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SIYE Time:2:36 on 29th March 2024
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Echoes of Power, Part I: Anger
By moshpit

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Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:Draco Malfoy, Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, Remus Lupin, Ron Weasley, Severus Snape, Sirius Black
Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Humor
Warnings: Death, Sexual Situations, Violence
Rating: R
Reviews: 542
Summary: Harry mysteriously disappeared at the age of six, and then benefited from years of tutoring from an old family friend. With the return of Voldemort, it is finally time for a 15 year old, well-trained and somewhat cynical and sarcastic Harry to take up his place at Hogwarts. Life at Hogwarts, however, is not always what Harry anticipated. There, secrets are revealed, allies are discovered, and the journey to power begins. Completely AU.
Hitcount: Story Total: 334068; Chapter Total: 13588





Author's Notes:
See the end of the chapter.




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StoryPrinter


Chapter 25: Silent Accord


Ginny muttered incoherently as she dropped into the seat next to Harry at the Gryffindor table, her head immediately falling to the table with a soft thunk! as her strawberry hair flowed across her folded arms.

“Being a bit dramatic there, aren’t you?” Harry asked conversationally. He felt her kick to his shin, although he had to appreciate how weakly it was delivered. “Right, more leg work tomorrow, then, if you’re still kicking today.” When she groaned faintly into her arms, Harry just chuckled. “You didn’t learn the lesson yesterday, so you can try again for tomorrow.”

“Harry,” she moaned weakly, “don’t you ever stop?”

Harry actually had to pause to consider the question. It was deliciously loaded in nature, yet she deserved an honest answer. “No. Especially not for my angel with the dented halo.”

“Great.” Her voice was still muffled as she was speaking into the table rather than to him. “Yesterday, you said skip the toast. What is it today?”

“Don’t use the sugar.”

Ginny’s groan of frustration was, if anything, more amusing than her posture. “Those prats — I need my tea. Just our sugar?”

“Nope, sorry. All the sugar as far as I can tell.” Harry paused to partially stand and look at the Head Table. Chuckling slightly, he dropped back into his seat. “Definitely all of it.”

While Ginny moved on to muttering commentary that was just too jumbled for Harry to decipher, he patiently assembled his own breakfast, opting for juice at the end since the sugar was clearly compromised and thereby eliminating his morning shot of caffeine. Ignoring her protests, Harry also extricated Ginny’s plate from under her head and tossed a few items he could recall seeing her eat before on it, leaving it by her elbow as she was still focused on her own misery rather than her empty stomach. She apparently decided the best way to show her gratitude was to pull the plate back to where it belonged, shifting her head in the process to lay on the table by Harry’s elbow. He was amused to see her eyes were still shut, her hair sprawled untidily, and her plate of food obviously uninteresting.

Reflecting on why all of the sugar had been tampered with, Harry finally came to the conclusion that Fred and George were setting up a multi-staged prank. The sugar would be tainted with a base, and at some point later in the day, they would introduce another agent or agents. Only contact with both or all agents would trigger the desired results. Grabbing a pot of tea and one mug, he carefully put just a small amount in the bottom of the cup and then swirled it vigorously to make it appear that he had drunk from the mug. Leaving it in front of his plate, he decided that he needed someone special to redirect the remaining agents on, but he had all morning to pick the perfect unwitting target. Then, of course, he also needed to identify the other compounds that would be headed his way.

“Dean’s just walked in,” Harry observed quietly, enjoying a pastry as Ginny’s fellow Gryffindor approached the table. It was shortly after seven in the morning. It was quiet and peaceful, as there was sparse student attendance and no staff. So far, no one in the room had attracted his attention as a worthy recipient of whatever mischief the twins had brewed for the day. The only anomaly that he could discern was a complete lack of any Slytherin students, as each of the other house tables already had a few students taking breakfast. The opposite end of the Gryffindor table had what appeared to be some first-year students huddled around a book, which seemed to be typical — most of the students in the Hall were quite young in Harry’s estimation.

“Harry, Ginny,” Dean said cautiously as he dropped into a seat three places down the table from Ginny. “You’re looking… ah, cosy this morning.”

Harry paused to reflect on the situation. Ginny, mop of red hair and all, was probably in some artful pose of ‘pity-me-please’ as she sprawled over her arm and almost onto his. While her hair was certainly dishevelled and her clothes were not much better, he knew that she actually looked marginally better than he did. In his parting glance at the mirror on the way out of their training room, he had seen his hair wildly disarrayed, his clothes with a few small tears in them, and all of his exposed skin was looking very similar to that of someone afflicted with an unwanted sunburn. In contrast, her skin could be considered flushed when compared to her usual fair colouring. Or perhaps rather covered with rug-burn, if you had more experience with that kind of thing.

“It’s been a refreshing morning, Dean,” Harry offered with a carefully insinuating grin. “Ginny was demonstrating her impending mastery of the Scourgify Charm.”

Dean’s expression was a close approximation of flat disbelief, but that was fine by Harry. “Ginny, love, Dean seems to be dubious. Perhaps you’d care to demonstrate for him?”

Ginny peeked out from behind the mop of hair, looking briefly at Dean before facing Harry. “I quite like Dean, Harry. I don’t want to hurt him just to satisfy your cruel sense of humour.”

Dean seemed surprised at the word ‘hurt’, although the boy still had a look of healthy scepticism about him. That was exactly what Harry was after. “He’s not convinced, Ginny. Tell me, Dean, do you think Scourgify could be used to disarm someone?”

Dean looked as though he was starting to have second thoughts, but he bravely shook his head. “Not really. You’re not being serious, are you?”

Harry carefully put a challenging tone in his voice, along with a hint of suspicion that Dean was too afraid to find out one way or another. “Want a demonstration?”

It was clear that Dean felt he was stuck in a serious quandary. If he said no, it was safe to assume that he feared he would be making a poor impression on Harry and Ginny, regardless of Harry’s real motivations. If he said yes, then he was volunteering to experience something that he had already been warned would hurt. Harry was happy to watch Dean try to find a resolution to the situation, his eyes darting between Harry and Ginny as he worked his way through the problem. “No offence, Harry, but only if Ginny does it.”

Harry shot a smirk at Ginny before waving grandly for her to educate the great unwashed. Ginny shot a slight look of irritation at Harry before she faced Dean, her wand already in her hand. Harry was impressed that she had drawn the wand when he was distracted baiting Dean, and he had failed to notice her doing it. Unfortunately, that meant he was letting his guard slip a bit, and that in turn warned him that he really needed to be more cautious around everyone.

With a familiar fast swishing motion and an odd twist at the end, Ginny called out “Scourgify!” right as the tip aligned with Dean’s exposed arm.

“Bloody hell!” Dean cried out, jumping back from the table in his haste to stop the sensations from the magic, but in his haste he forgot he had been sitting. In a tumble of limbs, he was on the ground, shaking his hand and still trying to back away from Ginny. She had stopped the spell almost as soon as she had cast it, leaving it in place for only a split second.

“See?” Harry whispered quietly to her. “With the tightened focus, the Scouring Charm delivers all of that energy into a very small spot. An unsuspecting opponent will feel their nerves screaming even though there’s no actual damage.”

Dean had stopped trying to get away from them and was instead cradling his hand to his chest, his eyes wide open. “What the hell was that?!”

Ginny shot another look of mild irritation at Harry before she dropped her head back onto the table, all but silently demanding that Harry explain everything.

“The Scouring Charm, just like you heard, although she changed it slightly at the end. It didn’t actually cause any damage, Dean, it just cleaned off the dirt from your hand. Felt rather uncomfortable, didn’t it?” Harry chuckled slightly. “Sorry for baiting you, but now you know.”

Dean gave Harry a dark glare before he moved off further down the table in a sulk, ultimately taking a new seat. The random glance of confusion he shot back at Ginny — in between disapproving frowns for Harry himself — was a perfect accompaniment to the breakfast that Harry was slowly working his way through. As more students and even staff trickled into the room, Harry saw more than a few people give him a glance, though the random half-smile on their faces left him somewhat puzzled.

Of passing interest to Harry was the fact that Sybill Trelawney was the first staff member to enter the room, closely followed by a small group of Slytherins. While he had been observing the Slytherin students ever since arriving at Hogwarts, the average member had become downright baffling after the change in Head of House. Rather than carrying on as though they were somehow a superior race to everyone else, they were now moving about with expressions of confusion, or, in a few cases, overt meekness. While he had a hard time accepting such a dramatic shift as a consequence of just removing one man’s hand from a group of people, he had to admit it was a reassuring change of sorts, even if it was baffling.

“Oh, my dear,” Professor Trelawney exclaimed as she registered Harry’s presence. She stopped in her tracks and raised one hand toward her throat, but paused half-way there, her very posture screaming melodrama. Considering her facial expression, Harry thought she might have suddenly been afflicted with severe constipation, but instead she moaned slightly and spoke in a numinous voice. “I foresee a troubling time for you, my child. You will receive a message of direst portents this morning …” As her voice trailed off, her hand made a strange cupping motion in the air, almost as though she were plucking an object from space albeit with extreme reluctance.

When she turned to regard Harry with a sorrowful expression, he was hard pressed not to laugh derisively. “You’ve heard that Mrs Weasley is sending me a love note, then, Professor?”

The woman stood rigidly, not saying a thing for a long moment, before she turned and continued on her way to the Head Table. As she walked off, Harry nudged Ginny, who had sat up during the verbal exchange and was harbouring a faint smile. “So, Weasley,” Harry hissed at her, “is there anyone you didn’t tell about this letter from your mum?”

Ginny paused in cutting up her eggs to look at Harry with wide eyes. “I never told anyone, Harry.” When he gave her a level stare, she just smiled impishly at him. “I may have been overheard by some of the portraits, though, when I read the letter to myself before sending it. I think the Fat Lady really doesn’t like you very much.”

With a sigh, Harry turned back to his breakfast. It was now inevitable that, no matter how he might deflect the efforts of the twins, the day would find some way to make a spectacle of him. As the Great Hall continued to fill slowly, Harry could not help but notice the constant glances from the students and even some of the staff. Those random half-smiles started to resemble smirks more than smiles, and he knew it was all thanks to the redhead at his elbow. No one was willing to come and sit at his end of the table, excepting Ginny and the long-since removed Dean, so he was left again with that fleeting sensation of sitting inside a fishbowl in the Great Hall, simply waiting for the proverbial hammer to fall.

Shortly before the owl post was due to ingress at half-past the hour, Neville, Hermione, and the remaining Weasleys arrived. While there was little to be directly thankful for, Harry had to admit he was happy that no portraits could visit the Great Hall, which was almost filled to bursting, so whatever was coming could only be relayed second-hand to those that had helped perpetuate the spectacle.

“Harry, m’boy,” Fred said with a grand gesture as he clapped Harry on the shoulder. “Smashing good to see you this morning.”

“And you look absolutely smashed, really,” George observed, leaning over the table to regard both Harry and Ginny with one baleful eye. “Anything we ought to know about, mmm?”

Harry regarded the two levelly before he jerked his thumb at their sister. “Want her to demonstrate her latest hex?”

Both boys leaned back sharply, dropping into their seats with a grin. “Now, now, Harry, let’s not be hasty,” George said with both hands up in the air.

“Quite!” Fred agreed. “Let’s just all enjoy some tea and wait for the post, right?”

Harry saw Ginny twitch slightly out of the corner of his eye, but he refused to change his expression at all. “No thanks,” he said simply. “I’ve already had my tea. You lot go right ahead.”

As Fred and George traded glances, Hermione leaned over to catch Harry’s attention. “Did you teach Ginny a new spell?” she asked quickly.

Harry groaned internally. He knew that this was one witch that would not rest if there were any chance she might learn something new. “No,” Harry replied cautiously, trying to avoid stepping into a hole with Hermione blithely chasing him to the bottom. “This morning we were just discussing the, uh, practical uses of Scouring Charms.”

“What do you mean, practical uses? It cleans things.” Hermione frowned with a vaguely pretty expression, her brows drawn close and her lips pouting. Harry could tell it was having an impact on Ron, who was sitting next to her, but he was just hoping for a distraction before she could realise that he was stonewalling.

As if falling from the heavens in answer to his silent wishes, a great fluttering of wings and birds announced the morning post. Everyone was firmly derailed from what they had just been discussing, and Harry suddenly found a large number of eyes watching him as the incoming flock of birds dispersed through the space under the arched ceiling.

Harry’s end of Gryffindor table was too busy watching the incoming owls to notice Ginny’s sudden smirk. “Are you ready, Harry?” Thankfully, she was whispering, or else he was sure that the twins would be participating in the discussion and not watching the ceiling so jubilantly.

“Oh, please,” Harry muttered back. “What’s the worst that your mum could do? A singing valentine?”

Ginny flashed him a smile he was sure he had seen before, possibly on Sirius right after he had just received divine insight into some hideous new pranking opportunity. “Would that make you uncomfortable, then?”

“Hardly.” Harry knew he had to carefully back-pedal from this position, or he was certain that somehow someone or some ones would be sending him that very thing, undoubtedly in amusing yet highly embarrassing ways. Perhaps even for the rest of the year. “Trust me, nothing you can come up with could be more mortifying than whatever Tonks has already done to me.”

“Challenge accepted, Harry.” Her triumphant smile left him ready to immediately track down Tonks and place a permanent Silencing Charm on her, accompanied perhaps with a permanent Gibberish Writing Hex.

Before he could say anything back in turn, though, Fred loudly announced, “We have a winner!”

Harry glanced up to see a regal owl angling for his seat, a small box firmly attached to the light grey bird. Harry grunted sourly, glancing around at the Great Hall. It was not quite crystal clear, but he thought that everyone in the hall looked as though Christmas had come early. From his quick glance, the Head Table was nearly uniform in regarding him with varying looks from the typical vague pervasive happiness on Hagrid to the cultivated mystic fugue on Trelawney. McGonagall, however, had the perfect countenance — a dash of disapproval, a hint of a smirk, and a good part of calm anticipation. Given how the woman had introduced him to Ginny’s father, he was almost certain she expected Harry to be solidly put in his place momentarily.

The surrounding Gryffindors had, for the most part, given up on even pretending to eat breakfast, instead watching the large owl streak majestically to its target. A solid half or more of the remaining students were likewise abandoning all pretences, instead opting to watch the show surely about to descend from the ceiling. Hints of Mrs Weasley’s infamous and generally feared temper were suddenly running again through the back of his mind, though he did his best to ignore them.

“Speechless already, Harry?” George asked as Harry ignored the bird that landed directly behind his breakfast plate, one leg firmly held out with a small box attached, both wings fully extended. The bird carried an air of suffering tolerance for the pitiful earth-bound misfits it was sentenced to serve. “Giving up so quickly?”

Harry was sure he would regret his agreement to Ginny’s spurious challenge regarding this communication from her mother. At the same time, he knew that the secret of his meeting with her father, and her father’s encouragement — nay, demand — to keep the game going, might unravel if he did not handle this perfectly.

Keeping his silence, Harry reached out and rapidly untied the box from the owl, which promptly took flight and streaked out of the hall, clearly favouring the freedom of the skies to meagre offerings of bacon. Most post owls that were rented tended to rush to and fro, although Harry had to admit that Mrs Weasley had excellent taste if she had picked out that owl to deliver this first exchange in what he was sure to be an all-new type of battle.

With a sigh, he opened the box, and Harry had to pause to admire the contents. He kept the lid partially closed so that no one else could see inside and held it firmly there as he glanced around. The Weasley clan surrounding him was almost drooling in anticipation, although Ron was hiding it the best. Harry thought that Ron actually looked smug on some level, but he knew this was not a moment to draw things out. He was certain the twins, if no one else, would attack the parcel should he leave it alone much longer.

Flipping the lid fully open and then tilting the box and showing it among the various redheads, he saw them all appreciate the beauty inside. Sitting back with the box now firmly in front of him, he knew that the creator of the object inside was capable of magic that was nothing short of amazing when the proper motivation came along.

The perfectly formed crystal ball was filled with some kind of white reflective mist, which sparkled in the light. There were two distinct bands of power contained in it that he could see, the magic swirling in a very slow vortex inside, an aura of many, many enchantments radiating slowly outward. Tendrils of magic reached vaguely in all directions, but most seemed to be slowly angling upward and tapering off into the infinitesimal.

Resigned to his fate, Harry slowly reached out his hand to pick up the ball and to find out what the incredibly well-crafted object would do. He had agreed not to fight this, so the repercussions could be quite… difficult should Mrs Weasley be of a certain frame of mind.

Just before he grasped the ball, he heard Hermione ask an odd question.

“Ron, isn’t that Errol coming in just now?”

As his hand closed on the crystal orb and he flicked his eyes in silent query at Hermione, Harry’s world collapsed in a piercing pain that left him feeling that his body had been plunged face-first into a raging inferno. He was only dimly aware of the scream that was filling his ears, unsure of where it originated from, only comprehending the unfathomable pain which felt like the Cruciatus Curse yet was somehow far worse.

His vision swelled and filled with the white material he had previously seen inside the crystal globe, now all-consuming, now everything, and the brightness of the radiant energy left his eyes watering, the world dissolving into a blinding uniformity of metallically glittering, pristine white snow.

Drawing a deep breath, Harry was suddenly vaguely conscious that the pain was ebbing, and his throat was flashing signals to his brain indicating hurt and discomfort. A severe jolt in his side caused the whiteness to flicker into the dark of night before the world returned to depthless, boundless, eternal white. A bitter taste was slowly permeating his tongue, a flash of red wine vinegar made from something one step removed from rancid blood and sour grapes as a base.

“Harry Potter.”

The voice was calm and polite, surprisingly cultured, with only a hint of an accent, as though the speaker were from the highest levels of society and affluence.

Harry looked around to find a tall man, who had not been there moments before, standing mere feet from his right side, a man of faintly familiar stature. Harry felt that he should recognise the man, but he was having a hard time thinking after the excruciating waves of pain that had felt like interminable agony.

The man next to him was tall, and in some ways, reminded Harry of Sirius. His dark, shoulder-length hair, refined attire, and obvious good looks were in distinct contrast to anything he could directly remember Sirius wearing, however. If Sirius were to dress and speak in a manner befitting his status as the Head of House Black, Harry thought he might appear as this stranger did.

“You do not recognise me, perhaps?”

The voice was faintly amused, although there was no patronising tone or condescension that Harry could detect.

“You seem familiar, but, no, I can’t quite place you.”

The man nodded his head and solemnly held up both hands. “You should know, Harry Potter, that within this place, neither of us may physically harm the other. Have no fear of me.”

“Right,” Harry shot back with tangible antipathy, reminded of his brutal entrance. “That’s why when I touched that ball I enjoyed pain more intense than the Cruciatus?”

The man paused, regarding Harry intently, a hint of surprise on his features. “Oh?” He stroked his chin idly, and Harry had the impression that he was at a loss for words as the silence stretched out. “I am most sorry for that, Harry. I did not design this such that it would cause you sensations of pain at all. That was not my intent.”

Harry nodded his head slowly, understanding that something had gone wrong with the intended purpose, but not particularly pleased with this mistake. “Unplanned consequences seem to be the story of my life. With whom am I speaking, then?”

“Indeed,” the man replied. “You have no idea how true that is.” He said nothing for another long moment, merely holding Harry’s gaze calmly. “Harry, I am the man once known as Tom Riddle.”

Harry’s brain stopped functioning for a flickering heartbeat as the words registered dimly in the back of his brain, and he rapidly evaluated his situation almost on complete auto-pilot. No wand, no sword, no immediate weapon other than his body. Without even fully being aware of it, Harry released the constraints on his core and felt the discharge that signalled the rolling wave area Stunner that he had laboriously learned how to consciously perform. While he clearly felt the drain that the wandless magic required, nothing happened in the white void — no ring rolled out from his body, no blast hit a shield upon Riddle, nothing.

Unconscious of his hard training reflexes involuntarily following the magical failure, Harry stepped slightly to one side, and his foot lashed out, smashing straight through the space that Riddle’s jaw occupied. Meeting no resistance and having been delivered in full power with an extended snap for higher impact force, Harry spun around with the lack of resistance to the kick. Harry came back to a standing position, partially crouched, hands outstretched slightly in preparation to ward off any attack. He felt a twinge of irritation from his body due to the rapid attack that had met no resistance.

Tom Riddle seemed, if anything, mildly amused. “Did I not mention that we cannot physically harm each other in this place, Harry? I spent a considerable amount of time working on this, so I do hope that you appreciate it. You might say that it’s similar to an interactive Pensieve, although it doesn’t require the pedestrian effort of climbing into one.”

“Consider me charmed,” Harry said tightly, barely controlling his seething fury. “Why do this?”

Riddle paused once again to rub a hand absently at his chin, the posture affected similar to that of The Thinker regardless of intent, his jet-black hair cascading almost artfully across the high forehead. Riddle was either fond of dramatic pauses, or else he was genuinely puzzled about how to proceed. “That’s the difficult question, Harry. I ask your forbearance to hear me out, if you would, as I try to answer it.”

Harry slowly backed away to increase the distance between them, as he had no reason to take Riddle’s word that neither could harm the other. While it did, in fact, appear that Harry could not harm Riddle, the opposite had yet to be proven. Considering the excruciating pain he had experienced as he transitioned into the encompassing white prison, coupled to his past history with this opponent, he was less than inclined to take anything at face value.

“I appear to have little choice,” Harry snapped when he felt sufficient distance between them to provide him temporary peace of mind. “I obviously don’t know how to leave here.”

Riddle made a grand gesture, waving his arm in a sweeping arc to describe the glittering void. “Yes, rather interesting, isn’t it? We cannot be interrupted here, and as soon as we have finished talking, you have my word that I shall release you. For you see, I cannot leave, either, until I release the right controls. So, in a sense, we are both prisoners here together. We’ll exit at the same time.”

“Right, and why the bloody hell should I trust you?”

Riddle shook his head slowly, an expression of sorrow slowly creeping across the man’s features. “Truthfully, you have no reason to, Harry. And I do not fault you for this. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I devised this place, so that we might talk, and you would not feel threatened.”

“Yeah, this is really non-threatening, Tom.”

Harry watched impassively, keeping his face a blank mask, choking down his own rage as Riddle frowned slightly. Taking a brief chance, Harry carefully extended his Legilimency skills toward where he thought Riddle was in space, but he found nothing. No shields, no consciousness, just a blanket void. Either the man had Occlumency shields as strong as Harry’s, or else they really were truly incorporeal here, unable to harm each other.

“Harry, all I ask is that you hear me out. You realise we are, perhaps, somewhat at odds outside of this place, yet if we can have no dialogue, how will we resolve our conflicts?” Riddle’s tone was soothing, his rich and deep voice a sharp contrast to what Harry recalled from events over the summer, or that hateful blistering winter day years past. In many respects, the man before him sounded like a mixture between Nicolas and Dumbledore, and Harry could feel how insidiously charismatic it might be to an unwary person.

“That’s easy, just roll over and die for me. Then there won’t be a conflict.”

“Harry, Harry,” Riddle said quietly, “you know that’s all but impossible. I have gone further down the path to immortality than anyone, and I can neither just die nor simply be killed by you or anyone else.”

“That’s funny,” Harry spat with some venom, “I’ve been wanting to put that little theory of yours to the test for a while now.”

With a sigh, Riddle began pacing slowly, never coming closer to Harry than he already was. “Really, Harry, must we trade barbs in this way? Can we not talk like the intelligent and civilised people we are?”

“Civilised? You? By whose definition?!”

Riddle paused to shake his head in a dramatic manner. There was a mournful expression on his face, and his eyes were shining brightly, leaving Harry with the impression that the man was almost ready to cry, as unfathomable as such an act might be. “I believe I deserve that, Harry, but that’s why I want to talk to you. You see, I was wrong. I have wronged you and many others greatly, I have lost sight of what I set out to do, I have done unspeakable acts, and I was wrong to do what I did.”

Harry involuntarily took two steps backward, blinking furiously for an eternal heartbeat. “What?”

“Yes, yes, now you begin to see why we are in this place. I was wrong, Harry.”

Harry stood there, completely shocked and floored, his mind churning furiously to try to understand what he had just been told. Voldemort confessing to being wrong, to having been evil incarnate? Surely this was some prank of the first order, perhaps the payback of Mrs Weasley as she demonstrated her completely diabolical genius to teach him a sharp lesson, a genius that would make the twins babes in the wood by comparison. A genius that the Marauders themselves would be foolhardy to challenge, housed in a person that was vindictive on a truly frightening level. Harry vowed then and there that if this was a prank by the matriarch of that family, he would see to it she would never have a peaceful night again in her life.

“Go on, then, pull the other one.”

Shaking his head, Tom Riddle looked at Harry with open sorrow on his handsome features. “No, Harry, there is no ‘other one.’ I was wrong, I have done evil, and I am here to ask you to help me fix this mess I have made.”

“Why me?”

“Harry,” Riddle said with a gentle voice, “you know it has to be you. And I feel that of everyone out there, perhaps I have wronged you most of all. I denied you the parents and family you should have had, and I have been informed of what your Muggle… relatives did. I am deeply sorry to know you suffered through that, let alone how I caused it to come about.”

Harry could feel his rage building, his wrath shaking his own body with the hatred that was slowly boiling up inside of him beyond measure. Here stood Riddle, calmly admitting to the murder of his parents, admitting his knowledge of Harry’s initial childhood, and sweeping it all away with a mere ‘I was wrong’ speech. Harry’s own voice was a hiss of hate as he faced the man directly responsible for so much hell in Harry’s world. “You think you can fix this? You can just say, ‘Oh, so sorry! Let’s be friends!’ and then it’s all over? If I could work magic here, you’d know better than that!”

Riddle only held his hands up in supplication, a lone tear drifting from the corner of his right eye. “No, Harry, I cannot fix this, you are correct. But I can atone for my acts, can I not? I can turn myself in and go quietly to Azkaban, yes?”

Harry knew his anger was reaching epic proportions, and he knew his emotional state was going through too many upheavals to keep the even keel he needed for control over his magic. If he failed to calm down quickly, he was going to have a serious accidental magic discharge, and he knew just how bad that could be.

“You want to turn yourself in? You don’t need me for that! Just pop down to the Ministry and do it!”

“Harry, Harry,” Riddle said with ringing compassion, a second tear edging after the path of the first, “it’s not that easy, and you of all people know that most keenly.”

Harry could not stand to hear this man, this monster, talking to him so calmly, compassionately, patiently, so kindly. At the same instant his vision turned red with unchecked resentment, he felt his magical core drain again substantially from an accidental discharge, and he let out a short grunt of undiluted hate and turned resolutely away from Tom Riddle. Staring into the white void was not in the least calming or reassuring, but not having to look at that thing he was being forced to talk to would surely help him find some semblance of balance again, and damn the consequences of turning his back on an enemy. His own harsh breathing was only faintly registering in his ears. Searching for any peaceful thoughts, Harry desperately clung to his memories of flying, of the thrill of the dive, the beauty of the earth from the sky, the feel of the wind about his body. Continuing to focus solely on the concept of flight, Harry began the deep breathing meditative exercises, seeking and hoping to find his centre again.

After an interminable amount of time, Harry slowly turned back to face Riddle. The dark-haired man was looking at Harry with eyes that seemed to leak misery, bright and vivid, and it was all Harry could do not to wish fervently that he could just kill the man then and there since inflicting agony was already denied in this place.

“Explain it to me, then.” Harry’s voice was cold, the control exacting, his internal sense of self thoroughly buttressed and bunkered deep inside. He knew he had to keep a tight leash on his thoughts and emotions, or he might inadvertently drain himself into unconsciousness through accidental magic releases. That could be deadly, given the opponent standing before him.

“I only wanted immortality, Harry,” Riddle said with a small shrug. “I didn’t want to die, to lose everything so callously. That’s what I set out for, my quest if you will, as even Riothamus Arthur once set upon his quest for the Cauldron of Annwfn.”

Riddle’s voice, while still laced with sorrow and even a hint or two of fatigue, carried an undertone of vision and belief that such a quest was normal, attainable even. “Oh, I didn’t think Muggle-borns had the right or the understanding to attend such a place as Hogwarts. Let them attend other schools, if they so chose. Between those two beliefs of mine, for immortality and for separating those who could never truly understand or appreciate magic as those born and raised with it could, well, I found many people who agreed with me while I was at Hogwarts.”

Riddle shook his head briefly and held Harry’s gaze with far more calm than Harry could feel for the situation. To Harry, either the man was a consummate actor of the first order, or else he was sincere in his statements. Neither made the least bit of logic, given everything Harry knew or understood prior to falling through the looking glass.

“Later, Harry, after I left Hogwarts, I found that even more people shared the same ideals.” Riddle started pacing slowly again, still keeping the distance between them that Harry had previously established. “We began meeting regularly. I left the planning of how to separate the Muggles and Muggle-born to my friends, while I delved into the quest for never-ending life. You would be amazed at all of the people throughout history who have also sought to stave off the eternal sleep, Harry. I know I was.”

For a fleeting moment, Harry had a vision of Hermione, pressing him for details about magic, flicking her wand with the wrong words, and her absolute quest for knowledge and facts. Before he could consider the unexpected thought fully, Riddle stopped pacing and faced Harry again with a sigh. “I found many rituals that would each give me a part of what I needed, Harry, to transform myself and live forever. It pains me now to say it, but I tried almost all of them. Somewhere along the way, I fear that those rituals changed me and led me down the path that I followed before.” With a shudder, Riddle seemed to almost hunch in upon himself. “I cannot begin to describe some of the things we have seen and done, and my friends… my friends have become as evil as I, if not more so. Look at me! This is how I once was, and you saw what my body became after the rebirth! How far have I fallen that I now slink upon the ground in my Darkness?”

Harry decided he was, quite simply, baffled. He could find no reason for Riddle to be making such things up, yet he could find no reason to believe the man, either. It was almost as though he would next claim to be able to bring Harry’s biological parents back to life or to give Sirius back the long years he lost to the wretched Azkaban Dementors. “What has any of this to do with me?” Harry’s own voice was barely at normal volume, yet it was tremulous, an unwilling testament to the distressed mental state he was in.

“Everything, Harry, everything.” Riddle half-reached out toward Harry, as though to step forward and clasp a brotherly hand upon his shoulder, but apparently caught himself before he could do anything more than reach partially. “Ever since my rebirth this summer, I have been plagued by these thoughts. I ordered everyone to leave you alone, to leave everyone alone, while I considered these things.” Riddle held up a hand emphatically before Harry could say anything. “Yes, yes, I was angry, very, very angry when I was reborn. I had suffered for years in that wraith-like state; my so-called friends had left me, abandoned me, and they foreswore the vows that they had made to me. I was just as angry when we first met some years ago, and, in my hate and anger at you for putting me in that situation, I again took someone precious from you. I was wrong, Harry, I was wrong. Would you not be angry in those situations? Would you not rage if everyone left you for dead, yet knowing that you were still alive somewhere? If you were sorely wounded and unable to get help on your own?”

The last thing Harry wanted to do was follow such a leading train of thought, for if he started agreeing with his foe on this topic, surely he would find himself agreeing on others. Any concurrence with Riddle was all but a death writ as far as Harry was concerned.

“I see you agree with me,” Riddle observed quietly. “Yes, I also once again assaulted you this past summer, quite unjustly, and I am deeply sorry for that now, Harry. And I weep for the loss of life that happened that night. But why did I tell my friends to leave you and others alone? In the days immediately after my rebirth, I had to reconsider what it was that made others fight for you, rather than fight because of you. And I did not like my conclusions, for they told me how wrong I had become in these things.”

“Your request really stopped the Malfoys from having a go, didn’t it?”

“No, and I was most displeased with Lucius and his son, Harry. I’ve had some words with them over the matter.” With an almost negligent flick of a finger, Riddle conjured two comfortable appearing chairs, motioning Harry into one as he slowly sank into the other. They were no closer to each other than they had been all along, but somehow the situation was becoming familiar, intimate, almost comfortable, and that was almost more unnerving to Harry than everything else going on.

“Recently I have found myself reflecting on the things I have done during my own darkness, and I worry for the problems I have created. I dug up my own journals, Harry, and began trying to reconstruct what I did and what I was thinking. I am very sorry to say that some of the objects I created, some of the evil I brought forth, they have disappeared during my slumber.”

Harry said nothing and let the numbness of the moment supplant all other concepts in his mind. He knew of what Riddle was speaking, yet he was unable to care even slightly at this point for the idea.

“I see you do not appear to know of this. On the one hand, Harry, that is quite good — you have been most fortunate to never find such filth. On the other hand, it means I must spend more time finding out what happened, for I cannot simply let others accidentally run across these.”

“Riiight,” Harry finally said with some of his usual sarcasm coming back, although it merely came across as weary resignation even to his own ears. “You plan to clean up your little mistakes, is that it?”

“In a sense, yes. Harry, I am very close to true immortality. There is but one rite left for me to do, and it shall all be over. I am here before you to let you know that I understand, now, what has gone so very wrong, and that I will be trying to make amends as I may. Well, I will as soon as I have completed this ritual. If you would help me, then perhaps all of this can be completed so much faster. Together, I hope we might find a way to capture my friends that have gone to such lengths, such unspeakable acts against others. We two might locate and destroy those mistakes I made, and I will work with you to see this all ended.”

Harry could tell he narrowed his eyes, even if it was subconsciously, as he tried to understand what he was being told in full. “You said you wanted my help to do these things? Why not Dumbledore? Or the Aurors?”

Sighing, Riddle nodded his head slowly. “Think about it, Harry. Before I might turn myself over to the Aurors, these things simply must be done. It will begin the atonement for my sins, to try to do better. And you know that only you and I have the power to do these things within us.”

“And you want my help to do what precisely?”

Riddle smiled, but it was a smile full of sorrow and pain, the like of which Harry had only seen from his father after the fall events of 1989. It was unnerving in the extreme to see such upon Riddle, and Harry could almost feel the hairs on the nape of his neck rising as though hackles were extant there. “I don’t mind discussing it with you, Harry. But I do not expect you to be persuaded in just one discussion. I think that perhaps we have talked enough for now, and we should talk again later, after you’ve had time to reflect on this.”

In all, Harry thought the entire conversation was about as expected as sitting down to tea and biscuits with Fudge, only to be handed the job of Minister during the conversation. The way Tom Riddle was behaving so far exceeded all known or expected or theorized ideas that Harry was simply forced to admit his preconceived ideas around the persona non grata of Lord Voldemort were woefully inadequate for handling the reality of Tom Riddle, the man. “Why should anyone trust you, let alone me of all people?” Harry hated that his voice had become almost conversational, the comfort of hate replaced with numbness and reflexive manners.

“When the time comes, Harry,” Riddle said with a half smile, sorrow still plain on his features, “I’ll give you an Unbreakable Oath.”

“That’s it? You’ve reformed, you’ll do one final ritual, you’ll help clean up the mess you’ve made, and then you’ll shuffle off to Azkaban to pay your dues?” Harry knew that under other conditions, his sarcasm would have been in top form for such a retort, but all he could manage now was a vague inquisitiveness. Somehow, he felt, there was nothing new to be learned here.

“Mostly, Harry. I will need your time, your willingness to come and work with me, to directly help me. It’s a lot to ask for, is it not? I’ll not expect to hear an answer from you right away, Harry. I know you’ll need to think about it and talk to others about it. Do you have any other questions for me right now? That cannot or should not wait until next time?”

Numbly, Harry just slowly shook his head.

“Very well, Harry. I’ll be in touch. I, too, must wait for the right time, as this last ritual can only be completed when the celestial bodies are aligned correctly.” Riddle stood, and Harry unwittingly mimicked his action. The chairs vanished, and Riddle looked around once more. “I’m sorry, Harry, but if it hurt coming in here, it’s going to hurt leaving as well. The next time, I shall use a much simpler means of communication.”

Harry nodded again, having already expected as much.

“Again, I apologize for taking so much from you, Harry. Your parents and your childhood with those people who were entrusted with your care… that should never have happened to you. You deserved otherwise. You deserved loving parents, a loving home, and the freedom to be happy and carefree and safe. We’ll talk again, Harry,” Riddle said quietly.

And then Harry’s world exploded into unremitting pain for a second time, as everything turned completely black, the white swirls replaced with a vortex as though a black hole was consuming the universe. He could feel his own magic flaring as his mind succumbed to the torrential sensations of crossing the barrier made up by Riddle’s magic.

It was the sound of shattering glass that made Harry jerk slightly as he slowly understood that he was free of the magic binding him into the globe. An overpowering foul taste was still on his tongue, one of vinegar made from a hideous base. He could hear indecipherable noises around him, and his body was giving him conflicted sensations. Voices were coming and going, several voices, tantalisingly just on the edge of sanity. They were quiet, but there were moments when he could understand fragments of the words.

“… stopped the seizures, quickly, get me …”

He felt as though he had been in the sun too long. His skin was hot and itchy. He was unable to move, his body stuck firmly to the surface he was laying on top of.

“… need some help for this …”

His stomach was churning, threatening to upend its contents everywhere, except his throat felt unbelievably raw and he knew it would be a new kind of agony if he did lose control.

“… we don’t have enough potion for …”

His head ached, spikes of pain shooting through his forehead with each beat of his heart, sounds ringing in his ears, a cacophony of pleasure and pain to his brain — glass jars hitting a hard surface, fabric rustling, feet moving rapidly, all echoes of the darkness in his mind blending together. His magic felt weak and drained, as though his mentors had put him through a full day’s brutal training and then kept him in the house with David.

The sound of rustling fabric became louder and then disappeared. “Finite Incantatem!” resounded loudly in his head, reverberating with agony. Suddenly he felt a cold hand pressed to his forehead. Involuntarily, he groaned at the freezing contact, and his eyes shot open. The room was dark, with a weak light trailing in through a fragmented and bizarrely shaped doorway, outlining the person next to him. The ceiling above him was shadowy, the walls and furnishings all dark in colour, and everything had a strange visual texture. There was an odd smell to the air, and the room was too warm.

“Lumos!” Light flooded his senses in a tight, narrow beam as a wand swept slowly over the bed. “Mr Potter,” the soft female voice whispered, “do you know me?”

Her face was familiar, but it was painful to recall the details. His brain felt as though someone had stuck a white-hot iron into the deepest, darkest recesses and stirred vigorously. It was her dark hair pulled back in a bun and her stern expression that reminded him of what he once knew. “Healer Worthy,” he rasped out, choking on the dry yet painful sensation from his throat.

“Yes, Mr Potter,” she said as her face melted into a gentle smile. “I know you’re in considerable pain. I hadn’t expected you would need my services quite so quickly.” She turned slowly to look around while sweeping her wand about, and Harry saw her eyes come to focus on the floor near the bed. She carefully moved around the bed to the other side, before meeting his eyes again. “Rest, now, while I check you over.”

Harry let his eyes drift over the strange texture of the walls so very near him in the room, trying to understand where he was, or why the setting was so different from a medical facility. When Healer Worthy’s glowing wand light brushed over the one of the walls adjacent to his bed for the third time, a bit of the odd material fell down, exposing an expanse of a smooth block wall that was quite dark, and then he suddenly understood. He was in the Hogwarts infirmary, in a private room like the headmaster.

The shapes nearest him about the room were the charred remains of furniture, the walls and ceiling blackened from fire, his skin burned from his own magic and the damage he had wrought upon the room. Where curtains and blankets had once rested were piles of ash and bent frames, the single door from his room to the main infirmary covered in grime and soot and hanging wildly askew, letting only bits of light into the room. He could discern the whiter colours of the main infirmary farther away through the opening, away from the zone of destruction that he was housed in. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the region just beyond his fractured door was also rather dark grey in appearance.

Healer Worthy’s hand running over his chest and legs made Harry focus his attention back to her. Her wand was held firmly in her right hand, slowly drawing the tip across his body as her left hand matched the focal point, always working in the pool of light. Harry had a vague recollection of Cyril objecting to this woman’s hands-on approach to healing, but he was too confused to care at the moment.

“All right, Mr Potter,” she said briskly, putting her left hand back on his forehead. “Aside from the burns, you’ve got a raw throat from your screaming and some smoke inhalation, combined with what registers as an incredible headache. I can fix all of those, although the burns and throat will take until tomorrow to fully heal. Try not to move. I’ll be right back.”

As her footsteps marched around the broken door and down the aisle, out of sight into the main infirmary, he let his eyes trail over the room once more, paying closer attention to details. Most of the objects in the room were destroyed, vials and puddles all over the floor. A table was a mangled and charred lump near the head of his bed. From what he could see through the doorway, the rest of the Infirmary appeared to be unscathed, barring the immediate vicinity of the door to his chamber. Harry realised that small fact would translate to the safety of where Madam Pomfrey had her office and most likely her further stock of medical supplies.

As he was trying to work out exactly why the infirmary was deathly quiet and glowed faintly to his vision, Healer Worthy came striding back, briskly setting several potions on the edge of his bed. “Headache first, your throat second, some pain numbing on the burns, and then we’ll talk, right?”

Harry had no intention of talking or moving, but she seemed to understand regardless. She poured out a measure of potion, holding a goblet to his lips and slowly trickling the contents into his mouth. While it tasted hideous, it was almost sweet in comparison to the bitter aftertaste of Riddle’s charmed world. By the time he finished the potion, he could feel his headache fading somewhat, and he knew it would be almost completely gone within minutes.

She gave him a large glass of water to chase the first potion down with before she administered a second that immediately eased the pain of his throat. Harry had been unaware just how uncomfortable merely breathing had been, but with the pain removed, he found himself happy to be free of the discomfort in his throat. After a second measure of water, she set everything back on the bed before focusing closely on Harry’s face. With a short nod, she cast a long series of charms across his exposed skin, substantially easing all of the pain, although it did not dissipate fully.

“Now, Mr Potter, can you tell me what happened?”

Harry paused to consider the question. “Can I? Not really. I, uh, experienced something odd, but I was unaware of my surroundings here. So at best I could tell you about that. Will I? No, I’m sorry.”

“Mr Potter, please, whatever happened to you affected a great many other people. We need to know what happened to help them as well.”

“What do you mean? Who was affected?”

The Healer stood over him, clearly judging whether or not to answer his question. Finally, she sighed softly before looking quickly toward the silent infirmary and back to Harry. “Almost a quarter of the people in the Great Hall during breakfast were Stunned, Mr Potter, and that included most of the staff. One student was injured somehow before then, when she tried to separate you from that orb that you were holding. The magical backlash caused quite a problem with a Miss Weasley, I believe her name was.”

Harry said nothing, trying to understand what had possessed Ginny to even try such a stunt, let alone when it might have happened. “That was before everyone was Stunned, or after?”

“Before, as I understand it,” Worthy told him. “Near the very beginning.”

Harry nodded his head slowly, stopping rather quickly as his skin protested the movement by reminding him of his burns. The brief moment when the eternal whiteness flickered to blackness would have been Ginny’s doing. “I see. What else?”

“I trust you’ve noticed the damage here?” Harry merely grunted at the question. The Healer shifted her gaze about, almost randomly locking onto different locations in the room. “To make matters worse, none of our medical potions seem to be working properly today except for the ones administered to you and Miss Weasley. There were some additional injuries to a few other students — siblings of Miss Weasley, mostly — when they were with her here and you had another… incident.”

“Why do I have the feeling you’re avoiding something?”

She finally turned to look back at Harry, and he could tell she was unhappy. “There’s no evidence that it was linked, Mr Potter, so it’s only speculation. But Professor Dumbledore began having seizures during your episode. As near as we can tell, it began when you picked up that crystal orb and ended just before I found you free of the thing.”

Harry said nothing, but his mind began to slowly come back together, pieces falling into place. As he considered the implications of her statements, he slowly asked, “Where’s Cyril?”

“Out there,” she waved vaguely at the doors, “keeping the Aurors summoned by the Defence Professor from arresting you.”

Harry knew his face had to show his surprise. Having Aurors materialise in order to arrest him because he was under attack from a third party was about as logical as arresting an unwitting spectator to a fight for getting hit. “How long have I been in here?”

Healer Worthy shrugged in a faintly distracting manner. “I’m not sure. I know you’ve been here at least,” she said as she glanced at her watch, “thirty-seven minutes, as that’s when I was called in, along with one or two others. I’ve no idea how long you were here before then. Madam Pomfrey is one of the injured, Mr Potter.”

Harry was unable to stop the bitter sigh from escaping. “How badly hurt is she?”

“She should be fine, Mr Potter. What happened was simply unexpected, so she was not prepared for it.”

“And what did happen?”

Healer Worthy swept her arm in a gesture encompassing the room and the obvious damage contained therein. “That’s a good question. You seemed to be in the throes of a violent fit, and your magic lashed out several times. After the first time, we isolated you. The last time nearly blew this room apart. It took quite a bit of work to keep you relatively unscathed, considering what happened.”

“Sorry,” Harry grunted, feeling only vaguely empathic to the damage he had wrought unintentionally. He needed to get out of the infirmary. He needed to find Remus, Edgar, Cyril, or anyone that knew what he was doing on some level. He had to explain what really happened and not whatever people assumed happened. “My little… fit wasn’t pleasant. I guess I had some accidental magic happen.”

“That was accidental magic?” Healer Worthy had a look of consternation on her face. “I’ve known mature wizards and witches who couldn’t intentionally do half of what you did without trying, Mr Potter. You’re telling me that was accidental?”

“Yeah, I think most of it was. I need Cyril. Or else I need you to let me out of here. Right now would be a good time.” Harry’s mind was just now coming unstuck after the surprises and pain that he had endured. Even though the headache potion combined with the numbing charms were taking the edge off the haze of sensations from his own skin, he knew he was really in no condition to be running about openly, and yet, he had little choice in the matter. He needed to talk to others.

“Absolutely not!” Healer Worthy had all the scorn in her voice that Harry thought it was possible to imbue yet still enunciate words. “You’re in dire need of more healing, and the worst thing you could do right now is run around!”

“Then bring Cyril in here. I really need to talk to someone permitted to know what I do.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not possible. You’ll have to wait for him to return. Are you sure you won’t tell me about what happened?”

Harry shook his head quickly, only to immediately regret the motion as it triggered painful flashes across his skin and lingering headache.

The Healer obviously caught his wince of pain, because she leaned forward again, measuring out the next potion. “This is going to dull all of your pain receptors, so be careful or you’ll hurt yourself and not even know it. Those charms don’t last very long.” As soon as he had the goblet drained, she was on him again with her wand, one hand drawing patterns, the other slowly sliding over his arms and legs. “It’s interesting that the worst of the burns are on your hands and face, Mr Potter. You’ve got some fire damage giving you light burns on anything that was exposed, but the other burns seem more magical in nature.” As her hands and wand worked, Harry felt strange sensations even through the nerve-blocking potion. It was soothing in a way, even if he thought she might be tugging on his skin hard enough to really hurt even if he had not been injured.

After a long time at her work, Healer Worthy finally stopped and stepped back, giving Harry a faint smile. “That will keep you for several hours. I’ll need to do that again before dinner, and then before bedtime, and you should be relatively normal tomorrow morning. You’ll want to take it easy for another day or two, but you’ll be fine. Now, can I trust you to stay here and rest, Mr Potter, or will I be dosing you with a Dreamless Sleeping Drought?”

Harry tried for a reassuring smile, although he was uncertain his face was capable of smiling at the moment. “You’ll be able to see this mop of hair right here, ma’am.”

“Very well. I’ll be looking in on you from time to time. Do try to sleep. When I see your Mentor next, I’ll send him along.”

Harry nodded slowly to keep the agitation of his head and skin to a minimum. Satisfied, the Healer made her way out of the room, pausing only briefly as she passed the broken door to give Harry one last glance.

As soon as the Healer cleared the room and his line of sight, Harry laboriously climbed out of the bed, doing his best to ignore the pain that resounded through his nerves despite all the blockers in effect. He would be slow in movement, but he would hopefully be out and back quickly. Pulling out his left wand, which was always better for Transfiguration than his right wand, Harry used some of what little magic he had remaining to Transfigure the pillowcase into an approximation of his own head with an unruly chunk of hair sticking out of the top. It was much poorer quality than a store mannequin and would fail to fool anyone who looked at him from a distance of less than eight feet, but it would be enough to at least get him out the door. He was just too tired and too drained to do a proper job of it, but the poor lighting in the room might work to his advantage.

Pulling the blankets up to just under the nose, Harry thought he might have as much as thirty minutes, if he hurried, before the Healer would do a closer check and locate his treachery. That would be more than sufficient time to either isolate Cyril or else locate the reprobates most likely still loitering in the Shrieking Shack. Harry then took the time to cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, unable to stop an annoyed feeling at how long it took to cast and settle. His core was dangerously low if even his off-hand spell casting was hard pressed to pull off a charm he had been doing for years.

When the charm was fully settled, Harry made his way around the broken door and into the main infirmary. He paused immediately, as he noted the two beds smashed to pieces and left in heaps on either side of the broken door to his grim room. There was no evidence of fire damage, but there was plenty of evidence that a force like a Bludger on steroids had repeatedly smacked the two pieces of furniture into misshapen lumps. There were a few broken cabinets in the area, but the truly puzzling bit was the complete lack of furniture otherwise. All of the beds, all of the curtains — it was all gone, either relocated or simply Vanished. Immediately to his left, however, was the open door into the private room where the headmaster was kept. Harry could hear the faint murmuring of voices coming from within the room, but he was unwilling to linger for eavesdropping even if it might be profitable.

Harry listened closely at the closed doors to the infirmary, but he could hear nothing discernable. Hoping that no one was on the other side of the doors, Harry gently pushed them open and slipped into the corridor, keeping the door handle firmly gripped to ease it shut. As he turned away from silently closing the door, he found himself confronted with the missing furniture from the infirmary.

All of the beds lined one side of the corridor leading to the hospital wing, stretching all the way to the stairs as far as he could tell. Approximately fifteen of the beds were occupied, with the first one holding Madam Pomfrey, wrapped in bandages. Harry tried to look away as he realised the second bed held McGonagall, and she was likewise wrapped in thick bandages.

The third bed in the corridor made Harry pause. Her sprawled form was quite different from what he had seen just a few hours prior, as she lay pathetically on the breakfast table, hair tumbled carelessly across both of their arms. Now, however, her hands were bandaged heavily, her long hair was trapped under her own back, and it was clear that she was having unpleasant dreams in some potion-induced haze of subconscious flights. Glancing around, Harry could see one Healer far down the corridor, stooped over someone. As gently as he could manage, Harry rolled her shoulders slightly with his right hand, which enabled him to slide her hair free of the unanticipated entrapment. As his left hand pulled it free and brushed across the nape of her neck, he was unable to help from feeling a flash of sorrow that Ginny was like this. She had tried to help him and wound up in this situation for her actions, with unknown injuries and complications. Exhaling slowly, Harry pushed her hair back away from her neck, so she would be able to turn in her sleep and not trap herself again. Already, her agitation was reduced, if not gone completely.

Harry paused almost immediately after he stepped away, seeing Neville on the next bed in the corridor. The boy’s eyes were open, and he was looking approximately where Harry was standing. Harry said nothing, but he knew Neville was bright enough to understand the implications of what he had seen. Neville was also bandaged, but around the head and chest, not on the hands.

“You’re all right, then?” came the quiet whisper.

“I will be."

Neville was obviously working something over in his own mind, his open face never once concealing a range of emotions and thoughts deep inside. Harry was content to wait him out, since he valued the unwavering companionship Neville offered so sincerely.

“Harry?”

“Yeah, Neville?”

“D’you know who did this?”

“Yeah, Neville.”

Silence returned as Neville worked his way through some final thoughts.

“Land one for me, will you?”

Harry smiled inwardly, knowing in that moment that Neville was on his side and had made that choice freely, without even knowing the entire matter. It was clear that his was an acceptance borne truly, in an act of friendship, even if the motivation was retribution for the wounds inflicted on Neville’s other friends. For some reason, it was satisfying to be well considered by the boy, or rather the young man, who was watching a patch of air that Harry knew he would be unable to see into. Harry acknowledged to himself that he had just cemented his first real friend of his own age, and it was a soft-spoken, gentle soul, which he admitted was ironic on so many levels.

“You have my word, Neville. When I catch him, there’ll be one for you, one for Ginny, and lots of ones for others, too.”

“Good luck, Harry.”

“Thanks, Neville.”

Harry did his best to ignore the collection of redheads and other students as he walked down the corridor. He kept to the far right, leaving the widest berth possible between himself and the beds. This reduced the chance of him being heard, but it also allowed him to move past the Healer checking over the patients in the makeshift ward.

Looking down the staircase toward the Entrance Hall, Harry could see Cyril surrounded by a knot of easily identifiable Aurors. While under other circumstances, Harry might have enjoyed sneaking around such an ego-infested group, but in his current state he knew it was far too risky. Instead, he was faced with the enjoyable prospect of a long hike up far too many stairs to retrieve his broom before making his way outside. Since Cyril was engaged with the Aurors, for whatever reason, Harry would switch to Plan B and locate the reprobates keeping an eye or three on Snape. With luck, he would find them embedded in the Shrieking Shack, although he hoped they had taken the time to shower and freshen up a bit since his last visit.

Harry knew that it was a long hike to his suite, but when he arrived and picked up his broom, he was unprepared to be so drained that he was unable to bypass the layers of protections on his own bedroom window. Or, as Harry rapidly discovered, that he lacked the certainty of reserves to punch through any nearby window’s protections. While he thought he might be able to break through a corridor window, or perhaps a classroom one, he disliked how much more vulnerable that would leave him. One of the last things he wanted to do in life was to walk around a bunch of wizards and witches he had no trust in while unable to defend himself should the need invariably arise.

Using his broom, however, he was able to slowly fly up the stairs to the top of the Astronomy Tower and exit the castle that way. The drawback was the low speed he had to maintain to avoid giving away his presence to anyone, or any painting, that he did not want to know he was out and about.

With the decision made to avoid any unnecessary magic for the moment, Harry opted to fly directly to the back door of the Shack rather than get around the Whomping Willow. That just required a physical lock bypass, but the Marauders had long since installed a magical equivalent to keyless entry if you knew where to tap your wand. Of course, failure to deactivate the locks by the right sequence of taps would cause all sorts of interesting things to happen to an interloper.

Consulting his watch, Harry tapped in the code sequence for the date, hour, and nearest five-minute block, along with his personal tag, to briefly deactivate the alarms and open the door. It had been demonstrated fairly early on in their little games that Harry had quite good vision and was able to see the sequences that Remus used when moving through protections at home. That had led to the rapid escalation of complexity in the ward control system, to the point where they now had codes that were safe to allow someone else to observe, as they would be unable to use the same code to get through the protections. To make things more interesting, where in the sequence of taps his personal tag was inserted varied based on the hour and day. It was a simple evens-odds variation, but combined with all of them having a watch set fifteen minutes fast, it made a mixture of security through obscurity as well as some basic sound principles borrowed from Muggle banks. Regardless, they all were eager to find out who would be the first victim to suffer their joint wrath in any attempt to bypass the security restrictions they now routinely placed anywhere they frequented more than once or twice.

After he closed the door and waited for the soft click as the wards reactivated and the locks reset, Harry moved off into the Shack proper to locate his friends. Remus was sleeping soundly on a worn-out settee, but Sirius was hunched over their parchment map of Hogsmeade.

“We folded the Shack into the Map last night,” Sirius said without looking up. “Don’t think you’re getting any free shots with that Disillusionment Charm in place, Harry.”

Harry had to pause at that. “How’d you know about the Charm?”

“Moony’s latest,” Sirius said, and Harry could almost hear the smirk in the man’s voice. “It’s not all that reliable as to what exactly someone is hiding under, but it helps. And if you came in the back door, well, there’s really only one or two options, right?”

“Yeah, okay, Sirius.” Harry released the Disillusionment, even though Sirius was still focused on the map.

“Did you look up when you came in?”

“No, should I have?”

“Harry, Harry. I keep telling you, look up when you scan an area. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right, Sirius. I get it. I need to wake Moony up. We need to talk. Before I do, did anything odd happen around here after I left yesterday?”

Sirius was still hunched over the parchment, and Harry noticed the collection of butterbeer bottles around his godfather as well as a few haphazardly stacked plates and bowls. “Dunno,” Sirius said after a moment. “Snape took off late last night, and we got a line on his direction. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly where, but it seems like it was the area near the Newcastle upon Tyne destination. He came back in about an hour, and Remus got a visual on him. He wanted you to know that Snape’s wearing his Evil Cloak again.”

Harry sighed briefly. “Right. So someone helped him remove the spells I put on him. What does that change?”

“Beats me.”

“But nothing this morning? During the past couple of hours, maybe?” Harry hated the fact that his voice was coming close to a whinge, but he was just too tired to really care all that much at the moment.

“Nah, it’s been pretty quiet around here. Why?”

“I had a rather bad morning. I need to talk to you lot about it.” Harry felt like just curling up in the corner and forgetting everything, but he knew he had to get this information out. He needed to notify Vencil, Edgar, and Cyril as a minimum — but really his entire circle of conspirators should be notified of the complete mess this morning made of everything.

“Okay, wake up the wolf, and let’s find out what’s going on.”

Ignoring Sirius’ absent shoo-shoo motions, Harry walked over to his friend and stood carefully just at arms’ reach of his feet. With a casual shake or two on the man’s toes, Remus woke with a jolt, throwing his arms out wildly, and then swept the room visually. Harry waved vaguely from where he stood, happy to be out of the flailing reach of the werewolf. “Really, Remus, how does Tonks survive with you flailing like that all the time?”

Remus said nothing in response for a moment as he sat up and rubbed at his eyes. After a moment of stretching, he finally responded to the barb. “I thought you didn’t want to hear the details?”

“I don’t!” Sirius all but yelled. “That’s my cousin!”

Harry grinned as Remus gave him an evil grin and a wink. He knew that this was an old topic now between the two Marauders, but it was always the vehicle for banter. “But she’s such a sweet—”

“Remus! Don’t make me hurt you!”

While Harry was amused to see the pair acting fairly normal, he also knew he was on a limited time budget. “Alright, you two,” he said despite his grin, “let’s settle down for a moment. We need to talk shop, since something happened this morning.”

Sirius still had his head down, staring at the map, but Remus gave Harry his full attention and got comfortable on the settee. “Like what?”

Harry dropped into the other beat-up chair and surveyed his friend for a moment. “I had a little chat with Tom Riddle.”

What?!” Sirius was now standing, the parchment immediately forgotten.

“The map, Sirius?” Harry pointed out to his godfather.

While Sirius sank back down and glared at the map, he shot his own brand of sarcasm back at Harry. “Oh, right, I’ll just study this thing while you talk about that bastard. Don’t mind me, or that I can’t concentrate.”

“He’s right,” Remus said immediately. “He may as well ignore it for the moment. What do you mean, you had a chat? Your last chat was nearly fatal.”

Sirius shoved the map off the table and rubbed his eyes, while Harry watched both of them collect themselves for a moment. “Before we do this, you guys need to know I’m in the hospital wing again. I don’t know when they’ll let me out. You need to tell everyone what happened and get a copy of the memory and discussion to Vencil and Edgar at the least. Okay?”

“Right, right,” Remus said with a wave. “Wait, memory? Why not your sensory monitor?”

“Riddle had a magical construct of some kind. My body didn’t go anywhere, but our minds connected in some place where we could talk. It’ll only show what happened in the aftermath of it all, not what I was seeing in my head.”

Remus nodded slowly at the idea. “Alright. I don’t have a Pensieve here. Did you bring that one I loaned you?”

Harry shook his head briefly. “No, I don’t generally carry it around on me.”

Remus stood and disappeared with a crack! Harry saw Sirius watching him nervously while Remus went off to get the family Pensieve from home.

“Why are you in the hospital wing?”

Harry shrugged slightly. “Magical backlash, burnout, uncontrolled accidental magic, that kind of thing.”

Sirius paled slightly. “Accidental magic?”

“Yeah, well, Tom’s visit was painful. I got a little angry, I guess, and I couldn’t control it.”

“How many people got hurt this time?”

Harry shrugged again, letting his silence answer the question. While he lacked an exact count, as he had failed to think of taking one on his way out, the bodies involved were numerous enough that it really mattered little what the final tally was.

With another crack!, Remus was standing where he had been previously, the large stone Pensieve from home held firmly in his hands. Remus swiftly but gently deposited it on the table that the parchment was on, motioning Harry to drop his memory into it.

With a sigh, Harry got up, and concentrated on everything that happened as soon as the regal owl landed in front of him. Depositing a copy of the memory into the Pensieve, he was somewhat surprised at how little substance there was, considering it apparently took place over the course of an hour or so.

Harry sat back down and let the chair hold him in place, as he was tired and the pain-managing potions were starting to wear off. Those types of healing aids were never meant to deal with active people, which was part of the reason why every Healer demanded that their patients rest quietly, or else the potions just wore off too quickly. Given the mild toxicity of the ingredients, more frequent doses were only done in dire situations, and he knew his burns were uncomfortable but not dire.

“Right. Before you start that playing, Remus, the setup here is that I was expecting some kind of package from Mrs Weasley. Ginny organised it for this morning, but we didn’t know what it would be. That’s the only owl that approached me, so I assumed it was from her, since she’s been trying to get me with packages and letters for a while now from random owls.” Harry sighed again, realising he truly did not know that all of those prior letters he had destroyed were from her. He could see the magic, and after the first few, just started destroying them before he switched modes to collection and payback.

Neither Remus nor Sirius said anything, but Remus did tap the side of the Pensieve. Immediately, the projection of the owl with its leg extended hovered above the bowl, and events ran forward right until Harry touched the orb. The memory flickered briefly to black, and then he was waking up in the hospital wing.

“Shit,” Harry muttered. “What the hell did he do?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” Remus said quietly. “You said it was a magical construct. The crystal was quite impressive to look at, but did Riddle tell you anything about it?”

Harry paused to scratch at his head absently, trying to recall the words Riddle had used. “Something about it being like an interactive Pensieve, but better.”

Remus in turn sat back and stared blankly at the ceiling for a while. “That’s surprising, really. But if we take what he said as somewhat true, it might explain things. He obviously had some enchantments on it to prevent this type of replay.”

Harry wanted to groan in frustration but settled for dropping his head into his hands. “Great. That means I have to remember everything.” Harry leaned back, and tried to focus on the events and words that Riddle had exchanged with him. It certainly had not felt like it took an hour or more to have their conversation, but time was funny when there was no external stimulus. Of course, there were all the fun possibilities of what Riddle may have done to the crystal ball.

“You’ll get a copy of this off to the others?”

Remus nodded quickly. “As soon as we’re done, Harry. I’ll use the Pensieve here to verify everything before I send out the copies for Vencil and Edgar. Then I’ll go round up the others while Sirius holds the fort here, and I’ll go through it with everyone else. I’ll see about contacting Cyril, but you may be the one that has to talk to him.”

Resigned to having to work his way back through everything, Harry relented, closed his eyes, and began the tale. He knew he was getting some words and details wrong, but he tried to convey not only the words and syntax, but semantic impressions, tone, and body language as well as he could remember them. He also articulated the actions he tried to take against Riddle as well as the pain sensations. At the end, he mentioned Healer Worthy’s comments about the headmaster and the seizures that had taken the man for a loop, and he wound down with his sneaking out of the infirmary.

When he was done, Harry was, inexplicably, happy to open his eyes and see that Remus and Sirius were staring at him just as dumbfounded and speechless as he himself had felt several times during the actual events. When neither of them made a motion, Harry gave them a wry half-smile and asked Remus to put the Disillusionment Charm back on his person and his broom. Remus moved on what seemed to be auto-pilot, doing the Charm, but still completely gob-smacked over the bizarre and disturbing events of the morning. With a wave that was only half-heartedly returned by his friends, Harry left the Shack by the back door.

With the Disillusionment that Remus had placed on him keeping his presence relatively free from observation, Harry reversed his path back to the Astronomy Tower and opted to keep his broom with him as he headed back to the infirmary. As though the Fates were feeling generous, the corridor outside the infirmary was now void of beds, and, best of all, the doors into the medical facility were propped wide open. He could hear some people moving about, so he slowed the broom to a complete stop and carefully dismounted. He wanted to be as quiet as possible as he sneaked back into his room, and even at slow speeds, the broom would be slightly nosier than his careful stealth. The enclosed space would also cause the Disillusionment Charm to be more noticeable unless he moved extremely slowly indeed, and those speeds were all but impossible to control on a racing broom.

As he inched his way through the infirmary doors, he saw all of the beds restored to their rightful locations, everything clearly scrubbed down and repaired. Even the door to his little room was repaired and stood wide open. While the illumination from the torches was fairly low, enough light was streaming through the windows to show that most beds were empty. He could see that Ginny and Neville were the only two patients left in the room, though there were several friends and family relations still attending the school sitting about their beds, and he could tell that Madam Pomfrey was up and bustling about in her office. The doors to the headmaster’s room were closed now, but Harry had only one goal in mind, and that was to sneak back into his room and hope his little sojourn remained undiscovered.

As Harry finally slid around the open door into his private area, he came to a complete stop. The poor disguise he had left behind was missing, the room was a pristine and clearly scrubbed white, and all of the damaged items were restored to gleaming perfection. Healer Worthy was pacing stridently in the small room.

Somewhat chagrined at the idea of the lecture he knew was about to be delivered, Harry released the Disillusionment Charm and stood there quietly as she suddenly noticed his return.

“Mr Potter!” Healer Worthy was nearly incandescent in rage, though her voice was surprisingly quiet. “Where the hell have you been? Did I not tell you to stay in that bed?!”

Harry shrugged slightly. “I had to get my message out.”

“That disguise you left behind was pathetic! Why is it that characters like you and your Mentor ignore the advice of people trying to keep you alive?” She held up her hand abruptly before Harry could say anything at all. “Don’t answer that! Just get in bed!”

Harry gingerly climbed back into his bed, grateful that he could stop thinking for a while and maybe catch a nap. As he pulled the blankets back up, Healer Worthy came over and gave him a searing glare that he was sure could intimidate even Professor McGonagall. But then, considering the relationship between the two, it was clear that the new generation had learned from the best, and the new mistress of the craft was in the room with him.

“Since I clearly can’t trust you to follow any simple directions, you’ll be taking a Dreamless Sleeping Draught. Drink up!”

The last thing he recalled of the strange day was the stern Healer’s ire at his casual disobedience to her instructions. By the time she had pulled the goblet from his hands, he could feel his eyelids growing incredibly heavy.

“Rest now, Mr Potter. Let someone else fight for a while.”

+++++=====+++++

A /N:

Thanks, as always, to my genius betas who have valiantly strived to make this story better, despite my crafty attempts to make it incomprehensible. Immeasurable thanks to Chreechree and cwarbeck for all their hard work. Thanks also to Reg and/or Lathac for Brit-picking, Treecat for slang checking, Sovran for a pre-publish sanity check, and Sherylyn for her polishing touches before it gets uploaded.
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