Holly Potter: The Bookish, Burgling, Badass (Hp x Mcu) by Personfour

Chapter 27: Year Five (II)

The point was, if Sirius thought his family would approve of Holly's method's then he'd disprove; and if he disproved then he was liable to reflexively push her away.

So no, Holly wouldn't ever be telling Sirius about attacking Adult Tom's mind, not even once it was over.)

With that they thanked Sirius and left him to recover from his injuries in peace.

Once they were back in the Room, Holly turned to Hermione.  "So it's pretty obvious Adult Tom was after the prophecy Snape told him about since he only knew part of it.  But here's what I don't get: if the prophecy directly specified a 'him' as his prophesied downfall, how did it lead to him trying to kill me?"

"Didn't you steal his memory of trying to kill you?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah but memories are complicated," Holly answered, flopping down onto a suddenly-there couch.  "They aren't linear or neatly arranged.  Every memory is connected to countless others; you never get the complete picture from a single memory.  I stole the memory of him trying to kill me, not him thinking about his exact reasoning leading up to that moment."

"Plus, I didn't exactly know what I was looking for.  I just wanted memories that'd be debilitating to lose but wouldn't make him more unpredictable."

"I guess that makes sense."  Hermione said, before looking at her sharply.  "Do you think Dumbledore would tell you the rest of the prophecy?"

That... was a good question.

Dumbledore liked to keep vital intelligence to himself, even when it risked everything.  Maybe especially when it risked everything.  To her knowledge he never told any Order members Adult Tom's real name or anything about the horcruxes. 

He knew Voldemort was attacking her mind too.  Knew that anything she knew was at risk.  Sure, she'd been able to keep him out so far, but she couldn't manage that forever.

On the other hand, he knew she was upset with him for keeping his suspicions she was a horcrux secret.  If he wanted to improve their relationship, to try and gain some degree of control over her actions, he would tell her everything he knows.

Holly knew she misunderstood people, even when she cared to pay attention to them.  They just didn't make sense to her most of the time.

Dumbledore, however, she understood. 

He was a chessmaster through and through.  While his intentions were mostly benevolent, he was ruthlessly practical enough to use young and dumb fresh school graduates like her parents as his fighters.  He, and the Order at large, fought to maintain the status quo. 

He probably didn't like pureblood supremacy and its implicit classism but believed it was simply a part of their society's culture and let it be.  That he was a hypocrite seemed to escape him: he covered up the rich pureblood Marauders' crimes during the Werewolf incident, ignoring that the impoverished halfblood Snape nearly got killed.

Although... that could be because he'd already been planning to invite them into Order.

But that wasn't considering how he made sure that Tom Riddle and several other muggleborns had to go back to London during the London Blitz.  Because apparently he didn't care if those other muggleborns were collateral damage if he managed to get Tom Riddle killed, it was the greater good something like that.