6

Chapter Six – Harry's Revelation

Langley Brook Road, Stevenage

Friday 25th September 2048 (still)

"Here we go," Oscar Potter said as he tapped a couple of times on the flat desk panel and the screen embedded in the office wall flicked from the display of text that he had been entering whilst talking to Hermione. "That should do it."

Hermione gave a startled yelp as Harry's face suddenly stared out at her from the wall, nearly life-sized.

"Hi Hermione," he said. "Hope you're well. I assume that by now you've been to the reading of my will and have investigated the house, and found this recording somehow. I knew you were the best person to ask.

"If you've been following my trail like I requested then you'll already know about my magic binding, among other things, so you'll have come to some conclusions about my set up here, but we'll get to that later.

"What you need to know before you get final confirmation from Dumbledore's portrait is that I've been following your research closely. You probably never realised that I first took a strong interest in time magic back in our Third Year when we used your Time Turner together to go back and save Sirius from the Dementor's kiss. How I wished I could re-do things in my life from that point onwards, only knowing that even magic could only take you back a few hours at most.

"As the years went past... well you know how traumatic Hogwarts was... every new setback enhanced that desire to be able to go back in time and change things.

"So you can imagine now that I was massively interested in the work you did on development of a much more powerful Time Turner and how gutted I was when the Ministry declared all your work to be a threat to the Wizarding World and put it all under interdiction, and to be marked for destruction.

"So I intercepted it."

"What?" Hermione gasped, and Oscar paused the playback for her briefly.

She looked at him he shrugged his shoulders, so she indicated for him to re-start the recording.

"Yes, that's right. I managed to get my hands on everything you'd researched before it could be destroyed. All your original files can be found under the filename 'Grangerwork' and the password is the same as was used to open the Marauder's Map.

"So, whilst I'm sure you're glad of that, the reason I mention it is because I have been busy adapting much of what you had done and found a way of sending myself back to my younger years – it might not be quite as accurate as I would have liked, but it should work. All being well, it shouldn't even impact on this timeline, other than one small change which has already happened by the time you read this.

"That's that the likelihood is that I barely have sufficient magical force to power the necessary spell, so I'm also using some of my life force, and there's a fairly high risk that it'll kill me.

"Given that my life was about to be completely changed in any case as I continued to lose my magic to Dumbledore's binding, I figured it was worth a shot. I am a bit sorry to leave Ginny this way, but it might actually be easier on her than me finally getting reducto'd by the next Dark Lord wannabe who thinks that making the Boy-who-Lived a notch on his belt will give him greater influence.

"Anyway, now that you have access to my files on the Norway Cloud, you'll also be able to see how I've re-imagined your work. It's all in a separate file titled 'Marty McFly', with the same password, so you can look through it at your leisure.

"Beyond that, I guess you have a choice about what you do with it. I'm sure you have more than enough magical power alone to successfully replicate what I've done without having to die for it, but you might not want to take that risk... or you might feel that what's done is done, and trying to change things wouldn't help.

"Either way, it's your call. When I came into the magical world, completely unaware of what had been done to me and what would yet happen, you and Ron were the people who made me feel at home there, despite your very different backgrounds. So thank you for all you've done for me, and for social justice in the magical world.

"Goodnight."

The screen went blank, and once again Hermione felt a sudden sense of loss.

"What did Granddad mean about all that had been done to him? And about Dumbledore's binding?" Oscar asked, breaking the momentary silence and reminding Hermione that she wasn't alone in seeing what was probably Harry's last message.

Hermione sighed. She didn't really want to have this conversation with Harry's family.

"It's quite a long story, Oscar," she said.

"I don't think we're in any rush, here, Aunt Hermione."

"True.

"Do you remember Harry's bout of Wizard Flu last year? Where he was off work for quite a while?"

"Vaguely," Oscar replied. "I think Granny M mentioned it at some point last time we were at The Burrow."

Hermione still found the Potter grandchildren's moniker for Molly Weasley amusing, even twenty-odd years after it had been coined by Oscar's older brother at the age of three.

"Well, it prompted him to get some checks done at St Mungo's and then with the Unspeakables that he'd never had done in the past, and it seems that there was a binding on Harry's magic that had been there since he was very young."

"But that's dangerous!" Oscar said, alarmed. "He should have had it removed when he turned eleven and went to Hogwarts, if not before!"

"Indeed."

"What happened when they removed it?"

"They didn't. Even the Department of Mysteries deemed it far too much of a risk to undo the binding, especially since it had been leeching off Harry's own magic to sustain itself for sixty-odd years."

"So, how were they going to save him?"

"They weren't. He would eventually have lost all his magic, leaving the binding with nothing to power it, and it would have slipped away on its own."

"But leaving him without any magic," Oscar summarised thoughtfully. "Which is why he's got this place set up like it is."

"Exactly. With no magic he wouldn't have been able to continue in the DMLE – how would he get in and out, if nothing else – and he would have been a sitting duck for anyone to take a pot shot at."

Hermione paused for a moment.

"You realise that you shouldn't tell anyone else about this, right?"

"Why's that, Aunt Hermione? Don't the family have a right to know why he died? And what happened to him?

"That's a difficult question to answer. What benefit would there be to them knowing that he didn't die of a heart attack? Or that it was essentially a suicide? Would that make Ginny feel any better? I'm not sure it would.

"Also, even though I'm sure that Harry would have eventually talked to Ginny to see whether she was prepared to live with him in the Muggle world, I don't know that it was definitely his plan, nor whether she would have done so. What would she have made of the fact that he was preparing for a life potentially without her? As far as I know they were still very happily married. Do you want to jeopardise Ginny's feelings about that?"

"I see what you mean. I'm pretty sure Grandma would be lost trying to live in a place like this. Even with the Floo and Apparation points in the shed, I don't think she would be comfortable."

"I know. I was raised without magic, and I thought I'd kept up to date with the times, but just in here alone I was completely at a loss."

"Okay, so I won't mention this, even to Dad. I'll just say that Harry had left a personal message for you that I found on the system."

"Thanks."

"So, what next?"

"Next, I need to print out all of Harry's workings and calculations, and see whether he's done the job properly, so can you do that for me? Or get Vax to do it? I can hardly access it electronically from home, after all."

"Yep. Can do, Aunt Hermione."

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Hogwarts

Monday 28th September 2048

The amount of paper resulting from Oscar's commands to Vax to print out Harry's research from the file on the Cloud left Hermione staggering under its weight and hoping that it was all recycled material. Oscar had seemed to think that it was, and that all 'new' paper had to either come from recycled or 'sustainable' sources by Government decree.

The amount of material forced Hermione to put off examining it. She could have done it at home, but Ron was on a weekend off, and he was never best pleased when the dinner table was covered in research papers instead of lunch.

Instead, she spent the spare time she had over the weekend thinking about the questions she was going to put to Dumbledore's portrait, and arranging a suitable time for that visit with Headmistress McGonagall.

McGonagall seemed keen to get it over with, and after her humiliating conversation with Hermione about Harry's life the previous week she had more than a few questions of her own for the former Headmaster, Chief Warlock and Mugwump if Hermione's didn't cover them. Hermione was only too happy to allow her to sit in on the discussion, as long as she saved her questions for the end.

McGonagall met her at in the Entrance Hall.

"I've taken the opportunity to move Albus's portrait into an empty classroom, Hermione. I don't trust him not to play up to the other portraits if we held this interrogation in my office."

"Interrogation?"

"Isn't it?" McGonagall asked. "After the thorough examination you put me through last time, I felt entirely ashamed of myself. I was rather expecting something similar, if not even more stringent today."

"Well, yes, but I wasn't going to call in an interrogation." Hermione paused for a moment. "On the other hand, you might be right!"

The headmistress ushered her through the corridors and up to the First Floor, where Dumbledore's portrait had been relocated to a room vaguely familiar to Hermione.

"Didn't this use to be the History of Magic classroom?" she asked.

McGonagall grinned. "Yes, when you were a student it was. But when I finally got around to firing Cuthbert Binns, he didn't take too kindly to it, and remained to haunt this room for several years afterwards, so I had to move the History classes elsewhere. Not that it stopped him continuing to monologue on goblin rebellions to an empty room for another two years before we had a Defence teacher that took it upon himself to exorcise the spirit."

"Well, at least the History of Magic class got more interesting," Hermione suggested.

"Only partly. Even Cuthbert's successors had to teach to the OWL and NEWT syllabi if they were to get their students through the exams."

Hermione grimaced. "I did what I could as Minister," she offered, "but Education had so many other things wrong with it."

"I don't understand what the problem was," interjected a new voice, as Dumbledore's portrait made itself heard for the first time. "It's vital to know about how the goblins so viciously turned on us over the years."

"Well, we might yet discuss that further, Albus," McGonagall said sharply, "but Mrs Weasley has some more pressing topics to cover first.

"Oh, and by the way", she added, pointing her wand at the portrait, "veridicium!"

"Minerva! How could you!" Dumbledore burst out.

"Never you mind, Albus. Just do as you've been told and answer Hermione's questions honestly."

Dumbledore almost seemed to go into a sulk at the Headmistress's words.

"Go ahead, Hermione," she invited.

"Thank you, Headmistress.

"I'm going to start before Harry was even born, with the Prophecy that Sybil Trelawney voiced in the Hog's Head during her interview for the Divination position. We know that her words were accurately detailed to Harry at the end of his Fifth Year, because they have been confirmed by the Department of Mysteries. So, firstly: what made you decide that this related to Voldemort?"

"Who else could it have referred to?" Dumbledore asked in return. "There was no other Dark Lord active at that time who needed opposing."

"First of all, that's pretty debatable, Dumbledore," Hermione said. "All you can say is that there was no other Dark Lord that you knew about at that time and considered to be a Dark Lord. After all, the Prophecy doesn't specify when the Dark Lord would be active, which July the other subject would be born in, or where he would be active."

"Ah, but Hermione, the fact that the Prophecy was given at that time surely meant that it related to events at that time."

"You have no way of knowing. There are prophecies sat in the Department that have been there for centuries and have not yet been fulfilled."

"But it was a Prophecy delivered to me," Dumbledore insisted, "therefore was directed at me for a reason, in order to direct it."

"If it was immutable and destined to occur no matter what, Dumbledore, then it didn't need any involvement from anyone, so exactly what direction was it supposed to required? Besides, if your theory is true, that it was delivered to you for a reason, then maybe you are the Dark Lord to whom it referred, eh?"

"That's preposterous!" the portrait blustered. "I'm the Leader of the Light, and have opposed Dark Lords for decades!"

"You describe yourself as the Leader of the Light. Yet, if you are so Light and you believe that it was your responsibility for shaping the outcome of the Prophecy, why did you ensure that Harry lived a life that was destined to see him die at Voldemort's hand, rather than the other way around?"

"Harry had to die in order for the Horcrux in his scar to be defeated, and therefore ensure that Voldemort was mortal once again!" Dumbledore insisted.

"Except that there was never any Horcrux in his scar," Hermione pointed out. "He was examined by specialists in the Department of Mysteries, and they resolved that there had been something of a power leech to Voldemort, which became active upon his reincorporation in 1995, but there had never been a Horcrux present, and that a runic protection of which the scar forms a part would have prevented any chance of possession or creation of a Horcrux.

"In fact, you never even attempted to find out if there was actually a Horcrux there. The Unspeakables could have told you one way or another within minutes. There are a number of shamanistic rituals that could have done the same.

"And, even if you assumed that the scar was, in fact, a Horcrux, you made no attempt to get rid of it, which, again, both demonstrates you complete lack of care for Harry and your unwillingness to ask for help."

The portrait looked flabbergasted.

"But if there was no Horcrux, how did Harry survive against Voldemort after I died?"

"The runic protection did its job twice. Now, the next question about the Prophecy: why did you send the Potters and Longbottoms into hiding in the middle of October 1981, when the Prophecy had been made in early 1980?"

"They were obviously the only contenders for the Prophecy..." Dumbledore began, but was cut off by Hermione.

"You mean, they were the only ones in the Order of the Phoenix who met the narrow definitions you'd interpreted the Prophecy to mean. Anyone in Britain could have defied the Dark Lord three times and had a child in Late July, not just the people you were currently allied with – that's even assuming that the 'seventh month' meant July, rather than the seventh month of the astrological calendar... or the Gregorian calendar... of the Jewish calendar..."

"Again, Hermione, the Prophecy was given to me, therefore its details were to be interpreted by me."

"Only because that is what you decided it meant. No other authority was even consulted because you had decided that you were the only possible authority on the matter."

"I am Albus Dumbledore!" the portrait exclaimed. "Nobody else has my experience in such matters."

"And that's exactly the problem – you are so sure of your own infallibility that you don't even ask whether somebody else might be an expert and know better than you. You just assumed that you knew best.

"Moving on. Who cast the Fidelius on the Potters' cottage at Godric's Hollow?"

"Well, I did, of course," Dumbledore replied.

"And presumably that was in the presence of the Potters' and their Secret Keeper?"

"Of course. That's how the spell works."

"So you knew that Peter Pettigrew was the Secret Keeper?"

The portrait remained silent.

"Answer her, Albus," McGonagall said.

"Yes."

"So why, as Chief Warlock, did Sirius Black not only fail to get a trial, but did you make no attempt whatsoever to either secure his release or arrange for a trial to take place, whereupon you would have been able to exonerate him and point out the real culprit?"

"His case never came before my court," Dumbledore said snootily.

"No, but you were aware of the misleading information that had been published about him being responsible for the deaths of the Potters and knew he wasn't to blame. So why didn't you insist on him coming before your court?"

Again, Dumbledore remained silent, and again was prodded by the Headmistress.

"Fine! If he had been free to take Harry then I would not have been able to leave him with the Dursleys."

Hermione was disgusted, but not surprised, given what she had found out over the past few weeks about Harry's life.

"We'll come back to that in due course, as well," she stated forcefully. "But I haven't finished with my questions about the Potters' deaths yet.

"How did you know to send Hagrid to Godric's Hollow to collect Harry?"

"Oh, I had a number of monitoring charms on the cottage to make sure that they were safe and well, as I knew they might be attacked."

"But you had hidden them safely behind the Fidelius, so why were they suddenly more susceptible to an attack in October 1981 than they had been seen Harry's birth in July 1980?"

"It seemed sensible at the time," the portrait offered.

Hermione took a deep breath. The next question was a big one and would likely colour both her and the Headmistress's view of Dumbledore for all time, even without any of his other manipulations.

"Did you deliberately make the Potters more vulnerable by putting them under the Fidelius, either because you knew that Pettigrew was a Death Eater or because you felt he was a weak link and likely to be easy for Death Eaters to get the secret out of?"

"I didn't know Pettigrew was a Death Eater."

"Albus – answer the question," McGonagall interposed.

"Yes."

"Albus! How could you!"

"Harry Potter had to die to save the world!" Dumbledore insisted.

"What utter claptrap! I cannot believe I let myself be deluded by you for so many years, Albus Dumbledore! May the Threefold curse fall upon your soul!

"Hermione. Mrs Weasley. Please believe me that I had no idea that this was Albus's plan all along!"

"Oh, it's okay, Professor, I can easily believe that. The great manipulator here doesn't tell people what he's doing or why he's doing it, he just tells people what to do and twinkles his eyes at them, saying that his reasons have to remain confidential.

"He should be ashamed, but it's clear he has no shame. But we aren't anywhere close to finished."

"Oh dear!"

"So, Dumbledore," Hermione continued, "why did you send Hagrid to collect Harry from Godric's Hollow when your monitoring charms revealed that there was a problem?"

"I needed someone to take him away from the ruins of the house."

"Technically accurate, but not what I was asking. Why did you send Hagrid rather than anyone else?"

"Because I knew I could trust him not to give Harry to anyone else. Because he is loyal to me."

"So you sent him to the place where you expected Voldemort was likely to be despite the fact he had no wand and could not defend himself?"

"Hagrid would have intimidated anyone likely to be there."

"Except we know that to be complete codswallop, since we know Voldemort went to Hogwarts at the same time as Hagrid did, and he was responsible for framing Hagrid and getting him expelled. Hardly someone who was afraid of him. How was Hagrid supposed to transport Harry anywhere when you aren't supposed to Apparate children?"

"He used Sirius's motorbike-"

Hermione cut the portrait's explanation off.

"I know what he actually did. But neither you nor he knew that Sirius would turn up at that specific time and with his motorbike."

"I didn't think of that. I assumed he would Apparate."

"And then, having established that Harry was still alive and at least moderately well, you went off to the Ministry to start spinning the story of how Harry had defeated the Dark Lord?"

"Indeed. The Minister and the public needed to know the right information, so that Harry would be a hero to them and feel a responsibility to them when he was older."

"You mean the fabrication that you wanted everyone to believe, since there was nobody who knew what actually happened other than the Potters?"

"Exactly. I had the chance to make sure they had the right story, so I had to get it out there in the Daily Prophet."

"And then you arranged for Harry to be delivered to his maternal Aunt and Uncle."

"Of course. They were his closest relatives."

"They were afraid of magic, Dumbledore. Not only that, but Petunia resented you for turning down her begging letter to go to Hogwarts. What made you think they would accept Harry there?"

"They were his family. Why wouldn't they?"

"In that case, why did you not knock on their door and ask them?"

"Because they might have refused."

"So much for your belief that they would accept him then. Don't you think they should have had a choice?"

"No. They were only Muggles. They should have been happy to take Harry in."

"Why?"

"Because he was their nephew."

"Why did you not instruct Hagrid to deliver Harry to Sirius, his rightful guardian?"

"Because Sirius wasn't responsible enough to look after him and bring him up properly."

"And who were you to make that decision and override that of Harry's parents?"

"I was Chief Warlock!"

"That may be so, but you didn't go through the Wizengamot to get the decision ratified, you just decided it on your own authority, disregarding what other people said and without any oversight.

"Meanwhile, you left a toddler on the doorstep of a house where he was not expected, in the middle of a November night without as much as a warming charm or anything to keep him from wandering off. Did you not think he could have frozen to death? Or wandered off and become lost? Or been knocked down by an early-morning commuter?"

"He was perfectly safe."

"He turned out to be perfectly safe. That's not the same thing though."

The portrait was silent.

"Nothing to say? Fine, let's move on a couple of years or so. After Harry's first couple of incidents of accidental magic, you turned up on Petunia's doorstep and performed a magical binding on him. Why?"

"Because he was in danger of drawing the attention of the Ministry."

"And why would that have been any different to any other Muggle-raised child?"

"I didn't want anybody to know where he was. He might have been attacked by Death Eaters or other sympathisers."

"Wasn't it more that you didn't want the Ministry to remove him from the Dursleys and have him placed with a magical relative?"

"Harry doesn't have any magical relatives."

"He didn't have any close magical relatives, but the Tonks's would be considered cousins of a sort, as would the Malfoys."

"I couldn't risk the Malfoys being awarded custody."

"You mean, you couldn't risk him being taken away from the Dursleys, where he was ill-treated?"

Once again the portrait tried hard not to answer the question.

"Answer her, Albus," McGonagall insisted once again.

"Yes," came the grudging reply.

"And when did you first know that he was being mistreated?"

Again a pause, and an intervention from the Headmistress.

"About a month after they took him in."

"Albus! You knew that they abused him all that time, and you never said a word!"

"You would have removed him from the Dursleys and raised him yourself if I had, Minerva!"

"Exactly! As I should have done!"

"I couldn't allow that."

"So why was it so important to you that Harry grew up with the Dursley, unloved and downtrodden, Dumbledore?" Hermione continued her questioning.

"He needed to grow up without knowing about the Wizarding World."

"Why?"

"So that it would be a wonderful surprise to him when he found out about it."

"And why did you let him be mistreated?"

"He needed to learn that others came before him."

"So that he'd sacrifice himself when you told him he had to, you mean? Because you'd rescued him from the abusive environment for ten months of the year?"

Once more the portrait remained silent.

"If you choose not to answer that, Albus, we'll take it that Hermione is correct," McGonagall interjected.

Still silence from Dumbledore on the subject, so Hermione moved onto her next topic.

"So, the magical binding – why did you not remove it once Harry came to Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore looked a bit surprised.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he still had the binding aged sixty-eight, so clearly you didn't remove it from him when he was eleven and had a wand and was no longer a threat to attract Ministry attention through the use of accidental magic."

"No... but it must have broken before then, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to perform magic at school."

"No, it hadn't. Because you'd powered it with his own magic."

McGonagall looked shocked at this, but didn't interrupt.

"But if he still had it at sixty-eight everything must have turned out okay."

"Hardly," Hermione snorted. "With his full magic available to him, his whole life would have been easier. As it was, his magic was slowly draining away from him, and he was little more than a squib when he died," she said, exaggerating slightly for effect.

"But that would mean..."

"Yes, that's basically what killed him. But then you obviously wouldn't care about that, since you left him with the Dursleys in the first place and seemed to have given him every opportunity to die pretty much every year until after your own death," she said scathingly. "So we'll lay that one as another case of abuse and neglect at your door.

"And of course you had your poor Squib stooge Arabella Figg posted as a spy there, just in case the Dursleys decided to put poor Harry up for adoption, and you needed to intervene to stop them.

"Not to mention that you essentially forced Petunia into mistreating Harry with that ancient Egyptian cursed ornament you placed on her mantelpiece on that first visit. Going to deny any of this, Dumbledore?"

Once more there was no response from the portrait.

"No, I didn't think so. I had Bill look at that stupid pewter cup and he realised pretty quickly that you'd bound it using Harry's blood to make Petunia dislike him.

"Do you know what the worst of all this is, Dumbledore." she asked rhetorically. "It's that it was all completely unnecessary."

"But the Prophecy had to be fulfilled," he insisted.

"The Prophecy had probably already been fulfilled," she sighed. "Certainly it had been by the time six of us went to the Ministry to save Sirius. Neville couldn't have broken the Prophecy orb when he dropped it had it been unfulfilled."

"But the Horcruxes-"

"Apparently had nothing to do with the Prophecy."

She could see that Dumbledore wanted to argue further.

"Look, it's pretty clear to me that Harry 'vanquished' Voldemort on 31st October 1981. Anything that happened after that was completely irrelevant. Horcruxes or no Horcruxes, he was vanquished, so all your scheming beyond that has simply ruined lives instead of fulfilled your interpretation of the Prophecy.

"I'm going to ignore for now the details of Harry's supposed life that you allowed to be 'discovered' by various people and included in certain books between the time that the Potters died and Harry's re-emergence into the Wizarding World, because as Harry's executor I'm already engaging lawyers to sue the publishers of those books for every knut that I can add to his estate.

"So, with that in mind, let's move on to the Hogwarts years. Now Professor McGonagall has already answered this for her role as Deputy Headmistress at the time, but as Headmaster, why did you send Hagrid to take Harry to Diagon Alley when he was Muggle-raised and knew nothing about the place? Why did Harry not get a visit from a senior member of Faculty like I did?"

"I thought Hagrid would like to be the one to introduce Harry to the Wizarding world," Dumbledore's portrait replied.

"So it had nothing to do with the fact that, having already engaged in harassment by sending thousands of letters to Harry, it would intimidate the Dursleys further and give them yet another reason to resent him? Or that Hagrid has absolutely no sense of discretion at all, and everyone would now know that Harry was back, just at the moment you'd planned it?"

There was no argument from Dumbledore.

"That's what I thought.

"And having sent Hagrid to collect the Philosopher's Stone with Harry present, it was pure coincidence that the so-called traps, designed to stop Voldemort getting to it were mere trifles to any adult wizard, and in fact were always intended as a test for Harry?"

"How would I have known that Harry would go after it?" Dumbledore extemporised.

"You mean, after priming him to know what the object was, giving him an Invisibility Cloak, explaining the secret of the Mirror of Erised to him, and generally pushing him pretty much all the way to the trapdoor? I think it was pretty obvious. Oh, and your lousy excuse for not being contactable – that you'd taken a broom to fly to the Ministry – how pitiful was that? As if you'd ever take hours and hours to fly there, when you could Floo from your office or Apparate from the gates to the castle. Not to mention that someone could easily have contacted you with a Patronus message, and you could have landed and Apparated back within minutes.

"No, I don't think we're buying that at all. But by all means, let's move on," Hermione said.

"Meanwhile, you had the Dark Lord already in the building, possessing Professor Quirrell. How is it that you didn't notice that, Dumbledore? Or did you know about it before he even returned to Hogwarts? After all, you were setting a trap for him, supposedly?"

"Albus!" McGonagall interrupted. "Do you mean to say that Voldemort was in the castle all year? Teaching the students?!"

"I needed Harry to defeat him," Dumbledore argued. "How was he supposed to do that if he wasn't even within miles of him?"

The Headmistress was completely speechless.

"What about the risk to the other children, Albus? Let alone to Harry?"

"Harry was never in any danger, Minerva," he assured her. "Lily's sacrifice made it so that Voldemort wouldn't be able to hurt him."

"Of course it did, Dumbledore," Hermione interjected sarcastically. "That's why he was able to torture Harry in the Little Hangleton graveyard. How he was able to cast the Killing Curse at him twice at the Battle of Hogwarts. What utter nonsense.

"Anyway, I think I've heard enough of your insipid self-justifications, Dumbledore," she announced. "I can only imagine how you will justify allowing Harry to face a sixty-foot basilisk and the potential death of all the students, how failing to get him removed from the Tri-wizard tournament was in the Greater Good and so forth, but I don't need to know it.

"It's clear that you set Harry up to die from the moment you heard the prophecy, simply because you had a set idea of how that prophecy would be fulfilled, without consulting experts on the matter. You basically gave him no choice. And for that, I don't think we'll ever forgive you."