The forbidden spell

Summary: Quite by chance, Harry finds a spell that is supposed to do his homework, but of course he can't tell anyone, not even his best friend. But is that all this spell does? Rated M for language and DE viciousness.

Legal Disclaimer: anything you recognise in this story belongs to someone else, most likely to JK Rowling and/or her business partners. Any characters you don't recognise are mine. The specific plot in this fic is almost certainly mine; I'd be very surprised if someone already did something like this :-) I'm not getting anything out of writing this.

WARNING: This is not too far from being a crack-fic. You'll see why at the end (but don't read ahead unless you like spoilers!)

First year

"Uggh, curse that bat!" growled Ron. "That's a lot of homework for one day!"

Harry had not started his homework yet. He had no intention of starting right now, because he had a secret.

When he was taking money from his vault in Gringotts, he had also found a woman's clutch - obviously his mum's. He'd picked it up for the sentimental value (it was the first anything belonging to his parents he had ever had!), but gone through it nonetheless.

Nestled in among the various bits and bobs of a woman's clutch, in between some receipts, was a small bit of parchment. It said: Overheard MM speaking to FF about some very STRICTLY forbidden "homework" spell. Point to parchment, left circular downward swish to diagonal right, then a sharp flick down and to the right, while saying...

Harry had quickly memorised the wand movements. It looked like someone was writing a C, moving straight into a capital A but without the crossbar to complicate the stroke. The spell itself was a bit odd, but not at all hard to remember.

So now, having waited till past midnight to make sure everyone was asleep, especially Ron, he tried out the spell.

He nearly fell off his bed in shock. On the parchment, playing out like a miniature TV, was a scene. Ron, the boy he had met barely a week ago, was sitting at breakfast in an odd looking house. His mother, the woman he had met at the station, was speaking to him.

As Harry strained to hear the words and leaned closer, the words conveniently appeared on the paper. Ron, you must be friends with Harry Potter. He's already famous, and he's rich though he doesn't know it...

Harry sat back, shocked. I guess I should be happy I found out this early, instead of years later, he thought.

Dismissing the "friend" issue, he thought about the spell, and the weird, unexpected, side-effect. He wondered why something so unrelated to homework would happen. And even then, why did it show me Ron? Is it because I was thinking of him just before I cast it?

He needed to test this out. He decided to try Dean. Picking up another sheet of parchment, he tried the spell, while focusing on Dean.

Mum, you know what? Dad got into a fight with an Arsenal supporter. Then the police came, and he picked me up, pretended I was hurt, and hurried off. It was scary!

This was very interesting indeed!

Harry knew Malfoy would be steamed about his incredible luck - being placed on the team instead of getting fired was certainly lucky! He knew Malfoy would try something today, so, just before he got out of bed, he did a "reading", as he had started to call it.

Sure enough, Malfoy came along, and challenged him to a duel. Ron was quick to jump up and try to accept on his behalf, but Harry yanked him harshly by his shoulder and turned him round.

"Never presume to speak on my behalf, if you want to remain my friend", he hissed at Ron. Run shrunk back in shock.

Turning to Malfoy, Harry said, "Malfoy, I know you told your bodyguards you plan to inform Filch that I will be out of bounds at midnight, while you stay snug in bed. Go try your stupid tricks on someone else."

"Oh and by the way", he continued, "thanks for yesterday... you'll find out why I am thanking you eventually", he grinned.

Hating the defence professor almost as much as Snape, he decided to do a quick "read". He nearly fell out of his bed in shock.

He would need to do a lot of readings, in detail.

"Professor Flitwick, can you teach me a charm to erase everything written on a parchment so it can be reused? Sometimes I make lots of mistakes, and I hate wasting parchment."

"Of course, Mr Potter. And may I say it is so refreshing to hear a young person with such a responsible attitude towards wasting resources?"

Saying which, the charms master had taught him the spell.

The following weekend, he found himself an unused classroom that he hoped would stay that way for at least the next couple of hours. Removing the parchment from his robe pocket, he started...

The next morning, he refused to go to defense class. Eventually McGonagall heard about it, and called him to her office. He told her his scar hurt when Professor Quirrell was in the room, and he was sure Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort.

McGonagall had no choice but to bring Dumbledore into the picture. As they were approaching the headmaster's office, they found Madam Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, waiting for them, along with four aurors.

"Amelia! It's nice to see you but this looks official. Has anything happened?" asked McGonagall.

"We've had a credible report of a dark wizard in the school."

McGonagall looked stunned. Was Potter telling the truth?

Madam Bones looked at Harry. "As you can see, Mr Potter, I did get your message. Although I would like to know where you read about the signs of a possession, like the stuttering and the smell of garlic being used to mask the smell of rotting flesh!"

"Madam Bones, please leave me some secrets", grinned Harry.

Once they were inside, Dumbledore tried to get Harry to tell him what he had just refused to tell Madam Bones. Harry refused again.

It was a good thing he had done extensive readings on all the possible players during the last weekend, because at one point he was able to clutch his head in pain, whimper (mostly pretending; it wasn't that bad) and say, sotto voce, "Uggh, where did this sudden headache come from!"

Dumbledore backed off instantly, and did not dare to look either him, or the two women in the room, in the eye for the rest of the meeting.

Quirrell was called in, and of course declined to accept the charge, and declined to let anyone cast any detection charms on him. Unfortunately Dumbledore was taking his side.

Eventually Harry had to shout "Tommy boy, I knew you were a bastard son of a squib whore and a muggle, but I didn't know you were such a coward. I'll bet you only come out when your opponents can't fight back, and no one figured it out yet. Stop hiding you fucking wanker."

McGonagall's outrage, Bones' amusement, and Dumbledore's anger, spiked. Then the two ladies were consumed by a mixture of fear and disgust at the sight of the hastily unwrapped turban and what lay beneath.

"Potter", said Voldemort in a low, sibilant, whisper. "I will kill you first, then-"

Amelia had chosen her aurors well. They all fired petrification spells at the two-faced man, and he fell to the ground.

Over Dumbledore's protests, Amelia sent off a patronus message to Croaker, with some code word that ensured he was in Dumbledore's office within two minutes, with four of his own people.

Once again overriding Dumbledore, they took the body away by floo to the ministry.

No one in the wizarding world would see either Quirrell or Voldemort ever again, though of course Dumbledore did not know that at that time. Anyway, his remit did not extend to the Department of Mysteries - that was the one group that was outside his control, despite all his grand poo-bah-ness - so he could not demand information.

As far as the school was concerned, the incident was quietly hushed up. People were told Quirrell had left on a family emergency, and a retired auror took his place for the rest of the year.

About halfway through first year, frustrated by Snape's unfair attitude and McGonagall's unwillingness to help, he had - softly - screamed out while a snippet of McGonagall's past life was playing out, How the hell am I supposed to convince her to see my side of the story?

The picture had changed, and instructions on McGonagall, her likes and dislikes, her prejudices and preconceptions, her belief system - political, moral, religious, and more - started scrolling up.

Recovering from the shock as quickly as he could, Harry started taking notes.

"Professor McGonagall, is it true that Professor Snape is your son? That is the rumour I am hearing when I ask why you allow your house to be so badly treated by your rival."

"WHAT?" shouted McGonagall. "Where did you hear that?"

"I'm sorry professor, I can't tell you that, but I can certainly empathise. I am sure if my mum were in your place, she'd forgive me however nasty I behaved."

Without waiting for her to respond, he looked down at his feet. "I'm not angry at Professor Snape; I'm actually jealous. It must be so nice to have a living mother, not to mention one that sits with you at every meal."

"Anyway, I just thought I'd tell you I understand. I am sure Professor Snape deserves his happiness a lot more than a no-good, useless, freak like me."

And he turned, head still bowed, big fat tears still streaming down his face, and walked slowly away.

The next day saw a huge blowout in the great hall, with McGonagall stripping Snape of every single detention he still had for her lions, and returning two points for every point taken by him from her house. She had refused to back down when Dumbledore attempted to intervene, threatening him in a Scots accent that very few could understand (but made Morag McDougal look up in shock, then giggle and start whispering to her friends).

Flitwick and Sprout joined McGonagall, and eventually it was decided that all punishments by Snape to any other house were to be referred to the head of that house.

Snape tried to make this bilateral, but he was shouted down. McGonagall had called an elf to bring the points register down from Dumbledore's office, and the highly unbalanced numbers told their own story.

Second year

Malfoy (junior) was already a thorn in his side, so after the incident at the bookstore, Harry decided he needed to do a full blown "reading" on the elder Malfoy.

Of course, after the reading on Voldemort himself, nothing could really shock him, but this was pretty nasty. He started planning.

Two days later, Madam Amelia Bones and Master Auror Alastor Moody gave a joint press conference, announcing the arrest of Lucius Malfoy on multiple counts of possession of dark artefacts, most of them worth life in Azkaban, and many even worth a dementor's kiss. They credited an anonymous tip-off that told them where Malfoy had it all stashed.

Minister Fudge, through his under-secretary Umbridge, issued a statement that this looked like a serious miscarriage of justice, that Malfoy was an honorable man and he, Minister Fudge himself, would be presiding at the trial to ensure it would be fair.

The next day, based on an excruciatingly detailed list of bribes (who, when, why - a reporter's dream), Minister Fudge, his under-secretary Umbridge, and three members of his auror detail, including his nephew John Dawlish, were also arrested.

Since he was a sitting minister, his trial happened first. People who did not know Bones well enough, believed him, and thought he would win. But the trial made it clear to anyone that an unbelievable number of miscarriages of justice had happened. Fudge was thrown in Azkaban for life, Umbridge - for unrelated crimes that came out under questioning - was given the kiss, and the aurors each got ten years.

After that, Malfoy's trial resumed, and he was - as expected - given the kiss.

The next day, Arthur Weasley came to Hogwarts. He and his wife got special permission to visit their daughter, and shortly after, were seen taking a small black diary from her.

Dumbledore hurried from the head table on seeing this, but before he could reach Arthur Weasley and ask for the diary, Croaker met the couple and took the diary from them.

Malfoy had, in one fell swoop, lost all his power. "Wait till my father ..." doesn't work when said father is dead.

For the first few days, Malfoy walked about alone, shunning all company. This gave Harry an opportunity he had been waiting on for a while.

He forced Malfoy into an unused classroom.

"What do you want, Pot-head?"

"Do you remember you once threatened me, that I would go the way of my parents?"

Malfoy did not respond, but just looked at him blankly.

"You may or may not believe me, but I gave Madam Bones the tipoff that led to your murderer father being found out."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"That's upto you. I just wanted to give you fair warning: your mother and your godfather are next. And remember you caused this by threatening me, taunting me and Hermione, and by calling Hermione a mudblood."

He left a shocked Malfoy who suddenly could not even stand, and fell in a heap on the floor.

Two days later, the muggle liaison office that deals with the magical world came to Madam Bones with an arrest warrant for Narcissa Malfoy and Severus Snape. The charges were never made public, but rumours were that many unexplained cases, where young muggle boys showed all the medical signs of rape but could not remember anything, were traced to them. There was enough evidence that the DMLE forced veritaserum questioning, which then sealed their fate.

They were stripped of their magic and thrown into muggle prison.

Draco never quite recovered; it was not clear whether it was the fact that all three of his parental figures were effectively dead, or that his mother and his godfather had cheated on his father. Whatever the reason, he went through the rest of his school years in a daze, getting at most an "Acceptable" in most subjects on his OWLs, then left the school. No one knew where he went after that.

Third year

Before he left Hogwarts, Harry had taken the time to do readings of his so-called relatives. Vernon was the most interesting: Harry had to quickly write down a lot of details.

Arriving at Privet Drive, Vernon gruffly ordered Harry to put his trunk in his "cupboard". Harry quietly offered Vernon a paper.

While Vernon was reading it, he said, "Uncle Vernon, do you remember that bushy-haired girl we met at the station briefly today? Her parents are both dentists - not magical at all. They have copies of all this information, and if I don't call her regularly, and if I don't say the right words, they will call HMRC with these details. Since they are doctors, they also took photographs of all my injuries, scars, and recorded my state of health, so the police will be called."

Vernon stilled his anger with great effort. Petunia, who had never seen him be silenced like this, took the paper from him, intensely curious to see what had caused her husband to back off. She only had to look at it for a few seconds.

"How did he get account numbers, transaction dates, and balances Vernon? The freak's world does not know anything about ours, yet there are details here that are clearly from Grunnings accounts payable and our bank accounts."

She turned on Harry. "How did you do this, boy?" she screamed.

Harry shrugged. "It's easy to get all this information, if you know how. I can make you and Vernon vote Labour in the next election if I choose to; that's the power of the information I have. Best not to test me. Now be a good housewife and make dinner, and call me down when it's ready. I will be sitting and eating with you three."

Vernon had something he needed to unload. "Err, Harry", he said - clearly uncomfortable using the boy's given name - "Marge will be visiting nex-"

"No", said Harry flatly. "Tell her whatever you want but she can't visit while I am here. I won't be responsible for the consequences. If you want, tell her I have some infectious disease that is not harmful to humans, but if a dog or a dog owner gets it, it could be fatal."

"I- I- will try", said Vernon.

Once he got to school, he decided the best way to find out about this Sirius Black would be to do a reading on Hagrid, followed by Professor McGonagall. He had, by now, figured out how to focus a reading on a particular time period, and it would show the most interesting information within that period. He decided to focus on the period from his parents' sixth year till Halloween 1981.

But first he started with Sirius Black. Focusing on the photograph of Black as seen in the ministry's "wanted" posters, he cast the spell.

He was amazed to find a happy, family, scene play out before him. A scene which made him start to tear up.

SIRIUS BLACK, shouted a pretty young woman with red hair. If you put my son on a broomstick before his second year in Hogwarts I will curse you so bad it'll make you wish you were back with your mother!

A handsome young man was desperately trying to hide what looked like a miniature broomstick behind his back, while a small child, barely a year old, was trying to paw at him.

What made Harry tear up was that he realised who the woman was, and who the baby was. Controlling himself with a supreme effort, he continued.

Soon, he found names. In particular, one Peter Pettigrew. He found their animagus forms, and he suddenly realised the large black dog he had seen outside his window at Privet Drive one day was very likely his godfather.

He found out who the secret keeper was, and from Sirius' reading, he found about the dastardly trick Pettigrew played on Sirius, which resulted in the deaths of so many innocent muggles.

He then tried a reading of Pettigrew, from a photo he found in a newspaper in the library, showing the man who had just received a posthumous Order of Merlin.

Dumbledore realised he had better get used to Madam Bones invading his school. With Fudge gone, and with a much more reasonable replacement (Diggory was minister now), Madam Bones had found herself with a much more free hand than ever before. She came straight to the Gryffindor table, again with four aurors.

To everyone's shock, they quickly surrounded Ron and cast some kind of a boundary spell.

Dumbledore, once again, hurried down to see what was going on and to see if he could put his oar in, but by the time he got close enough, a rat had been forced into human form.

Four weeks later, on a Sunday, a handsome man in his thirties bounded joyfully into Hogwarts. He made a beeline for Harry, who also stood up with a huge smile on his face. Despite having never actually met till today (not counting when Harry was a baby), they instinctively fell into a hug, with Hermione standing beside Harry grinning goofily, her eyes misty with happiness.

One fine day a few months after this, several things happened simultaneously.

All the death-eaters still alive felt a huge draw on their magic, which rendered some of them squibs, while most had their magic reduced to just above squib level.

Harry's scar burst open, bled a little, and then mostly disappeared. He was alone with Hermione at the time, so she conjured bandages and gave him first aid of sorts before taking him to Madam Pomfrey and calling Sirius on the mirror.

Several small fires broke out in various places, but no one noticed - they were all closed rooms where no one went on a regular basis.

Finally, Croaker and a bunch of his colleagues were - completely uncharacteristically - found getting drunk in one of the classier bars in the Alley. No one knew what exactly they were celebrating.

Years later, an unthinking bit of bedroom talk led Hermione to guess that Harry knew a lot about what happened during their first three years of school.

It's not easy to hide stuff from your wife, as Harry well knew, and even more so when the wife was the brightest witch he had ever met. So he finally told her.

She registered shock at the spell. "What the hell kind of spell is Cambridge Analytica? It doesn't even mean anything related to homework!"

The End

AN: This was inspired by Trevor Noah joking on his show that Cambridge Analytica sounded like a Harry Potter spell that does your homework. I knew right there and then I could not pass up the opportunity.

The side-effects shown are of course quite realistic, in my opinion, albeit mapped to the wizarding world. And yes I do realise they represent Facebook more than Cambridge Analytica. But then again, I consider both those companies parasites so it's all the same to me. (For those who think this is impossible, you really need to read up on privacy; you're probably way behind the curve. To start with, google "Meet Jack ACLU" and read the article that comes up.)

AN-2: yes, I hate Snape. People who like him (mostly girls and women) are confusing Snape with Alan Rickman.