Chapter 197: Retrospection

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27 February 1994, Hogwarts

Harry left the arena, barely suppressing his vindictiveness from showing itself. He wanted to hurt Dumbledore in a way that would actually sting him, and he had succeeded. If only he hadn't gone overboard with it.

He knew that the headmaster couldn't afford to have a third year winning the second task as well, without even showing any effort. It would have literally been proof that the entire tournament was meaningless and that it didn't test the competitors' magical skills in any meaningful way.

And Harry could have won, easily. It would have taken a bit of planning and some creative thinking, but he could have won the duelling tournament by casting a few spells. That was something that the headmaster realized, which made him sabotage Daphne's opponent and arrange for Harry to fight Daphne in the Quarterfinals.

It was a dirty trick. If Harry won with his usual method, he would be humiliating his best friend and her family in public and would look heartless. If they duel and he won, then the whole narrative that Harry wanted to convey would have been lost. If Daphne had forfeited, then it would look like Harry had heartlessly intimidated her into letting him win without a fight. The whole thing gave him no choice. He needed to forfeit without fighting. It was the best option.

Whatever Harry's decision would have been, Dumbledore would have won. His event would continue unimpeded, and Harry's duels would just be an amusing anecdote, a form of entertaining memory that people would have when they think of the tournament, but not the main event.

Harry didn't really care about winning the tournament and neither did Daphne. They had nothing pushing them to win, but neither of them wanted to risk being harassed by the public. Daphne wouldn't have even minded losing after her first couple of duels. Healing and Curse-breaking were her passion, not duelling, even if she was getting very good at it.

The young Slytherin found himself on the school grounds. He's been finding himself there very frequently, specifically whenever he had to sort through his emotions. The outside was just so calming, especially considering the chaos that often accompanied the tournament events.

He liked helping Hagrid with his charms, visiting Fluffy every couple of weeks. Hell, sometimes Hedwig would just fly to him, and he would talk to her as he took a walk. It was one of the few places where he knew peace.

Of course, all good things never lasted, since someone interrupted him while he was on a walk, "It was a stupid thing, what you did."

Harry suppressed the urge to groan when he recognized the voice, "Go away, Lupin."

"I'm not leaving without a proper conversation…"

"I thought I told you that I wanted you to stay away from me if you're not going to tell me what you're planning. If this conversation has nothing to do with it, then we have nothing to talk about."

The older boy could hear the man's inner wolf growl in frustration and stifled the urge to chuckle in amusement at the man's temper, "You're going to get yourself killed."

"It's still not your problem. Aside from your obsession with my mother, you don't really care about me, nor do I care about it."

"Of course, I care about you."

This time, Harry let out a bitter laugh, "You don't. Let's just make that clear. You might have lied to yourself to pretend like you're a good person, but you don't care about me. You want me to do something you're desperate for, something regarding my mother. My guess is that you're hoping I would replicate the ritual she did on you or might actually discover something she left behind. It doesn't really matter to me if I'm being perfectly honest. What matters is that means that you don't care about me, just about what I can do for you…"

"Fine! Believe what you want. But you're the son of one of my greatest friends, and of a woman that could save my kind. It's my duty to protect you."

"Until I do what you want, and you'll throw me away. But it's interesting that you didn't react to my theories. So, you think you're safe. You want me for something else. What could it be, I wonder? What could possibly be better than saving your kind?"

The werewolf growled in anger, "For fuck's sake Harry, stop trying to analyze everything in front of you and listen to what I have to say. You shouldn't keep pushing Dumbledore like that. People who do that tend to suffer a large amount of bad luck. He's going to push back, and you'll only notice when it will be too late, and you will have lost more than you thought you could lose…"

"I think he's more preoccupied with the boy who lived almost killing someone."

"Sure, he might be distracted right now, but that doesn't mean he'll forget. You're making too much noise for him to forget. You actually hurt Dumbledore, not once but twice. You are getting noticed, and not just by the headmaster. You could have just forfeited silently without a fight. It would have been an olive branch, a way to bury the hatchet and the animosity. It could even just have been the start of an unspoken truth between the two of you. But you just had to get the last word, didn't you? You're more like your mother than you want to admit."

Harry glared at the defence professor, "This wasn't an olive branch, it was just his backup plan in case his sabotage didn't work yesterday."

"What sabotage?"

"He summoned me to my office and sneakily cast a spell at me to make my hands twitch, which would get me to miss my first spell. I was able to recognize it and counter it in time, but it was straight-up sabotage. So far, we were playing by the rules, but he broke them."

That fact disturbed Harry far more than the action itself. It wasn't the act that Dumbledore tried to curse him, it was that he succeeded, and Harry didn't even notice it. His Arcane Hearing was always on, especially when it came to things that he considered as threats. Sure, it gave him a headache when there were too many conflicting magical properties in an area, but when it came to magical effects on his person, he was always vigilant, always ready to dispel any spell anyone cast on him. With that skill came a sense of confidence, perhaps even arrogance, that nothing would ever touch him without him noticing it.

This confidence was trampled on and torn to shreds by a single spell on Dumbledore's behalf. The illusion was broken. Someone was able to slip something by him, something that Harry just never saw coming.

And that thought just scared the crap out of him.

It was something that Lupin must have picked on as well because he smiled slightly, "I get it now. For all your justifications for your actions, the whole thing was just a reflex. You weren't angry about Dumbledore's plan, you were angry that he almost succeeded, that he did something you didn't see coming. You just lashed out, and you're trying to rationalize to me, even to yourself why you did that. And believe it or not, you did the same in your guardianship hearing. Dumbledore blindsided you with his accusations and you lashed out by getting back at him. I have to say that I'm relieved."

"Relieved?" he answered with a confused tone.

"That you're still a normal boy underneath it all. Don't get me wrong, you're a terror with a wand and you can probably outthink most politicians, but you're still a teenager who's confused about his place in the world, and who lashes out whenever he thinks he's vulnerable."

"What?" Harry replied with a raised eyebrow, "You're surprised that I'm not some kind of clone of my monstrous mother."

"Your mother wasn't monstrous Harry."

"Say that to her husband, Lupin. Oh right, she killed him."

"Let's just stop talking about Lily for a bit," Lupin replied with a sigh, "you should be more focused on Dumbledore's answer to this. He won't let this go. You called him out in front of everyone, and he already has an easy target to hurt you with."

Harry nodded, "Daphne."

"Exactly and he has a golden opportunity to do it during the semifinals. You have the weekend to prepare her against any trick she might have to face, to fight against a more powerful and more experienced opponent."

"I was already going to do that."

Lupin gave him an approving smile, "Good. One last piece of advice. You need to keep a lid on your temper. You can't just recklessly lash out every time you're surprised by something. I know first-hand just how irritating Dumbledore could be, but sometimes, you need to let things go."

"Yeah, whatever," Harry answered before returning back to the castle, the conversation heavy on his mind.

He still didn't trust Lupin, not one bit. For all the man pretended to be friendly, Harry knew that the man was just trying to buy into his good graces. When nostalgia and knowledge about his parents failed, he tried to make himself approachable, like some fake mentorship figure.

But at the end of the day, the whole conversation made him realize just how irrational his feud with Dumbledore really was. Oh, the man was a control freak who wanted to have influence everywhere and wished to turn the world into some kind of children's playground. But comparing it to how Harry handled Riddle the previous year, his approach when dealing with the headmaster was always straightforward and needlessly hostile. He didn't scheme, he didn't lay traps. He just kept responding to every single move by the old man, with one of his own.

That approach just didn't work, yet he kept doing it again and again.

Something had to change. Dumbledore had proved many times that he could hurt Harry and that he knew where to target. The older man tried to destroy Harry's future during his guardianship hearing, he inconveniently shined light onto Harry's actions, constraining how he had to act for the duration of his sham of a tournament.

Was that why Harry always acted like this when it came to Dumbledore?

He was calm when he fought Riddle. He didn't act rashly when Sirius tried to kill him during the Hogsmeade attack.

Harry needed to figure out what he wanted out of his enmity with Dumbledore. Getting the man to leave him alone was unlikely, and now he needed to decide on a plan forward.

He arrived in the common room, he was engulfed by a blonde bullet hugging him, "Where were you, Harry? I've been looking for you for almost an hour."

"I was just on a walk, Daph. I needed to clear my head."

"Finally realized how stupid you were when you did that stunt, huh?"

The last Potter sheepishly ruffled the back of his own head, "Yeah. It was a dumb idea, wasn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know. You only mocked Dumbledore's event in front of every influential person in the country," she answered with a dry tone.

"Fine, I get it. I should have just forfeited in silence."

"At least no one is going to think you're some kind of dark lord anymore. Because what kind of Dark Lord says that he won't fight because it would be too troublesome, and too much of a drag? You did technically achieve what you wanted, but Dumbledore isn't going to take this lying down."

"Don't worry about me, Daph," he comforted her, "I'll handle it. But right now, let's focus on you. Your match will be in a couple of days. Did they say who you're going to fight this time, or are they leaving it as some kind of surprise?"

"I'm fighting Clearwater."

"Huh, that's worrying. She's not one to hold back. I guess I'll have to up your training."

The blonde looked at him, confused, "My training? Weren't we going to do that anyway?"

"Well, win or lose, I want you to show the world how good you are. Your study in curses will be beneficial, but I think it's time I teach you something a bit more – how do I say this – dangerous. You proved to me that you're mature enough not to misuse this and that you would follow my advice. It will be pressing, and we'll have to work during every waking hour, but I think a couple of days would be enough to help you learn a few tricks that might really make a difference."

"And what is this mysterious tricky subject."

Harry gave her a sneaky grin, "Daphne Greengrass, how do you feel about learning Ice Magic? And I'm not talking about the spells your parents taught you. I'm talking about real elemental magic."

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AN: I know that not a lot happened in this chapter, but I just wanted to have a little insight from Harry's head about the duelling tournament before shit starts hitting the fan. As usual, please let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.