A Catastrophic Consequence

After the others had left his office, Dumbledore pounded his fist against his desk in aggravation. So close, he thought bitterly. So close, and now all may be lost. Four days. Four days away from the end, and the boy escapes. Harry Potter has the most absurd luck of any child in the history of the wizarding world.

His plot to end the war with Voldemort forever had been simple but ingenious. On the coming Hogsmeade weekend, he, Severus, and Kingsley had been planning to discreetly kidnap Harry and take him directly to Voldemort. Snape's dark mark could get them through the wards if they were in contact with him, and they were to be polyjuiced as Roland Avery and Andronicus Nott. Severus would make certain that the other Death Eaters would be away from headquarters, and the trio would present Harry Potter to their "master" as a gift.

The largest risk was that Voldemort would call of his followers to witness the death of The-Boy-Who-Lived. That would make the odds 33 against 3, terrible even without the presence of Voldemort. But they would have the advantage of total surprise, and the Dark Lord's most vicious fighters were still locked up in Azkaban. Immediately after Voldemort killed Harry Potter, the trio had planned to hit him with three simultaneous killing curses, hopefully ending his reign of terror before it truly began. Thereafter it would be a free-for-all, but their fighting skills were considerable, and Dumbledore gave them even odds of survival against the remaining Death Eaters.

If they needed to run, Severus had secured several different escape routes, and Moody, Lupin, Tonks, and others would be waiting just outside the Malfoy wards to help battle any pursuers. The only question mark was the location of Nagini; if the snake was not in Voldemort's presence and they had to leave in a hurry, the snake's death would have to wait for another day, despite its likely status as a horcrux.

Now it looked as if all their careful planning had been for naught.

Everything had come undone because of the careless words of two teenagers.

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had gone missing after Harry's departure, and it had taken Dumbledore until late this morning to track them to a hidden room on the seventh floor. The state he had found them in showed just how much Harry had discovered.

The Granger girl had been practically catatonic, and the Weasley boy in quite a state: broken nose, shattered leg, and barely able to breathe properly. They had not broken their oaths, as Dumbledore could easily tell, but his search of their memories revealed their fateful late night argument. Dumbledore was certain that this argument was the cause of their problem. Someone, likely Harry under his cloak, had become suspicious of the pair and followed them, overhearing their damning conversation.

Now both children were in the hospital wing, Weasley recovering from his ordeal and Granger sedated. His gamble of using Harry's friends to keep him isolated had apparently backfired in truly disastrous fashion. Now the duo was useless to him, and knew more about their plans than was prudent. I can't just obliviate two years of memories, Dumbledore mused. Perhaps I can just force them to take a stronger oath, unable to speak of this even to each other?

More pressing at the moment was the question of Harry's current whereabouts. Where could he possibly be? Dumbledore wondered. And who is helping him? The boy has no friends outside of Hogwarts.

As Dumbledore completed his thought, he could have sworn he heard Fawkes snort softly behind him.

The old man sighed and relaxed in his chair, closing his eyes in exhaustion. This really was too much stress for a man of his age. I wonder what dear Gellert is doing at the moment, he pondered. Perhaps I shall pay him a little visit.

Hogwarts, Hospital Wing

Hermione Granger lay in her hospital bed and stared at the cracks in the ceiling, Harry Potter's last words to her echoing in her mind. You're dead to me, Hermione, he had said. You're dead to me.

Harry's words had struck her to the quick, and now she felt empty, lacking even the energy to move. Despite the maneuvering she had done to isolate Harry from others, she still thought of him as her first and, really, only friend. He thinks I've betrayed him, she thought bitterly to herself. And maybe I have.

Prior to Voldemort's recent resurrection, Hermione had never thought of herself as 'betraying' Harry. She was aware of his awful destiny, had been since the end of her second year, but she had never thought of herself as anything less than loyal to him. Now she was consumed with self-loathing.

Her role had been easy enough in the two-and-a-half years following her oath. The Headmaster had spoken to her almost immediately after she had been un-petrified, explaining that it would only get more dangerous to be around Harry Potter. He had praised her loyalty to her best friend, and then he had played his trump card: he had a noble and important task for her to perform, one that would help save countless innocent lives.

He had asked her to protect Harry, both from himself and from the 'influence' of those who might not understand his destiny. And then he had gently revealed that destiny to her. She had been shocked and horrified, of course, but her 12-year-old ego was secretly proud that the Headmaster would call on her for such a weighty task.

She had been dubious about the Headmaster's revelation that Harry's fate was decreed by prophecy, but he had asked her to think about the connection between Harry's life and Voldemort's. They had met when he was a baby; they had met during Harry's first year; and, most recently, Harry had done battle with the Dark Lord's enchanted diary. Voldemort would return one day soon, the Headmaster had told her, and Harry would be destined to face him again, to save the world again. He would be a hero, Dumbledore had said, but his life was doomed to be a tragic one.

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