Chapter 11: Wrath of the Seer

Harry returned from the Dark Forest numb. Dragons. The first challenge of the bloody Tri-wizard tournament was dragons. He was literally going to have to battle a dragon!

He was of half a mind to go straight to Dumbledore and demand that he get him out of the contract by destroying the Goblet of Fire. Sure, there would be some Death Eater or traitor out there still plotting how to kill him, but that would be much better than facing a dragon which would already have a pretty good idea of how it would want to kill him. But something inside him refused to take that course of action. He would compete in this tournament and figure out a way to beat a dragon. He didn't know why, but that was what he'd do.

He really had to thank Hagrid for letting him in on this little secret. So, instead of heading back to Dumbledore to demand he release Harry from the contract, he went back over to Hagrid's hut to thank him for warning him. That was when Harry learned that Ron Weasley had already known about the dragons and had not shared that information with him. Ron's own brother was one of the dragon handlers.

After thanking Hagrid for the early warning, Harry marched off back to school to find his supposed best friend. When he saw Ron sitting there in the courtyard laughing and smirking with Seamus Finnigan, his rage was inflamed. He strode over to where Ron and the other Gryffindor by were sitting and gave him his best glare. "You're a right foul git!"

Inwardly Harry cringed at the weakness of his own insult. It was kind of hard to think up clever insults though when you felt torn up inside with anger and betrayal the way Harry was feeling. Under the circumstances, it was really the best he could do.

"Oh, you think so, do you?" Ron shot back, rising to his feet, clearly finding Harry's insult hurtful enough.

"Yeah, I know so," Harry retorted, glaring in Ron's eyes and getting in his face.

Ron was equally flustered. There he had been, just sitting with Seamus and laughing about the recent Quidditch results, when Harry Potter just came up to him and insulted him. And there he had tried to make the first move to reconciliation by telling Hermione that Seamus had told Dean that Parvarti had heard that Hagrid wanted to see him! Of all the ungrateful…this couldn't stand.

Ron started to pull his wand out. Threatening with a hex was how he was used to his family squabbling with each other. It's how all the older boys had bullied him over the years. How his mum would have acted if one of her children were acting out. Most of the time nobody actually ever cast anything anyway. Harmless, really. Just posturing. It was just the natural thing for him to do. "Why I ought to…"

A moment later, Ron was looking at an angry Harry Potter with his own wand drawn and leveled at him. Ron gulped.

"You ought to what, Ron?" Harry demanded.

Ron wisely, and carefully re-sheathed his wand. Ron was under no illusion that he could take Harry in a straight up fight. Not since the other boy had cured a werewolf and destroyed a bloody dementor had he considered himself an equal to Harry in terms of magic, if he ever really had thought so.

"That's what I thought," Harry couldn't help but say loud enough that everyone could hear. Harry turned on his heel, leaving a reddening Ron Weasley to stand there looking like a coward. But each step Harry took, he felt a deeper and deeper sinking feeling about this latest blow up with his first friend in the whole world. His desire to save his friendship with Ron warred with his adolescent need to appear strong. The desire for friendship was about to win, about to have Harry turn around and offer an apology for blowing up at Ron like that, when he heard a sound behind him. There were gasps, and then a familiar sounding ominous voice.

"The boy who destroyed the Dark Lord shall fall," Harry heard the sound but couldn't actually believe what he was actually hearing. "When the shadow of the dragon clouds the hallowed grounds then will flame burn the last of the Potter line and the Boy-Who-Lived be seen within the jaws of the beast." And then there was a moment of silence, when nothing at all was said.

Harry turned slowly around to see an ashen white Ron Weasley standing there as if dumbstruck. Half of all the eyes were staring at Harry. The other half were looking at Ron in fear and surprise.

All thoughts of making up with Ron disappeared as Harry stared at the red head disbelievingly. Slowly the blood returned to Ron's face. The Weasley boy had been shocked at what he had done, and he could see the hurt on Harry's face. Harry was his best mate, and he had just made a prophecy about his death. What if it came true? But then he remembered Harry's wand pointing at him and the humiliation. Slowly, the terror of what he had done gave way to a stubborn determination. Harry may be the Boy-Who-Lived, but Ronald Weasley was a seer! Even if he was just making it all up.

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"We're at a crossroads here, Harry," Dumbledore said to the distraught teen sitting across from him with his head in his hands. The boy had taken two lemon drops. This was clearly a very serious matter.

The entire school had heard of this new prophecy in a matter of a couple hours. The Daily Prophet had produced a special evening edition paper in order to publish the news. The gossip mongering was now constant, and no amount of point deducting was going to settle things down. As it stood, it seemed everyone in the castle firmly believed in the prophecy. Meaning it had a very high likelihood of coming to pass.

"Crossroads?" Harry asked. "What do you mean, professor?"

"We have a large number of courses of action available to us, Harry. And there are many courses of action that would be very inadvisable."

"Such as getting eaten by a dragon?"

"Yes, that would be most inadvisable," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "The upside to that particular plan would be that it would clearly cement Mr. Weasley's growing reputation as a seer. The downside…"

"Would be the chomping, bloody death, and digestion," Harry finished. "Yes, I'm pretty sure Plan A is not really what I want to go with here."

"Another option would be to denounce Mr. Weasley as a fraud. You would need to provide an explanation for the lightning bolt, possibly accuse your friend of performing a dark ritual to produce the result in order to build up his fame and reputation. But once you can prove that a single prediction he has made was fraudulent, the media will do the rest." Dumbledore watched Harry's expression carefully.

To the headmaster's joy, Harry's expression was one of horror, not cunning. Revenge was not in Harry's heart.

"That would ruin Ron!" Harry protested. "I mean, yeah, maybe he deserves it for making a prophecy like that about me, but I can't really do that to him. He'd be crushed."

"Indeed," Dumbledore replied. "Most likely he would be sent to Azkaban for the crime. Fraudulent Seership is a very serious crime."

"Hang on, but isn't all prophecy fraudulent?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Oh, no my boy. If making up a prophecy was illegal then I could not in good conscience permit the teaching of Divinations at this school. No, what would make it illegal would be attempting to cause your own prophecy to come true through trickery."

"But Ron isn't guilty of that, though!"

"To a degree, he is, Harry. He is using the foreknowledge of the dragon as a part of the first challenge to establish his prophecy. A clever lawyer could get him off, but I am certain that your testimony used against him would sway the Ministry."

Harry shook his head. "I don't want to do that, Professor."

"Unfortunately, Harry, you may find that is the best option. You must balance the cost of one friend's reputation and freedom against your life and the fate of the entire Wizarding world." Dumbledore spoke quietly and firmly, keeping his eyes on Harry the whole time. "We must always balance our choices against the cost it will take, and ultimately decide on the course of action that causes the least harm and promotes the most good. At times, we must choose a lesser evil in order to promote the greater good."

"That's terrible! How can I make a choice like that? My own life or my friend's reputation and time in Azkaban?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, Harry. At times those are exactly the sort of choices that must be made. Fortunately, however, those are not the only choices we have in this situation."

Harry looked up at the kindly headmaster and realized that Dumbledore had intentionally led him to believe he was faced with just those two choices in order to help him understand the burden of leadership. Now he understood a little part of what Albus Dumbledore had to do almost every day of his life. Weigh one choice against another. Sometimes one life against another.

"So, what else can we do?"

"One option would be for you not to compete. Either you can sacrifice using magic for a year and accept a minor curse to make it appear the curse is affecting you, or you I can destroy the Goblet of Fire before the first challenge. In either case, we would then claim that we believed taking these steps would prevent the prophecy from coming true, making it a mere vision rather than true prophecy. Ron's reputation would remain intact and you would remain alive. Neither of those choices are advisable, but they are options."

Harry shook his head. After his talk with Dumbledore he had realized the perils wizarding society would face if the people believed they could easily escape from contracts. And giving up his magic for a year was just asking for a dark wizard to come kill him. "What else?"

"The last option I can think of is to compete normally, but avoid getting burned and eaten—which, unfortunately, will be rather difficult enough without a prophecy, and even more so with one since the combined belief of all the witches and wizards present would work to make it happen."

Harry frowned. "But if I compete and don't die, won't Ron's reputation be ruined?"

"Well, in the first place, if you compete and do not become a meal for the dragon you can hardly be blamed. It will be entirely Mr. Weasley's fault for making the prediction in the first place and the burden will fall entirely on him. Secondly, as long as there is a dragon there, some people will interpret his claim as partially true. He will still have something of a following, but others will find reason to disbelieve in your friend's predictions."

Harry frowned. "That sounds like the best option."

"But it also happens to be the most dangerous—other than 'Plan A'. You must weigh the risk of that against the possible positive outcome."

Harry understood. It was a difficult decision.

"Usually, Harry, I would not hesitate to make the choice that I believed to be for the greater good. I am, I must say, right more often than I am wrong." The brief twinkle in the old wizards eyes was soon eclipsed by the resigned tone to his voice. "Unfortunately, I cannot be the one to decide things for you for all your life, not when you know as much as I. Your responsibility in this world is as great as mine. Perhaps in time it will be even greater."

"I know, Professor. Thank you for helping me think things through. I'll let you know if I need you to destroy the goblet for me or if I need any more help.

Albus Dumbledore nodded. Harry left to go back to his room to sleep. He had a lot of decisions to make, a lot of preparation to do. Not just his own fate rested on his choices.

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Author's Notes: I've received a complaint about the story that I believe is probably common to many readers. As such, I thought I would share my response to the criticism. I listen to criticism, but don't always agree with it.

One reviewer commented that they disliked my following the Tri-Wizard tournament format (I can understand that, it is done so very often) and they thought Harry was dumb to go along with Dumbeldore's idea. That he knew that Dumbledore was a liar, and that the Headmaster was manipulative. Here is my reply to that part of the criticism:

This is not a Manipulative!Dumbledore story. The way I'm portraying Dumbledore, he's doing his best to do the noble thing. He still has bouts of hubris, but so far the only really bad thing he has done in this story is leave Harry with the Dursleys knowing they were severely mistreating him. (Obliviating Hermione was done for her own good, as well as that of the wizarding world at large.) Keep in mind that when Harry came up with a solution that hadn't occurred to the headmaster, he was willing to do so, but asked Harry if he'd be willing to participate to catch the one trying to set him up. He is asking Harry to take a risk, but one meant to reduce the danger to Harry, not increase it (whether you agree with that assessment or not is another matter).

And as for Harry being dumb in this story, I really don't see that at all. Unlike in canon, Dumbledore has explained everything to him, at least everything except the horcruxes. Harry is coming to understand the responsibility Dumbledore has undertaken in preserving life and society, and he believes in it. It's trust, but it's not blind trust. A break in belief in certain institutions of magic would really have disastrous effects and Harry can see it. Which is why Harry's trust in Dumbledore is not misplaced here.

I understand why Dumbledore has a bad reputation among fanfic writers. What Rowling wrote describes someone who is irresponsible and callous about the lives of others by his actions. But I don't think she intended him that way. I believe her early portrayal of him as kindly and wise was what she wanted to be his defining characteristic. The plot simply didn't bear that out, so the fanfic backlash against him is understandable.

But in this story Dumbledore is disguising the truth about magic because otherwise the world would disintegrate into madness. He is both able to manipulate events through is knowledge, and at other times constrained not to act on what he knows because the consequences of doing so could be worse than what he would try to effect. He's trying, and doing not so bad a job.

I don't expect everyone to like my choice of a non-evil or manipulative Dumbledore (except as is required by the secret he knows), but I hope this helps people understand where I'm coming from as an author and why he isn't getting bashed here.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to let me know how you feel about this via review or PM.