Part Three

"Grand!"

Harry sprinted towards him the minute the doors opened into the entrance hall of Potter Place. Fleamont swept him up and held him close, shutting his eyes. The fear that he hadn't admitted even to himself retreated, and he kissed the top of Harry's head.

"You were gone longer than you said you would be."

Fleamont pulled away and nodded to Sirius, even though he had never specified how long his meeting with Dumbledore would take. It was fifteen minutes to noon, and he could read the nervousness boiling off Sirius like steam. "I know. I'm sorry for that. I really did think that I'd be done earlier."

Sirius hesitated, then nodded and reached out to take Harry's hand. "Come on, little monster, let's go get some lunch now that you can see your Grand's home and he's fine."

"I'm not the monster, Monster's the monster," Harry protested as Sirius pulled him down the corridor and the shadow flickered as the leopard followed him. But he looked over his shoulder, his eyes compelling, and Fleamont nodded and followed.

The house-elves had prepared bacon-and-cheese sandwiches done the way Harry most liked them. Fleamont dug in enthusiastically despite the soup he'd had. Watching Albus Dumbledore across the table hadn't given him much of an appetite.

Well, not for food, anyway. For his enemy's humiliation, yes.

"So what happened?" Sirius asked, leaning closer and lowering his voice as though Harry wasn't sitting at the same table.

Fleamont made a shushing motion with one hand, and Sirius sat back, but Harry said, "I want to know what happened, too, Grand."

Fleamont considered Harry for a second, then shook his head. "I can't tell you because you're too young, Harry."

Harry folded his arms. "I'm seven years old. And I read the book that you gave me on merrow, Grand."

Fleamont waited to see where this was going. From the way Sirius buried his head in his arms and huffed a laugh, he probably already knew. "Go on, Harry."

Harry faltered a little in the face of Fleamont's calm gaze—Fleamont knew he still wasn't used to adults taking him seriously—but then he shook his head and took a deep breath. "I know that a merrow child my age would be an adult by now! They age faster than us."

"But you're not a merrow child, Harry."

"The thing is, Grand," said Harry, and he tried to take on a serious tone that honestly only sounded pompous as it came out of his mouth, "I'm old enough in some cultures to know some things. So I'm an adult in those cultures. And you should treat me like that. You don't want to treat me as more of a child than the merrows would, do you?" he asked.

"Merlin, Harry," said Fleamont, with a shake of his head. "You might be the first Potter in Slytherin in centuries."

Harry gave him an uncertain smile, but continued standing up in his chair. "Does that mean that you're going to tell me what's going on, Grand?"

"No." Fleamont continued as Harry opened his mouth. "Even though you might be old enough in the merrow culture, Harry, you aren't old enough in the human one. And this only has a little bit to do with age. If you were old enough and understood more of what was going on already, then you could choose whether to hear this or not. Right now, I think it would only taint you."

Harry slumped back in his chair and watched him with a scowl for a second. Then he asked, "Is this like what you did to Peter Pettigrew, Grand?"

Fleamont caught his breath. "You were asleep during that, Harry."

"I have eyes, Grand. I listened to what you said, and what Sirius said about it later." Harry leaned forwards. "I just—you've been teaching me about ethics, and I don't want you to have to kill people to protect me."

"Because it's wrong?" Fleamont had actually taken a more broad-based approach to ethics than that; rather than teaching Harry that one action was always wrong or right, he had taught him that it depended on the situation. He would think it a little disappointing if his training had failed.

"No. Because you said it hurts people when they kill other people." Harry stared at him with anxious eyes now. "I just don't want you to get hurt."

The tension drained slowly out of Fleamont. He reached out and gently ruffled Harry's hair. "I promise that I'm not going to kill someone, Harry. I'm at least not planning on it."

Harry blinked and blinked again. He bit his lip and searched Fleamont's face anxiously. "Really? You mean it?"

"Yes. I think I can accomplish what I want without killing anyone at all. I am not a preferential murderer," Fleamont added dryly. He raised an eyebrow at Sirius, who suddenly became intensely interested in his food. They would have a talk later about what Sirius had been saying in front of Harry.

"Okay, Grand!" Harry chirped, and then spent the rest of lunch explaining the broom maneuvers he planned to pull that afternoon and why he liked "The Tale of the Three Brothers" the most out of all the stories in The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Fleamont listened and smiled a little as he thought of what Harry would say when he found out the Potter family owned Death's own Invisibility Cloak.

By the time he stood up from the lunch table, Fleamont felt rested and relaxed. He strolled slowly through the corridors, listening to the hum of strings that was right on the edges of his awareness.

He had told Harry the truth. He thought that he could accomplish what he wanted without killing anyone at all.

The bait he had fed Dumbledore was poisoned, oh yes. But not in the traditional way.

The wards sang like a gong and woke Fleamont from his rest. But he had been expecting that, and he sat up with a small stretch and a yawn and reached directly for his wand. Then he left his room and climbed a back staircase to the seventh floor.

Passing the door into the instruments' room took the usual annoying bite from the lion, but once that was done, Fleamont tucked the small lute under his arm and walked towards the source of the disturbance. Dumbledore had listened to his story about Herodotus the Golden carefully, it seemed. He was tunneling under the wards, not rising above them.

He would only be able to do so because Fleamont had deliberately weakened the wards there. But Fleamont wouldn't dream of ruining Dumbledore's fun before the right moment. He sat in the entrance hall with the lute on his lap and waited.

The center of the stone floor revolved a few minutes later, and Fleamont saw the flicker of a spell like a huge golden drill before it faded. He raised his brows. That was a true innovation, something he had never seen before, and he would have to get Dumbledore to show it to him.

Well. In a short time, he would be able to.

Fleamont reached down and stroked the strings of the lute, setting them humming. The subtle sound pervaded the room, but Fleamont knew Dumbledore wouldn't notice it, not now that he was within its range. Fleamont went on softly playing, and watched the oil-like sheen in the dark wood dance around his fingers.

Dumbledore rose from the hole on what must have been a magically-created ladder. He paused when he saw Fleamont. Then he shook his head. "Everything would have been so much easier if you had simply given me the boy."

Fleamont looked at him, not stopping the music. "Tell me, Headmaster, why did you think you were the best guardian for him? Even granting that Sirius was in prison and you thought all the Potters dead, there were other people you could have left him with."

Dumbledore let out a long, tired sigh. "He was obviously going to be incredibly important to the world, Mr. Potter. It would be so easy for him to get a swelled head, and that head turned by the wrong people. I tried to counter some of that by spreading the word that he was dead, and the rest by leaving him with people who would teach him humility—"

"People who abused him." Fleamont was proud of himself for holding his voice to a dull roar. But the truly important thing was that his hands did not falter in their music.

"I regret the pain Harry suffered," Dumbledore said, and he did sound as if he had. He smoothed one hand down the twinkling star-and-moon robes he wore, but made no move to attack. Fleamont wondered if he had started to notice that yet, and what rationalizations he was constructing for himself. "But arrogance is worse than abuse."

"Explain that to me." Fleamont's hands moved so that more notes drifted out of the strings, ringing and creeping up the walls, sighing and breathing out sighs.

"Arrogance nearly destroyed the world once before," Dumbledore said. "Tom Riddle's arrogance was immense even as a child, and by the time he came to Hogwarts, it was too late to counter it. He thought himself superior to the Muggles he lived with. I wanted to be sure that Harry, who will have fame greater than Tom Riddle's could ever be, wouldn't go through the same process."

"You wanted him to think himself inferior."

"Ideally, I wanted him to think that Muggles and wizards were equal. But I did not leave him in an ideal environment, I agree." Dumbledore shook his head. "Still, better that he be humbled and abused than so arrogant he endangers others."

Fleamont stared at him in silence, hands still working. "You are senile if you think that he might not have grown up hating others the way that Voldemort hated the Muggles he lived with."

"But the arrogance—"

"Could still have been there," Fleamont interrupted. "Some abused children tell themselves stories of how much better they are than anyone else, and then work to get away from their abusers and control others. I met many of them in Slytherin when I was at Hogwarts, and some in Ravenclaw. Some in Gryffindor. You hoped for an outcome without having any way of ensuring it!"

"I would still think Harry better off with those Muggles," Dumbledore said, reaching finally for his wand, "than with someone who would casually murder others."

"You still have no proof that I was responsible for that." Fleamont rippled the music up the walls and down to the floor, and now he could see Dumbledore's face through a maze of silvery notes, if he wanted. He concentrated so the magic didn't cloud his vision, though. No reason to let it do that. "You, on the other hand, were responsible for putting my grandson with people who abused him."

"Would it have been better to let him grow up with a wizarding family who would have abused him in another way? Made him think he was the most important person in the world?" Dumbledore shook his head. "From what you said, Harry is adapting well to having you for a guardian. That shows the damage he endured cannot be as severe as you believe it was."

Fleamont would have stopped playing in sheer outrage, but the lute guided his hands now; he had no choice but to play this song to the end. He kept them moving, but his eyes were steady. "You have no idea of the scars on his soul."

"I know you will put more there if you keep him here and expose him to murder. And whatever other Dark magical powers you have as part of the Potter line." Dumbledore gave the lute a look of gentle triumph. "I knew you were lying, Fleamont. I feel no change in my heart's rhythms."

"I was lying," Fleamont agreed.

Dumbledore's eyes snapped up and focused on him. Fleamont smiled. He knows me well enough to realize that something worse is going to follow that revelation.

"But," Fleamont added, as the last notes rose and quivered and died, "you were mistaken about which part. I can indeed control someone from a distance with a Pensieve memory of their heartbeat. But close to..."

The silvery notes dissolved from his vision, and another one replaced it. The inside of Dumbledore's skull seemed to part and glow in front of him.

"I don't control their heartbeats," Fleamont said, as he swam into the middle of Dumbledore's thoughts. "I control their minds."

He felt the startled surge beneath him, the attempt to fight that he contemptuously ignored. Dumbledore might be a master of Occlumency, but the instruments of shadow stepped around all Occlumency defenses. They went into the physical brain itself, not the mindscape that trained wizards could defend.

Fleamont stepped into the middle of a blazing network of silvery trails, dodging thoughts and shifting memories. He looked around slowly, and let the sense of them filter into his mind, like learning to play a song. He wouldn't make large changes until he was secure that they wouldn't damage Dumbledore's brain. In fact, large changes might not be necessary at all. The threat could be enough.

All Fleamont wanted, really, was that Dumbledore leave him and his family in peace. If he could persuade him to do that, then his goal was accomplished.

He did, of course, tighten a few particular knots as he saw them come up. He gave Dumbledore a clear command never to harm him, Harry, or Sirius, and to cease talking about them to other people in the Wizengamot except in response to a direct question. Those responses would have to be noncommittal.

He also came across a plan to tamper with Harry's Hogwarts letter, and had to hold himself still so his lashing rage wouldn't do damage he didn't mean. But Fleamont reached out and simply obliterated that memory. Since Dumbledore tended never to tell other people about his plans, it now didn't exist except in Fleamont's own head.

He took a few other things he wanted, such as knowledge of the drill spell that had allowed Dumbledore to rise up under the Potter Place wards, and then stepped back. The silvery vision in front of him closed. Fleamont cocked his head. He hadn't known how this would feel, since he had never used the lute or the harp before, but he could sense a definite tug on his awareness, like a string that led towards a leashed pet.

Which Dumbledore now was.

Fleamont closed his eyes and opened them, and smiled a little at he saw the corresponding rage in Dumbledore's eyes. It was less than what Fleamont felt, which was why he should never have tangled with a Potter.

Fleamont didn't actually need to say anything. He let his own emotions show, and Dumbledore's gaze wavered and fell.

"You intended to kidnap a little boy," Fleamont said softly. "You set that same little boy up to be abused. You were so afraid for what might happen to the future of the world that you broke into that little boy's home to take him away from the only true parent he's ever known because you thought you knew better. You earned your fate, Albus. Deal with it."

"If anyone ever finds out about what happened..." Dumbledore paused. "You didn't prevent me from speaking of it."

"I wondered when you would notice that." Fleamont smiled and put the lute aside. "There are reasons that there aren't a lot of stories floating around out there about the Potter defenses—which, incidentally, is also why I was able to lie to the Wizengamot about them. But do go ahead and picture someone in your mind and then imagine speaking to them about this, Albus. Try."

Dumbledore, his brow furrowed, opened his mouth. The next second, he gasped and grabbed his forearm with a noise that was little short of a scream.

"I was fading," he whispered.

Fleamont nodded and stood up, reaching for the lute to bring with him. "The true story of Herodotus the Golden is that he did slaughter the Potter family, and the daughter I mentioned did run for the instruments. But she didn't make the invaders dance to their deaths. She bound them, and then she made them fade. They're still bound here as ghosts, Albus. Or not ghosts. They are neither dead nor alive. There is no end to their torment that could be solved with passing on peacefully, as ghosts would. Not without a Potter's permission."

Dumbledore was staring at him with wide, glazed eyes that held, at last, the fear Fleamont had sought to impart. "You are insane," he whispered.

"No," Fleamont said. "Merely vengeful when someone attacks my family." He smiled. "Honestly, Albus, I gave you enough information to tell you the defenses were deadly—even if it was in a different way than I claimed. But you persisted. You are reaping the rewards now." He leaned forwards. "Let me tell you the way this is going to go."

"So there won't be a need for the documents you had me prepare after all?"

Lucius sounded distinctly disappointed, which amused Fleamont after all the whining he'd done over the past few days. But he only shrugged at Lucius's head hovering in the fireplace. "Not right now. Keep them. The world may need to know the true history of the Dumbledore family someday."

Lucius nodded, and the fire flickered out. Fleamont turned and found Sirius standing behind him, staring at him. "We don't need to expose Dumbledore?"

"No. He broke in last night, and we came to a mutual understanding."

"How—" And then Sirius abruptly cut himself off, and took a long breath. "I don't think I want to know."

"Really?" Fleamont considered Sirius. One of the things he would have said was a core part of his personality was how curious he was.

"Yeah. I insisted on being present when you fed Peter to that thing that ate his soul, and I still have nightmares about it." Sirius shook his head. "I trust you. You wouldn't have let Dumbledore live if you didn't have absolute assurance that Harry was safe."

Fleamont nodded. "Good. The plan I had Lucius working on will stay as backup insurance. I didn't know at first if I would be able to lure Dumbledore close enough for my primary plan to take effect, but when he took the bait yesterday, I was fairly sure."

Sirius let out a long, long sigh. "Good. I'm glad Harry is safe. If you don't mind, I'm going to spend today following up on another rumor about Moony." He turned to leave.

"Wait, Sirius, I did find the answer to that one," Fleamont said. He'd had another look into Dumbledore's brain this morning, from a distance, which had been amusing for him and excessively uncomfortable for Dumbledore. "You were right that he spoke to Remus and embittered him, as well as making him think he was unfit to take care of Harry. But Remus is in Britain."

Sirius stared at him. "Where? What? Why wouldn't he have come back to us?"

"He's in Knockturn Alley. I thought Albus seemed strangely uncomfortable when we got close to it. He must have thought I had some hint and was on the verge of going there." Fleamont gave Sirius a sad smile. "And from what I saw of Albus's memories, he did such a good job with his 'persuasion' that Remus has essentially withdrawn from all contact with humans."

Sirius's eyes burned again, like a wolf's this time. "Then I'm going to find him and bring him home. And whatever you did to Albus was worth it."

Fleamont nodded as he watched Sirius sprint from the room. He agreed, though not exactly for the same reasons.

It was simply that no one should ever cross a Potter and expect to get away with it.

"Grand?"

Fleamont looked up with a smile. Harry was waiting with one of his history books and a frown on his face. "I don't understand this one."

"Then I'll help explain it to you," Fleamont said, and ruffled Harry's hair as he went over to sit with him and pick up the book.

For Harry, there were no laws he would not break. There were no lines he would not cross.

He was a Potter, and this was his family.

The End.