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Category: Post-OotP Characters:All Genres: Angst, Fluff, Drama, General Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: G Reviews: 147 Summary: Harry's life is in turmoil since the death of his godfather, but realising he is in love doesn't make it any easier. This story tracks his sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts and all the problems he faces. Hitcount: Story Total: 69891; Chapter Total: 4513 |
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Friends and More Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling, as anyone who knows me will confirm, and I don’t pretend to have come up with any of this stuff. Only the plot is mine. Chapter Nine: Revelation Harry had never seen Diagon Alley like this before. The street, like the rest of the country, was covered in thick snow. There weren’t many people out on this cold Boxing Day, and Harry and Ginny walked as quickly as they could to Ollivander’s, the wand maker’s shop. They held their cloaks tight around them, wincing at each fresh gust of the bitterly cold wind, speaking little but not awkward in their silence: it was something Harry found wonderful about their friendship, that each could enjoy just the presence of the other without the need for mindless chatter. For someone as naturally reticent as Harry, it came as a pleasant relief. Even so, there were still things puzzling him about Ginny. He remembered again the first time she had looked at him with an unpleasant expression: it had been the day he had arrived at the Burrow, when they had both received owls, both assuming that they were from their significant others. That had been long before Ginny found the sword. Why had she been so angry with him then? It wasn’t making any sense to him. He felt a nudge on his arm and saw Ginny smiling at him, bringing him out of his sober reflection. Whatever it was, he was just glad that he could call Ginny his friend again, something he had almost given up hope on. He smiled back as they approached their destination. The shop seemed beautifully warm after the chill of the world outside, and Harry took a deep breath, remembering the smell of the shop. He had only been here once before, when he had got his own wand, but he remembered that very clearly indeed. The smell in particular was very familiar: dust and polish, and the faint smell of pine and resin from the wands being worked on at this moment. This time, Mr. Ollivander was standing behind the counter and looked up from his ledger immediately when the two of them came in. “Ah, Mr. Potter! How delightful to see you again!” His voice was as tired, old and quiet as ever, but there was real warmth and sincerity in his eyes. “I hope your wand is in good working condition… although, Professor Dumbledore has informed me that you are practicing wandless magic.” He raised an eyebrow, and Harry blushed slightly; he thought it distinctly possible that Mr. Ollivander didn’t approve of wandless magic. Ginny grinned at him. “Ah, and this must be the youngest of the Weaslys… the seventh, I believe?” Ginny nodded, smiling and shaking the hand Mr. Ollivander had proffered to her. “Delighted, my dear… it is rare enough to see a female Weasly after all. I was wondering when you’d finally get round to visiting my little shop. All of your brothers have come and gone, but I always wondered when you would arrive…” His voice trailed off into nothing, and Ginny’s smile faltered slightly. Harry decided to break the silence. Well, you seem to have realised the reason behind our visit, Mr. Ollivander,” Harry said quietly. “Ginny’s rather in need of a wand of her own, and there’s nowhere better for wands.” Mr. Ollivander smiled; in fact, he almost smirked. “Flattery will get you many things, Mr. Potter… but I’m afraid a discount is not one of them.” Ginny laughed aloud at this, dispelling the tensions, and Harry chuckled ruefully as the aged wand maker began taking Ginny’s measurements. After that came trial after trial, wand after wand… Harry was again strongly reminded of his own wand fitting. However, this seemed to be taking even longer than last time, and Mr. Ollivander was beginning to look puzzled. He stood amidst piles of discarded boxes, looking thoughtfully at Ginny as though at a harder than usual challenge. She, for her part, was looking embarrassed for being so awkward. Mr Ollivander turned abruptly and went into a back room before returning to them carrying a wand wrapped in a length of velvet. “This is a somewhat unusual wand, Miss Weasly… give it a try, all the same.” Ginny dutifully took the wand, and Harry could see the difference straight away. There wasn’t anything in particular, except, perhaps, the way she was standing and holding herself. She gave the wand a swish and red and gold sparks leapt from the end and danced in the air before them before disappearing from view. Mr. Ollivander’s eyes were wide. It was Ginny who spoke first. “Mr. Ollivander… sir, why is this wand so unusual?” Mr. Ollivander blinked, and seemed to come back to himself. He began to put the discarded wands back in their shelves, giving all a brief polish before replacing them. “When I first apprenticed to be a wand maker, my dear, I had grand ideas. I was going to revolutionise the whole craft.” He gave a small, self-depreciating chuckle. “I was young and arrogant, but as soon as I’d learnt the craft as well as I could, I made that wand… which means it is very old, my dear, so treat it well,” he admonished. She nodded, and he continued to speak. “At the time, I did not know why wand makers limited themselves as to the cores they used for their wands. This wand… twelve inches exactly, Rowan wood, which was unusual too, surprisingly quick… containing one of each of the cores I use today. A Unicorn tail hair, a Dragon heartstring and a Phoenix tail feather.” He looked at Ginny closely, scrutinising her. “No one has ever used that wand. No one could get it to work even the simplest of spells. Many people said that it was too confused, that the essences of more than one animal could not coexist inside a working wand, and I agreed with them… until now.” Ginny was looking at him with surprise and some apprehension evident on her face. Harry thought. Was it so unlikely? Ginny was, he knew, a very powerful witch, and he was beginning to suspect that she was much more powerful than she had ever let on, even to her family. He decided that reserving judgement was probably the best course of action. Mr. Ollivander spoke again. “I will be very interested to see what this means, Miss Weasly. I shall keep my ears open.” “Ginny, will you wait for me outside?” Harry asked her, taking the wand. She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicion replacing the pensive attitude it had worn moments before. “Why?” He grinned at her. “Because I need to pay for it, and you’re not supposed to know how much a gift given to you costs. Go on, I won’t be long.” She smiled at him and went out into the snow. Harry approached the counter, and Mr. Ollivander replaced the velvet around the wand, placed it in a box and put that in a bag, which he handed to Harry. “Five Galleons, two Sickles please, Mr. Potter.” Harry handed over the money. “She must be an extraordinary person to suit that wand so well, Mr. Potter. You must be very lucky to have her for a friend.” Harry was very surprised by this statement, but managed to say, “Yeah, she’s amazing,” very quietly before leaving the shop. He handed the bag to Ginny and they began to wander in the general direction of Weaslys’ Wizard Wheezes. Finally Ginny spoke. “Harry… what does it all mean? Mr. Ollivander’s wand? Three cores? I don’t understand.” “Neither do I, Gin,” Harry replied, “but you’ll know one day, I’m sure of that.” He was silent for a while, then said, “How would you like to know something I’ve never told anyone, not even Ron and Hermione? Only Dumbledore knows this.” She looked interested. “The core of my wand is a tail feather from a Phoenix… you probably know that.” She nodded. “What no one knows is that the Phoenix who donated the feather was Fawkes. I guess you’ve seen Fawkes before?” She nodded again. “Well, he gave only one other tail feather, which also went into a wand. That wand belongs to Tom Riddle.” Ginny stopped dead. She stared at Harry. “And do you know what that means?” she asked, slightly breathlessly. Harry shrugged. “I don’t know a reason why, if that’s what you mean. Dumbledore has said before that I probably got some of Riddle’s powers when he tried to kill me.” Harry tried to remember when he’d started thinking of Voldemort as Tom Riddle. Ginny must have been having an effect on him. “But, the link has proved useful. It’s the reason I survived Tom’s rebirth.” Now Ginny looked confused, and Harry hastened to explain. “Two wands sharing cores don’t work properly against each other. When we duelled, my wand and his… linked, I guess, and mine forced his to repeat spells it had cast… you’ve seen priori incantatem before, right?” “Yeah, once,” said Ginny, frowning. “Well, it made… shadows of the people Voldemort had killed, going back to before he disappeared.” It was becoming harder for Harry to continue: this was really personal stuff, and brought back painful memories, but it was important that he tell Ginny too. Whatever it was between them, he didn’t want to have any secrets between them: he needed her to know that he trusted her utterly. “So, I saw Cedric… his shadow asked me to bring his body back. Then there was an old man I didn’t know, I think Dumbledore said he was a Muggle who went missing, and Bertha Jorkins from the Ministry… and…” He gulped. “And my Mum and Dad.” Ginny was looking at him, staring into his eyes, lost for words. Harry felt he had to press on, or he wouldn’t be able to finish. “The shadows… they gave me the time to get to Cedric’s body and Portkey away,” he finished, somewhat lamely. Ginny didn’t speak but walked towards him and drew him into a tight hug. She held him for a time, and Harry felt a comfort that he had never imagined reach deep into him and sooth him. Finally they broke apart, but when they walked on they were closer together than they had been. They trudged on through the snow, towards light and chaos in the shape of two identical redheads. ~*~ The rest of the holidays passed quietly. The mood in the Burrow was somewhat subdued by the reports of fresh attacks by Death Eaters, this time targeting Muggle-born wizards and witches rather than ordinary Muggles. In response, the governing council was upping security: what little they learned from Mr. Weasly suggested that Harry and the others were known priority targets of the Death Eaters, and so they would have to be guarded rather more effectively than they were at the moment. Harry didn’t much care: he had enough to be going on with. All of them were busier than ever once they got back to Hogwarts. Ginny in particular received a noticeable increase in homework, and Harry spent a little of his non-existent free time with her, giving suggestions and hints, but she didn’t really need him: he was right. She was far cleverer and more powerful than any of them had ever thought. When he confronted her about this, she looked embarrassed and shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t always like this, Harry. In my first year my marks weren’t all that good… understandably, I suppose.” She grimaced, and Harry mentally cursed himself for reminding her of her ordeal once again. “After that I got better, but I never wanted to draw attention to myself. I wanted to stay hidden, so I didn’t give answers in class, I never put myself forward. It’s a habit now, I guess.” Harry felt bad that Ginny’s experiences had affected her so very badly in so many ways. To him she had always seemed shy, but he wondered whether Ron and the others had noticed her becoming reclusive. Harry sighed, and looked around his new office. His new office… he had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. It was true, though. His talk with Dumbledore had been full of surprises, but the upshot was that, due to the continued success and growth of the DA, Harry was being made an assistant teacher, and had his own office to work in. Apart from that nothing much had changed: he just tended to do all his homework, DA preparation and ‘cello practice here, where it was quiet and he was unlikely to be disturbed. Sometimes he would let other people use it: it wasn’t as if anything particularly private was kept in here. He became aware of shouting coming from down the hall. He frowned and opened the door. Looking down it he saw Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and Ginny all standing a way away. It looked like Pansy and Ginny were both yelling at Malfoy, who looked furious. “You’re telling me it’s her who you’ve been slobbering over for months?” Pansy shrieked. Harry sauntered closer; only Ginny had seen him. “This worthless trollop?” Ginny didn’t even flinch at the insult, but Malfoy flushed scarlet. “She’s worth about a dozen of you, you cow,” he spat, and Pansy slapped him in the face. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Malfoy,” Ginny said derisively. “From what I’ve heard you need all the help you can get as it is.” She stared hard at Pansy. “It takes some guts to call anyone a trollop when you’re the biggest slut in the school, Parkinson,” she said quietly. Pansy shrieked again and went for her, but Ginny’s wand was in her hand and Pansy checked, fury and uncertainty mingling on her face. Ginny turned to Malfoy. “I’m absolutely disgusted with myself if you think I’m attractive in any way, you slimy git. I suggest that you go away and make up with Parkinson here, who seems attached to you for some utterly stupid reason.” She turned and walked away from them, and Harry. Harry saw Draco’s wand rise. Draco had just “Imp…” when Harry interrupted him. “Petrificus Totalus!” he yelled, and Malfoy instantly went stiff as a board. Ginny had whirled round and was looking at Malfoy in shock. Harry marched towards the inert figure and looked hard into his eyes. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but what you were about to say had better have been Impedimenta, because you have no idea of the world of hurt you’d have been in for if it was Imperio,” he said softly. Malfoy’s eyes, the only part of him that could move, were wide and fearful. Harry was disgusted by the idea of Malfoy controlling Ginny: he had neglected to tell her when Blaise told him of the Slytherin prefect’s infatuation: now she would hate him for that. Again. Now, though, he released Malfoy from the curse and pointed at all four Slytherins. Ginny’s wand was in her hand by this time, and she was covering them as well. “Get back to your common room right now, and if I see you even looking Ginny’s way, we might have to have a little talk… although,” he added with a smile and a half bow to Ginny, “she is much more inventively cruel than I am, so I’d probably leave it to her. I hear the batbogey hex is unpleasant, Malfoy… care to enlighten me?” Malfoy was still bright scarlet and he stomped away, the others following him, shooting nervous glances over their shoulders at Harry and Ginny, who kept their wands raised until they were out of sight. When they were gone, Harry turned to Ginny. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have butted in like that. You don’t need help against someone like Malfoy…” “Don’t be stupid, Harry,” she said with a grin that made Harry’s stomach do something rather funny. “He was going to curse me… and from behind. I’m lucky you were there.” “But there’s something else.” Harry took a deep breath. “I knew he had a crush on you. Ages ago…at the first DA meeting this year, actually. Blaise let me know, and I didn’t tell you.” She shook her head, looking a bit ashamed. “I wasn’t exactly acting like I wanted you to talk to me then, Harry,” she reminded him gently. Harry shifted on his feet, feeling uncomfortable. “Even so, I should have… I dunno, asked Hermione to tell you or something.” He felt angry with himself, and fiddled with his wand. Ginny looked at him oddly. “Harry, it’s no big deal. So Malfoy’s got a thing for me… I know for a fact that a few other boys have too. I don’t really care, I can take care of myself. There’s no harm done, so don’t worry about it. Look, I’ll see you later. I’ve got an extra transfiguration lesson with McGonagall to get to,” she said, and hurried away. Harry blinked. Extra transfiguration? She really must be good… ~*~ Harry approached his own meeting with Professor McGonagall with some apprehension. He had no idea what kind of thing a witch or wizard had to go through to become an animagus, but he did know that it was incredibly hard: it had taken his father, Sirius and Pettigrew three years or thereabouts to work out the secret. Somehow he doubted whether he would be able to achieve it in the two years he had left here at Hogwarts. The walk to McGonagall’s office seemed to take an incredibly long time. He seemed to meet every single ghost in the castle on his way, but put a brief distraction charm on himself so that they wouldn’t want to stop and talk, as they sometimes did… or so that Peeves wouldn’t sabotage him in some horribly inventive and no doubt hilarious way… or hilarious to Peeves, anyway. He finally reached the door and knocked. “Come in, Mr. Potter.” Harry wondered how she had known it was him, as he entered and sat down. It reminded him somewhat of Mad-Eye Moody’s magical eye, which was able to see through solid wood and the back of his own head. That was an interesting idea… “Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall began, interrupting his thoughts. “Let us get straight to the point. No doubt you are aware of the difficulty involved in becoming an animagus. This difficulty is generally due to a human’s unconscious inability to want to leave their body.” She was all business, her hands steepled in front of her nose and mouth with her elbows resting on the desk, and the light reflecting off her wire-framed spectacles. Harry sat up straighter, all his attention on his teacher. “Tonight I will give you the basic instruction, and we will see how you do with it. How does that sound?” Harry shrugged and grinned nervously. “You’re the teacher, Professor,” he said. “And I’m not the only one either, am I Mr. Potter?” Harry blushed, and Professor McGonagall gave a small chuckle. “Well, well… down to business. Now, the method of changing into an animal, Potter, is to envisage your shape, your animal shape, very clearly in your mind, and then to slip your mind into its body. The opposite actually happens: the body slips round your mind, but that is the way you must imagine it. It also requires you to draw on some of your innate, magical energy… this is hard to explain, but it is the reason you can do magic. Now, close your eyes…” But Harry was already away. The lion was loping through the winter forest of his imagination, a powerful, snow-white mountain of muscle and speed. He could see every hair, feel the warm main, hear the steady panting and smell the hot breath. He was almost riding on its back, but somehow that wasn’t where he was. He felt the wind rushing in his hair, tasted the sharp ice in the cold air. The lion was everywhere and Harry’s mind was almost lost to it. He could see each tree as it approached and was dodged with incredible ease, he felt the water spray up onto him as he plunged through a puddle, his paws pounded the frozen earth… He opened his eyes. He was back in McGonagall’s office and he prowled it with interest, sniffing this and that before settling on his haunches and regarding the elderly women. She sat on her chair, looking just as steadily down at him, surprisingly calm for someone who had a fully-grown male lion prowling around their office. She raised an eyebrow. “I see.” She drummed her fingers on the desk before her, looking hard at Harry. Finally she spoke again. “Can you change back?” Harry shrugged his broad, shaggy, muscular shoulders and pictured the tall, lean body with the same dark hair and green eyes that he had now and was used to, and in a moment was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Professor McGonagall’s office. He stood and sat in the chair again, not speaking. Finally McGonagall spoke. “I suppose you realise, Potter, that what you have just done is often used in our world as a euphemism for the impossible?” Harry frowned. “Professor?” “As in, ‘as likely as a first-go animagus’. No one, in the history of the world, has ever done that. It is thought physically impossible. It takes most people years to get to the stage where they can even picture their animal clearly enough to transform, and then they spend a lot of time trying to will themselves to let go of their human bodies.” She stared at him intently. “Tell me: weren’t you even a bit frightened?” Harry felt utterly perplexed. “To be honest, Professor, I didn’t even notice what was happening at the time. I just imagined the lion as exactly as I could and then… I don’t know… at some point what I was imagining switched from the lion to what the lion was experiencing. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was impossible. Did I not do it properly?” He was slightly nervous. Professor McGonagall, however, looked very slightly annoyed. “Not do it properly? Mr. Potter, you just accomplished a perfect animagus transformation without even really trying, completely discrediting every study of the ability that has ever been made. Forgive me for sounding jealous, but it took me the best part of seven years to perfect my transformation, and that until recently was thought impressive… although, I’m told that your father and his friends managed it in rather less time than that.” She looked away for a moment, then back at Harry, and gave a decisive nod of her head. “A visit to the headmaster is indicated, Potter.” ~*~ “Show me,” said Professor Dumbledore. Professor McGonagall had explained the situation to the headmaster while Harry stood, wondering why this was so unusual. Turning into an animal had been, for him, the most natural thing in the world, but he must have done something wrong, there must have been something he hadn’t done. Now he nodded obediently, and closed his eyes. It was even easier this time, the memory of what it was like to be the lion flowing under his skin from some inner source and replacing, for a while at least, what it felt like to be human. As a lion he sat again on his back legs, drinking in the feelings coming at him from every direction: every one of his senses was heightened, enhanced, augmented, and he felt so strong… “I see,” Dumbledore said softly, in exactly the same tone of voice Professor McGonagall had used in her office. She stood looking between the lion on the hearthrug and the headmaster. Fawkes flew over from his perch and landed in front of Harry, cocking his head to one side for a better look at the strange creature in the office. Harry noticed for the first time the sweet smell that came from the Phoenix, including just the subtlest hint of ash. Harry soon turned back, though: the looks his teachers were giving him were starting to unnerve him. There was silence in the office for a while, save for the gentle crackling of the fire, the whirring of the many devices arrayed around the room, and the snoring coming from the portraits of old headmasters and mistresses of Hogwarts; whether the snoring was real or fake, Harry couldn’t tell. He had a suspicion, though, that a few knew what was going on. Eventually, Dumbledore spoke. “Minerva, could you leave us for a while? I wish to have a small private chat with Harry,” he said, his expression unreadable but his eyes twinkling more than ever: Harry wondered with surprise whether Dumbledore might actually be excited. “Certainly, headmaster,” Professor McGonagall answered smoothly. “I will return to my office: please floo me if you wish to speak to me.” So saying she left, leaving Harry with Dumbledore, who gestured for Harry to sit down in front of the desk, while he sat behind it in his large, ornate chair. He surveyed Harry closely for a while before speaking again. “Harry, let me speak plainly. You told me at the beginning of the year that you were in love. I respected your privacy and did not ask further, but now I’m afraid it is necessary that I must know: are you in love with Ginny Weasly?” Harry blushed scarlet at this, but held his teacher’s gaze steadily. This wasn’t something he was ashamed of, not any more. He had been, at first, he realised. Not because Ginny wasn’t someone he wanted to be in love with, but because he had been so stupid for so long. Now, though, he felt there was just a chance that Ginny might be willing to forgive him for his years of neglect. “Yes, sir,” he said calmly. Dumbledore nodded, a little absently, and Harry knew that his mind was now elsewhere. After a while he spoke again. “I have to say, Harry, that I am most pleased about that. Miss Weasly is a remarkable young woman… quite remarkable. As you are a remarkable young man. I was joking when I said, on Christmas Eve, that I looked forward to your next surprise… and here it is. And here, too is the confirmation of something I have suspected for a very long time.” He paused, then continued. “At the end of last term, Harry, you were distraught… and quite understandably so, I might add. I have to admit, I feared then that you would sink yourself into depression, which I fear would be the doom of all our hopes. But you did not. You have become stronger, far stronger, since that time than I could have ever imagined. You have mastered wandless magic, all your schoolwork is, very nearly, without equal, you are probably the most popular teacher in this school while still a student yourself, you have created a spell in a single instant, you tapped your very magical core when learning to play a musical instrument it normally takes a lifetime to understand, and now you have achieved what was thought impossible by performing the animagus transformation perfectly on your first attempt. And now I know why, and I feel I can tell you.” Harry sat in his seat, rapt and attentive. Could this finally be the answer he was looking for? “When we had our conversation last term, Harry, I told you that you possessed a power in abundance that was more powerful and less understandable than any other, and that it is something Voldemort can never understand. Do you remember what it was, Harry?” He did know. And he felt the answer in his very being before he spoke it out loud. “Love.” “Indeed.” Dumbledore was speaking very calmly and quietly, but his gaze was as intense as ever. “It is my belief that, in the past, you have survived what attacks were made on you because of the love other people had for you, Harry. Your parents, your friends, your adoptive family in the Weaslys… this protected you, kept you whole through every ordeal. But over the summer, when many would have given in to despair, you discovered instead the true love you held for someone.” Harry didn’t need the explanation, he understood it all, now, understood everything, but he listened all the same, glad to know that his thoughts concurred with Dumbledore’s. “Since you have discovered that love you have nurtured it in every way you can, while keeping it hidden from Miss Weasly and the majority of your friends… yes, I’m aware that some select few knew of your feelings, but that was no more than I expected: their love for you means that they are that concerned about your welfare. You kept your love for Ginny safe, and whether you knew or not you made it grow, so that now you love her more with every passing day, and this love which is from you to another is unlocking a potential for power within you such as I have never known. It is my belief that, while your love is strong, there is nothing that you cannot do… and that includes defeating Voldemort.” They were silent for a while. Then Harry stood up. “Professor, I… I think I want to go to bed now. I’ve got a lot to think about. Thank you for explaining, though. It makes me feel better, to know I have a chance against Vol- no, against Tom,” he said with a smile, enjoying calling him by his real name, as only he, Dumbledore and Ginny had done for a very long time. Dumbledore smiled again, and nodded, and Harry left, his brain bursting with thoughts and ideas. (AN: Hmm, this seems awfully short. Sorry, please don’t hurt me. Oh dear, yet another reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion… in the form of the Gendo Position ™. Ah well, I suppose some people might appreciate it. Really, this time: Merry Christmas to everyone on SIYE. I hope all the readers enjoy reading the work, and all the writers have fun writing it: I know I do. See you next year! -Tom) |
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