First off, for the people who want to have some idea of what Harry's hair looks like: check out the pics on http/users.pandora.be/exarikun/files/pics/adp/
You'll see two pics of a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R sports bike too, that's Harry's.

A Different Path

Chapter 3

Harry was enjoying himself. Very much so. The reasons for his amusement were lying on an extra-large bed, courtesy of the Room of Requirement. Upon his arrival, the Room had promptly provided him with a bed to deposit his sleeping friends in. Having developed a bit of a pranking streak in his away time, he couldn't resist arranging his friends in all sorts of positions and pairs to gleefully take their pictures with his modified digital camera. Currently he had Neville lying near the middle of the bed, with Ginny cuddled on one side of him and Luna on his other side. Both were hugging him and he had his arms around their waists. Above them, he'd positioned Ron, who had a sleeping Hermione on his chest. Ron was snoring in typical Ron fashion, which of course was none too softly, and was drooling from the corner of his mouth to boot. He'd positioned Hermione in such a fashion that she had one leg nestled between Ron's legs, and then made it look like she was sucking her thumb much like a newborn. He'd refrained from transfiguring their clothes, as he didn't want to invade their privacy. Might have been fun though, to see the girls wearing a baby doll...

Grinning, he figured he had enough pictures to embarrass the hell out of them whenever he needed, so he nullified the sleeping spell over his friends. Without the spell keeping them asleep they'd wake up in a couple of minutes. He entertained himself by thinking of the possible ways they could react when waking. Whatever they did, he was guaranteed to get some laughs from it.

Neville was the first to stir. He made motions as if to turn over and get some more sleep, but the presence of a body on either side of him prevented that. Waking up somewhat more, he frowned when he found his movements restricted. His arms and hands began to feel what the restriction could be, and from Harry's point of view it looked like he was groping both Luna and Ginny. Suddenly his hand found it's way to Luna's breast and squeezed, which caused her to let out a low moan and Neville's eyes to shoot open. When he realised where he was, whom he was holding, and where, he froze up completely. By now, Harry had stuffed his fist in his mouth to contain his laughter. Neville's posture reminded him of the time he'd had a full body bind cast on him. His sides hurt from keeping his mirth under control. When Luna suddenly tightened her hold on Neville's waist and mumbled something about teddy bears Harry couldn't take it any longer. He burst out laughing, and laughed so hard that he fell out of his seat.

His outburst served the purpose of waking everyone else up. Looking around, still very sleepy, the first few moments none of them caught on to their compromising positions. Ginny was the first catch it and, after squawking loudly, she scrambled away like a madwoman. After that it became a free-for-all scramble competition. Luna was the only one that was calm about it all. Having hauled himself up so as to not miss any of the action, this display only made Harry laugh even harder than he was. He was gasping for air every now and then, only to break out in a new bout of gut-busting laughter.

Harry couldn't stop laughing. By now, his friends were all staring at him as if he was crazy. But Ginny was rapidly growing irritated with the laughter. She grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it straight at Harry, who stopped laughing the moment the pillow hit him in the face. When the pillow fell away from him, it revealed a shocked looking Harry. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that particular reaction. But the shocked look didn't last long though. It soon morphed into a devilish grin. A grin that grew bigger as a big pile of pillows appeared next to him.

"PILLOWFIGHT!" He yelled. And began throwing pillows at all his friends. More piles of pillows began to appear near his friends too, courtesy of the Room, and they began to retaliate. Pillows flew through the Room in all directions. It had started out as Harry vs. Friends, but it had dissolved in a free-for-all after Ron accidentally whacked Neville with a pillow. After nearly 10 minutes of whacking and getting whacked with pillows, all 6 friends collapsed on the bed, breathing hard.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Where have you been?" At this, Harry chuckled.

"Don't ever change, Hermione."

Nothing was said for a few minutes. Hermione was about to ask her question again when Harry spoke.

"I can't tell you where I've been because I don't trust Dumbledore to leave you alone about it. I refuse to put myself back under his control and manipulations. He'll do everything he can think of to regain control over me. If you don't know where I was, he can't get it out of you."

"Harry! You can't say that about Professor Dumbledore. He doesn't try to control you, he just wants to keep you safe." Hermione admonished.

"That's not true. At least not entirely. He does want me safe, but not for the reasons you're thinking off. I'll prove to you that he IS trying to control and manipulate me. But first, how long was I gone?"

"You don't know?"

"I know how long it was for me, but not how long it was for all of you. I know the two periods aren't the same in length. Something to do with time dilations or some such..."

Most of his friends looked at him with confusion, but Hermione and Luna both had speculative looks on their faces.

"You were gone for two and a half months Harry." Luna responded.

"Hmm. I see. Well then, what was two and a half months for you was two and a half years for me."

"You were gone for more than 2 years?" Neville asked, disbelief written across his face. Harry nodded.

"Yep. So I had quite some time to think and reflect on a lot of things. Also, I believe you've all earned the right to know the content of the prophecy you risked your lives for. I don't care what Dumbledore thinks, you have a right to know."

"Wasn't the prophecy destroyed?"

"No. That was just a recording of the original. They keep recordings of all prophecies at the Ministry it seems. The original was, as ironic as it may seem, given by Trelawney and witnessed by who else but the old man himself."

"Trelawney? But she's a fraud! She never made any predictions that came true." Ron said with no small amount of disgust.

"Actually, she did. She predicted that Pettigrew would be found and would rejoin his master. That was her second real prediction. The first one was about me. And this is what it said." Harry took a deep breath and started to repeat the prophecy as he'd heard it from Dumbledore's pensieve.

'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hands of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.'

Silence descended in the room. None of his friends knew what to say to that.

"You don't believe that, do you mate? I mean, it's Trelawney that made it, so what are the chances of it being true?" Ron voiced his opinion.

"I do believe it and it's genuine too. I wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't. It's only because of the prophecy that I survived the accident. It protected me. But that's all I can say about it for the moment. I wanted you to know what you all risked your lives for. Don't worry, I've got it pretty much covered. But I said I was going to prove that Dumbledore wants to control me. First you should know that I've been back for about 2 days. I'm sorry that I didn't contact you sooner, but I needed to find out some things. One of the things I found was that I inherited a lot from Sirius. And as he was still designated my guardian, on his death my family's inheritance became available to me too. Among all that I inherited was a copy of my parents last will. I read it out of interest, and found it clearly specified that under no circumstances was I to be left with the Dursleys, and gave the reasons why. Sirius was supposed to get custody of me. Yet as you can see Dumbledore royally ignored the will. And before you say that maybe he didn't know what the will said, I'll tell you that Dumbledore was the executor of the will, so he knew damn well what was in it. But instead, he decided that he knew best and left me with them. After that he never lifted a finger, even though he knew how I was being treated by them."

"Harry, how can you be certain he knew how you were being treated? I mean, he couldn't have kept an eye on you the entire time, he has other duties too…" Hermione countered.

"Ok, that's a fair argument. Here's my response. I went back to Privet Drive and scanned the house. The blood magic ward that protected me are there. So he didn't lie about that. I was safe there, from everybody but the Dursleys. I also found no less than 25 charms that relay everything that happens in that house back to his office here at Hogwarts. It's literally swarming with spying charms so he knew damn well what was happening at any given time. He personally sent me my Hogwarts letter, and it was addressed to 'The Cupboard Under the Stairs'. I think that should tell you that he knew enough of how I was being treated." He looked at Hermione to see if she understood what he was telling her. Apparently she did, as an uncertain look crossed her face. He didn't like destroying people's confidence in someone, but in this case he had no choice.

"Instead of just telling you everything, I'll give you some facts and see if you can come to the same conclusion as I have about the next. What do you all know about the Fidelius charm?"

As usual, Hermione was the first to answer. "The Fidelius charm conceals an object or person and only one person knows the location of what's being concealed. That person is called a 'secret keeper' and he or she is the only one that can tell others where to find what is concealed. The secret keeper can reveal the location to another person through the use of a key phrase, however that person will not be able to pass on the information.

"Very good Hermione. As usual…" Harry said with grin. That grin didn't last long though. "Now comes the unpleasant part. What do we know about the secret keeper for my parents?"

"That it was Pettigrew, not Sirius as everyone thought. They switched because they thought no one would suspect Pettigrew to be the secret keeper. But since he was a Death Eater…" Hermione left the rest unsaid.

"Right. But, and here I want you to think carefully, just moments after the attack Dumbledore knew about it and was able to send Hagrid to the place where they lived. What does that tell you?"

Understanding dawned on Hermione's face, but it was Luna that answered first.

"It shows that he knew where they were and that means he had been told by the secret keeper."

"Exactly! And that means that he knew who the secret keeper was. So tell me this. Why didn't he speak up when Sirius was sent to Azkaban without even a trial? He knew who the real secret keeper was, and yet he never said anything. He even went so far as to say how shocked he was that Sirius would do such a thing. So that begs the question, why?"

Everyone, save Luna, looked shocked at these revelations. They never imagined that their Headmaster, whom they all trusted, would do such a thing. Luna had figured it out when she'd first come to the conclusion that Dumbledore had known whom the real secret keeper was.

"He never said anything, because if Sirius Black was free then he would claim custody over you. And he didn't want that because he knew what kind of people your aunt and uncle were. He was counting on the fact that you would see him as your savior when you got your letter. That way he could mold you as he saw fit."

Harry looked at Luna with newfound respect in his eyes. He knew she was smart, she was a Ravenclaw after all, but she managed to put the pieces together faster than anyone else had, even Hermione. He nodded at her.

"That's exactly right Luna. And it worked, I did see him as my savior from the Dursleys. But he made a couple of big mistakes in his dealings with me. And the one of the biggest ones was during the summer after fourth year. I'd just witnessed someone being killed, had seen Voldemort being reborn, and only just escaped death myself. And what does he do? He puts me in a communications blackout. Everyone knows that with experiences like that you need to be able to talk to people about it, to come to terms with what happened. As if that wasn't enough, he then almost completely ignored me during all of fifth year and simply began ordering me to do what he said, with the prime example of me needing to learn Occlumency. Never once did he explain to me why I needed to learn it, just that it was of vital importance that I do as he said. Then to top it off, I had to learn from the one person I despised most of all in this entire school."

At this point, Harry took a few moments to calm down, because he'd promised himself that he wouldn't lose his temper again. But whenever he thought about what the old man had done to him, he couldn't help but become angry. He took another deep breath and continued.

"Then, because he never told me why I needed to learn it and because Snape can't teach to save his life, I fell for Voldemorts trap. Because of me, all of you followed me to the DoD and all of you got hurt in the process. Don't argue with me, that's how it happened. And in case I haven't done it yet, I want to thank all of you again for standing with me, even on something so dangerous and insane."

All Harry's friends nodded their acceptance of his thanks. They could see that he wasn't beating himself up over the fact that they got hurt and that he respected their choices.

"Sirius died because he came to our rescue. I've accepted that, and I've moved on, vowing I'll never forget his or anyone's sacrifice. But immediately afterwards, without even giving me time to grieve for him, he shows me the prophecy and basically tells me it's all up to me. That I have to kill or be killed. He told me that when I was 15 and was in shock about what had all happened before."

Harry paused again to let everything he'd said sink in. He was used to his reasons and thinking, but his friends weren't.

"Do you understand now why I'll never trust him again? He doesn't work for the greater good like he claims to, he works for his vision of what should be done. And while doing so he uses people without any regard of their thoughts and feelings. To him people are nothing but pawns in his quest to stop Voldemort. And no matter how good that goal is, if you don't see the people that fight against the darkness and injustice and risk their lives as people, then you're no better then Voldemort."

He looked at all his friends and saw they were weighing his words, thinking about everything he said. Good. That meant they didn't just accept his words a truth because he'd said them. That was what he wanted, people who thought for themselves, not mindless drones who asked how high he wanted them to jump when he told them too.

True to his usual self, Ron wasn't a big thinker. He was more of a strategist, as was shown in his chess games and thoughts about Quiddich. So he mulled over Harry's words and found that they did have truth in them. That done, he asked the question he'd been wanting to ask ever since he'd seen Harry again.

"Harry?"

"Yeah Ron?"

"What's with the long hair?"

There. Finally done. Tell me what you think. I haven't given any clues to with what the story crosses over, but would somebody like to make a guess? I'll give a hint and say it's an anime.