It had all seemed so black and white at the time, the Headmaster had told everyone that Harry Potter was guilty and naturally Ron had believed him. It had all seemed so easy at the trial, testifying against his best friend. He hadn't even had to lie, they had lawyers for that.
It wasn't until he saw Harry's reaction to Azkaban's silent guards that he began to feel doubt, that doubt had magnified overtime until it had dominated every aspect of his life.
Turning away from the mirror, Ron broke the seal on another bottle and began to drink his breakfast. "Please be guilty Harry," Ron repeated to the empty room. Hating himself for believing that the boy he had known had turned into the murderer the press had made him out to be.
Walking towards the door, Ron's shoulders dropped a little more. The world was a cold and lonely place.
The station was filled with tearful good byes as family's put their children on the train to Hogwarts, no one noticed the two figures enshrouded in shadow.
"Well," Moody's eye spun. "You know what I expect you do, so get to it."
"Yes father," Harry's eye spun as he regarded the world with suspicion. "Do I have your permission to deal with any situations that might crop up?"
"Course ya do son," Moody nodded and took a sip from his flask. "Just remember to keep a low profile."
"Yes father," Harry took a sip from his flask. "Will that be all?"
"One more thing," Moody had a lump in his throat. "Constant Vigilance."
"Yes father," Harry blinked away the forming tears and quashed the urge to hug his father, "you too."
"That's me boy," Moody smiled as he watched his son disillusion himself.
Harry silently boarded the train and set to work. After erecting several wards over his chosen compartment, he set out to find the snack cart.
"Why hello dear," the woman pushing the snack cart smiled down at the odd little boy with the spinning eye. "Couldn't wait for me to get to your compartment?"
"Petrificus Totalus," Harry glared down at the unmoving woman as he dragged her into his compartment. There was no way that he was going to fall for that old trick.
It took Harry twenty minutes to determine that the food in the cart was not poisoned, at least not poisoned with any poison that he could detect. Harry took a sip of his flask, and another fifteen minutes of questioning the woman with truth serum to determine that. Whoever she was, it didn't look like she was planning to kill him.
Looking down at his prisoner, Harry weighed his options.
"What are you going to do?" The snack cart lady asked fearfully.
"Obliviate," Harry frowned.
The woman blinked as she found herself standing in front of her snack cart, her eyes widened when she checked her watch. She was running late, those poor children that had gone so long without food.
Harry frowned as he watched from his place in the shadows, he had stayed in one place for two long. It was time to move.
Harry was clinging to the bottom of the coal car when the Hogwarts express pulled into the station, carefully waiting until all the students had disembarked. He dropped to the ground and began to follow.
IIIIIIIIII
Minerva looked down at the next name on her list, after Sally-Anne Perks was . . . it took all of her immense will power to keep her stern expression. "Ha . . ." She froze as she felt the point of a wand dig into the back of her neck.
"You weren't planning to call my name out for all to hear were you?" Asked a child's voice that was filled with menace, "why don't we just skip to the next name."
"And why would I do that?" Minerva asked with a frown.
"Because if you don't . . . " The child gave a horrible and unseen lear, "then we'll have to see if the school's healer can reattach heads."
"I see," Minerva's frown deepened. "I suppose that you could walk up to the hat without having your name called out."
The child let out a wheezing laugh that would have sounded more menacing if it hadn't been so high pitched, "you expect me to walk up there in front of everyone? I don't think I'll be doing that."
"I suppose we could have a private sorting in the Headmaster's office later," Minerva smiled as she contemplated the amount of detention she was going to give to the little . . . angel that was holding her at wand point.
"You suppose wrong." Harry frowned, "I'm not going to let anybody go through my mind."
"Then how exactly are you planning to pick a house?" Minerva was two seconds away from doing something . . . regrettable.
"Not planning on having a house," Harry cackled and tossed a small object out into the center of the great hall.
Every eye in the room followed the object, which exploded in a flash of light when it hit the side of the Ravenclaw table.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE." Harry screamed at the room full of temporally blinded students and staff, before turning to disappear through one of the unguarded doors.
"ALBUS," Minerva's streak cut through the noise made by the panicking students. "We're going to have a meeting after this."
Albus Dumbledore, a man regarded by many to be one of the most powerful men in the world let his smile slip. Things were not going the way he had planned, and for some reason he had a feeling that it was going to be one of those decades.
IIIIIIIIII
"Albus, what's wrong?"
The old wizard blinked, "I think I've been obliviated."
"What?" Minerva pulled out her wand and began eyeing the shadows suspiciously, "how can you tell?"
"I'm a master Legilimencer," the old wizard blinked. "And I have a faint aftertaste in my mouth that leads me to believe that I've been given Veritaserum. I remember that I was walking to my office to have our meeting and I think I heard one of the students yell something, after that it's a blank."
"What did the student yell?" Minerva knew that she should have taken early retirement when it was offered, but noooo she had to decide that instructing Harry Potter was more important than lounging on a beach in the tropics.