Author's Note -
Disclaimer - well it's on a fanfiction website under Harry Potter - hardly likely I'd own the HP characters is it! But all the non-canon stuff is mine. I have read lots of other people's work so they have influenced me but nothing is directly copied. It is also pretty obvious I think that the events and people portrayed are ficticious. I have tried to be as accurate as I can in terms of geography, dates, moon phases and so forth. If there are any glaring errors please let me know so that I can correct them.
Warning!
This piece of writing contains mentions of torture, rape, murder, violence and other nastiness (what else could you expect with a dark lord on the loose). Homosexual pairings and male pregnancy are central to the story. I do not go into graphic details about any of the above but they are implied and alluded to.
That said, the tone of the story is upbeat and pranks of the terrible twins and marauder variety feature in several places with the latest publicity campaign by Weasley's Wizard Wheezes run under the noses of the Hogwarts professors.
Thanks for reading,
Jananda
Prologue
The night that he arrived back at the Dursleys home after his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry had an unusual visitor. Mad-eye Moody would not approve of his friendly attitude to his unknown guest but the visitor exuded an impression of safety and calm. The moment the figure finished speaking Harry knew what his answer would be. Before his mind could dwell on the possible outcomes of the 'great suffering' mentioned he declared that he would submit to whatever he must in order to save the lives of his godfather Sirius Black and his mentor Albus Dumbledore, and gain the knowledge he needed to defeat Voldemort. When he woke up the next day he had no recollection of his nocturnal conversation.
A little over a year and a half later Dumbledore sat lost in thought as his boat sped across the seemingly endless sea. Azkaban itself would not be visible until the boat was within its wards. Harry Potter was dead and Voldemort was, well, if not exactly dead, at least he did not have a body anymore. Despite everything it appeared to be mainly thanks to the boy. When Potter had died, Voldemort had gone into a coma. Voldemort's servant Wormtail (a.k.a Peter Pettigrew) had summoned those Death Eaters with healing knowledge to help their master. He had summoned Severus Snape, a potions expert, and as it happened, the Order of the Phoenix's spy. Severus had taken the opportunity to kill the Dark Lord's body. The Order had not yet managed to destroy all Voldemort's horcruxes so it was possible for him to come back, but now they did have breathing space.
The members of the Wizarding World were all out celebrating but Dumbledore did not feel like joining them. Just as he had been the last time Voldemort had fallen he was preoccupied with Harry Potter. The boy had betrayed them all; he had become a Death Eater. The summer after his fourth year he had disappeared leaving his relatives house a smoking ruin and Severus had witnessed him taking the Dark Mark. The Dursleys were dead and the Diggorys were killed by Potter. A few days later Dumbledore had caught up with the boy and Potter had attacked him. Potter had been under a secrecy oath and unable to speak in his own defence at his trial. Nobody would be foolish enough to give one of those to someone he did not trust, and none of the Order had put him on oath. That aside the evidence was conclusive. Potter had kept a journal to help him come to terms with the events of the Third Task and Cedric Diggory's death. The journal had proved that Potter had come to believe his best chance for survival was to support Voldemort. He had had the Dark Mark on his forearm. At the time, Dumbledore had been convinced. The boy's friends, particularly his godfather Sirius Black, had been distraught and refused to believe it so he had taken steps to make the boy appear insane or possessed by Voldemort. With the evidence of Potter's previous visions and the articles Rita Skeeter had written during the Tri Wizard Tournament it had not been difficult to convince the public. Fudge had been trying to do so anyway.
Potter had been sent to Azkaban for life. Dumbledore had hoped that the evidence of Potter's Dark Mark would at least convince the Ministry that Voldemort had returned, but Fudge had claimed that Potter had had it since the night Voldemort killed his parents and had thus always been dark. That had been a year and a half ago, and now the boy's death was making Dumbledore uneasy. He had wondered about the boy's guilt upon finding that Severus's cover was a spy had been intact after Potter's betrayal. He had assumed that either Harry had been too much in shock to take in the revelation that Severus was a spy the night after the Third Task, or he had never really believed it. Dumbledore had not had any doubts on the subject until a few hours ago when he had passed the sixth year Gryffindors on his way to the staff table for lunch. Mr Weasley had been expressing his astonishment that Professor Snape had been the one to 'kill' Voldemort and Miss Granger had scolded him saying that even after everything Professor Snape had done to Harry, Harry had still believed him faithful to Dumbledore.
What if Potter had not denounced Severus because he had never truly joined Voldemort? But the boy had the Dark Mark and if one was not loyal the marking would kill, that was why spies were so difficult to come by. Try as he might Dumbledore could no longer make the evidence add up. He was still deep in thought when the boat docked and he followed the warder who met him into the prison and up to Potter's high security cell. Potter had been discovered dead the previous morning, one of the very few Azkaban inmates who had successfully committed suicide. Nobody had realised that the boy had died until his will materialized in front of Professor McGonagall midway through the school celebrations marking Voldemort's passing. She had alerted Dumbledore who had checked with the warders at Azkaban who had begrudgingly checked on Potter only to discover his lifeless body. Dumbledore gazed sadly at the corpse of his former pupil. Whether Potter had betrayed them or not, it was Dumbledore himself who bore most of the responsibility. He had arranged the boy's upbringing. His eyes slide to the boy's arms, one of the sleeves had slipped back to reveal the Dark Mark, the badge of the boy's treason.
"You enabled us to take Voldemort's body from him, I am grateful. I hope in death you find the happiness you were denied in life, and I hope your parents forgive me for failing you," Dumbledore softly told the corpse. He motioned the warder over and accompanied him as he levitated Potter out of the fortress and interred him six feet under the barren earth. It was over. The boy's guilt or innocence would likely remain a mystery but either way Dumbledore had failed and all he could do was to renew his resolve not to fail again.