Harry Potter: A Tale of Revenge

Hermione fidgeted and surveyed the Hogwarts grounds from behind a tall glass window in the entrance hall.

"You ready-"

She yelped.

"-Hermione?"

She spun around to see the tall, masked figure of Lord Slytherin. She crashed into him and hugged him as best as she could, given their current height difference.

Harry returned the hug.

"Are we alone?" she whispered.

Harry whispered back. "You know how to test for that."

She nodded and spoke in a loud and clear voice, "Lord Slytherin's secret place is located on Berneray Island in the Outer Hebrides."

Harry gave her a thumbs up.

"Harry!" she hissed, hugging him harder. "I miss you so much. And there's so much I want to talk to you about and so much to tell you. When are we going to meet up properly? There wasn't time for anything the other night."

Harry glanced around again. "Hopefully, soon. I'm hoping this meeting will help us get some idea of how closely Dumbledore is paying attention to things."

She nodded.

"How's the snake in your pocket doing?"

She patted said pocket. "No problems. It seems to really like beef."

Harry nodded.

She stepped back and looked him up and down. She couldn't deny that older Harry cut a dashing figure. "And you're… you're okay with, all this?"

Harry sighed. "Not really, but we're doing it anyway. The opportunity is too good to miss."

"Thank you."

Harry's voice picked up a cheerful beat. "No worries. This is all part of the game.

She nodded.

"Shall we?" He motioned down the corridor.

She turned to Harry's side and slid on her Slytherin mask. "Lead on, my lord."

...

Albus Dumbledore signed off on another piece of parchment and added it to his out tray. The clock ticked. The many devices around him whirred, clicked, bobbed, and sploshed.

"Ahem, Headmaster."

He looked up. He was being addressed by one of his paintings.

"Yes?"

"It would appear that Miss Granger is being led towards your office by the masked wizard known as Lord Slytherin."

His eyes widened. So soon? He hadn't expected that . "That is most interesting. Thank you."

The painting nodded and went to sleep.

At last.

He swept aside the mass of parchmentwork on his desk with a wave of his wand and conjured two comfortable armchairs in front of him.

After three whole years of back and forth, or rather, after three whole years of only forth and a complete absence of back.

He picked up Miss Granger's parchments and regarded them for a moment.

He'd been right.

He put the parchments in front of him and glanced at the door to his office.

The minutes ticked by. He frowned, suddenly feeling very silly, sitting behind his desk, twiddling his thumbs, like a fresh employee waiting for his new boss to drop by. Slytherin wasn't even supposed to be out of his twenties yet. He slowly shook his aged head. If Slytherin really was a Dark Lord in the making, there would be tells. Obvious tells, like in Riddle, and he'd spot them.

The minutes continued to tick by.

Surely the man should have been here by now.

Another minute went by.

Okay, now he was sure Slytherin was doing it on purpose.

*Knock* *Knock*

He started. Oh, but of course the wards wouldn't alert him . How foolish for him to assume so. He let out a deep breath. "Come in."

The door opened.

"Ah, Lord Slytherin." He beamed towards the heavily dressed man while a million alarm bells rang in his head. "And Miss Granger. Come in. Please. Sit."

The masked man and girl sat down in the chairs in front of him. The girl wore an expression of dignified indifference. The man looked fully ready to enter armed combat against an army.

"Albus Dumbledore," the man said, in a voice as deep as the sea.

"Headmaster." Miss Granger bobbed her head.

"Well." He offered them sweets from a small bowl, which they both refused. "It's good to see you again, finally, after all this time."

He glanced over to Fawkes who completely ignored the visitors. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

The girl's face remained blank. Slytherin's face, was, obviously, unreadable.

"I'm quite sure we've never met, Headmaster Dumbledore," Slytherin said.

Dumbledore waved vaguely. "Of course, of course." He smiled. "So, how is England treating you?"

"About as well as she always has."

He waited for an elaboration.

It didn't come.

He shifted in his seat, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Lord Slytherin, may I speak freely?"

"Yes."

"I sense a great deal of mistrust from you towards my person. I don't know why. Maybe I did something to you, accidentally or on purpose, I don't know. Maybe you disapprove of my polices or methods or laws that I've helped passed or stopped from passing. I don't know. What I do know is I'd like us to be able to work together. There are many issues that I know we see eye to eye on."

The mask of Lord Slytherin stared at him. "Issues such as?"

He glanced towards the girl by Lord Slytherin's side. "Your actions and behaviour suggest you are in favour of muggleborns in our world."

The mask tilted slightly. "… I prefer to think I am in favour of brilliant and talented witches and wizards who strive to better themselves."

For a brief moment, a corner of the girl's lips curled upwards before slipping back into her un-childlike blank facade, common among pureblood children, but always disturbing to see.

Dumbledore stroked his beard. "As the headmaster of a school, this is a sentiment I can fully endorse."

Slytherin nodded, once.

"I wonder if you might be interested in seeing this." Dumbledore reached to his side and placed a document he'd recently received in front of Lord Slytherin. It was an advanced copy from Arthur of his proposal for a muggle protection act.

Slytherin picked it up and glanced through the pages. "I've already seen this." He put the parchments back down again.

Dumbledore chuckled. "And?"

"I think it's self serving and short sighted."

He raised an eyebrow. Slytherin certainly didn't mince his words once you got him going did he? "Would you care to elaborate?"

"The vast majority of the proposal deals with increasing the powers of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, either directly, by allowing them to call auror raids on suspected individuals, or indirectly, by massively increasing the number of items that are classified as muggle in origin, thus necessitating a larger staff and bigger budget. That's understandable, considering the author of the bill is the head of the department."

....

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