Chapter 173: Clean
24th January 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I sat quietly as I watched the students leave my last lesson for the day. It was a simple lesson, where I demonstrated how to deal with Boggarts. Of course, I didn’t actually get one and made them face their worst fears in public in front of their classmates, but this was purely a theoretical lesson, without actually learning the spell to debilitate the Boggart. I have no idea what Lupin was thinking, letting them face a Boggart like that, especially with the possibility of very deep secrets being revealed, such as a delicate home life or something similar.
Still, my third year class, that actually held Astoria Greengrass, a student that I healed a few weeks prior from her so called blood curse. The young girl, who was usually upbeat, became very subdued after that. She was probably either intimidated or instructed by her parents not to cause problems with me, something that I genuinely didn’t care about.
The young Slytherin gave me a glance before leaving the classroom in silence. Funnily enough, Harry Potter of all people was waiting for me at the end. I remembered that we did not, in fact, have a private lesson planned today, which means that this conversation should prove to be interesting at the very least.
I smile warmly at him, “Mr. Potter, I was not aware we had a meeting this evening.”
The poor boy looked awkward, “I know, Professor. There’s something I wished to speak with you about.”
I waved at him, telling him to get on with it, “I know you healed the Longbottoms, Professor.”
I shrug, “Yes, I did. I remember promising young Neville to heal his parents should he impress me academically. I also remember making this promise in your presence. My involvement with their recovery should have been obvious.”
“I wanted to know why?”
I looked at him questioningly, “Why did you heal them?”
“I healed them because I told Mr. Longbottom that I would, why wouldn’t I keep my word?”
The last Potter started to get angry at this, “Every year, my defense professor ends up trying to kill me. Every year, there’s a plot on my life. Ever since you came here, you’ve been doing something, planning something. I want to know what you’re planning, why you’re teaching me, why you healed Daphne’s sister, and which side you are on!”
I actually burst into laughter and answer adding as much sarcasm to my answer as I could, “You’re seriously trying to confront me about hidden plans where I would be secretly working for that child you call a dark lord trying to have an overly complicated plan in capturing you for some sort of weird gratification? Or do you think I’m trying to take over for him and live as the greatest dark lady that has ever existed or something?”
The boy looked surprised at this and started stammering, “I don’t….”
I interrupt him, “There’s something you need to understand, Mr. Potter, and it’s very important that you truly take it into consideration. I don’t care.”
Harry looked confused at my response, “What?”
I grin at him, “I don’t care about Riddle’s ideology, I don’t care about Dumbledore’s manipulations, I don’t care about magical Britain, in a conflict so small in the grand scheme of things, that it can’t even be called a war. I don’t care about some jumped up dark lord who would probably die of natural causes in a few years anyway, and whose whole ideology wouldn’t be able to support itself for more than a year without bankrupting his administration. After which the ICW will probably take over and reinstate an actual administration. That’s the worst that could happen. Maybe a few thousands of people would die, but in the long run, it’s barely more than a drop compared to what happens in the rest of the world.”
Harry looked outraged at this, “Then why are you training me, why are you helping me?”
I snorted, “I am training you because I’m curious to what you can achieve with the right tools helping you. I’m not a saint who will come and save the world for you. I am an academic at heart. I simply added a small variable in you, increased your competence and to see which path you would take, if you were not blindly following Dumbledore’s plan that would have probably gotten you killed.”
“What about me being your heir, and the Peverell legacy, the family magic?”
I burst into laughter, “We are both descendants of the Peverells, Harry, but that doesn’t mean much. The Peverell family magic wasn’t a bunch of spells you could learn that would solve all your problems, but it allowed a very instinctive understanding of magic, hence Tom Riddle’s prodigious magical talent, and your own improvements in magic when you actually started to make an effort. What I have been teaching you, isn’t some obscure knowledge from an ancient magical grimoire but some of my own discoveries over my years of studies, which are worth far more than some simple spells written in an old book a thousand years ago.”
“So, all this time, you’ve been lying to me, tricking me? Did any of it mean anything?”
“I haven’t deceived you, Harry. I will admit that I grew quite fond of you, but in the end, it will be unlikely that we see each other after this year is over, and while I will regret it, I have bigger responsibilities than playing teacher.”
Harry looked thunderous at this, “So, you are planning something…”
I smirk at him, “Yes, but it’s something that shouldn’t affect you in any way. What you’re dealing with, your little war, is barely more than a skirmish to me. I have fought things you could never conceive, dangers that you would never understand, dangers that would make this little conflict with Voldemort look barely more than a schoolyard fight. You have to understand how insignificant this makes your situation. I sympathize, I really do, but I have a bigger responsibility than to fix a broken society that doesn’t even want to be fixed.”
For the first time, Harry looked intrigued, “What exactly have you been fighting?”
“Trust me, kiddo, the things I’ve seen would make Voldemort look like a fluffy kitten. But that doesn’t mean that everything I do is because of my plan.”
“I don’t understand.”
I smile at him, “there’s nothing in my plan that has me having to train you, there’s nothing that has me healing the Longbottoms or healing Astoria Greengrass. I did these things because I chose to, not because of some elaborate plans. I removed Umbridge from Hogwarts because she annoyed me, not because I wanted to destabilize Fudge’s administration, although I did that because I was petty and wanted him to stop pressuring my position as a professor. I have no intentions with the Longbottoms or the Greengrasses, because I have no need for them. There’s nothing they could actually help me with. I didn’t have to train you, and even though I did it out of curiosity, I would have ended it after a month if I didn’t genuinely take a liking to you.”
Harry hopeful, “Then why don’t you just go and kill Voldemort. He’s a monster, he’s killed thousands of people, he…”
I interrupt him, “He killed your parents. That’s all there is to it, Harry. You may pretend that you’re doing it to save the world, or to protect the weak, but you’re not. You want to fight Voldemort for the simple reason that you want to avenge your parents. There’s nothing wrong with revenge, but there’s something wrong in masking your own intentions. You could get yourself and other people killed that way. The truth of the matter is that you don’t care about magical Britain either, and why should you, you’ve barely seen more than a hint of it, being locked away in Surrey or in Hogwarts all your life. You’ve barely seen what you claim to want to protect, you’ve barely spoken to the people, experienced their cultures and traditions.”
The young Gryffindor seemed like he wanted to deny my accusations, and I raise my hand to silence him, “Again, Harry, you’re not perfect. No one is perfect. You’re a child, Harry, a teenager who doesn’t even understand what he has lost and what he’s still lacking. You’ve lived your whole life in a cage. First you stayed at your aunt’s house, where you were barely allowed to do anything, then when you finally joined the magical world, you spent almost the entire time at Hogwarts. You never explored the magical world, you’re perfectly content with your little cage, because you’ve never been anywhere else. But now, you wish to push yourself, put yourself at harm, endanger your friends to protect something that you have never seen or experienced? Don’t lie to yourself. You want to kill Voldemort because he killed your parents, because you want revenge, because he has caused you to suffer for years at your relative’s hands. All of your so called heroism is just years of repressed rage coming to the surface, having given you a target, now that he’s back.”
Harry shook his head, “That’s not true. I have to fight him.”
“And why do you have to fight him? Why you, Harry Potter? Why not someone else, why not Dumbledore? Why not the Aurors, the Ministry, the ICW? Why does it have to be you?”
“BECAUSE HE DESERVES IT!!! BECAUSE I WANT TO!!”
I smirk at him; he finally said it, “There it is, there’s the bubbling rage, the angry teenager underneath all your masks, because that’s what you are, that’s what you want. You don’t care about saving a corrupt ministry, you don’t care about saving lives, you want revenge.”
Harry was breathing heavily, not believing what he just said, what he just admitted. He stayed silent for a few minutes, trying to actually process what he just said.
He looked resigned, now, “you’re right. I want to fight him because of the suffering he caused me. Even if he wasn’t hunting me down every time, I still would have wanted to kill him for killing my parents. He killed my parents, you said you knew them, you can help me fight him, you can help me kill him for what he’s done to them.”
I shrug at him, “your parents actively joined a war. They weren’t simple civilians, they joined Dumbledore’s side with the knowledge that death was an option. And yet they chose to have you, chose to risk orphaning their child. You parents' death was a tragedy, Harry, but it was also their fault.”
Harry looked angry at this, “How dare you…”
I interrupt him once more, “You’re not thinking clearly, Harry. You’re not being objective, because they’re your parents. But they signed on to be soldiers and they died a soldier’s death. You can’t say that they couldn’t have seen this happening when they joined the Order. Yes, they were young, barely out of school when they joined, but they were not idiots. They knew that death was in the cards and considered it to be a price worth paying to stop Voldemort.”
Harry’s face relaxed slightly but he was still obviously worked up, “I still don’t understand why you won’t just fight him.”
I shrug, “I could, but it’s like asking a professor to fight a school fight. If I was petty enough, like Professor Snape, for example, I could do it, but the responsible thing, is to only interfere if someone does anything drastic.”
“So, that’s it then, you’re not going to fight him.”
“You want me, to enter a fight that doesn’t concern me, because you want revenge on someone who is far more powerful than you for killing your parents in a war where they fought on the opposite side. You don’t see anything wrong with that?”
Harry looked confused and I continue, “That’s revenge, for you. Someone has an idea and to be able to realize it, he ends up hurting or killing someone else. Now, their loved ones, in their grief, anger, hate, will rise to fight against the killer and would take revenge. The killer’s family and loved ones will then swear vengeance on the other side. Vengeance, in its essence, is the product of that hate and so death follows. But in death there is only more death. This will give rise to more pains. This is a cycle of hatred that will not cease unless someone decides that revenge is not the answer, that this needs to stop. If revenge is the only reason you fight, then you’re doomed to fail, Harry Potter, because in the end, you’ll find that you led a meaningless life and did nothing but spread pain and death. Now, Mr. Potter, I want you to think very clearly about what I just said and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in the future.”
Harry’s face looked pale before turning around and slowly leaving the classroom.
I sigh in exasperation, stupid altruistic teenagers with delusions of grandeur.
Suddenly a phoenix Patronus flew in and spoke in Dumbledore’s voice, “Professor Sayre, could you please come to my office. I believe there are things we must discuss.”
I sigh again. Does he really want to do this now? At least, things were going according to plan. If things continue the way I want them to, I should have a way home soon.
Chapter 173: Clean
24th January 1995, Hogwarts Earth 2
(Jasmine Sayre POV)
I sat quietly as I watched the students leave my last lesson for the day. It was a simple lesson, where I demonstrated how to deal with Boggarts. Of course, I didn’t actually get one and made them face their worst fears in public in front of their classmates, but this was purely a theoretical lesson, without actually learning the spell to debilitate the Boggart. I have no idea what Lupin was thinking, letting them face a Boggart like that, especially with the possibility of very deep secrets being revealed, such as a delicate home life or something similar.
Still, my third year class, that actually held Astoria Greengrass, a student that I healed a few weeks prior from her so called blood curse. The young girl, who was usually upbeat, became very subdued after that. She was probably either intimidated or instructed by her parents not to cause problems with me, something that I genuinely didn’t care about.
The young Slytherin gave me a glance before leaving the classroom in silence. Funnily enough, Harry Potter of all people was waiting for me at the end. I remembered that we did not, in fact, have a private lesson planned today, which means that this conversation should prove to be interesting at the very least.
I smile warmly at him, “Mr. Potter, I was not aware we had a meeting this evening.”
The poor boy looked awkward, “I know, Professor. There’s something I wished to speak with you about.”
I waved at him, telling him to get on with it, “I know you healed the Longbottoms, Professor.”
I shrug, “Yes, I did. I remember promising young Neville to heal his parents should he impress me academically. I also remember making this promise in your presence. My involvement with their recovery should have been obvious.”
“I wanted to know why?”
I looked at him questioningly, “Why did you heal them?”
“I healed them because I told Mr. Longbottom that I would, why wouldn’t I keep my word?”
The last Potter started to get angry at this, “Every year, my defense professor ends up trying to kill me. Every year, there’s a plot on my life. Ever since you came here, you’ve been doing something, planning something. I want to know what you’re planning, why you’re teaching me, why you healed Daphne’s sister, and which side you are on!”
I actually burst into laughter and answer adding as much sarcasm to my answer as I could, “You’re seriously trying to confront me about hidden plans where I would be secretly working for that child you call a dark lord trying to have an overly complicated plan in capturing you for some sort of weird gratification? Or do you think I’m trying to take over for him and live as the greatest dark lady that has ever existed or something?”
The boy looked surprised at this and started stammering, “I don’t….”
I interrupt him, “There’s something you need to understand, Mr. Potter, and it’s very important that you truly take it into consideration. I don’t care.”
Harry looked confused at my response, “What?”
I grin at him, “I don’t care about Riddle’s ideology, I don’t care about Dumbledore’s manipulations, I don’t care about magical Britain, in a conflict so small in the grand scheme of things, that it can’t even be called a war. I don’t care about some jumped up dark lord who would probably die of natural causes in a few years anyway, and whose whole ideology wouldn’t be able to support itself for more than a year without bankrupting his administration. After which the ICW will probably take over and reinstate an actual administration. That’s the worst that could happen. Maybe a few thousands of people would die, but in the long run, it’s barely more than a drop compared to what happens in the rest of the world.”
Harry looked outraged at this, “Then why are you training me, why are you helping me?”
I snorted, “I am training you because I’m curious to what you can achieve with the right tools helping you. I’m not a saint who will come and save the world for you. I am an academic at heart. I simply added a small variable in you, increased your competence and to see which path you would take, if you were not blindly following Dumbledore’s plan that would have probably gotten you killed.”
“What about me being your heir, and the Peverell legacy, the family magic?”
I burst into laughter, “We are both descendants of the Peverells, Harry, but that doesn’t mean much. The Peverell family magic wasn’t a bunch of spells you could learn that would solve all your problems, but it allowed a very instinctive understanding of magic, hence Tom Riddle’s prodigious magical talent, and your own improvements in magic when you actually started to make an effort. What I have been teaching you, isn’t some obscure knowledge from an ancient magical grimoire but some of my own discoveries over my years of studies, which are worth far more than some simple spells written in an old book a thousand years ago.”
“So, all this time, you’ve been lying to me, tricking me? Did any of it mean anything?”
“I haven’t deceived you, Harry. I will admit that I grew quite fond of you, but in the end, it will be unlikely that we see each other after this year is over, and while I will regret it, I have bigger responsibilities than playing teacher.”
Harry looked thunderous at this, “So, you are planning something…”
I smirk at him, “Yes, but it’s something that shouldn’t affect you in any way. What you’re dealing with, your little war, is barely more than a skirmish to me. I have fought things you could never conceive, dangers that you would never understand, dangers that would make this little conflict with Voldemort look barely more than a schoolyard fight. You have to understand how insignificant this makes your situation. I sympathize, I really do, but I have a bigger responsibility than to fix a broken society that doesn’t even want to be fixed.”
For the first time, Harry looked intrigued, “What exactly have you been fighting?”
“Trust me, kiddo, the things I’ve seen would make Voldemort look like a fluffy kitten. But that doesn’t mean that everything I do is because of my plan.”
“I don’t understand.”
I smile at him, “there’s nothing in my plan that has me having to train you, there’s nothing that has me healing the Longbottoms or healing Astoria Greengrass. I did these things because I chose to, not because of some elaborate plans. I removed Umbridge from Hogwarts because she annoyed me, not because I wanted to destabilize Fudge’s administration, although I did that because I was petty and wanted him to stop pressuring my position as a professor. I have no intentions with the Longbottoms or the Greengrasses, because I have no need for them. There’s nothing they could actually help me with. I didn’t have to train you, and even though I did it out of curiosity, I would have ended it after a month if I didn’t genuinely take a liking to you.”
Harry hopeful, “Then why don’t you just go and kill Voldemort. He’s a monster, he’s killed thousands of people, he…”
I interrupt him, “He killed your parents. That’s all there is to it, Harry. You may pretend that you’re doing it to save the world, or to protect the weak, but you’re not. You want to fight Voldemort for the simple reason that you want to avenge your parents. There’s nothing wrong with revenge, but there’s something wrong in masking your own intentions. You could get yourself and other people killed that way. The truth of the matter is that you don’t care about magical Britain either, and why should you, you’ve barely seen more than a hint of it, being locked away in Surrey or in Hogwarts all your life. You’ve barely seen what you claim to want to protect, you’ve barely spoken to the people, experienced their cultures and traditions.”
The young Gryffindor seemed like he wanted to deny my accusations, and I raise my hand to silence him, “Again, Harry, you’re not perfect. No one is perfect. You’re a child, Harry, a teenager who doesn’t even understand what he has lost and what he’s still lacking. You’ve lived your whole life in a cage. First you stayed at your aunt’s house, where you were barely allowed to do anything, then when you finally joined the magical world, you spent almost the entire time at Hogwarts. You never explored the magical world, you’re perfectly content with your little cage, because you’ve never been anywhere else. But now, you wish to push yourself, put yourself at harm, endanger your friends to protect something that you have never seen or experienced? Don’t lie to yourself. You want to kill Voldemort because he killed your parents, because you want revenge, because he has caused you to suffer for years at your relative’s hands. All of your so called heroism is just years of repressed rage coming to the surface, having given you a target, now that he’s back.”
Harry shook his head, “That’s not true. I have to fight him.”
“And why do you have to fight him? Why you, Harry Potter? Why not someone else, why not Dumbledore? Why not the Aurors, the Ministry, the ICW? Why does it have to be you?”
“BECAUSE HE DESERVES IT!!! BECAUSE I WANT TO!!”
I smirk at him; he finally said it, “There it is, there’s the bubbling rage, the angry teenager underneath all your masks, because that’s what you are, that’s what you want. You don’t care about saving a corrupt ministry, you don’t care about saving lives, you want revenge.”
Harry was breathing heavily, not believing what he just said, what he just admitted. He stayed silent for a few minutes, trying to actually process what he just said.
He looked resigned, now, “you’re right. I want to fight him because of the suffering he caused me. Even if he wasn’t hunting me down every time, I still would have wanted to kill him for killing my parents. He killed my parents, you said you knew them, you can help me fight him, you can help me kill him for what he’s done to them.”
I shrug at him, “your parents actively joined a war. They weren’t simple civilians, they joined Dumbledore’s side with the knowledge that death was an option. And yet they chose to have you, chose to risk orphaning their child. You parents' death was a tragedy, Harry, but it was also their fault.”
Harry looked angry at this, “How dare you…”
I interrupt him once more, “You’re not thinking clearly, Harry. You’re not being objective, because they’re your parents. But they signed on to be soldiers and they died a soldier’s death. You can’t say that they couldn’t have seen this happening when they joined the Order. Yes, they were young, barely out of school when they joined, but they were not idiots. They knew that death was in the cards and considered it to be a price worth paying to stop Voldemort.”
Harry’s face relaxed slightly but he was still obviously worked up, “I still don’t understand why you won’t just fight him.”
I shrug, “I could, but it’s like asking a professor to fight a school fight. If I was petty enough, like Professor Snape, for example, I could do it, but the responsible thing, is to only interfere if someone does anything drastic.”
“So, that’s it then, you’re not going to fight him.”
“You want me, to enter a fight that doesn’t concern me, because you want revenge on someone who is far more powerful than you for killing your parents in a war where they fought on the opposite side. You don’t see anything wrong with that?”
Harry looked confused and I continue, “That’s revenge, for you. Someone has an idea and to be able to realize it, he ends up hurting or killing someone else. Now, their loved ones, in their grief, anger, hate, will rise to fight against the killer and would take revenge. The killer’s family and loved ones will then swear vengeance on the other side. Vengeance, in its essence, is the product of that hate and so death follows. But in death there is only more death. This will give rise to more pains. This is a cycle of hatred that will not cease unless someone decides that revenge is not the answer, that this needs to stop. If revenge is the only reason you fight, then you’re doomed to fail, Harry Potter, because in the end, you’ll find that you led a meaningless life and did nothing but spread pain and death. Now, Mr. Potter, I want you to think very clearly about what I just said and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve in the future.”
Harry’s face looked pale before turning around and slowly leaving the classroom.
I sigh in exasperation, stupid altruistic teenagers with delusions of grandeur.
Suddenly a phoenix Patronus flew in and spoke in Dumbledore’s voice, “Professor Sayre, could you please come to my office. I believe there are things we must discuss.”
I sigh again. Does he really want to do this now? At least, things were going according to plan. If things continue the way I want them to, I should have a way home soon.
