Harry Potter and the Paradigm Shift
Chapter 14
By Kinsfire
Harry woke early on the morning of the eleventh and headed downstairs. He felt the same way he did on the mornings he’d had a big Quidditch game — fairly nervous and not sure if he was ready for what was coming. He began to cook a small breakfast, since he wasn’t sure how much anyone was willing to eat on a morning like this. If I judged Dumbledore right, this all ends today, one way or another. I’m walking out of this alive, though. I swore that to Ginny’s baby, and if I heard the comments correctly, I may have gotten Moira pregnant, too.
The group came down as well, and settled quietly around the table. They had already dressed, and it was quite obvious that they were ready for battle, since they were in form fitting clothing that was far less likely to catch on stray branches and the like — the women in armoured leather catsuits. They ate quickly and with little extraneous conversation, and headed downstairs as a group to prepare for the upcoming confrontation.
"Are you sure that Voldemort will arrive today?" Hermione asked. "What if Voldemort doesn’t show up? What do you tell the Order then?"
Harry snorted. "I make Dumbledore unhappy by putting forth the same evidence that I gave to the others about a week ago. See who it sways. But Remus was never contacted about the meeting, which confirms Dumbledore is dirty, and means Voldemort is going to be there. I’ve felt him probe a few times since the seventh, which he hadn’t been doing earlier. Amazingly, it was only after the meeting with Dumbledore that the probes started." Harry grinned wolfishly. "He knows I can see through his eyes sometimes. Sometimes he could actually force me to. He’s done it off and on over the last four years just to let me know he’s still out there. But he doesn’t know I can do it at will now. Or that I’m a good enough Occlumens now that he can’t sense it if I am there. I saw him last night, giving his instructions to the Death Eaters. They’ll be there." He shook his head. "Now, if I’m reading Dumbledore right, he’s hoping to see me kill Voldemort, but I think he’s also decided that he’s not going to be unhappy if I die instead. He and Voldemort have shared power for a while, so they may have come to an agreement." He paused. "Hmm, wonder if either of them have read the Evil Overlord list? Nah, can’t have — too many things they do are straight off the list of things not to do."
Each of them prepared in what small way that they could — practice with some small hexes and shields, some minor target practice and the like. Meanwhile, Harry was finishing his preparations. He clipped a holster onto his belt on his right side and pulled the weapon currently housed from within it. He quickly stripped and oiled the Browning 9mm pistol before reassembling it. He made sure the safety was on before putting the magazine into the weapon, and then chambering a round. Dropping the magazine, he put one more bullet into it and reinserted the magazine into the weapon. Ensuring the safety was on, he reholstered it and began taking filled magazines and loading them into a separate holster he’d prepared, so that if he needed to reload, he always had one available. He clipped this holster onto his left side.
He looked up to see the others looking at him. "Hollow point bullets. I intend to discommode as many of the Death Munchers as I can. They’ll be prepared for curses and such that they can block, but how many of them can get a shield in the way in time to stop something moving at the speed of sound?"
Hermione walked over to him. "To quote a friend of ours: ‘You’re scary. Brilliant, but scary.’"
His face became deadly serious. "You know that I do this for you, don’t you? For all of you and your families? That I don’t want to become a monster, but I think I’m being forced into it?"
She kissed him thoroughly — a kiss that promised far more after this day was over. "Do you think I’d kiss someone I thought was ever going to be a monster like that?"
"I just …"
Tonks walked over and pulled them into a hug. "It’s your fear that you could become a monster that ensures that you won't become one, Harry." She also kissed him deeply.
"Jesus, girls, I need some blood making it above my waist for this fight," he laughed weakly, and then groaned as Ginny flowed into his arms. "Hello, mother of my child," he breathed unbelievingly, a wide grin on his face.
She kissed him as well and rested her head on his chest. "It makes me feel so good to know that you want this child, Harry."
"How could I not? It’s going to have a beautiful mother, so with luck it will be as beautiful. Even if it’s unlucky enough to look like me, it’ll still have you as its mother, so it’s blessed no matter what."
"And even more blessed to have a handsome man as its father," Sirius said.
"Hey, I thought I was the father, not you!" Harry laughed.
"Git," Sirius laughed for a moment. "So what’s our plan, commander?"
"Well, my thought was to get there early and set ourselves up around the perimeter as best we can. I haven’t seen the place since I was this high, remember," he said, holding his hand at knee-level. "I need to take a look at it and find the right place for the showdown. My hope is that some of the other members of the Order can be there as well to listen in when I talk to Voldemort. That's the reason we're walking in with the PDAs. I want them on and recording the second we show up, no matter what the conversation happening. Since I'm using a rather bizarre version of wizard space as my storage medium for the sound, we don’t have a time limit the way Muggle recorders do." He looked at Tonks. "An amusing aside that I never showed you about these is that it writes out dialogue in the handwriting of the speaker. My voice has my handwriting, Tom's voice will produce Tom's, and Dumbledore will write out in his hand." He snapped his fingers and ran to a cabinet and pulled out a small box. "I didn't need mine on the seventh. I want you all to wear these." He pulled out several small, thin, flat disks about the size of a Sickle. Once you put this somewhere on your body, I'm going to activate them. There will be three settings on them."
"What are they for?" Moira asked.
"I call them jump discs. They use Apparation coordinates, but use quantum tunnelling to travel. Yes, they've been tested on living things, and yes, they work. Right now, I have them set for three points. They'll take a reading of how you are right now and treat it as a baseline. If your condition changes radically, you will be immediately sent to St. Mungo's."
"How do you mean radically?" Hermione asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Major medical condition. A slice on the arm won't set it off, but losing the arm altogether might. Going into shock. Going unconscious. Like that. In answer to your unasked question, I am not trying to keep you out of the fight, since I would hear no end of it later, and far worse, possibly lose one or more of you from my life for doing your thinking for you. I will, however, do what I can to keep you alive."
"The second setting that I have in there is to come back here at six p.m., no matter what. That one can be shut off by any one of us, or I can shut it off for all of us."
He smiled wryly. "The third setting is more of a 'Scram!' setting. If necessity kicks in, any one of us can set off a signal that will grab all of us and throw us to San Francisco. This one can not be shut off, and is guarded against accidental set-off. If one of us decides that we have to be out of the area yesterday, get as many people as you can to grab you and set off that setting. That one is honestly the least likely one to be used, but it's there as a just in case. Two other settings are possible if you have an idea, but we'll need to know before we leave." He gave them a quick tutorial on how to activate the scram.
"If I were going on my own, I'd set land mines around the place to surprise the Munchers, but since I'm hoping the Order will be there as well, that would be a very bad idea. Blowing up your friends is usually contraindicated."
"'Usually'?" he heard Sirius ask Remus quietly. "There's a good time to blow up your friends?" Remus only chuckled in response. The girls took the time to strip down somewhat and slapped the small discs onto their buttocks. "Makes sense," Remus said. "Not often someone gets shot there." He slipped down his own trousers to wolf whistles and placed the disc in the same area.
Harry chuckled as he watched everyone finish attaching the discs. "Okay, I've got my wand and my quarterstaff, and I'm also carrying my PDA and my pistol. Is everyone else as loaded as they're going to get?" He watched as everyone verified that they had their wands in easy reach, and only Moira grabbed a handgun as well, doing the same things he had — stripping, oiling, reassembling, and arming. She clipped her own holster and magazine onto her hips, and Harry found himself thinking of a much more intelligently dressed Lara Croft. He shook his head at the image that presented. I can think thoughts like that about her after I win.
"We've got our PDA's and the charms prepared for preventing Apparation and Portkey travel?" he asked. "That last should serious annoy the Tosser and his minions. Preventing Portkey travel is not a common thing." He looked to Remus. "Do the others know to show at Godric’s Hollow by ten o’clock at the latest?"
He nodded. "If I know Amelia, she’s also going to have a team of trustworthy Aurors nearby."
Sirius snorted. "Yeah — Kingsley and Moody."
"We’ll find out when we get there. Let’s go."
#####
They Apparated into the spacious back garden of the Potter home in Godric’s Hollow, using the coordinates that Remus and Sirius still remembered after all the years. Surprisingly, the garden was fairly well-kept; Harry had expected to be in knee-high grass or the beginnings of a small forest after almost twenty years of abandonment. Instead, it looked like a garden that had been let go for a couple of weeks and needed a bit of a cleanup. The house itself was brick, fairly large, and in good shape. He turned to Sirius, quizzically. "You sure we’re at the right place? I thought the place got blown up or something."
Sirius seemed to be stunned. "It was, it was! The top story was blown up, that’s where your nursery was. The roof was pretty thoroughly burnt up. And that whole chimney over there came down and was all over the side garden. Somebody’s fixed it up, but who?"
"Whoever it is, we’d better get them out of the house now, or they’re going to be up to their ears in Death Eaters." Remus strode to the back door and reached for the doorknob, but drew back his fingers abruptly as magical energy flared. "Whoa! That’s one of the tightest wards I’ve ever seen!"
"That’s James’ work, I’d recognize that signature anywhere. So the family wards are still up!" Sirius whistled in astonishment. "That still begs the question of who did the rebuilding, since no one can get in but a member of the family. And that’s you, Harry."
Gingerly, Harry reached for the doorknob, but there was no flash, just cool metal in his palm. He did feel a shiver of magic as the wards recognized him and reset themselves to allow normal entry and exit. The door didn’t even seem to be locked, and he opened it and walked into the spacious Muggle-style kitchen. The rest of the group followed, looking around curiously. Harry had no memories going back to when he had lived here, so it was essentially the first time he ever saw it in his life. Sirius had tears in his eyes as he looked around. "Merlin! It’s just like it was then. Look, that was Lily’s favourite blue teakettle. But how-" How was answered abruptly when the crowd in the kitchen was suddenly augmented by six house-elves, an older male and female and four younger ones of indeterminate gender.
"Master Harry!" squeaked the oldest female, who was clad in a sarong made of an old set of curtains. "You is back! You is a naughty boy, surprising your Tweeny and Woolly like this!" Then suddenly the two eldest house-elves were clinging to Harry’s pants legs sobbing tears of joy while three of the younger ones jumped up and down singing, "Master Harry’s here! Master Harry’s here!" and the fourth examined him solemnly as if he had had no idea what a ‘Master Harry’ would actually look like.
"You have house elves?" asked Hermione.
"Apparently."
"You have house elves?!?"
"Well of course they did, Lily needed help with the baby and all," said Sirius. "Looks like they stayed here all this time and took care of the place. And had a family of their own while they were at it."
"YOU HAVE HOUSE ELVES?!?" Hermione was getting dangerously wound up, until Ron dragged her into a corner to have a few words with her. Whatever he said cooled her down, but she was still fuming by the time Harry got the elves to let go of his legs and stop crying.
"Look, er, Tweeny, is it? And Woolly? You’ve been here all this time and took care of the place?"
"Oh yes, Master Harry, Tweeny and Woolly is kept it just the way Mistress did. Poor Mistress, she was so kind to Tweeny and Woolly, yes she was. So the house is kept just the way she liked it until Master Harry comes back. Tweeny and Woolly is even putting back the chimney! And now Master Harry is back and he is brought his friends with him and it will all be happy again!" Tweeny blew her nose on the corner of her sarong.
Remus touched Harry on the shoulder to get his attention and mouthed, "We have to get them out of here." Harry nodded.
"Look, Tweeny, you’re not bound to this house or anything, are you?"
"No, Tweeny and Woolly and Bili and Fili and Kili and Mili can go anywhere Master Harry wants them to go."
"Good, because I have another house that needs a bit of … a special touch, you might say. The house elf that was there before was a bad house elf and didn’t take care of the place right." Tweeny looked very sorrowful at this. "I’ve been cleaning it up myself." She was horror-stricken at the very notion. "So I really would be very grateful if …"
"Oh, if Master Harry is telling Tweeny where this other house is, we is going there immediately!"
"It’s in London, at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. I can give you a port-"
"Is not needing a portkey. We is going immediately!" Grinning and nodding madly, the six elves vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
"Well. That was — strange. Now then, I’m going to have a bit of a look around the house, and the rest of you can join me or wait out in the garden."
Most of the group went out to the garden to set up the trap wards, but Remus and Sirius accompanied Harry on his trip through the house, pointing out knick-knacks and things that had been personal treasures of the Potters. Much of the house was non-magical, since James and Lily had been trying to hide and pass as Muggles, but there was the occasional magical personal item that caught his attention, including a book that seemed to be locked stronger than any of the unlocking spells he knew. He stuffed those items into an old string shopping bag he found in the kitchen and used a spare jump disc to send them to Grimmauld Place for later investigation.
Finally, he found himself in a room that had once been his nursery. The elves had even repaired or replaced his crib and kept it with fresh linens. Mum died for me right about there, he thought to himself. Mum, Dad — today I clear the slate and avenge your murders. I may be saving the world, but this is for you, and for those seven out there.
Looking out the window at them settling into their positions, he smiled sadly. I wish you could have met them all, Mum, Dad. I mean, you know Remus and Sirius, but I really think you’d have loved Ron, Ginny, Moira, Hermione, and Tonks. I love them all so much, guys, and I do this as much to free them from Voldemort’s clutches as I do to avenge you.
I miss you. I never really knew you, but I miss you. He saw Tonks look up through the window and smile and wave slightly. He waved back and stood straighter. Speaking not only to the memories of his parents, but to the people outside he said, "This is for you today. I won’t fail you."
As he headed downstairs, he swore that someone clapped him on the shoulder while someone else kissed his cheek.
#####
Ten o’clock came, bringing Amelia Bones, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Neville Longbottom, and every Weasley that Harry knew, save Percy. They were quickly told to stay extremely close to one of the eight of the new Potter family for ease of escape. Molly’s face took on a disapproving look when she saw Tonks, and Harry told her simply, "Later, when you have all the facts. Right now, we’re waiting for Voldemort."
Most people around winced. "Look, folks, get used to hearing it, because you’ll hear a lot after today. Tom falls today."
"Harry, be careful," Molly said, and tried to hug him. He didn’t return it, and she broke from him, puzzled and hurt.
"I’m sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but I heard what happened four years ago, and when we have a chance, you’ll hear everything. And you’ll know what needs to be done. Right now, I’m very disappointed in you." She opened her mouth. "I’m not getting into it here, because you’ll need to hear the entirety of it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak."
"He’s right, Mum," Ginny said. "For the time being, though, I will say that it’s good to see you again." She and Ron hugged Molly tightly, and sniffles were the order of the hour.
When eleven o’clock approached, Harry put everyone on their guard. "We know Moldie is coming, and since he wants to surprise us when we get here at noon, I expect him to show up any time now." The tension was palpable in the air.
Conversation effectively ended at that point, with mild murmuring amongst the various eight groups in their hiding places. At eleven-forty-five exactly, the loud cracks of Apparation sounded in the clearing, and a large number of Death Eaters appeared, with a tall creature in the centre, trying to appear majestic. He waited a few moments for the cracks to end before whispering "Now!" into the PDA. He felt the wards snap into existence.
The Death Eaters looked around. "I’ll kill the fool for setting me up like this!" Voldemort hissed, loud enough for all to hear.
"You won’t live long enough for that, Tommie," Harry said, standing up from his hiding place. "Today’s the day you finally end your miserable half-life."
"No, the time has come for you to finally die, Potter," the high-pitched nasal voice exclaimed. "How stupid of you to come alone. But it will make things easier for me."
Harry laughed and flicked his wand in the direction that the slight wind was blowing from, and a tumbleweed appeared and rolled between them, with the faint strains of the theme from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" floating in the air.
"What are you on about, Potter?" Voldemort asked, destroying the tumbleweed easily.
"Come now, Tommie boy …"
"Stop calling me that, Potter," Voldemort interrupted.
"Tom, I’ll call you what I want to. You know the prophecy — I know that you have to. I figured out a while back who your spy is, and I know that your spy knows the prophecy. So you know that you can send every stinking catamite in your army at me and they won’t be able to kill me. It has to be at your hands. Just like I’m the only one who can kill you. So I got sick of it, and decided to set up your spy. He told you there was an Order meeting taking place here at noon. I’ve been here for a while, Tommie-boy. Wouldn’t you like to know what I’ve done with the place while waiting for you?"
As he spoke, he began to move the quarterstaff in a counter-clockwise rotation before suddenly snapping one of the shod ends to point at Voldemort.
"You think your Muggle weapon can scare me, Potter?" the sneering response returned. "You can’t even get to me in time to hit me with it. I end this now. Avada Kedavra!"
Harry grinned. "Rictusempra!" Their spells met, and as had happened after the third task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the combined beam turned gold, splintered, and formed a domed cage over their duel. Harry’s hands were once again tightly locked, but this time he was prepared. A greater will and a greater desire to live than ever before fuelled his fight, and he forced that will through the staff in his hands.
Voldemort was looking quite confused. "How have you … managed this?" he asked through gritted teeth. "These are not brother wands!"
"Same phoenix, Tommie," Harry ground out. "Fawkes likes me." He took a deep breath and forced the bead of power closer to the yew wand gripped furiously in his opponent’s fist. "Holly staff … phoenix feather … core. Brother wand."
Voldemort looked at Harry for a moment and narrowed his eyes. A burst of intense pain shot through Harry’s head as if someone had struck him in the forehead with a twenty pound sledge, and he felt blood trickle from the scar. The bead turned and began to head toward Harry’s staff. "Not so cocky now, are we Potter? I killed your parents, I’ll kill you, and I’ll kill everyone who opposes me. I’ll find the woman you love and torture her slowly for daring to love you."
Images of Ginny, Hermione, Tonks, and Moira went through his head, and despite the pain, he smiled. Voldemort hissed painfully, and Harry leaned forward menacingly. The bead reversed again, and Harry let images of making love to each of them go through his mind. The sheer bliss of Hermione’s Librarian fantasy flowed through him for a moment, and Voldemort screamed as if Harry had just cast the Cruciatus Curse on him. Letting the memory of her loving ministrations run through his mind, he forced the bead toward Voldemort. The screams became weaker as Voldemort collapsed to his knees. With one last burst of will, Harry forced the bead into the tip of Voldemort’s yew wand.
The cage faded as the yew wand literally exploded into tiny shards, each one burning as bright as a tiny sun. The handle fell to the ground as Riddle’s grip finally loosened, and Harry could see smoke rising from the burnt hand. He remembered the feeling of seeing the tangle of bodies on the bed on various mornings. Voldemort whimpered on the ground before him.
"I’m sorry, Tom, but I have to. You’re too big a threat otherwise." He pointed the staff at Voldemort and whispered, "May the life after this one treat you better, Tom. Surujnoc!" As soon as the word left his mouth, he leapt away as Tom Marvolo Riddle’s body literally disintegrated in a wet explosion that devastated the area within fifteen feet and knocked several Death Eaters off their feet. Harry was struck by something hard enough to stun him for just a moment.
This was all the time that the Death Eaters, showing that exposure to Riddle had not blunted their self-preservation instincts, needed to attempt to leave. He heard a shout of "Anti-Apparation wards are up! Try another way!"
Harry shook his head as the Order members erupted from their own hiding spots. As the Death Eaters suddenly realized that even their Portkeys weren’t working, some of them turned a little green. Harry heard a roar and saw someone fire a blast at one of the Order. The battle was begun in earnest.
He leaped into the fray, swinging his quarterstaff and hearing a satisfying *THWACK* as he landed. He fired spell and curse into the crowd around him, downing Death Eater after Death Eater. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see the same from his fellow Order members.
He found himself suddenly before Draco Malfoy, whose wand was aimed directly at his head. His own staff was not in a position to fire a spell that would do any good. "Well, Potty, when it comes to the end, it looks as if you’ve made things much easier. Voldemort was just a little crazy. Now, drop the stick, and stand and face me like the stupid Gryffindor you are."
The staff struck the ground with a sound loud enough that it actually stopped the fighting nearby. "Now, Potter, you die. I have to thank you for killing off the crazy, but now someone better will step into his shoes." He smirked. "Like, oh, me for example. Avada Keda…."
Draco never finished the spell as the back of his skull exploded outward. Harry stood before him with the pistol aimed where the falling body’s head used to be. "That’s the problem with that spell. Takes too long to cast, arsehole." He looked and discovered that Narcissa Malfoy had been right behind her son, and was now wearing his blood and brains on her skin and robes.
Changing his aim slightly as she shook herself free of the shock of watching her son die before her eyes, he watched both madness and anger flow into her demeanour, and she started to raise her wand to Harry. "I wouldn’t, Narcissa. I can kill you before you can open your mouth." She sneered and finished pointing her wand at him, but fell to the ground as a bullet struck her in the left eye and tore her brains to a bloody grey mush.
#####
The showdown had been interesting to watch, but Sirius had only paid it cursory attention while sneaking up on one specific Death Eater. Even through the robes they all wore, there was no mistaking his cousin Bella’s figure — he’d certainly admired it enough while growing up. As Harry destroyed Voldemort, the hush was impressive, but it was broken by Bellatrix screaming "No!" and firing a beam haphazardly into the crowd. It was deflected easily, but the battle was now on.
He intentionally broke a twig he was standing near, and watched her as she spun. His wand was already trained on her. "Long time no see, Trixie," he said conversationally, laughing as he watched her face run through a series of emotions — shock at his being behind her without her knowing it; surprise at his being alive; and a look of desire, not for him but for the secret knowledge he obviously possessed; before finally settling on the hard-faced sneer that everyone knew so well.
"So how did the little puppy make it back?" she mocked. "Does the widdle Potty know? And will he break when I kill you again?"
"You don’t have the skill, Trixie," he laughed back at her.
"Stop calling me that! You know I hate it!" she bellowed. "Crucio!"
He dodged the spell easily and yelled "Reducto!" The curse grazed her left leg, which disintegrated in a spray of blood and meat. She screamed and fell to the ground. As she fell, he fired off another Reductor Curse, catching her wand hand and utterly annihilating her wand. "I thought you were better than that, Trixie," he said sadly. "You’re a mad dog, and from one dog to another, it’s time to put you down." As she bled profusely from the stump of her wand arm, fear entered her eyes as he pointed his wand at her head and whispered, "Goodbye, cousin. I loved you, you know. Reducto."
#####
The Death Eaters were falling slowly, but not quickly enough. Luckily, and surprisingly, there had not yet been a fatality on the Order’s side, although a few seemed to be injured. Harry felt a hand touch his shoulder and he spun, his gun at the ready. "Don’t!" screeched Peter Pettigrew.
"What do you want, Pettigrew?" he snarled.
"It’s unravelling," came the response as he held up the silver hand and pulled back the hood on his cloak. The silver had apparently been growing throughout his body — there were tendrils across the rat animagus’s face. The hand itself was losing its definition as strands of silver material spun off and wrapped around each other. "It was pure magic, and with the caster dead, the spell is unravelling. It’s going to go off within the next few minutes. When it goes, it won’t be pretty; it’s going to kill everyone in the area. Save yourself and your friends if you can." He sighed. "I’m dead, and it’s no less than I deserve. Because of me, you have no family. Because of me, your friend is dead. It ends today, Harry. I pay the penalty for betrayal. Leave now and take the Order with you, if you can. Live, Harry."
Harry met his eyes. "How long, Peter? Any better idea?"
"It feels like five minutes or so, I think. Maybe a little more. I’m trying to hold it."
Into the air, he said, "Remus, Sirius, get over here now." Remus stepped from the battle he’d just finished and saw Pettigrew, and Sirius trotted up a moment later.
"Pettigrew," Sirius snarled.
"Enough, Sirius," Harry said. "He’s a dead man walking, and warned me to get everyone out before he explodes. When he goes, he’ll kill everything magical in the area. I thought you might want to say goodbye."
"No, Harry," Peter said. "Get out while you can! Don’t waste your time here! I owe you more than a life — I owe you a lifetime you’ll never have because of me. Go!"
Remus looked at his school friend turned traitor for a long moment, and finally softly said, "Welcome back to the Marauders, Peter. I’ll raise a glass in your memory."
Sirius met Peter’s eyes, boring into the man’s soul for a time before pulling the man into a tight embrace. "Welcome back. We’ll prank someone in your name, too. We’ll miss you, Peter."
Harry tapped his PDA and said, "Scram in thirty! Grab all Order members!" He sent Remus and Sirius to grab who they could, and thirty seconds later, the group appeared in the large living room in Harry’s San Francisco house.
#####
Molly staggered over to him, unhurt, but obviously still a little shaky from the transit. "I saw you kill He-Who- … Vol- … him. How in the name of Merlin did you do that? What spell did you use?"
"Trade secret, but suffice it to say that I figured out that ‘the power he knew not’ wasn’t what Dumbledore thought it was. Love helped me disarm him, but the actual killing was something else." He shook his head and looked to the heavens. "Godspeed, Tom. You’re not in pain anymore."
"You feel pity for him?" Amelia Bones asked incredulously. "He was trying to rival Grindelwald!"
"I’m no saint, but I have to feel sorry for anyone who simply can not understand the concepts of love or trust, to the point where they actually hurt him." He grinned and looked at Hermione. "I defeated him with the Librarian," he laughed, laughing even harder as her eyes went wide and she bit her lower lip.
"So it is safe to assume that you have ended the threat of Tom Riddle?" asked a voice from behind Harry, and he spun to face Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape.
"Yes I have, you traitor," he replied. "It was you all along. The pieces all came together a short while ago, and that was why I came back. I set you up, old man."
"What are you talking about?" Bill Weasley asked. "That’s Dumbledore you’re talking to, Harry."
"I know it is, Bill. What you don’t know is that Voldemort wasn’t supposed to be there today. It was supposed to be an Order meeting where I explained some ‘vital information’ to the Order, having chosen that site for the meeting because it wasn’t an expected spot."
"Yes, and Remus came to us and told us about the meeting," Molly said.
"Problem is, Molly," Remus said, "I knew Harry’s plan in advance. Harry had a meeting with Albus on the seventh where he asked him to set up the Order meeting. If Albus was on the up-and-up, he would have told me or someone else to call that meeting. He didn’t. You saw Voldemort and his Death Eaters arrive instead. What’s your take on that information?"
Molly was stunned. It was obvious that she still wanted to trust Dumbledore, but Remus was extremely trustworthy as well. Her confusion was broken by Dumbledore speaking.
"Who would have thought that my role in all this would have been solved by a child one-eighth my age?" he asked with a chuckle. With a flick of his wand, they found themselves divested of their wands, staves, and in Harry and Moira's case, pistols. "Now that I am somewhat safer, why don't you explain to me how you solved my involvement with Tom Riddle?"
Harry's eye flickered to Snape for just a moment, but he was pleased to see the horrified look in the man's eyes as he stood slightly behind Dumbledore. "Sure. Couldn't hurt. Besides, there are other people here who need to know, so that proper apologies can be made." His eyes shot to Molly for a moment.
"First was that little problem with the blood protections. Abandoning me at the Dursleys until the day I did some remodelling to your office. What possible reason could you have had to leave me with a family that hated my very existence, and who abused me? Did you ever punish the people guarding me who allowed those rapes to happen, by the way?"
"Why worry about it? You were gone. Would you be disturbed to discover that it was Severus, working under my direct orders not to interfere?"
Sirius started to lunge forward but stopped as he ran into an invisible wall. Harry laughed bitterly. "It wouldn't surprise me for multiple reasons, but to believe it, I'd need to hear it from his lips directly. You're too good at manipulating people to your purposes."
Snape was looking green. "Unfortunately, Po … Mister Potter, what he tells you is essentially true. I was convinced by certain means that the pursuit was, for lack of a better term, foreplay. Your silence tended to lend to the belief that it was not necessarily unwanted."
Harry gaped at him. "Foreplay?"
Snape frowned. "By way of excuse, I can only say that I am familiar with that type of activity, and had concluded that you, as the vernacular puts it, liked it rough."
Albus Dumbledore looked amused at Severus Snape's phrasing, but said nothing except, "Please continue, Harry."
"Okay, abandonment to abusive Mundanes, check. First year, the Stone would have been safer if I had never had anything to do with it. Instead, you send me after a wizard with half a century on me in skill. Suspect, now that I have the ability to look back on those days. Second year — again, thinking back, it's obvious in retrospect. Opening the Chamber was your purpose. Remember, Dobby was trying to save me specifically, which meant that the choice of girl that the diary went to was on purpose — it would have been either Ginny or Hermione, and for that alone I'd kill Lucius if he weren't already dead. Tom got away from you, though, before you could mesh the spirit and the new body, and when things got too far out of control, you had to send Fawkes to save my life, because you knew you'd need me later."
"Third year was when I think you started to decide to work with him, rather than fight him your own way. I still wonder if the time turner episode was an unplanned attempt to get me killed, because it certainly didn’t suit your plans to have Sirius on the loose, although you got him back under control easily enough."
Dumbledore calmly responded, "You are quite correct. That episode convinced me that spontaneity was your forte and not my own. I would have done better to have let Sirius die then, and possibly Remus would have been sacrificed to the Veil instead." A muscle in Sirius’ cheek jumped spasmodically, and Remus growled deep in his throat.
"Fourth year is where the fun comes in. You hired Barty Crouch Junior, knowing who he was. With the skill you're supposed to have at Legilimency, you couldn't have not known. For all intents and purposes, you had to have worked with him in some capacity. You deliberately didn’t take basic precautions to protect the Goblet, for one thing. How difficult would it have been to set up a second spell, along with the age line, to make sure that the person whose name was on the slip was the one putting the name in the Goblet? Then after I came back, sending me back up to the castle with the impostor, who I believe I've already explained you should have been able to see through, Mr. 'Twinkle of Doom'." He laughed again. "I think I annoyed you more than you could ever admit when I came back through alive without having killed Tom."
"'Twinkle of Doom'? I think I like that. May I use it, Harry?" Albus said with a continued smile. "Actually, you won't be in a position to stop me in a short while. I look forward to your explanation of fifth year. I have yet to hear what exposed my machinations to you."
"Fifth was easy, once I got past the angst and crap. You told me you were afraid of Voldemort using me to Legilimens you, but that was utter bullshit. With the power that such a thing would have taken, he would have been able to enter my mind, throw me out, and move in permanently. You knew he couldn’t do it. I think that's the year that you started to work against us both. You worked very hard to keep me off balance, and to throw me at Tom. You decided that you needed him out of the way, but you also knew damned well that I had to be alive for it to happen. Open my mind enough to let Voldemort in by giving me Occlumency with a teacher too childish to get over his hatred of my father and deal with me as myself." He heard Snape's sharp inhalation and looked to the man. "Tell me I'm wrong, sir." Snape's silence was all the confirmation he needed.
"You couldn't kill me in the Ministry that year because it wouldn't have killed Moldieshorts. So you helped him escape, and then kept me off balance with the death of my godfather over there, and telling me the prophecy while I was grieving. If it hadn't been for a sexy Auror who went behind your back to help me, and a woman who let her, I might still be grieving, at least if you'd had your way."
"Then you discovered our relationship, and it needed to stop before I could get my wits about me, so you told us to stop it or else you would. It was when you informed me that you'd have Tonks prosecuted and thrown in Azkaban for sexually abusing me that I redecorated your office. It was then that I realized you'd kill anyone in your path, and I left simply to protect the people I loved most. It took me four years to piece everything else together and realize that you were working for Voldemort until I could kill him. It was three bits of info that sealed it for me, though. First I heard that Lucius had been killed, with a Dark Mark over his house. Very odd, but not unbelievable. Then Cornelius Fudge comes down with a bad case of Dead from a stab wound, which ends up with you in charge of the Ministry. Suspicious as well, but it was something that didn't happen that made me realize that you were playing both sides."
"What might that have been, Harry?" asked an amused Albus Dumbledore, who continued to stand, watching Harry and the crowd there. Occasionally someone would move, but the wand would flicker in their direction and they'd be pressed back against the wall.
"Vernon, Dudley, and Aunt Petunia are still alive. It was no secret who my relatives were, and the most obvious thing for Voldemort to have done to get me back would have been to capture them and hold them hostage, threatening that Tom would slaughter them. If I’d cared at all, that might have worked. Yet Petunia is a member of the Order. Quite alive, as are her completely unharmed son and ex-husband. Thing is, Albus, there were only a total of four people who ever knew what I said to Aunt Petunia, and one of them was her. Being the one who said it makes me the second. Tonks was the third, being there when I said it, and she only ever told you in her report that I wouldn't care if they died by torture. That I'd have thrown a party. Back then, I would have."
"So there you are. It was the lack of an attack that made me realize that you were the traitor in the Order's midst."
"Quite well done, Harry," Albus said. "You would have done well in Ravenclaw."
"And you did quite well in Slytherin, I'm sure," Harry retorted with a smile.
"Excellent! You are the first in quite some time to realize my House. Most of the records from that far back have regrettably disappeared. Ah well, it will be a pity to destroy such an intellect, but you are too Gryffindor to work with me in my conquests."
"Not to mention too Slytherin myself to fall for that," Harry replied. "You betrayed Tom, why wouldn't you betray me?"
"Such a waste of an excellent mind." The eyes twinkled merrily for a moment before he said, "Ah, I know you too well, Harry. You are trying to stall for time, in order to think of a way to defeat me. As much as it pains me to do so, I fear I must punish you for that." The wand slid down the line of people and back again. "Nymphadora is too obvious a choice, and it might actually inspire you to do something. Someone whom you have less of a connection to. But close enough that the point will be made. Ah, perfect. She bothered you through your days at Hogwarts — let me remove the thorn in your side now." He pointed the wand at Ginny and said "Avada Kedavra."
The sickly green beam lanced out of the wand. Harry screamed "No!" and threw himself into the air to intercept it. To everyone's horror, he was successful. There was a brilliant flash of green mixed with gold, blinding everyone for a moment. When their vision returned, they realized with horror that Harry was completely gone. His body hadn’t even hit the floor.