Up till now, Harry systematically has been ruining Dumbledore's day. But the time has come for Harry to show Tom Riddle some love too.

Chapter 15
First Time at the Video Arcade

The next morning
Saturday, 7th September

Harry had spent only a month and a half in the past, and already he saw differences between his previous lifetime and this lifetime.

In Harry's previous lifetime, Sirius Black had not enjoyed a good reputation since the day he had run off to chase down Pettigrew. Sirius had never been put on trial, either after his arrest or after his escape. Not only had Sirius's name never been cleared, but Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge had blamed everything except excess fog in London on "that escaped murderer, Sirius Black."

But in this lifetime, Sirius had been acquitted, after being questioned under Veritaserum—everyone knew he had not done the things he had been gaoled for. And more recently, at his trial for Harry Potter's guardianship, when Dumbledore had tried to say that Sirius Black was too crazy to act as a fit parent? Again the Wizengamot had cleared Sirius Black—and by a wide margin.

In Harry's previous lifetime, Sirius never had dared to walk into the offices of the Daily Prophet—if Sirius had been so foolish, he would have been arrested and, soon after, Kissed. But in this lifetime, Sirius Black, whilst looking lordly in his Black robes, strolled alongside Harry into the Daily Prophet office. He calmly asked the reporters, "Is there any mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Prophet who wants to hear what I have to say? Not Rita Skeeter though—not that I'm prejudiced against animagi, being one myself..."

(Rita Skeeter, Harry saw, went white when Sirius said this in the open-office newsroom of the Daily Prophet.)

But Sirius Black had not come in alone; besides bringing Harry, Sirius brought with him his law-wizard, Ted Tonks. Editor-in-chief Barnabas Cuffe, ten minutes into his interview with Sirius, found out why Ted Tonks was there.

Sirius's interview started out funny. Sirius told a Hogwarts story about the time when Narcissa Black, having discovered that her friend, Angela Filch, was missing and that Narcissa's younger Gryffindor cousin, Sirius Black, was missing, went looking for them together. When she found them together (in a broom cupboard), she dragged them out, accusing Sirius of "Corrupting innocent Angela, who is a better witch than you deserve!" (This despite the fact that Angela was two years older than Sirius.) Narcissa, whilst she was yelling at Sirius, was Stinging-Hexing him so badly that he needed to go to the hospital wing afterwards.

(Narcissa Malfoy was quoted in the same news article: "I would've hit Sirius with worse than Stinging Hexes, but I wanted to stay in Professor Slughorn's favour. I knew that even at thirteen, Sirius Black was an evil charmer.")

In the interview, Sirius stated publicly that he was an animagus, his form being a black Grim. ("I've scared some people, without meaning to.") Sirius said that he had become a animagus at Hogwarts, along with James Potter and Peter Pettigrew—but Sirius did not say why. Then Sirius casually remarked, "Being able to turn into a big dog was how I stayed sane in Azkaban. Dementors, you see, ignore animals."

This led to Sirius describing the horrors of Azkaban: not only the bad food, the beatings by the guards, the rats and the shouted insults from imprisoned Death Eaters, but the crushing depression caused by the Dementors. Adding to this depression: realising that neither his girlfriend, Amelia Bones, nor "the wizard in charge of everything and everyone, Albus Dumbledore," would lift a finger to organise Sirius's trial.

Sirius spent one sentence of his interview telling the world what he thought of Amelia these days, but he spent quite a bit of time bin-talking Dumbledore. Dumbledore had known that Pettigrew, not Sirius, had been the Secret Keeper for the Godric Hollow house. Then Dumbledore, through Rubeus Hagrid, "stole" the toddler Harry Potter out of Sirius's arms. Even worse, Hagrid had brought toddler Harry to the home of Lily Potter's Muggle sister, "which became for Harry Potter, a ten-year imprisonment in a house of horrors." Sirius then concluded, "Both Harry Potter and I have suffered for ten years, grievously and entirely needlessly, because of Albus Dumbledore."

(Harry Potter was quoted as saying, "I don't want my godfather's words to be taken as 'Muggles are bad people.' This is the general belief amongst wizards and witches, but it isn't my own belief. From age one to age eleven, all I knew were Muggles. Most Muggles are ordinary—not really bad, not really good. A few Muggles are brilliant—it was two Muggles who took me and a Muggle-born friend to King's Cross. But a few Muggles are a waste of space—too bad for me, all three of my Muggle relatives are this sort.")

Then Sirius turned the interview over to Ted Tonks, who announced, "Sirius Black, who is the Black of Black and the Wizengamot-appointed guardian to Harry James Potter, is suing GL Press, Roy Locke a.k.a Gilderoy Lockhart and Albus Dumbledore. Black alleges fraud, improper enrichment and invasion of privacy. Since 1986, Roy Locke has written, and GL Press has published, supposedly-true books about Harry Potter that have no basis in fact. There is no person alive in Britain named Rowena Potter. Any men in Britain named George Potter are Muggles, and are not related to Harry Potter. Harry Potter has never been to Wales, and has never lived in Pembrokeshire County in Wales. The real Harry Potter has lived with Muggle relatives near, but not in, London. He did not grow up in a palace, but in an ordinary Muggle house. He has never battled any monster. These books were written without Harry Potter's permission. Gilderoy Lockhart has received royalties from these books; also receiving royalties: Albus Dumbledore, who was Harry's self-proclaimed 'magical guardian' without any justification from Harry's parents' wills. On the other hand, not one knut has been paid into any of Harry Potter's vaults for the use of his name and for the use of his one-time likeness."

"Do I hear correctly?" asked Barnabas Cuffe. "You're suing Dumbledore?"

Sirius grinned. "With great pleasure, I might add."

A few hours later
Lunchtime in the Great Hall

Near the High Table, an ice-cloud suddenly puffed into existence. From this ice-cloud emerged a blue-and-white phoenix with a parchment envelope in its beak.

The phoenix flew up to Albus Dumbledore and dropped the envelope in his lap, before the bird disappeared with another ice-cloud puff.

Albus Dumbledore had been served.

Meanwhile in London

After Sirius and Harry had been interviewed at the Daily Prophet, they had ventured out to Muggle London. There they had found a video arcade. Neither the man nor the boy had been in a video arcade before.

Sirius had needed to have it explained to him what space aliens were, and racecars, and that zombies were what Muggles called inferi. Sirius furthermore had needed to be told that space aliens and zombies all had to be killed, and that racecars all had to be surpassed. But Sirius had caught on quickly. Sirius and Harry had spent several fun hours saving pixelated damsels in distress from evil monsters, and burning pixelated tyre rubber. Sometimes Sirius and Harry had competed directly against each other.

The time spent had not been completely joyous, however. Computer graphics in 1991 hardly created a convincing illusion; and video-arcade joysticks had a tendency to slip out for a cigarette break instead of being reliable.

Both Sirius and Harry quickly had learnt, to their sorrow, the first rule of video games: If you stay predictable for too long, you die. Sirius and Harry each had died many times, sometimes in gory ways.

After spending several hours at the video arcade, both the thirty-something wizard and the teen wizard were hungry. They stopped in at a curry place. Harry had never eaten curry before—Hogwarts never served it, and Vernon Dursley hated everything Indian on general principles. Curry made Sirius nostalgic—the last time he had eaten curry had been with the Marauders plus pregnant Lily.

Harry was having the time of his (seventh) life. Going to play arcade video games and eating curry were two things that Harry never had done at the Dursleys, and never expected to do. And in his previous lifetime, whenever Harry had been at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, both of them had been essentially thrown in prison. If Harry had dared to suggest video games and curry for Sirius and himself whilst they were stuck at Grimmauld Place, the reaction from both Dumbledore and Molly would have been immediate and unyielding: "Absolutely not! I forbid it! Harry, you wouldn't be safe." But now, during this carefree morning, there was no sign of the whiskered wanker or of Howler Molly.

After Sirius and Harry ate curry, Sirius hired a taxi and took himself and Harry to Grimmauld Place.

Minutes later

As the taxi drove away, Sirius and Harry stood across the street from a row of townhouses.

"Look across the street, Harry," Sirius said, "and tell me what you see."

What Harry saw was Number 12—but he had to make himself not look at it. Harry answered Sirius's question with a lie: "The numbering is broken. Nine, ten, eleven, then thirteen, fourteen, fifteen."

Sirius chuckled, then held out a piece of parchment. "Read this to yourself, then look across the street again."

The home of Sirius Orion Black is at Number 12, Grimmauld Place in London.

"Wow," Harry said. Then he described not what he saw, but what he remembered from three years ago: "Number 11 and Number 13 are pulling apart, and there's another townhouse between them."

Sirius nodded. "The townhouse that just appeared? It's where we're going."

Inside Number 12, Grimmauld Place

Amongst the seventeen pages of notes and plans that Harry had brought with him from the afterlife, was a plan for what Harry would do as soon as he stepped into Number 12 (after Sirius had silenced the portrait of his mad mother).

Now Harry looked at Sirius and said in a (fake) trembling, nervous voice, "Sirius? Voldemort is here!"

"WHAT?"

"I sense evil—his evil. I know what his evil feels like, because I had his evil in my scar for years. His evil is here."

They spent a minute trying to think of ways they could find "You-Know-Who" within the townhouse. Harry let Sirius be the one to think of calling Kreacher—

"Dementor-addled, disgraceful, shameful, blood-traitor master calls Kreacher?" the old and surly house-elf asked.

Harry squatted down till he was roughly eye-level with Kreacher. "Kreacher, I'm Harry Potter, Sirius's godson."

"And a filthy halfblood," said Kreacher.

"Kreacher, stop with your shit!" yelled Sirius.

Harry calmly replied, "Perhaps I am. But right now, I need your help. I sense something of Voldemort's here. Do you know what it is, and where it is?"

A minute later, Slytherin's locket lay at Harry's feet. Sobbing(!) Kreacher was telling Harry (and Sirius, who was gobsmacked) about the house-elf's greatest failure: the last order of Kreacher's beloved master Regulus, an order which Kreacher had been unable to obey.

"Wait, hold on," Sirius said. "Reggie turned on Voldemort? YES!"

Harry pretended to think. "I might have an idea, based on something that Mum wrote in one of her diaries. Sirius, have you ever heard of a place at Hogwarts called the Room of Requirement? It becomes whatever kind of room you need it to be."

"We read about it," said Sirius, "but we never found it. A room that could become the perfect prank laboratory? We would have killed to find it."

"Let me try something," Harry said. "Greyclay." Pop.

Harry looked at Sirius and Kreacher and said, "I'm going to try and set up the Room of Requirement so that I can destroy the locket there. If I can do this, then I will send Greyclay to bring both of you into the Room of Requirement. Kreacher deserves to see this for himself."

Sirius smacked his forehead. "Asking a house-elf to find the Room of Requirement—why didn't we think of that?"

Harry looked at Greyclay and said, "Take me into Hogwarts, to just outside wherever the Room of Requirement is." (Harry worded his command this way so that Sirius would not know that Harry and Greyclay both already knew exactly where the Room of Requirement was.) Pop.

Harry, because he could "smell Voldemort," supposedly just happened to find another Voldemort-contaminated object, the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, once he was in the Room of Requirement. (The Room of Lost Things, where the Diadem had been found, could be reached by walking through a door in the Room of Requirement.)

Once Harry had the diadem in the Room of Requirement, he began a nondestructive horcrux-purging ritual that Salazar Slytherin had taught him.

With conjured chalk, Harry followed a conjured sheet of instructions. Harry drew a heptagram (seven-sided pentagram); inside the heptagram, Harry drew an equilateral triangle.

Before bringing Sirius and Kreacher in, Harry had one little thing left to do. Harry summoned the Spirit of Hogwarts and, using his Designated Secret Substitute authority, gave Sirius (and hence Kreacher) one-time permission to enter the castle.

After doing all this, Harry had Greyclay bring Sirius, Kreacher and the locket from Grimmauld Place into the Room of Requirement. Kreacher was trembling. Harry said to Kreacher, "I see you shiver with anticipation."

Harry handed the conjured "Instructions" to Sirius and said, "Hold this close to my face, but off to the side."

"Harry?" said Sirius. "Four lines of these instructions are just the letter 'S,' repeated."

"Oh, those lines are Parseltext. I can read them just fine."

"Harry, you speak snake-language? Like You-Know—?"

"And like Mum. I'm not eeeevil, Sirius."

Harry put the locket inside the equilateral triangle, being careful not to step on any chalk lines. He explained to Sirius and to the two house-elves, "I'll do the locket first, since Kreacher has been waiting for this for years."

Harry pointed his wand at the chalk figure on the floor and hissed, "§Activate the trigram inside the heptagram.§" The lines of the chalk figure flashed with bright white light.

Harry pointed his wand at the locket and hissed, "§Open.§"

A black wraith burst out of the locket and turned towards Harry, its face angry. But no part of the wraith could pass beyond the triangle-shaped column above the chalk triangle.

Harry pointed his wand at the wraith and hissed, "§Contain this soul-piece, the abomination.§"

A floating sphere of white sparkles appeared, about five feet in diameter. The sphere then shrank; and as it did, the walls of the sphere further limited where the wraith could go. The sphere of white sparkles shrank till it was entirely within the triangular column; the sphere of white sparkles by then was slightly less than a foot in diameter. The wraith of Voldemort was now screaming in anger and failing to escape—the angry wraith showed as swirling black smoke inside the white sparkles.

Harry pointed his wand at the sphere of white sparkles. "§Destroy this soul-piece, the abomination, utterly.§"

The white sparkles turned red; then the sphere again shrank and shrank. The wraith screamed, now in agony, but could not escape. When the sphere of red sparkles shrank down to nothingness, the screaming stopped.

Kreacher was jumping up and down now, and weeping, he was so happy.

The locket of Slytherin was only a locket now—though it was a locket created by a Hogwarts founder. Harry pointed his wand at it and hissed, "§Close.§" The locket obediently closed. Harry handed the locket to Greyclay, saying, "A little later, put this inside my super-duper student trunk."

After this, de-horcruxing the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw was straightforward. Again Harry watched a wraith of Voldemort die screaming in agony. As before, Harry gave the de-horcruxed Diadem of Ravenclaw to Greyclay.

Harry said to Greyclay, "Put these in my trunk, but don't be seen." Pop.

Harry pointed his wand at the chalk figure on the floor and hissed, "§Deactivate the trigram inside the heptagram.§" The chalk lines turned grey for an instant.

Harry asked Sirius to get rid of the conjured instruction sheet and to clean the chalk lines off the floor—since Harry supposedly did not know those spells yet. Then Harry asked Kreacher to return Sirius and him to Grimmauld Place. Pop.

Back in Grimmauld Place, Harry thought, Only the Diary and the Gaunt Ring are left.

Minutes later, still at Grimmauld Place

Sirius and Harry wrote a letter to Remus Lupin, who lived "somewhere out there." Fortunately, the magic of postal owls meant that Sirius could send his friend a letter, despite having no guess at all where the man was.

Sirius's part of the letter said basically, "Oi, bro! I'm out of prison, I was innocent the whole time, now I'm living in 'the sad place,' and I'm Harry's guardian. Write me back—you and I have much we need to talk about."

Harry's part of the letter said, "Hello, 'Uncle Moony.' I'm eleven now and in Ravenclaw. I've a close friend, Hermione, who's a Muggle-born girl and she's wicked smart. (She's Ravenclaw too.) Sirius says that history is repeating itself! Please write to me."

The next morning: Sunday, 8th September
The Ossuary (Bones Manor)

Amelia Bones put down her copy of the Daily Prophet and ordered her house-elf Tibia to fetch a quill and an ink bottle for her. Then Amelia began a letter to Ted Tonks, who was Sirius's law-wizard.

.

Dear Mr Tonks,

I read in today's newspaper that Sirius Black and you are suing the people responsible for those fraudulent Harry Potter books, one of whom is Albus Dumbledore.

I'm writing you as the concerned aunt of Susan Bones, one of many magical children who read those books and believed they were true.

A little over a month ago, 1st August, I interviewed Dumbledore about Harry Potter's life. I conducted this informal interview mainly as a favour for my niece Susan. Every word that I said or that Dumbledore said was written down with a Dicta-Quill. I'm sending you a copy of what the Dicta-Quill wrote down.

I didn't question Dumbledore in my role of Director of the DMLE, only as Susan's aunt. Nonetheless, I point out that lying to an Auror is a crime, even if the Auror in question is buying bangers at the butcher shop at the time.

Amelia Bones

P.S. Please tell Sirius that I hope he's doing well.

.

Amelia did not write in her letter that, whilst asking Dumbledore the questions that Susan could not ask was a reason for Amelia questioning the wily wizard, it was not the only reason. Amelia had hoped that Dumbledore would incriminate himself by lying to her, and he had done exactly this.

An hour later
Hogwarts SOW&W

Amelia had gathered enough evidence. She and five Aurors showed up at Hogwarts to arrest Dumbledore for crimes related to his treatment of Harry Potter: child endangerment (multiple counts), criminal negligence, kidnapping and accessory to child abuse.

Furthermore—Amelia did not write this down anywhere, but it was a big factor in her deciding to make the arrest—Director Ragnok had told Amelia that Dumbledore would be arrested by the goblins if he entered Gringotts. Which meant that Dumbledore would be unable to bag up coins enough to bribe anyone to release him from DMLE custody, or to bribe anyone to acquit him at his trial.

Amelia, once she arrested Dumbledore, wanted him to stay arrested, then to be convicted by the Wizengamot, then to be imprisoned at Azkaban, then to stay imprisoned. Was it too much to ask that someone rich and powerful face justice too?

So Amelia arrested Dumbledore. Alas, by 11 a.m., before Amelia even had finished the parchmentwork, the "Leader of the Light" was a free wizard again. Why? Because Fudge pardoned him.

Cornelius Fudge, when told by Dumbledore that the Hogwarts headmaster could not pay for a pardon, smiled like a shark and said, "I'll pardon you without a bribe, then you'll owe me a favour."

When Amelia heard this, she was almost frustrated enough to scream.

Ten days later
Wednesday, 18th September; afternoon

Professor Andromeda Tonks and Harry were having their third weekly tea since Professor Tonks had been hired at Hogwarts. Harry, with Professor Tonks's okay, always invited Hermione and Professor Snape to attend these teas, for which Hermione was fully thankful.

Both adults could fill conversation with talk about potions, of course, but their different perspectives fascinated Hermione. Professor Snape enjoyed theoretical research, whilst Professor Tonks, a Healer, was interested in the practical uses for whatever potions she brewed.

But what much more fascinated Hermione was that all three other people at tea had a connexion to the Muggle world: Harry and Professor Snape were Muggle-raised, and Professor Tonks had married a Muggle-born.

Hermione learnt so much during these teas. Last week, Professor Tonks tactfully, and Professor Snape with brutal honesty, both had told Hermione that she raising her hand to answer every question in every class only resulted in the other students hating her. If she wanted to have friends, Hermione was told, she needed to share the glory—to be the second or third student to raise his or her hand, or to raise her hand only when nobody else could answer the professor's question.

Hermione had been told this by the Potions professors a week ago, and in the last week she had changed how she had acted in class. She had been shocked to discover that when she let others answer questions in class and earn points for a correct answer, she no longer was hated as the "know-it-all" anymore.

For the first two of these teas, Hermione had enjoyed the time spent together, and she suspected that Professor Snape also had enjoyed this social gathering (but it was hard to tell with him). It had been easy to tell that Harry and Professor Tonks also had enjoyed the tea, biscuits and conversation.

But today? Harry's body was here, and he occasionally spoke—but clearly his mind was elsewhere. What has Harry so distracted? Hermione wondered.

"Miss Granger," Snape said now, "are you aware that you and Mr Potter are the most-discussed first-year students amongst the professors?"

Hermione glanced at Harry; he had not reacted. Hermione asked, "What are you professors saying about us?"

Professor Tonks was beaming. "Everyone agrees that Harry shows breathtaking levels of leadership."

Harry did not react to the compliment.

Professor Tonks looked at Hermione again; now she was no longer smiling. "As for you, dear..."

Professor Snape said, "In your case, after two and a half weeks in this school, a clear pattern has emerged. A pattern that is," he paused, "of concern."

"What sort of pattern?" Hermione asked. "Why the concern?" Hermione felt panic.

Snape, instead of answering those questions, said, "Tomorrow you have an essay due for Professor Tonks. Have you finished it?"

"Oh, yes. Days ago."

"May we see it?"

The essay was "When do you stir a potion clockwise, when do you stir a potion anticlockwise, and when do you make both sorts of stirs in the same potion?" Hermione found the essay in her book bag and laid the essay on the table.

Harry barely glanced at it.

"Hermione, you've done it again," Professor Tonks said in a neutral voice.

Hermione wanted to scream WHAT IS IT I'VE DONE? But she said nothing.

Professor Snape asked, "What is the assigned length for this essay?"

Professor Tonks and Hermione said in unison, "Twelve inches."

"As I thought," Professor Snape replied.

He then conjured a yardstick, and laid it on the parchment. "Your essay is twenty-six inches." As he vanished the yardstick, he looked at Hermione with a raised eyebrow. "Going so far beyond the limit as you have, could be seen as rambling."

"Professor, I never ramble," Hermione replied, her face red. Rambling people were undisciplined, and she was never that!

Then Hermione said, with a pleading face, "I want to show that I understand the material."

"Hermione, dear," said Professor Tonks, "by now, even the professors who teach only older students are aware that you, Miss Hermione Granger, already know the subject when you pick up a quill. Listen, you already have proven this to us in only two and a half weeks. Move on."

Professor Snape now conjured a self-inking quill and a meterstick. He laid the meterstick on Hermione's essay.

"Here is what I would do, were I still teaching first-year dunderheads. Twelve inches is 30.5 centimetres." Hermione nodded; she understood the conversion.

At 30.5 centimetres below the top of Hermione's first handwritten line, Professor Snape drew a dashed red line.

Professor Snape continued, "I would allow you another 10 percent—that's 3.0 centimetres. But at 33.5 centimetres below the top of your first written line, I would draw a solid red line"—Snape did this. "Any text that fell under or after this red line, I would ignore." His eyes bored into Hermione's. "I completely would ignore. I would not so much as glance at."

Hermione gulped. "That's half of this essay ignored!"

Professor Snape then vanished the self-inking quill and the meterstick, as he again looked at Hermione with a raised eyebrow.

Harry only glanced at Hermione's essay that now had two red lines drawn on it.

Hermione was too intimidated to ask the question that she was burning to ask, but Professor Tonks asked it: "Why is it important to us professors, Hermione, that you not write so much?"

"Erm, because you lot hate grading essays, and you don't want to spend extra time grading mine."

Professor Tonks laughed. "True, true. But in your case, this isn't the only reason."

Snape's eyes stared into Hermione's eyes. "I do not doubt that someday you will rise to speak about a matter that is important to you. People will be much more willing to listen to you if they can count on the fact that you will speak briefly. Do you hear me? Brevity is a practise that will serve you well, both in Hogwarts and afterwards."

Hermione commented, "That's a quite Slytherin reasoning for why I should shorten my essays."

Professor Snape showed a tiny smile. "I consider that a compliment. Thank you."

Professor Tonks said to Hermione, "You understand, I trust, that meeting the twelve-inches requirement by writing small, breaks the spirit of the length-requirement?"

Hermione nodded, then sat up straight. "I will endeavour for brevity from now on."

Harry's face suddenly became alive, and his eyes suddenly became aware of their surroundings. He asked Professor Snape, "May I see your Dark Mark?"

Hermione and Professor Tonks both gasped in shock at Harry's question.

With clear reluctance, Professor Snape pulled up his left sleeve and revealed the Dark Mark on his left forearm. (Though at the moment, the disfiguration was a Light Grey Mark.)

Harry asked Professor Snape, "If I can remove this from your arm, do you want me to?"