The Half-Blood Princess

Secrets and Lies

Harley heard via owl about how the poisoned mead meant for Dumbledore (poisoned by Draco; she had sold the brown widow spider venom to Amycus Carrow before Christmas) had nearly killed Ron. Harry wrote that it was the Prince's textbook note of shoving a bezoar down a poisoned person's throat that saved Ron.

One afternoon, she received a very unlikely caller at The Potion Master: Albus Dumbledore. Straightening up, she greeted him, noticing how strained he appeared. The curse was progressing quickly.

"What can I do for you, Professor?"

"I needed to speak with you about your role after what will happen to me. Severus is the only person I trust to do what is needed for me, and for Hogwarts. I have everything planned fairly well, I should like to think, and your role will be to monitor Hogwarts once Severus is made headmaster after I am gone."

Harley spluttered, "Headmaster? How--"

"Once I am gone, I can safely assume the Death Eaters will feel safer about infiltrating not just the Ministry, but the school as well. With Severus and you there, you can keep the students from being injured or tormented too much." The old man sighed, examining his blackened hand. "It is not how I wanted things to turn out but it is for the best."

He went on to explain to her about the horcruxes, and a little more. Not as much as he told Severus, she would one day find out, but much more than he was ever going to tell Harry.

Harley knew what it was she was needed to do, but there was also something that needed to be said, and she would not let him leave till she'd said it.

"I respect you as a brilliant wizard, sir, and I think you are one of the few people who understand that sometimes you have to do what is difficult, only because it is what will be better off for everyone in the end. However, I think it is rotten how you have used and are using my father and his love for my mum. My father is a kind, brilliant man, and you are making him into a common villain. It is not fair to him, and I will never forgive you for that."

"Nor should you," Dumbledore told her. "He is your father, and you love him. I can tell you that I do not like it, either."

"That is not going to mean much when you are dead and my father is shunned by the Order with no one to vouch for him but me...and I will be unable to." Harley stood up, signalling that the conversation was over. He did not take the hint.

"Harley, I should tell you the truth," Dumbledore said, heaving a sigh. "I knew about you. Your mother was in the Order, and I saw how she and James were not always getting along, or getting along too well. I admit I had no idea about the love potion until after their deaths, from Severus. If I had, I would have put a stop to it.

"I am sure you wondered how I, the greatest wizard alive, could not have been aware of who you were. I did know. I knew the moment I saw Lily pregnant with you. I wondered why she Concealed you, but it was not my place to ask. However, I did know you were not James', even before you were born, and certainly after."

Harley felt ill. "You--you knew? The whole time, after Father turned over to our side, before I had been adopted by bloody Muggles, and I spent my entire life separated from the only family I had in the world, you knew it all and let it pass? How dare you? You meddle in everyone's lives, you put my father in servitude out of his guilt over Mum, you're letting Harry be led to fucking slaughter, you let me be alone all my life! You're forcing my father to kill you, to ostracise himself from the Light. All this time I could have been with my father, my brother. Things could have been so different, and they played out this way all because of you!"

Dumbledore held his hands up in a pleading gesture. "I know you're upset, Harley--"

"Oh, no, I was upset. Right now I am so furious there are no words to describe it! It was not your place to keep me hidden from my father!"