Nightmares (HP) (Drarry)

sixteen: allegiances

What a lot of Purebloods fail to understand is that Muggles are not good. They are ruthless, bloodthirsty, and biologically designed so that selfishness is rewarded. They kill their men in wars that don't need to be fought, rape their women and teach their children to do the same and think nothing is wrong with it because it feels so good when they do. They are fundamentally flawed creatures and should be strayed from.

But what Pureblood surpremists fail to understand is that wizards are not any better. They still fight to death over petty, fleeting words and starve their children for profit. A magical core doesn't change this. Muggles are wizards without wands; no more, no less.

A lot of people (Harry recognizes with reluctance that he wasn't excluded from this) praise Albus Dumbledore because he's the most infallible wizard of their generation; he's nothing and everything; something to look up to!

But, because wizards are not so different from Muggles and Muggles are fundamentally flawed as is, Harry comes to realize then that Dumbledore is not so perfect as he appears. He's man of good intentions but a lifetime's worth of secrets.

Harry realizes, with Dumbledore's inane question ("Are you with Voldemort, the man you made you an orphan, who made you born to war, who sentenced you to absent godfathers and a loveless home life?") and the explanation that followed ("Well, my dear boy, you have such an interesting connection to Voldemort, it's reasonable to assume that you might have had a notion of what was to happen--") that Dumbledore knows something he's not sharing. There's a knowing condescension to his tone that makes Harry's eye twitch.

Harry doesn't devulge further into these feelings of distrust toward the Headmaster who'd been almost grandfatherly toward him for so long, even as he feels like his internal structure of the world is falling apart at the seams, and instead snaps, reaching toward that familiar wave of anger bubbling beneath his skin: "I used to. I got nightmares with him that were so close to reality but I don't get nightmares anymore. Which you would know, if you bothered to keep up with me." Why won't you look me in the eyes? he thinks. What do you know that I don't?

And then Dumbledore replies with a soft apology which Harry acknowledges with a nod but does not accept. Harry scurries down the hall, desperate to get anyway before his anger gives away to tears, and wonders what changed.

But it's a stupid question because Harry knows that nothing changed, really. Dumbledore has always been like this. He's just now dealing with the consequences face to face. He put Harry with the Dursley's and never really explained why, he won't ever look him in the eyes, he knows so much and tells so little.

It's then that Harry makes a decision. Albus Dumbledore has his heart in the right place but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So Harry would do everything he set out to do-- remove Umbridge from office (preferably from the land of the living, too,) overthrow the Ministry, and take out Volde-fucking-mort.

And he would do so without Albus Dumbledore on his side.