A/N: I don't normally use the "Tortured by the Dursleys" angle in my stories, but it plus the Harry gets punished for skipping the feast trope fit together too well.

Harry Potter was sitting at breakfast on Saturday morning completely in a rage. The entire year – outside of having exactly two friends he did not have before – was showing him that his decision was a sound one. He completely loathed the Magical world and his research as to how to be kicked out of it would need to be stepped up.

It was strange for an eleven-year old Wizard to be thinking such things, but that was where Harry Potter was at this moment. He was definitely not looking forward to the "meeting" he was supposed to have after breakfast in the Headmaster's office.

The unpleasant looks from the Headtable from the Professor McGonagall, the disappointed look from the Headmaster, the confused look from Hagrid, and the glee from Professor Snape were all a bit much for him to take.

Suddenly, at 8:45, fifteen minutes before his "meeting" was scheduled, the doors to the Great Hall opened suddenly and several people came in. One was a portly, older man with an ugly green bowler hat. Another was a woman who looked to be in her fifties with red robes leading two others with the same roads, and the last was a hideous woman in lime green robes with horrible glasses; it truly looked like she thought she was attractive but Harry thought otherwise.

The Headmaster stood to greet the arrivals. Before he could say anything the man in the bowler held out a newspaper and said, "Dumbledore! Is this true?" while waving the paper.

The Headmaster tried to calm the man down. "I don't know what you are referring to, Minister Fudge." Harry's eyes widened – maybe this man could help him get kicked out.

"What today's Prophet said about Harry Potter!" Everyone looked to the sullen boy – he was as confused as any.

The ugly woman said, "Minister – the paper hasn't been sent out. You received an advanced copy."

The Minister stopped and said, "Oh." Looking around at the students the man called, "Harry Potter? Come here, please."

Harry was honestly surprised that the man had said 'please' – no one else ever did. Harry stood up and walked forward. The man shoved the paper in his hand to Harry and said, "Is this true?"

Harry curiously took the paper and read the headline. "HARRY POTTER TRYING TO GET EXPELLED FROM HOGWARTS IN EFFORT TO LEAVE THE WIZARDING WORLD!"

Harry handed the paper back. "Yes."

The visitors looked at him in shock. The staff was confused. Dumbledore asked, "May I see the paper?"

One of those in the red robes took it and gave it to the Headmaster, who looked at it and then blanched slightly. "Perhaps we can take this to my office – we had a meeting scheduled with the boy."

Harry crossed his arms and shook his head. "No. We can talk about it right here as it has everything to do with the people in the room."

Severus Snape, who hadn't seen the paper, said with a snide voice, "And our Celebrity gets special treatment once more. I am looking forward to seeing your punishment."

Harry looked at the staff, who ignored the man, and the visitors who stood agape, and said, "There is one of the major reasons why it's true: I am tired of constant abuse from the staff here." He saw the paper make its way to the man and said, "Professor. Why don't you read the headline out loud so that the students know what is being spoken of?"

Sneering, Snape took the paper and without reading it quietly first, he read out the headline – his face took on a blank look by the end of the line for some reason. Harry was truly expecting more glee.

Suddenly they were interrupted by Professor Quirrell coming in, having been unaware of the gathering. After stopping a brief moment, he nervously walked toward his seat form the main doors.

The Weasley twins, bored, sent a tripping hex at the man as he rushed through the room. Suddenly the man fell headlong and ended up next to Harry Potter. Annoyed by the interruption, Harry went to help the man in order to get this over with.

However, as soon as he grabbed the man's wrist in a firm grasp the help pull him up, a scream came out of the man and Harry jumped back. Kneeling on the ground, Quirrell screamed and snatched the turban off his head – the major pain came from underneath it.

Suddenly, Quirrell dropped and a wraith exited the body. The staff recognized it immediately. "Damn you, Harry Potter! Because of you, I am in this hideous form and once again you defy me! I, Lord Voldemort, will have my revenge!"

After a few screams, the wraith fled the hall. The noise dropped to almost nothing but the fear was palpable. Harry Potter broke it up with his observation, "Damn. If I'd have known he was here, I could have just gotten him to finish the job of killing me and sending me on to my parents."

The entire hall looked at Harry in horror.

Dumbledore once again tried to get this moved elsewhere but the older woman in the red robes motioned him quiet. "Mr. Potter. I am, Amelia Bones, Director of Magical Law Enforcement. These are some of my Aurors. This is the Minister for Magic. May I ask exactly why you would express such a thing – a desire to die and leave the Wizarding world?"

Harry looked at her and saw an honest curiosity and so he decided to answer. "Because once again this world shows me that it utterly hates me. I was supposed to go see the Headmaster after breakfast about the last one – and it's been happening all year."

"What happened last night?"

"I refused to attend a detention – it was part of my work to get expelled."

Amelia turned and asked, "What was the detention?" The staff looked to Hagrid.

"Er. We was going inter the Forest to fin' whats bin killin the unicorns." The Great Hall was agog.

"When was this supposed to happen?"

Harry answered. "11:00. If someone had told me that the detention was in the middle of the night trying to find something strong enough to kill unicorns, I wouldn't have refused. That surely was dangerous enough to get me killed." He huffed. "Unfortunately, it was probably this man who was doing it," he motioned to Quirrell, "as it sounds like something that Voldemort would be doing. Which means that the danger is gone – I'll have to find another way."

Amelia asked, horror still in her voice, "Who else was going to be there?"

"Hagrid, Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, and Draco Malfoy. We're all first years."

"What did you do to earn a detention in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night?"

"We got caught out after curfew. Professor McGonagall penalized Malfoy 20 points and the rest of us fifty points each plus the detention. I think the Professor might be a closet Slytherin – she seems to despise us Gryffindors more than the other houses even though she's Head of House."

Amelia was curious. "How many times were you caught out after curfew before?"

"It was the first time," Harry shrugged.

"Wait. You're telling me that the first time you were punished for this, you lost 150 points between you and were given a detention, as a first year, to help find something in the Forbidden Forest that is strong enough to kill unicorns."

Harry listened and nodded. "Yeah. That's about right. Well, not the first offense for me – I was punished at Halloween which is what started this whole thing. But it was the first offense for the rest."

She and the Minister turned to the staff. "And you consider this level of punishment appropriate four an eleven year olds?"

The staff could really say nothing – laid out like that, it was quite damning. "I don't know why you're so surprised I got such a punishment – they've already demonstrated that they completely hate me. I mean, me losing so many points has caused the entirety of Gryffindor house to treat my like dirt on their shoes and the staff has sat back and done nothing."

"Like what?" she asked.

Harry listed out the things that the Gryffindors had done to him since Halloween – after his first large point loss.

"Of course, I'm surprised that the others got punished so harshly. I thought Hermione was McGonagall's favorite and I know that Malfoy is Snape's favorite. Professor Sprout's favorite seems to be Neville, who gets treated okay by everyone except Snape – who of course absolutely despises him just like the rest of the non-Slytherins."

"Despises them?"

Harry shrugged. "I guess that's why he refuses to explain anything to us and then punishes us for anything, including asking questions, not asking question, breathing too loud, getting our potions sabotaged by his Slytherins – things like that."

Amelia looked at Snape and said, "We'll get back to that later – I've been trying to find why there are no qualified Auror candidates and if he's the Potion Master – that may be why." Snape turned a bit white. "But why were you out?"

Harry sighed. "I don't want to get the only staff member who likes me in trouble."

Amelia sighed. "I hereby promise to not penalize the staff member for whatever their part was."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what."

Harry considered that. "Fine. Hagrid won a Dragon Egg in a poker game and decided to hatch it. Draco Malfoy saw it hatch through a window. Hermione and I helped get the Dragon sent to a dragon reserve and the only time they could pick it up was at midnight on a Saturday night."

Amelia sighed. "And you didn't get any other staff to help because …"

"They all despise me. Or so I assumed."

"Why do you assume that?" she asked curiously.

"Well, it was the only explanation."

"Explanation for what?"

"I didn't feel particularly well and so I wanted to miss the Halloween feast – didn't feel like celebrating. But the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall Percy Weasley to force me to come to the feast. We actually found another student who wasn't there on the way – Hermione had been crying because Ron Weasley had been a prat to her. But seeing me being punished for not attending, she cleaned herself up from crying and came with us. Good thing too – the troll was found in the bathroom she was in. When we found that out, Hermione was thankful and settled down and we became friends. But anyway, when Percy led me into the hall, the Headmaster refused to listen to why I hadn't been there and gave me a fifty-point penalty for not attending. I didn't say anything about Hermione because I thought she had suffered enough. The rest of the staff seemed to agree except Hagrid who didn't look happy about the points. That's why he's the only staff member I like."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, Gryffindor decided to punish me for getting so many points taken away at once. I've been hexed, insulted, ignored – a whole heap of things. The staff just ignored it."

Amelia sighed. The Minister was listening in fascination. The staff looked mildly disagreeable but only mildly. The reporter (or she seemed to be) was writing everything down.

Amelia thought about what she had heard and had a suspicion. "Mr. Potter? Why didn't you want to attend the Halloween feast?"

"Because I honestly didn't think I could celebrate the tenth anniversary of my parents' murder. That's why I know the staff hates me. To them, my refusal to celebrate my parents dying was worth getting tortured all year as well as a fifty point loss. I haven't seen anyone else forced to celebrate a family members death so I figured I must be a specially disliked person to them. I thought I had gotten away from the people I answer to hating me when I left my relatives' house for Hogwarts. I guess I'm destined to be despised by everybody."

Amelia Bones was almost afraid to ask. "What do you mean? Your relatives hate you?"

Harry nodded. "Utterly despise me. Tried to 'beat the freak out' of me. I guessed the staff knew, or at least whoever sends out the letters, because my first letter was addressed to 'The Cupboard Under the Stairs'."

"Why was it addressed that way?" she asked.

Harry shrugged. "Because that was my bedroom until I was moved to Dudley's second bedroom after the letters started coming."

"Dudley's 'second' bedroom?"

"My cousin had a bedroom to sleep in and a bedroom for broken toys that they spoiled him with. That was beside the room for my Aunt and Uncle and a guest bedroom for when my Uncle's sister visited every year. That left me under the stairs."

"And what does it mean 'beat the freak out' of you?"

Instead of answering, Harry threw off his robe and lifted his shirt and bared his back. "Whenever I had accidental magic. Or did better in school than my idiot cousin."

The scars were deep and many. Those who saw the marks were horrified. Several girls in the room were crying. Even the staff was shocked – including, surprisingly, Severus Snape.

Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge turned toward the staff. Apparently, none of them had ever considered talking to the boy – they just started punishing. "Is anything that Mr. Potter just said inaccurate?" she asked the staff.

Dumbledore stood and said, "It seems there have been a great number of misunderstandings. We never intended to imply that we hated the boy – we …"

Amelia interrupted him. "I will be taking Harry Potter to St. Mungoes to be given a thorough checkup as well as to talk to several healers. I will then be returning to investigate this school thoroughly – just the presence of You-Know-Who in the form of a wraith would demand that. But that added to everything else? I will be returning very soon."

Dumbledore tried to protest. "But it wouldn't be safe outside of Hogwarts! Harry Potter must not …"

This time Cornelius Fudge interrupted. "Have you gone absolutely senile? Did you NOT hear what we just heard? Did you not have You-Know-Who possessing your Defense Teacher? And you call this safe? Only by chance were several eleven-year old children not forced into the Forbidden Forest overnight!"

"Don't forget the painful death if one tries to go to the third floor – but that's Fluffy, the Cerebus which the Headmaster borrowed from Hagrid to watch Flammel's Philosophers Stone he's hiding there." Harry decided to tweak as many noses as possible because … well, he really didn't care.

Fudge and Bones looked horrified. Amelia Bones angrily replied, "Expect every Auror available in twenty minutes!"

Harry was led out of a shocked hall by the Minister and the Head of the DMLE. The remaining Aurors started interviewing students and staff.

CHALLENGE: HARRY POTTER: HALLOWEEN PUNISHMENT: Harry Potter is punished for missing the Halloween Feast and it all changes there. What happens to Harry and his attitude when no one even considers it from his own point of view?