Chapter 50
"Well, Remus — after a full year of teaching, what's your verdict on Harry Potter and his company? Notice anything unusual?"
Albus Dumbledore, the great light wizard and Headmaster of the finest school of magic on the British Isles, studied the face of his now-former colleague with visible interest.
"I'm sorry, Headmaster, but…" Lupin dipped his head in an awkward, quiet, slightly guilty way before the great wizard. "I never saw anything resembling what you warned me about at the start of the year."
The recent articles in the Daily Prophet had done serious damage to the mood of a man who hadn't had much to spare in the first place. And the assignment Dumbledore had given him at the beginning of the year hadn't sat well with him either. Effectively spying on the son of his dead friends — on Harry and his companions — was something Remus Lupin found deeply unpleasant. But one's own hide is always closest. And he wasn't doing Harry Potter any harm by watching him, so the aging werewolf had made a reasonable peace with himself, troubling his conscience very little.
The rare surges of guilt that did flare up in his chest he quietly smothered with extra lessons for the boy and his group. He'd even shared a few personal discoveries from his beloved Transfiguration.
"Is that so? Then perhaps my concerns were unfounded after all…" the Headmaster murmured, somewhat pensively, in no hurry to pull his attentive gaze from his former student — sinking instead into the depths of his own thoughts and suspicions.
The old, learned, genuinely experienced wizard had plenty to think about.
It had all begun many years ago, when the scanning and monitoring charms on the Dursley house had suddenly produced a particularly strange reading — strange enough to force the great light wizard into an emergency return from his assignment in America, sending him rushing that very night to examine the sleeping Boy Who Lived by every means at his disposal.
Only to realize, with crystalline clarity, that there was no Horcrux — or whatever it was that Tom had bestowed upon his fateful enemy — in the boy's famous scar. The most overt emanations of dark magic had vanished, and a little later dissolved entirely, causing the once-vivid and unmistakable scar to slowly fade until it was barely visible.
In one respect, that was a tremendous relief to the century-old wizard, who labored under the weight of an enormous collection of old wounds, broken oaths, and vows navigated right along the knife's edge. Whatever Albus's many enemies thought of him, some remnants of conscience still flickered warmly inside him.
Sending to his death — let alone personally killing — a boy who risked becoming the next vessel of the Dark Lord was something Dumbledore had no desire to do. He was genuinely glad when the fragment of another's aura, of another's very soul, finally dissolved into the young wizard entirely.
But that dissolution had also produced no small amount of concern. Spontaneous childhood magic could, in theory, scour a fragment of a foreign soul from a boy's aura — but there was also the risk of a true merging between the tiny sliver of Tom and the very young Harry. Where such a merging might lead, the Headmaster preferred not to think. He had substantially increased his surveillance of the young hero, adding another observer to the arrangement.
The initial examination, however, had revealed nothing particularly critical. Yes, the boy clearly thought and conducted himself far beyond his years — but that could just as easily be a personal trait as the result of a strict upbringing by his relatives. Albus had never managed to reconstruct the full picture on that front. But there had been absolutely no sign of magical knowledge in Harry. None at all.
That alone had gone a long way toward settling both the Headmaster's paranoia and his instinct to address a potential threat immediately. Instead, Dumbledore had done what came naturally to him — he didn't rush, he observed the reshaped hero, and he had not once regretted it.
Potter bore no resemblance in character to either of his parents — except perhaps to Lily in her later school years. And the Headmaster had seen nothing of Tom Riddle in Harry. Though when Potter had begun cultivating friendships among Slytherins, a certain unease had stirred in the silver-bearded wizard, compelling him to follow the boy's actions and words with ever-growing attention.
The first year of school, unfortunately, had brought no real clarity on who exactly Harry Potter now was. The boy was unstoppably gifted in nearly every branch of magic — excepting perhaps Potions and Herbology. He had a notable talent for finding common ground with both his peers and older students. He defended his positions effortlessly in any argument. And he had won a degree of influence within his own House with apparent ease.
All of which could, viewed from the outside, be taken as signs of Voldemort's fragment at work. But Albus remembered the orphanage boy far too well — the one who would go on to become the most feared figure in wizarding Britain, his political adversary, and a butcher who had come thoroughly unhinged. With some assistance from mental magic, the Headmaster remembered Tom's behavior in his early years in perhaps too vivid detail.
Harry Potter's behavior didn't match it. Where Riddle had been a true Slytherin from his earliest days, Potter seemed to embody his own House as if by deliberate contrast — the House of loners, researchers, and fierce individualists. Which, on closer inspection, was precisely what Harry Potter turned out to be. He had managed to assemble a small group around himself practically from the very first days, mostly Slytherins, but in all other respects Harry remained a committed solitary, giving himself wholly to magic and training.
Not the most straightforward qualities in a wizard who might — in some form — still be the former Dark Lord. But he hadn't done enough to warrant direct intervention in his still-developing mind. If anything, he'd deflected some suspicions, leaving Albus somewhat more at ease while he waited for the boy to return for his second year.
During which year, some well-meaning soul — whose name the Headmaster was almost certain he knew — had managed to quietly smuggle one of Voldemort's Horcruxes into his school. That had ultimately helped Dumbledore settle the question of who Harry Potter now was and how the aging Headmaster ought to regard him.
The way Potter had first admitted Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood into his circle — breaking up his predominantly Slytherin company with younger girls from more favorable quarters — had already done much to settle Albus's nerves. But then Harry hadn't merely found someone else's Horcrux and personally carried it to his Head of House. He had first attempted to destroy it himself, acting to shield his newly-made friend — a girl from a family loyal to the Headmaster — from any possible repercussions.
At that moment, Dumbledore had been very nearly ready to forgive his involuntary ward every strangeness. The boy was almost certainly not a reincarnated Dark Lord. Only the betrothal offer to Daphna Greengrass that arrived near the end of the year — one the boy himself was entirely willing to accept — had dampened the great wizard's spirits.
It was simply too… inconvenient. And simultaneously too convenient for the boy. If Potter had decided he wanted near-complete independence from the Headmaster's influence, he could hardly have chosen a better bride. The so-called neutrals, with a personally cultivated hero in their ranks, could build a formidable opposition to Dumbledore's authority.
And so, in the new school year, the old wizard had set his longtime dependent — the werewolf who was effectively compelled to eat from his hand — to do a little quiet watching of Potter. Even if, after some reflection and the first reports, that step had come to look more like overcaution. Outright paranoia, even.
During the year, Harry had also had something of a falling-out with young Malfoy, retreating fully into his trio of witches and maintaining only the most minimal contact with other students — living up to his reputation as an almost stereotypical Ravenclaw. But the boy's extraordinary gift for magic, and the ease with which he casually, almost incidentally demonstrated his power to those around him while holding his place as the informal leader of his entire House, stirred vague misgivings in the Headmaster.
Perhaps Harry wasn't much like Tom after all. But the boy was still quite capable of causing problems in the future. He was already causing them now — inadvertently releasing Sirius Black and somehow, by some unknown means, turning that man against the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Though that last part was almost certainly just Albus's own paranoia talking. He understood, when he was honest with himself, that he had wronged Sirius, and he accepted Black's right to some degree of hostility.
"Ahem. Let's set that topic aside for now," Dumbledore said, catching the rather searching look the werewolf had fixed on him. He surfaced from his own thoughts and steered the conversation where he needed it to go. "Tell me instead, Remus — how does Harry relate to Voldemort? You did speak with him on the subject?"
"I d-didn't ask directly, but…" the former Defense professor stuttered slightly, still flinching at the name that sent the whole wizarding world into a cold sweat. "I believe Harry genuinely fears the man who murdered his parents."
"Fears him?" Albus Dumbledore repeated, with a note of interest undercut by faint dissatisfaction.
The old man had already understood, well enough, that without serious effort on his part this boy would have no desire to involve himself in the coming war. The first year had made his character clear on that point. But fear specifically was not what he had expected from Harry.
"Yes, Headmaster." Lupin's mouth curved into a faint, wry smile. "He never said so directly, but my impression is that most of his combat training is to allow him to fight off the Dark Lord's followers if the moment comes. As for the Unnameable himself — I believe Harry would simply prefer to run, given the choice."
It was a position that struck the werewolf as rather ambiguous. He himself hadn't run from the Dark Lord in his time.
"A remarkably sensible position for such a young wizard," Dumbledore said.
He looked upon this particular "cowardice" from an entirely different angle. It gave him no particular pleasure. But he admitted to himself, privately, that in Potter's position he would likely think in much the same way.
"Perhaps," Lupin replied, out of sheer courtesy.
Privately, he thought that with Harry's magical ability, excessive cowardice was entirely unwarranted. It was no small thing — Potter had managed to catch him off guard more than once during their practice duels. And Lupin had accumulated no small amount of combat experience during the last war. The years since hadn't been short on unpleasant real-world practice either.
So no, Remus did not understand the son of his old friends. He knew perfectly well that the boy could grow into a genuinely dangerous combat wizard — perhaps by the time he finished Hogwarts. And after that, with a little practice, a little experience on the field, Harry would almost certainly be able to face the Dark Lord himself.
Not guaranteed to win, but — Harry Potter had real talent. Enough that Lupin felt the faintest flicker of envy, though he told himself it was entirely the wholesome kind.
Shadowed only by his student's cowardice, and by Harry's apparent unwillingness to settle the debt with the man who had murdered his parents.
Lupin himself would never have the strength to kill the Dark Lord he hated so deeply. But that didn't mean he had no desire for revenge — even if that revenge came through young Potter's hands. The boy was still too young for it, of course. But he'd manage in time.
And Remus would cover him if it came to it — if Harry finally chose to face the man who had started one of the bloodiest wars in the history of modern wizarding Britain.
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