บท 90: The Price of Power
They all knew Harry Potter was a hero. No one had ever denied that but he'd been involved in almost all, if not every, traumatic event that had played out in the Castle for the last four years. Always they'd been told it wasn't he who'd actually saved the day but someone else. That he was the one actually causing the problem others had needed to resolve.
Usually said resolution was somehow accomplished through the combined efforts of Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasely if he hadn't managed to spin things so that he alone was responsible for ending their peril as he did when his sister had run into trouble and needed rescue. But now the students knew beyond any doubt, Harry had rescued the foolish girl. Not Ronald. Ginerva Weasely owed a life debt in a very major way to Harry Potter.
No one was looking at any of the trio or at the Teachers table so no one noticed Professor McGonagal squirming uncomfortably or the angry, embarrassed looks of the trio. No one noticed how confused and angry Professor Dumbledore seemed to be either. Nor did they notice how tired he appeared to be. He was still trying to recover from the unexpected exercise he'd been subjected to at the bank.
His muscles were hurting and the long walk from his office to the Great Hall hadn't helped matters any. It would take time for him to be able to move without pain again. At this point he was only hoping he'd recover before his next appointment at the Bank. Because he knew he had to go there. It was the only way to get more Potter funds. And he needed those funds.
They, the students, were much too busy trying to decide if another letter needed to be sent to their homes, letting the adults know what had occurred, and was occurring, here. Drama had never been higher in Hogwarts Halls then it was this year. And like teenagers everywhere, the students were having the time of their lives hashing it all out.
.....
But Albus, while he did notice the squirming of his deputy and the angry, embarrassed looks his patsies were casting around themselves, was much too preoccupied with his own concerns to deal with them right now. He'd been unable to get enough coin from James' vaults -he didn't, and never would, see them as Harry's- to meet his obligations and allow him to hire a new patsy to handle the Defense Against the Dark Arts classes this year.
Which meant he was going to have to deal with Cornelius' woman regardless of whether or not she'd allow the brat to learn the spells he needed to learn. It also meant he would soon be having to deal with upset people wanting to know where their expected bribe money was and why it hadn't arrived yet.
That was far more troubling to him than a few upset and uncomfortable children as some of those people were well known for not being very nice or pleasant people. The children, he believed, had brought their misery on themselves and waiting a few days for him to lecture them over their folly before correcting it for them was no more than they deserved.
Albus had decided this was the year to begin corrupting Harry's soul by introducing him to the Dark Arts. He'd actually been hoping Tom's minion would do it last term but the man hadn't. He'd struck the kids with the Unforgivables, true. But he hadn't even attempted to corrupt the boys' magic with teaching him other, more corrosive, dark spells. And that meant it still needed to be done.
Albus was well aware of the connection between his former student and the brat he was currently playing with. He figured when the day finally came for him to throw Harry to Tom, he needed to have the public if not believing Harry to be a dark wizard, then at least leaning towards that belief and openly wondering about the possibility.
That way they'd be less inclined to lament the boy's short life after he died in the fight. Because there was no way the boy would actually win a true fight between them. Tom was just too steeped in dark magic and experience for the boy, with the limited things Albus let him learn, to triumph over him.
He actually owed Minerva for pointing out how susceptible Harry should be to the corruptive forces of using Dark magic. Dark Magic was addictive, he knew. Even all these years, after the mess with Gellert, he still felt the call to use them. He always would. And it had been a long time since he'd willingly dabbled around with dark magic. Since his childhood really.
Yet he still fought it's pull every day. And he always would. Because he couldn't be seen doing dark magic. His reputation wouldn't stand for it. He'd be ruined if the people were to discover he was tainted by dark magic. Not even sharing an office with Fawkes, the school phoenix, would save him.
But it was because of his own addiction that he knew Harry would fall hard and fast once he began to learn them. Harry wasn't as strong a person as he was, either. He was weak. Malleable. So once he fell, he wouldn't be able to resist the call as he did. And that meant this whole situation was drawing to a close now. It'd be over within a year or two at the most. All he had to do was wait for the boy to use a dark magic spell or two and then arrange a face to face between him and Tom. The magic of the dark arts would do the rest. Because it always did.
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