Chapter 22. Monday December 2, 1996. Somewhen in the past

Harry found himself whirling through the silvery thought-stuff in Andre DeVrie's pensieve. Then he found himself with Snape and DeVries, standing in the middle of a huge crowd. They were facing a large Apparating platform that had been gaily decorated with red, yellow, and blue striped fabric. On one end were two flagpoles, one with three triangles, red, yellow, and blue arranged in a circular fashion, the other with several stars on a feild of midnight blue.

Beyond the decorated Apparating platform were the multi-colored ruins of what once had been four large building made of glass and steel. The bright sunlight reflected off multi-colored glass, and cast rainbows around the crow.

"Where are we?" He asked Andre.

"Gibson Academy. Or what was left of it, after the Death Eaters levelled the place."

Harry stood on his tiptoes to gaze over the shoulders of the people in front of him, and recognnized them from the memory of the Death Eater Dumbledore had shown him. He shuddered. It must have taken hundreds of destructive spells, on a level he could barely conceive of, to wreck a building this thoroughly. The place looked like it had been run over by dozens of muggle bulldozers. And it had been pointless. The students had gotten away. The only thing the Death Eaters had accomplished by wasting time wrecking a school they did not realize was empty was to give Richthoven and his Apparators time to come and deal with them.

Looking at the crowd, Harry saw sorrow on many of the faces, as they gazed at what remained of their school. Perhaps the destruction had caused more harm than he thought. It was obvious that the Gibsonites were just as proud of their school as he was of Hogwarts.

A tap on his shoulder jarred him from his thoughts.

"Look, there I am over there, Harry." DeVries said, pointing towards a man a few rows away. "That was me, about 15 years ago. Let's go stand there, we'll be able to see better."

The younger DeVries did not look that much different than he did now. At least not from a distance. He was wearing a green velvet vest with an ivory colored silk shirt, and loose black pants. A large rattlesnake was wrapped around his throat, buzzing it's tail angrily whenever anyone else got too close. Which explained why they could see better from this spot, no-one dared get too close to the younger Andre, to block his view.

Approaching more closely, Harry changed his mind, and decided that the younger DeVries had, after all, changed greatly in the past 15 years. There was a pinched sort of expression on his face which reminded him of Draco Malfoy. Or of his father, or of Snape, for that matter. The younger DeVries was far more Slytherinish, Harry decided, than his older self. He chewed on his lip, thinking about this. The older DeVries did not look like a Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. Yet the adults Harry had met in England all seemed to retain forever those traits impressed on them by whatever house in Hogwarts they had been in. Remus, Sirius, and even Peter Pettigrew, despite being in their thirties, did not act much different than they had at 17, as seventh year Gryffindors. But there was some undefinable quality to the face of the older DeVries, absent in the younger one, that did not belong to any of the houses. An expression Harry had seen before, though, for it was often on Dumbledore's face. And less often on Remus's face, though never on the face of his beloved, dead Godfather, Sirius.

DeVries grew up. The thought came unbidden into Harry's mind, and he pushed it away, frightened by the implications. Because he had seen that same expression on Snape's face, though not very often, and not when Snape was aware he was watching. He could not accept that Snape could have changed from the immature child he once had been, had gained some kind of morality, when very few others in England, including his Godfather, and, he had to admit, himself, had been unable to.

There is something very wrong in Hogwarts. Another unwanted thought came into Harry's head. Something that keeps us at the level of frightened, squabbling children, even when we have the power of adult wizards. The sorting hat tried to warn us about it. It told us that it was wrong for us to be seperated, and perhaps it is. Can a child who is cut in four peices ever grow up? We may despise the traits of the other houses, but without those traits, I think perhaps we are all incomplete.

He recalled that DeVries had told him as much, that the sorting done in Gibson was such that students of vastly different personalities and backgrounds were in close quarters, and could learn from eachother. He did not have time to think the matter over, though, because DeVries nudged him again.

"That's him, coming onto the platform now. That's Richthoven." A blue robed wizard with a bandaged arm was ascending onto the platform, behind a wizard in red. He had not only blue robes, but a tall pointed blue hat decorated with stars, and a long blue cape. Obviously he was dressed formally for this occasion. A wide smile split the face of the younger DeVries as he watched Richthoven stand in front of the audience, and Harry saw for the first time, the hints of the nicer sort of man the parselmouth would eventually become.

The red robed wizard cast a sonorous spell on his wand, and made a short speech about the heroism of Michael Von Richthoven, and how the bravery of him and his apparators had saved the lives of so many people, and delivered a well deserved punishment to their treacherous enemies. Then he opened a small golden box and took out a blue medal, shaped like an irregular cross, and with tiny golden stars on it.

"For all you have done, Master Richthoven," The red robed wizard said, "It is my honor to present to you Gibson's highest honor, the Order of the Southern Cross."

Richthoven lowered his head, letting the red-robed wizard place the medal around his neck. Then he stood tall, gazing at the crowd with eyes luminous with pride and a brilliant, hopeful intelligence. Harry gasped in spite of himself. Here was a wizard who, not even 25 years of age, was, by the look of him, possessed of a magical power and mind that was on par with that of Voldemort, or even Dumbledore himself. What would he have become, Harry wondered, had he not been shattered and cursed by what the Death Eaters did only a short while later to his wife?

The crowd was clamoring, and Richthoven cast a sonorous spell on his own wand, to give them the speech they obviously wanted.

"I thank you for this honor." He said. "Though I hardly deserve it. Many other Apparators, far better men than I, died defending our children from the Death Eaters. This medal belongs far more to them, than to me. It is only on their behalf that I accept it, and in their memory that I wear it."

The crowd went quiet, thinking of the terrible loss they had sustained. Richthoven did not let them remain quiet for long.

"Listen to me!" he spoke sharply. "I know that we have sustained terrible losses. Our apparator's guild has been decimated, the best of my men have been killed. Our magical school, the Gibson Academy, the crowning jewel of our country, has been reduced to the pile of rubble you see behind me. I have seen you looking at it, and I have seen the despair in your eyes."

"But I tell you, not to despair! If you give up, if you think only of what we have lost, it is only then, that the Death Eaters have won. That is not what the men who died, many of whom were my friends, would have wanted. Think rather of what we have won. What their sacrifice gave us. It is true that many apparators died. But they died saving our future. Our children! Not one of the students at Gibson Academy was harmed. It is they, who in a few more years, will become the new apparators and other wizards we need."

"As for the destruction of this school," He waved his hands at the twisted, broken glass and metal behind him. "What of it? What was the school itself, but glass and metal? It is of far less value than the least of the students who attended it, and those students are safe."

"We can REBUILD!" Richthoven roared. "Our ancestors came to this place with nothing! They died, many of them, rather than give in to the perversions that fill the rest of the world. With their own hands, with nothing but hope, they dug out the sand of the desert, and melted it into the first glass, to build this school. We have learned much since then, and have so much more than they do. With our own hands, I tell you, we can rebuild this school, larger than before!"

"My fellow apparators died, to gain our safety from the terrible death eaters! We have frightened them so badly, that they will not dare to ever return here! But I say, that is not enough! I say, rebuild Gibson Academy, in time for the next school year, and we will not only have frightened the Death Eaters, but have spit in their eye. We will show them that there is NOTHING they can do to a free people such as us."

Now it was the crowd's turn to roar. Richthoven let the applause simmer down, before speaking again.

"We have always been a forward-thinking people! Our ancestors came here because they had a vision of the future. A vision where they would be free of the oppression and Dementors that suck the life from the rest of the world. We have always known what is important. Our children are important, and they have been saved. And I tell you now, that is not the only thing that has been saved."

He leaned forwards, lowering his voice, slightly. "I am sure that most of you know of the Lunar Spur project, I and my fellow Apparators were working on. Our efforts to extend the floo network to the moon itself, and provide cheap, convenient transportation to Earth's sister, to any wizard who wished it. Most of the wizards who were working on this project were among those killed. But I am still alive. And I know every bit of arithmancy needed to complete the project. All I need are the apparators to help me. And ten years from now, the children we saved will be those Apparators. We will complete the project, and that is not all! According to arithmantic theory, there should be a way to vastly increase the distance an object can be apparated, by using properly directed muggle electricity. This is not a thing that can be done now, but I tell you, that someday, when both muggles and wizards have grown up enough to work together without fear, it will be done. And if you rebuild Gibson Academy today, then centuries from now, our children, and the children of the muggles will walk hand in hand under the light of another star!"

The applause that broke out then made that which Harry had heard at the world Quidditch cup sound positively anemic. He stared, boggle-eyed at the blue-robed Richthoven.

"He's mad!" Harry finally burst out. "Apparate to the stars? Do you have any idea how far away they are? There's no way to do that. He's absolutely bonkers!"

Snape, who had been watching the speech with an intent expression, which turned to a sneer as he faced Harry. "Mad, Potter? That's not madness. I've seen madness countless times, and that's not it."

"Well, what is it then?" Harry demanded.

"Genius." Snape gave Richthoven an admiring a look as Harry had ever seen him give to anyone.

"Genius? What do you mean by that? You think that he can actually do that? Make a floo network to the moon? Apparate to the stars?"

"I think he means precisely what he said, Potter." Snape said silkily. "Or he would not have said it. Your problem is that you assume the entire world is as incompetent as you are."

DeVries watched this exchange, rather bemused. "Doesn't matter if it's true or not. I think it might have been, but it doesn't matter. It was less than a month after that, that he went mad. If there was a way to do as he said, it was lost when that happened. But, wait, this is about where the memory ends."

The scene turned black and Richthoven descended the platform, amidst countless cheers, and Harry found himself back in the Andre DeVrie's living room with his Professor and the Parselmouth.

"Anyway," DeVries said, as he took his memories back out of the pensieve. "Even if he never was able to help in building that floo network to the moon, his speech about it did accomplish one thing. Turned out literally thousands of volunteers to help rebuild Gibson Academy. They built it twice the size it had been before, and they did it in less than three months. Of course, Richthoven was in no shape to appreciate it. By that time, he had been confined to an insane asylum."

Harry thought about this. "What exactly happened, do you know?" Harry knew what had happened, but he wanted to hear DeVrie's version of it."

"It was horrible." Andre shuddered. "A whole pack of Death Eaters came back here, looking for revenge on Richthoven. They got him alone, somehow, when he was working inside the floo network. Then they cast some nasty curses on the floo network to close down all the fireplaces, so no-one could get in to help. They tortured him for three straight days. The screams were horrible."

"Err, you could hear it? From the floo network?" Harry said.

DeVries nodded. "It was one of the curses, they cast. No-one could get in through their fireplaces, to rescue Richthoven but sound could get out. The sick bastards WANTED everyone to hear it. They kept torturing him and asking him the same thing. Over and over. 'Where is it, Richthoven? Where is it?' He wouldn't tell them, at first. They had to crucio him for three days."

His eyes looked haunted. "It seems like almost yesterday. I had to stuff a mattress into my fireplace, to block out the screaming. Even that didn't work very well. Finally he agreed to tell them where it was. Whatever it was. I don't know what it was, because as soon as he agreed, the Death Eaters cut the sound out. So no-one else could find out, I guess. But whatever it was they wanted from him, it must have been something truly dreadful. Because it was after that, that he went crazy, and killed his own wife."

Devries looked suddenly several years older. "He should have been executed, of course. But we couldn't bring ourselves to do it. To kill a man like the one he had once been. Even though there was nothing left of him, worthwhile. So we just locked the poor bastard up in an insane asylum, and tried to forget about him. Only he wouldn't let us forget. He got out. And he's been torturing people ever since. No-one else in the world seems to see a pattern to the things he's doing, but we know. And we can't forget. And now, you say, he's come back. God damn it to hell. Perhaps we should have killed him, as justice demanded. It would have been better."

"Umm, do you really think so?" Harry said. "How come?"

"Because," DeVries sighed. "It's nearly unbearable to think that a man like the one in the memory I showed you, the best man I ever met, could become the sort of monster that he did. It would have been better for him to have died, so we could at least remember him as he was. Not as he became."

Harry nodded, understanding, despite himself. It was hard for him to reconcile the three images he had seen of Richthoven, the cold-blooded killer slaughtering death eaters in the memory Dumbledore had shown him, the luminous eyed hero from DeVrie's memories, and the haunted, inhuman monster who had dragged him to some horrible lair for a purpose Harry still could not fathom. Was it madness on the part of Richthoven or the world? Or was he merely far more complex than Harry could understand. He remembered what he had been told once, that the world was not neatly divided into good people and Death Eaters. But he was not sure he wanted to live in a world where so many people could be good, and evil, and otherwise unfathomable by turns. It was confusing, and made him afraid that but for the grace of whatever Gods there were, he himself could just as well go down the same path as either Voldemort or Richthoven.

Thinking of the mad apparator caused that strange note to sound in his head once more. Andre looked at him with concern. "Do you want to lie down before supper, Harry? Oh, wait, here's my wife with the mochk. Have a bit of that, perhaps it'll sort you out."

Harry looked up and was surprised to see a different woman than DeVries had identified as his wife a few minutes earlier. This woman had black hair and wore a short, ivory colored robe trimmed with lace and pearls. Harry blinked at her for a moment.

"Umm, you look different. Are you a metamorphomage?"

DeVries burst out laughing. "No, this is one of my other wives, Evelyn. I'm not sure where my third one is."

"Jennifer's in the study working on that Arithmantic theory of hers. We won't see her out for hours." Evelyn laughed, apparently amused by Harry's discomforture. She handed him a large mug of something thick and brown that steamed.

"You have three wives?" Harry said, too stunned to drink from the mug. He noticed Snape, the git, looking at him with an amused sneer.

"I like women." DeVries shrugged, as he took a large gulp of his own mochk. "I told you, I really can't give any of them up. And I liked all three of them so much, I married them all. One of the best decisions of my life."

Harry's hand trembled, and he set the mug down before he dropped it. "I don't think I need anything right now. Maybe I just better go lie down until supper time."

"Right." Evelyn had dabbed a fingerful of mochk onto DeVrie's neck, and was licking it off, making him chuckle, and swat her away affectionately. "You're shameless, woman. Harry, you go down the hall there, the last two rooms on the left have been made up for you and Severus. They're both pretty much the same, so take either one you like. Get yourself rested before supper, so you have a good appetite. I think I'll make up my special shrimp curry, and you don't want to miss that."

Harry nodded dumbly, not daring to open his mouth, the way his stomach was lurching. He was completely sickened at the sort of person DeVries had turned out to be, and stumbled as quickly as he dared down the hallway.

Snape had been sipping on his Mochk, which was a slightly sweetened and highly spiced chocolate drink, enjoying Harry's embarrassed and immature reaction to his discovery of DeVries living arrangements. He set it down as Harry left.

"Potter seems ill." He said to DeVries. "I'd best go see to him, Dumbledore would not be pleased if I failed see to his continued good health."

"I hope he'll be alright." DeVries said. "It would be a bloody shame for him to miss my shrimp curry and the other foods my wives are making for him. He probably won't get another chance for a long time to taste Gibson cuisine."

"Well, Potter has never been grateful for anything." Snape said. "Including the trouble others go for him. I myself have saved his life on numerous occasions, and he has yet to thank me."

"Typical Gryffindor brat." DeVries shook his head. "Always needing a nanny. Of course, you and I weren't much better at that age. Go make sure he's alright. Then do come back out. We have some catching up to do, and I know you'll enjoy another glass or two of that wine."

Snape nodded curtly and headed down the hallway after Harry. Why must the boy always act like the Gryffindor fool he was and force Snape to get him out of trouble?