Magic Never Dies (Harmione)

Chapter 15

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"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron asked incredulously.

"That," came the voice from the Chocolate Frog card still in Hermione's hand, "was Harry Potter's long overdue declaration of independence. Much in the way it is celebrated in the United States, I believe fireworks will shortly follow."

"Long overdue?" Hermione felt like screaming, she was only holding on to herself by the constant reminder that panic wouldn't bring him back. "Would you care to explain that?"

"I take it that Harry confessed to you at some point this evening that he has been feeling the effects of the absorption of the third soul fragment?"

"That's right," Ron said. "He made me promise to stun him and take him to Lupin if he did anything strange."

Dumbledore's likeness sighed.

"Harry is a very potent wizard. Rather, let me rephrase that; Harry is a very strong magical force. He is a potentially potent wizard. We were arguing about what it meant to care for Harry when he left us, but in great part what makes us appreciate him in the first place is that he himself is more concerned with those around him than the concentrated development of that latent power. "

'Not that you ever gave him a real choice,' Hermione thought. She knew that Harry believed Dumbledore had liked and to an extent trusted him, but she had never gotten any sense that Harry thought Dumbledore believed him to be anything but curiously unpredictable due to the connection of his famous scar to Voldemort. Dumbledore had always praised his human qualities rather than any specifically Wizard ones.

"Tom Riddle never knew the distraction of sympathy or empathy for another," the card continued, "his attention was always on his own magical abilities. His deep disdain for emotional attachment of any kind comes from the belief that it diffuses the focus of power. You will remember from all your trophy cleaning, Ron, that although fit and athletic enough Tom Riddle never played Quidditch. He scorned it as a game for children. You and I know, however, that Quidditch has done much for Harry. I believe it gave him a great deal of confidence, taught him both to be a part of a team -something Voldemort could never bring himself to be - and, over time, to lead. They are as different as night and day and yet both carry a tremendous power within. Harry is living proof that sort of magical power need not corrupt.

To finally defeat Voldemort, however, Harry will have to come to terms with being Harry. He can not fight my fight. My strength was age and experience and the knowledge that comes with those, things Harry does not have the luxury of developing. It is time, therefore, for him to blaze his own path. That would be the slight... burning smell you might have noticed when he left."

"To be honest, Sir, I think he was just right pissed off," Ron said hesitantly.

"Yes, Ron," Dumbledore's portrait smiled. "That sums it up rather nicely. And at this stage of the game, I believe that when Harry is... pissed off, as you say, it is rather overwhelming for him. His more positive emotions are still his own, it is the negative ones, ones which Voldemort possesses in such abundance, that will become amplified."

"Excuse me, Sir," Hermione said, with exaggerated and careful politeness, "but how exactly did you mean for him to cope with that? Harry's past is hardly full of touching moments of family members setting him sterling examples of emotional control. You sort of chose to let him grow up in a place where he was basically abused, neglected and relegated to a closet most of the time. What else have you given him to draw on before deciding to expose him to this?"