When Harry returned to Hogwarts after a relaxing weekend spent with Fleur and his godfather, he could not help but stop and stare at the assembled students in the Great Hall. Though everyone was sitting down and eating breakfast, it was like looking into the canteen of a battlefield hospital filled with the walking wounded: More than half the student population was sporting bandages, bruises, cuts, and from the looks of it, a few broken bones were in the mix as well.
For once, his entry did not stop traffic as he made his way along with the Gryffindor table and found his friends, "Seriously guys," he said with a shake of his head, "I went away for the weekend, and I come back to find that it's like you guys went to war. What happened?"
Ginny who had a few bruises showing on her forearms shrugged, "Well, I caught the Snitch."
"Gryffindor won the match," added Luna serenely from behind a black eye.
"And we kept our word," said Fred.
"Draco's still having the bones in his left leg growing back," Harry winced in sympathy, "It's a shame that Poppy managed to re-grow the bones in his arm and his teeth." Summarized George.
"Not that they inflicted all that damage," said Neville seeing the look on Harry's face, "Ginny was diving for the snitch, and Draco went after it too. When it was clear he wouldn't reach it in time, he grabbed a hold of her broom." Neville, Harry noted, had a large bandage around his left forearm, and seemed to have a slight limp.
"That's when," interjected Colin, "Gryffindor's own super smash brothers took Draco off his broom with two well-aimed bludgers." Colin never wore glasses, but he was looking at Harry from behind a matching pair of black eyes.
He looked over at the twins. The pair seemed none the worse for wear, "Broken nose, black eye, cracked a rib," said Fred, "but we've been working on a few things and the test results were good.
"Same, same," said George, "except I got a broken finger in the bargain."
"Would somebody like to start at the beginning?" said Harry as he drained his second cup of coffee and poured himself a third.
"Well…" said Ginny, "It was like this…"
Saturday had dawned cold, windy and a weak sun was peering through the clouds. The match had gotten off to an ugly start, but Harry could attest to the fact that any match where Slytherin met Gryffindor was a match that had the potential to get very ugly, real fast. Things had rather gotten out of hand from the first whistle onwards. Instead of a blow by blow rendition, Harry opted for just the highlights reel:
From the moment the Quaffle went airborne, Blagging and Blatching had been flagrant from the beaters and chasers on the Slytherin Team. Proof enough was that eleven penalties were awarded to Gryffindor in the first seven minutes of play. The chasers had converted three of them putting themselves thirty points up.
Angelina ordered a full-on retaliation and demonstrated that the gloves were off when she'd blurted Crabbe into a barrel roll before blatching Goyle face-first into the Hufflepuff House stands. Two penalties to Slytherin in the eighth minute, and they successfully converted one while Ron managed a spectacular save with the tail of his broom against the second.
With the Slytherin beaters out of action for the moment, the twins had exploited the opening, mercilessly. Bludgers are not exactly "fire and forget" projectiles. In fact, they function as more of "fire-and-pray-they-hit-the-target." However, with Fred and George Weasely doing the firing, they kept their promise: Malfoy took three Bludgers to the chest and back and was nearly knocked off his broom. Three penalties to Slytherin, and they converted one.
Ten minutes in, and the score was 50 to 20 in Gryffindor's favor, when Ginny spotted the snitch and went after it. Battered as he was, Draco had pulled out the stops, resorting to blagging Ginny's broom. The loss in speed and punch in the face from Ginny to Draco allowed the Snitch to vanish. A penalty was awarded to Gryffindor for blagging by Slytherin and another penalty was awarded to Slytherin for the physical assault by Gryffindor. Neither side converted their shots.
It got ridiculous after that as the Slytherin began haversacking the Quaffle through the Gryffindor goalposts. Ron had managed to block two such attempts but the third was accompanied by a double Bludger attack. Even Harry had conceded that nobody willingly stays in the path of a Bludger, let alone two. Even more ridiculous was that the goal was actually allowed and then a penalty awarded, which Angelina converted.
Then it escalated when the Slytherin Chasers began Stooging to try and score which won Gryffindor another two penalties.
Ginny had punched Malfoy in the jaw again for yet another Blagging offense and this time both teams converted their penalty shots. Her second punch knocked out two front teeth that the first had probably loosened. However, the Slytherin goalkeeper resorted to flacking and while the goals still counted, Gryffindor converted several more penalties.
Those were just the highlights in what was perhaps the dirtiest twenty-three minutes of Quidditch that Hogwarts had seen in about a century and a half, before Ginny caught the Snitch and ended the match 210 to 40 for Gryffindor.
While the match had ended, it was the aftermath that had proven… traumatizing. Though the teams had landed, Malfoy had started hurling insults and abuse as always, about blood traitors, mudblood lovers. What he had not expected was for three Weasleys to work out some of their anger issues. Ginny had gone in with a beater's bat, Fred had used his fists, and George had a wand drawn.
Of course, Malfoy's cronies had stepped in with wands drawn and fired first. Not that Snape or Umbridge could be convinced of that by the hundred-odd witnesses in the stands on the Quidditch pitch or making their way back to the castle. Trained as they were, the trio had easily sidestepped the barrage. Ron, who had his back turned, took two bludgeoning hexes and stunner to the back and was out like a shattered light bulb.
The other spells had gone wide and hit a number of other Gryffindors who had immediately retaliated, drawing their own wands and firing back. "Not too sure how Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw got drawn into the thick of things," said Ginny, "All I knew was that suddenly it was a free for all."
"Spells flying every which way," said George
"And some pretty nasty ones too," added Fred, "I heard cutting charms, bombardment curses, even a reducto or two."
"Those came from the Slytherins," added Colin, "Crabbe and Goyle, specifically." Colin chuckled darkly, "They won't be casting spells until they find their wands, or get new ones."
"So I went away for the weekend," said Harry, "and while I was gone, all hell broke loose on the Quidditch pitch followed by all hell breaking loose in general. Who put a stop to it?"
"Well…it didn't stop, more like fizzle out," said Luna, "When it came down to it, it was Slytherin house, half of their fourth, fifth years, and perhaps all of their sixth and seventh years, against about eight-five students from the three houses."
"Yeah, but a special seventy stood their ground," said Neville, "and I think they handled themselves well enough." He hesitated to continue.
"What?" Harry asked as his mind spun over the possibilities.
"Well, blame was placed squarely on Gryffindor House, specifically, Fred, George… and me," said Ginny. Harry found himself mentally bracing for the hit, "All three of us have been banned from playing Quidditch… and Umbridge confiscated our brooms."
"Not so bad there," said Neville, "Every house lost a hundred points, flat out, and then ten points for each person involved in the… free for all. Slytherin lost about one-sixty total. Other houses lost between one-thirty and two-twenty points in total. We lost two-twenty."
Harry nodded, "Looks like I missed a good match and an even better show."
"That's not the worst of it…." said Ginny hesitantly.
"What else?" asked Harry, "Two hundred twenty points gone, lifetime bans at Hogwarts for Gryffindor's Beaters and Seeker, and the Legion's membership pretty much exposed at a glance. I thought it couldn't get any worse."
"Harry… you know the Whomping Willow?" asked Neville, "Well… it got hit in the chaos… by your broom."
Ginny held out the box that contained the pulverized fragments of his Firebolt, "Sorry… Harry."
He sighed, "Four years I'm here, and that's two brooms that bloody tree owes me…" he looked at the gathered, somber faces, "What else?" he asked almost tiredly. He had just had a relaxing weekend and had returned into the jaws of hell.
"Educational Decree number Twenty-five," said Ginny quietly, "was signed by the minister and passed." She handed him a roll of parchment, "Copied it off the notice board…"
He scanned through the document and read the amendment twice to make sure he understood it and didn't believe it:
"The High Inquisitor will henceforth have supreme authority over all punishments, sanctions, and removal of privileges pertaining to the students of Hogwarts, and the power to alter such punishments, sanctions, and removals of privileges as may have been ordered by other staff members."
"So much for a compromise working out," Harry thought bitterly. Umbridge was going to be a major problem in the near future. There was no doubt she was going to come after him, and perhaps others close to him as well. "Banning half the Quidditch team is nothing. She's just getting started."
Strangely enough, the following few days were quiet. Most of the simmering tension amongst the student population was exorcised on Saturday and the castle seemed to be going through a period of relative calm. It was the middle of the week and he was already at dinner when he received the note from Dumbledore. It made its way around the table and the circle of friends trashed it out, they could not figure out a reason for the meeting. Even the date and recent articles in the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler had nothing worthy of note, beyond the usual mudslinging, "Guess I'll go see what the old man wants," said Harry with a shrug. However, he made a note to keep his shields at full strength, as he stole a surreptitious glance up at the staff table where the headmaster was more picking at his food than actually eating it. Harry shrugged and turned his attention back to his steak and kidney pie.
He was there at precisely eight-thirty, outside the gargoyle. It sprang aside and he mounted the flight of stairs that lead to the headmaster's office and knocked upon the door, "Come in Har… Mr. Potter."
Harry shut the door behind him and collapsed into a chair, "Headmaster Dumbledore, you wanted to see me?"
"Yes… I have word… from France," the headmaster hesitated, and then passed a parchment scroll across the desk, "It is work from Madame Maxime." Harry flexed his fingers towards the parchment on the desk. Satisfied he lifted it, unfurled it, and began to read.
He paused and reread several lines, then read the rest of the letter. The writing was cursive, in a long flowing script that he found difficult to read, "There is no date on these events," he said quietly. "How long ago did it happen?"
"About six weeks ago," replied the headmaster, "it is my best guess. Madame Maxime was injured quite badly and it will take a few more weeks before her new arm takes as it supposed to. It is a wonder that she survived at all," he added.
He read the letter once more, "So Hagrid… is dead?" Having read the letter several times, a few lines stood out, glaring at him and he, in turn, glared at the headmaster. The half-giant gamekeeper and he had been close. The relationship was as special as it was different. Hagrid had been the one to introduce him to the magical world, to Gringotts. His first wand, his first birthday cake, and his first birthday gift. He struggled and managed to keep his emotions in check. So many "firsts" that any normal child would have experienced with family not a near-total stranger.
The headmaster was simply content for the moment to watch. He had done his best, to probe the boy's mind, with a feather-light as possible touch but had encountered mental wards and defenses of strength and completeness that he knew he would not be able to breach without alerting Harry. The truth was that Hagrid had long been a potential ally of Harry's, ever since the events of the previous year when he had tried to use Hagrid to pass some information about the tournament. It had taken some powerful spell work to "convince" the half-giant to set off into the mountains of France. Madame Maxime had been far simpler to convince and she'd gone along with the prospect of recruiting Giants to fight for the light with tremendous ease.
"Let me get this straight," said Harry meeting the headmaster's gaze for the first time, "You sent two half-giants, out on their own to look for their own kind. Magic does not work so well against Giants. One wand would barely be enough to stun one."
"Harry," said Dumbledore carefully, "Are you implying something?"
"Heck no, headmaster," he snapped, "I'm not implying anything! Hagrid has been shortchanged his entire life! You were Transfigurations Professor in Hogwarts when Tom Riddle opened the Chamber of Secrets, but you let Hagrid take the blame for it when you knew it was not likely to be him! He lost his right to a magical education! To a wand! Even after he was cleared you never gave him the chance to pick up where he left off!"
Fawkes watched in silence from his perch: This argument was heating up, and becoming dangerous, and the headmaster had surreptitiously drawn his wand underneath the table. "I am not implying anything. I am accusing you of sending Hagrid to his death!"
"Harry, please, I need you to remain calm," implored the headmaster. He was actually hoping that the boy would lose some control so that he would find a way into his mind. He had to know just what Harry was up to, how well developed his magic really was, amongst many other things, such as Sirius who had not been seen or heard from in almost a year. His mental probe drifted in and out, on the edge of Harry's consciousness trying to spot a weakness in some very impressive mental defenses.
It worked as Harry seemed to draw magic from the air around him, his eyes flashing a dark emerald green. A burst of Phoenix Song cut through the wall of anger surrounding Harry for a few moments, but his rage was out and it drowned out the phoenix song and all its calming effects. However, those few moments were long enough for Dumbledore's mental probe to feel, rather than see the presence of another mind, in not only the boy's mind but also one that passed through the Occulemency barriers. He was quick to follow, but not quick enough to evade detection.
In the real world, Harry's eyes snapped up to meet the headmasters with a gaze of cold fury, "You dare?" he whispered, "You dare!" he was incensed, "The last time you tried to mind fuck me in that alley, I was lenient. This time: No mercy!"
Duels involving just the mind arts are rare occurrences amongst wizards as there are few who are accomplished enough with both Occulemency and Legilimency. The pair sitting in the headmaster's office of Hogwarts was one of those rare pairings.
With Albus already within his mind, the needle-like probe was engulfed in a net of inky blackness and began dragging it out of his mind. Harry made good progress as the blocking move was backed by all the power he could, stunning Dumbledore into inaction for a moment.
The headmaster let his probe disintegrate until it was a million pinpricks of light and then tried to withdraw. Harry was having none of that. He reinforced the outermost wall and then the inner wall that guarded his most personal and the most important of secrets. Trapped between two walls, Dumbledore's mental probe had nowhere to go, "You're in my head Dumbledore!" shouted Harry inside his head, "This is my domain! This is my battlefield! I am God here!" The dancing lights rebounded off and Harry showed no mercy, engulfing each one in the same obliterating wave of darkness.
Dumbledore had far from given up as he slammed another two probes into Harry's defenses. Distraction and feint worked well, as the second probe began to bore through the wall of steel and stone, while the third became liquid, like mercury, intent on slipping through the cracks.
Forced to split his attention, Harry dealt with the probe attempting to cut its way into his mind, he brought the wall to life, surrounding and encasing the mind before dropping it into the same inky blackness that contained the first.
The liquid, mercury-like probe had succeeded in its task, only to meet its own liquid counterpart. It was akin to watching a pair of amoeba duel as the two probes battled for dominance and supremacy. However, the battleground was Harry's mind, the battleground was his and he used it to that effect, conjuring multiple probes of his own, until he had subdued Dumbledore's third, and final Legilimency probe, lumping it together with the other two probes in the small cage he had conjured for them.
That was precisely what the headmaster had hoped for: The combined strength of the three probes working in concert achieved what one could not. The probes shattered the bars of their cage and slammed into the second wall, the one that protected everything of importance.
The advantage was clearly Dumbledores, and Harry knew it. He let training and instinct guide him. He broke eye contact with the headmaster, weakening the assault slightly, and reconfigured the way he stored his memories, even as he threw up additional barriers to keep the headmaster occupied, while he searched for the right memories.
"Memories can be used as weapons," said Marinashka, "Those of your pain, of your loss, can be fed to an overeager mental intruder, but be wary of what you reveal in such a fashion, for your enemy can learn much about you, by what pains you." Those were the Goblin's words on the subject, and Harry had taken them to heart:
"You are so eager to see what is in my head!" Harry snarled, "Let me show you! Let me show you what haunts my sleep!" A heavy steel truck, with a dozen locks upon its edges, came to the front. The locks did not come off so much as the trunk exploded, and Harry focused the memories into a tight probe of his own.
He found the leading edge of the headmaster's own probe easily enough, and invaded, infecting it with every memory of pain, suffering, loss, and heartbreak he had lived through in his fifteen years of life:
The first time Dudley had "accidentally" knocked him down a flight of stairs was when he was five.
Getting whipped by Vernon for scoring better than Dudley in school when he was six.
The repeated physical abuse at the hands of Dudley and his so-called friends left him bruised, with fractured bones, and one or two broken ones on a fairly regular basis.
The birthdays he spent locked in the cupboard under the stairs.
A snarling and vicious bulldog, snapping at Harry's heels and chasing him up a tree in his relative's back garden while the whole group of bastards had watched and laughed.
Aunt Marge, calling him as a "pup" that should have been drowned at birth, due to "weakness."
Vernon sucker-punching him repeated when he was six because he could not mow the lawn in straight enough lines
Lying in bed, damn near starving to death every summer, waiting for the can of cold soup to come through the cat flap in his room door.
Snape, dropping a well-made potion on the dungeon floor when Harry had already cleaned his cauldron, glaring at Harry and daring him to say something.
He rammed home the memory, the emotions, the pain, the fear of his second year when he lay dying in the Chamber of Secrets.
Those were just the opening blows: the memory that haunted his sleep haunted his life: The night of June 24, 1994. The last day of the Triwizard Tournament, the night of the Third Task, was the night Voldemort was reborn. The night he lost the first woman who showed him what love was and how powerful it could be.
"Harry!" the voice screamed at him, "Enough! Stop!" Rowena, Lady of the Castle, could not believe the anger and rage kept bottled up within the young wizard, and the way it simply boiled out of him, it was as if there was something malicious within him to drive such fury, "Do not become him! Do not become worse than him!" she shouted to him, only to find herself suddenly locked within a cage, inside his mind.
His attention split, Dumbledore was able to break the assault and drive him back. Forced to retreat, Harry took a moment to gather his faculties. "Harry! Do not disappoint her! Do not fail Hermione! What would she think? What about Fleur? She loves you, Harry! Don't turn your back on that!" That shattered his mental focus, and he was on the defensive now. He weakened the barriers enough to give the Headmaster an opening. One, he was relieved to see, that the headmaster took willingly and withdrew completely from Harry's mind.
It took Harry a few moments longer to recover but Harry was on his feet, the mental duel having exhausted him. He stood holding his wand in a trembling hand, "I'm done with you. I cast off all ties and sever all relations with you!" His tone softened, "I almost became something worse than you. And to think I once looked up to you. When will you see it? When will you understand? I am not a boy anymore. I have never been much of one. I will not be led, nor will I follow blindly. After what happened last year… I was still willing, for the sake of the Light to try and work with you. You are supposed to be the leader of the Light. You are supposed to be a beacon, a symbol of all that is right, and good. You are supposed to lead the Light? You would lead it into the Darkness. The Ministry is supposed to be a government that stands for justice, for the rights of all wizarding kind, whether wizard, witch, Elf, Goblin, Centaur, or Half-Giant. It refuses to accept what's coming. It cowers and it lies. It cannot govern."
"Umbridge once asked me whether I knew what my greatest sin was," he said, "Right now, I'm becoming a pretty big fan of all seven. But Wrath seems to be a personal favorite of mine. Voldemort, Snape, Umbridge, The Ministry, The Daily Prophet. You, on the other hand, are now number two on my shit list.
"I don't know…"
Harry laughed, "Oh please! You know exactly what I am talking about!" the wand did not move, "You are the reason I had the childhood I had. I never had enough food! I never had decent clothes! I lived in a fucking cupboard for ten years! I was a slave to those filthy muggles!" His magic flared and the glass in the windows cracked, shattered, and blew outwards. "I was their slave! And you knew it!"
'Harry I swear that if I had any idea-'
"Do not. LIE. TO ME!" he roared, as his rage and hatred rose yet again. A whiplash of magic shattered a shelf and the collection of delicate silver, spider-like instruments, "Figg! Arabella Figg! She was your precious order spy! She was watching me all the time! She must have said something!"
"Enough!" said Dumbledore standing up, "I am not what you make me out to be Harry. I am truly sorry for what you have gone through all these years, and I admit that I made a mistake. However, it is important that you do not become embittered by that."
"My brothers and sisters will know about this conversation," he growled, "and we will act as we see fit! They are too young to have to do this. To learn to fight, to duel, and to kill and to then have to live with themselves for taking the life of even a Death Eater. They are not me."
Harry turned towards the door of the office, "They are children. However willing they are, I will take their innocence from them. I will give them tasks, responsibilities, and burdens that most adult wizards shy away from. I will take and mold them into men and women. And in all likelihood, many will die before they can truly live."
His hand was on the doorknob and to his complete lack of surprise, the door locked, "They will make a sacrifice because they chose to only because I ask them to," he said bitterly, "I will ruin lives by making soldiers, warriors, and guardians in Legion strength. And then lead them in war. And if I could make a deal with fate and destiny, trade my life so that they can live in peace."
"The Light, and the Ministry of Magic, can fight their own damn war. I'll deal with you, all of you, on my terms." He turned to face the headmaster, "Now can someone unlock this fucking door for me?" To the headmaster's shock, the door did exactly that, swinging open without a sound, "Thank you," said Harry as he marched down the stairs, the door swinging shut behind him.
Everything he had just heard, everything left him troubled, greatly. What on Earth, was Harry talking about? What did he mean by ruining lives? Legion strength? He absentmindedly reached towards his bowl of lemon drops only to find that the candy had melted under the ferocity of Harry's magic. The boy was no longer under any semblance of his influence or control, but at least Hagrid, a potential turncoat had been dealt with. Now it was time to deal with other matters.