Harry Potter and The Fate We Make

Chapter 3: Confronting and Conciliating

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter.

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Thankfully, by this time, it was close to breakfast, and Snape would be awake. Hopefully, Harry'd be able to catch him in his office. Barring that, he'd beard the man at breakfast. Luck was (or was not, depending on who you asked) with him. When he knocked on the door, Snape's silky snarl greeted him.

"Come."

Harry opened the door and stepped in. Snape glared at him and sneered.

"Get out."

Harry winced at the venom in Snape's tone, but held his ground. "No."

Snape cocked an eyebrow at him. "No? Did the Dark Lord deprive you of what little intelligence you allegedly possessed, Potter, when he Cruciated you? You will leave this office immediately, before I ensure that Gryffindor loses all its points and you scrub cauldrons every night for the remainder of your time in this school."

Harry grimaced, but refused to leave. "I'm not going to leave, because you and I need to talk." He insisted, ignoring Snape's infuriated snarl. "Look, I know you hate my dad. I know you hate Sirius and Remus. I don't know why ... and I'm not asking why, so quit trying to kill me with a glare! From the day I got here, you decided I was my father reborn. Well I'm not. And right about now, I think we've got bigger problems to deal with than hating each other. Dumbledore's always told me he trusted you, and Merlin knows you've saved my life a few times in the last few years. I'm not asking you to like me, and Merlin knows I won't start liking you, but not actively sniping at each other all the time might be a good idea. Think about it."

And then Harry fled, leaving Snape to fuss, fume, and curse alone. He sincerely doubted it'd do much good, but he had to at least try. At the very least, his conscience would be clear. Though really, he had a feeling that the world could end and Snape would still refuse to do anything but snap, snarl, and sneer. Hmmm. Maybe he ought to tell Snape what the sorting hat told him? The contemplation of Snape's likely reaction to that bit of trivia kept Harry quite amused as he made his way to the Great Hall for breakfast. Fortunately, he wasn't the last one through the doors, though, to his surprise, Snape beat him there, somehow or other. Hermione and the Weasleys gave him slightly odd looks when he plopped down on the bench.

"Where'd you get to, mate?" Ron asked.

"Needed to deal with something real fast." Harry said.

This got them all curious, but then Ron spotted Snape, and gave a low whistle.

"Who spit in his food? I don't think I've ever seen him that mad, and that's saying something."

Harry took a better look at the head table and winced. Ron was right. Snape looked nigh-apoplectic, cheeks faintly flushed, spine almost painfully straight and the look in his eyes put a basilisk to shame. Ohhhhhhhhh. Hey. Wait. Harry blinked as that thought crossed his mind, and then wondered if the basilisk carcass was any good anymore, and if so ... hmmm. That might just sweeten Snape's demeanor a tad. He'd have to ask Dobby to go check after breakfast. In the meantime, Snape was giving the Gryffindor table in general and him in particular one of the nastiest looks he'd ever seen Snape give. Harry barely tasted what he ate in his hurry to eat so that he could catch Dumbledore as soon as possible. The moment Dumbledore left the head table, Harry scarpered off, heading for the gargoyle.

"Cockroach Cluster."

For a wonder, it worked. Evidently, Dumbledore hadn't had a chance to change it yet. He headed up to the office door and walked in at Dumbledore's prompting.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, sounding gently concerned. Harry ignored him just long enough to go over to Fawkes and pet him, then turned to the headmaster.

"We, sir, need to have a long and serious talk." Harry said, eyeing the man warily and trying to keep his temper under control, despite an urge to smack the man.

"Ahh, I see." Ok, that was beginning to get annoying, but Harry soldiered on.

"I asked you, sir, first year, why Voldemort was after me. You refused to answer. Second year, you evaded telling me much of anything. Respectfully, sir, the time for that is over. He's got a body. He's tried to kill me three years out of four here. I need to know why. And I need to be doing more than sitting in normal classes. I don't want to have to confront him, but he's clearly out to get me, and I need to be able to do more than pray to Merlin that Fawkes shows up or you get there in time to keep me alive, or that my 'dumb luck' will strike."

Dumbledore looked grave and sad. "I had hoped to spare you, to allow you a normal childhood ... "

Harry interrupted with a disgusted snort. "Fat lot of good that did. I was never a child, headmaster. I was worked like Malfoy worked Dobby for ten years. Shite, I barely knew my name before I went to school, and didn't even learn my parent's names until Hagrid showed up. And to be honest, headmaster, unless there is an earth-shatteringly important reason for me to return there? I'm not going to. I have way too much to do to waste two months locked in a room unable to do anything like last summer. Or the summer before that."

Dumbledore frowned. "It is vitally important that you return home, Harry. The wards ... "

"Are useless now, unless there's something you're not telling me ... or did you forget the part where I told you Pettigrew, damn him to hell, used my blood to ressurect snake-face? And that Voldemort touched me? Which is saying to me that whatever protection I had is completely useless now. I could, barely, accept that I had to go back there because of the wards. But now? No. I can stay with the Weasleys. Or Remus and Sirius, for that matter." And to hell with the fact that Sirius was on the run from the law. Actually ... add that to the growing list of things Harry needed to deal with. He refused to believe there was absolutely no way to see Sirius free. He'd have to sic Hermione on that project. She'd done well finding things to try to help with Buckbeak. Or maybe he could find a solicitor or something. Did the wizarding world have them? They must, considering they held trials, right? Then again ... since when did the wizarding world make a lick of sense?

Dumbledore was looking very grave. Like he really had forgotten that tidbit of information.

Harry, though, was on a roll, and not overly inclined to stop. Part of it was being truly fed up with the way things had been the last four years. Part of it was being scared that if he did stop, he'd never get out what he really wanted to say. "So are you going to tell me? Seeing that I've fought that rat bastard three times in the last four years, are you finally going to tell me what I need to know? What I should have known at the end of first year?" Yeah, he'd been eleven ... but he'd never truly been a typical kid. A decade of systematic neglect, abuse, and bullying had ensured that he was far more mature than his years. It'd been either that or curl up and die, which really wasn't any kind of option as far as Harry had ever been concerned.

"Where would you stay, if not at the Dursley's?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry snorted. "Like I said, the Weasley's. Merlin knows that Mrs. Weasley has offered often enough. And Sirius'd take me in a heartbeat." He was pretty sure Remus was on that list too, but was honest enough to know that it'd be problematic, if for no other reason than he'd be unguarded and relatively defenseless two or three days out of every twenty-eight if it was just the two of them. Sirius, bless him, had offered to take him the self-same hour he'd made it clear he wasn't the mass-murderer everyone thought he was, and that memory had been more than enough to warm Harry despite his failure to help Sirius. That someone would care for him so much was a rather foreign concept. He cocked his head slightly. "Are you going to tell me what you should have three years ago?" He wanted to know, the 'or am I going to have to get creative' went unsaid but, from Dumbledore's expression, not entirely unheard. Harry did, after all, have a history of digging until he found out what he wanted to know, regardless the adults' attempts to shelter him or keep him in the dark.

They sat there for a moment more, and right about when Harry was getting exasperated enough to walk out and go get creative with finding out what he wanted to know, Dumbledore got to his feet and headed to a cabinet, opening the doors to expose a very strange looking bowl with odd designs along the outside.

"This is a pensieve, Harry. It holds one's memories, to allow one to see them a bit more clearly and at leisure." And then Dumbledore pointed his wand at his temple and extracted a long, thin silver strand. Harry blinked. "Come, and I will show you."

Harry took the proffered arm, and they touched the silvery surface. With a jerk not unlike the one he'd experienced with the diary (and that comparison did absolutely nothing at all for his nerves.) they landed in a small room that looked like it might be in the Leaky Cauldron or the Three Broomsticks. A slightly younger Dumbledore was sitting across from ... Trelawney?

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Harry whined. Her? The ultra-crazy bat that predicted death every two seconds? For the love of little baby wizards, if all this fuss was over something she said, Harry was going to hurt someone. Her by preference.

They had evidently come into the memory at a quiet spot. Trelawney was fidgeting, and then Dumbledore got to his feet. "I do apologize, Sybil, but I fear that ... " anything else he might've said got cut off, because Trelawney went stiff, and then, in the harsh, gutteral, deep voice that Harry remembered from that encounter early last year.

"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 hand 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 ..."

Harry strongly resisted the temptation to bash his head against something. There was the sound of a scuffle by the door, and then the memory cut off and they were dumped back into Dumbledore's office.

"So you're telling me that the biggest fraud in Divination ... " Harry started, then sighed and sat down. "And you're buying that it means me? There have to be dozens of people it could be."

"There could have been, yes. But I fear that your scar means it is you." Dumbledore said. Harry had a bit of a harder time refuting that bit of logic, but still. Trelawney. Gawd, the others would never believe this.

"And this power Voldemort doesn't know?"

"I believe it is your capacity to love." Dumbledore stated.

Harry nearly fell out of his chair, he got to laughing so hard. "So, you, what?" He gasped out when he's calmed a bit. "Want me to hug him into defeat or something? Really? And because that had to be the answer, there was no reason to teach me how to fight, or survive or ... well, much of anything else, because all I'd have to do would be to hug him and pat him on the head and tell him I loved him and he'd give up? Are you for REAL?" By the end, Harry was bellowing in anger. "Of all the stupid ... three years! Three years! Time I could've ... god. And all because you were so sure I had to be coddled and protected and treated like I was five! Cedric DIED because I wasn't prepared. Because you, in your wisdom, decided I didn't need to be troubled with the facts until I was older, nevermind the fact that Voldemort clearly isn't interested in waiting until I'm a fully grown, fully trained adult wizard. What else are you hiding from me? What else haven't you told me?" Harry paced back and forth, hands waving as his anger built, unaware of the faint glimmer of power that was beginning to surround him as his anger affected his control of his magic. He whirled to face Dumbledore. "You know what? Forget it. I don't want to know. You've had three years to tell me and done precisely squat. I need that kind of help like I need an extra hole in my head. I'm out of here."

And without another word, he stomped out of Dumbledore's office. The moment he was clear of the gargoyle, he yelled for Dobby.

"Dobby, get the others. And do you know of anywhere we can meet in private?"

Dobby nodded enthusiastically. "We's be calling it the Come and Go Room, Harry Potter sir. Dobby be showing it to you. It be on the seventh floor by the tapestry of dancing trolls. Dobby go get the Grangy and the Wheezy's and bring them there." And he popped off.

Harry headed for where Dobby's sent him, stomping back and forth, fuming mentally, calling Dumbledore every nasty name he could think of. Damnit all to hell!

It didn't take long for the Weasley Brigade to show up, with Hermione right smack in the middle of them.

"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked, looking concerned.

"Dobby, where's this room at?"

"Yous must call it, Harry Potter sir. Yous must be pacing back and forth three times, sir, thinking what yous needs. The Come and Go room will provides it for you."

So, Harry did so, thinking furiously. I need a place to plan. I need a place that can't be spied on. I need somewhere to figure out how to fight Voldemort.

And at the end of the third lap, a large oak door appeared. Harry opened it, and blinked. Inside was a large room. On one side, there was a table and chairs, with enough quills, ink, and parchment for a major brainstorming session. Two whole walls were nothing but books. The other half of the room appeared to be some sort of dueling practice chamber with targets all along one wall.

"Harry, mate ... what's going on?"

"Take a seat and I'll tell you." Harry said.