Chapter 04 Dumbledore 0 - Granger 1
Disclaimer: Even if I was female I wouldn't be JK Rowling. I'm just an alien vacationing in her world.
Dumbledore and the staff were sitting down to the evening meal when plates, platters, utensils, goblets, paintings, tapestries, Armor and other items vanished. Dumbledore's golden chair was gone leaving the old man sitting, for an instant, on nothing but air.
Screaming, "NOOOOO!" Dumbledore picked himself up off the floor and raced for his office. Most of his library was gone, his beautiful, priceless pencive, Fawlks perch, along with Fawlks herself, gone. His secret library, empty. It had taken him years to decrypt as much of those books as he had, and now they, and his notes, were gone. He found that without his notes he couldn't remember a word of the pages he had decrypted.
Suddenly he screamed again as he began frantically patting himself down. His wand, his precious Elder wand, was no where to be found. Dumbledore gasped and began another frantic search. His power potions were gone, hundreds of galleons worth of ingredients, gone. As he sat down to think this through, he had another panic attack! 'Potter knows his heritage! Oh bugger! Three quarters of a century of planning and plotting up in smoke. Hopefully he won't have any advisers that can really advise him.'
"Gelt Master, do you know what a horcrux is?" Hermione asked. The king thundered, "How do you know of such evil, child?" "There is one in your bank at this very moment Sire. It's in the vault of Bellatrix LaSrange. It is the cup of Helga Hufflepuff.
"I'm sorry, there are actually two in your bank right now Gelt Master. Before I tell you where the second one is, please tell me you can remove those horrid things without destroying the container." Hermione pleaded. "It can be done, but the item must be very valuable because it's expensive to remove the spirit fragment." The king responded.
"Can one be removed from a living organism?" Hermione asked, looking at the floor. When the king didn't respond for several seconds she looked up at the him. The powerful old goblin was staring at Harry in shock. "It is him isn't it miss Granger?" Starting to sob, Hermione fell to her knees. "Yes sire." She whispered, unable to say it out loud.
"Riddle didn't know he made that one." Hermione said, fighting back sobs. He was going to use Harry's death to create one, but he didn't stop to think that he had already torn his spirit with the murder of Lilly Potter who didn't use force against him, but pleaded for her sons life, and gave her own to save her precious child.
"He slaughtered an innocent and that tore his spirit. We will probably never know what happened in Godric's Hallow that night, but we do know Tom Riddle's body was banished, or destroyed right out of his robes. Riddle fled the scene as a wraith, but the torn fragment of his evil spirit lodged it's self in the cut on Harry's forehead."
"Calm yourself miss Granger. The young Lord will not be harmed by this. The priests will need the rest of the day to prepare but tonight they can rid Lord Potter of this evil." The king told the worried girl. Harry was looking at Hermione like he didn't know who she was.
"Hermione? How do you know all this stuff, and don't, even, try saying you red about all this in a book!" Harry demanded. Hermione looked nervously at Madam Bones and began to explain. "I'm from the future. I sent my essence back from a future where literally everything was gone. Great Britain was a nuclear waste land. I was one of a few dozen survivors.
"Even we were dying from radiation poisoning. Somehow Headquarters was left mostly intact. I used a spell to detonate my magical core to power a runic array I had set up to cast my spirit and my soul back to this time. My younger self allowed me to blend with her in order to give Harry the chance Dumbledore and his hording information, information that Harry, and I, needed to do what he should have done.
"Dumbledore convinced my Harry that he had to die in order for Riddle to die. Yet there is a prophecy that only Harry can defeat Riddle. My Harry walked out into the Forbidden Forest and allowed Riddle to kill him. Well, Riddle was unstoppable. Even the Killing Curse couldn't touch him. It took the Americans dropping nuclear bombs on all of Great Britain to stop the monster, at the cost of all life here. Britain would be a wasteland for a very long time after that. All because Dumbledore wanted to be the one to defeat Tom Riddle."
"Miss Granger, forgive me but who is this Tom Riddle, and what about Voldemort?" Amelia asked. "Tom Marvolo Riddle was born after a near squib named Merope Gaunt gave a Muggle named Tom Riddle a glass of cold water on a hot day. The water was laced with a love potion. After she was pregnant she stopped giving Riddle Senior the potion, why, we will never know. Riddle ran home claiming to have been bewitched. Tom Marvolo Riddle was born in a Muggle orphanage and his mother died shortly afterward.
Hermione took out her wand, after asking the king for permission. She wrote, TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE, in the air in flaming letters, then rearranged them to spell out, I AM LORD VOLDEMORT. "As you can see Voldemort is an anagram of his real name. Vol de mort is French for flight of, or from, death, you see Riddle is terrified of death.
"By his bad choices, Dumbledore created, or at least helped create the monster we now face. He then put Harry in similar circumstances and Harry could have, more likely should have, turned into yet another dark lord, and yet, here is my sweet, adorable Harry. So kind, caring, willing to die without lifting a finger to save himself.
"Dumbles seemed to be trying to prove or disprove the old theory about nature or nurture. Two boys placed in similar environments, yet polar opposites. Why? I don't know, nor do I care. Well, actually I do care. Dumbledore sealed the Potter will, put Sirius Black in Azkaban without a trial, without questioning, let alone questioning under the affects of Verituserium. All so he could manipulate Harry.
"Madam Bones, Sirius wasn't the Potter secret keeper and Dumbledore knew it. He's the one that cast the charm. As you may know, the secret can not keep it's self. No one living under the secret can be the keeper of the secret. The keeper can visit, for short periods, but can not live under the secret.
"That precluded Lilly Potter from casting the charm, as well as making her and James unable to be the Secret Keeper. Peter Pettigrew was the Secret Keeper, Sirius made everyone think he was in order to protect Peter. It was Peter, not Sirius that blew up the street killing those twelve Muggles." Hermione held up her hand to forestall Amelia's objection.
"Peter Pettigrew, along with James and Sirius, became an Animagus so they could keep Remus Lupin company on nights of the full moon. Peter is a, get this, rat, Animagus. In all the confusion, Peter cut off and dropped his severed finger, transformed in to the rat he is, and escaped into the sewer his spell and the ruptured Muggle gas main broke open.
"I believe Pettigrew was on that particular street because he knew there was a Muggle gas line there and he planned on blowing it up to augment the destruction caused by his spell. Right now Pettigrew is at the Burrow with Ronald Weasley. He has spent the last twelve years living there as first Percy's, and now Ronald's, pet rat. He needed to live with wizards so he could hear any hint of his master's return." With that Hermione fell silent.
"Sirius is... He didn't... Of course he didn't, he couldn't! I was there when he took the Godfather Oath. Bloody HELL! I was there when James and Lilly... Why didn't I... How could I..." "Madam Bones, you were under Compulsion charms and Obliviations not to remember those things.
"Ma'am, you have no idea of the things Dark Lord Dumbledore is capable of, nor what he has done in the past. He is worse than Tom Riddle has ever been. Ma'am you and Susan were supposed to die along with the rest of your family that night. Only the fact that at the last minute you decided to spend some time with Susan and take her to a Muggle movie, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, saved your life and hers.
"Dumbledore had his pet Death Eater leak your location and the lies that you were pushing to have Riddle manor destroyed because you suspected Voldemort was using it as his hideout. Dumbledore may not go out and murder people, but that doesn't mean he doesn't murder them just the same."
"I, I never even told Susan I hadn't planned to take her out that night." "Ami, we became friends in the war. I know a lot about you, and Susan. I could tell you some of your fears, hopes... I don't want us to become friends like that again. Er, rather I don't want us to have to become friends like that.
"Gelt Master, I know you don't like to become involved in the affairs of wizards, but if you don't, and I am, not, threatening you, you and all your people will be hunted to the very depths of Gringotts and killed. Your entire race, at least in Great Britain, will be systematically wiped out.
"Please don't get all arrogant on me and say it can't happen, I'm telling you it did happen. We need your help. I know where the Horcruxes are, Harry has the money, you know he has, he will pay you to," "No. Lord Potter will pay nothing. I can not conceive of any way that this Tom Riddle wizard can harm my people, WAIT miss Granger, but I can see your heart, and it tells me to believe what you tell me.
"Give me the locations of these abominations and I will retrieve them and eliminate them. If the Item is valuable it will be turned over to you for what you are doing for my people." "Gelt Master, do you have access to a pencieve?" "Yes miss Granger. Why do you ask?"
"I know your people value warriors, even from among other races, and I wish you to see a true warrior in action. As a result of what you will see, you will have a chance at a rare delicacy I think you will want to know about as well as enjoy the battle this warrior fought to defeat this foe." "Steward, bring my pencieve."
"First I offer my own memory of another battle you might find amusing." Again getting permission, Hermione drew her wand and withdrew a memory. The king did enjoy seeing Harry's bravery in facing the troll to save Hermione. "May I have a copy of that memory? Some of my people claim humans are cowards, I would like them to see that." "Harry, do you mind?" Hermione asked. "No, that's fine. It was kind of funny seeing it from your point of view."
Next Hermione got Harry to let her take his memory of the events of the Chamber of Secrets. After that was over the king asked for a copy of that memory too. He also offered Harry a, not so small, fortune for the basilisk. Harry agreed to sell the remains of the beast, after being told that it was his by right of conquest.
Amelia was beyond angry! Way beyond. Her Susan had been in mortal danger and she hadn't been informed. It was even worse when Harry mentioned First year, Quirrel, the Cerberus, the Philosophers Stone, and Dumbledore's warning about the third floor corridor. Of course the king wanted to see that as well. When the memory finished Amelia was almost glowing she was so hot under her collar.
"I will castrate that Bas," "No madam!" Harry cried. "Did you know the woman? She may be turning over in her grave because of what he has done." Amelia agreed and toned down her rant about Dumbles ancestry. The goblin king agreed, saying that as far as he knew the woman was a decent human.
"Now I just need to find Sirius and get him a trial." Amelia said. "Madam Bones, Dumbles isn't the only one guilty of throwing an innocent man into Azkaban. Barty Crouch Senior and, at that time, Senior Undersecretary Cornelius Fudge all agreed to it. I know where Sirius will be and we can contact him then." Hermione told her.
"Alright, good. One thing I can't figure out, why did Dumbledore agree to put Sirius in prison if he knew Sirius was innocent?" Amelia asked. Hermione answered, "Control. He could not control Harry and raise him as his sacrificial lamb if he couldn't actually, control, Harry.
"From putting Harry in an abusive environment to keeping him ignorant of his true heritage, he made Harry willing to die for Dumbles supposed, Greater Good. Harry couldn't grow up loved and wanted, he had to be weakened and compliant and he needed to see Dark Lord Dumbledore as his hero and mentor. Sirius would never let Harry go to his aunt even for ten minutes, let alone to live there! He knew what those people were like.
"Now, we need to arrange for Sirius to get a trial and we need to sneak Sirius into the courtroom ahead of schedule. Then we can get Fudge voted out and get a good person elected minister. We can kick Dark Lord Dumbledore in the teeth at the same time.
Amelia was going to have Aurors go pick up Pettigrew. Hermione changed the selection of the Aurors she sent with the promise of explaining why later. Lightfoot, Williams, Thompson, and Alderton went. They came back a half an hour later with Pettigrew in magic suppression cuffs, ankle manicals, and a collar.
Sirius was free, Crouch Senior was sent to Azkaban, but an Auror canceled the Imperious Curse on Crouch Junior before Restraining him and Junior escaped. Dumbledore slithered out of all that with only a slight loss to his power base. But at least Harry didn't have to go back to the Dursley's.