalled to see Dumbledore in such a state. While he had seen the old man worried, pensive, even angry, he'd never seen Dumbledore looking like he had fallen almost completely into despair. And it honestly frightened him. As much as it rankled with him how Dumbledore seemed to insist that he stay with the Dursleys, as well as many other things about him, he'd looked up to the old man, respected him. So what was this all about?

"Professor, are you all right?" Harry asked.

"…No. I haven't been for a long time," Dumbledore said, coming over to the table and sitting down heavily at a spare chair. He looked over at Rossweisse. "You must be the young lady Captain Brynhildr spoke of, the one looking after Harry. Rossweisse, was it? A lovely name. Thank you, Rossweisse, for helping Harry."

"Oh! Umm, you're welcome, Professor Dumbledore!" Rossweisse exclaimed, standing and bowing briefly. "And I must say, your work in alchemy was groundbreaking. Your treatise on the uses of dragon blood was excellent!"

Dumbledore chuckled sadly, before gesturing at Rossweisse. "Please, sit down, my dear girl. I…I do not deserve such praise. Not anymore."

As Rossweisse sat down, Harry stared at his headmaster in concern, mirrored on Rossweisse's own face. Why was Dumbledore acting this way? "…Professor, what's wrong with you? I don't think I've ever seen you acting like this."

"You've known me for but a short season, Harry," Dumbledore said solemnly. "There have been many times when I have been like this. The first was when my sister died…and even if my wand had not been responsible, which I cannot be certain of…I was still partly at fault. That is why my own brother gave me a souvenir in the form of a broken nose." He pointed to his crooked nose ruefully. "I have lived for well over a century, Harry, and that is enough time to accumulate a lot of mistakes. My latest involved you…and your mother."

At this, Harry felt a very real chill go down his spine. After what happened last night, he wasn't sure whether he was ready to hear more. And yet, Dumbledore, despite his health episode, had come to see him. So he asked, "…What was that?"

"…Your father, Harry, James Potter. I'm afraid I sang his praises to you, but that was all I could do. I had little choice in the matter. Somehow, James Potter managed to take control of me. Subtly, but surely. I'm not sure how he did it, but…he boasted to me about it once. He said he just had to. He'd had enough of holding in the secret. His hold over me broke thanks to Odin breaking that hold, and I've been spending the time since recovering."

"Professor, if you are feeling at all unwell, this can wait…" Brynhildr began, but Dumbledore waved her off.

"No. It cannot. I have spent enough time moping. If nothing else, I can at least set the record straight," he said, his voice regaining some of the steel it had at the times when he was being truly serious.

Harry, however, wasn't sure what to make of it. First Lily, or that woman in his Sacred Gear claiming to be her, and now Dumbledore saying such things about James Potter. And to see Dumbledore like this…it disturbed him. It disturbed him more than he would ever care to admit. He'd never seen the old man look so…defeated. Yes, that was the right word.

Dumbledore turned to Harry. "James did not reveal who he truly was to me, though in hindsight, I have a very nasty suspicion who it was. He told me that, when James Potter was born, he was on the verge of dying. Out of desperation, his parents called upon any deity to answer their call…and one answered. The deity offered them their son alive, with seemingly no strings attached. But what happened was that this deity not only healed James Potter's body…but usurped his soul, becoming James, for all intents and purposes."

Rossweisse promptly asked the question that was on everyone's minds. "…Why would he do such a thing?" she demanded in horror, a horror Harry shared.

"…He confessed to me that he was sick and tired of being seen as the villain. He believed he wished to be known as a hero for a change," Dumbledore said. "And with Voldemort on the rise, he had a perfect opportunity to do so, so he thought. Oh, James put on a fine act, one that fooled many, myself included. I had thought his darker elements to be merely due to immaturity, not due to anything truly malevolent. But then, after a rather dangerous incident in his third year, I called him up to my office to have words with him. It devolved into an argument…before he became fed up and used that spell on me. I became little more than his enabler."

Dumbledore had claimed that it was James Potter who confessed to him, but to Harry, this had the air of a confession itself. Harry was torn. On the one hand, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what depravities his father, held up by almost everyone as a paragon, had committed, allegedly. And yet, on the other…it felt like the truth, long-withheld, was being told to him.

"In time, your mother fell under his sway too," Dumbledore continued sadly. "I could do nothing to warn her, as James used me as his umbrella, and through me, he could influence Professor McGonagall and the others. I don't think he bespelled anyone barring my own."

Harry, after a moment's thought, said, "Professor…I was told that Snape told Voldemort about a prophecy involving me. Is that true?"

Dumbledore's eyes widened. "Who told you that?"

"Is it true? Did that bastard set Voldemort on me?!" Harry snarled. "And you kept him around as a teacher afterwards?!"

"Harry, Snape regretted what he did the moment he realised your mother would be targeted!" Dumbledore snapped.

"He doesn't seem to have regretted it as far as I can tell!" Harry retorted. "He's always comparing me to my father, and yet, did he regret setting Voldemort on me? Did he?"

"He did."

"Bullshit!" Harry roared, slamming a fist onto the table. "The way he treated me wasn't as if I was a student he hated, it was because I was proof that he couldn't fuck my mother! He would have seen me dead that night if it meant having a chance at Lily, wouldn't it?!"

"Harry, please, calm down!" Rossweisse yelped. When he turned to rebuke her, he noticed she was pointing to the table. He looked down, and saw a thick layer of frost and ice where he had slammed his fist into it.

In a cold tone of voice, meeting Dumbledore's eyes with his own gaze, Harry said, "As far as I am concerned, the only difference between Snape and Pettigrew is that you vouched for Snape."

The silence that fell was soon broken by a familiar voice. "I'll be perfectly honest, Albus, he isn't really wrong. Pettigrew was a cowardly piece of shit, but knowing how Snivellous ended up, I would have just exchanged one lot of sex-slavery for another."

Harry started, and then looked at his hand. It was now covered in a red and gold gauntlet, with an emerald gem on the back of his hand. "Your Sacred Gear has manifested again?" Rossweisse asked.

"…Lily? Is that you?" Dumbledore asked.

"No, it's Voldemort's Horcrux, having awoken to slaughter you all, what do you think?" Lily's voice demanded sarcastically.

Brynhildr's eyes were also wide. "A human soul…sealed within a Sacred Gear…"

"An artificial Sacred Gear, mind, and it's a miracle that this happened," Lily's voice said. "I forced a manifestation so I could talk to you, Dumbledore. Be thankfully Harry remains in control of his body and magic, otherwise, I would talk to you very harshly. With a kick below the belt at the bare minimum. What the actual hell were you thinking, if you were thinking at all? Allowing Snivellous to teach students? Using the Philosopher's Stone as bait? Oh, and let's not forget, you left Harry with my sister. My sister, who despises anything magical because she's a jealous bitch, and yet, you left Harry with her."

"I…I needed to shield Harry from his fame, and even if Petunia was a Muggle, she was your family. I had erected a ward on her home based on what I thought was Blood Wards you had shielding Harry from Voldemort and his supporters, but…"

"You imbecile," Lily retorted. "What you thought were Blood Wards was this Sacred Gear! You fuelled those wards with energy from it, thus keeping me dormant for nearly ten years! And what was going to protect Harry from the Dursleys? I've looked through his memories, and you did a pathetic job at protecting him from them. Keeping his fame from him is one thing, I understand that…but at the expense of a happy childhood? I'm hoping it's because you're an idiot who believes the best of everyone instead of doing this deliberately to have yourself a disposable messiah!"

"I would not, Lily!" Dumbledore snapped. "I just made what I thought was the best decision at the time! And what of you, using what has to be forbidden magic? Even if that is really you, Lily, soul magic is forbidden for a reason!"

"I did what I had to do to ensure my son's survival. If that meant being bound to his soul, unable to communicate with him for the rest of his life, then so be it. You don't get to judge me, Dumbledore. You may have been a victim of James Potter too, but what you did has pissed me off something fierce!"

"Enough," Brynhildr said, her voice lashing out harshly. "Both of you are squabbling like infants. I cannot say I know enough about Lily Potter to judge what she should be like, but I would have thought that one of the most senior and respected figures of Magical Britain would have known better. What's done is done. Voldemort is dead, at least for now. The question is, what to do now? I doubt the British Ministry of Magic is going to let Harry return anytime soon, at least not without being railroaded back into Azkaban. And we don't know exactly how many Horcruxes Voldemort created, only that it was more than one."

"And Harry has destroyed one, a diary of some sort," Rossweisse pointed out.

"Leaving more to be dealt with to prevent him from coming back from the dead," Brynhildr said. "If you do seek to make up for your mistakes, Professor Dumbledore, then making a start on that would be better than this immature squabbling. Do not misunderstand me, I understand your choices to some degree, but they have also damaged Harry, and being controlled by James Potter only excuses so much."

"…I know. Merlin, I know that. I can't lay all of my decisions at his door," Dumbledore said softly. And Harry realised, despite his fury at him, the man seemed genuinely remorseful. It was chilling to see someone like Dumbledore look so…lost and forlorn.

"And you…if you really are Lily Potter," Brynhildr said, glaring at the Sacred Gear, "you're not helping matters with your words. I understand they are born from a mother's love and desire to protect their child, but for a woman who, I understand, was lauded as one of the brightest in the entirety of Magical Britain, you're acting more like a petulant child. If you can't offer anything constructive, then keep whatever is the equivalent of your mouth shut. Harry has the excuse of being a teenager."

After a moment, Lily said, "Wow. I…that's some decent sass. Plus, I don't think I've ever seen anyone dress Dumbledore down like that, so…I'll humour you."

"Humour me?" Brynhildr muttered indignantly.

"Well, I am bound to Harry's soul. The most you can do to me is silence me. But I'll be quiet and listen to what the self-appointed adult has to say."

"By the boughs of Yggdrasil," Brynhildr groaned, facepalming. "In any case, I'm beginning to get a nasty suspicion I know who James Potter really was. It's pure speculation, but there's one Jotunn in particular who went missing at around the time James Potter was born. Someone who resents and despises Asgard, and all who dwell within it."

"Then who is it?" Harry asked.

Brynhildr looked to him. "Are you sure you want to know, Harry? You've been through a lot over the last little while."

"I'm sure. I've had enough of things being kept from me," Harry said, glaring at Dumbledore pointedly.

"…I suspect your father, the one who claimed to be James Potter, was none other than Loki…"

CHAPTER 7 ANNOTATIONS:

And on that bombshell, goodnight!

I actually put this revelation at the end of the third chapter, but I edited it somewhat. Instead, I thought it'd be better here, though this isn't much of a surprise to many of you.

Review-answering time! Gabriel Herrol: True, but that's what Azazel calls the Balance Breaker of HIS artificial Sacred Gears. AFAIK, none of the other Biblical Factions or even supernatural factions know for certain that he's got any, though I'm sure they suspect that he has. For sake of an argument, I'm going to continue using the term Balance Breaker.

Midoriyu: Maybe he grows out of it in canon, but when I do James-bashing, I extrapolate from that bullying in canon. However, unlike in many of my James-bashing fics, this time, it's down to Loki, who is a narcissistic psychopath, rather than James' innate nature. We'll get more elaboration on his motives in a later chapter.

Incidentally, I have read Go Away I'm Watching Porn. For a time, it was one of the best High School DxD stories on this site…but I became increasingly disillusioned with it, particularly how Issei and Jasmine were characterised. It wasn't what some idiots were complaining about, that Jasmine was cuckolding Issei, but rather, how Issei and Jasmine seemed to use what happened to them as license to do whatever they wanted to anyone else. Hell, they sexually assaulted Raynare, and yet, Third Fang did some inane handwave that did little to justify it. Issei and Jasmine also treat Rias and her Peerage like dirt, even though they had little to do with 'White's actions. And their actions towards the Four Great Satans and the other heavy hitters in the Biblical Factions is out of all proportion to their actions against Issei. They're just whiny little children who should grow the fuck up and gain some fucking perspective instead of blaming or hurting those who had NOTHING to do with what happened to them.

Do not misunderstand me, I think Third Fang is a great writer, and their Nasuverse story, From Fake Dreams, despite its problems, is a very enjoyable work. But Go Away I'm Watching Porn had a lot of promise that was squandered through very shitty characterisations. You know that something has gone very badly wrong with a fic when you utterly despise the character who's meant to be the hero.

BlaszczeM: At what point was Lily dismissive of Harry? She's an arsehole, yes, but she cares deeply about Harry. Unfortunately, because she knows the truth has been kept from him, she's been somewhat brutally honest about it, which isn't what Harry needs at the moment. The brutal part, anyway. Also, I'd like to think Molly was joking about using Amortentia on Arthur, at least in canon.

ElementalMaster16: Yes and yes. Yes, the strength of the enmity Harry's enemy feels for him is a factor, as is the enmity Harry feels.

No numbered annotations this time.