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Revenge of the MHP	By : reddragon Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 51869 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters associated with said property. This is a work of fiction, and I do not intend or stand to make a profit. All resemblances are coincidental.

Chapter List
- 6
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Minerva McGonagall sat in the Head Master’s office and stared at a small, silver top spinning in the center of the desk. She supposed it would have done to think of it as her desk, but she couldn’t. The room had been, and always would be, Dumbledore’s. The house elves had already cleared out his belongings, but she hadn’t had the heart to replace any of the clutter with things of her own. The shelves were bare, the floor naked of its rugs, and the only decorations remaining on the wall were the portraits of the previous Headmasters. Only Dumbledore wasn’t present, as his portrait remained unfinished. Not that it mattered, now. There was no longer any point to completing it.
The top had been a gift from her father, a small token of good luck they had found in a knickknack store shortly after McGonagall had gotten her acceptance letter to Hogwarts. The store’s owner had promised that the top would continue to spin for as long as she lived. McGonagall had started it spinning on her first night at Hogwarts, and it had been spinning ever since. She had always found a sort of pleasure in watching it go, a reminder that no matter how bad things ever got, there would always be a few constant things in life, predictable things, reliable things. But now the one thing she had relied on her entire life was being ripped away from her.
Hogwarts was closing.
She could have fought against it if it had just been Potter, Granger, and the Weasleys. She had loved them all so much, even when they were being unnecessarily troublesome, but there was no denying that they were all marked for death from an early age. To defy the Dark Lord and his minions was a dangerous task that had claimed the lives of dozens of fine men and women who had spent years honing their talents and who had been careful to work as much in the shadows as possible. To openly thwart him year after year was to invite the sort of wrath that even Dumbledore struggled to turn aside at times. She could have argued that, would have argued that. It was no secret that the Dark Lord craved Hogwarts the way a dying man craved a final sip of water. His followers would have let her have her way, even as they worked to remove her from office. But the important thing was that Hogwarts would have survived.
Then the Malfoy boy had turned up dead, and the Lovegood child shortly after that. Five other girls had disappeared as well, all from different Houses. The most recent two were Isobel MacDougall had been a Ravenclaw sixth-year, who McGonagall vaguely remembered as a pale skinned girl with fiery red hair, and Glynis Mexborough, a rather vain Slytherin. They, as well as the Tolipan twins and Pansy Parkinson, still remained missing. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny had already been declared dead, though their bodies had yet to be recovered.
‘And since Luna disappeared around the same time Ronald and Malfoy were discovered, it is only a matter of time until we get their bodies back as well.’
As the numbers mounted, so did pressure from the Ministry of Magic. The school governors had already fallen into a panic over what to do, split half between keeping the school open and half wanting it closed. Angry letters flooded the Daily Prophet, until every single columnist was demanding the school be shut down, some even going so far as to demanded McGonagall be brought before the Wizengamot on charges of murder and the Dark Arts.
McGonagall began to weep at the thought. It was all just too much for her to deal with. It had all been so easy when Dumbledore had been in charge. All she needed to do was trust him, obey him, and everything seemed to turn out all right in the end. There was pain and loss, but there was also triumph and the eventual satisfaction of seeing justice done. Now all she could do was sit and wait for another name to be added to the list of dead she was responsible for. She had not slept the last few nights, for her dreams brought with them the silent, pleading faces of children slowly being torn apart by a shadowy figure that taunted and laughed at her, mocking her inability to rescue the children as it slowly devoured them.
“Those are the dreams you deserve.”
McGonagall sat upright as the bitter voice broke the silence of the room. She could only stare in shock for several minutes at the spectral figure that stood on the other side of the desk. When she finally found her words they came out as a harsh croak. “Potter?”
“In the flesh, as it were,” Harry said, motioning to his semi-transparent form. “Or I would be, if I were still alive.”
“How? Who?” McGonagall demanded.
Harry only shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Professor. We’re not allowed to tell. The dead are not allowed to interfere in the affairs of the living.”
“How long?” McGonagall quietly asked.
“Days? Weeks?” Harry shrugged. “Time…doesn’t quite seem the same anymore. I just…woke up. My body was lying there on the floor. A bit of a sight, that. I could really have used a haircut.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” McGonagall cried. She buried her head in her hands as the tears began to flow. “I never meant for this to happen.”
“Didn’t you, though?” Harry’s voice was soft, but there was an edge to his words. “All I was to you was a tool, Dumbledore’s weapon to be forged against Voldemort. A boy expected to solve the problems of a whole wide world that he went through half his life never knowing existed.”
“No, that’s not true, not true at all!” McGonagall shook her head violently.
“Of course it is true!” Harry yelled. “I’ve seen Dumbledore’s memories of that first night. I know you questioned leaving me with the Dursleys, but that wasn’t enough to stop him, was it? No, you had to be a good little soldier and follow the orders you didn’t like. You left a child to be hated and feared for reasons he could never understand. Every bruise, every cut, every burn that they inflicted on me is your fault. So that I could be ‘safe’. Safe from what? From my uncle’s belt whenever the toast was a little burnt? Safe from my cousin’s friends as they pelted me with sticks and rocks? Oh, I know! Safe to slave away for my aunt, paying penance for a crime I never committed!”
“But we had to be careful!” McGonagall protested.
“Careful of what? That I might think being an orphan was a good thing?” Harry sneered, his face twisted with anger. “My parents were dead, so you left me with the one group of people who were guaranteed to never love me! Muggles, ones who feared and hated magic! Ah, but that was what Dumbledore wanted. He needed me to feel alone in the world, so that he could swoop in, the hero of the hour! Then he could play at being the mysterious father figure, manipulating me from afar while confidant that my need for a father would bind me to him.”
“No, Dumbledore would never do that!” McGonagall said. What she thought, however, was, ‘But of course he would. It was always too much trouble to ask people for help, to be honest with them. He was always manipulating people, even you. Especially you.’
She shook the thought away. “Harry, how can you say these things? These are horrible lies. Dumbledore loved you, he wanted you to be happy!”
“Happy? Happy? Happy would have been having swimming in the lake with my friends, not wondering if one of my only two friends was dead from battling our way through your demonic chess set! Happy would have been getting the chance to actually live with my godfather, rather than being condemned to year after year of the Dursleys. Happy would have been sneaking butterbeers into the stands to cheer for Cedric rather than dragging his body home so that others could blame me for his death. Happy would have been being able to have a girlfriend without having made it a death sentence for her, too!”
His last words cut right through McGonagall. ‘That’s it, then. Ginny is dead as well.’
“You ask me how I can say these things, Professor?” Harry took a step towards the desk and reached out for the spinning top. His fingers closed around it, but they could both see it still there, turning, turning, turning. Quiet settled over the room before Harry let go. He began to fade from view as he took a step back, murmuring, “Death has a way of making things seem so clear.”
McGonagall sat there, staring at the space where the ghost of her student had once been. She wanted to call out to him, to beg him to come back, to apologize, to do anything that might ease the tightness around her heart. Her hands clenched tight around one another as his words echoed through her mind. For the first time it occurred to her just how appalling the sin she had committed in aiding Dumbledore. The Death Eater’s had killed children, yes, robbing them of their futures – but she had actively conspired against the living, ensuring a boy experienced nothing but pain and misery instead of enjoying the simpler pleasures of childhood. She and Dumbledore had not only betrayed Harry, but his parents as well. What would James and Lily say, if they could see what had been done to their child? How could they possibly forgive the torture she condoned?
McGonagall could feel the eyes of the previous Head Masters and Head Mistresses staring down at her from the walls. She did not need to look up to know they were frowning in disapproval, their silence as damning as any judgment they might have announced. They had heard her shame laid bare, knew that she had failed not just as a teacher, but as a human being as well.
Tink.
McGonagall looked up at the noise of her top bouncing off a silver goblet that had not been there a moment before. Its sides were etched with the crests of each house, and would have held no more than a mouthful in its small bowl. She reached out with a trembling hand and pulled it close, only to discover her own reflection staring back at her from the surface of a glassy black liquid. She recognized it instantly. Her fingers tightened around the goblet’s stem, and she raised it to her lips. She drank deep, but one swallow was all it took to drain the goblet. The liquid tasted remarkably pleasant, like sunshine and spring flowers.
“Do it, then,” she whispered as she set the goblet back down. “Judge me, Hogwarts.”
McGonagall smiled, settled her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes. Silence once again returned to the Head Master’s office. One by one the various portraits bowed their heads and turned their backs on the woman seated at the grand desk that dominated the center of the room. Nothing needed to be said, for it had already been decided.
The little silver top began to wobble before tipping over, rolling in a small circle before coming to a stop.
“Accio goblet.”
The silver cup flew off the desk and towards the far corner of the officer, where it disappeared in a brief shimmer of light. A careful observer might have noticed the faint rasp of a cloak dragging across stone or heard the quiet patter of a pair of feet tip toeing across the stone floor in the moment before a hidden door slid open, leading to a passage that had not been used for centuries, one carefully bespelled not to appear on any maps. The door vanished from sight a moment later, melting back into the wall so as to leave no trace of its existence.
It was only once the door had resealed that Harry Potter allowed himself to laugh.
*
Lucius Malfoy struggled to stifle his anger as he listened to the laughter echoing through the grand dining room of the abandoned mansion that Voldemort had claimed as his current base of operations. Malfoy didn’t care who the Goddards were or where their bodies had been hidden – assuming they hadn’t just ended up as another of Nagini’s snacks, that was – but then he found there was very little he cared about any more. His only son, his child and heir, was dead. He had always feared for Draco’s life, knowing that his position at Voldemort’s side would make his family a target, but that had been a risk he had been willing to take to bolster their failing fortunes. Not from the pesky Order of the Phoenix, whose outdated code of honor would never have allowed them to harm a child, but from his own so-called allies.
While the vast majority of the Death Eaters feared him almost as much as they feared the Dark Lord, there were a handful such as Bellatrix and Fenrir whom he had always made a point to keep a close eye on. They were the madmen and murders, the ones who truly took pleasure in the torture and pain that followed in Voldemort’s wake. Oh, Malfoy had no sympathy for the muggleborns and mudbloods – it was important to remind them the value of a pure bloodline, after all – but their suffering had always been more about business than pleasure for him. True, there was a certain satisfaction to be had from the misery of a defeated opponent, but casual bloodplay was wasteful in his opinion. The lessers could even be useful from time to time, as long as they minded their place and performed obediently.
But even a woman as batshit insane as Bellatrix wouldn’t have thought to have sent his only son back to him in a cracked wooden bucket.
Well, at least not if she wasn’t going to be around to see it. Then it would have been absolutely her style, but only because she actively enjoyed the misery of others. It wasn’t any good if they were suffering where she couldn’t see it. That was too much like baking a cake for your birthday and then watching as someone else got to eat it. It was only fun if you got a piece as well. No, the only person in the room inventive enough to come up with such a macabre presentation of Draco’s corpse was sitting at the head of the table, watching with great disinterest as his minions frolicked.
“Is there something amiss, Lucius?” Voldemort asked, turning ever so slightly to look at the target of his question. Lucius felt a small shiver of fear run down as his spine, as he always did when the Dark Lord gave him his attention. It was uncanny how merely thinking about him could draw his focus. The man, if he could still be called that, spoke in quiet, gentle tones that made him seem all that more unnerving.
“No, my lord,” Lucius answered. “Just thinking.”
And yet, for all that it made sense, Lucius had already dismissed the idea of Voldemort being responsible for Draco’s fate. While it was almost exactly the sort of plot that Voldemort would have imagined for an enemy, it was hardly the sort of thing he would have done to Lucius. Not because Lucius held any particular value to the Dark Lord, no matter what lies Malfoy might have convinced himself of, but because such a roundabout torture would have robbed the intended lesson of whatever meaning it might have held. The Dark Lord did not punish mistakes as a means of restitution, but to ensure that the survivors did not repeat the error. Draco’s death would have been far more public had it been Voldemort’s doing.
The only conclusion Lucius could reach was that there must be another Dark Wizard out there, one who not only had the ability to bypass all of Hogwarts’ many wards, but who was just as inventive and sadistic as the Dark Lord. The implications of that were…disturbing.
“Thinking about your son there, eh?”
Lucius’s eyes narrowed as he turned to glare at Fenrir. A bit of a silence fell over the table, and the two witches seated next to the werewolf quickly got up amid muttered comments about needing to find a toilet. Fenrir, however, was either unable or unwilling to properly read Lucius’s response.
“What a pretty little morsel he was,” Fenrir blithely continued. “Wouldn’t have minded taking a bite of him meself. Shame I can’t do that anymore, but now all I need is a spoon, right?”
Even Bellatrix looked a bit shocked by the bluntness of his comment. It wasn’t just cruel or rude, it was an open declaration of war made in front of the Dark Lord himself. A few quiet snickers went around the table, all of which Lucius carefully noted as he drew his wand. He did not raise it above the table, not until it was time. “Be careful what you say, Greyback. It would not be difficult to mistake your babbling for the sounds of a mad dog in need of putting down.”
“You haven’t the guts!”
And there it was. Fenrir had crossed the line, and had already started pushing back his chair to leap across the table when Lucius’s wand snapped into view. “Avada kedavra!”
There was a flash of green light, and the werewolf’s chair splintered as his corpse was heaved backwards by the blast of the spell. A dozen more wands appeared in their owners’ hands as hexes and counter curses began to fly…
*
‘It ought to be raining,’ Bill Weasley thought as he stared up at a clear blue sky. He stood at the back of his family, ignoring the droning voice of the Chanter speaking his brother’s funeral rites. Ron’s body lay only a few feet away, covered by a pale white shroud emblazoned with the Gryffindor crest. The public viewing had been short; his body had been in no condition to be seen, and while many expressed their sympathies, there were far fewer who had been willing to attend his brother’s death. The Weasley clan had gathered in their many numbers, but his father’s coworkers? His mother’s correspondents? Not one was to be seen or heard. They were all terrified by what had happened to the youngest Weasleys, worried that any show of support might draw the ire of Voldemort.
Worse was the weather. By all rights the sky should have filled with dark grey clouds which would pour rain as if to echo the tears of the mourners below. Instead the sun was out, not a cloud was to be seen, and it had even become unusually warm for the season, tricking a few birds into cautiously singing as they debated whether or not spring had come a few seasons early. It was if the world had decide that Ron’s passing was to be celebrated rather than mourned.
Fingers tightened around Bill’s hand. He turned away from the blue of the sky to the blue eyes of his fiancée. The ring on Fleur’s left hand had been there for less than a month when his brother had been murdered and his sister vanished, and Bill had been terrified that she, too, would abandon his family. But she hadn’t. Instead she had stayed by his side through the long nights and terrible days, not even fighting back whenever Molly lashed out in a fit of grief-fueled rage. That night had been the worst for his mother, and it had been that night that Bill had admitted his fears to Fleur. She had surprised him, then, by laughing.
“Do you think me a coward, William?” (Fleur was the only one who ever used his proper name. He had asked her about it once, when they had first started dating. She had laughed then, too. ‘But of course I will always call you William! Bills are horrible things that nobody wants, but everybody wishes they had a little more Will.’)
“I- No, of course not!” Bill’s mind was a mess. He was unused to fear, as it was an inconvenient emotion for a curse breaker. Hesitant, yes, cautious, yes. Those were often good instincts to listen to. But never fear. So why was it that this young woman could terrify him so easily? He didn’t want to see her go. He didn’t want to see her hurt. Either way, he would still be left with fear.
“Of course not,” Fleur repeated, but gently, lovingly. She reached up and gently stroked the side of his face, then moved her hand so that he was looking at her engagement band. Gold and silver wires wrapped around each other in an endless cycle. “You never bought me this, did you? I’ve always known you found it on one of your little adventures. A small little trinket that our bosses would never miss, no?”
“I-“ Bill stammered in embarrassment. It wasn’t that he couldn’t have afforded a better ring, but when he had seen it sitting on that altar, surrounded by the imagery of Qetesh, he had known that it belonged with Fleur. And no, the goblins who ran Gringotts had never mentioned it or asked about it on his return; the only thing they had cared about was the golden casks that had been buried a few chambers farther in.
“Shhh.” Fleur pressed her finger against his lips to silence him. “How long do you think it was down there for? A thousand years? Three? Imagine all that this ring has seen and survived, and know this. I swear that whatever may come, however our fates may be delivered to us, that I will always love you and shall forever be by your side. Just as this ring has endured, so shall we.”
The roll of the drums brought him back to the present. The six remaining Weasley men all stood up and moved to their designated spots around the litter that held Ron’s body. Arthur stood at the front left corner, closest to his son’s heart, with Percy taking the front right. Bill and Charlie were in back, while the twins held the middle. Their positions had been entirely Arthur’s decision; he had wanted the twins to carry the least weight, so that their last memories of Ron wouldn’t be that of a burden. Fred and George had taken Ron’s death nearly as badly as Molly had. Neither had cracked a joke or pulled a prank in the weeks since Ron’s murder, but had instead holed up in their room.
The Chanter bellowed, “Eftariseet!” At his cue, the six men knelt down and lifted the litter to their shoulders. A horn blasted a single drawn out note, signaling the beginning of the pyre march. Slowly, one by one or in pairs, the extended Weasley clan fell into step behind the pallbearers.
The pyre had been built at the top of a small hill not too far from the burrow. At a normal pace it would have taken no more than five minutes to cover the distance. The funeral train took twice as long, slowly circling the hill, until those directly behind the pallbearers had joined with those last in line. Only once the circle was complete did the six begin to ascend. They continued to move slowly, but steadily. The brown grass beneath their feet was slick with melted snow, and it would not have done to trip or fall. Not there, not then.
The bier above the pyre was narrow enough that the six Weasleys could walk to either side of it without much adjustment of their charge. At a nod from Arthur they spun towards their opposite number, lifted Ron from their shoulders, and lowered him to his final resting spot. Arthur placed a hand on Ron’s shoulder, just as he had so many times while his son had still been alive, and squeezed. He turned to face the crowed, but his mind froze as he tried to recall the words to the eulogy he had prepared the night before. Instead, all he managed to croak was a hoarse, “Ron…” Then his voice broke and he collapsed to his knees. He began to sob as the tears he had held back for so long could no longer be denied.
No memory he might have described would ever allow him to see the sheepish little grin Ron would make whenever he got caught at something he was sure he had gotten away with. No amount of praise would allow him to hear the indignant protest that always followed his youngest son getting tripped up by his older brothers’ pranks. There would be no more hugs, no more clapping him on the back, no more moments of courage to praise. Ronald Weasley was dead, and no amount of empty words would ever change that. His hands began to ache as they pressed into the frozen earth, but Arthur didn’t care. He was beyond caring.
The reaction of his sons was mixed. Percy froze, unsure of how to respond. He had never thought that his father might be so vulnerable. Even during his most stubborn moments of defiance he had never seen his parents as less than towering figures of authority. He thought his estrangement of them had been nothing more than a disagreement between equally competent adults. They had made their choices, just as he had made his own. Guilt flooded through him as he watched the man he had looked up to and respected for so long fall apart. For the first time he saw his parents as more than just his first instructors, but as real people who actually cared.
Fred and George froze as well, but for an entirely different reason. They were torn not by guilt, but by hatred. Their father had always been an inspiration to them. A bit of a loon, sure, but an endlessly creative loon. His cheerful accidents and willingness to embrace concepts that anyone else would rightfully deride as completely insane had provided them with some of their finest material. They had seen him angry, truly wrathful, a time or two, but even that would pass quickly into laughter. Now their father was a broken man, and all they could think of was vengeance.
Charlie was the only one to act, and Bill was sure it was more from instinct than anything else. The second oldest son knelt down next to his father and took him by the shoulders, whispering soothing nothings as he guided the older man back to his feet. And yet there was a look on Charlie’s face, weathered lines which told Bill that their father wasn’t the only one close to completely falling apart. He watched silently as Charlie escorted Arthur to Molly and a waiting throng of aunts and uncles.
Bill turned his back on them as they reached the bottom of the hill. “Goodbye, brother. Rest well.”
He drew his wand from inside his robes and pointed it at the body that lay in front of him.
“INCENDIO!”
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Revenge of the MHP