Albus Dumbledore was uncomfortably aware of how this resembled his last meeting with another Hogwarts student in the Headmaster's office several weeks ago. The young person seated in their chair in front of his desk was also showing remarkable calm despite all the castle upheavals since then, which only made Dumbledore even more worried. Perhaps it was finally time to inform Harry Potter of all the secrets the older wizard had been keeping from this boy for the last decade? For his own good, of course, but Albus doubted Mr. Potter would indeed feel that way. Mmm, how to best broach the subject to sufficiently distract him-

Harry tossed onto the top of Dumbledore's desk today's edition of the Daily Prophet he'd brought along with him while entering the office. The newspaper fell open to the front page where in a series of magically animated photographs taken yesterday at the Wizengamot, Hermione Granger was expelled from Hogwarts, had her wand snapped, and got sentenced to permanent exile from the British wizarding world.

"Would you like to explain why you didn't do anything to stop all that, Headmaster?" inquired Harry in a composed tone which yet had an undercurrent of bubbling fury lurking within.

*Oh, dear.* Dumbledore prepared himself for the explosive confrontation he'd been expecting ever since the morning delivery of the mail by the post owls. Hopefully, things could be smoothed over by an adequate amount of cajolery and other persuasive arguments from him for Harry to see things for the best. *Better get the worse out of the way immediately.*

"Harry, I'm truly sorry but my hands were completely tied. Miss Granger's manipulation of the castle wards which led to the resulting effects upon the son of a Wizengamot member and also a Ministry of Magic undersecretary were in the court's view deserving of the awarded verdict. I assure you, it took all of my influence to persuade them not to send your friend to Azkaban-"

"Yeah, that must've really been tough," sarcastically interrupted Harry. "It's not like you're the Hogwarts Headmaster and the Wizengamot's Chief Warlock again, somebody who could squash the charges right away! Oh, wait, you are! Guess that had to be more than you could handle, not like years ago after my mum and dad got killed, getting completely off an actual Death Eater from all his crimes and then inviting this greasy-haired git to teach here! Wonder who that could be? I think his name starts with S-N-A-"

"Harry!" chided the Headmaster, taken aback a trifle by the present impertinence shown by someone who'd always been respectful of the elderly wizard. "Professor Snape has my full confidence, and that's the end of it! Getting back on topic, Miss Granger admitted in front of the entire Great Hall what she did and then threatened a potentially fatal consequence for anyone who further insulted the muggleborn students. However her motives, this was unacceptable and forced me to take action. I must keep everyone secure in Hogwarts as best as I may, following my vows as the castle's protector-

"Great job there as always, Headmaster," again broke in Harry with the same cynical tone as before. "Putting aside a few things like hiring in my first year a DADA teacher who happened to be Voldemort himself and then taking on staff another imposter during the Tournament who also tried to kill me, you've never bothered to even try to stop the constant bullying! Is it any wonder that Hermione finally snapped and took matters in her own hands?"

"Miss Granger endangered the rest of the students when she set her spell to put acid in peoples' mouths!" sharply responded Dumbledore now becoming somewhat irritated at this disparaging reminder of his own earlier failures to safeguard Hogwarts.

Harry lifted an inquiring eyebrow. "Has this actually happened to anyone yet?"

"Of course not! Nobody is that unwise…" Dumbledore trailed off in his rejoinder, contemplating all he knew about Hermione Granger.

Harry muttered under his breath, "Could've fooled me, what with all the magical idiots around."

Seeing Dumbledore's puzzled look at hearing this, Harry dryly continued in a louder voice. "I mean, Ron once told me how his brother Fred gave him a wizarding candy called an Acid Pop that perfectly described the results of sucking on it! A real hole was burned in Ron's tongue, but all that happened to Fred was having their mum hit him with a broom! So, just why'd you expel Hermione for something the Weasley twins would've gleefully done first if they'd come up with it on their own?"

The Headmaster sighed, before admitting, "Alas, the main issue with the Ministry pressing charges was Professor Umbridge's, er, undignified reaction-"

"She started it!"

Continuing as if Harry hadn't loudly objected, Dumbledore told him, "-which in her own words, jeopardized the authority of the Minster's office-"

"What authority? Fudge won't even admit Tommy-boy's back, but he'll set the Dementors on anyone who says otherwise! Just like the toad did with me and Dudley!"

Determined to finish, the Headmaster plowed on, "-which still must be respected lest our society begin to question the Ministry's ability to defend them against those who intend harm to the innocent. We cannot afford this to occur in such perilous times, Harry!"

Rather than being impressed by Dumbledore's grand closing statement, Harry snorted, "You mean, the sheep might start to think for themselves? Like finally understanding Fudge and his cronies couldn't pour piss out of a cauldron with the instructions written on the bottom? Or, half the Wizengamot bribed their way out of Azkaban in the last war with a pile of gold and a stupid Imperius defense? You know, Professor, I'm really beginning to wonder if anything is enough to set them off and actually fight for their lives instead of depending on a teenager with a wand who's fed up to his back teeth about those cowards!"

This wasn't good, an alarmed Dumbledore inwardly realized. So far, Harry had been properly guided towards his destined fate, but the mere occasion of Miss Granger leaving the Boy-Who-Lived's company appeared to have shaken this young man's faith in the wizarding world. It seemed as if Albus needed to at last enlighten Mr. Potter about a certain prediction made by Sybill Trelawney so many years ago. Yes, yes, that should place Harry back on the path as the foreseen savior to their world. Mind you, this knowledge abruptly absorbed by the lad seated in his chair and currently giving Albus a very suspicious look should satisfactorily divert Harry from thinking further about a departed Gryffindor student with bushy hair.

Decisively squaring his shoulders, Dumbledore bestowed his most serious expression upon a suddenly wary Harry, to then intone, "My dear boy, I believe it's time you need to hear this. When Professor Trelawney applied to the post of the Divination teacher at Hogwarts shortly before you were born, she showed her Seer power by speaking a true prophecy. It went like this: The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"

There was absolute silence in the Headmaster's office for the next few moments. Dumbledore carefully watched how Harry absorbed the news he was ordained to defeat Lord Voldemort. Hopefully, the boy would miss for now this meant Harry was also doomed to die, but it was all for the greater good, however tragic to the House of Potter. Indeed, the young man appeared to be giving off a quite impassive mood about this incredible information. With actual interest, Dumbledore waited for Harry to react in some way.

However, the first question from the younger wizard was one which Albus hadn't quite expected.

"Who else knows about this?"

Bemused that Harry hadn't erupted right away but was instead surprisingly enough acting in a quite unruffled manner, Dumbledore replied, "For now, you and I are the only ones aware of the full prophecy which is protected in the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry. Voldemort knows the first part of the prophecy, and he'll do anything to learn the rest."

Albus braced himself lest Harry ask exactly how their feared enemy had done that. It was more than likely that Professor Snape wouldn't survive the experience, but if necessary, that Potions Master could be sacrificed-

"What about my parents?"

"What?" Dumbledore gaped at Harry. The rare expression of genuine dumbfoundment upon the bearded wizard's face quickly turned into comprehension. "Oh, yes, that's right. I could hardly refrain from telling James and Lily about the prophecy, but they understood why it had to remain a secret. As things turned out, neither Voldemort nor anyone else ever discovered the full version-"

"Wrong." That matter-of-fact interruption from Harry stopped Albus in full flow. He gawked again at the teenager giving him an unfathomable look.

Harry rolled his eyes. "There's somebody else my parents totally trusted, enough to make him my godfather and put me in his care if they died or were hexed into insanity like Neville's parents. My dad wrote a letter to Sirius with the prophecy in it and sent this letter to my godfather's vault in Gringotts to make sure it'd be protected until Sirius read it. Except, this never happened because of Peter betraying my parents and Sirius spending the next decade in Azkaban."

Dumbledore was shocked at this latest news. He'd done his best to maintain absolute confidentiality about the prophecy since that 1981 Halloween, but this risked everything! The Headmaster anxiously leaned forward in his chair and appealed to his guest.

"Harry, you must tell Sirius to say nothing about the prophecy! I greatly fear what Voldemort might do if the word gets out-"

"It's too late, sir. I'm not sure about the exact time, but right now, Sirius should be finished at the French Ministry of Magic, giving them all his memories besides the ones which provided him innocent of betraying my parents."

"WHAT?!" bellowed Dumbledore, staring with horror at a smirking Harry, who enthusiastically nodded.

"Oh, yeah. That's also where Hermione is now too, ever since she got kicked out of here. Want to bet she's overflowing the memory device with everything that happened to her at Hogwarts since the troll incident?" Harry watched with immense glee across the office desk at where the Headmaster appeared to be in the throes of a minor heart attack.

Fighting past the crushing pressure in his chest, Dumbledore managed, "Harry! This can't be! Voldemort will take advantage of this idiocy!"

Harry tilted his head in thought about that warning, beginning to rub at his forehead with one hand. He kept on doing this, staring fixedly all the while at a pasty-faced Albus whose own gaze was eventually drawn to where Harry had brushed away the hair formerly dangling over…unmarked skin?

"Where's your scar?" gasped Dumbledore.

Giving one last annoyed flick at his head, Harry brought down these fingers and glowered at the bewildered Headmaster. "Funny thing, that. You know the blood wards around my relatives' house at Privet Drive? The ones you set up to keep me protected there while I got treated by the Dursleys as detested magical scum? To be fair, since I had an actual piece of a Dark Lord's soul right in my head all the time, they had good reason to be scared about this, even if they didn't know about it! But you did!"

At that point, Harry was shouting at the top of his lungs towards a stunned Dumbledore. "Oh, and don't forget, you sent me back there again this summer! Even after I told you what happened to me in that cemetery! Voldemort took my blood for a new body! Basically, he could've showed up at the house at any time after that without any problem from the blood wards! Trust me, you don't want to hear what Sirius and Hermione called you when they found all about this in the Black library at Grimmauld Place when packing it up for the move to France before her trial!"

Lowering the volume a fraction then, Harry's voice turned into a malevolent growl. "They really still don't like you, Headmaster, and I'm on their side. Even if you set up things totally by mistake to take out Tommy-boy for once and all. Want to hear how that happened, the so-called 'power he knows not' I had? All it took was for me to stand well outside the Dursley house and say out loud that I didn't think of it as my home any more! Bam! The blood wards went down like Malfoy falling off his broom and hitting face-first the Quidditch pitch. My scar burst like a popped pimple, too. That meant since Voldemort had my blood in him, the wards must've wiped him out with no more trouble than swatting a fly. Have Snivellus check it out if you need to, but for me, I don't care any more. The war's over and I'm leaving!"

Dumbledore dazedly shook his head in denial. He blinked at where Harry was shooting him a glare of pure contempt. Gathering up his scattered wits, the Headmaster tried, "But the prophecy…this isn't how I planned…what did you mean, you're leaving?!" That last question came out in an aghast whimper.

Arising from his chair, Harry imperiously stared down at the upturned bewhiskered countenance of the Hogwarts Headmaster. The younger wizard sneered, "Why on earth should I stay? The second it's confirmed Tommy-boy's dead and gone, everybody'll start saying they knew all along I could do it, or start whispering sooner or later I'll be the next Dark Lord! No, thank you. Madame Maxime at Beauxbatons arranged for me to finish school there, along with Hermione. Sirius already bought a chateau nearby with room for us all, including her parents. Well, have fun cleaning up the whole mess before you get thrown out of Hogwarts and all your other positions on your ear. I've got my own appointment in Paris with their pensieves. From the sound of it, every other magical newspaper outside Britain is waiting for my memories of a lifetime of abuse which you started the day after my parents died-"

"NO!" Dumbledore roared, leaping up to his feet with unexpected agility for a century-plus wizard. "You're staying at Hogwarts! I'm your magical guardian, and that means I can control where you live and whom you speak to! If necessary, I'll lock down the entire castle to keep you safe from Voldemort!"

Regarding the near-gibbering Headmaster with a faint touch of pity, Harry counted off on his fingers. "One, not staying. Two, Sirius never gave up his guardianship probably because you didn't have two seconds in your busy life to pop over to prison and have a nice chat with him. Three, get stuffed."

Dumbledore smoothly drew his wand. "I'm sorry, my dear boy, but you're clearly not in your right mind. A nice bit of obliviation should work wonders with that-"

"Dobby," Harry casually called out to thin air.

Pop!

From out of nowhere, a yellow mannikin dressed in a cut-down towel materialized in the room. Standing at knee level next to Harry, Dobby the house-elf pointed straight at Dumbledore a skinny finger sparkling with powerful magical energies at the tip of this digit.

In a piping voice containing within itself the prospect of imminent serious violence, Dobby asked, "Is Old Whiskers being naughty?"

Watching how the Headmaster's wand arm carefully descended to fall at the wizard's side to express his absolute pacifism at the moment lest he get blasted entirely through the rear tower wall, Harry snickered, "Not any more. Right, Albus?"

Instead of replying to this, Dumbledore tried one final attempt to persuade Harry to stay, "What about your friends in the castle, Harry? Are you going to abandon them?"

Harry just shrugged, "You mean Ron in particular, whose mum won't even hear of him going off to foreign parts like Bill and Charlie? Well, the last couple of weeks made me think about whether I wanted to spend the next few years learning magic with either him or Hermione. It wasn't all that hard a decision."

Not bothering to await a reply from the disconsolate oldster, Harry leaned over to take Dobby's free hand. Without further ado, the young wizard and his house-elf disappeared from the office with another Pop! sound.

Dumbledore stood there for a few moments, his jaw angrily clamped shut. Soon enough, the Headmaster put his wand away back in his robes and whirled around to stride over and stop before the tower windows. He unseeingly gazed at the horizon, mind working swiftly at a furious rate. Surely, there must be a satisfactory means to get Harry back and put things right again. After all, he was the great Albus Dumbledore! Merely overlooking a potential weakness of Voldemort couldn't have brought all his plans to total disaster-

His attention abruptly caught by something out beyond the castle, Dumbledore peered again at the Scots hills far off past the lake where Hogwarts was built. There were what looked like out there, just above the hill peaks…spots? More and more and more spots, stretching across the entire horizon-

Finally identifying what was approaching the castle, Dumbledore let out an anguished groan. His shoulders slumping, the wizard went back to his chair, dropped down in there, and put his head in his hands. This last action still didn't block out the sound of fluttering wings growing louder and louder, as every single post owl in the world came nearer while carrying along in their claws numerous Howlers, newspaper copies of the latest Paris magical conference with Monsieur Black and Mademoiselle Granger, more Howlers, panicked messages from the British Ministry of Magic, even more Howlers, and some really nasty inquiries from the International Confederation of Wizards about what their Supreme Mugwump needed to explain about now or risk becoming the most vilified wizard in this organization's entire history.