Chapter 3
Harry, Amelia and Albus

Seconds later
In the Dursley kitchen
The Dursleys and Lucius Malfoy have recently gone on to their next infernal adventure

Albus Dumbledore was annoyed by the wasted time. He had had to leave the end of dinner at Hogwarts to come here. Before he could return to the castle, he would need to take the twice-orphaned boy to live with the Weasleys. After Dursleys-cowed Harry lived with Molly for a year and a half, Harry would give Albus no trouble when Harry arrived at Hogwarts with the other first-years.

Molly would insist on being paid to raise the boy, and Albus could not truly refuse. But Albus could haggle—he decided that he would let himself be talked up to a one-time payment of G500, followed by monthly payments of G200. Of course all this money would come from Harry's trust vault.

If Molly diverted some of those new coins to buy Ginevra new clothes, Albus would not object. And "Howler Molly" would shout Harry down if he dared object to money that was meant to feed and to clothe him, being spent on Ginevra.

Albus saw one more advantage to housing Harry with the Weasleys: Nobody (including Harry) would object to Harry marrying Ginevra in 1999.

Now if Amelia and her Aurors would just run their little investigation and leave, Albus could do what he needed to do.

Speaking of investigating, Albus was mildly curious who had Killing-Cursed Lucius, and how the mystery wizard had murdered Lucius and had escaped. One thing Albus was certain of: The blond's killer was not Harry, who owned no wand yet, and whose magical core had been bound twice.


Meanwhile in the Dursley kitchen

Amelia Bones, the Director of the DMLE, had little room to move—

Three dead males on the kitchen floor, gaunt nine-year-old Harry Potter who was eating food at the table near a dead woman, Amelia herself, Senior Auror Shacklebolt, Senior Auror Grenwick, five other Aurors, and the bearded idiot all were gathered in the kitchen of this Muggle house.

Dumbledore said, "Harry my boy, I insist you stop eating now. Eating when you have visitors is rude."

Amelia was tempted to roll her eyes.

Harry Potter glared at Dumbledore. "Not happening, grandpa. This is the first chance I've had in a week to really eat without my aunt and uncle yelling at me, Vernon or Dudley hitting me or Dudley snatching my food away. Eating is ten times more important to me right now than is talking to magical people in long dresses." Then Mr Potter's attention returned to his food.

Horrified Amelia said, "Leave off, Albus. Can't you see that Mr Potter is literally starving?"

Dumbledore said, "Harry, I am disappointed in you. I think you are exaggerating to gain sympathy."

"You think so, bearded man? Look at my fat uncle and fat cousin, then look at me. Do I look like I was getting enough to eat, even though I was always the one who cooked it all? Why shouldn't I eat what I myself cooked? I'm hungry!"

Amelia said, "Prove Mr Potter is lying, Albus. Offer up a pensieve memory of Mr Potter eating well, earlier today."

"You know I cannot, Amelia. I was not here earlier today."

"Then show me pensieve memories of other days. Surely you've observed plenty of meals that Mr Potter ate with the Dursleys, and your memories show that the boy was allowed to eat all the food he needed, right?"

"Amelia, you know I have many demands on my time. I have never eaten a meal here. But I had someone giving me regular reports on Harry's health and happiness."

"Who?"

Dumbledore made a put-upon sigh. "I am afraid I cannot divulge her name. The person involved is a Squib, and she could come to harm if her name were given out freely."

"Albus, everyone else has forgotten you're an half-blood, but I haven't. If I have to dose you with Veritaserum to get that question answered, I shall be asking you many other questions under Veritaserum."

"Threats are beneath you, Amelia. But very well. The Squib who has been reporting on Mr Potter is Arabella Figg."

Harry Potter blurted, "The mad cat lady? And how good could her 'reports' be when she never was allowed inside the house, so never saw Vernon and Dudley pounding on me?"

"Oh Harry, surely you exaggerate—"

Mr Potter yelled, "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?"

Dumbledore smiled like a grandfather at the angry boy (who never had known a grandfather). Dumbledore said, "Your uncle was firm with you, quite likely, but I am sure his firmness was done in love. Harry, Harry, Harry, I insist you calm down. Since you are hungry, may I offer you a sherbet lemon?" Dumbledore pulled a yellow candy from his pocket and held it out.

Mr Potter glared at him. "You aren't my close family but you call me by my first name, and now you offer me sweets. What are you, a molester?"

"I've heard rumours," Amelia heard an Auror mutter.


One second later

Dumbledore turned to Amelia and said pompously, "I am curious what you will decide has happened here, Amelia. Lucius had the only wand in the house. He cast four Killing Curses with his wand, and the result was the three Dursleys dead and himself dead. Was it a murder-suicide, then Harry discovered the bodies, or did a second wizard dodge Lucius's Killing Curse, kill Lucius, then Apparate away before your Aurors arrived?"

Amelia asked, "How do you know this, about four AKs on Lucius Malfoy's wand? You're not a DMLE investigator, you're the headmaster of a school."

"How I know is not important right now, Amelia. I insist—"

Amelia stared down Kingsley Shacklebolt and Aurors Smith, Jones and Hooker. "Attention, you four who were here when I walked in, I want to know: Who told Dumbledore? If none of you comes clean, I will assign all four of you to Azkaban duty."

Amelia made this threat even though she was sure that it had been Shack who had told Dumbledore about the four AKs. The message she was sending with her question was Tell Dumbledore nothing else, or I will make you regret it.

Shack said, "Ma'am, it was I who told him; but when you walked in, that fact was all I had managed to tell him." Shack shot a meaningful look at Smith, Jones and Hooker, which Amelia interpreted to mean Say nothing about X to Dumbledore.

Amelia wondered what X was.

Shack continued, "Albus Dumbledore also is the Chief Warlock, so I didn't see the harm in telling him about the four Killing Curses that Malfoy cast."

Dumbledore smiled smugly at Amelia. Apparently he missed the fact that something important about this case had not been told to him by Shacklebolt.

Amelia snarled at Shack, "And why does the Chief Warlock need to know facts about this case before the Wizengamot hears those facts at trial, hm? Senior Auror Shacklebolt, you shall go straight from here to the DMLE bullpen. Once you are there, you shall not send a message to anyone; you shall not reply to a message sent to you from anyone; and if someone asks you a question in person, you shall refuse to answer. You shall sit, wait and be silent until I return to the bullpen and drag you into my office, where you and I shall have an intense conversation. You shall do all these things, lest you lose your badge and blue wand, your magic and/or your freedom. Will you comply?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Go."

Right before Shack Apparated away, Dumbledore said, "Amelia, I see no reason to banish Kingsley and to threaten him so harshly. He meant well."

"Albus, you have no reason at all to be here. Get gone before I have you arrested for interfering with a murder investigation."

"I have every right to be here, since I am Harry's magical guardian."

"WHAT?" young Potter yelled from the table. "What does this mean? I've never seen you before in my life!"

WHAT? Amelia thought. Dumbledore, you neglectful shirker!

Meanwhile, Dumbledore was replying to the boy: "It means, Harry, that when you return to the magical world, not quite a year and an half from now, I shall be making decisions about your magical life till you turn seventeen."

Amelia decided to stir up trouble for the bearded idiot. In a matter-of-fact tone of voice, Amelia said, "Mr Potter, Albus Dumbledore also has been in charge of your magical life from 1981, when you were orphaned, up till now. It was Albus Dumbledore here who placed you with these Mug—nonmagical people when you were fifteen months old."

"For your own good, Harry," said Dumbledore with a grandfatherly smile.

BLAM! Dumbledore was slammed into the wall, though Harry Potter had made no gestures, had spoken no words and had not waved the magic wand he did not yet own.

Whilst Dumbledore was standing up, apparently with some pain, Harry Potter said angrily to Amelia, "Doesn't this mean he was supposed to check up on me from time to time? He hasn't! I've never seen him before today. And bloody hell, I needed to be checked up on!"

Dumbledore glanced at Amelia, then looked at Harry Potter. "Nonsense, Harry. I visited here when you were two years old. You were too young to remember. Everything with you was fine then."

Amelia said, "Are you willing to swear this on your magic? The date as best you can recall it, and what you did during your visit?"

"Amelia! Swearing oaths indiscriminately is dangerous, and I refuse to do it! I am the Leader of the Light and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot; you should believe what I say."

"But I don't believe you, Chief Warlock. And looking at Mr Potter, my eyes give me plenty of reasons to back up my disbelief. He has bruises!"

Then Amelia turned to Harry Potter. "What exactly do you mean by 'I needed to be checked up on'?"

"I mean that the Dursley starved me, beat me, worked me like a Caribbean plantation slave and imprisoned me in my boot cupboard, and Father Christmas over there never showed up to stop it!"

"Amelia," Dumbledore said. His voice sounded so disappointed. "You know that children at that age exaggerate."

Harry yelled, "You're calling me a liar, Mr Magical Guardian, when you've never talked to me before? How would you know?"

Then Harry looked at Amelia. "Ma'am, these policemen in the long red dresses all work for you, right?"

"Yes, Mr Potter. To remind you, I am Amelia Bones, Director of the DMLE."

"DMLE means...?"

"Whoops, sorry. DMLE means Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Good enough." Harry Potter then stood up from the table and walked to the doorway of the kitchen. "Please come with me, Ms Bones. I want to show you something that proves my life is as rotten as I say it is." The boy then glared at Dumbledore.

As Amelia walked out of the kitchen, Dumbledore followed.

Amelia spun round and glared at him. "Mr Potter did not invite you."

Dumbledore replied pompously, "I am sure it was an oversight. After all, I am Harry's magical guardian."

Seconds later, Harry Potter was standing by the stairs, in the half-width corridor between the foyer and the kitchen. He was standing by the under-stairs boot cupboard; the boot cupboard had its door open.

The boy said, his voice tight, "Ms Bones, please look in there and I'm sure you'll be surprised. If you wave your hand round, there's a pullstring hanging from the 'ceiling' that provides some light."

"No need," Amelia said, drawing her wand. "The first spell you'll learn in magical school is how to turn you wand into a torch," flashlight.

Amelia knelt down and stuck her head and her wand arm into the boot cupboard.

Above and behind Amelia, Harry Potter's voice said, "This has been my 'bedroom' since I came here. Whenever I'm here, Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia locks me in."

Meanwhile, Amelia was looking round the small space. She was shocked and horrified by what she saw.

"Merlin on a mushroom," she murmured.

Amelia saw enough dried blood, both as bloodstains and as blood droplets, to power an hundred dark rituals. But Amelia knew this blood did not come from performing rituals, but from one repeatedly injured wizard boy.

How is Harry Potter even alive? Amelia wondered.


As soon as Amelia backed out of the boot cupboard that was under the stairs, Dumbledore bent down to look, his own wand in his hand.

"Messy," Dumbledore said. "Let me clean—"

Amelia snatched Dumbledore's wand out of his hand and tossed it away. "You will not! Do you want to be arrested for destroying evidence? The boot cupboard is now a scene of crime."

For once, Albus Dumbledore had nothing to say.

Amelia then yelled, "AURORS, COME HERE PLEASE."

Seconds later, the six Aurors had joined Amelia, Harry Potter and Dumbledore in the half-width corridor. Amelia pointed at Dumbledore's wand and said, "That's Dumbledore's wand, there on the floor."

As Auror Second Class Hooker bent down to pick up the wand, Amelia's voice turned formal: "Albus Dumbledore, you are under arrest for neglect of your duties of guardianship. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand what I have just said?"

"Amelia, this is entirely unnecessary, and I am so disappointed in you. Besides, I have not heard for myself yet, what happened when Lucius tried to kill Harry."

"Nor will you hear such words, since you aren't an Auror," Senior Auror Nigel Grenwick replied.

Amelia said, "I repeat my question, Arrestee Dumbledore: Do you understand what I just have said?"

Dumbledore gave a world-weary sigh. "Yes, Amelia."

"Expect more charges to be added later, after further investigation." She immediately hit Dumbledore with a Silencing Charm, because she knew he now would blather and blather if she let him. Amelia was not in the mood for Dumbledore's bloviations.

Then Amelia looked at Senior Auror Grenwick. "Nigel, send the two Aurors who came with you, to take Dumbledore to the DMLE and to toss him in an holding cell. Before they go, check Dumbledore for extra wands and secret Portkeys as per procedure, then check again. Now listen up, Aurors: Nobody in the DMLE is to talk to Dumbledore, and nobody is to do him favours, even 'harmless' favours. Nobody here wants to be assigned guard duty at Azkaban, am I right?"

Amelia heard murmurs of "No, ma'am" or "No, Boss Lady."

When two Aurors had Apparated away, whilst escorting Dumbledore in magic-suppression handcuffs, Amelia looked at Senior Auror Grenwick. Amelia said, "Order someone to portkey back to the bullpen and to fetch a Dicta-Quill. Finally I'm ready to take Mr Potter's statement."

Auror First Class Hestia Jones said, "Erm, ma'am? When Potter talks to you, you might not want to have a written record afterwards. How he killed Malfoy was, well, unusual."

"How unusual?"

"Whatever Potter did to You Know Who in 1981, Potter did to Malfoy today."

Amelia's jaw dropped.

Harry Potter said, "All I can tell you is, when that pinkish glass shield appeared in front of my face and reflected Malfoy's green streak back at him, this was freaky stuff I'd never done before. Now, turning my teacher's hair blue? Yes. Beaming myself up to the roof of the school? Yes. Bouncing a spell? Not before today."

"Merlin on a mushroom," Amelia said for the second time this day.

As Lucius Malfoy's corpse was cooling on the floor, Amelia Bones, Senior Auror Grenwick, and three other Aurors brainwaved how they would explain Harry Potter being alive and Lucius Malfoy being dead. Eventually the story they decided on was that the boy ran up to Malfoy as the blond wizard was casting the Killing Curse, Potter shoved Malfoy's arm down, and Malfoy Avada Kedevra'd his own foot.

Amelia explained to the puzzled boy why the DMLE employees were plotting—

"Mr Potter, when you were fifteen months old, an evil wizard killed both your parents with the Killing Curse. You are famous in Wizarding Britain because you somehow survived the nonsurvivable Killing Curse when that same evil wizard cast the Killing Curse on you, a few minutes later. If word gets out that you survived the Killing Curse a second time, you never will know a moment's peace."

Needless to say, Amelia ordered the four Aurors to swear on their magic, and Amelia herself swore on her magic, that each of them never would tell the true story of how Harry Potter had killed Lucius Malfoy, without Harry Potter's permission. Only Harry could tell the true story without losing his magic.


A Dicta-Quill had been fetched, but this was used only to record Harry Potter's description of the eight and a half years' worth of abuses that Mr Potter had suffered from his three Dursley relatives. Auror Hestia Jones wept whilst hearing about those abuses.


After all this the cleanup came. The Aurors (magical policemen in long red dresses) told Harry they would take the dead Dursleys to a Squib (low-magic) undertaker. The Aurors also would work up a fake explanation of how the Dursleys had died by nonmagical means—most likely by "a gas leak" or "an home invasion." Some Aurors would meet with the Little Whinging police; Harry would not need to speak with the police at all.

Harry felt relief that he would not need to talk to the nonmagical police about the deaths he had witnessed this evening. After all, what would he say to the police that would be believable?

Bang—the Aurors and the dead Dursleys disappeared whilst Harry watched, amazed.

The dead wizard Lucius Malfoy was disappeared from the Dursley kitchen to the DMLE morgue. The DMLE somehow would notify Malfoy's family of his death.

Then it came time to clean up the kitchen, once the corpses and the Aurors were gone.

Amelia called her "house-elf"—a three-foot-tall female creature with bat-like ears, huge purple eyes and a strange way of speaking. The "house-elf" was named Tibia.

Tibia clicked her fingers, and the refrigerator door opened. The food that needed to go into the refrigerator was levitated into the refrigerator, then the refrigerator door shut itself. Tibia clicked her fingers a second time, and the remaining food—everything on any Dursley's plate, which Harry had left uneaten—was vanished. With a third click of Tibia's fingers, the dirty pots, the dirty frying pan and the dirty plates, glasses and flatware all were clean.

All that was left for Harry to do was to put everything away in its proper cabinet or drawer in the kitchen.

Then Amelia led Harry to the front door. Harry stared, open-mouthed, as Tibia clicked her fingers and the wooden slivers and sawdust on the foyer floor rose up and flew towards the destroyed front door; in seconds, the front door was seamlessly repaired.

Before Amelia and Tibia popped into thin air, Amelia made an appointment with Harry for Aurors to come to the house, the next day after school, and to search the house for evidence of crimes.


After Amelia left Harry Potter's Muggle house and returned to the DMLE bullpen, Amelia dragged Kingsley Shacklebolt into her office. There Amelia, sometimes loudly, explained to Shack that henceforth he would not share DMLE secrets with Albus Dumbledore. Who, by the way, now was in an holding cell, and Shack better keep far away from the gaoled headmaster.

After chewing out Shack, Amelia's next stop was Malfoy Manor. Amelia informed Narcissa Malfoy that today Lucius Malfoy had Killing-Cursed three Muggles and had tried to kill Harry Potter; but the boy had killed Lucius instead, using the Gryffindor bravery of both his parents.

Amelia gave no hint to Narcissa Malfoy that Harry Potter had survived the Killing Curse twice.

Amelia had arrived at Malfoy Manor with a mob of Aurors and Unspeakables. Whilst Amelia spoke with Lucius's widow, the people whom Amelia had brought with her, searched every part of Malfoy Manor.


That night, in Number 4, Privet Drive

Harry no longer was forced to sleep in the now-cramped boot cupboard under the stairs; and he found the idea of sleeping in his aunt and uncle's bed or in Dudley's bed to be creepy. Harry refused to think of sleeping in the guest bedroom, which was where Aunt Marge slept when she visited Vernon.

Instead, Harry slept on the sofa in the sitting room.


AUTHOR'S NOTES: For the first half of this chapter, Harry is sitting at the table and is eating. He has "guests," but is he offering them tea or coffee, or biscuits or sandwiches? No, Harry is sitting at the table and is eating, even though he has "guests" (Aurors, Amelia and Dumbledore) and there are four corpses in the room. This disturbs the Aurors and it disturbs Dumbledore—reader, I meant for the scene to disturb you as well. What better way to show you, not to tell you, just how hungry Harry is?


One of Dumbledore's defining characteristics in canon is that he hoards the secrets he knows, and he feels entitled to know everyone else's secrets. The result of all this secret-hoarding is that he can lie to the wizarding world about Harry and, whilst people might suspect that he is lying, they cannot prove that Dumbledore is lying. So enjoy the irony that in this chapter, Dumbledore is arrested because of what Amelia sees in the boot cupboard under the stairs, and because of Harry's starved gauntness, two things that Dumbledore walked into the house not knowing about!