FicWad

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN!

Alorkin


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter (et al). That privilege goes to the talented and lovely J. K. Rowling, to whom I am eternally indebted, both for a fascinating read and for many bedtime stories for my daughter.

Disclaimer 2: This story is so NOT HBP compliant! That...book...never happened. Nope! Thbbbbbttttt! I'm in the state of Denial. It's a lovely state. Lotsa pretty scenery. I can draw you a map if you want. Anyone got a crayon?

Disclaimer 3: Though I’m posting after, this story was written well before that bowel movement called Deadly Horrible came out. Therefore, this does not follow that cough story line cough either.

A/N: I wish to thank my sister, FireLemming, for her beta work. She doesn’t even follow the Harry Potter fandom, preferring TLK, and yet, will take time to offer much needed (and often unappreciated) critical advice.

*

Harry stood nearly at attention before the teacher's table, enduring one of Snape's tirades. Malfoy had ambushed him, and harry had been able to fight him off before Snape arrived to prevent his favorite student's arse from a severe whipping. Fortunately, Harry had gotten in some very good shots, and Malfoy would be remaining in the hospital wing for a few days regrowing his teeth.

“…and fifty points, I think, for your unjustified attack on Mr. Malfoy.” The snarky bastard sneered. Minerva was as thin lipped as always, and Dumbledore sat in his throne twinkling benignly.

“My ‘unjustified attack’ was self-defense, and you know it, Snivellus!”

Snape turned purple. McGonagall sputtered: “Mister Potter! You will apologize to Professor Snape immediately!”


“No.” The students all gasped in shock. Never had a student refused to follow an order from the transfiguration teacher. Bright spots appeared on her cheeks, and beside, her, Dumbledore frowned. His eyes no longer twinkled.

“Harry.” He spoke softly but with his magic behind him, he was very convincing.

“Yes? Your royal highness-ness?”

“Mister Potter!” Minerva almost shrieked.

“Harry, I insist you give Professor Snape the respect he is due.”

“Actually your worshipfulness, I have. Which is to say, absolutely one! Snivellus is no teacher. He is a craven and a bully of the lowest order. He has done nothing in the past six years but berate me, and by extension all of Gryffindor, simply because I look like someone who proved himself the better man, than Ol’ Snarky, there! I know other students who have said the same. You have ignored his abuses for the past fifteen years, despite being repeatedly informed of same. Madam Bones wonders why all the Auror recruits for the past twelve years, have come from Slytherin house. Well, he’s half of the reason, and you’re the other half. He teaches the snakes to cheat, makes their potions for them and encourages them to lie and bully. When they get caught, or when their victims won’t knuckle under, he ‘arrives’ just in time to save their sorry arses from the beatings they so richly deserve and takes points from, and assigns the most degrading detentions possible, to the victims of their attacks, either with himself or with the misanthropic squib. You, Lord Dumblemort, have given him carte blanche in this school. As a direct result of your machinations, the wizarding world is not going to be able to defend itself against Voldemort. Prophesy notwithstanding.”

“Harry, now is not the time…” Harry whipped up his wand and cast an incredibly powerful binding spell followed by a silencing charm, which caught the entire teacher’s table. He could feel Dumbledore’s magic fighting the spells. Harry smirked, and issued a locking charm on the two previous spells…in Parseltongue. Now only his own action, or the destruction of his wand, would release the teachers. He cast a mild Sonorous on himself, just to make sure the students could hear.

“Now is precisely the time, Dumblemort!”

“You intentionally allowed Snivelly here, to overhear just enough of the prophesy to pique Voldemort’s interest, then you sent him to tell Ol’ Tommy what he had heard: “The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches…Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.” That’s the part you let Voldemort know. What you kept from him was the second part. “And the dark lord shall mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the dark lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”

You knew that my parents and Sirius had decided to switch secret keepers, and why! You knew Pettigrew was the traitor, not Sirius! You cast the Fidelus! Did you do it blindfolded? You knew exactly when the secret failed. You had time to help them and you sat by sucking on your bloody lemondrops. After they died, you arranged for Sirius to go rat hunting instead of taking care f me as a godfather would. Hagrid told me that he arrived before Sirius. How is that possible? The only way I can see is if you sent him as soon as the Fidelus broke. since you knew Voldemort would return, you placed me with the Dursley’s in order to make absolutely sure I was abused, beaten and neglected. You knew that I had been starved for years. You knew that I was treated as badly as the Malfoy’s treated Dobby.”

When I turned eleven, you ensured that someone who was blindly loyal to you, went to pick me up, just to make absolutely sure I saw you in the light of an archangel. You arranged for me to ‘accidentally’ meet the Weasleys. Molly went to school here at Hogwarts, so did Arthur. Two of her children had finished school here, and three more were currently attending, so why would she have to ask where platform 9 ¾ was? What’s more, given the secrecy statutes, why would she ask that question in the presence of several hundred muggles? Moreover, what was she doing on the muggle side of the barrier in the first place. There is a clearly visible floo outlet right there on the platform.

You arranged for a unique magical artifact with powers guaranteed to attract the most dangerous psychopath since Josef Stalin, to be hidden in a school filled with defenseless children. Any or all of those children could have been killed if Voldemort had decided to engage in a little happy slaughter.

You returned ‘just in time’ to collect the Philosopher’s stone, seeing as how I had just melted Quirrell and his buddy, Voldy, the ugly vapor. Awfully convenient, how you: “suddenly realized that the place you should be was the one you’d just left.” Harry mimicked Dumbledore’s voice perfectly. “I wonder…did you really destroy the stone? Or did you save it…for ‘personal’ use?”


Harry smirked as Dumbledore paled. Minerva looked sideways at her mentor and realized the same thing. Dumbledore still had the stone!


“You knew of the Basilisk in my second year. You had to. There are only two creatures that kill like that. Only two creatures that can turn a man to stone…or as you said it, petrify him…a gorgon and a basilisk, and since the chamber was supposed to be Slytherin’s secret hidey-hole, it wouldn’t likely be a gorgon. You taught transfiguration here when Myrtle Libby died. You knew Riddle was involved. Tell me, Headmaster; since you are connected to the castle’s wards, why is it you never found the chamber. It’s an integral part of the school. No, you knew both who and what had killed Myrtle and yet, you let Riddle escape, completely unscathed. Instead, you allowed Hagrid to be expelled from school and sent to Azkaban, for a crime you knew he didn’t commit, and you let him rot there before you decided you had a use for him. It’s all in the public documents at the ministry hall of records, if one cared to look. You arranged for his release, in order to bind him to your service, like an overgrown house-elf. The rise of Voldemort is on your head, Dumblefutz.

When the chamber was opened again, you knew Riddle was here. Hell, even I could feel him! No, instead, you allowed an innocent child, the only daughter of a family sworn to the light since before you were born, to be possessed, and later almost murdered. Another test. I suppose the basilisk still being alive was a bit of a shocker. It was to me! After all, they’re rare, those. Is that why you sent Fawkes? You knew I had no chance against a sixty foot long, thousand year old magical snake?”


Harry began to pace as he monologued.


“In my third year you allowed the dementors to surround the school, knowing that despite that idiot Fudge’s desire to look like he was actually doing his fucking job, as Hogwarts’ Headmaster, you had the authority under international wizarding law to prevent that. You also knew Sirius was an unregistered animagus. You knew that he’d come looking for me, not to attack, but to protect. Ron’s rat, Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew. How is it that you couldn’t see that? You’ve seen him before in his animagus form. Sirius told me that they got the information they needed on the animagus transformation from you and you monitored their training. You thought it was a ‘beautiful gesture’ to help out a friend who was a werewolf. Did you ‘influence’ Remus to not take his Wolfsbane potion that night? Maybe by ‘Imperius’? Or was that Snivellus there, hoping for some more petty revenge? When it all went to shit, and there was a good chance of Fudge finding out exactly what had happened, you ‘encouraged’ Hermione and me to go back in time and prevent Sirius’ capture. A major violation of the temporal interference laws. If we’d been caught, we both would have been mind-wiped and sent to Azkaban forever. I suppose you’d ‘arrange’ to have just Hermione sent there, ‘cause I was your secret fuckin’ weapon! It was just another test for your tool!”


Harry stood still for a moment, watching the teachers’ outraged reactions to his revelations. Snape just sat there looking smug. Harry began again.


“In my fourth year, you allowed my participation in the tournament…in fact, you insisted upon it. If Barty Crouch hadn’t gotten my name into the goblet, would you have? Crouch senior said the contract was on the name that came out of the goblet, not what went in. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but despite what Crouch said, a contract is only binding on knowing participation, yes? Until I took my first step toward that golden egg, there was no real need for me to participate at all. It was only when I faced the dragon, that I had tacitly accepted the contract, and had to finish the contest. You knew that, and yet you refused to tell anyone. Another test.

Now, let’s talk abut Mad-Eye Moody. You’ve known him for decades, yet you couldn’t tell the difference between him and a Death Eater playing his part. You can see through invisibility cloaks and disillusionment charms. Rumour has it that you can read auras. Luna Lovegood told me that there was something ‘off’ about Moody, and she was a third year at the time. How is it she saw what you, with all your years of experience did not?

When I looked into your pensieve you told me that curiosity wasn’t a crime, but I wonder how the pensieve ‘just happened’ to be left in just such a manner as to attract my attention when you so conveniently left your office. Your: ‘I must not have secured the cabinet properly’ doesn’t wash. You’ve done that far too many times. It would be second nature for you. It also brings up something you said during Karkaroff’s trial…about Snivelly there. You said: “…He is now no more a Death Eater than I am.” It’s funny you should use just that turn of phrase. It makes me wonder where your loyalties really lie.

You knew the Triwizard cup had been tampered with. I saw you looking at it reeeeaaaallll close before we entered the maze. You knew it was a portkey, but to you, it didn’t matter. Tell me, if it looked like Voldy was gonna win our little duel, would you have miraculously appeared to save my arse. Maybe sent Fawkes like you did in the chamber? I don’t doubt it for a second. After all, you needed your pawn ready to sacrifice. I wouldn’t be much good to you, dead, now would I? I remember telling you what had happened and when I got to the part where Voldy used my blood in his reincarnation, you had a look of victory in your eyes. As soon as you saw me looking, you clammed up. Makes me wonder, how about you?”


Harry turned once more to face his captive audience.


"Fifth year. You had to know what Umbridge was doing to me. You have ghosts and portraits all over the castle, not to mention the elves, spying for you. Yes, you knew, and you did nothing.

During those intentionally botched Occlumency lessons with the Death Eater there, where he repeatedly raped my mind, with your permission and consent, in order to keep my link with Voldemort, oh stop your fuckin’ shivering you miserable cowards! Vol-Dee-Mort! Is just an anagram! A made up name, for some evil bastard who hated his father! Anyway, as I was saying: In order to keep my link with VOLDEMORT wide open, you allowed his best servant to rape me many times. I only got away because he lost his nerve and set me up with YOUR pensieve, and his ‘worst’ memory. Now, Snivelly, I have a really hard time with the idea that my dad hanging your arse upside down is your worst memory… even if it did show off your dirty grundies. After all, aren’t murder, rape torture and the like even worse? Oh, waitaminute!” Harry popped his fingers, before continuing. “Considering it’s you I’m talking about, I suppose not. After all, Death Eaters must keep up their practice, mustn’t they? Don’t you have to commit some violent crime on a bi-weekly basis in order to keep your membership card?”

Harry turned again to the students. “Oh yes! Your potions master is and always has been an active Death Eater. He hasn’t ‘seen the error of his ways’. He doesn’t ‘want to make amends’, he’s been working for Voldemort all along.”


Snape was visibly shaking in rage. He’d been outed in front of the entire school…more than a thousand students! Dumbledore couldn’t conceal that kind of information. If just one student got a letter out, it would ruin him! Harry smiled sweetly at the furious potions master and showed him two fingers.


“Snivellus here passed you the information that I was convinced Voldy was in the Department of Mysteries, torturing Sirius. I wonder if you ‘convinced’ Sirius to lead the rescue operation? You were hiding out at headquarters, so you knew as soon as Ol' Snarky here, spilled. He was probably sniggering all along, seeing as how he was actively helping Umbridge crush anyone who disagreed with the ministry, under her heel. Sirius knew that to leave his house, would mean a death sentence if he was caught. He was rash, but he wasn’t completely stupid. Did you perchance give him a ‘little push’? Maybe an Imperius?

Then in the chamber, with that fuckin’ veil, when Sirius was dueling Bellabitch, for some reason he lost concentration and began taunting her. Before you sent him to Azkaban, Sirius was an Auror. From what I was able to discover, he was one of the best. Why would he do something so abysmally stupid as to play with his opponent? A confundus charm, perhaps?”


Dumbledore continued to fight Harry’s spells, but Parseltongue was a magic he was unfamiliar with. Harry went on.


“When Voldemort possessed me in the atrium, you refused to kill him because it would kill me as well. It wasn’t some altruistic decision. You knew that only I would die. When we returned you locked me in your tower and had me stew until you deigned to show up and tell me the prophesy which you’d known for sixteen fuckin’ years! You sacrificed Bode, and Arthur Weasley so you could watch how I performed in your little dog and pony show. You told me that Voldemort already knew the first part of the prophecy, told to him by a spy. What you didn’t bother to tell me was that you had sent him that information personally.”


Harry stopped his pacing rested his palms on the table and leaned over to stare the headmaster in the eye. Instantly he felt the tendrils of legilimency touch his consciousness. He immediately brought the memory of being under Voldemort’s Cruciatus curse to the fore. Dumbledore recoiled as much as he was able, and immediately withdrew from Harry’s mind. Harry shook his head sadly. “Pathetic.”


“Then you took away the only thing that meant anything to me. Hermione.

When you discovered we were dating, you ordered us to stop, and when we refused, you expelled her. Voldemort’s troops were waiting at Kings Cross. I wonder…did you arrange that yourself, or did you have your Death Eater do it?”

When Ron and Ginny objected, saying you had no real cause, you expelled them too. Then ‘somehow’ the wards on the Burrow, wards made by the most powerful ward breaker seen in centuries, I might add, failed precisely when they were needed the most. Officially, they all burned to death, although in the initial reports, all of them showed the unique signs of the killing curse. I read the reports before you had them sealed. Helps to have friends in low places, don’t it! I also read the reports filed by the Unspeakables sent to investigate any magical influences. Despite your best efforts, the Weasleys were very well respected. It turns out, that those wards were compromised from within, by someone with as much power as Voldemort. I peeked into his thoughts, and discovered he had no idea the wards had been there at all. I wonder, where were you that night? You had the entire Weasley family killed because they dared to object to your treachery. Did you have the Longbottom’s and the Lovegood’s killed as well? After all, they were my friends, too, and when the Weasley’s died, they began to publish questions you couldn’t allow. You’re no better than Voldemort. At least he tells the truth.”


Harry returned his attention to the head table. “You, Snivellus, are a petty, vindictive, cowardly, little bastard, who cannot let go of a childish, schoolyard grudge against a man dead fifteen years. James Potter saved your worthless, misbegotten hide, even when he despised you, and in payment, you sold him to Voldemort. While Wormy betrayed the Fidelus, you personally led Voldemort to my home, to murder my mum and dad! Did you watch as a real hero fought a losing battle to the death, or did you just shoot my father from behind so your half blooded master, Tom Fuckin’ Riddle AKA Voldefuckin’mort, could murder my mother? Somehow, from the way you act here in Hogwarts, I’d suspect the latter. My father saved your miserable life and you repaid him, not in the manner of decent, honorable men, but by betraying the entire British wizarding population to a psychopath, bent on world domination. Tells me a bit about you, scumbag!”


Harry turned to the massed students and growled: “If I were you, I’d leave England and find a school somewhere else. Lord Dumblemort there…” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward Dumbledore. “…will end up sacrificing every one of you on his altar of ‘the greater good!”


To Minerva, he added: “Professor McGonagall, watch your back around Dumblemort. He carries a poisoned blade.”


To Dumbledore he snarled: “You created Voldemort. You personally bear the responsibility for every death, every rape, every torture, and every broken home he’s caused. Not the ministry, not the Wizengamot, not the International Confederation of Wizards…YOU!

You created him; you destroy him. From now on, you’re on your own!”


Harry turned at last to Snape. “I can see you’re just dying to sneak off and tell all this to your master, Snivelly. I’d recommend waiting until the Aurors in the hall leave. Less chance of getting caught that way, you know. In the meantime, why don’t you take this and shove it up your arse!” Harry held out this wand and neatly snapped it in two. The cry of a dying phoenix was heard throughout the hall, and hot sparks flared out of the broken pieces. Harry flung the halves of the wand at Snape and turned to leave.


The doors before him slammed shut. With the destruction of Harry’s wand, the charms he’d cast had fallen. Dumbledore was now free to use his magic.


“Open them, old man, or I will!” Harry snarled.

“You cannot, Harry you’ve destroyed your wand.”

“Why do you continue to coddle the boy, headmaster? He is deserving of expulsion, at the very least! He’s an arrogant fool with no respect for his betters. Just like his worthless father!”


Far beyond merely furious, Harry turned sharply, and thrust out his hand, gripping the air. Snape grabbed at his throat, and began to turn dark red. Harry lifted his arm and Snape followed, gasping, as he was suspended in the air.


“Harry!” Release him!” Dumbledore ordered. Harry could feel Dumbledore’s magic fighting to release the greasy haired bastard. Harry fought just as hard, leaving the suffocating professor hanging in mid air. Dumbledore pointed his wand at Harry and silently growled: “Crucio!” Minerva clutched her chest in abject horror that her esteemed friend would ever use such a dark curse.


Harry felt the agony wash over him, but unlike Voldemort, Dumbledore had a bit less experience using the curse. To Harry, it was painful, but lacking the conviction of that issued by the dark lord. Still, it did disrupt Harry’s concentration. He overcompensated as Snape began to fall and suddenly, with a loud crack, Snape’s head lolled to the side in a manner never intended by nature. Shrugging his shoulders negligently, Harry flung his hand toward the window, and Snape’s body flew through the air, over the cringing students, and out through the stained glass.


Harry turned and approached the door.


“Last chance, old bastard!” Dumbledore simply twinkled. With another shrug, Harry faced the door, clapped his hands together and flung them wide. The doors exploded onto several thousand very sharp pieces. Most of the Aurors waiting behind them would require extended stays in St. Mungos. Harry walked out into the night.


Unseen, a water-beetle took flight.





Half an hour later, Minerva McGonagall confronted her old friend. The castle had been searched top to bottom and no trace of Harry Potter had been found. Dumbledore had even ordered Hagrid to search the forbidden forest.


“Albus? Minerva ventured. “Is this true? What Harry said? Could it be true?”

“Of course. Harry has always been rather astute. He has an instinctive knowledge of people. That’s what makes him such a good choice in this fight.”

“Albus, is it true that you had his friends killed?”

“Of course I did. I needed Harry to have no attachments. He must learn to make decisions that will lead people to their deaths. He must be able to do so without second thought. A romantic involvement would hinder that. As for the rest, Minerva, as the commander in chief of the forces arrayed against the dark, I have frequently had to make decisions, which were for the sake of the entire wizarding world, not just one person, or a small group.

“But denying him even the most basic of love? How could that be for the greater good?”

“Minerva, I placed Harry with the Dursleys in order to have them train him. He had to grow in adversity. Not in love. Only in the heat of fire, can a blade be forged. Harry is my weapon, nothing more. His parents fought my will and they were destroyed for it. Harry must defeat Voldemort. He is the only one who can, and if he had to suffer, well, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

“And what about Harry as a person? What if he does not wish to go on? What if he feels he has no reason to continue?”

“He will go on. It is his very nature to survive. In the off-chance that nature should prove insufficient, I have added some discrete charms that have guided him to the fate which lies before him. He will destroy Voldemort and then with Harry as a figurehead, I can begin to build the perfect world!”


Dumbledore’s monologue was interrupted by Pomona’s head in his fireplace.


“Albus! The dark mark has been sighted over the forbidden forest!”


Albus and Minerva dashed from the headmaster’s office, down the circular stairs and through the corridors of the ancient school. Pushing through the throngs of students blocking their way. More than a few students ended up on their backs as the two professors stormed through.


At the huge front doors, they came to a halt. There, in the distance, plainly clear to everyone in the castle, the dark mark glowed a sickly green over the forest.


A huge figure trudged slowly up the path toward the school. Hagrid carried something in his massive arms, wrapped in a Hogwarts robe with the hood pulled up. Slowly ascending the steps, he knelt before his master and laid his burden at Dumbledore’s feet. He stood and turned away without a word, but each and every person present could see the tears flooding his face. He walked down the path and turned toward his hut.


Minerva knelt beside the shrouded figure before her. She knew without looking, who it was. Pulling back the hood, she uncovered the lifeless eyes of the ‘Boy Who Lived…No More’.


Students began to whisper as word circulated throughout the crowd. Dumbledore just stood and twinkled, unmindful of the shocked students and staff.


From Hagrid’s hut, there came a long mournful howl of ultimate loss, that sent shivers up and down every spine there.


Dumbledore sighed in regret. ‘Such a waste!’ He thought. ‘All the work I’ve put in, and this is how he repays me!’ He turned away from the body on the flags, and reentered the school, wasting not the slightest thought for the children he’d killed.


Minerva watched in shock and horror as the man she’d served beside, who’d taught her transfiguration, who’d established himself as the icon of the light so many years before, left Harry behind like an old newspaper.


FINI