Harry Potter and all characters, etc. belong to J. K. Rowling, not me.
Dumbledore Answers Harry - Chapter 9 - Protection
Harry woke up in the hospital wing feeling well rested. The dreamless sleep potion Madam Pomfrey had insisted he drink had done its job. He grabbed for his glasses and looked around. He saw that Oliver Wood was still asleep, and if he remembered correctly, his Quidditch captain would be spending one more night there for observation. He turned the other way to see Ginny, Hermione, and Sirius sleeping in nearby chairs. While he was contemplating waking his visitors up, Madam Bones, followed closely by Professor Dumbledore, walked into the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey was about to interfere, but Harry saw the headmaster give her a look that said not to. Upon seeing him awake, they walked up to him, Minister Bones speaking first.
"Good morning Mr. Potter," she said with concern, "How are you feeling?"
Remembering his injuries, Harry moved his arms and legs and happily pronounced, "I feel fine." He did notice a scar on his arm where he'd been cut, but didn't feel any pain.
"That's good news, Harry," said Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eyes. "Minister Bones has a request to make of you."
Harry turned to the woman. "Yes, Minister?"
She looked nervous. "I, er, request that you allow me to extract a copy of your memory from the graveyard for ministry records. We hope that by reviewing it we can gain helpful information in the fight against You-Know-Who."
Harry sighed irritably. "Of course I'll be happy to provide the memory, but the first piece of information I'd like to give is that Voldemort's…" Bones flinched at the name, "…name is Tom Marvolo Riddle and that fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself."
"I quite agree, minister," said Dumbledore with a smile. "A nameless fear cannot be defeated, but a mortal man can. And Voldemort can be killed. He has taken steps to make that difficult, but no matter what he believes, he is a man, not a god."
Bones nodded. "Very well. Vol-Voldemort's return is a problem we cannot afford to ignore. After I've seen Mr. Potter's memory Albus, I suggest that you and I discuss ways to prevent his gaining power. I know that you were a leader in our last struggle against him."
-
It had been hard to force himself to relive the way that monster took his blood, but Harry had managed to produce the memory for Bones, and asked her to duplicate it so that he could show it to his friends rather than relive it again and again. When he was done, Albus and Amelia left, with Dumbledore requesting Harry to see him in his office once Madam Pomfrey released him. Harry found out that classes for the day had been cancelled. Sirius, who'd woken up during the process, went straight over to Harry and hugged him, saying, "I'm so sorry we couldn't stop him from taking your blood!"
Harry grinned. "It wasn't forcibly taken like Wormtail said it should be, I told him to take it, and I think that's why Voldemort has breathing problems!"
"Really?" said Sirius with a grin, "That's the best news I've heard all night!"
At this time both Ginny and Hermione woke up and rushed over to hug him tightly. Hermione said, "How are you feeling, Harry?"
His ears turned pink and he got slightly irritable. "Well, yesterday I was kidnapped so Voldemort could use my blood to help resurrect himself, but aside from that, peachy."
Ginny rolled her eyes at Hermione. "We're sorry. Your experience is probably the last thing you want to talk about. I'm just glad you escaped. I know you'll be all right eventually. If you want to talk, I'm here, but I promise not to force you."
"That goes for me as well," said Hermione.
Harry smiled at his two best friends. "Thanks. I just gave Minister Bones my memory of the graveyard, and she said she'd copy it for me. If you want, I'll let you two watch it. That should answer any questions you might have about it without making me relive it again."
-
A few hours later, Harry found himself sitting in the headmaster's office, discussing what happened the day before. He'd been given a thought sphere that contained his memory of the ordeal. Albus said, "I believe that your volunteering you blood as you did interfered with the success of the ceremony. Voldemort did still get a body, but not a healthy one. During your escape, he demonstrated some sort of breathing problem. Only time will tell the extent of that problem and if there are more problems than that."
"Won't he be able to just get a healer to fix whatever's wrong with him?" asked Harry skeptically.
With a twinkle in his eyes, Dumbledore said, "No, I don't think so. The foul creation that he made last night is not a human body. Consequently, any healing spells, or muggle medicines for that matter, wouldn't work on him. I'm afraid he's stuck with what he has."
Harry smiled. "Good. Another thing I'm curious about is that Wormtail not only gave him 'flesh of the servant,' but also the bones and blood in his hand. Why didn't that mess up the spell?"
"That is a good point Harry. The ceremony did call for specific elements. Apparently Voldemort accounted for that in the ceremony. Theoretically, it would've been better for Peter to have simply cut off some skin, but I believe that Voldemort wanted him to suffer more."
"And Pettigrew is stupid enough to go along with it," said Harry coldly.
"I wouldn't underestimate Pettigrew if I were you," said the headmaster. "After all, he has evaded capture for several years."
Harry took a deep breath. "I know that he's devious, but I think anyone who joins Voldemort is stupid. From what you've told me and what I saw last night, he doesn't treat his allies any better than his enemies. The only difference is they don't fight back. Not to mention that they help him gain power."
Albus nodded. "Very good assessment. He tortures his followers more often than his enemies. Joining Voldemort does not save you from any pain. In fact, you also have to deal with a seared conscience in addition to multiple Cruciatus Curses."
"So why do people join him?" asked Harry.
"For several reasons. One is so that they can treat others the way Voldemort treats them. Many Death Eaters enjoy inflicting pain as much as their master, and have been known to drive some of their victims completely mad from the pain. Others simply fear what he'll do to them if they don't join him, but as you've realized, they don't save themselves from any pain that way, and only succeed in making their lives more miserable than most people can imagine. Still others actually agree with the so-called-ideals that he pretends to support, such as prejudice against non-purebloods. The truth, as you are well aware, is that he's not a pureblood to begin with, and that he hates everybody equally, regardless of their bloodline. He simply wanted the resources of the purebloods, since they have more gold than muggleborns. But because of their dedication to that rather ludicrous prejudice, people like Lucius Malfoy are happy to live and die at Voldemort's command, which leads me to the purpose of this meeting."
Harry nodded with understanding. "The Malfoys."
"Yes. As you know, I promised sanctuary to Mrs. Malfoy and Draco. Draco should be safe here, although based off of yesterday, I can't guarantee that, but his mother should be immediately moved from Malfoy Manor. She may decide if she wishes to withdraw her son from Hogwarts. Now the most important thing is that no one ever suspects where they are hiding." He then gave Harry a devious look. "I trust that as far as the students besides your best friends are concerned, you and young Mr. Malfoy still hate each other with a passion?"
Harry, who felt he knew where this was going, chuckled slightly. "Yes."
"Then may I suggest that they take refuge in one of your houses. I'll personally make sure that they have no tracking spells on anything they bring with them."
"Are you going to put the house I choose under the Fidelius Charm?" asked Harry, concerned.
"If you'll agree to it," said Albus, looking straight into Harry's eyes. After a moment, Harry nodded solemnly. "I would guess, based off of your family's experience with Wormtail, that you would personally want to be the Secret-Keeper."
"I would prefer that."
"Then I shall move Mrs. Malfoy today, and on Saturday we shall perform the spell. The only question left is which house they will use."
-
The details were worked out, and Harry told Ginny and Hermione about it (privately so they weren't overheard). Harry also knew that Draco would be informed of what was going on and would be instructed to act as mean as ever toward Harry. Even after the Fidelius Charm was placed on the house, they wouldn't want anyone to guess that Harry had anything to do with where Mrs. Malfoy was. Otherwise they may suspect Harry was the Secret-Keeper or at least knew who it was.
Harry met with Dumbledore the next day and was informed, "Mrs. Malfoy has been successfully moved to your house. She also brought the one house elf she was allowed to keep."
"Really?" asked Harry. "They let her keep an elf when they took all her money?"
Albus smiled. "You must realize that most ancient pureblood families such as hers, which I'm not sure whether you're aware or not is the Black family, and the Malfoys don't teach any useful skills to their members. Such work is considered beneath them. She is completely incapable of the simplest culinary task such as boiling water, magical or muggle style. She would've starved to death by now."
Harry chuckled, and then looked surprised. "The Black family? As in Sirius Black?"
"Yes. She's his cousin. But I do believe that when Sirius ran away from home and came to live with the Potters he did learn some skills. The Potters never wanted to be completely dependant on house elves."
Harry grinned. "I guess not. There was something else I was curious about."
"Oh, just the one?" asked Dumbledore.
Harry slightly chuckled. "For now, anyway. My portkeys work in Hogwarts but didn't work in the cemetery. But Voldemort's portkey worked at both places. Do you know why that is?"
"Well, that's an interesting question. Fortunately, the answer isn't too difficult. As you have probably guessed, Voldemort created a ward around the cemetery to prevent your escape, and Hogwarts itself has wards. If you create the wards or are very familiar with them, you can create portkeys that can penetrate them. Voldemort wished for his portkey to bring you to the cemetery, so he made it so. He also wished for his portkey to get past Hogwarts' wards, so he used someone's…"
"Snape's," interjected Harry.
"Perhaps," said Dumbledore sadly, "someone's knowledge of Hogwarts' wards to make it possible. The creator of your portkeys was apparently familiar with the wards surrounding Hogwarts, as well as the wards around the Potter properties, because there are wards surrounding those houses that I don't have enough knowledge to work around without more extensive study of them, but was unfamiliar with Voldemort's wards."
"Then who made them?"
Dumbledore sighed. "Based off of the fact that one of them leads to the Shrieking Shack, which was built the year your father started attending Hogwarts, I would guess it was him, although I was not aware that he had such an intricate knowledge of the wards surrounding Hogwarts. But I did know that he and his friends were very resourceful, and knew a lot more about Hogwarts than most people. He also strikes me as a person who would want a fast way to get to all those locations from anywhere, including Hogwarts."
"Where you can't apparate from." Harry grinned. "It's too bad my parents weren't wearing portkeys when they were attacked."
"There would have been no point," said Dumbledore. "They knew that if they were found, Voldemort would've put wards up to stop them from leaving, so wearing portkeys would only have given him access to other Potter houses for him to use and plunder if he even realized that your parents were wearing portkeys.
-
"This seems so weird," said Harry to Ginny and Hermione. It was Saturday, and all three of them were at the house Harry had chosen for the Malfoys. Draco was also there, visiting his mum while they decided whether or not he should stay at Hogwarts. The Malfoys were civil to Harry and his friends, but couldn't completely lose their prejudices so fast. They had trouble imagining how a pureblood (Ginny), a half-blood (Harry), and mudblood (Hermione) could get along so well as equals, so they avoided them. Dumbledore had started placing the Fidelius Charm on the house, and would get Harry when he was needed. "Helping the Malfoys is something I never thought I'd do."
"Don't think of it as helping the Malfoys," suggested Ginny, "Think of it as fighting Lucius Malfoy."
"Or Voldemort," said Hermione.
Harry sighed, "I guess."
"You're doing this because it's the right thing to do," said Hermione emphatically.
At that moment, Draco walked out of the bedroom where he'd been talking to his mum and walked up to them. "My house is bigger than this," he said with a smirk.
Harry decided to go along with it. "So is Potter Manor. Do you think I'd give you my best house? This is one of the worst."
Draco smiled. "Just how many houses do you own, and why doesn't anybody know about them? I mean, we knew the Potters had money, but not this much."
Harry said, "I don't want to be known or liked because of my money or fame. I want people to like me for me. That's the way to get real friends."
"Anyway," said Draco as his ears turned pink, "I, er, wanted to, well, thank you for what you're doing here. I, er, am returning to Hogwarts, so I'll have to act like, y'know."
"I know," said Harry with a smirk, "And I'll be happy to act like I hope you die a horrible painful death in front of me too."
"Harry," called Albus from the doorway, "It's time."
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