Who Visits
Previously…
Harry turned to Ron. The seriousness of his gaze startled the ginger. "She knows too much."
"What do mean by that?" Ron asked.
Harry, lost in his head, shook his head. "Nothing. I'm going to go see DumbleBore."
Later, in Dumbledore's office, Harry sat listening to the ramblings of an old man.
"So, my boy. That is the story of the prophecy and how your life was doomed to be a series of unlikely situations of pain and tormenting loss." The Headmaster concluded after telling Harry the lengthy and no-doubt depressing tale of his predestined fate.
"Ya know sir…" Harry trailed off, lost in thought.
"Yes, er… Ms. Potter?"
"I've a had a teensy bit of an epiphany just then."
"Oh, please share; I, as an elderly flamboyant and ambiguously genius man, do enjoy a good epiphany."
"So, Voldemort heard about this prophesy business and then decided to attack me as a baby, correct?" Harry implored.
Dumbledore nodded. "As I have just explained to you exactly, yes."
"And this Voldemort fellow is pretty smart yes?"
"Well he was the brightest of his generation here at school."
"So, how come he didn't realize that if he hadn't tried to kill me I probably wouldn't have been compelled to go off and fight him at all; but by killing my parents, and essentially branding me, he basically painted a target on himself in my eyes? He sort of made the prophesy come true by trying to stop it before it happened…which means if he had never heard it, it may not have come true at all…but then would the prophesy…cancel out?"
"Well now, that's a difficult question, I'm not sure-"
"And if he hadn't attacked me, what would the world be like now? Would I be some sort of half-blood slave or something? Maybe my destiny would always remain and I would take it upon myself to fight him. Oh, sir. My head is done in."
"No kidding." Was the reply Harry received; but it wasn't the headmaster who'd spoken.
Harry turned to see a tall slender men with chocolate brown hair and a boy-tie standing behind him, eying him curiously and…for some unfathomable reason, delightedly.
After sizing the stranger up a bit, Harry decided he knew the type of person this man was, and he was not going to start being cooperative now! "Sup man?" He asked casually.
The bonkers looking man seemed quite taken aback, as if he was expecting a much more eventful greeting.
"Are you not going to ask who I am?" He said cheerfully, though it was obvious he was feeling disappointed.
"Nope." Harry said simply.
"But…my introduction…my catch-phrase…the dramatic music before I say my name…it can't happen if you don't act surprised and ask who I am," whined the stranger.
"Tough dookie. Welcome to Harry World where nothing is shocking or improbable. I mean if I had no reaction to being told I'm a freakin' wizard, am I really going to be surprised by some nerdy dude standing behind me in the office of the weirdest most unpredictable genius-slash- moron old man in the world?"
The stranger took on a look of intrigue and, once again, that strange delight. "You're a wizard?"
Noticing the man's lack of uneasiness in the face of Harry's unusual tangent, Harry thought maybe he was, after all, someone to be admired. "Ah, I see you and I have much in common. Yes I am."
"Oh, that is…unexpected and…brilliant! Show me what you can do."
Harry shrugged. "Sure. Wingardium Leviosa." A quill of the Headmaster's, who was still silent and wondering who the heck this man was and how the hell did he get in this office, rose slowly into the air. Harry led it around a bit before settling it back down unto its shelf.
The man watched the demonstration silently, seeming to become more and more deflated. "Well that was a bit disappointing. Eh, uh, humor me would you boy-o?" He gave Harry a winning smile, which could only manage to be endearing due to his spastic awkwardness.
Harry rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fiiiine." He stopped and cleared his throat, putting a phony shocked look on his face. "Who the hell are you?"
"…I'm the Doctor."
"Kay." Harry shrugged.
"Oh come on!" The man shouted, Harry was satisfied to see that his expert petulance had finally gotten to even this ambiguous and strange character.
Harry crossed his arms over his chest and put on his best smug look. "Well maybe you should have acted more impressed with my magic."
"Ahem." Dumbledore finally decided to interrupt what was surely due to become the 'Exchange of Insanity That Went On For Days'.
The Doctor's attention was transferred to Dumbledore, immediately all signs of his former frustration vanished and he once again looked friendly and inquisitive. "Oh hello there. My god, you're an old one aren't you? Say, why do you look familiar?"
Dumbledore smiled at the young man's refreshing curiosity. "Well, my boy, I have lived for very long and have met many people. Perhaps you were one of those people."
"You have lived for very long? Well, if I had time to tell you some stories…but, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because I got a message on this psychic paper here about some sort of time and prophecy confusion. Apparently some unfortunate barmy lad's gone full on soft in the head because of it."
"What are you supposed to do about it?" Harry asked skeptically.
"Well, I'm a Time Lord my dear boy and I can investigate this confusing situation and do all sorts of seemingly unnecessary things and unravel this nonsensical timeline…all of which will end in me telling you nothing definitive about whether or not your destiny would always have been this way or if it could have changed."
"Do you think mayhaps you could skip those shenanigans you were describing. You see, we as magic folk have enough unnecessary and ambiguously structured customs in our everyday lives that we don't need you to make us feel like life is anything more than a dull throbbing annoyance and one miserable pointless motion after another."
The Doctor was surprised enough by Harry's musing that it took him an awkward minute to find his speech. "Well that was cheerful." He finally said. "Very well then, the answer is…there is no way to tell if you're future would have been completely different had he not killed your family. But I can say for absolute fact that prophesies can be weaseled out of and sometimes even ignored completely, and what has happened has happened because several characters altered their behavior in order to avoid it, thereby in actuality ensuring it came true. But there's nothing to be done about now, unfortunately and regrettably. I'll be off then, yeah? Tally-ho." With that the Doctor opened a door in thin air, took a step, then disappeared.
Dumbledore assumed that he must have had some transport device that was cloaked. But they both heard the sound of strange engines firing up and becoming dimmer and dimmer, until the sound disappeared completely.
Harry turned to the professor with full-on grumpy face. "What say you?"
Dumbledore looked guiltily upon the poor fool. There was nothing he could say to make the boy feel better, nothing to erase his guilt and responsibility for the child's horrifying existence. There was only one thing he could think to say at this point. "I'm still more of an intriguing and unfathomable spectacular wizened old man than he is, right?"
Harry's eyes shone with anger for a moment before he gained control over himself again. He looked deadpanned into his Headmaster's eyes and spoke accordingly, "not a butt's chance in gay bathhouse you bedazzled raisin. Not only was he more energetic and clever than you, but he was pretty as well."
Dumbledore looked at his protégé-his shining star, the light of his life, the wind beneath his wings…his eternal bunny-faced tormentor. "You're fired."
At this Harry uttered a remarkable scoff/whine hybrid. "From what?"
"Being my golden boy! Return to your dorm and only speak to me when I summon you," bellowed the suddenly not cheerful or rascally Headmaster.
"But since you ruined my life and sealed my doomed fate of doom, may I ask one request of you." Dumbledore shook his head affirmatively. "May I start attending classes again?"
Dumbledore looked queasy all of the sudden, but out of guilt he relented.
Harry left…but he left in secret satisfaction.