Chapter- 8 : Betrayed Part - 2

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She paled, evidently not happy with the news. That, or his cold, emotionless gaze made her very uncomfortable.

"I see there are more differences than I had originally hoped for," Dumbledore murmered, drawing attention to him again. He cleared his throat.

"How was your Voldemort defeated?" A lot of indrawn breaths were followed by everyone leaning forward.

"He was killed in a very brief duel because of luck and utterly unpredictable circumstances."

Harry had thought long and hard about everything that had happened and his opinion on Albus Dumbledore had gone back and forth repeatedly. The whole convoluted sequence of events that led to Voldemort's downfall could not possibly be planned out and when Dumbledore had tried it had gone wrong. Only an insane amount of luck had led to Voldemort's defeat and even more luck had been required for Harry to live through it.

Everyone held their breath as their heads turned to look at the lie-detector. It didn't even twitch.

Several Order members slumped in their seats and more than one hid their head in their hands. No one said a word as they struggled with the disappointment, yielding a very tense and heavy silence.

Drugged as he was, Harry didn't suffer from either anger or despair. He did, however, have some mild curiosity.

"I am the Queen of England," he said calmly, startling a few people nearby. Immediately the thing on the table grew a spout that let out a piercing whistle. It didn't stop.

Huh. So that's what would happen.

The people around him let out frightened exclamations at the sudden noise and reflexively clasped their hands over their ears. Dumbledore, the one closest to the device, jerked back as far as his chair would allow causing it to slide backwards several inches.

Harry ignored them all. Still, the noise was somewhat annoying.

"I am not the Queen of England."

The spout got swallowed back into the tripod, and all was quiet once again. A lot of glares were thrown in Harry's direction. It took several seconds for Dumbledore to break the tense silence.

"Despite the fact that we cannot apparently recreate the circumstances, I would still like to know more," he said hesitantly. "How did Voldemort die?"

"Backfired Killing Curse because of the Elder Wand," Harry answered promptly.

There was some confused murmuring, but Harry kept his eyes on Dumbledore who paled and swallowed.

"Voldemort got his hands on the Elder Wand?" he whispered.

"That he did."

The headmaster was smart enough to understand what that meant and Harry could see many emotions running across his face. The one that lingered was fear.

The idea of Voldemort wielding the Deathstick was unpleasant enough, but for someone who had worshipped the Hallows in his youth and still did to some extent one hundred and fifty years later it was truly frightening. Dumbledore did something to clamp down on it, but Harry guessed it was more to get away from that train of thought than any kind of acceptance as he changed the subject.

"What of the Girl-Who-Lived? What role did she play?" There was a hint of desperation in his voice now, a craving for some good news.

Harry gladly took the opportunity to stomp on that. "We had no Girl-Who-Lived."

It took a heartbeat for it to sink in and then whispers grew into murmurs, which grew into loud voices until pandemonium reigned as people argued what they were going to do now. Apparently it wasn't just the public who had put all their hopes on a single girl. The Order was just as guilty.

Harry took the offered opportunity to think of what to say to keep his name out of things.

"We had no Girl-Who-Lived," he said loudly to draw attention once again, "but the story you told of Voldemort's demise in Godric's Hollow is somewhat familiar. He went there on Halloween, 1981, and was indeed defeated, although nobody knows how." Speculated? Sure. No facts, though. "The Potters are heroes on my world because of that, but if they ever had a daughter, she died with them."

The last was really a borderline half-truth. Theoretically his mum could have been pregnant at the time. Fortunately the emotions brought on by thinking of the murder of his infant sister were immediately suppressed, otherwise he'd probably be throwing up.

"What about the prophecy?" Dumbledore was almost begging, clearly grasping at straws.

"What about it? If there ever was a prophecy, it certainly wasn't published in the papers. How would I know about it?" The drugs allowed Harry to say all this without inflection as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Dumbledore looked back and forth between him and the lie-detector aghast. Clearly things were not going the way he had hoped at all and he seemed at a loss for what to do about it. It seemed a little strange to Harry, as the man had always seemed so calm and collected before. Then again, he'd been plotting at the time and things had gone reasonably according to plan. Maybe he just wasn't used to not getting his way?

The part of him keeping track of offenses committed by the Order gave a twinge of satisfaction. Were he not potioned he would be chortling in glee.

Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice drew him out of his reverie. "Why are you here?"

Harry didn't miss a beat. "Because you kidnapped, tortured and disfigured me and will not let me leave." Arseholes.

People winced, and a lot of them did so a second time when the lie-detector didn't make a sound.

The bald Auror clenched his jaw as well, but his resolve didn't waver. "That's not what I meant. Of all the people in all the worlds out there, why did the ritual bring you?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. It certainly wasn't my choice. Shouldn't you know that, seeing how it was your ritual and all?"

People started talking amongst themselves again, which quickly led to arguing. Dumbledore, who normally chaired these meetings sat staring blankly ahead, lost in his own thoughts. By now close to half an hour had passed during his interrogation and Harry thought he could feel the effects of the Calming Draught slowly begin to wane.

"So, are we done? I hear no more questions, and I'd very much like to leave you sorry bunch behind."

"But where will you go?" someone asked.

"Away. Somewhere where I don't have to look my kidnappers in the face all the time."

"But you can't just leave. We need you!"

A brief flare of annoyance was immediately soothed away. Whoever asked that embodied everything Harry hated about the attitude of wizards and witches: the whining for someone else to solve their problems.

"No you don't," he said, his voice a little cool. "You gambled by kidnapping me and don't like the result. All you're doing now is looking for an excuse to validate your actions."

"Do you hate us?" Tonks sad, uncertain question silenced the room.

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