Work in Progress

Harry watched the retreating form of Snape from the grounds with a mixture of anger, fear and confusion. He was utterly alone on the high tower. Gazing over the edge, he could just make out the crumpled form of his dear friend and mentor Albus Dumbledore on the ground below. In a blind panic, Harry ran back down the stairs, barely aware of the curses and hexes blowing holes in the walls around him. His heart ached for effort and for grief as he ran around the perimeter of the school to the place where Dumbledore lay.

Tears streamed from his eyes as he laid hands on the lifeless Headmaster of Hogwarts. Suddenly jumping to his feet, Harry ran back into the school and made his way to Dumbledore’s quarters. Curiously, the entranceway was already open and as Harry ventured in he found that the same was true of the door. He decided to ignore this fact for now and instead busied himself looking for something he could use to mend this terrible situation.

‘There must be something!’ he screamed in a frustration. A thought suddenly struck him like a wet towel, ‘What can restore somebody back to life? The only thing I can think of is the blood of a…’ he stopped short, the sentence left unfinished on his lips

Harry turned slowly and looked at Fawkes, who looked straight back at him, an expression of what must have been reproach on his birdly features. ‘…Phoenix’ Harry concluded. He tilted his head slightly and regarded the Phoenix with a half-glazed look of curiosity. His eyes twinkled ominously. Fawkes croaked uneasily

Harry’s eyes wandered from the sword of Godric Gryffindor mounted on the wall and then back to Fawkes, who was now regarding him with a look of tentative flippancy. Harry looked again at the sword, then back to Fawkes, then back to the sword again. Fawkes’ eyes darted from the sword, then back to Harry Potter. All pretence aside, Fawkes began gnaw at the tether around his ankle as beads of sweat fell from his feathered hide and sizzled in his ashtray. Without a moments notice Harry lunged at Fawkes and in one fluid movement grabbed the sword of the wall and lopped off the ill-fated firebird’s head.

Fawkes let out an almighty scream and Harry, without a seconds delay, began looking for a receptacle with which to gather the blood. He searched through the drawers of Dumbledore’s desk and suddenly stumbled upon something that made him wince.

The severed head and respective body burst into flames and a highly irritated but wholly reanimated Fawkes came squawking from the ashes. Harry remained crouched behind the desk trying to gather the courage to face his angry victim.

A weak voice issued from behind the desk, ‘Sorry Fawkes’. Slowly Harry stood up from behind the desk with a sheepish grin on his face and a small golden hourglass in his hand. He shrugged. Fawkes just glared at him and muttered something under his breath.

Hermione and Ron burst in to the room, smiling and breathing heavily. Hermione started speaking without looking up ‘Harry, all is well, the Death Eaters are gone and as it turns out – Harry?’ she looked up to find Dumbledore’s office uninhabited save for a newborn Phoenix staring aghast at a bloody sword on the ground. Ron began to catch up with the pace of events ‘What happened in here then? Where’s Harry?’

But Harry was long gone by then. Although it is hard to say one is long gone when one is hurtling backwards through time itself. Harry arrived precisely in time to see Snape and Draco Malfoy making a beeline up to the high tower.

‘Infinito Probabiliatus’ Harry roared.

Where once there were two wicked hearted wizards there now sat a fully grown sperm whale and a rather attractive bowl of petunias. Without sparing a moment to run them through the finer points of existentialism Harry continued on his way up the tower taking two steps for every stride. He reached the top and found Dumbledore, alive and well, leaning against the battlements, smoking his pipe with a disturbing air of nonchalance. ‘Okay Severus, Draco, let’s do this’ he said as he whirled around, then with a look of surprise he exclaimed, ‘Harry! What on earth are you doing here?’ his pipe falling from his mouth and landing with a loud crack on the stone.

‘I’m here to save you Professor, I just stopped Malfoy and Snape on their way up here to disarm and kill you!’ replied a breathless Harry

‘You’re kidding’ said Dumbledore with an unnerving lack of concern

Harry picked up on this and replied, nervous and confused, ‘No sir, they were running with their wands and everything, but it’s okay, I turned them into a sperm whale and a rather attractive bowl of petunias’

Albus Dumbledore closed his eyes and pinched his nose-bridge between his thumb and forefinger ‘Harry did you really think a stupid little git like Draco and a sub-par Potions teacher would be able to disarm and kill the most powerful wizard in the known world?’

Harry couldn’t answer that but he tried anyway, despite his near-mute better judgement ‘But, I thought -’

‘Did you?!’ Dumbledore interrupted, 'Did you really think Harry?! Or did you just do what you always do and just acted without thinking?! By the ever loving mother of Merlin you can be so stupid sometimes Harry!’

Harry became immediately defensive ‘Hang on a moment…I saw you die!’ he crowed as if he had won some unspoken dispute.

Dumbledore sighed in resignation ‘Harry, you saw no such thing, what you really saw was a very carefully orchestrated and apparently successful farce designed to mislead Voldemort and simultaneously fulfil the terms of Snape’s Unbreakable Vow. I was to die and fall from the tower while Snape and Draco were to go and join the Death Eaters, under rather impressive credentials I might add, and then at an opportune moment they would slip some broccoli into one of Voldemort’s salads, he’s terribly allergic you see. Meanwhile, once the Death eaters were gone, Ron and Hermione were to come out of hiding in the bushes at the foot of the tower and give me a dose of Phoenix blood that Fawkes was kind enough to supply us with,’ at this Harry winced again and decided it best not to mention his earlier misdemeanour, ever, Dumbledore continued ‘Then with Voldemort incapacitated or possibly dead, we are unsure yet just how allergic he is, and myself alive once more, the Order and I would go around making sure he was properly dead and finishing of his little band of miscreants once and for all,’

It took a moment for the plan, and the immediate consequences of his actions to sink in, but before they had a chance his indignation caught up with his remorse, ‘Hey! How come I was the only one left out of this little plan of yours’ he whined, while searching his memory for anyone else that might have been overlooked.

‘You weren’t, Mr. Filch was too, and Neville Longbottom!’ said Dumbledore ‘We left you out because of your alarming propensity to act on your emotions and screw everything up, and Mr. Filch is just a useless and embittered old man’

‘What about Neville?’ asked Harry, still trying to avoid the touchy subject of what was to come. His cheeks flushed and his ears burned.

‘Neville was involved, I was just trying to make you feel better’ muttered Dumbledore ruefully.

There was a painfully long silence…

'So, what now?' Harry ventured.

'Well Harry,' said Dumbledore, 'You used time-magic to change the course of history which resulted in the breaking of an Unbreakable Vow, not to mention giving away the clever deception to Voldemort. You tell me'

Hermione and Ron burst onto the parapet, frowning and breathing heavily. Hermione was carrying a rather attractive bowl of petunias, Ron looked utterly lost. 'What's happened here then? Why isn't Dumbledore down there? Harry you flapjack, what did you do?' but before Harry could defend himself 'Dumbledore stepped forward, 'Never mind that, let's get Professor Snape into the lake and would somebody please water Master Malfoy? Whatever the consequences of Harry's meddling with the very fabric of time and space are I am certain there will be little good in squatting up here waiting to find out'

As he said this the sky began to glow orange and great flaming meteors, too many to count, began to fall from the sky.

'Oh, good work Harry,' growled Ron, 'You've gone and initiated the apocalypse!'

'No I haven’t!' cried Harry, but not entirely convinced that he hadn’t, he added, 'I can fix it, I'll just use the spell on Snape again, then he can kill Dumbledore and set things right!'

'No good,’ replied Dumbledore, 'If you use Infinito Probabiliatus again the chances of you turning him back into “Snape” are infinity to one, you’ll more likely turn him into a small sun or an apricot tree or something even more inconvenient than his current form.'

He spoke these words as he walked down the stairs and was suddenly aware of the large crowd of Death Eaters that were assembled at the bottom of the stairwell, waiting for them. Hermione coughed loudly and nudged Harry into the front, but before he could even draw his wand the side of the room exploded in an almighty inferno as a meteor collided with the castle wall, obliterating the nefarious crowd.

Moments later, Voldemort himself came marching down the hallway shouting out orders ahead of himself, 'Alright you lot, look sharp, Dumbledore will be coming down those stairs any minute now and if you – damn it all, why must all my minions be killed by meteors?! - Well, that's me then, I'm off!' and with a look of pained resignation he spun on his heel and fled the castle on his own.

There was silence for the first time in over an hour. Not only had the remaining Death Eaters cleared out but it seemed the meteors had also stopped falling. ‘Some Apocalypse,’ muttered Ron. The Earth gave an indignant quake and Ron quickly retracted his statement.

Renovations and repairs began immediately and Dumbledore had Slytherin commons converted into a laboratory for the examination of the meteor that had crashed into the building. Professor Snape was moved into the lake where he immediately began feasting greedily on Grindylows and Mermaids with gusto. Draco Malfoy was given a nice windowsill to perch on and some slugicide pellets.