Dirty Little Secret:

"WHAT IN MERLIN'S FUCKING NAME IS THIS!?" A large, meaty hand slapped against the table, cracking like a whip. Seconds later a newspaper was thrown and slid into his hands, it's front cover exposed for all to see.

Has Harry Potter Turned to the Dark? The Boy-Who-Lived Caught in Secret Meeting with Escaped Dark Lord Gellert Grindelwald.

A Rita Skeeter Evening Prophet Exclusive

Harry didn't read any further than the title. He didn't need to, he'd been there.

In what was likely the maddest day in British history, Harry had been the star of the show. What Rita had overheard and concocted with her nasty little mind didn't matter, nothing she could say would make Harry feel any worse than he already did.

Upon arriving back at Grimmauld Place, he'd taken supper in the dining room alone—a nice bowl of soup with some bread and treacle tart, courtesy of Dobby. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he knew he had to eat something to carry him over as he waited. It was all done in anticipation of this moment. Some news was too big to be held over until the following morning.

It might have been his imagination, but he thought he'd caught the sound of the screech of owls and the clink of cutlery as people's attentions were drawn away from their meal. However, the ensuing silence had lasted far longer than he'd anticipated. Probably because they couldn't believe what they'd just read…

Nobody knew where he was or that he had even left headquarters in the first place, which only fueled the confusion which came sweeping through the house. Dust shook off the ceiling like powdered snow from the thumping of feet and slamming of doors above him, as shouts for his name echoed the gloomy halls of Grimmauld Place. In the growing chaos, and through Walburga Black's screeches of, "Mudbloods! Traitors! Trampling through my home!" Harry could hear the front door swing open and close and the fireplace roar with life.

It was Tonks who'd found him, being the first to poke her head through the dining room door. She'd been calling for Moody at the time, but stopped at the sight of him. She never said a word afterwards, even as her discovery diffused throughout the house and more and more people came pouring in. The look she was giving him hurt Harry more than anything. For a time, he forced himself to match her stare and suffer in the pain of pulsating regret creeping from where he'd long sealed it away. Everyone and everything around him was a blur.

That was until Moody had thrown him the paper.

Harry's gaze slowly rolled up to the old Auror, whose magic eye was whirling madly in its empty white socket, the other, bulbous, and focused right at him. Across his cracked and scarred face, Harry could see the anger burning within. But there was something else—something he had never seen in Moody before, not even when they had saved him from Barty Crouch Jr, fishing him out of his own trunk. Beneath the surface, well-hidden to those not looking for it, was fear.

Harry had yet to say anything.

"Potter. Speak." Moody grounded out through clenched teeth.

Picking up the paper in front of him, Harry felt its weight between his fingers. He scanned the rest of the page, eyes trailing the inky squiggles that told his secret to the world. The letters danced beneath him, almost as if to tease him. A full page spread was dedicated to him. Flipping a page over, a brief tribute to Auror Conner was tucked out of the way in the bottom corner, written by his surviving wife. He folded the paper and pushed it down the table, just out of reach.

Harry inhaled deeply and leaned forward. "I didn't want it to be this way," he said.

Moody opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by another voice. "Harry, surely… there must be something else going on here. That retched Skeeter woman always has her own motives—"

"No," Harry said, his voice carrying an edge that stilled the room around him. "Mrs. Weasley, this isn't her writing gossip about me and Hermione for Witch Weekly. It's the truth."

The room held an almost incredulous silence, too stunned to move. Around him were no longer faces, but masks carved out of shock, their mouths agape.

"The truth…?" Mrs. Weasley repeated, her eyes were clouded with confusion as if she had misheard him.

A part of Harry wondered if he could have lied. There wasn't any picture evidence of what had happened, only the words of a famous gossip who was detested by anyone with half a brain. To everyone else, it very well could have been one of her latest schemes, just another wild attempt to stir up drama.

But will the rest of Britain believe it? Will the ICW?

There was a sense of clarity over Harry now that he was exposed, which hadn't existed before. Sitting here on his own, before the news broke, Harry finally had a moment to reflect. It was always an impossible task to keep Gellert away from the Order, working with one and then leaving to run rogue with the other. If there was any hope of defeating Voldemort they would have to work together. It was a painful, yet simple truth.

For all the damage she had caused, Rita had actually done him some good. She had forced him into a situation where he could do what needed to be done. Grindelwald had been a black spot on his soul, rotting and festering from the inside in complete secrecy, but now it was laid bare and he could finally move forward.

"I met with Grindelwald last night," Harry said, looking Mrs. Weasley square in the eye. He watched her hand reached for her throat as she stumbled backwards, nearly falling if not for Mr. Weasley catching his wife.

The room exploded in a harsh blend of accusations, panic and demands, which came out in a disharmonious clamor of voices crawling over one another to be heard the loudest. Harry remained motionless through it all, letting the noise wash over him. Instead, he took the time to look over those collected around him. Mrs. Weasley's face was buried into Arthur's shoulder, as he did his best to console her; behind his parents Bill was staring at Harry open-mouthed and with wide, disbelieving eyes; far in the corner of the room a separate commotion broke out, with several people huddled over someone who looked to have fallen to the floor; and unchanged from before, Tonks refused to take her piercing gaze off him.

The blast of a cannon brought the room to silence again. Moody was leaning over the table, vessels bulging in his neck, with his wand pointed at the ceiling, the slightest bit of smoke still trailing from its tip.

"We've let a lot go for you already, Potter," Mad-Eye growled, "that's done now. I want answers, and you damn well better have a good one for this."

If you want the truth, I'll give it to you.

"Dumbledore sent me to him," he answered.

Dedalus Diggle, who'd only just been helped back to his feet, straightened like a board, clutched his chest, and keeled over for the second time, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he did.

"Someone check he's not confounded!" A witch Harry did not recognize called from the side.

"Don't." Reacting in a snap, Harry had his wand out, freezing those brave enough to reach for their own.

"Easy Potter…" Moody had a hand out trying to calm him.

Checking around the room again and seeing he wasn't under threat, Harry lay the Elder Wand against the table. "Put your wands away idiots! If he wanted he could cut right through you without trying," Moody barked to the rest of them.

Turning his attention back to Harry, Moody said, "Potter, I asked for a real answer. I'm not here to play games."

"And I'm not playing. I'm telling you the truth." Flicking his eyes behind the old Auror, he could see Tonks frowning to herself.

"Harry, please, be reasonable. How are we to believe Dumbledore gave you orders to work with Gellert Grindelwald?" Kingsley spoke up for the first time.

"I never said he gave me orders, only that he sent me to him."

"When did he do this, Harry?"

Harry swallowed thickly, the pain of the memory ripping through him. In his mind he could almost see the tears twinkling in his blue eyes—almost feel the endless amount of love held within them. Live and love, my son… His last words, and what Harry still had not managed to do. He wondered if he ever would.

"Moments before he died," Harry finally said, clearing his throat thickly before continuing, "Dumbledore slipped it into my mind with Legilimency."

"Slipped what?" Kingsley prodded.

"Nurmengard."

Across the table, Harry could see Bill jerk at the sound of the name.

"Enough! I've heard enough of this blasphemy!" From the side, hidden along the wall came a wizened, wheezy voice. Through the parting crowd, a plump old wizard pushed himself to his feet and walked to the edge of the table. "I will not sit by and allow you to tarnish Albus Dumbledore's great name," Elphias Doge said.

A hot pressure built behind Harry's eyes, bounding to the rhythm of his pulse. "I would never speak poorly against Dumbledore."

His response only seemed to anger Doge further, who pointed a fat finger at Harry in accusation. "Yet here you are, lying about him. Pretending Albus ordered your inexcusable actions!"

Harry burst to his feet, sending his chair clattering against the wall behind him and using every last bit of control he had not to grab the Elder Wand. "He never ordered me!" Harry shouted, his voice cracking with emotion.

The room was spinning around him and Harry could hardly breath. Planting his palms against the table, he stood silently, allowing himself to calm down. After a moment, he turned, picked up his chair and sat down. "He never ordered me," Harry repeated in a soft, almost sad voice, "he gave me a choice. I could have as easily walked away, but I chose. In the end it was me."

"I knew Albus since he was a boy. I was his oldest friend. He fought for the greater good of all and defeated that devil himself, locking him away forever. Why would he send you to free the man who terrorized Europe for decades?"

Harry smirked at Doge who was staring at him with deep loathing. "Maybe you weren't as close friends as you thought."

"Enough of this!" Moody cut off both of them, before it escalated any further. "Listen, Potter, I don't go around claiming to have been Dumbledore's closest confidant, but I knew the man well. I fought two wars beside him. This isn't like him. Freeing Grindelwald is insanity. At the least, if he was considering anything of that consequence, he would have told someone in the Order about it." Moody stopped and looked around the room, his arms spread as if looking for someone to speak up.

The room kept quiet.

Harry sighed in frustration. "If Dumbledore didn't tell you, then he had his own reasons for doing so," he said. "You know how secretive he could be. He wouldn't let any one of you breathe word about the prophecy and it directly impacted me—"

"It was because you're only a student, dear, Dumbledore only wanted to—"

"I was still a student last year, but that didn't stop Dumbledore from teaching me privately," said Harry, cutting back across Mrs. Weasley who had finally recovered enough to speak. "If Dumbledore hid the existence of the prophecy from me, why wouldn't he keep this plan from you if he thought you didn't need to know about it?"

"You speak as if you knew Dumbledore well," Kingsley said.

Harry stopped and thought a moment. Most of those around him had known Dumbledore longer than he'd been alive, and by the way they were looking at him he could tell they didn't believe him. To his surprise, he realized just how much that angered him. All those nights they'd spent together were far more personal than anyone could possibly comprehend. He'd seen the vulnerable side of Albus Dumbledore—the part of his soul broken from his youth and tainted with tragedy and love. He had let Harry into his heart and shared in his secrets and deepest shame. They'd looked each other in the eye in his final moments, where Harry felt the peace Dumbledore had finally been able to find within himself.

Harry nodded and looked Elphias Doge in the eye. "I did. In fact, I knew him better than anyone in this room."

Doge looked like he was about to burst, and like a tomato squished a touch too hard, he did. "You aren't Albus Dumbledore, Potter."

Harry blinked, confused. "I—what?"

Both of his beady eyes were fixed solely on him. "I see the way you stand there holding his wand, not answering to anyone or anything. You may have held off You-Know-Who and Dumbledore might have taught you a few things, but being talented and spending time with him doesn't make you Albus Dumbledore."

Harry didn't know what to say. He wanted to argue with the man, but found that he couldn't deny it. Deep down, there was a part of him that wanted to be like Dumbledore. He admired the man—he always had—but more importantly, he understood the man and the sacrifices it took to be like him.

But do I have what it takes? Doubt crept over him like a shadow. For so long he'd been drowning beneath the mighty ocean that was this war. He'd tried to put aside his feelings and do what needed to be done, tried to follow the work Dumbledore had left behind, but was only ever pulled deeper into the darkness under its surface.

"You don't have free license to run around, keeping whatever secrets you want, putting everything this Order is trying to achieve at risk. Don't stand there like Albus Dumbledore when you spent months conspiring with his greatest enemy. You are a boy, not the greatest wizard who has ever lived!" Doge shouted. His face was so red it looked like he was on the verge of collapsing.

"He is, however, the closest I have ever seen anyone come to him, and believe me… many have tried."

Everyone in the room froze as though death had come knocking. A voice unfamiliar to them all, save Harry, floated through the open door. Following in its wake was Grindelwald.

Like shadow from sunlight, those assembled receded from the Dark Lord to the edges of the room.

Moody cursed and aimed his wand at the approaching man.

"Stop," Harry ordered, reclaiming his own from the table and leveling it at Mad-Eye, "stay calm, please. I promise you're all safe." Turning back to Grindelwald, he could see his partner give a slight nod.

The room stood on a knife-edge, many too afraid to move, the others likely trying to process what had just happened.

"You let that bastard in," Moody said, still facing Grindelwald, but a funny feeling told Harry his magic eye was turned on him.

"I did, I am the Secret Keeper after all," said Harry, slipping his wand up his sleeve. "I wasn't planning on it, but given what's happened he needs a new place to stay."

"I won't sleep under the same roof as that murderer," Elphias Doge spat, backed up into the chair he'd been sitting on earlier.

Grindelwald smiled in response, his grey-blue eyes alight with delight. He was completely at ease, like this was a gathering of his oldest and closest friends.

"Why d-did you say Harry is j-just like Dumbledore?" Mrs. Weasley asked in a shaky, yet brave voice. She'd wriggled her way free of Mr. Weasley's protective grasp.

Grindelwald opened his arms in what should have been a friendly gesture, though coming from him was only unnerving. "It's because I knew Albus in ways no one else did," he answered with a wink.

"He hated you," Doge said venomously.

Grindelwald threw back his head and laughed as though it was some great joke. "I'm afraid you are mistaken. He did not hate me. Albus did not have it in himself to hate anyone. No, my dear sir, he loved me."

Elphias whitened like a sheet and Mrs. Weasley burned bright red, a noise coming from her throat that sounded as if she'd swallowed her own tongue.

Harry could only shake his head at the utter audacity of the man.

The reactions around the room only seemed to fuel Grindelwald's pleasure at the situation, pushing him on. "Oh yes, a tragic twist on the legend you all know so well. The great, infallible Albus Dumbledore chose the world over love and locked his dirty little secret away. It reads like a fairytale, but rather than save his love from a tower, I was locked in one. Soon the world forgot me—a black mark on history better left in the past—but Albus never did. He came back to me eventually and after our first meeting, he couldn't keep himself away. When you have a mind like Albus Dumbledore, it craves brilliance, and I had always been his equal. Our relationship had changed, with him near a God in the eyes of the people, and me a shell behind bars; but the connection—that spark we'd had from when we first laid eyes on each other—was still there. I was his most intimate partner. His one solace in a world placed on his shoulders, save for that boy right there." He finished, staring directly at Harry.

"Liar!" Doge shouted, but he lacked much of the same conviction from earlier.

"He's not, it's the truth," Harry said gently. He remembered how difficult it was to accept when he'd first learned the truth. "If you can't believe me, then ask Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, he could tell you it all."

A steely silence settled over them all.

"What do you want?" Through thin lips Mad-Eye asked the question on the mind of everyone else in the room.

Grindelwald's gaze lingered on Harry as he answered. "Though he never admitted it, I know what Albus wanted of me. I suppose I have softened over my years of isolation and Albus was right that love holds power over us all. I find my spirit incapable of refusing his final request."

"We need to work together," Harry said aloud, knowing how absurd the notion must have sounded.

It felt as though the entirety of the room whipped around to face him at once. With each breath he took the air felt thinner, sending a rush of lightheadedness over him. Harry had never seen so many mutinous faces—not even at Hogwarts under the care of Umbridge. Despite the silence, the outrage was deafening. He could nearly taste the disgust, which seeped through the overcrowded dining room, and he couldn't blame them. They were being forced into a deal with the devil.

"You expect us to trust our lives in the hands of a man soaked with more blood than You-Know-Who himself?" Moody asked, showing no indication he was at all willing.

It was a fair question. Taking a moment, Harry looked over at Grindelwald, who stood still as stone with a cold smile spread across his ancient face. At times I don't even know if I can trust him…

Harry rubbed at the burn along his jaw. Hoping for peace was an impossible task. We don't need peace, he reminded himself, a truce is enough. "I don't expect any of you to become friends. You don't need to forgive him or respect him or care for him in any sort of way. I'm saying this, because it's the only way we can win."

"Potter… listen to yourself," Moody said, sounding almost defeated. "This war has been difficult on you, I know, but take a step back and look at what you're doing. Look at the man you're asking us to work with. We're fighting to win, aye, but at what cost."

But at what cost… The thought circled Harry's mind. Did they truly understand what the word meant? He'd given up everything in this fight: love, innocence, even his own life. There was no cost too great in this war. Harry understood the price when he granted freedom to a man who'd robbed the same from so many, just as Dumbledore knew it when he stood defenseless in front of Voldemort, welcoming death.

He was roused from his thoughts by the sound of scraping wood. Moody had moved away from the edge of the table, his peg clumping against the floor. "This war was difficult enough on its own, Potter. You bloody well not kill us all." Growling under his breath, he pushed past Grindelwald and out of the room, not sparing the man a second glance.

With the first to leave, the remainder of those gathered slowly began to filter out, some scurrying away faster than others, and many keeping a safe hand on their pockets and a distrustful eye on Grindelwald. No one looked particularly happy.

Only a handful Order members remained, including Elphias Doge, who kept his place by his seat. When he finally moved, it was in Harry's direction and not the exit. The old man's face was flush, he was breathing heavy and the few remaining hairs on his shiny head were plastered down with sweat. He stopped mere inches away from Harry and stared at him.

"Lily and James would be ashamed," he finally said.

Harry looked at him unblinkingly. For a brief moment, he thought back to his last encounter with his parents, and the love and pride they had shown in their short moment together. The man in front of him was bitter, angry and new nothing. "I'd ask you not to speak on behalf of my dead parents, thank you."

Doge sniffed and looked down at him. Apparently he'd said all he had come to say and left, keeping as far away from Grindelwald as possible.

A snicker came from down the table. "That was spirited wasn't it? Was this how you had the meeting going down in your mind? I couldn't tell amongst all the fighting and—"

"Stop," Harry snapped at Grindelwald, "I'm not in the mood. Go find someone else to torment, there isn't a shortage of people in this house who hate you."

Looking as gleeful as ever, Grindelwald smirked and slipped out of the room.

Harry closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. Strangely, a part of him wished Daphne was here with him right now. She would have enjoyed the madness of what had just ensued. He'd tried his best to push the meeting with Astoria out of his mind, but there was only so much he could do. A part of him wished when he opened his eyes Grindelwald would be gone and she would be there instead.

"Harry," a voice called.

Looking up and blinking he saw a curtain of purple hair parting over a heart shaped face. Not Daphne, he sighed to himself. Tonks stood in front of him, the two of them alone in the room.

"I'm sorry," Harry said out of instinct, her look from earlier pulling the guilt out of him.

"For what exactly?" Her hands rested on her hips and her foot tapped expectantly.

A laugh burst forth from Harry's lips. Like a bubble rising to the surface there wasn't much he could do to stop it. "For everything, I suppose," he said. "I'm sorry for nearly killing Heath, and disappearing and letting everyone think I was dead. I'm sorry for freeing a mass murderer. I'm sorry it was me who came back and not Dumbledore…"

"That's a lot to be sorry for," Tonks said, a soft smile on her face. "Are you sure there isn't anything else, like cheating on an O.W.L. or lying to McGonagall?"

This time Harry's laugh was far more genuine. "It's all so mad, Tonks. Half the time I feel like I don't know what I'm doing." He felt exhausted: his head pounding, mind sluggish, and limbs heavy.

"I won't lie to you, Harry, from the outside it certainly looks like it." Tonks pulled over a chair and sat next to him. "Honestly, what were you thinking? Freeing Grindelwald? I know Binns is a stodgy old bugger, but there's no way you missed that lesson."

Harry rubbed at his jaw again. "Not a day goes by where I don't regret what I did. There are times where I'm with him and all I can think about when I look at him are the innocent people he killed, and I hate myself for it. But there's no other way."

A soft touch settled his fraying nerves, and Harry looked down to see Tonks gently gripping his arm. Flicking his eyes up, he could see concern swirling in dark, watchful pools. "He really sent you there, didn't he? Dumbledore."

Harry nodded, silently.

"That isn't fair," Tonks said.

"There wasn't another—"

"You don't know that!" Tonks interrupted him passionately, her nails tightly digging into his arm. "You might think there isn't, but you can't know for sure. It wasn't fair of him to force you to make that choice."

"Maybe it wasn't…" Harry said with a sigh, "but someone had to. I can't change what I've done, we have to move forward; and if he can help us in any way, it might just be worth it."

They sat in silence for some time together, when Tonks suddenly started to giggle. She must have seen the strange look Harry was giving her, because quickly it developed into a full-on fit. "What?" Harry asked, laughing himself.

"It's—nothing," Tonks snorted, "I was just remembering, how back at Hogwarts people would always be making up theories about Dumbledore's romantic life." She started laughing again. "Some of them were pretty out there, but I don't think there was a single one of us who would ever have guessed this."

Harry smiled. "It is quite unbelievable."

"Right!? But what makes it even funnier is that when you think about it, it almost makes sense. Dumbledore would never have been someone to settle with a witch like Mrs. Weasley, who'd be sitting him down in a cozy living room with tea and the afternoon paper, coddling him to death. He needed someone just as crazy as he was—I just didn't think it would be someone criminally insane."

"Dumbledore always had a lot to say about love and the unexpected ways it worked," Harry said more to himself than to Tonks.

"I'm sure he did, the wise old bastard. Speaking of love…" Tonks trailed off sounding almost nervous, which immediately caught Harry's attention. "Nobody else knows—besides Heath and my parents, of course—but I wanted to tell you before anyone else. Heath and I, uh, haven't been as careful as we thought we were in recent months, and… I'm pregnant."

The words reached Harry's ears, but it took several seconds for his mind to catch up and truly understand what she'd revealed. "You're pregnant? Oh my god, Tonks, you're pregnant! That's amazing! How long have you known?"

"Not long, only a few weeks," she said, beaming. "We know it's a boy, but we don't have a name yet—have to plan a wedding first before all that." Her face was red with the excitement she was only just keeping under control.

"Just wait until Mrs. Weasley finds out, she'll have an absolute field day. We're all in need of some happiness. Maybe it'll be enough to make everyone forget about Grindelwald."

Tonks laughed. "He's not invited to the wedding, Harry," she warned, jokingly.

"Shame. It would have made one hell of a story." Harry took a moment, however brief, to enjoy this single spark of happiness. "I'm just relieved you don't hate me," Harry said, thinking about the way Tonks looked when she'd found him.

Tonks sobered slightly and straightened in her chair. "I won't pretend that I wasn't furious, because I was. You're playing a dangerous game, Harry. Whether you're right or wrong in what you did, you're endangering a lot of lives and not for the first time." Tonks voice thickened with emotion and a sheen could be seen developing in the corner of her eyes. "I nearly lost Heath today—my baby almost didn't have a father. I know it wasn't your fault, Heath told me he forced his way into your plans. But please, be careful. Sirius lost his life because of the decisions he made. I can't watch you do the same." Tonks leaned over, embraced him and stood to leave, one hand resting on her belly.

Harry watched as she stepped through the door, a wetness streaked along his cheek. Back alone and with his thoughts, he was left to ponder what Tonks had said. Would Grindelwald be his final undoing or would it be himself?

AN:

Hello, I hope you all enjoyed the latest update! Unfortunately, I do not have an estimated date for the next one. Hopefully it will be coming sooner rather than later.

Again, if any of you missed it, I did change the ending of the previous chapter shortly after initially putting it up. If you're unsure whether you read the updated version or not, go back and check!

As always, please leave me your thoughts, opinions and constructive comments on anything related to the story or my writing (the more thorough the better!). Your reviews are the best reward I can ask for and help me improve.