Harry potter The Boy Who Remembers

And so, Harry projected his pain for that fraction of a second when the curse hit him, and only modified the colour of the spell. Dumbledore had flinched imperceptibly, meaning that he had used his Legilimency to try to get more information about the encounter. Harry could sense his probe slightly, and so arranged for him to get what he wanted.

There was a reason why Legilimency wasn't really admissible in magical court. It was nothing against the field, but the more skilled a user is in the mind arts, the more they can alter the projected memories. Changing the colour of a spell is easy, far easier than faking an entire conversation for that matter, but it could deeply affect a trial if it was taken into account. Simply changing the spell to the familiar sickly green of the killing curse would have anyone sent to Azkaban for life, and that wasn't feasible in any administration.

The headmaster seemed to buy it though since he nodded. The pain couldn't be fake, and he knew it. Faking something like this couldn't be done if it wasn't experienced in the first place. So, unless Harry kept getting his magic sucked dry by other artefacts, it was very likely that the man would take his words at face value. Really, learning Occlumency was one of his greater ideas, even if was barely a beginner. He knew how to shield his thoughts from preliminary Legilimency scans and project a few memories – with a few alterations of course. He would have been truly fucked if it wasn't for it, to be honest.

The headmaster spoke up, "Lord Voldemort had sunk to depths that I will admit to not even have known that they existed, to gain power. I do not know the spell you're describing, but I am not a master of the Dark Arts like him. However, the effects of the spell seemed to be temporary, putting you in a magical deprivation coma until you recover. But I will admit that I don't know how you knew to send me that letter."

Harry sheepishly looked down, "Well, I knew that Quirrell was the one who killed the unicorns. I recognized the wand, you see. So, every single time I met him, I told Hedwig to come see me if I don't return. The letter I gave you was written months ago. It had nothing to do with Longbottom, really. I didn't even know that he would try to retrieve the stone that day."

At Longbottom's attempted rebuttal, he continued, "Come on, you have hardly been subtle. Hermione point blank asked me in potions class who was Nicholas Flamel. It didn't take long for me to realize what was hidden in the corridor. And that Quirrell was looking for him."

"And why would you not have come to me sooner?" Dumbledore asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Someone who would be willing to slaughter a unicorn and drink its blood is without a doubt desperate. I trusted your defences on the stone and chose not to bring attention to myself, and risk dying. Not that it worked for that matter."

"I can see why the hat put you in Slytherin, then, Mr Potter," the headmaster retorted, "well, with that out of the way…"

Harry interrupted the headmaster, "Sir, I had a question."

The man motioned him to go on, "I have found that asking questions to be a worthwhile pursuit. What troubles you, young Potter?"

"Can you tell me about the fire of Godric's Hollow? It's just there was nothing I could find in the library. The newspapers just say that it was some kind of cursed fire."

The man's jovial disappeared immediately, "That's understandable. The fire of Godric's Hollow is one of the biggest tragedies in magical Britain during the last few decades, and it had very few witnesses. Even though I am not certain as to what happened, I have theories, all of which are very disturbing. But I will not reveal them. Pure truth is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution. You are too young to be burdened with this knowledge."

Harry motioned to protest but was silenced when the man raised his hand, "What I can tell you, for that matter, is that this fire was unlike anything I have ever seen, it was probably unlike anything the world has ever seen. It consumed everything, literally. It wasn't even hot. Simply everything it touched turned to dust. It certainly wasn't natural. There's a reason there aren't any ruins in Godric's Hollow. It's because they don't exist. I can also tell you that the flames were tinged with your mother's magical signature."

The man slowly turned and left the infirmary, leaving two silent boys. Longbottom seemed like he wanted to speak up, but Harry was too tired to deal with his prattling. He simply closed off the curtain. He needed to think.

It didn't take long for him to conclude that the whole encounter with Longbottom was staged. There were too many coincidences, and the ending was too close to the one from the stories for it not to be one. The man must have known that Quirrell was after the stone, or that he was the one killing the unicorn, at least. And yet he did nothing.

You could say what you wanted about the man. He was obviously manipulative, he had too much political power for a man who like to say he was uninterested in politics, he was slowly changing the magical world to his image with his control over Hogwarts and his changes to the curriculum, but he wasn't the senile old man he pretended to be. His mind was sharp, and it showed.

He used the Philosopher's Stone as a lure, that's for sure. He didn't know if the stone was real or not, but the Flamels would not have parted with it willingly. There was no reason to have the stone in a school for protection. For all its wards, Hogwarts was a public place, with many possible intruders. It simply wasn't safe. And if Longbottom was able to get past his challenges, they definitely weren't defined with a Dark Lord in mind. Dumbledore wanted Longbottom to go after the stone and make it only challenging enough for the boy to succeed after some effort. He designed the entire thing to have an encounter between him and Voldemort, but why?

Was he hoping to trap the wraith or something? Harry didn't know much about souls, but even if that was possible, it would be a temporary solution at best. Dumbledore wouldn't settle for something like this.

Was he hoping to confirm that Voldemort was still alive? No, it was too risky, he could have gone to Albania years before and tracked him down somehow. He definitely wasn't hoping that Longbottom would somehow finish him off. It was too farfetched for that to happen. Did he simply want to study the boy's protection by having it interact with Voldemort?

And most of all, could Harry even believe a word he said about the fire that killed his parents and razed an entire village off the face of the Earth?

Harry was consumed with these thoughts as he fell into the realm of Morpheus, still feeling tired from his encounter with Quirrell.

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