Harry Potter: Multiverse Maelstrom: Chapter 14: The Founder's Judgment

The viewing hall was a pressure cooker of conflicting emotions. The audience was grappling with a version of Harry Potter who was not a hero, not a victim, but a vengeful and terrifyingly effective vigilante. He had brought the two most powerful wizards of the age to their knees with a single, brilliant curse, and the room was starkly divided. Some, like Sirius and Moody, saw a grim and fitting justice. Others, like Lily and the Weasleys, were horrified by the cold, cruel methodology. Dumbledore and Voldemort, for their part, were united for the first time in a shared state of humiliated suffering.

"And so, the puppet cuts his strings," Jack said, a slow, appreciative smile on his face. He gestured to the screen. "But what happens when the rest of the world finds out who is really pulling the strings now? The board is in chaos. Let's watch the pieces fall."

The screen lit up, showing the front page of the Daily Prophet. The headline was large and panicked: MYSTERIOUS PLAGUE SWEEPS BRITAIN! PUREBLOODS HIT HARDEST!

<Chapter 2 Start>

Harry had to suppress a laugh when the Daily Prophet announced a mysterious, contagious illness that was going around wizarding Britain. Nobody knew how to treat it, but it seemed that for some reason certain people suffered worse than others. A list of symptoms was given, as well as known levels of suffering. For some reason purebloods seemed to be hit worse than for example halfbloods. Some might call it a conspiracy, but there wasn't any proof.

The screen showed the alternate Harry, sitting in the Gryffindor common room, a smirk playing on his lips as he read the paper. The other students were gathered in panicked little groups, whispering fearfully.

"He's enjoying this far too much," Lily murmured, a worried frown on her face. The manic glee she had seen in him at the beginning was still there, simmering just beneath the surface.

Rita Skeeter, who had been summoned, was practically vibrating with excitement. "A plague! A mystery! A conspiracy! This is the story of the century!" she scribbled furiously on her notepad.

Lucius Malfoy, however, was not amused. "The article notes that purebloods are hit worse. It is an attack on the very foundation of our society," he said, his voice a low growl.

Stupid. They couldn't even notice a curse, even if it was so old that the diagnostic charms were forgotten. Well, the 'illness' would run its course once all the guilt of a person was dealt with. The best part of the curse was after all, if you didn't destroy somebody's life again after you were through with the first time, you didn't get a relapse.

Dumbledore’s head snapped up, his eyes wide with a sudden, dawning hope. "It's a single penance," he breathed. "It is not a permanent state. It offers a path to redemption. Once the debt is paid, the curse recedes." He looked at the screen, at the suffering images of his alternate self and Voldemort, with a new understanding. It was not mere torture; it was a forced atonement.

"A chance for redemption that Voldemort will never take," Snape sneered. "The text itself says crucioing his followers would cause a relapse. The Dark Lord's very nature makes the curse eternal for him."

Voldemort let out a furious hiss. To be trapped in a cycle of his own making, to be punished by his own cruelty... it was an infuriatingly elegant trap.

So, in case of Tommy Boy, it would lead to him and his death munchers being ill for a very long time. Even crucioing his followers would cause a relapse for old Tommy. And, knowing their thickness, his Death Eaters would suffer again, and again and again. Such a fitting punishment. It was actually developed by Helga Hufflepuff.

The revelation landed with the force of a stunning spell, silencing the entire room. All eyes snapped to Professor Sprout, the Head of Hufflepuff, as if she could personally confirm it. She stared at the screen, her mouth agape in utter shock.

"Helga... Hufflepuff?" she stammered. "Our founder? The kindest, most loyal..."

"The most loyal, yes," a new voice said, a voice that was warm like summer earth but held an unbreakable core of granite. A quartet of magnificent, life-sized portraits had shimmered into existence on the wall behind the teachers' section. One showed a plump, rosy-cheeked witch with a gentle smile—Helga Hufflepuff. Beside her stood a stern, bearded man with a sword—Godric Gryffindor. A beautiful, ethereal woman with an eagle diadem—Rowena Ravenclaw. And a gaunt, sallow-faced man with a silver locket—Salazar Slytherin.

The portrait of Helga Hufflepuff winked. "Loyalty has a sharp edge, my dear Pomona. You are loyal to your friends. You are loyal to your students. And you are loyal to the concept of justice. Especially when your children are harmed."

Everybody always thought that Hufflepuff was the nicest house of Hogwarts, boy were they wrong. Sure, if you didn't wrong a Hufflepuff, you were going to get along with them really well, but woe you if you turned against one of them. The whole house would turn to revenge and they wouldn't stop until the lesson had stuck.

The Hufflepuffs in the room—Tonks, Cedric Diggory (who had been summoned), and Professor Sprout—seemed to stand a little taller. The age-old stereotype of their house being full of "duffers" was being immolated.

"Damn right," Tonks said with a fierce grin. "We're the badgers. We look cuddly, but we've got claws."

Helga had wanted to find a way to punish a group of dark wizards that had ambushed a group of her sixth and seventh year female students, captured them and raped them many times. The girls had been emotionally broken and Helga had decided to pay them back in equal turns. ... Destruction of life came in more than one form. Those dark wizards in the end died from the curse. They wouldn't change their ways and if you relapsed for the third time, your heart would simply give out.

The story of the curse's origin was a wave of pure, cold horror that washed over the room. The abstract moral debate about Harry's actions was suddenly grounded in a brutal, terrible reality.

The women in the room reacted with a visceral, protective fury. Lily, Molly, Andromeda, Narcissa—for a moment, all house and blood loyalties vanished, replaced by a shared, feminine rage at the violation described.

"She did the right thing," Narcissa Malfoy said, her voice a sliver of ice. Her eyes flickered to her sister Bellatrix, who was still writhing on the screen, overlaid with the ghosts of her victims. The curse was no longer just a clever piece of magic; it was a righteous weapon forged from a woman's rage to protect her students.

The final detail—that the curse became lethal on the third relapse—was met not with shock, but with a grim sense of finality. "Three chances," Amelia Bones noted, her voice firm. "One to pay for your crimes, a second to prove you've learned your lesson. A third proves you are incurable. It is a more just system than the one our Ministry employs."

On the side of lessons, DADA was self-study now, as Umbridge was violently sick in the hospital wing... Potions was a tutored class with the sixth-years teaching the lower years... sadly the tutors were much better at explaining things than Snape ever was and the grades would actually become better...

The news of Umbridge's suffering was met with a round of vicious, unapologetic cheers from the students. The real Umbridge, in the audience, turned a shade of mottled purple, her toad-like features contorted in a mask of fury.

Severus Snape, however, took the greater blow. The text, so casual in its delivery, was a dagger to his pride and his entire identity as Potions Master. That sixth-year students—mere children—were better teachers than him was the ultimate professional humiliation.

"Insolent dunderheads!" he hissed, his face a thundercloud. "They know nothing of the subtlety of the art! Their grades improve because they are coddled, not challenged!"

But the other teachers and students exchanged knowing looks. It was true. Snape's teaching style was built on fear and intimidation, not education. The idea of a Potions class where students actually learned without being terrorized was a revolutionary concept.

Harry wanted to laugh out loud when he heard how Madam Pomfrey had finally found out what was going on... Professor McGonagall had found a covered and immobilised portrait of the founders in a side room of the headmaster's office... After the indignation of the founders that Dumbledore had dared immobilising them a year after becoming headmaster (he didn't like their criticism against him and his argument that he was acting 'For the Greater Good')...

Another wave of shock rippled through the room as all eyes turned to Dumbledore.

"You silenced the Founders?" McGonagagall demanded, her voice dripping with disbelief and accusation.

The portrait of Godric Gryffindor boomed, "Indeed he did! Couldn't stand to have his grand plans questioned! Talked endlessly of this 'Greater Good', as if it were an excuse for any manner of secrecy and manipulation!"

Salazar Slytherin's portrait added with a contemptuous sneer, "The man possesses a serpent's cunning but lacks the courage to admit it. He cloaks his ambition in a veneer of light."

Dumbledore looked utterly mortified. To be dressed down by the very figures he was meant to emulate, in front of everyone... it was a humiliation beyond words.

...she had laughed herself sick, finding it very funny that nobody knew about the real reason anymore these days. In the end she explained the workings of the curse and why she had created it. It was fair judgement for your sins. ... When asked what could be done, she told them that there was nothing that could be done if the caster of the curse didn't cancel it. And she also wouldn't tell them the way to find out who had done it. In her opinion, the ones suffering under the curse had deserved their fate.

The portrait of Helga Hufflepuff in the viewing hall nodded sagely. "A lesson is not a lesson if it can be easily avoided. They must endure it. It is the only way to cleanse the wound." Her cheerful, matronly demeanor was an unnerving contrast to the iron certainty in her words. She was a healer, and sometimes, healing hurt.

The information was passed to all other healers, which meant that the Daily Prophet soon also caught wind of it, and the response to the information was staggering. Knowing that the Hufflepuff founder had created this kind of curse, one that would judge you by the sins you actually committed, based on your own memories, made many turn against the victims, which they had previously pitied.

The screen showed a new edition of the Daily Prophet. The headline now read: PLAGUE OR PUNISHMENT? FOUNDER HUFFLEPUFF'S JUSTICE CURSE RESURFACES! The article detailed the curse's nature, turning the sick from victims into convicts in the court of public opinion.

"This is a disaster!" Fudge wailed. "The public is turning on our most prominent families! How can I maintain order?"

"Perhaps by arresting the guilty, Minister," Amelia Bones suggested dryly. "The curse has done the work of the Aurors and the Wizengamot for them. It has already extracted a confession."

Finding out that to suffer for as long as most of these people did, you had to have destroyed numerous lives, examples of crimes ranged from killing over torture to rape, made many cry out to punish the cursed ones, once they were over the effects. It was basically a confession of guilt. Though many wondered who had been the one behind the curse.

The Malfoys, the Notts, the Lestranges—all the Death Eater families in the room felt the chilling shift in the atmosphere. They were no longer just on the losing side of a war; they were being exposed as criminals and monsters, their guilt laid bare for all to see. The curse hadn't just attacked their bodies; it had destroyed their names.

Harry listened to Hermione prattle on about her theories who would do something so horrible, especially to Dumbledore, and Harry tuned her out. He didn't care for her authority worship. Alone that Dumbledore was in the hospital wing for that long, proved that he had been as bad as Voldemort. He may have been more subtle and used other methods, but the judgement was clear. Perhaps that would teach the old man a lesson that was long overdue.

The final lines from this Harry's perspective were a cold, hard summary of his worldview.

The real Hermione flushed with a mixture of anger and hurt. "Authority worship? I believe in justice and due process, not blind faith! And what he's done... it might be effective, but it's not right! It's torture!"

"But is it wrong?" the real Harry asked quietly, his voice conflicted. He looked at Dumbledore, not with the hatred of his alternate self, but with a deep, questioning sadness. "If the curse only punishes the guilty... and you've been sick for weeks... what does that say?"

Dumbledore could not answer. He could only look at the ghostly faces that the screen had shown hovering over his sickbed—Ariana, Sirius, Grindelwald's victims—and accept the silent, agonizing judgment of Helga Hufflepuff's ancient, unforgiving magic. The lesson, as this Harry had intended, was long overdue.

The screen went dark, leaving the audience in a state of profound moral chaos, the line between justice and vengeance blurred beyond recognition.

<Chapter 2 End> was displayed on the screen.