TSS: Chapter 23: Party Crashers

> *“He certainly borders on the title, but I would not consider him one. For one thing, Albus Dumbledore is not a Light Lord. For all of his preaching, Dumbledore is far more grey than he is light. His ideals and desires may be light, but his methods certainly are not. It is actions that define us. Not our thoughts. I know things about Albus Dumbledore that would make the poor, naive Liberals gawk in horror. No, Dumbledore does not define the light, as much as he wishes he did. He could be a true lord if he so chose, but he has not chosen that path. Grindelwald was the last true lord, just as Voldemort was the last true lady. Do you follow”*
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— Giaus Weitts on Albus Dumbledore's status as a Light Lord.

## Summary:

Harry and Dumbledore talk again. Marjorie Dursley is used to tie some lose ends. Harry comes to some revelations with the help of Blaise. Christmas Gifts are opened in the Slytherin Common Room. The Golden Trio is caught masquerading as other people with the help of Polyjuice. At the Greengrass Gala, Harry sells the cursed knife to Bellatrix Black and the he has a conversation with Lord Weitts, with the promise of a future one in the summer. Draco's reputation is ruined.

## Plot:

**December 23rd, 1992:** Marjorie Dursley stops at a gas station on the highway on her way to visit her nephew Dudley and her sister-in-law Petunia. While there she thinks on her departed family. She returns to her car noticing that she is being followed by a grey rat that ends up getting in her car and onto her passager's seat. Before she can do much, the rat transforms into a man that Imperiuses her.

Harry is summoned one again to the Headmaster's Office, for the third time during the same week in fact. On his way there he is pondering the reasoning behind the latest call as he somewhat doubts that Dumbledore would simply be petty enough to call him just to irk him. Once in the office he is informed by the Headmaster of the death of his uncle, Vernon. Harry, as he has decided some time ago not to care about those relatives, simply does not care. This fact makes Albus reveal that this sort of behaviour reminds him of Voldemort from back when she was a student, among other things that he does not want to mention.

Later that day at Number 4, Privet Drive, the remaining Dursleys welcome Marjorie to their home. Unlike previous years she is rather somber, and after dinner she convinces Petunia to send Dudley to bed early.

In the Speaker's Den, Harry and Blaise have a private conversation that eventually leads to Harry strongly suspecing Peter Pettigrew to be the one responsible for Charlus failed frame-job from a couple of days back. Harry states out loud that it might have been in order for him to lose the Potter Heirship while not mentioning a more disconcerning possibility for Pettigrew's alleged actions. To ensure the secrecy of their conversation, Harry invokes Salazar's Senction upon the Speaker's Den.

The same night, at Privet Drive, Petunia Dursley is woken by the presence of Marjorie. To her shock and horror, she ends up being strangled to death by the sister of her deceased husband.

**December 25th, 1992:** In the morning, Harry and his friends are in the Slytherin Common Room. When all of them arrive they proceed to open their Christmas presents.

Later that day, in the out-of-order bathroom on the second floor, the Golden Trio prepare for their Polyjuice-based expedition into the Slytherin Common Room. Charlus and Ron still needing to go and acquire some hair from Crabbe and Goyle.

Some minutes later, while Blaise and Hestia were playing chess in the Slytherin Common Room, Harry was hanging out with them, working on Arithmancy, while waiting to see if his intelligence was correct. Soon afterwards, they are joined by Crabbe and Goyle who start to question Harry on the Heir of Slytherin. Harry, aware of the Golden Trio's plot, decides to end the charade, and apprehends Charlus and Ron, that were masquerading as Crabbe and Goyle with the help of the Polyjuice potion.

**The Past:**

**December 19th, 1992:** In the library, Pansy reveals to Harry that she has discoved a plot from the Golden Trio to inflitrate the Slytherin Common Room with the help of Polyjuice, brewed using the information from a book from the Restricted Section, obtained with a note signed by Binns. Harry learns that he does not actually need to plan that much for their future confrontation as the Trio simply talked about their plan without realizing that they were being overheard by the ghost of Myrtle.

**The Present:**

**December 25th, 1992:** Harry informs his friends that they will hand over the two Gryffindors to Snape, as anything else will backfire due to Dumbledore's view on him. He then proceeds to use Legilimency to Goyle, who turns out to be Ron Weasley, and thus finds out the Hermione Granger is hiding in the stall of the abandoned bathroom. Harry sends Hestia to gather her and Blaise to fetch Snape.

**December 27th, 1992:** At breakfast, Harry reads the article from the Daily Prophet that reveals Charlus exploits from two days early. Afterwards he focuses his attention on the mail from his solicitor, Veronica Tate, that informs him, among others, that the enchanted knife has been evaluated at roughly six-thousand galleons.

**December 31st, 1992:** Harry arrives at Greengrass Manor for the Gala. There he meets Charlotte and she leads him to the head table where he ends up dining with the Weitts and the Greengrasses. Sometime afterwards, proceeding a dance with Grace, he goes outside for some fresh air. There he has a verbal spar with Darren Mulciber who tries to force him into returning his enchanted dagger. The dissagreement comes to a halt with the intervention of Bellatrix Black who dismisses Lord Mulciber and takes Harry for a private chat. Their conversation concludes with Bellatrix buying the dagger from Harry for an overpriced twelve-thousands galleons. Later on, Harry engages in a talk with Lord Weitts where the later explains to Harry some things, among which the concept of centennial sorcerer and lord or lady of the light, dark or grey. Giaus asks Harry to read about the ideology of the three factions and decide which resonate more with him — with the promise of a future talk in the summer — and to think about what he actually wants to achieve in his life. Their conversation ends with him promising Harry a more open talk when the boy has done as urged.

Some time later, in the ballroom, out of the sudden, Draco Malfoy attacks Lord Weitts. His attack is easily stopped but not fast enough so that it does not gather the attention of everybody involved. Looking around the room Harry realizes that Draco's reputation ruining was the work of Daphne who somehow finally managed to take revenge on behalf of Tracey some fourteen months after the fact.

## Characters Introduced:

Marjorie Dursley.

Moaning Myrtle.

Darren Mulciber.

Professor Binns.

## Christmas Gifts Received by Harry:

* a number of tokenry gifts from most of his classmates and from the Slytherin Quidditch team, with the highlight of these being a watch of pure gold from the Malfoys — most liken due to the tentative relationship building between Harry and Lord Malfoy.
* an absurd number of well-designed, rather expensive wizarding clothes, from Pansy
* a number of runestones, from the Carrow Twins
* a blood protected personal journal, from Daphne
* a set of duelling robes, from Blaise
* several obscure books on runes and some top of the line carving equipment, from the Greengrasses
* a rather advanced book on Transfigurations, from the Weitts
* a book on Arithmancy, from Charlotte
* a book on the fighting style of history's most prominent magic users, from Calypso
* a golden chain, with a silver serpant embroided on the pendent, enchanted with a Weitts family spell — upon using a chosen password the chain will unleash an impenetrable darkness throughout which only the bearer of the chain would be able to see throughout, from Grace