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If I were to close my eyes and wish I had rights to Harry Potter, it still wouldn't be true.
One of Harry's lines is the last spoken line in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. See if you can spot it.
The Christmas Holidays began wet and dreary, but snowless, two days later. Instead of spending Christmas at the Burrow like last year, this year Harry would be staying at the castle with all the Weasleys and Hermione.
As the hols progressed, it got colder, until finally it snowed on Christmas Morning. Harry woke up, as usual, to find Ron already tearing open his presents.
The more things change, thought Harry, the more they stay the same. He grinned at his won nostalgia and dug into his presents.
After a wonderful day, including snowball fights, wizard crackers, and Christmas carols, they returned to the dormitories and went to bed happy.
The next day, he learned that Voldemort had celebrated too. He had killed hundreds of Muggles in an “earthquake” that collapsed a church. And so Harry made a point of spending the rest of the holidays making more of an effort to be ready for the battle.
The last time he had faced Voldemort, Voldemort had tortured him, read his mind, and possessed him. He couldn't do much about the torture, but the mind reading and the possession were certainly fixable. All he had to do was learn to shield his mind from outsiders.
“Concentrate!” Professor Sinistra told him, “and..now!”
Harry braced himself as a barrage of images pounded on his mind. But although he could see the images, he refused to allow them into his head.
“Excellent!” cried the Professor. “Much better!”
Of all his teachers, Professor Sinistra remained the most enigmatic. She was a middle-aged witch, wearing a lot of black, and she never talked about herself. She attacked his mental shields with images from the minds of those around her that she had picked up, and although he could penetrate her mental walls, there was nothing inside that he had seen that was of a very personal nature.
“I think you may be ready,” she told him.
“Ready?” asked Harry.
“For Snape.”
Harry did not feel ready.
“At the very least,” she continued, “there is nothing more I can teach you.”
“But...” began Harry.
“Mr. Potter, although I have a great sympathy for what you will be facing, I really cannot help any more than I already have. You are as ready as I can get you, and I am as qualified as anyone you will find at the school at this time. Simply speaking, this will have to do.”
That was it. The lesson was over. There was a note of finality in her voice that Harry knew meant he would never have to deal with this again.
“Thank you,” he told her, and he left her office for the last time.
Harry did not feel the least bit ready. He walked back to the Common Room, frowning.
Interrogate Snape, he thought. Go to Snape, read his mind, and come up with answers.
It sounded simple enough.
Did Snape kill Dumbledore for Voldemort, or did he do it for Dumbledore?
Harry didn't know that he wanted to know the answer.
What if Dumbledore left a message? With Snape?
Of course he hadn't. If he had, Snape would have shouted it to him as Harry chased him from the grounds.
What if he told Snape something about the Horcruxes. Like why Voldemort would allow one to get killed.
It was a strange problem. Nagini should never have been in that battle. As a strategy, it made no sense.
And yet.
Harry was still mulling it over when he arrived back at the Common Room.
“What's up?” asked Ron from his seat by the fire.
“Just wondering,” replied Harry. “What's that?” he asked, pointing to the letter in Ron's hand.
“It's just a brochure. McGonagall gave it to me. It's about coaching Quidditch.”
“That would be perfect for you after graduation. You should go for it, mate.”
Ron looked doubtful. “What about being Aurors?”
Harry shrugged. “You should do what you want, Ron. This war won't go on forever, and then...won't you want out of it?”
“How can I get out of it? It always finds us.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Still, if it stopped finding us...what would you want?”
“I suppose,” said Ron slowly, “That I'd want to play Quidditch.”
“Then you should,” said Harry.
“What about you?” asked Ron. “Have you had a meeting with McGonagall about this yet?”
Harry shook his head. “It's scheduled for next week.” He felt the need to change the subject. “Ron, I've been thinking about Nagini.”
“What about her?”
“Does it seem odd to you? That she was there?”
Ron frowned. “I suppose. It's a bit like sending your king into the middle of the board, you know? A snake can't defend itself. It can't do much of anything. So, if it's crucial to you, why send it into battle? But, Harry, Voldemort's a nutter. We can't expect him to act logically.”
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