Chapter 7: The sort of dark manipulative light lord strikes back.

Beta: Alix33. Thank you. Only playing.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

Previously, on that Halloween night from Chapter 4.

The headmaster sighed. "This is a GGMELE! (A Greater Good Magical Extinction Level Event!) It was time for my fail-safe backup plan, the Omega 13 and ¾! It is just a pity I can't use my phoenix for a grand escape, that would be classic style exit, but I must not appear to be running away and abandoning the students in a time of danger. Six hours stood do it."

Once the decision was made to invoke the Omega 13 and ¾ protocol, the headmaster grew excited and was looking forward to the challenge of fixing the Time-Line for the Greater Good, with proper Machiavellian manipulations, alterations and fine-tuning. His focus would be on the redhead idiot this time and ensure he isolated the boy from the muggleborn witch. He just hoped he didn't have to go back too far to fix the Time-Line, as that would cause a branching and doom the current Time-Line.

The headmaster disillusioned himself and took out the ancient gold Time-Turner that was always around his neck. With one last look at the chaos around the Great Hall, he turned back six hours and departed from the pandemonium of the Goblet of Fire and the Flaming Red Fist of Chastisement…...

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

The fleeing headmaster used his ancient Time-Turner to escape his WDD from the wrath of the Goblet of Fire and its Flaming Red Fist of Chastisement, and arrived still disillusioned in the Great Hall, six hours before he left on that fateful Halloween night. The Hall was empty as the last students left after lunch and the house-elves were not due to start decorating for the Halloween feast for another hour. He quickly waved his Elder Wand over the Goblet of Fire to see what magic was there, but in his haste and anger he used a lot of magic, and inadvertently primed the enchantments, and gave it enough magical charge to power its reaction for what the Goblet of Fire will do in six hours time. His probe listed the names on the parchments placed into the Goblet, and he found the tampered parchment with Ronald's name on it. He also noticed that Krum's entry was missing and he knew he had seen him enter his name. What had the redhead idiot done?

He knew that he couldn't just change the boy's name for the redhead's as that would interfere with the Goblet and he didn't want to risk provoking that nasty flaming fist, and there was more than one mistake to fix in this Time-Line. He needed more time, and the headmaster knew what the cost would be, but sacrifices are needed to be made for his Greater Good.

Finished with the Goblet of Fire for now, Dumbledore decided to go to his secret office that was located underneath his headmaster's office with the entrance hidden behind the revolving stairs. He used that secret office when he was correcting the Time-Line. He was concerned that his departure from the future had not gone unnoticed he checked his map of Hogwarts. He chuckled, while he was loath to share his secrets, he was not one who wouldn't borrow from the brilliance of others, and had made his own version of the 'Marauders Map' after he discovered the secret to their success. Being headmaster allowed him better access to the wards of Hogwarts and his map had a few extra features.

He touched his wand to the parchment and whispered the password. "For the Greater Good."

The outline of the castle quickly appeared showing the location of everyone in Hogwarts. He touched his wand to the rune for 'Spares', and four names lit up in red of the individuals in the castle who were neither students nor staff.

The headmaster cursed his luck and whispered. "They are on to me already, and have hidden themselves around the entrance to my headmaster's office. From their real names I know that they are Unspeakables, sent back to stop my work for the Greater Good, and with Broderick Bode in charge they are not here to take any prisoners alive."

The headmaster chuckled. "The fools are on my turf."

While the headmaster loathed to take a life himself, being the Great Albus Dumbledore and all, but he had got around that little problem of having to remove someone that was in his way, by developing a clever solution. He had created a Special Portkey Stone that had the runes carved into it for sticking, silence and confusion. All he had to do was to active the runes and nominate the destination for the Portkey, wandlessly banish the stone at his victim and whoop-de-doo, the Portkey would stick to the victim and silently transport him through any wards, while the confusion rune would obliviate the victim of his name and his short term memory. Problem vanished. He had used the Special Portkey Stone on poor Caradoc Dearborn when the fool had discover too many of his secrets, and had to go. They never found his body so it was easy to blame Death Eaters. But Caradoc would not have survived too long not knowing his own name or how he got to North Korea.

The headmaster took out four SPS and set the Portkeys to Timbuktu, Baghdad, Tehran and Siberia, and activated them. Silently and disillusioned he approached the first hidden Unspeakable and banished the SPS at him, and he silently left the castle. His three comrades soon followed. He whispered the code word to blank the map. "Sacrifices made."

The headmaster walked behind the revolving stair case and opened the door to his secret office. He took out a piece of parchment and wrote down what he had done over the past week. He had told Minerva that he was attending an ICW committee meeting for the last four days when in fact he was having some personal RnR at the Potter Chateau on the French Riviera. That was the brilliance of having three full time jobs, he always had a reason to be somewhere else, and he knew he could leave Minerva to run Hogwarts while he was gone. He checked his gold sundial and saw it was 4:45 pm. He chuckled, his past self would be returning to the castle via Fawkes in about an hour as the Halloween feast started at 7:00 pm. With a flick of his wand, he opens the headmaster's master administration connection to the wards of Hogwarts and removed the access rights for all the Unspeakables he could remember. With the Halloween feast, the castle was on lock-down so no students could leave the castle and anyone wishing to enter had to be on the approval list of the wards of Hogwarts. Hopefully Croaker will not realize that his hit squad had failed until it was too late to stop him, and there would be no more unwanted visitors.

The headmaster placed the piece of parchment in his pocket. He reached for the gold chain around his neck, and took out his ancient Time-Turner that he had borrowed from the boy's great-grandfather, Aloysius Potter, when they were students at Hogwarts together, and turned back two weeks to give him sufficient time to work out a suitable plan and implement it. He also had to make sure that no one would be able to find him or interfere, including his younger self.

The headmaster spent the first week going over all his memories in the ancient Potter Family's Pensieve that he had also borrowed from that naive fool Aloysius. He examined each memory carefully including the ones he took from the redhead idiot. There was so much to fix for this New Time-Line, from preventing the little blue flying car from entering the castle and saving his pet Death Eater with those poor unfortunate unrepentant souls, stopping Ronald Bilius from interfering with the Goblet, weakening the boy and remove his rebellious streak that was turning him away from the light of Albus Dumbledore and towards the dark, and eliminating the threat to his plans by the muggleborn witch. Plus suitably punishing all who had worked against his Greater Good in the previous Time-Line. Which may seem to be a little unfair as they had not worked against his Greater Good in this Time-Line, but the Greater Good never forgot, never forgave.

After an exhausting week going through thousands of scenarios, the headmaster had arrived at brilliantly simple plan of two innocent tweaks of the Time-Line. He would approach Ronald Bilius while he is trying to work the Levitation charm to enter his name into the Goblet of Fire, and remind him that he would still need his mother's permission to be a champion. Then remind young Ginevra Weasley that her dear mother Molly had to give her father a push in the right direction. Of course he knew how Molly had won the heart of Arthur as he had helpfully given her the idea all those years ago, and Molly has been his most loyal supporter since, and thanks to Molly's potions, so had Arthur for that matter.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

The headmaster checked his map of Hogwarts and found all his minions were near the Goblet of Fire. He timed his entrance into the Great Hall perfectly, just as the third piece of parchment burst into flames with Mr. Finnegan assisting Ronald's frustrated attempt to enter his name the Tournament. The boy was sitting next to the muggleborn witch, trying to get back into her good graces after she had discovered that he had tried to help Ronald circumvent the Age-Line.

"Ah, Mr. Weasley, while I applaud your attempt to circumvent my Age-Line to enter your name into the Tournament, I am afraid that I must remind you that you are underage, and would still require your dear mother's permission. Remember what happened to your twin brothers. Your mother was so disappointed with the twins that she expressed herself quite loudly for everyone to hear." The headmaster said sadly, and then remembered that Molly's howler for the twins didn't arrive until tomorrow morning.

The headmaster's twinkling blue eyes saw that Ronald went white with fear as all thoughts about the thousand galleons vanished, and were replaced with the memory of the howler he received for borrowing the little blue flying car at the start of second year.

The headmaster smirked that the red dunderhead had missed that faux pas, and felt triumphant at the thought of another student's spirit, hopes and dreams being crushed. He left for his next target as waved his hand to send a wandless compulsion hex at the muggleborn witch, and she noticed the very sad expression on Ronald's face. It drew sympathy from her soft caring heart, so that she couldn't resist closing her favourite book, leave the boy behind, and go to comfort Ronald Bilius, while ignoring the even sadder look on boy's face.

The headmaster had perfected wandless compulsion hexes in his third year at Hogwarts. They were the basic tools of a master Machiavellian manipulator, and they had saved him from many unfortunate incidents with misguided thugs who wouldn't accept his lifestyle choices.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

Harry heard Neville's voice as though from a great distance away, ask what did Dumbledore wanted.

"What, oh, the headmaster reminded Ronald that he needed his mother's permission." Harry replied.

"I doubt she would give him permission. What is Hermione doing?"

"She is trying to console him. She is a sucker for those sad big blue Weasley eyes." Harry said, disappointed.

"Sadly yes, and then the dunderhead will say something nasty to put her down and make himself feel better." Neville said. "Hermione deserves better than that."

"You noticed that trait too? He is so much like Draco, and Hermione does deserve better but she always rationalizes his bad behaviour and obnoxious table manners because Ronald is my first friend."

"Hermione is too kind-hearted to be used by that git, and he does put others down to make himself feel better. He does it to me all the time and anyone else who comes too close to you."

"Oh?"

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

The headmaster found his next target sitting a little further along the Gryffindor table, alone and watching her Boy-Who-Lived with longing eyes.

The littlest redhead was so distracted in her daydreams of the Boy-Who-Will-Marry-Her, that she didn't notice the headmaster's presence. After a moment the headmaster spoke. "You know your dear mother had to give your father a push in the right direction."

The headmaster could see the light of an idea glow in the eyes of the littlest redhead. He twinkled his eyes and gently to push into her mind to see that she was thinking of helping two of her friends with love potions. She could help her Boy-Who-Lived to find love and comfort in her arms, while helping the muggleborn witch to learn how to properly serve and care for her Pure-blood brother. He thought that was generous, caring and brilliant.

That was the true brilliance of a master Machiavellian manipulator. To be able to guide his minions to do what he wanted, even if it was stupid, dangerous, bad, wrong, illegal, immoral, against their own true best interest, or just plain evil, and have them think it was all their own brilliant idea. That was the difference between a dark dark lord like Tom who used fear, pain, suffering and murder to control his minions' greed, and a light dark lord like himself who used manipulations to control his minions' egos, wants, desires and plain greed plus a little bit of sacrifice for good measure.

The headmaster remembered how easy it was to get that idiot Black to change secret keepers with the rat, when he played the Marauders' card, 'Oh you would be so obvious, Sirius, but you could be a decoy.' The idiot loved that idea to fool Tom, and he could tell everyone that Sirius was the Secret Keeper as part of the joke. He smiled as he remembered how well that turned out and left him holding the baby, and he certainly got to have the last laugh with the idiot was now trapped in his own private Grimzkaban with his demented mother's portrait, and a crazy bigoted elf.

Then to get the Minister to surround Hogwarts with Dementors after Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban last year, all the headmaster had to do was to inform the Minister that under no circumstances would he tolerate Dementors around Hogwarts. He chuckled as the Minister made it his life mission to enforce his will to protect the students with Dementors. After all he had two Dementors as bodyguards, and they didn't bother him. Now the Minister owes him a big favour for keeping quiet about the three attempts the Ministry's Dementors made on the life of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Then the headmaster made an even bigger fool of the Minister this year. All he had to do was to insist that the Ministry of Magic could not use dragons in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. That was enough to convince the Minister to change the first task from a series of duels between the champions, to a Trial by Fire with Dragons.

Then he manipulated the Minister to add the requirement that only of age students could enter the Tournament, by sadly expressing his concern that the Boy-Who-Lived might enter the Tournament, and could be killed or injured by the dragons. The Minister didn't want to lose the Boy-Who-Lived on his watch after almost losing him to Dementors last year.

He chuckled how he manipulated that pompous, rich, Death Eater bigot, Lucius Malfoy, when the obnoxious Senior Undersecretary toad wanted to save the Ministry's money by renting the three cheapest, flea-bitten, fangless, declawed dragons she could find. He just shared his concerns with that Imperioed Death Eater; that having dragons at Hogwarts would be far too dangerous for all the muggleborn witches and wizards, and how he feared what could happen if one of the dragons should escape with the Boy-Who-Lived at the school.

Unfortunately, Lucius didn't seem to share the headmaster's concerns for the safety of muggleborns or the Boy-Who-Lived, and promptly dropped a 5,000 galleons tax deductible donation on the Minister's desk to bankroll the whole cost of the Tri-Wizard Tournament including the one thousand galleons prize money, and even generously threw in a spare dragon just in case one should escape. Not one of those effeminate sissy girly dragons like a Common Welsh Green or the smaller blue-gray Swedish Short-Snout. No, he had to supply a proper traditional Pure-blood dragon. A huge, big, black, ugly, brute of a beast, with heaps of hellfire breath, big black wings, big razor sharp claws and fangs, a gigantic vicious tail with lots of sharp horns, and a gigantic nasty bad attitude to match. A dragon that would be guaranteed to escape and cause the most collateral damage. What on earth was Lucius thinking? Was Lucius still upset about the failure of the Basilisk?

The headmaster chuckled, he had gotten the Tri-Wizard Tournament he had always dreamed of, with real fire breathing dragons that would cheer Hagrid up, and it was all for free, and anyway with Lucius was still a Death Eater, so he could still blame Voldemort when it all went to hell, and that would be a bonus.

And once Tom is finally resurrected to a magical construct body, and back in action, then it will be the Great Fearless Leader, Albus Dumbledore, at the center of attention and leading the fight, with all his past mistakes forgiven, and the boy will be sacrificed at the right time to make Tom mortal again, leaving him weak and ready be captured. All to the glory of his Greater Good.

But why would the headmaster do such insane things that you, my dear readers may ask? Well the headmaster was insane but there was method to his madness. After the disaster of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the boy would never trust the Minister or the Ministry of Magic or any other wizard ever again, and eliminated that threat to his absolute control over the boy. The boy will only have his kindly caring honorary grandfather and greatest wizard of the age to guide him to his GGD.

The boy wasn't the only Gryffindor that the sorting hat thought could do great things in Slytherin. But a true Slytherin wouldn't be seen dead in Slytherin House.

The Ginevra started to rise from the table and the headmaster was distracted from his reminiscing as he smirked at the littlest redhead's plan to help her friends. Getting the idiot redhead and muggleborn witch together would punish them for interfering in his Greater Good, and they would be doomed for a loveless abusive marriage of failed hopes and dreams, and without the muggleborn witch's help, the boy would be doomed to face his GGD at the right time, after fulfilling the littlest redhead's dreams, of course.

The headmaster smiled as the littlest redhead ran from the Great Hall. She had a date with a little furball of an Owl, and she would keep it very busy for the next couple of years.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

Eventually it was Halloween, and there had not been any little flying blue cars, no fireball, no deaths, no injuries, no Ministry of Magic investigation, no interference, no obnoxious pink toad trying to take over the Tournament, and no other Unspeakable Hit squads from the future to interfere with his fixing of the Time-Line for the Greater Good. The boy and his muggleborn witch were hardly talking as she fussed over the redhead idiot's disappoints and the red dunderhead milked it for all it was worth.

The only thing left remaining for the future Dumbledore to do was to avoid the paradox of there being two Albus Dumbledores active in the same Time-Line. The Future Dumbledore waited impatiently for his past self to return from the French Riviera, and approached the past Dumbledore in his private quarters as he was getting dressed an hour before the Halloween feast.

The past Dumbledore immediately drew his wand and challenged the other Dumbledore with the secret code question. "GGMELE?"

"The Omega 13 and ¾!" Answered the future Dumbledore.

"What happened?" Past Dumbledore asked with a sinking heart.

"Mr. Ronald Weasley managed to get his name into the Goblet of Fire and was chosen as the fourth champion."

"What? Tom has gone to great lengths to ensure the boy is the fourth champion. Howler Molly would have gone bananas over that."

"I have no idea, I managed to manipulate the redhead idiot out of the Tournament but the boy and his muggleborn witch outmanoeuvred me, wouldn't accept the honour of his championship and withdrew."

"Outmanoeuvred us? How was that possible?"

"The muggleborn witch is far more intelligent than we gave her credit for, and the boy and her are absolutely brilliant together when the red dunderhead is not doing his job of frustrating, annoying or distracting them. I used all my skill and talents, and they still slipped through my fingers with the boy getting the Ministry to grant him to be of age."

"Oh dear, that would be bad for Tom's plans for his resurrection ritual."

"It was far worse. You remember the legends concerning the Goblet of Fire?"

"No, not the Revenge of the Goblet of Fire?"

"Yes, it is all true."

"But we put a Confundus hex on the punishment runes to disable them."

"The red dunderhead did something to break that hex, and the Goblet of Fire unleashed the Flaming Fist of Chastisement. It was huge and powerful, it took out Tom and his Death Eaters, and was coming back for me and the Ministry officials. I invoked the Omega 13 and ¾ protocol and came back two weeks to fix the Time-Line."

"Two weeks, Sweet Merlin! That would have caused a branching and the termination of that Time-Line."

"Sadly yes, but sacrifices need to be made for the Great Good. I believe it would have been painless. One moment they were in existence, the next moment they were not."

"Of course, but they will continue to live in this Time-Line."

Future Dumbledore nodded. "Though some may not live for very long now."

"You are going to deal with the muggleborn witch?"

"Already done. She has a fate far worse than death or being expelled, and will never interfere again."

"And the boy?"

"Alone, weak and ignorant as he had been groomed be. He will not slip through my fingers tonight and play his part to resurrect Tom."

"Well that is good to hear."

Future Dumbledore nodded. "Sadly it is time."

"Of course. There can be only one Albus Dumbledore. For the Greater Good!" The past Dumbledore said as he spread his arms out to accept his fate. After all the GGMELE happened on his watch.

The future Dumbledore sadly pointed his wand at his past self and fired the curse that would petrify him. Sacrifices need to be made for the Great Good. He was sad because his past self was wearing his favourite robe. He used his wand to levitate his past self and opened the secret chamber off his private quarters, where he kept his magical Cryonics deep freeze. He carefully placed his latest past self inside on the rack near the door, and took a moment to look at his other past selves lying there in cold storage. He had done this too many times now but victory was so close.

The plan for his past selves was to be used for the Omega 14 and ¾ protocol. If the current Dumbledore was accidentally killed, died or went missing, the latest past self would be revived after one month to carry on, and would only have to read the journals to be brought up to date. A far better option for immortality as the revived Dumbledore would still be him, but younger, healthier and more powerful version than the one that had died. He chuckled when he discovered Tom had used Horcruxes. What a loser!

There must always be an Albus Dumbledore to defend and guide the Great Good.

Sadly the current one and only Albus Dumbledore closed the door, took out his Deluminator and waved it around the edge of the door to seal it and to remove his magical signature, so no one or thing, searching for any signs of magic will discover the secret chamber within. He got dressed in his second favourite robe and went to the Halloween feast.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

Finally the Halloween feast was over and it was time for the Goblet of Fire to chose, and no one was eagerly awaiting the results more than the headmaster. He had successfully managed to ensure the right names from the right schools were in the Goblet, and everyone was just waiting to hear if the Goblet of Fire had chosen them for their fifteen minutes of Eternal Glory.

Fleur Delacour was chosen as the Beauxbatons champion followed by the true Durmstrang champion, Viktor Krum.

Ronald was cheering for his favourite Quidditch player, when Professor Dumbledore announced Cedric Diggory's name as the Hogwarts Champion as Hufflepuff house went wild celebrating this opportunity to finally shine for their moment of eternal glory.

Then Professor Dumbledore was giving his congratulations to the champions as he impatiently waited for the fourth piece of parchment.

Then the sparkling bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames of the Goblet of Fire just turned violently red again. Sparks were shooting out of it. A long red flame spat out suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment.

Professor Dumbledore stopped talking and caught it.

He didn't need to examine it very carefully. There was the plain chicken scratch scribbled name of Harry Potter.

There was a long pause, as Dumbledore built up the tension as he pretended to stared at the slip in his hands in fear, while everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore, as they should.

And then Dumbledore cleared his throat and read out - "Harry Potter."

Harry sat there like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a speeding truck, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely dreaming. He had not heard correctly. There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat. Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her, frowning slightly. Harry turned to Ronald and Hermione; beyond them, he saw the long Gryffindor table all watching him, open mouthed.

"I didn't put my name in," Harry said blankly. "You know I didn't."

Both of them stared just as blankly back, while mount Ronald Bilius slowly turned red and got ready to erupt.

At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall.

"Harry Potter!" he called again. "Harry! Up here, if you please!"

"Go on," Hermione whispered, giving Harry a slight push to his back. Mostly from GoF.

The headmaster smirked inside to watched a condemn dead-man-walking as the boy slowly got to his feet. The push in the back by the muggleborn witch showed how completely his manipulations had separated the two. Before she was prepared to do anything to save her boyfriend and now she pushed the boy in the back to go walk to his doom. Totally alone with everyone against him.

Harry got to his feet, trod on the hem of his robes, and stumbled slightly. He set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn't seem to be getting any nearer at all, and he could feel hundreds and hundreds of eyes upon him, as though each were a searchlight. The buzzing grew louder and louder. After what seemed like an hour, he was right in front of Dumbledore, feeling the stares of all the teachers upon him.

"Well... through the door, Harry," said Dumbledore as he pointed, not giving the boy any other option but to accept being the fourth champion.

The headmaster wasn't smiling on the outside but inside he was cheering wildly while doing his happy dance in his mind as he thought, 'game, set and match to Albus Dumbledore.'

Everything was as it should be for his Greater Good.

But as Harry accepted the fourth championship and his doomed fate like he had been groomed, everything changed.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

While the Goblet of Fire was having a very strange Déjà vu moment. It felt that this had somehow happened before and something was wrong.

Very wrong indeed!

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -

Thank you for reading.

- Harry Potter and The Revenge of the Goblet of Fire. -