By Merlinsapprentice

It was the forth time in the past two weeks as Harry James Potter walked slowly toward Gryffindor tower after training that he was intercepted and insulted by the Slytherin trio of dummies. He had finally had enough and retaliated by quickly petrifying the two large idiots who were always following Draco Malfoy around. "Right Malfoy it's time to really teach you a lesson. People are sick of you and your mouth. Time to show you that you and your death eater father are nothing but filth, dregs of the world. Don't even bother with when my father shit because if he comes anywhere near me I'll teach him a lesson too. one he will never forget"

Something in Potters voice had Malfoy visibly shaking as he reached for his wand only to have it snatched out of his hand and tossed down the deserted corridor before he even thought of casting a spell. "Not this time Malfoy, this time you get taught the proper muggle way." Harry growled as his fist exploded in to Malfoys face. Just a few minutes later with a truly beaten Malfoy laying bleeding at his feet Harry turned to the two petrified idiot body guards. "Right who's next?" Harry asked even as he released Crabbe from his spell.

Big as he was Crabbe stood no chance in his attack against Harry. The speed Harry used as he beat the huge bully black and blue had the bigger boy join his so called boss on the floor. In just a few minutes he left the large boy weeping as he held onto what had been his meat and two veg. his entire body regretting ever meeting the smaller man.

Gregory Goyle who had watched what could be done using Muggle fighting techniques, and seeing the bloody mess of his two companions once he was free of the spell that froze him. Was begging Harry to leave him alone and vowed he would no longer act as back up for Malfoy in anything.

Harry who was actually getting a little tired after the other two found that muggle martial arts were really painful and dangerous, let Goyle go with a warning to keep his vow unless he wanted to loose his magic. He then turned to his two downed victims "You even look at my Hermione again I'll leave you so that even St Mungo's will take years to put you together, you hear me ferret shite?" he then made his way to the headmasters office.

Headmaster Dumbledore welcomed Harry and asked him to sit, which Harry totally ignored. "Your death nibblers are down on the forth floor, you may find that they are in need of some medical assistance. I am just here to give you a warning. You continue to support Voldemort by ignoring what his followers do in this school you might be facing a funeral or two. The next one who even attempts to injure Hermione or the other girls will pay a very high price."

Dumbledore sat looking at Harry while he spluttered "How dare you accuse me of being a Voldemort supporter… I've been fighting against Tom since before you were born."

Harry looked at the old man and laughed. "Fighting him, fighting him, how the hell did you come to that conclusion? Are you completely stupid? You flat out refuse to punish the guilty and ignore the innocent while you watch them suffer. You even allowed death eaters like Lucy Malfoy to escape any punishment. You didn't even do anything when he admitted he almost killed Ginny Weasley when she was a first year, not to mention all the others that were petrified. You ignore all the bullying. According to what you told me three weeks ago it's my job to get rid of Riddle. I will do so and take you with him if I have to, it's your only warning Dumbledore stop supporting the death eaters or find your self on my to kill list along with your pet death eater Snape. I won't warn you again." Harry turned and walked out of the office while Dumbledore simply sat in total shock, unable to believe that Harry had just threatened him for supporting a dark lord.

Dumbledore was still sat in shock ten minutes later when his deputy head and professor Flitwick entered the office. Minerva McGonagall professor of transfiguration looked at the state he was in and asked "Albus what on earth has you so shaken up?"

Dumbledore looked up his eyes held a strange look. "He threatened to kill me… he actually stood right there and threatened to kill me." He said as if he could not believe what had happened.

"Who? Who threatened you?" asked both McGonagall and Flitwick together.

"Harry… Harry… said I was a Voldemort supporter." Was the mumbled answer they got.

"Well you are, are you not?" asked Flitwick seriously.

Dumbledore's eyes went wide and he gasped as he heard what one of his oldest professors said. He was spluttering once again as he denied the accusation. "I have never supported the dark, I never will."

Flitwick looked at the headmaster in disbelief "Well if you don't support them why is it in our standing orders that we are not allowed to stop all the vile bigotry and bullying that pervades this school?"

McGonagall who had spent several years complaining about how useless Severus Snape was as a teacher, and how he bullied students all the time just had to say something. "Albus you really need to take time out and see just how the students see you. You have your very own pet death eater who no matter how many complaints you get abut his behaviour you still support him, What is Mr Potter supposed to think when that vile man has been mind raping him for the past year on your orders. Your totally idiotic idea about bringing the junior death eaters to the light giving them never ending extra chances to repent all point to you supporting those who are evil against the innocent."

Dumbledore looked at his deputy "Minerva everyone deserves a second chance, you know that."

"There you go again with your stupidity. Only those who are truly sorry deserve a second chance Albus. And it would seem someone got tired of you giving Malfoy second chances over and over, he is in the hospital with several serious injuries along with his henchman Crabbe. Both have several broken bones and some severe internal bruising." Flitwick said with an annoyed growl.

"Was the culprit caught?" Dumbledore asked

"No, but we know where to lay the blame." Flitwick answered "The blame lies with you for letting the little git get away with everything for so long."

It was at this time that professor Snape barged into the office sneering and yelling that the Potter brat should be expelled for attacking two of the Slytherin students. "Just like his father the little shit." His sneer vanished as he was hit by a spell that sent him crashing into the door he had just entered from, his nose taking the brunt of the force as it broke on impact.

McGonagall turned and growled, "Filius you know I wanted to do that, after we learned what he did to Potter."

Flitwick simply shrugged and mumbled "Sorry Min,"

"Minerva you know full well that Harry has to learn how to shield his mind. Severus was just teaching the boy." Dumbledore said quite loudly as he looked at his Potions master lying on the office floor his nose bleeding profusely.

"You're wrong again Albus, Tonks brought in a pensieve to show us what that foul death eater was doing during those supposed lessons. Here's your last warning, if we ever catch him mistreating any of the students in the future we will file a complaint with the DMLE." Minerva said anger filling her eyes.

"Severus has to do things the way he does to keep up his cover as a spy, you both know that, he must be allowed a little leeway." The headmaster said rubbing his temple.

"You are a liar Albus Dumbledore, it has been clearly pointed out to us that during his farce of a trial you clearly stated that Snape was your spy in Voldemort's ranks. Thus you let every single death eater know he is working for you and not for Voldemort, so there is no cover for him to keep up. Don't even try with the excuse he has reformed because if he had he would be hard at work making sure we have good potion makers in our ranks, instead in all the years he has been here he has not taught a single person how to safely brew untainted potions. Except the junior death eaters in his house." Flitwick said angrily.

"I Warn you now Albus Dumbledore you need to wake up before Mr Potter starts to seriously use the special training he has received from the Goblins in their time room. He is now an expert in several oriental martial arts and as we have seen today he is not afraid to use them. Oh and while I think about it you had best Expel Malfoy before he ends up leaving us in a coffin. Stupid boy was overheard planning to rape miss Granger to teach her her place." Minerva warned him coldly.

"Minerva I can assure you that Mr Malf-…" Dumbledore began but was cut off by Flitwick.

"Come Min we are wasting our time, let us just go tell Mr Potter that Dumbledore is far too stupid to listen to anyone."

Harry who had spent as many hours as he could being trained by the Goblins in the special room they used to train their most fierce warriors. Each evening and the two full weekends since the fiasco at the D.o.M. He had now spent several months in their time room with three black belt masters and two of the fabled kung fu priests. He was both ready and willing to take out any death eaters he came across and to do it without mercy or pity since they had hurt his best friend and the one woman that held his heart.

Hermione accompanied by a guard of several members of Gryffindor slowly made her way to the common room without a clue about what Harry had done to Malfoy and Crabbe. It had all been kept from her as she lay slowly recovering from her injuries gained at the D-o-m battle, in the hospital ward where Malfoy was planning to attack her. She wondered why it was that so many of the Slytherin's that would normally sneer at her and call her names seemed to be too scared of her to even look in her direction. She would soon find out the affects her injuries had had on her best friend Harry. It would be the first time she realised that she meant so much to him. It was her dorm mates Lavender and Parvati who would reveal that Harry was in love with her.

Hermione was sat on the couch in front of the fire in the common room, it was the favourite spot for the trio, looking around she saw Ron sitting at the far side of the room alone playing his usual game of chess. Looking around for Harry she could see no sign of him at all. She was about to go to talk to Ron and see if he knew where Harry was when she was joined by Parvati. "Lo again Hermione, are you ok?" she asked sitting down along side the slightly older girl.

"Hi parv, I'm feeling fine, I maybe a little better when I see Harry, no doubt Ron will join us when Harry arrives."

"I highly doubt that, Ron is in deep shit with Harry and most of the house. He heard Harry say you were his very best friend and he would deal with anyone who hurt you. Ron jumped in with both feet yelling that he was Harry's best friend not some mudblood know it all. You can imagine how Harry reacted to that. Ron was unconscious for almost three hours." Parvati said with a light growl.

"Ron called me that name?" Hermione gasped.

"Yeah and after he had dealt with Ron Harry walked out of the common and apparently he was stopped by some young Slytherin who told him that Malfoy was planning to attack you in the hospital wing and rape you. Malfoy and Crabbe are now in St Mungo's and will be there until middle of the holidays. Harry has fallen hard for you you know, he's even doing some special training or something so he can protect you. It's rumoured he even threatened Dumbledore for supporting you know who." Parvati said quietly.

"Why on earth would Harry think that of Dumbledore? I need to talk to him." Hermione said a look of shock on her face.

"Hermione, Harry isn't the only one who thinks Dumbledore supports that evil s-o-b, most everyone in the school does. Surely you must have seen how he allows the junior death eaters to get away with anything. They are never punished no matter how bad they behave. When the last war ended he even allowed all the senior death eaters get away with the murder torture and the rape of women and children. Look how he supports Snape and he is known to have raped girls as young as seven. Dumbledore is as evil as any of those vile purebloods purists. Anyway about Harry, he disappears almost every night and he has changed somehow. He even looks different like he has been growing fitter and stronger or something," she ended wistfully with "I wish someone like Harry fancied me."

Just as Parvati finished talking the portrait hole opened and Harry walked in and Hermione finally noticed what she had failed to notice when she was in the hospital wing. Harry had indeed changed, he had put on quite some weight and muscle and there was a sense of power that seemed to radiate around him. Spotting the two girls Harry strode toward them with a purpose. Reaching the couch he said "Hi girls, you alright Hermione love? Did everything go ok Parv, any bother from the house of cretins?"

"Fine Harry," Both girls answered together. They looked at each other and both gave a small chuckle.

"I was just giving Hermione an update about what has been happening while she was under Madam Pomfrey's care." Parvati announced seriously.

As Parvati was talking Hermione realised that he had called her 'love' and it caused a flutter in her chest. 'Oh dear lord he does love me, but why me with all the beautiful girls chasing after him, even Parv fancies him.' Ran through her mind as he sat down next to her and leaned back with his eyes closed.

"Just spoke with Flitwick, seems Dumbledore is just plain stupid. Even after I and some others warned him about his support for the junior death eaters he still tried to insist that Malfoy deserves yet another chance to see the light. Seems both Flitwick and McGonagall have given up on him entirely." He said still with his eyes shut. "For some reason Dumble's doesn't seem to think making plans to rape my woman is such a bad thing."

Hermione could not resist asking "So Harry who's your woman? You never told me you had a girlfriend."

Harry's eyes opened wide as he realised what he had said. "Shhhugger," he groaned aloud. "They were talking about you Hermione. They hoped it would break me, and I realised they were right, it would have. You are my very best friend and I love you. I actually love you as far more than just a friend. Still they won't be getting near you again if they want to continue to live."

By the time they were ready to turn in for the night Hermione had agreed to be Harry's girlfriend, and they shared their first kiss at the bottom of the girls' stairs before saying goodnight to each other.

At breakfast the next morning Dumbledore had a note delivered to Harry asking for a meeting in his office after breakfast was done. Harry stood and walked up to the head table and stopped in front of professor Flitwick. "Excuse me sir I have a note here from Mr Dumbledore asking for a meeting, I wonder if you would be willing to accompany me to that meeting?"

Flitwick looked at his student who had caused such a huge change in the staffs' beliefs with just a few words and some memories shown by Miss Tonks he could not resist nodding his head. Minerva McGonagall sitting next to Flitwick spoke up "I would like to join you in that meeting Mr Potter."

There were several murmurs of agreement from the rest of the staff that quite surprised Harry. A few minutes later a very surprised Dumbledore sat behind his desk as Harry and Hermione entered his office followed by what appeared to be the entire faculty of the school. Most of them were there to see if it was true that even after everything that had happened the old man was still showing support for Snape and Malfoy.

No one could believe it when the headmaster acted as if nothing had happened other than a small disagreement between Gryffindor and Slytherin and announced to Harry that both he and Mr Malfoy would both be serving detentions at the weekend. He finished his speech with "I know you were not serious in what you said yesterday so I am willing to overlook it as long as you continue your lessons with professor Snape."

Everyone was staring at him in disbelief until professor Trelawney spoke up. "The old fool should be committed; he's out of his mind completely. He's still going on about me giving him a prophesy at the Hogs head, yet I have never even entered the establishment, or thought of doing so."

Due to the entire staff being crowded into the office they took a vote right there and Albus Dumbledore was declared mentally unfit to continue as headmaster, and someone made a floo call to St Mungo's to have him committed as insane due to his constant forgiveness campaign. It amazed several of the people at how fast things began to happen once Minerva explained to the three large men wearing white what as going on with the former head of the school. The old man had been man-handled out of the way and escorted to St Mungo's hospital.

His rule of only using stunning spells against Voldemort's people was ditched on the second day after he had been committed. The order of the phoenix people under Minerva's leadership began hunting down known death eaters and were using lethal spells and curses just as their enemy did. The death eaters began falling all over the magical world as the population now knowing that lethal spells were now acceptable against death eaters sought revenge on them.

It took just three weeks for Voldemort's followers to be whittled down to just a half dozen and they were afraid to leave their hideout despite Voldemort using the crusio curse quite freely. No longer were the supposed elite allowed to walk around doing what ever they wanted. By the end of that week his followers were down to a half dozen mindless husks. All their minds destroyed by his overuse of the torture curse. That was what had him on the run, hiding in run down barns and huts, all the time cursing Harry Potter for causing his downfall. Tom Riddle had gone from practically being the ruler of magical Britain to being a rather ugly creature that could not hide in the crowds to a wanted on the run criminal and he had to stay in hiding and eating out of rubbish bins. He was even worse off than he knew for nowhere in the books he had read did it say that his soul pieces did not actually live beyond what he would normally have lived to, then they would die of old age just like he would. They were simply created for the pharaohs to ensure they would not die young and were able to continue their reign until they died of old age.

At the end of the term Harry refused point blank to return to his relatives house on Privet drive down in Surrey. Instead he took a room at the Leaky cauldron but was only there for four days, by which time Hermione had convinced her parents that they should offer to take him in.

Hermione and her mother made a visit to Harry's former home and between them they convinced Vernon Dursley, bully and child abuser to visit the local police station and confess to his crimes. Vernon and Harry's aunt were very quickly arrested. His obese cousin Dudley was taken away to a specialist mental unit for treatment for the abuse his parents were accused of. Dudley had no real concept of right and wrong and the unusual treatment he had received from his parents would take years for him to get over and become a useful member of society.

It was the following week that Mafalda Hopkirk was fired from her job, as she had once again tried to convince the DMLE to arrest Harry for use of underage magic. Even though almost every magical person in Diagon Alley knew he had been sitting in the Leaky Cauldron at the time he was supposed to be casting spells at his former home. Not a single person even entertained the idea that Hermione Jane Granger might have been the true culprit as she taught the Dursley family that abusing Harry Potter had been an extremely stupid thing to do.

Two years later the magical world were going crazy as they celebrated the death of Tom Riddle aka Voldemort who's emaciated body had been found by two young Hufflepuff students in the shrieking shack while they had been carrying out a dare. The healers declared he was dead due to age and malnutrition. Being on the run for so long thanks to Harry James Potter had finished off the most evil man of the past five hundred years. That same year Albus Dumbledore also died. He passed away in his sleep after suffering a heart attack in his asleep earlier in the day.

One full year later Harry and Hermione were married in the Welsh village of Godricus bantiau. (Godrics Hollow). It was a quiet wedding with just friends and family as guests. The famous scar on Harry's forehead had faded until it was hardly visible any longer and the new Potter family looked forward to a quiet and happy life living at the Potter family cottage.

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