Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Sky was enjoying a pint of butterbeer with Dora at the Three Broomsticks a week after the Second Task when the screams started. In a flash he was looking through the window and saw a group of black-cloaked men with white masks throwing spells at the innocent bypassers.
"I gotta go." He turned to Dora and pecked her on the lips. "Be safe." He said knowing she would be out there right after him to join the fight.
"You too." She said wand in her hand and they both rushed through the door.
Sky flashed into the midst of the battle clad in his signature Sparrow outfit: a black cloak, under which he had trousers and a vest which were made of basilisk's skin as well as the boots. He had his wand in his holster and a katana wrapped on his back. His pale face covered in slight facial hair could be seen from under the hood with a hint of longish wavy black hair.
Dark brown eyes gleamed as he took down his first Death Eater. There were five dozen of them all together. Five dozen against the ten Aurors that were stationed in Hogsmeade to keep an eye on the students plus him, Dora and Emily who he saw fighting not too far from him. Luckily seven of the Aurors were Unspeakables and could easily hold their own against several opponents at a time.
Sky whirled through his opponents as if he was dancing, the sharp blade of his katana singing as he stripped them of their sleeves covering the ugly mark that told they had sold their souls to the being worse than the devil. He felt no remorse as he took them down. He knew what was required of those who took the mark. They had to prove they were worthy of it and that meant torture, rape and murder of innocent people. Sky did not consider them human beings anymore.
He was not stupid though. He knew there were those who were truly forced to it against their will, made to do those horrible things under the Imperious curse or some other means. And he knew how to recognize them. Thus by the end of the battle there were ten of those who had not fallen to the Sparrow's blade or the wands of the Unspeakables and instead were bound and unconscious on the ground. The Unspeakables would take them to the DoM and their fate would be evaluated there.
Sky looked around as he slew his last opponent. To his surprise he saw several teachers and Order members that had joined the fight, Dumbledore included. Not in the mood to talk to any of them Sky wiped his sword, sheathed it and turned to leave but was called back.
"Wait!" The voice called and the only thing that kept him from flashing away was the fact that it was Remus who had done it.
Sky turned to face him curiosity in his gaze. Remus gave him a meaningful look and despite his slight surprise did what his godfather wanted.
'Legilimens' He thought and entered Remus' mind with no effort whatsoever. Remus easily let him in.
"I was just in an Order meeting and coming to tell you. The Order has decided on attempting to recruit Sparrow, despite disagreeing with your methods. Dumbledore was mainly against it but was overruled. I haven't had the time to discuss this with Marcus but I think it would be a good idea to do it." Remus' voice came to his mind.
Sky was surprised at this turn of events and while he did not necessarily wish to spend any more time in Dumbledore's presence than he already did, it was true that another set of eyes inside the Order would beneficial.
Sky send Remus his agreement and cut the connection just as Dumbledore and the rest of the Order members reached him.
"Impressive fighting skills, my boy." Dumbledore said jovially making Sky already regret his decision. "Although I must disagree with your methods. Don't you think they deserved a second chance? I'm sure with time they would have realised the error in their ways and redeemed themselves." He continued putting with his disappointed grandfather voice that had no effect on Sky whatsoever apart from making him even more angry.
"Tell that to the dozens of men, women and children they tortured, raped and killed, Headmaster. And that is only in the process of becoming a Death Eater." Sky said coldly his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. Even Dumbledore was momentarily taken aback.
"Yes, well…" He muttered.
"Now what do you want?" Sky asked.
"I was hoping you would consider joining us in our fight against Voldemort." Dumbledore said and launched into all the benefits their cooperation would bring about. Sky tuned him out and focused on keeping his cool. It would not do to behead the old coot at this point. He was still needed. Besides, he was sure Marcus would like the pleasure after learning the history between the two.
Sky realised he had completely missed what Dumbledore had said but from the expectant way he was being stared at, he deducted that they waited for his answer.
"I will consider it." Sky said and turned to leave.
"How will we find you?"
"You won't. I'll find you." He said and flashed away. He needed to make sure Dora and Emily were fine.
A couple of weeks later found Sky once again in his Sparrow persona, sitting around a table at the Order Headquarters which were currently in the house of Hestia Jones, an Order member and one of the few Aurors at Hogwarts who was not an Unspeakable.
He had had the pleasure of surprising the Order by appearing on the meeting uninvited. Thanks to Remus he knew exactly where to go and the wards around the house were not enough to stop his Shadow walker abilities.
After the outrage had died down Sky had been interrogated for his reasons for doing what he did and then made to say the secrecy vows. He had said his own versions of them as there was no way he would pledge himself to Dumbledore in any way, but luckily no-one noted the liberties he took when stating them.
Now he was attending his first Order meeting and was between bored and amused by the naivety of the people in attendance. They truly soaked up everything Dumbledore said to them. They had discussed strategies on how to prevent Death Eater attacks and basically everything even remotely violent was shot down. They could just as well decide to throw their wands at them and hope for the best.
"How's the search for Harry going?" McGonagall asked changing the subject and Sky perked up. Now this was interesting.
"Nothing new, we don't know where to look for anymore." Kingsley sighed.
"Are you sure Black doesn't know where Potter is?" Moody grumbled.
"That drunkard, good-for-nothing…" Snape sneered before he was interrupted.
"Alastor, we have been through this conversation befor…" Dumbledore began.
"Wait, you're not looking for Harry Potter, are you?" Sky asked in a mock astonishment – not that anyone – apart from Remus, perhaps - could tell.
"Yes we are, why, do you know where he is?" Dumbledore replied calmly, though you could see his eyes twinkle in anticipation.
"You mean you don't know?" He was enjoying this too much. At last he was able drop the bomb for the Order. He was curious what their reactions would be when he told them that their prophecy boy was no more.
"Well, why don't you enlighten us, since you seem to know something about him?" Moody grumbled.
"You really have no idea, do you? I can't believe it; all this time you have been wasting your resources to look for the Potter boy." Sky marveled gazing around the room at the faces looking at him with varying expressions from wariness and annoyance to anticipation and dread.
"Please, if you know something tell us." Remus' voice pleaded, playing the part of worried uncle.
"Harry Potter is dead." He said bluntly enjoying the shocked silence.
"What do you mean he's dead?" McGonagall cried her face pale.
"I'm sure you know the definition of "dead", Professor." Sky deadpanned before turning to Dumbledore. "I'm truly amazed at you Headmaster. You have wasted the time and effort of all these people for – I imagine - years to look for the boy when you should well know what happened to him, after all you were the one responsible for it."
"And what do you mean Albus is responsible?" McGonagall asked.
"Well, it was our beloved headmaster here, who put him with those muggles who hated him more than anything in the world, wasn't it? I'm astonished he survived even four years in there." Sky said bluntly.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that they abused him, neglected him, starved him and kept him locked up in a cupboard for years and in the end got fed up with his freakishness and beat him to death when the boy was barely five." Sky said in a casual voice. Inside, he was laughing at the pale faces of his audience and the terrified gasps.
"No!"
"Oh Harry."
"We failed him!"
"How do you know all this?" Moody asked suspiciously.
"I took it from the Dursleys' minds, when I went looking for him."
"Why would you look for Harry?"
"I told you, I want Tom Riddle dead. I wanted to know exactly what happened that night when he disappeared. Plus, it's not every day that you meet a kid with a lord-level power, of course I was curious."
"Lord-level power? Surely you're talking about someone else. Harry didn't have a lord-level power, did he? We would've known if he did." McGonagall said.
"How do we know if he's telling the truth?" Remus asked suspiciously but Sky could see him hiding a smirk. Perfect Moony.
"Does anyone have a pensive?" Sky volunteered. "I could show you, and then you could decide yourself if you believe me."
Dumbledore, who had been silent the whole time since the reveal of Harry's fate, summoned his pensive. Sky took the selected memories of his life with the Dursleys, which he had changed with the help of an Unspeakable from the Mind department to look like they weren't from his point of view as Harry, and put them in the pensive. One by one the order members went into the pensive.
They were looking at the scene when Petunia Dursley opened the door and found the one-year-old Harry Potter in her doorstep. She started screaming, but quickly collected herself when the curious neighbors started peeking through the windows. She took the baby inside and read the letter together with Vernon.
"I don't want that thing in my house near my son!" Vernon boomed.
"What can we do Vernon? The letter says they won't leave us alone, if we don't take the freak."
Vernon mumbled something about threats and read the letter again.
"It says we get 700£ a month if we take him in. We could put him in a cupboard and keep him there." Petunia said.
Vernon pondered it for a moment and then nodded.
"Fine, the boy can stay, but I will beat the freakiness out of him if he ever does anything abnormal!"
The memory faded and the next scene was of a two-year old Harry in over-sized rags watching Dudley play. Dudley tripped to one of his toys and started crying. Petunia came running and immediately blamed Harry for it. She slapped him in the face and dragged him by hair into the cupboard. The memories kept going through Harry's years with the Dursleys. There were a lot of beatings from Vernon and mistreatment from Petunia. The last memory they watched was the final beating and abandonment to the streets.
"Poor kid didn't even know his own name." Sky said sadly though inside he was angry. "If you asked me, I would say that Harry Potter died 31 October 1981 with his parents."
"How could this happen?" McGonagall asked. She had tears falling from her eyes. "Weren't there wards to keep him safe Albus? And why didn't his magic protect him?"
No-one had ever seen Albus Dumbledore look so old. The normal twinkle in his eyes had faded away. He didn't answer the question and put his face in his hands, trying to play on the sympathies of the Order. Only Sky and Remus knew the real reason for his act, his carefully formed plans were crumpled.
"Oh there were wards, weren't there." Sky said sarcastically. "Blood wards, keeping the death eaters away. The reason why he had to go there in the first place and, why you let the ministry throw Sirius Black into the Azkaban without a trial. A lot of good those blood wards did when you didn't even know when they threw him out. You should've known that blood wards don't work if there is no love between the inhabitants. You knew how much Petunia hated her sister and magic, but still you insisted that he goes there. He had no protection against them, no wards, not even his magic." Sky had hard time keeping the bitterness out of his voice when he thought about his life with the Dursleys and how everything was the old coots fault.
"What do you mean he had no magic?"
"Old Dumbles here blocked his magic before leaving him there, didn't you Dumbledore?" Sky said. "That is also the reason you couldn't feel that he was a lord-level wizard."
"Albus, how could you?" McGonagall asked scandalized. "I told you not to leave him with those muggles. He was Lily and James' son!"
"That wasn't a smart thing to do, binding wizard's magic is like saying that he's not worthy of it. You should know that Albus." Moody boomed.
"I did it to keep everyone save. I couldn't leave him with the Dursleys with that kind of power. Surely you can understand that. He might have accidently blown up the house, and Harry wasn't supposed to know about the magical world." Dumbledore tried to reason.
"You shouldn't have left him there in the first place!" Hestia Jones cried.
There were murmurs of agreement all around and Sky smiled inwardly. 'Too bad Sirius isn't here… He would've loved to see this. I shall have to show him the memory. This Order thing is going to be fun after all!'
A/N: Thanks for reading. Please review and tell me what you think.
- Dalnim