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Chapter 7 - O' Waxahatchie, fair and proud...

Friday, November 1st. 5:30 pm. The day I go back to school.

Harry didn't pack anything at all for his trip to the school. With his ability for travel, he could step back here to his under-hill home even easier than going to the Gryffindor tower. He hadn't dressed up for the occasion; just jeans, tunic, boots and his hooded cloak. One corner of his mouth curled up in alittle grin at the thought of how many people he was going to upset today, before he brought his emotions back under control and reached for his crooked staff.

At precisely 5:30 pm, the time when Harry knew the crowd in Great Hall would be at its largest, he /stepped/... and appeared just beyond the entrance doors to the hall. Walking slowly, his staff tapping on the stone floor, he moved into view of the room, stopping just inside the doors.

The Great Hall fell into silence, broken only by the rustling of robes as students and teachers jostled each other for a better position to see what was going on. Then, precisely as he had hoped, Harry heard Snape speak first. "What are you doing here?" asked the potions master, his voice dripping with venom.

"Watch your mouth, Syphilis," replied Harry, his voice carrying across the hall.

"You little--" was all Harry heard, as the silence of the entire school ramped through murmur to roar in seconds. Good, thought he, that got their attention. He continued to move into the large hall, holding his staff and looking in apparent boredom at the head table.

Dumbledore raised his hand and the noise level dropped. "What can we do for you, Mr. Potter?"

"Oh, terribly sorry," Harry said with a bow and flourish. "I thought you wanted me here. I'll just go then, shall I?" He turned and took a few steps toward the exit.

"N-no, please... join us for dinner, Mr. Potter," stuttered the old fraud. "Of course we all want you here." Harry turned back to see him standing, gesturing grandly to the Gryffindor table. "Then perhaps we could have a nice chat? Good, good," Dumbledore continued when Harry turned toward his old house and moved to join them.

He sat at the end of the table closest to the front, where there was some room near some first years. True to form, Gryffindor had kept their first year students well mixed in with the rest, to protect them somewhat from other houses. After what he had learned over the break and early autumn, Harry had no preference as to where he sat, and wasn't particularly hungry, so he just had alittle raspberry trifle and pumpkin juice, and settled down to wait.

Harry had already figured that the reunion with his house could go one of three ways. I wonder how things will play out, he thought, waiting to see whether he'd get ten thousand questions, or pats on the back, or temper tantrums. He had a pretty idea, but was not much in real Divination.

In just a few short moments, Seamus spoke from a few seats away. "Oy, Harry! What was that you called Snape? Syphilis? What's that?"

Harry looked over at Seamus, seeing that just about the whole table was waiting for the answer. Trust the irrepressible young Irishman to step right up to the wicket. "You know his first name is Severus, right?" Seamus nodded. "Well, syphilis is a muggle venereal disease. Prolonged exposure to it causes blindness and insanity, it can be the source of a serious pain in your todger, and is widely thought to have originated with idiots fucking sheep."

Aghast with his boldness, they were shocked for a few seconds before the entire table began to laugh uproariously, getting louder as the answer was relayed down the long table. Harry didn't have to look to see that Snape was about to throw a major wobbly. Good, I want him so off-balance and pissed off that he can't think straight.

Ginny said, "It's good to see you, Harry. Welcome back."

Hermione said, "Harry, where on earth have you been? How come you're late for school? Do you know how much work you've missed? You have some explaining to do, mister! You have to--"

From Ron, "You gonna want to play Quidditch this year, mate?"

Harry waited until the barrage ran out of steam before answering, "Yes, yes, we'll all have a nice chat. But not here, and not now."

"Mr. Potter," he heard from Professor McGonagall over his shoulder. "The headmaster would like to see you in his office." She was visibly upset to anyone who knew her, but her manner was as proper and polite as always. I've always liked her, he thought. I do hope we'll still get along after I say what I have to say. He said nothing, but stood to follow her from the room, across the hall, up the stairs past the gargoyle, to enter the office.

When he stepped into Dumbledore's office, Snape loomed from behind the door, grabbing Harry roughly by the arm and attempting to yank him around and into the room. "You glory-seeking little--" and that was as far as he got. Harry grabbed the hand holding him, twisted it up behind Snape's back and shoved him face-first into the stone wall, quite hard. Snape turned around, touching his nose and seeing the blood, and raised his wand, a curse on his lips. Before he could utter a single syllable, Harry slammed the knobbly head of his staff into the greasy git's throat, cutting off his air. Snape collapsed to the floor; choking, dizzy, and momentarily unable to breathe.

Dumbledore spoke sharply, "That's enough, Harry!"

"Yes, I agree, that's quite enough of that kind of nonsense," replied Harry calmly.

"You have some explaining to do--"

"I suppose I must, if I expect you to learn."

"Would you like to begin with your reasons for attacking my potions master?"

"Choose your words more accurately, Headmaster. Syphilis here physically assaulted me, and then attacked an unarmed student with a wand on school property. Will you call the aurors, or shall I?"

"You are not exactly unarmed, with that staff--"

"This is not a wand or a magical staff, it's a crutch; one which I need to walk after having my bones broken and crippled in the safe and loving care of my relatives, where you left me."

"Harry,/Professor/ Snape was only concerned about your welfare--"

"Oh, obviously. Syphilis attacked me, twice, out of his concern for my welfare. I can see I'll have to call the aurors myself."

"Young man, I am still the headmaster of this school, and Professor Snape is--"

"Am I a student here?"

"Yes, and--"

"Am I legally an adult?"

"Well, that may---"

"Do I pay my own tuition?"

"I don't see where any of this--"

"Oh, stop your waffling." McGonagall begin to protest, but stopped herself after a glance at Dumbledore. Harry continued, "Let's recap, shall we? I am an adult. I am a student here. I pay my own tuition. Ergo, you and Syphilis work for me, and not the other way around."

Dumbledore began to back-track, seeing that the authoritarian approach wasn't going to fly. "Harry, please try to see reason... We have nothing but your own best interests and safety in mind. We wanted you to have a normal childhood, as much as possible, and--"

"Liar." Harry's single word stopped the old man in mid-sentence.

"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall protested again. "You will show some respect--" and was stopped again, this time by a look from Harry.

"Professor McGonagall, you have a admirable mind, and many decades of experience. I have great respect and admiration for your knowledge and your character. Having said that; shame on you. You should know better." She is shocked into silence. "His lies don't even agree with his other lies."

Harry continued. "I can see that you wish me to explain. Very well." He looked Dumbledore right in the eye and began to speak, clearly and evenly.

"Item: At the age of one, I was put in the hateful care of the Dursleys, directly violating explicit instructions in my parents'will to the contrary, which was and is against the law.

"Item: Dumbledore -- don't interrupt, I only show respect for those who earn it -- Dumbledore claims to have had watchers stationed at the Dursley residence since my first year, and probably longer, for my protection. Either he's lying, or all of his watchers are deaf and blind. Not a single injury or abuse was prevented. No injuries were treated, nor even reported.

"Item: In my first year, the Sorcerer's Stone was removed from a Gringott's vault and moved to the school, because Dumbledore said it was safer; entrusting it to the one man in the world utterly unable to keep any secret. The so-called'smartest and most powerful wizard in the world' wasn't even able to keep three eleven-year-old children from finding and taking it."

Dumbledore raised a hand, opening his mouth to protest, but Harry was having none of it.

"No. Shut up." At his terse command, the floor rumbled. "Item: almost every student in this school knows of the tunnel to Honeydukes. They also know it is unguarded, unblocked, and apparently unmonitored. The 'smartest and most powerful wizard in the world' either doesn't bother to look, or doesn't care that Death Eaters use that tunnel several times a month."

McGonagall's shocked expression was just getting bigger and bigger... but Harry was no longer the target. She was staring at the headmaster's desk, obviously horrified. She was also thinking very hard. This was clearly the first time these facts had been presented in this way. Harry's 'shame on you' had cut her to the quick. She was appalled at her own lack of reasoning, and alarmed that she had become so complacent that asixteen-year-old had to wake her up.

"Item: the Chamber of Secrets was opened in my second year. School records, history books, and old newspapers all show that what happened mirrored the events of fifty years before. Students petrified and injured, and Tom Riddle was head boy; building his Dark Lord identity right under the nose of a master Legilimencer mind reader. Yet this same Grindlewald-killing genius couldn't figure out the mystery of the basilisk, when he had fifty years to think about it. Fifty years of Voldemort's little pranks wasn't long enough for him to figure out Hagrid's innocence.

"I am sixteen years old. I know that there are only two things that will petrify someone like that: the petrificus curse and a basilisk. The petrificus wears off in mere hours. Hypothetical question, professors: when students are petrified for two months, what's the cause?"

McGonagall broke in, "Quite correct, Mr. Potter. When you put it that way, it seems so..." before tapering off.

"Yes, professor," Harry said as gently as he could. He could tell that his Transfiguration professor was trying very hard to be genuinely fair.

"Item: Four of the last five Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers were either idiots, actively evil, or both. All of them were carefully selected by the headmaster alone. The one teacher who actually succeeded in teaching any/student how to defend against /any/dark magic of /any kind -- Remus Lupin -- was rewarded for his unusual success by being fired. No--" he raised his hand and stopped the protest rising to Dumbledore's lips. "No, he told me that he was resigning, just like you ordered him to. I found out the truth in the school's public records.

"Item: My name was illegally entered and illegally selected for participation in the Tri-Wizard Tournament -- Tri-Wizard, not Quadra-Wizard. According to the tournament by-laws, authored and signed into British law by Minister Gandermold Poon in 1212, that drawing was to have been immediately nullified, and the tournament canceled. But the rules were written -- before the Magna Carta -- by someone much more honest than our headmaster, who ignored them. He spent his time imploring the heads of the other schools not to withdraw, and carried on with the Tournament, knowingly in direct violation of the law."

Dumbledore couldn't meet his gaze anymore, but sat slumped over his desk, his fingers twitching slightly as if from palsy. Snape, on the other hand was getting downright fidgety. He had finally gotten his breath back, growled through his sneer and began to climb to his feet. "Sectus--"

Having kept his mind clear and free of the influence of emotion, Harry was still quite lucid and aware of what was going on around him. Casually, with his left hand, he gestured towards Snape; the potion master's wand flew immediately to lay flat upon the headmaster's desk. Snape was lifted bodily off the ground and hung on the wall, much like a coat on a hook. With a dismissing wave, Harry silenced him without looking.

Still quite calm, leaning on his staff just a little, Harry continued.

"Item: Dumbledore and his little Disorder of the Phoenix are using my house without my permission, and without even formal notification. He and his little gang members have stolen my property, intimidated and interrogated my friends, spied on my movements, and even attempted to abduct me.

"The headmaster has been repeatedly been notified, by multiple sources both staff and students, that there are known Death Eaters here in the school." McGonagall looked up sharply at Harry. "That's right, professor; Death Eater criminals, bearing the Dark Mark, and even showing it around and bragging about it. Just having Voldemort's little skid-mark on your body is grounds for immediate sentence to Azkaban, no appeal, no rehab. Death Eater students, and aDeath Eater teacher. Fumble-more here knows it, and has seen the Dark Marks with his own eyes, and has seen the Death Eaters torture children -- including me -- at this school. His reaction: 'Shh, don't tell anybody, maybe they'll be good'."

Minerva McGonagall's face had drained of all color. Her hand covering her mouth, she looked like she was about to faint. She was shaking her head, tears leaking slowly down her wrinkled old cheeks, but not saying a word. Like passers-by at a train wreck; she was compelled to see it all.

It was time for Harry to bring it all together for them. "Conclusion: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a liar." He started tapping his staff on the stone floor, in time with his words. "A full-blown, died-in-the-wool, bald-faced, world-class liar. He's been lying for so long he doesn't even have to try anymore. A nasty little manipulator and destroyer of other people's lives."