When Vernon didn't miss - Sahits

Chapter VIIProfessor McGonagall called Harry into her office that evening after dinner. After glaring at him fora moment, she stated, "I am curious about something, Mister Potter.""Yes, Professor?""Tell me, do you believe might equals right?"Harry thought for a moment, and answered, "Honestly, Ma'am? I don't think it should. However,that is how things seem to work in magical society. At the very least, I intend to make certain that Ihave the power on my side, so I won't be abused again.""Would you be willing to explain that to me, Mister Potter?"Harry sat back and considered. Learning meditation from the Tibetan masters had forced him toreally look at himself. He knew himself better than any young person should have, and knew hisinner demons better than most contemplative religious.Therefore, Harry told McGonagall about growing up in a family of bullies, the center of theirhatred. When he was finished, he told her about how he viewed his first year at Hogwarts, thetreatment Snape had dealt out, and what he suspected of Dumbledore's manipulations.At the end of what had been well over an hour, McGonagall was wrung out. She also knew thatHarry was more right than he knew.When she had been at school, Gryffindor and Slytherin had indeed been the most antagonistictowards the other of all the Houses. However, except at Quidditch and some of the other, nowended, competitions of the time, it had been a largely teasing antagonism. There had been as muchcross-House dating between those two Houses as any other two.Thinking hard, she could not recall a Gryffindor-Slytherin marriage since the early 1970s, or adating couple since the middle of that decade. Slytherin-Hufflepuff relationships were also almostunheard of these days.Then she remember not arguing more with Dumbledore over leaving Harry with the Dursleys, andthe arguments she or the other Heads had had over Snape's treatment of their students.She remembered her vow less than two months before to see that, if Harry was alive, he was treatedproperly.In a voice partially broken by the tears she had shed, McGonagall said, "I need to speak withProfessors Sprout and Flitwick. I fear you are correct, Mister Potter. We have been lax."While this was going on, the Headmaster was in his office, leaning back in his chair, daydreaming.He was remembering that glorious, horrible time, that time when he was in love, when he thoughthe and Gellert would rule the world and improve it.His dreams, he now knew, were Darkness disguised as Light. As the world had found out, GellertGrindelwald's dreams had brought horrors -- two Muggle World Wars and numerous revolutions inbetween, and warfare in the wizarding world unlike anything encountered before or since.