Free Will and Fate

Harry arrived at Transfiguration early, just barely conscious that he didn't want to draw extra attention to himself by being late again. After the night he'd had--nightmares about Cedric's death and Voldemort's rebirth, and the revelations courtesy of Hermione--he was ready for a stress-free day. Though, after the night before, he knew he could look forward to spending a lot of time catching up on homework with Hermione. Threats or not, she wouldn't let her grades fall one iota if she could help it. At least Charms class had been a breeze.

"Now I know you're not the same person."

Harry turned in time to catch Hermione as she struggled towards the desk with several thick, dusty books stacked high. He grabbed the books from her hands as she maneuvered to her seat and placed them on the desk.

"Why is that?"

"You never get to this class before me. The whole game will be over if you suddenly become a model student." Hermione smiled at him briefly before turning away and slipping her bag from her shoulder. She began digging through it, her fingers fumbling as she pulled out her textbook, quill and parchment for class.

Harry smiled faintly as he watched her. He'd been afraid things would be awkward between them after the night they'd had, but she didn't seem to be acting differently towards him, even after knowing he'd only kissed her back to avoid being discovered his first night at Hogwarts. Harry was sure she wasn't entirely over that, in spite of her assurances that she would help him, but as long as she was willing to speak to him, he would worry about making it up to her later.

"I don't think I have to worry about that," Harry said. "I'll still be late to class and sleep at my desk as much as you'll let me." Hermione smiled and shook her head as she took her seat next to him. "Where'd you disappear to after Charms? You didn't come find me in the common room during the break," Harry said.

"I found a few things for you in the library this morning," she said. "I spent a lot of time thinking about your problem and I think we're going to have to do some reading on time travel and magical devices to find out what might have gone wrong with the time turner. Maybe you broke some magical law we don't know about. If it's really damaged, there might be a spell to repair it, but we might have to test it to find out for sure. It's hard to tell. There's not much information on either subject." She motioned to the top two of the four volumes he'd put on the desk

Harry's expression was dubious at that statement. The books she'd indicated could easily take weeks to read.

"I went back during the break and found two more on remedies and counter curses so we can be sure you're safe when talking to professors. I've already found the antidotes to the most commonly used poisons. I was just about to start taking notes when I realized class was going to start."

"Wow," Harry said, taking in the books she'd found. Never does anything halfway, does she? "After all this, did you get any sleep at all?"

"Some," she said. "I kept dreaming that I overslept and waking up." She offered a soft half-smile. "I thought Parvati was going to put me out after the third time. I ended up at the library the minute it opened and stayed through breakfast. How about you?"

"She didn't bother me once," he said, earning himself a light slap on the shoulder. "I slept all right."

"You had nightmares," she said in a soft voice. Hermione hadn't bothered phrasing it into a question, being able to read the answer in his eyes. She touched his wrist where it lay on the table.

"Nothing I'm not used to. I caught up a little during the morning break," he said. Harry was about to add something else when a shadow fell across the desk. He looked up to find Professor McGonagall regarding him from behind her glasses. She turned briefly to acknowledge Hermione with a nod before returning her gaze to Harry.

"After your late night, may I assume Miss Granger has been brought up to speed?"

Harry nodded, wondering if their talk had gotten them both into trouble.

"I shall expect you both to attend to Prefect duties the next time you are out of your House at night. Do I make myself clear?"

Harry nodded and Hermione responded with, "Yes, Professor."

McGonagall reached into her robes and pulled out a corked glass vial of clear blue liquid. She held it out to Harry. "The antidote to the Veritaserum you ingested yesterday." Harry took the vial from her hand, his expression betraying his surprise. "I trust that you will continue to be honest with me even when you are not being forced." Harry nodded, still shocked that she would give him the potion. "May I meet with you and Miss Granger before you go to lunch?"

When Harry didn't speak, Hermione responded in the affirmative for both of them. With another curt nod, Professor McGonagall turned to address Professor Burbage, who had just come into the class.

"We need to do it now, Harry." Hermione whispered, pulling her wand from her pocket. The minute Harry realized what she meant, he pulled out his wand and they whispered the incantation together, twice, effectively removing any doubt Harry had about Professor McGonagall's trustworthiness. He reached for the vial on the desk. Before he could remove the cork, Hermione grabbed his wrist and jerked it frantically back to the table.

"No! What are you doing?" Hermione looked around, but no one had heard her exclamation.

"I'm taking the antidote."

"Harry, you don't know if it's safe. I'll look up the real antidote and make it for you later."

He didn't know why Hermione was making a big deal out of it. Even though Professor McGonagall's questioning had been a little unorthodox, Harry knew it was only because she'd wanted to make sure the other students were safe. He'd never truly believed she was trying to poison him. She certainly wouldn't be trying to do it now. He decided on the spot not to tell Hermione this. She would only lecture that he was being careless. "What if takes a long time or is really difficult?" he asked.

She pulled the vial from his hand and slipped it into her robe pocket. "Then you'll just have to keep your thoughts to yourself until the smartest witch of our age figures something out. Here's your chance now," she said as Professor McGonagall left the room and Professor Burbage began the first Transfiguration lesson of the year.

"I've done it, Albus," Professor McGonagall stated. "Now do you wish to tell me what this is about?"

The portrait looked down at her, remaining still for a moment. "If you want his confidence, you'll have to give him incentive to trust you."

Her lips pursed into a thin line. She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to pace as she had the day before. This situation was difficult enough without Dumbledore keeping her in the dark about the Ministry's plans. Or, rather, his plans.

"I don't suppose you will tell me how to do that," she began. "It hasn't been that long since you were Headmaster, Albus, but perhaps it has slipped your memory how difficult things can be when a student feels authority figures cannot be trusted to protect them. Not only can deceit rise to dangerous levels, people can get hurt. I don't have to remind you that a student died because no one stepped forward with what they knew in time."

Dumbledore cleared his throat before she could continue. "I am aware of the frail nature of the student-teacher bond." He closed his eyes and said, "You are well aware that I'll never forgive myself for not urging Professor Dippet to take a stronger interest in Tom Riddle. It was just a suspicion, but if we had all been more careful--"

"No one is blaming you for what he became," she said, interrupting. "All of the students, myself included, felt there was no real harm in the boy, regardless of the incidents that seemed to happen around his friends. There was never proof. He never got into trouble himself. Never showed the slightest inclination that he would--" She stopped herself from saying, become a murderer. "Tom Riddle was meant to go dark and the staff of Hogwarts could have done little to stop it. It's not as if we teach Dark Arts."

"That may be true," he responded. Dumbledore sighed. "If only one of us had mentored him. Stopped or at least guided his energies into another direction."

"Albus, there is no way of knowing if that would've made a difference. It is useless to speculate." She paused and eyed the man in the portrait. "Is that how you propose I deal with the Potter situation? Mentor him? Befriend him? Wasn't it you who always said personal involvement with students would lead to no good end? 'We are only to interfere in their lives inasmuch as propriety and wisdom permits,'" she quoted, her voice rising higher as she spoke.

Her finger jabbed the air in the direction of the portrait. "Those were your words. We can get information from him without going to such lengths." McGonagall hated the cynical tone she'd adopted as of late, but she hated even more to sit idle and bide her time when a student, or many, could be in danger. How Dumbledore could be patient enough to suggest a passive approach, she would never understand. Lives could be at stake. He knew that as well as she.

"I don't believe involvement will be necessary so much as an appropriate amount of tact."

McGonagall closed her eyes. "Albus?" Her weary tone communicated all that she wasn't articulating.

"What I am suggesting is that you offer to help Mr. Potter investigate. Offer your absolute discretion if he will identify the professor in question and I will provide the Ministry's help and protection should he request it. I can have Aurors in the school to guard him if either of you deem it necessary." At McGonagall's silence, he continued. "This may not seem the best solution to you, but it is the best the Ministry and Hogwarts can do without arousing suspicion. If Mr. Potter is correct, the professor we are investigating is a criminal of incredible skill with a strong disregard for human life."

"You are convinced a professor may be involved?" she asked. Dumbledore frowned as she continued. "We have no way to know that for sure."

"After all you saw yesterday, you are still unconvinced?"

"You're sure Potter can be trusted? Did we not just discuss another student who managed to convince everyone of his innocence for years? I want to be more cautious. We cannot take the boy's word without thinking. There is still the chance that he answered my questions truthfully and is still a threat himself. If not to the students, to someone." She paused.

"There is another boy in the hospital who seems to be the same person, but you have conveniently forgotten him for now. And we still do not know the nature of his scar. How do we know it wasn't inflicted by someone who wished to control him? The Imperius Curse may not leave a mark, but you agree that something did? Could it be a mark from an attempt to clone him somehow? Someone could've programmed him to believe what he is doing here is not harmful or--or--"

She stopped, realizing she was grasping at straws. Though McGonagall had no proof, she couldn't shake the feeling that a great deal more was going on. Harry may have told her he wasn't there to hurt other students, but he did not tell her everything he could have, he had admitted as much. She hated to go against the Ministry with this, but if this boy was going to hurt someone, giving him the antidote and the protection of the Ministry was a mistake they wouldn't be able to take back or explain to grieving parents if it came to that.

"I trust Harry, Minerva. The other Harry is under my protection and will be dealt with in good time. If you wish, I will come to Hogwarts and meet with Harry myself before the end of the week. I'll question him about the scar if you would like, but know I believe he is not a threat."

McGonagall refrained from reminding Dumbledore that he'd trusted Peter Pettigrew as well. That mistake had nearly cost 3 lives. His judgment was not infallible.

"I hope you will come to trust my opinion on this in time," Dumbledore continued. "Harry is the only hope we have of finding this person at present. Even if this professor is not guilty, he may lead us to the person we seek. We have to find the attacker. We will not be able to remove the curse without that person's cooperation, or forcibly extracting his or her memories."

"I thought that was impossible," McGonagall said. "The Memory Extraction Charm requires someone to allow open access to one of the more sensitive parts of the brain. If it is forced--"

"It could cause irreparable brain damage," he finished for her. "If he killed James Potter, and who knows how many others, I don't feel that price is too high to pay."

McGonagall went pale at his words. "Albus, you can't be serious. James was a wonderful man, but the possibility of this person being the same one who gave him that illness, if indeed it was given to him, is staggeringly small. You are willing to risk a possibly innocent man's life on it?"

"I am not willing to watch Harry suffer the same fate as his father. You do remember the organ failure, the seizures, the screams as parts of his body began to rot while he still lived on?"

McGonagall glared at the portrait as tears began to well in her eyes. "Albus, I remember it. All of it," she said, voice filled with emotion.

"Do you? The stress Lily was under? The miscarriage she suffered? Her expression when she told us that Harry kept asking when his father would be coming home from the hospital?"

"Stop it, Albus! Enough!"

Tears were flowing freely now, but the harsh scream from the now very shaken Headmistress was enough to keep Dumbledore from continuing. He'd made his point. The possible suffering of a murderer had nowhere near the gravity of the suffering James Potter had endured at this person's hands and Harry himself would experience if they could not produce a cure soon. One life in exchange for another.

McGonagall removed her glasses and wiped at her eyes with the edges of her robe sleeve. After a few moments of weeping, she calmed herself with a spell that she knew would never fully erase the memories of James screaming inarticulate words in place of his wife's name as he died slowly, a Silencing Charm preventing his voice from ringing out over the whole of St. Mungo's 4^th floor.

"I will do as you asked," she said finally. As if I have a choice. "I will get Harry to cooperate with us and contact you later. Just...just don't tell me what you have done to this criminal once he is found. I'd rather not find out just how dark you can go Albus."

"Do not speak as if I am suddenly evil, Minerva. There is darkness in all of us. What I am suggesting is within the law and for the greater good."

She nodded silently, not looking at the portrait of her mentor and friend before he took leave. Whatever you must tell yourself to sleep at night, Albus. Whatever it takes.