Chapter 6:
I told Dumbledore that I want a long meeting next time. When we did meet, I got right to the point.
"I am going to address the fan theories about you and your actions. Since I cannot determine your thoughts, it would be better if you just listened before making any replies.
First, my own role. I am an advisor to you. I hope you accept that role, and I'll discuss later why you should.
Fan theories about you would vary. The only data I have is, besides canon, is from your actions, which so far is limited to your quick removal of Quirrell. If you did not know about him in advance, you responded well. If you did, it is clear that you wanted to show me that you would respond correctly to the information I gave you.
The next similar test, will be what you will do about Sirius and Pettigrew. Many fan theories say that you wanted Sirius out of the way, so Harry would grow up with the Dursleys, and not have anyone on his side except for you when he arrived here at Hogwarts.
First, why fan theories? The books were aimed for about the age of Harry Potter over the next 7 years. They present a cruel world where he is treated like a child, but has to, along with his friends, deal with challenges that would defeat most adult wizards. The fan theories try to find themes and reasons for what is presented in the books and movies. Most of those necessarily revolve around you, since you either have arranged the events occurring or have been unaware of them. In the former case, you are generally regarded as aiming for a combination of the greater good, and your own personal control over decisions and information. In the second, you are too arrogant to realize the limitations over your own abilities to understand and control events, and therefore withhold too much information, and take too much control that you do not responsibly wield.
Why should you accept me being critical of you and not try to get rid of me? Several reasons. First, you are in the mentor role of a hero's journey story. Don't expect to survive the story. Many of your possible motivations to not want me around would be for your plans after the defeat of Voldemort. Second, and I'm going to sound like Draco Malfoy saying wait till my father hears about this, but neither of us knows what Q would do if my role in this story was no longer interesting to him. He did specifically give me mind arts abilities that would prevent, anyone from reading or modifying my mind, but I think that was aimed at you in particular, and probably also Snape. Third, while I am going to criticize you privately, I am not trying to replace you or undermine you.
Also, consider this. I think you have a critical role to play, first for being the only known wizard that can outfight Riddle, second for having considerable political influence, third for having some very loyal followers, fourth for being Harry Potter's mentor, even if you engineered that happening.
Now here are some of the fan theories of you, limiting those to the time of Harry Potter, since maybe you learned from some of your earlier mistakes. Most of these I do not believe, but many fans do.
That you deliberately leaked the prophecy to Snape and to Voldemort.
That you cast the fidelius on the Potters, and therefore knew that Pettigrew was the secret keeper, or otherwise knew that he was.
That even if you didn't know about Pettigrew, you knew that Sirius Black never had a trial and never tried to rectify this. You did this to prevent Harry Potter from knowing anyone who didn't hate him.
That you assumed Harry's magical guardianship in opposition to his parents wishes.
That you placed Harry with the Dursleys in opposition to his parents wishes.
That you deliberately kept the Potter's will sealed, to accomplish these.
That you knowingly kept Potter with people who hated him and was therefore a party to causing him significant physical and mental damage. You did this so he would be grateful to yourself, and to the Weasleys, when he would arrive in Hogwarts, and fall in line as your pawn.
If this was unknowingly, then you showed reckless disregard in your role as guardian, however that role was acquired.
That you frequently use mind arts illegally against students.
That you allow Snape to mistreat three quarters of the students. That you allow Snape to not be an effective teacher to three quarters of the students. This ensures that those careers that require NEWTS in potions are much more limited for non-Slytherins. Fans don't think you want those outcomes, but see you as incompetent as a Headmaster. Having Snape be a spy, and him being mean, might even help with that, however, you allowing him to abuse his position as potions professor is not necessary.
That you have been stealing money from the Potter vaults.
That you do not intend to tell Harry Potter about his family properties and voting rights. That while he has seen one vault belonging to him, that vault is only a trust vault, and that he does not know about much greater assets than what he has seen.
That you have prevented Harry's elves from bonding with him.
That you are trying to engineer Harry to marry Ginny Weasley.
That Molly and Ron were instructed to befriend Harry at the station and train.
That you messed with the protections that Lily Potter gave Harry, and involved his aunt Petunia, in a way that Lily never intended. You use this excuse to send Harry back for further torture each summer, even though it is not particularly helpful magically.
That you have hurt Harry magically by his upbringing, perhaps because you don't expect him to win against Voldemort. Instead you expect him to be killed by Voldemort while you then kill Voldemort and become the hero.
If you thought he had a fighting chance, you'd be intensively training him from birth, and especially now."
Dumbledore replied, "Since, as you say, you cannot determine the truth of what I say, there is little point in my refuting or explaining the points you have raised. However, you make a very logical point about Snape's behaviour as a professor, and I will look into that. In addition, I will see what I can do about transferring Lily Potter's protections to another location.
Let me ask you something, what are your goals for magical Britain, besides defeating Voldemort?"
I replied, "The integration of muggle-borns needs to be improved. There should be more of a meritocracy, and less advantage in employment given by birth. The justice system should be less arbitrary and be less based on politics, bribery, and popularity. I can expand on those, but perhaps we should leave that to a later meeting."
Dumbledore asked "Do you see Harry Potter as a future leader of the magical community?" I answered, "Ideally yes, but that is not what happened in the canon version of the story. He became an auror. He has extraordinary ability in becoming an auror, Quiditch seeker, or teacher. He could still become one of those, but use his celebrity status and being Lord of an Ancient and Noble House, to influence, if not lead the British magical nation."
"One other thing to mention", I continued. "The curse on the position of Defence against the dark arts, has caused a generation or more of wizards to be more helpless than they need to be during Death Eater raids. I can understand that you cannot reverse it, but have you considered that there might be experts better than you in that task? Your sense of secrecy and wanting to be one uniquely in charge of events, causes you to not seek out expertise where that would be enormously helpful. In canon, your unpreparedness in dealing with the stone and its compulsion curse led to your death, while any competent Egyptologist could have helped you avoid that."
Several things happened later that week. Dumbledore sent me a quick message that Sirius is getting his trial in a week, and that Pettigrew would be a required witness. He said the hold-up was that there was no basis to administer the truth serum, Veritaserum, to Pettigrew. The only crime he was so far charged was being an unregistered animagus, proven since he was found in the form of a rat. His Death Eater mark was only sufficient to hold him for investigation for now. He himself claimed to have been under the Imperius spell when he got the mark, and claimed that he was hiding out as a rat to avoid being killed by the allies of the true Death Eater, Sirius Black. Meanwhile, Lucius Malfoy was making things difficult by saying that if Pettigrew was shown to be a criminal, then the Weasley family could be charged with harboring him.
Dumbledore said that he finally got Minister Fudge to agree to a trial by showing him that he would be seen as correcting a mistake by his predecessor. The trial itself would start by administrating Veritaserum to Sirius Black, and then they would have the evidence to free him and require Pettigrew to also testify under Veritaserum. His testimony should also clear the Weasleys.
The next thing that happened was during the breakfast, when Dumbledore and deputy headmaster McGonagall jointly announced that it has come to their attention that points have been deducted in incorrect manners, and that students can appeal any future loss of points to her. A procedure for sending her notes was described. Furthermore, all points previously deducted by Professor Snape during this term are now reversed.
When the trial of Sirius finally happened, the news articles led with "Minister of Magic, Cornellus Fudge, found new evidence and called for a trial of Sirius Black. It quoted him as saying the Ministry is always willing to fix past mistakes, and Sirius Black will be given a substantial amount of gold. Furthermore Pettigrew has been sentenced to life in Azkaban and all previous awards have been canceled."
During the next Advanced Study Group meeting, I asked Harry Potter if this means he'll live with Sirius Black now. He said, "Yes, this summer. During the Christmas break, I'll be able to visit with him, but they said he needs some time to recover from being in Azkaban."