You're Not a Horse, Harry!

Number 37

Harry was very surprised, and a bit worried, when he received a summons to go see Headmistress McGonagall in her office two weeks after Dumbledore's funeral.

"Mr Potter," McGonagall said as she stood behind the large desk in the circular office. She looked more than a bit harried, as she had done ever since Dumbledore's unexpected demise. "Thank you for coming."

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked, taking a few hesitant steps further into the office.

"Not at all," McGonagall said quickly. She waved Harry a bit closer still and then held out a small bundle wrapped in brown paper. "Headmaster Dumbledore left these for you. I've been able to keep them out of the Ministry's hands. I suggest you make a similar effort, to ensure as few people as possible know you have this."

Feeling more than a bit apprehensive, Harry accepted the package with a small nod of understanding. Harry wanted nothing further to do with Dumbledore, if he was being honest, especially now that he'd made the decision to leave Hogwarts for good at the end of the schoolyear. But Harry was a curious fellow, and he couldn't help but be intrigued about what the old headmaster might have left him.

After a quick goodbye, Harry hurried out of the office. He slipped behind a tapestry a little further up the corridor, that concealed a hidden passageway that led to the ground floor. Inside the dark passageway, Harry lit his wand and sat down on the dusty floor. He ripped the paper away to reveal a book, an envelope and a wand.

Dumbledore's wand. Harry recognized it at once.

The book was titled The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which Harry had never heard of, but which seemed to be full of children's stories.

And the envelope held a letter written in Dumbledore's loopy handwriting. Harry read it with a frown while he bit his bottom lip. The letter was full of Dumbledore's subtle and not so subtle manipulations to make sure Harry would drop everything and spent his every waking hour hunting Voldemort down.

It even spoke of a prophecy that had been uttered by Trelawney of all people, that predicted that Harry would be the one to vanquish Voldemort once and for all. The wording of the actual prophecy, which Dumbledore had written down, was incredibly wishy washy.

It also spoke of horcruxes, which were soul containers to give a person the illusion of an immortal life. Dumbledore suggested Harry get in touch with a man named Horace Slughorn to find out how many horcruxes Voldemort had made, and thus how many needed to be destroyed. Apparently the diary Harry had destroyed in his second life had indeed been a horcrux, as he'd already suspected.

So that was Dumbledore's grand plan. Give a fifteen-year-old a posthumous letter with unclear and insufficient instructions and hope for the best. Yeah, Harry had no intention of doing anything Dumbledore suggested he'd do. He was just a teenager, for fuck's sake. Not to mention that the whole thing was a moot point anyway, because Voldemort was already dead and gone. For good, because Loki wouldn't settle for anything less than that.

Harry folded the letter back up with a sigh. He understood why Dumbledore had left him this letter, obviously written to be given to him in case Dumbledore died suddenly without having been able to instruct Harry on how to vanquish Voldemort, as though that was his job in the first place. But Harry couldn't for the life of him understand why Dumbledore would leave Harry his wand and a book of children's stories.

For a moment, Harry was tempted to show the items to Ron and Hermione, but after some consideration, he decided not to. Ron and Hermione were just a bunch of teenagers as well, who deserved to lead their own lives from now on without getting caught up in another one of Dumbledore's manipulative schemes.