Chapter 4: Shattered notions.
The rest of September passed in a blur for Harry and Hermione. They spent all of their time outside of classes in the Room of Requirement completing their homework, preparing for the tournament, and for Harry, learning to dance. They were both sitting on the couch in the library section that the room had provided when Winky popped in.
"Hello, Winky." Harry and Hermione called at the same time to the tiny elf.
Winky gave a small curtsy and began speaking. "Good afternoon, Sir and Miss. Winky has found out what the first task is from Professor Moody when he was talking with the Headmaster. Master Harry Potter has to get by a dragon and retrieve a golden egg." Winky was clearly agitated as she stood there wringing the hem of her apron in her hands.
"Dragons!" Hermione practically shouted. Standing up and beginning to pace around the room, she began muttering under her breath about, "Irresponsible adults." and "Insanely dangerous tournaments."
Coming out of his stupor, Harry knelt down in front of Winky and he gave her a hug. "Thank you, very much, Winky. You did a great job."
The surprised elf patted Harry on the back and gave a muttered, "Thank you." before popping out of the Room of Requirement.
Getting up from his spot on the floor, Harry walked over to Hermione and pulled her into a hug. After a few moments of listening to her mumble about crazy wizards and their stupid tournaments, he spoke softly to her, "Hey, its okay. Now that we know what I need to do we can start focusing on getting that golden egg."
Hermione gave Harry's waist one last squeeze before she pulled back from the embrace and went over to her bag to retrieve the communication mirror. She called out, "Remus Lupin." as she sat down next to Harry on the couch.
After a few seconds, Remus' face appeared in the mirror and he said, "Hello Harry, Hermione." He turned his face to the side and called out, "Sirius come here, Harry and Hermione are calling."
When Sirius had joined them, they both listened as Harry and Hermione explained the first task. It turned out that Remus was a veritable fount of knowledge when it came to dragons, but in the end, it was a suggestion from Hermione that caused everyone to pause and look at her in bewilderment.
Getting a bit nervous, Hermione cried out, "What? Nowhere did the teachers mention anything about having to battle the dragon. You should summon the egg. That way you don't have to get too close to it."
Grinning like a lunatic, Harry had a look of pride and joy on his face. "You are absolutely brilliant! Do you think that it will work?" Harry asked hopefully.
"I do, but in case that the egg is spelled against summoning, we should come up with a back up plan." Hermione stated simply.
Remus and Sirius were both grinning at the pair of them and thinking to themselves that Hermione was really a lot brighter than they had guessed. The plan was so simple that most wizards would overlook it. After some deliberation between the four of them, they decided that if the original plan did not work, Harry would summon his broom and use that to get by the dragon.
The last Friday of November brought forth a completely new batch of problems for Harry. Their Defense against the Dark Arts class was good because their instructor, Alastor Moody, was actually teaching them useful offensive and defensive hexes, charms, curses, and counter curses. However, today they were covering the three unforgivable curses.
What no one had expected was that Moody would actually demonstrate the curses. He Crucio'd one spider into mindlessness, and only stopped when Hermione cried out because it was affecting Neville so badly. Afterwards, he demonstrated the killing curse on the poor arachnid. To top it all off, he used the Imperious Curse to make another spider do what ever he wished. Then, to the absolute horror of the class, he informed them that he was going to place each of them under the curse so that they could feel the effects and to try to fight it off.
Harry was the only one in the entire class to throw off the spell. As they were leaving the class, he could not help but hear the mutterings of his year mates and he knew that before the end of the day the entire school would know what he had done. To make matters even worse, Harry had spotted the Slytherins, and quite a few members of the rest of the houses, sporting "Potter Stinks" badges.
The only good part of the badges was seeing Hermione worked up on his behalf. As they were sitting down to lunch at the corner of the Gryffindor table, she began her rant, "Why aren't the teachers making people remove those buttons? They are insulting and just down right mean." Hermione cried out while gesturing wildly with her fork full of Sheppard's Pie.
"I don't know, Hermione. I guess that things are just different in the Wizarding world. Look at that article that Skeeter woman wrote about me. I never said any of those things! She turned a bunch of my ums and ers into long winded sentences about me crying over my parent's memories!" Harry had become agitated during his response and now a good portion of the Gryffindor table was silent, listening in on their conversation.
Realizing that the rest of the table was listening in, Harry gave them all a hard glare and resumed eating his lunch in silence. When they were both finished, Hermione told Harry that she wanted to speak with Professor McGonagall about the badges. Shrugging his shoulders in acceptance, Harry walked with Hermione to the professor's office.
"Professor?" Hermione called out while knocking on the transfiguration teacher's door.
Minerva McGonagall looked up and saw two of her students in the doorway. "Please come in the both of you. Now what can I do for you?"
Hermione fidgeted with her hands for a moment before speaking, "Why aren't any of the teachers doing anything about those horrible badges? Can you make them take them off?"
"I'm sorry Mr. Potter, but I can't do anything about the badges, I do understand though, and I agree with your sentiments, Ms. Granger." Professor McGonagall spoke in tones of resignation.
"Do you mean can't or won't Professor?" Harry asked with a bit of an edge to his voice.
Taking a moment to compose her thoughts, Professor McGonagall replied, "I can't Mr. Potter, I'm sorry. I am not allowed to step in and correct the problem at the current time."
Harry had started to put things together in his head and so had Hermione if the look on her face was any indication. Harry had one more question on his mind that he wanted to ask before Mt. Hermione erupted in indignation. "Why won't professor Dumbledore let you make people remove the badges?"
With a sad look on her face, Minerva McGonagall answered, "Because Professor Dumbledore thinks that this is a good way to learn to ignore what people are saying about you while also learning how to forgive them for their mistakes. I want you both to know that I do not agree with this at all."
Her answer was enough to shatter both teens remaining trust in Albus Dumbledore. For Harry it was another betrayal by an adult, further cementing in his mind that most of them could not be trusted. There were a few exceptions to that rule but that did not make Harry feel any better.
The last of Harry's childhood died in Professor McGonagall's classroom that afternoon. He knew that he would have to make sure that he looked out for his own interests and safety from now on, with a little help from Hermione and those few adults that he could trust.
Hermione had been trying to come to grips with the changes in her worldview but Professor McGonagall's revelation destroyed her long-standing faith in authority figures. She felt a wide range of emotions but the prevalent one was loss. It felt as if someone had taken the safe, secure feeling, which comes from the belief that someone in authority will always be there to help you and then told her that it was all a lie. No one was coming to help; you are on your own.
Without another word, Harry and Hermione slowly got up and walked out of Professor McGonagall's office and out onto the grounds to think things over. Once they were seated on a large rock down by the lake Harry turned to Hermione and asked the one question that was really bothering her too. "Why?"
Hermione was at as much of a loss as Harry was and she replied, "I don't know. I always thought that Dumbledore had your best interests at heart. Now, I don't think he does at all. It's as if he is testing you for a reason that only he seems to know." Hermione's confusion was evident in her voice.
"What do you think we should do about this then? Half of the time, I want to attack Malfoy for making those stupid badges and the other half I want to curse Dumbledore for allowing it to continue. I think that he let Moody put the Imperious Curse on everyone to see if I could throw it off. Was putting me with the Dursleys some sort of test too? What about everything else that we have gotten into at Hogwarts the last three years?" Harry had become so agitated during his tirade that he had begun to pace the shoreline, like an animal trapped in a cage.
Hermione got up and stepped in front of Harry to stop his pacing so she could answer him. "Well, since Professor McGonagall can't do anything about the buttons, perhaps we should. We can ask Snuffles and Moony for some ideas. I don't know about the Dursleys, Harry but my parents should have some news on that front in a few days according to their last letter. I'm not sure what to think about Dumbledore doing all of those things to test you but it does make sense. The question is why is he testing you? Do you think that it has to do with Voldemort?"
Harry sighed as he felt some of the tension leave him with Hermione's hug. "I don't know but that is the only thing that I can think of too. I know that Dumbledore says that Voldemort isn't dead but why did he come after me in the first place? Did you know that Voldemort told me his real name down in the Chamber of Secrets? It's Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort is an anagram of his name. Do you think we should look him up to see if we can find anything out about why he attacked me?"
"I don't know why he attacked you but that is a good idea. We should probably ask Snuffles and Moony all of those questions soon. Come on, why don't we head on up to the Room and give them a call." Hermione said as she grabbed Harry's hand and started up towards the castle.
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