Author's notes: This story is an outgrowth of a couple of my earliest
pieces of fanfiction ("Here is the Light" and "Searching" if for some odd
reason someone is interested in them). I want to stress, however, that this
is not simply a light revision of the older stories. I had planned on
completely re-writing both of them for a long time, as I was never
satisfied with either, even when I was writing them. Basically, this story
cannibalizes some of the themes and some of the text from those stories
(the few people who have read the others may recognize bits and pieces),
but I like to think of the old ones as very early rough drafts and this as
the actual story.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, etc. do not belong to me, nor do I claim to own them.
Warning: This story contains a few overt Christian themes. I know that not all people are comfortable with that, but you have been duly warned, and thus have no excuses for vandalizing the review page with a bunch of immature attacks on my person or my faith. If you want to seriously discuss religion, there are proper venues on the internet for that as well, but this isn't that either.
Constructive literary criticism, however, is more than welcome. All flames will be fed to Hagrid's salamanders.
Part I: Harry Potter
Harry Potter sat on the Hogwarts train, staring out at dark clouds and rain beating on the windows outside. He was reminded of the night three years ago to the day, when the train had been attacked by dementors. It seemed like a lifetime ago. More yet, like it had been someone else's life.
Hermione and Ron watched their friend worriedly. He'd barely spoken the entire trip, dodging their questions by saying he just wasn't feeling very well. He seemed grateful when they periodically left to patrol the other train cars as part of their prefect's duties. It had taken a while for Ron to finally leave him to his thoughts, and only after Hermione had nudged him sharply in the ribs with her elbow did he get the hint that Harry wanted to be left alone. The train pulled into Hogsmeade station, and Hermione had to give Harry a nudge as well to pull him out of himself.
"Seriously, Harry. I don't know what's wrong with you, but if you're ill, as you say, then go straight to Madam Pomfrey after the feast and get a pepper-up potion. Otherwise you need to stop this childish nonsense. We are your friends, Harry. You can talk to us. Honestly, I've never seen you mope quite like this before, not even after..."
She sighed and trailed off, mentally kicking herself for almost mentioning Sirius Black and instantly feeling guilty for getting cross with him. She suspected that the loss of his godfather the previous spring was part of what troubled Harry, but felt that it couldn't account for all of this by itself. She and Ron turned to leave the train, and only after some hesitation did Harry follow them out before leaving them to their prefect duties. He approached one of the thestral-drawn carriages and briefly paused to pat the black, gaunt beast on the withers, garnering a few looks from some of the younger students who were unaware of what was pulling the carriages. He felt an odd sort of kinship with the beasts, for some reason. Further down, he saw Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom waving at him and waved back, but he didn't approach them like he knew they were expecting him to do. Rather, he turned from them and climbed into a carriage with a couple of second year Hufflepuffs he didn't personally know.
The ride up to the castle was quiet and uninterrupted, as the younger students pointedly ignored him. Harry supposed they were, like many of the other students, either mildly awed or mildly afraid of him. He couldn't blame them, really, he thought. He was mildly afraid of himself at times (though never awed), after all. He was probably the only non-dark wizard besides Dumbledore who had been in Voldemort's presence and lived to tell the tale. Numerous times, no less. He now knew, after the revelations at the end of the previous term, that he wasn't really a person, in the end. He was a weapon. He was to be the savior of the wizarding world, whether he willed it or not. He wondered if anyone truly cared about him at all. Many people had worked awfully hard to keep him alive over the past sixteen years, but did it have anything to do with him? Or was it just a matter of saving their own necks by grooming him to kill their Dark Lord for them?
He supposed that Ron and Hermione cared about him in their own way, but they could never really understand him. It was as though an impenetrable wall had grown up between them over the past year or so, and their lives had grown apart. They had stood by him as much as they could throughout his years at Hogwarts, but the worst of what had happened to him, they had not witnessed. He felt that he could not tell them of the prophesy, either. They could not understand what it was like to be a marked man, for that's what he was, what he had been his whole life, though he only now knew the true meaning of it. His fate was not his own, he did not belong to himself. Could they possibly understand what it was like to be told that you were bound to kill or be killed? Could they know what it was like to have your life planned out for you from the time you were an infant? He had once held to the idea that Sirius would understand, at least to some degree, but now he would never know. The closest thing to a family that Harry'd had since infancy was now lost to him forever. He knew that Dumbledore might possibly understand, but the old wizard was simply too powerful and had too many responsibilities. There would always be a conflict of interests where Harry was concerned, and furthermore, Harry still could not quite bring himself to forgive the man for everything. He knew logically that the tragedies of his life were not the sole work of Dumbledore, but it was easier to lay blame on him, as he subconsciously knew that Dumbledore would not fault him or hate him for doing so.
As Harry stepped into the bright happy noise of the Great Hall, for the first time in his life, he almost wished he were back with the Dursleys. The last summer had been the least eventful of his life. The Dursleys seemed afraid of him as well, and that suited him fine. They no longer yelled at him or made him do chores. For the most part, they seemed to be trying to ignore his existence as much as humanly possible, barely speaking to him at all. Ron and Hermione had sent him letters often at first, but as his replies became shorter and shorter, and eventually stopped, they left him alone as well. He knew that members of the Order of the Phoenix had been watching him from the shadows at all times, but otherwise he had not been spoken to by any of the members of the Order save through the occasional owl. All summer, it had been as though he didn't exist. He sometimes wished that were the case. He watched the sorting and listened to Dumbledore's announcements in passive silence, longing only for the comfort of his four-post bed in Gryffindor tower. After the feast, he made his way up to the tower as quickly as he could to avoid having to speak to anyone, and dashed to his bed, pulling the curtains around him, enjoying the quiet dark. He heard Ron come in a couple hours later, but pretended to be asleep.
-------
Harry welcomed the resumption of classes, despite the ubiquitous nervousness pervading the school in regards to the return of Voldemort. Nobody really knew what he was planning. Harry's scar tingled occasionally, but it was nothing compared to last year, and his nightmares were not vivid, mostly containing indistinct shadows that often woke him up, but that he could make little sense of. Harry knew that Snape was feeding the Order information from the Death Eater meetings, but he was told nothing and watched closely by the members who were present at Hogwarts. He often caught Professor McGonagall's eyes resting on him slightly longer than necessary in class, and wondered what information was being withheld from him.
Classes, at least, gave Harry something to do with his mind besides brooding, and he threw himself into his study in way that rivaled even Hermione. His friends still pressed him about what was wrong, but they finally gave in to his constant reassurances that he was fine, but simply wanted to get serious about his studies for once so he could get into the Aurors program. He still caught them watching him closely from time to time, but his teachers, at least, seemed pleased with the change. So startling a change it was, after the second week of classes, Professor McGonagall had jokingly asked Harry if he were really someone else using polyjuice potion at the end of class. Harry had laughed lightly and smiled at the joke, but he privately wished that he really were someone else. Surprisingly, even Snape was somewhat less vitriolic with him, despite his obvious disappointment that Harry had somehow managed an Outstanding on his potions O.W.L. the previous year and was still in his class. Snape still loomed over him, baited him, and took points unfairly, but as Harry turned out more and more correctly brewed potions well-researched papers, the man seemed to begrudgingly afford him some tiny iota of respect. At the very least, the jibes sent his way had less to do with his intelligence and settled more on disparaging his character and parentage.
The days passed quickly and mercifully quietly, as a blur of study and Quidditch. As the year wore on, people became more nervous, rather than less, at the lack of news about Voldemort, but when the holidays approached, the students' spirits seemed to lift slightly despite the shadows of danger. The staff in particular, with the exception of Snape and Filch, seemed overly happy about the festive season, but Harry suspected much of their cheer was bravado for the sake of the students.
Hermione approached Harry the day before the trains left, looking somewhat guilty.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to stay here this year, Harry. I'm really sorry, but my parents insist that I come with them to visit my grandparents this year. They said I haven't spent a Christmas with the family in far too long and won't take no for an answer. I'm sure you and Ron will have plenty of fun without me though. He'll probably invite you to stay with his family."
She smiled halfheartedly, hoping he wouldn't take it personally. Harry simply nodded and went back to his transfiguration notes. She looked at him longer, wanting to say something. She had hoped he wouldn't be too upset, but his seeming lack of response worried her more than any outburst would have. She could only hope that Ron would be able to get something out of him, and left to pack her things. Harry no longer felt like studying, and it was late anyhow. He put his notes in his bag, and went upstairs. Ron was already sleeping.
The next morning, he woke up unusually early. Looking outside, he noticed it was still dark, with just a slight hint of light at the horizon, so he went down to the common room with a book to wait until breakfast. Ron came down from the dormitory shortly after and sat down next to him.
"I heard you wake up. You're coming back to the Burrow with me, right? My mom says she'd love to see you—"
"I'm staying here for the holidays, Ron. I need to catch up on my homework."
Ron sat gaping for a second.
"You can't be serious. You can do that homework at the Burrow as well as you could here—"
"I need the library."
Ron's face colored slightly in anger and he stood up in front of Harry, who finally looked up from his book.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Harry? You'd rather sit in this dusty old castle with a few other kids you don't even know and the teachers than stay with your friends? You've been moping around since—, well, since last year. Hermione keeps telling me, 'give him room, he'll work things out and come around' but I think she's full of it. How on Earth do you expect us to just guess what's wrong with you if you never tell us anything? I thought we were your friends. We'd listen to anything you wanted to say, you know. I think you're just being selfish!"
With that, he just stormed off up the stairs. Harry's hands shook. He felt like ripping the book he held in two, but roughly shoved it into his bag instead and stomped out of the common room, heading for the empty astronomy tower. He didn't want to talk to anyone right now. How dare Ron act like this was all Harry's fault! It wasn't— Harry didn't ask for this. He never wanted to have some stupid scar on his head, he never wanted to be the subject of some prophecy, locked by fate.
Harry looked out from the top of the tower over the grounds, watching as Hagrid moved below on the edge of the forest with Fang, carrying a bucket of something with him. Probably meat for the thestrals, Harry thought idly. He didn't feel up to facing Ron again, and skipped breakfast, hiding in the astronomy tower until the students going home for the holidays were in the carriages and on their way to Hogsmeade station. He finally stood up from where he had been sitting quietly for some time, and stretched his stiff legs. Making his way back to Gryffindor tower, he idly threw a few more books in his bag, pulled his father's cloak over his head, and made his way down to the kitchens to get a snack from the house elves. He knew that there were not many students staying, as most of them were anxious to be with their parents due to the threat of Voldemort, and he didn't want to sit at the table with the teachers either. He somehow didn't think he'd last long under the gaze of Dumbledore.
Dobby wasn't in the kitchens at the moment, but the other elves happily loaded a bag with more food than he'd asked for and sent him on his way. He pulled the cloak back over his head and made his way to the empty library. Apparently Madam Pince had decided to take the holiday off as well, which he thought unusual. He was sure that if a teacher saw him in the library unsupervised and with food, he'd be told off, so he settled himself in a far corner under the protection of his cloak and opened his bag of food and one of his books. The afternoon wore on as he studied, and he barely noted the passage of time at all.
Eventually, he noticed the sun climbing down toward the horizon, and headed back up to his room. There was a large tawny owl waiting on the window sill with a letter. He let the bird in, took the letter, and threw it one of Hedwig's owl treats before it turned and left through the window. He opened the letter and felt a stab of guilt and regret as he read it. It was from Remus Lupin.
Harry—
I received an owl earlier this afternoon carrying a troubling message.
Mrs. Weasly says you have chosen to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays
rather than the Burrow with your friend Ron. I also know that Hermione
has gone to visit her own family and I wonder if perhaps there is
something troubling you. I know I can never replace your godfather,
but I'd like to think that perhaps I can be of some help for you. You
know you can always write me if there is something wrong. In case you
haven't been told, I am staying at Grimmauld Place for the time being.
If you would like to stay here over the holidays, you are more than
welcome to, and I would appreciate the company greatly. I know it
isn't as nice as Hogwarts, but I thought I'd extend an invitation
anyhow. Just write back if you want to come, and I'll send someone
from the Order to pick you up.
Love,
Remus
Stay at Grimmauld Place? He hesitated for a while, but finally pulled out some parchment and tried to write a reply. He didn't want to hurt Remus' feelings, but Harry didn't know if he could stand being there again without Sirius. He decided to be honest about it, and said as much in his reply to Remus, declining the generous offer. He felt awful for doing so, but he just couldn't face either Remus or Grimmauld Place at the moment.
Harry wasn't sure that his absence at the table would be ignored for much longer, and headed down to the Great Hall for dinner. The hall was beautifully decorated as it was every year, with tremendous Christmas trees and various bits of tinsel and baubles and such. Like in his third year, so few students were left behind that the long house tables had been pushed to the side, and a single table was set for the remaining staff and students. The headmaster was already seated there, along with Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Snape, and Hagrid, as well as the caretaker, Filch, at one end. A half-dozen students were seated along the other side, and only one seat was left. Harry groaned out loud. He'd have to sit next to Snape. He supposed there was no avoiding it, and took his seat as quietly and innocent- lookingly as possible. Harry held his breath, but released it when Snape only briefly glanced at him with an expression of minor annoyance and then returned to his conversation with the headmaster. The other students, all fifth years or younger, glanced at him as well, but only Colin Creevey and his brother seemed willing to speak to Harry at all. He wasn't really in the mood for conversation, but he replied politely to the two boys' inquiries and was grateful that they seemed willing to do most of the talking.
After spending a while picking at his dinner, he quietly excused himself from the table and walked out of the Great Hall. He hadn't really thought of where he would go, only that he wanted to be somewhere quiet and empty. He was about to head to the library when the headmaster came up behind him and cleared his throat to get his attention. Harry turned around to see what he wanted.
"I notice you've been rather quiet lately Harry. Your teachers have told me that your performance in class has improved, but Professor McGonagall at least seems to be somewhat worried that perhaps it is not simply studiousness that compels you to spend so much time studying. Even Professor Snape has noticed enough of a change to mention it to me, actually..."
Harry thought carefully before answering. He did not really want Dumbledore worrying about him. The man had enough problems without having to deal with Harry's self-indulgent brooding. That, and he was tired of people pretending to be his friend. He mostly just wanted to be left alone, after all. Was that a crime?
"I'm fine, Professor Dumbledore, honestly. I'm just serious about getting into the Aurors program."
Harry knew that Dumbledore wouldn't buy the excuse, and the man's expression clearly showed that he didn't believe it, but the old wizard didn't try to contradict him.
"Has your scar been bothering you?"
Harry shook his head.
"Any more significant dreams?"
"Not really. Nothing meaningful anyway, just indistinct shadows."
Dumbledore looked at him intensely for a few minutes. Harry blinked a few times, feeling uncomfortable under that clear blue gaze.
"Harry, I have thought about last year. I know I treated you rather poorly pushing you away like that, but I am now aware that doing so was folly."
He seemed to be waiting for some sort of reply from Harry, but Harry couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't be impolite, so he remained silent. After a minute, Dumbledore continued.
"Harry, I want you to know that you can come to me with any problems, whether they involve Voldemort or not."
Harry was slightly taken aback at that statement, but couldn't quite seem to believe it. He wanted to leave. He wanted to get out from under that penetrating gaze as quickly as possible.
"Yes, sir. I understand."
Dumbledore didn't seem entirely convinced of that either, but he nodded and left Harry in the hallway. Harry returned to the library, but found himself unable to concentrate well enough to study. He stood up and left again, and started wandering about the school aimlessly. He was feeling restless again.
He eventually ended up on the seventh floor after a while and perused the portraits along the wall. A couple of medieval looking maidens whispered behind their hands when he passed, but none of them seemed interested in conversation with him. He passed the spot on the wall where the Room of Requirement normally showed up. He suddenly missed the D.A. meetings. He had enjoyed those meetings. He had never thought that teaching could be an enjoyable profession, but last year he was forced to admit that it had its rewards. He remembered his pride when Neville had finally started succeeding. Walking further down, he noticed a hallway he'd never been in before, and turned into it, opening doors as he went. They all seemed to be unused classrooms with dusty desks and chairs shoved against the walls, one the same as the next.
At the end of the hall was one more door, made of dark hardwood with odd little carvings about the edges. He had to force the door a bit, as it stuck badly, but eventually got it open, coughing a bit when he stepped over the threshold as clouds of ancient dust plumed into the air. It was stunning. High windows of stained glass were about the narrow room, four down each side, revealing the disturbed dust swirling in the colored moonlight. He looked at the images in the glass. They were beautiful, he thought. Men and women were frozen in odd scenes of vivid color around the room, none of which he recognized. He thought at first maybe they were historical figures, but he couldn't recognize anything that would mark them as wizards, save maybe one of an old man with a beard, holding a staff as columns of water rose up on either side of him. The heads of a crowd were below and around him. He had never known any wizards who used staffs, though, at least outside of muggle stories. There were low benches on either side of a center aisle leading up to a stone table with a moth-eaten cloth and old candles. In the center was a simple brass cross, and in front of the cross were two old cracking leather-bound books. Behind it, a wooden carving of three figures was set into the wall. They were all nearly naked men, with only cloths bound around their loins, very thin and gnarled- looking, as though they'd been starved half their life and occasionally beaten. They all had their arms outstretched. At first he thought that they were flying, or falling, but as he stepped around the table to look at them closely, he realized that they were affixed to crosses with nails or something going through their hands and feet. A plaque of some sort was tacked above the central figure, who seemed to be wearing a crown made of thorns. They all had their eyes closed and seemed to be peaceful despite their current situation. Harry laughed under his breath slightly, finding the whole scene to be somewhat ironic on more than one level, though he couldn't say precisely how.
Turning back, he picked up one of the old books on the stone table, sending up more dust. As he wiped the cover off, he revealed the title. In what was probably at one time gold leaf, the words "The Holy Bible" were stamped into the crumbling leather. Harry laughed out loud this time, wondering how stupid he could have been not to recognize this room for what it was. It was some sort of church. The men above the altar should have given that away, at least. He'd never read a Bible, but he remembered now that the one in the center was called "Jesus" and was supposed to be some kind of martyr or something. He opened the book, but as he did so, the brittle pages crumbled to dust under his fingers.
Of course, Harry had never actually been inside a church and knew very little about them. The Dursleys were not religious people. Indeed, they were almost as anti-religion as they were anti-magic. Harry had occasionally heard Uncle Vernon grumbling about people who believed in "spooks and superstitious nonsense" when there was something on the television involving religion, though his aunt occasionally attended a local church for social reasons. What confused him, though, was why such a room would exist at Hogwarts. As far as he could tell, the wizarding world, by large, was not religious either. Sure enough, Christmas and Easter were recognized as holidays, but that had always struck Harry as more a matter of English tradition than piety.
Placing the remains of the antiquated book back on the altar, Harry went and sat on the end of one of the benches, then proceeded to stretch out on his back along it, crossing his arms behind his head to gaze up at the colorful columns of moonlight. He decided he liked the room. It was quiet and peaceful, albeit exceedingly dusty. He wondered suddenly if Dumbledore knew about it, but dismissed the thought as silly. Of course he would know about it, he'd been at this school for age.
Perceiving that it was getting late, he finally stood up and went back to Gryffindor Tower. The common room was empty. He figured the Creevey boys were already in bed, and none of the other Gryffindors had stayed, so he went to bed as well.
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Over the following few days, he was drawn back to the dusty room he'd discovered, and spent much of his time studying or simply relaxing in one of the corners. He found it strangely calming to sit in the back corner and watch the light dancing through the windows, and there was no threat of him being disturbed by the few remaining students or the teachers. He wondered how long he'd be able to keep the room a secret from the other students.
Harry awoke on Christmas Day to find a small pile of gifts at the foot of his bed. He didn't open them immediately, as he felt somewhat guilty about blowing off his friends earlier. He couldn't really relate to them anymore, but they didn't deserve to be treated like that either. Finally, he sat down and slowly unwrapped his gifts. He opened the Weasley jumper first, then a bag of chocolate frogs and what could only be the latest Wheezes from Ron. He put aside the suspicious candies and ate one of the frogs. The card was another one of Dumbledore, the third one he had gotten. The portrait smiled at him, then disappeared beneath the frame.
After breakfast, Harry returned to his secret room to work on his holiday assignment for Defense against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore had managed to find a somewhat decent teacher for the subject this year. An elderly witch, who'd probably come out of retirement to take the job, spent their classes teaching mostly counter-curses, shield charms, and other defensive spells. Most of them were quite familiar to the students who'd been in the D.A. and the subject was easy going for most of them.
Glancing at his watch, Harry noticed that Christmas dinner would begin soon, and threw his books into his bag and headed for the Great Hall. When he arrived, he headed to the table, finding the only vacant seat next to Dumbledore. He was struck with the odd thought that Dumbledore had been saving it for him, as he usually found the headmaster flanked by McGonagall and Snape, but he didn't have the courage to ask. An extravagant dinner appeared courtesy of the house elves, and party crackers were passed around while the staff and other students chatted cheerfully. Harry pulled a few of the crackers. One contained a pointed hat printed with snitches who's wings fluttered against the blue background, another produced a bag of chocolate galleons, an a third revealed a small model of a brown hippogriff that blinked and occasionally pawed the ground. After the main course was over, Harry was helping himself to a plate of bread pudding when Dumbledore spoke to him for the first time since he'd sat down beside him.
"How is your holiday going, Harry?"
"Fine."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, clearly wanting more conversation from his increasingly taciturn student.
"It really is going fine. I'm nearly done with my homework, even."
Harry hesitated a second, then decided it probably wouldn't hurt to ask, since Dumbledore no doubt already knew about the room.
"Sir, do you know anything about that room at the end of the hall of unused classrooms on the seventh floor? The one that looks like a church?"
Dumbledore smiled brightly at Harry. Harry wondered why he was so pleased at the mention of a long disused room.
"I see you've found the old chapel, Harry. I don't believe that door has been opened in nearly a century. It wasn't used all that much when I was a student, if I recall. I believe at one point the school had a priest come in from the village and hold mass on occasion, but that was even before my time. When I was here, a few students still occasionally used it for prayer, though, myself included..."
The old wizard paused for a second, seemingly lost in his memories. Harry found it a very odd thing indeed to think of Dumbledore praying. He simply couldn't imagine the powerful wizard bowing before anything or anyone, or needing something beyond his own magic.
"I'm afraid there aren't many left in this world who truly put much faith in anything beyond what they see with their own eyes, wizard or muggle...
"Are you interested in religion, Harry?"
Harry considered the question. He'd never really thought about religion much before. It simply had never been part of his life.
"I... I don't really know, sir. The Dursleys aren't religious. They never went to church or anything, except Aunt Petunia when one of her friends invited her. I've never been in one..."
"Well, Harry, you are welcome to come by my office tonight, if you wish to. I have a book you might find useful."
"Uh, sure thing, sir."
Harry picked at the rest of his desert as Dumbledore engaged Professor Flitwick in an animated conversation. He found himself thinking about the figures behind the stone altar. Something about the one in the middle picked at the edges of his mind, like he was trying to remember something he'd forgotten. He'd been told, once, why that man had been put on that cross, why he had to die. It was something vaguely familiar to him, but he just couldn't remember why.
After dinner, he headed back to the empty chapel. In an odd sort of mood, he suddenly felt compelled to do something about the layers of dust. He transfigured a quill into a broom and swept up the floor, and some parchment into cloths which he wiped down the benches, altar, candlesticks, and carvings with. Maybe he'd wash the windows tomorrow.
Harry headed back towards Gryffindor Tower when he suddenly remembered the headmaster's invitation. He hadn't planned on taking up the offer, but as he was finished with his homework, he figured he might as well borrow the book. He needed something to something to spend the last week of the holiday doing anyway. He changed his course from Gryffindor Tower to the stone gargoyle. Standing in front of the statue, he realized that he didn't know the current password. He ran through a list of all the sweets he could think of, until he yelled out "Canary Cream" in desperation and the gargoyle finally stepped aside. He entered Dumbledore's office to find the headmaster sitting behind his desk with a pile of paperwork. He glanced around the room as he stepped forward. There didn't seem to be any lingering evidence of his tantrum from last year. The fact of it almost annoyed him, but he chose not to dwell on the emotion. It would do no good.
"Ah, Harry. There you are. I was almost afraid you weren't going to show up."
Dumbledore stood up from his desk and walked over to one of the bookshelves, running a finger down the row until he rested on one thick leather-bound tome, pulling it from the shelf. He walked back and handed it to Harry. Harry looked at as though he was expecting it to do something spectacular.
"It is just an ordinary Bible, Harry. I suggest you read the Gospels first, they're a little easier to understand than Old Testament books. As I told you earlier this week, you are always welcome to ask me for help if you need it, regardless of the subject."
After it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to ask any more questions, Dumbledore returned to his paperwork and Harry finally turned and left the room with the loaned book
Harry washed the stained glass windows the following morning and spent the rest of the week in the old chapel reading. He wondered how Jesus had really felt when finally knew he'd been asked by God himself to sacrifice his life for the world. Harry had not been asked to die a slow and painful death for the entire world, but plenty of others had died for his sake: his parents, his godfather, and others he may never even know about. He pondered which was a worse fate until he made it to the book of Acts and the stoning of Stephen. He suddenly wished that he could talk to this man, meet this Jesus character. He knew that some people prayed to him, but he felt silly talking to an empty room, even if only in his thoughts. How could anyone believe in something they'd never seen, believe in the love of someone they'd never met?
Harry went to bed the last night before the rest of the students returned from holidays feeling more off-center than he ever had in his life. Something stirred in him, making him want to believe in this "superstitious nonsense" but a thousand other reasons made him hesitant. Unable to sleep, he finally decided then and there to do something decisive. Throwing his invisibility cloak over his head, he walked back to the chapel and up to the altar. Now that he was there, he was gripped with an apprehension and slight anger that he couldn't explain, but he was determined to do this. He began to speak as his eyes traveled across the windows, the altar, and the carving.
"God, if you are there... "
His anger melted away at that moment into an odd sort of desperation as tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. He suddenly had the feeling that if this last ditch effort was fruitless, the rest of his life would be forfeit. All the pain of the past sixteen years seemed to topple onto his head at that moment: being locked in the cupboard and bullied by his uncle's family, sitting in front of the mirror of Erised knowing he could never have what it showed, seeing Ginny Weasley laying seemingly lifeless in the Chamber of Secrets while a monster tried to kill him, the suspicion of the other students that he was something tainted or evil, hundreds of dementors descending upon him, watching Cedric fall in a flash of green light and Voldemort's twisted form rising from a cauldron, losing his godfather in an instant while Lupin held him back, mentally begging Dumbledore for death while possessed by the dark lord...
"Please... Please be there..."
He sat down on the flagstones in front of the altar, drawing his knees up to his chin and staring at the dark floor.
"Please, I'm tired of being alone..."
He fell silent, crying softly for a time. The chapel was quiet, and dark. He thought he saw the shadow of an owl cross the window portraying the Lord's Supper from the corner of his eye.
Harry awoke the next morning feeling very stiff. He wondered when his bed had become so hard until he opened his eyes and, seeing the brass cross shining in the sunlight, realized that he was sprawled on the floor of the old chapel below the altar. As he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, he realized that he had not had a single nightmare for the first time in recent memory. No shadows had plagued his sleep or woken him in the middle of the night. It almost made up for the painful kink in his neck. He stood up and stretched, looking out over the grounds through a square of yellow glass. It was a clear winter day, the crisp blue sky looking green through his patch of the window. He felt somehow calmer than he had in a long time. Calmer than he could recall feeling, ever. Something had snapped in him the night before, he knew it, but he wasn't sure what. He'd never admit his suspicion to another human being, but maybe, just maybe, his prayer had not gone unheard after all.
-------
Harry was in a much lighter mood when the rest of the student body returned in the afternoon. He met Ron and Hermione as they entered the common room and sheepishly apologized for being so awful to them over the last semester. Ron didn't seem quite ready to forgive him completely yet, but Hermione gave him a brief hug and seemed relieved. At dinner, she seemed to have finally screwed up the courage to ask him if his improved outlook on life was the result of something that happened over the holidays. Part of Harry desperately wanted to share his experience with his friends, but he was afraid of how they'd react, especially Ron. He knew most people in the wizarding world looked down on religion, especially muggle religion, as something primitive, backwards, silly, or just plain madness. He wasn't really sure of it yet himself, anyhow. There was still a great possibility that his feelings were all just in his head, a madness indeed. Instead, he simply shrugged and told her that he'd had a relaxing break and had had time to think some things over.
The following day, Harry and the rest of the school had been expecting an ordinary day of classes and study. Nobody expected the attack. Not after so long without any news about Voldemort. Not so early in the new term, not in broad daylight, and certainly not on the grounds of Hogwarts itself. Harry had been on his way to Care of Magical Creatures with the other sixth year Gryffindors and the Slytherins when it happened. At first, they all thought it was some kind of joke. Nobody could believe their eyes, not even the Slytherins, when Professor Snape appeared at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, flushed and winded, wearing voluminous black robes and carrying a suspicious white mask in his hand, yelling about an army of approaching Death Eaters. The students were ushered back into the school in a panic and the entire staff gathered outside on the grounds. But sure enough, less than ten minutes later, a crowd of masked black-robed men appeared about a hundred yards away from where Snape had appeared, marching toward the school. Nobody could figure out how they could have gotten past the wards. ("Impossible! Nobody can apparate onto Hogwarts' grounds! It says so in 'Hogwarts: A History'," Hermione had exclaimed at first).
Harry somehow managed to slip away from the herd of students and stood off to the side behind a tree out of sight of the teachers. He knew it was foolish to do this, but somehow he knew he would have to face his destiny today. He was also certain he wouldn't be the one to die. He watched the scene unfold from his hiding place. He would know when to emerge, something would tell him.
Aurors, of course, had been immediately summoned by Dumbledore, and it wasn't long before groups of them appeared with odd junk in their hands ranging from quills to what Harry recognized as a remembrall, obviously having used quickly fashioned portkeys to get to the school. The Death Eaters descended upon the small army and the battle was quick and dirty. It took all the strength Harry had not to recklessly leap wand-out into the fight, as he watched aurors falling. He trembled as he saw familiar faces breath their last: Mundungus Fletcher, "Mad-Eye" Moody, and a few others he'd knew by sight but not name.
Suddenly, he saw him. The gnarled figure of the Dark Lord was standing at the top of a small rise behind the fighting, watching his servants do battle with a delighted sneer on his face. Harry grasped his forehead and fell to his knees as his scar burned more intensely than he had ever felt as Voldemort's gaze turned in Harry's direction.
"Please," Harry thought as he felt himself slipping away, "Please don't let me die this way... I can't..."
The pain did not diminish, but somehow Harry was able to stand despite it. He dashed madly through the trees, around the field where men and women were falling, unnoticed by those in the midst of battle. Suddenly, he stood before the demon that had made him an orphan so many years ago. Voldemort stared down at the boy with a twisted grin on his face, waiting for the short thin boy to amuse him with some angry epithet or accusation.
Harry was surprised that he was not afraid. He knew logically that he should be afraid of the creature before him, but something assured him that he would not die today. He looked calmly into Voldemort's reptile-like eyes as the demon's grin seemed to widen. Voldemort had not been expecting such a direct confrontation, after all, and he could not be more pleased. He'd never felt so confident of his victory in his existence. There was no way he could lose now, with the lamb so willingly walking to his own slaughter. He laughed, the sound sending a slight shiver down Harry's spine.
"Little Harry Potter... So you have come to me yet again. I must admit I had never expected such rash stupidity from you, even though you are such the consummate Gryffindor."
Voldemort drew his wand. Harry noticed that it was not the same one he had used before. He would receive no protection from shared cores this time.
"I believe we've done this before. It was... Unfortunate, how it ended last time. We never got to finish our little duel... You know, I'm in the mood for a bit of sport, so I shall allow you the first curse. I shall count to three. 1... 2...
Harry kept his gaze steady, he did not start or flinch. Indeed, he moved not at during Voldemort's speech. An odd thought had occurred to him while Voldemort spoke. He felt that he didn't have to kill Voldemort to win this. He didn't have to be a murder.
"I will not curse you."
By now, both sides of the battle had noticed the drama playing out above them. Auror and Death Eater alike stood in shocked silence, waiting to see how the final battle of this war would play out.
Voldemort looked at Harry with an amused, but faltering expression. He quickly regained his composure, and spoke at him in a mock-concerned tone.
"Is the Golden Savior of the Wizarding World scared?"
"No."
Voldemort laughed with wicked glee
"What a foolish child you are! You will pay for your insolence."
His grin simply grew wider and with a spoken incantation, a green flash sailed towards the calm child before him. The gathered aurors seemed to let out a collective gasp while a feeling of triumph welled up in the breasts of the Death Eaters. Harry felt the curse hit him square in the chest. Blinding pain followed by cold numbness spread from his center out through his body, to the tips of his fingers and toes. The world went black.
...
... ...
... ... ...
... ... ... ...
Harry thought he heard a soft voice whispering from somewhere, telling him not to be afraid, that he was safe. He believed it.
------
It was the Death Eaters' turn to gasp as Harry Potter rose from the ground, bleeding from his wrists for seemingly no reason, but very much alive. Harry looked down at the source of the blood he had scented with wonder. He recognized these wounds. He had seen them before, on a carving in a forgotten, dusty old room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts.
Voldemort stared at Harry with an expression of horror. He glared at the impossible child and hissed.
"How?"
Harry raised his hands as if the wounds could explain themselves. As Voldemort and the rest of the crowd continued to stare in confusion, Harry began to speak, feeling as though he were hearing someone else's voice, someone else's words.
"I once thought that no one loved me, but these marks are evidence of love. They are the evidence of sacrifice. Not that of my mother, but of another, of a deeper and greater love than someone like you would ever imagine. Through this love, I am guarded from evil like you. You cannot harm me."
Both the crowd and Voldemort himself now looked confused. He still did not understand what had happened or what Harry Potter had said. Voldemort stepped back a pace, steeled his expression and stared at the boy.
"You cannot hurt me anymore Voldemort, not truly. Perhaps you can kill me. Perhaps you can kill my family and my friends. Perhaps you can destroy the world itself. But you no longer have the power to truly hurt me."
Voldemort gritted his teeth and stepped backwards, Harry following him step for step. The child's voice grew louder, and now all present could hear.
"You are a coward, Voldemort. You believe you have great power, but you have none. Most people think your name means "flight of death" but they are wrong. Your name is "flight from death." Because you are afraid. All your quest for power and immortality are because of fear. The fear and hurt of a child who was abandoned by his parents and the world and thought that no one loved him. I pity you, Tom Riddle. I pity you because you allowed your heart to harden, you allowed yourself to become Voldemort, and you feel only hatred and anger. Because you will never know that you are loved, by the one same one who loves me. You will never know that, because you have closed your heart to all."
Voldemort sneered, his red eyes bright and fey. He gave an inhuman cry and again threw the killing curse at the child before him with all the force he could muster. A brilliant and terrifying green flash lit up the entire field.
This time, Harry did not feel the blow. For the second time in his short life, the killing curse would not touch him and rebounded upon its caster. Voldemort's eyes went wide as the energy came back on him, as he fell to the ground, cold, his face frozen in an expression of absolute terror. This time he would not return.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, etc. do not belong to me, nor do I claim to own them.
Warning: This story contains a few overt Christian themes. I know that not all people are comfortable with that, but you have been duly warned, and thus have no excuses for vandalizing the review page with a bunch of immature attacks on my person or my faith. If you want to seriously discuss religion, there are proper venues on the internet for that as well, but this isn't that either.
Constructive literary criticism, however, is more than welcome. All flames will be fed to Hagrid's salamanders.
Part I: Harry Potter
Harry Potter sat on the Hogwarts train, staring out at dark clouds and rain beating on the windows outside. He was reminded of the night three years ago to the day, when the train had been attacked by dementors. It seemed like a lifetime ago. More yet, like it had been someone else's life.
Hermione and Ron watched their friend worriedly. He'd barely spoken the entire trip, dodging their questions by saying he just wasn't feeling very well. He seemed grateful when they periodically left to patrol the other train cars as part of their prefect's duties. It had taken a while for Ron to finally leave him to his thoughts, and only after Hermione had nudged him sharply in the ribs with her elbow did he get the hint that Harry wanted to be left alone. The train pulled into Hogsmeade station, and Hermione had to give Harry a nudge as well to pull him out of himself.
"Seriously, Harry. I don't know what's wrong with you, but if you're ill, as you say, then go straight to Madam Pomfrey after the feast and get a pepper-up potion. Otherwise you need to stop this childish nonsense. We are your friends, Harry. You can talk to us. Honestly, I've never seen you mope quite like this before, not even after..."
She sighed and trailed off, mentally kicking herself for almost mentioning Sirius Black and instantly feeling guilty for getting cross with him. She suspected that the loss of his godfather the previous spring was part of what troubled Harry, but felt that it couldn't account for all of this by itself. She and Ron turned to leave the train, and only after some hesitation did Harry follow them out before leaving them to their prefect duties. He approached one of the thestral-drawn carriages and briefly paused to pat the black, gaunt beast on the withers, garnering a few looks from some of the younger students who were unaware of what was pulling the carriages. He felt an odd sort of kinship with the beasts, for some reason. Further down, he saw Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom waving at him and waved back, but he didn't approach them like he knew they were expecting him to do. Rather, he turned from them and climbed into a carriage with a couple of second year Hufflepuffs he didn't personally know.
The ride up to the castle was quiet and uninterrupted, as the younger students pointedly ignored him. Harry supposed they were, like many of the other students, either mildly awed or mildly afraid of him. He couldn't blame them, really, he thought. He was mildly afraid of himself at times (though never awed), after all. He was probably the only non-dark wizard besides Dumbledore who had been in Voldemort's presence and lived to tell the tale. Numerous times, no less. He now knew, after the revelations at the end of the previous term, that he wasn't really a person, in the end. He was a weapon. He was to be the savior of the wizarding world, whether he willed it or not. He wondered if anyone truly cared about him at all. Many people had worked awfully hard to keep him alive over the past sixteen years, but did it have anything to do with him? Or was it just a matter of saving their own necks by grooming him to kill their Dark Lord for them?
He supposed that Ron and Hermione cared about him in their own way, but they could never really understand him. It was as though an impenetrable wall had grown up between them over the past year or so, and their lives had grown apart. They had stood by him as much as they could throughout his years at Hogwarts, but the worst of what had happened to him, they had not witnessed. He felt that he could not tell them of the prophesy, either. They could not understand what it was like to be a marked man, for that's what he was, what he had been his whole life, though he only now knew the true meaning of it. His fate was not his own, he did not belong to himself. Could they possibly understand what it was like to be told that you were bound to kill or be killed? Could they know what it was like to have your life planned out for you from the time you were an infant? He had once held to the idea that Sirius would understand, at least to some degree, but now he would never know. The closest thing to a family that Harry'd had since infancy was now lost to him forever. He knew that Dumbledore might possibly understand, but the old wizard was simply too powerful and had too many responsibilities. There would always be a conflict of interests where Harry was concerned, and furthermore, Harry still could not quite bring himself to forgive the man for everything. He knew logically that the tragedies of his life were not the sole work of Dumbledore, but it was easier to lay blame on him, as he subconsciously knew that Dumbledore would not fault him or hate him for doing so.
As Harry stepped into the bright happy noise of the Great Hall, for the first time in his life, he almost wished he were back with the Dursleys. The last summer had been the least eventful of his life. The Dursleys seemed afraid of him as well, and that suited him fine. They no longer yelled at him or made him do chores. For the most part, they seemed to be trying to ignore his existence as much as humanly possible, barely speaking to him at all. Ron and Hermione had sent him letters often at first, but as his replies became shorter and shorter, and eventually stopped, they left him alone as well. He knew that members of the Order of the Phoenix had been watching him from the shadows at all times, but otherwise he had not been spoken to by any of the members of the Order save through the occasional owl. All summer, it had been as though he didn't exist. He sometimes wished that were the case. He watched the sorting and listened to Dumbledore's announcements in passive silence, longing only for the comfort of his four-post bed in Gryffindor tower. After the feast, he made his way up to the tower as quickly as he could to avoid having to speak to anyone, and dashed to his bed, pulling the curtains around him, enjoying the quiet dark. He heard Ron come in a couple hours later, but pretended to be asleep.
-------
Harry welcomed the resumption of classes, despite the ubiquitous nervousness pervading the school in regards to the return of Voldemort. Nobody really knew what he was planning. Harry's scar tingled occasionally, but it was nothing compared to last year, and his nightmares were not vivid, mostly containing indistinct shadows that often woke him up, but that he could make little sense of. Harry knew that Snape was feeding the Order information from the Death Eater meetings, but he was told nothing and watched closely by the members who were present at Hogwarts. He often caught Professor McGonagall's eyes resting on him slightly longer than necessary in class, and wondered what information was being withheld from him.
Classes, at least, gave Harry something to do with his mind besides brooding, and he threw himself into his study in way that rivaled even Hermione. His friends still pressed him about what was wrong, but they finally gave in to his constant reassurances that he was fine, but simply wanted to get serious about his studies for once so he could get into the Aurors program. He still caught them watching him closely from time to time, but his teachers, at least, seemed pleased with the change. So startling a change it was, after the second week of classes, Professor McGonagall had jokingly asked Harry if he were really someone else using polyjuice potion at the end of class. Harry had laughed lightly and smiled at the joke, but he privately wished that he really were someone else. Surprisingly, even Snape was somewhat less vitriolic with him, despite his obvious disappointment that Harry had somehow managed an Outstanding on his potions O.W.L. the previous year and was still in his class. Snape still loomed over him, baited him, and took points unfairly, but as Harry turned out more and more correctly brewed potions well-researched papers, the man seemed to begrudgingly afford him some tiny iota of respect. At the very least, the jibes sent his way had less to do with his intelligence and settled more on disparaging his character and parentage.
The days passed quickly and mercifully quietly, as a blur of study and Quidditch. As the year wore on, people became more nervous, rather than less, at the lack of news about Voldemort, but when the holidays approached, the students' spirits seemed to lift slightly despite the shadows of danger. The staff in particular, with the exception of Snape and Filch, seemed overly happy about the festive season, but Harry suspected much of their cheer was bravado for the sake of the students.
Hermione approached Harry the day before the trains left, looking somewhat guilty.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to stay here this year, Harry. I'm really sorry, but my parents insist that I come with them to visit my grandparents this year. They said I haven't spent a Christmas with the family in far too long and won't take no for an answer. I'm sure you and Ron will have plenty of fun without me though. He'll probably invite you to stay with his family."
She smiled halfheartedly, hoping he wouldn't take it personally. Harry simply nodded and went back to his transfiguration notes. She looked at him longer, wanting to say something. She had hoped he wouldn't be too upset, but his seeming lack of response worried her more than any outburst would have. She could only hope that Ron would be able to get something out of him, and left to pack her things. Harry no longer felt like studying, and it was late anyhow. He put his notes in his bag, and went upstairs. Ron was already sleeping.
The next morning, he woke up unusually early. Looking outside, he noticed it was still dark, with just a slight hint of light at the horizon, so he went down to the common room with a book to wait until breakfast. Ron came down from the dormitory shortly after and sat down next to him.
"I heard you wake up. You're coming back to the Burrow with me, right? My mom says she'd love to see you—"
"I'm staying here for the holidays, Ron. I need to catch up on my homework."
Ron sat gaping for a second.
"You can't be serious. You can do that homework at the Burrow as well as you could here—"
"I need the library."
Ron's face colored slightly in anger and he stood up in front of Harry, who finally looked up from his book.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Harry? You'd rather sit in this dusty old castle with a few other kids you don't even know and the teachers than stay with your friends? You've been moping around since—, well, since last year. Hermione keeps telling me, 'give him room, he'll work things out and come around' but I think she's full of it. How on Earth do you expect us to just guess what's wrong with you if you never tell us anything? I thought we were your friends. We'd listen to anything you wanted to say, you know. I think you're just being selfish!"
With that, he just stormed off up the stairs. Harry's hands shook. He felt like ripping the book he held in two, but roughly shoved it into his bag instead and stomped out of the common room, heading for the empty astronomy tower. He didn't want to talk to anyone right now. How dare Ron act like this was all Harry's fault! It wasn't— Harry didn't ask for this. He never wanted to have some stupid scar on his head, he never wanted to be the subject of some prophecy, locked by fate.
Harry looked out from the top of the tower over the grounds, watching as Hagrid moved below on the edge of the forest with Fang, carrying a bucket of something with him. Probably meat for the thestrals, Harry thought idly. He didn't feel up to facing Ron again, and skipped breakfast, hiding in the astronomy tower until the students going home for the holidays were in the carriages and on their way to Hogsmeade station. He finally stood up from where he had been sitting quietly for some time, and stretched his stiff legs. Making his way back to Gryffindor tower, he idly threw a few more books in his bag, pulled his father's cloak over his head, and made his way down to the kitchens to get a snack from the house elves. He knew that there were not many students staying, as most of them were anxious to be with their parents due to the threat of Voldemort, and he didn't want to sit at the table with the teachers either. He somehow didn't think he'd last long under the gaze of Dumbledore.
Dobby wasn't in the kitchens at the moment, but the other elves happily loaded a bag with more food than he'd asked for and sent him on his way. He pulled the cloak back over his head and made his way to the empty library. Apparently Madam Pince had decided to take the holiday off as well, which he thought unusual. He was sure that if a teacher saw him in the library unsupervised and with food, he'd be told off, so he settled himself in a far corner under the protection of his cloak and opened his bag of food and one of his books. The afternoon wore on as he studied, and he barely noted the passage of time at all.
Eventually, he noticed the sun climbing down toward the horizon, and headed back up to his room. There was a large tawny owl waiting on the window sill with a letter. He let the bird in, took the letter, and threw it one of Hedwig's owl treats before it turned and left through the window. He opened the letter and felt a stab of guilt and regret as he read it. It was from Remus Lupin.
Harry—
I received an owl earlier this afternoon carrying a troubling message.
Mrs. Weasly says you have chosen to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays
rather than the Burrow with your friend Ron. I also know that Hermione
has gone to visit her own family and I wonder if perhaps there is
something troubling you. I know I can never replace your godfather,
but I'd like to think that perhaps I can be of some help for you. You
know you can always write me if there is something wrong. In case you
haven't been told, I am staying at Grimmauld Place for the time being.
If you would like to stay here over the holidays, you are more than
welcome to, and I would appreciate the company greatly. I know it
isn't as nice as Hogwarts, but I thought I'd extend an invitation
anyhow. Just write back if you want to come, and I'll send someone
from the Order to pick you up.
Love,
Remus
Stay at Grimmauld Place? He hesitated for a while, but finally pulled out some parchment and tried to write a reply. He didn't want to hurt Remus' feelings, but Harry didn't know if he could stand being there again without Sirius. He decided to be honest about it, and said as much in his reply to Remus, declining the generous offer. He felt awful for doing so, but he just couldn't face either Remus or Grimmauld Place at the moment.
Harry wasn't sure that his absence at the table would be ignored for much longer, and headed down to the Great Hall for dinner. The hall was beautifully decorated as it was every year, with tremendous Christmas trees and various bits of tinsel and baubles and such. Like in his third year, so few students were left behind that the long house tables had been pushed to the side, and a single table was set for the remaining staff and students. The headmaster was already seated there, along with Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Snape, and Hagrid, as well as the caretaker, Filch, at one end. A half-dozen students were seated along the other side, and only one seat was left. Harry groaned out loud. He'd have to sit next to Snape. He supposed there was no avoiding it, and took his seat as quietly and innocent- lookingly as possible. Harry held his breath, but released it when Snape only briefly glanced at him with an expression of minor annoyance and then returned to his conversation with the headmaster. The other students, all fifth years or younger, glanced at him as well, but only Colin Creevey and his brother seemed willing to speak to Harry at all. He wasn't really in the mood for conversation, but he replied politely to the two boys' inquiries and was grateful that they seemed willing to do most of the talking.
After spending a while picking at his dinner, he quietly excused himself from the table and walked out of the Great Hall. He hadn't really thought of where he would go, only that he wanted to be somewhere quiet and empty. He was about to head to the library when the headmaster came up behind him and cleared his throat to get his attention. Harry turned around to see what he wanted.
"I notice you've been rather quiet lately Harry. Your teachers have told me that your performance in class has improved, but Professor McGonagall at least seems to be somewhat worried that perhaps it is not simply studiousness that compels you to spend so much time studying. Even Professor Snape has noticed enough of a change to mention it to me, actually..."
Harry thought carefully before answering. He did not really want Dumbledore worrying about him. The man had enough problems without having to deal with Harry's self-indulgent brooding. That, and he was tired of people pretending to be his friend. He mostly just wanted to be left alone, after all. Was that a crime?
"I'm fine, Professor Dumbledore, honestly. I'm just serious about getting into the Aurors program."
Harry knew that Dumbledore wouldn't buy the excuse, and the man's expression clearly showed that he didn't believe it, but the old wizard didn't try to contradict him.
"Has your scar been bothering you?"
Harry shook his head.
"Any more significant dreams?"
"Not really. Nothing meaningful anyway, just indistinct shadows."
Dumbledore looked at him intensely for a few minutes. Harry blinked a few times, feeling uncomfortable under that clear blue gaze.
"Harry, I have thought about last year. I know I treated you rather poorly pushing you away like that, but I am now aware that doing so was folly."
He seemed to be waiting for some sort of reply from Harry, but Harry couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't be impolite, so he remained silent. After a minute, Dumbledore continued.
"Harry, I want you to know that you can come to me with any problems, whether they involve Voldemort or not."
Harry was slightly taken aback at that statement, but couldn't quite seem to believe it. He wanted to leave. He wanted to get out from under that penetrating gaze as quickly as possible.
"Yes, sir. I understand."
Dumbledore didn't seem entirely convinced of that either, but he nodded and left Harry in the hallway. Harry returned to the library, but found himself unable to concentrate well enough to study. He stood up and left again, and started wandering about the school aimlessly. He was feeling restless again.
He eventually ended up on the seventh floor after a while and perused the portraits along the wall. A couple of medieval looking maidens whispered behind their hands when he passed, but none of them seemed interested in conversation with him. He passed the spot on the wall where the Room of Requirement normally showed up. He suddenly missed the D.A. meetings. He had enjoyed those meetings. He had never thought that teaching could be an enjoyable profession, but last year he was forced to admit that it had its rewards. He remembered his pride when Neville had finally started succeeding. Walking further down, he noticed a hallway he'd never been in before, and turned into it, opening doors as he went. They all seemed to be unused classrooms with dusty desks and chairs shoved against the walls, one the same as the next.
At the end of the hall was one more door, made of dark hardwood with odd little carvings about the edges. He had to force the door a bit, as it stuck badly, but eventually got it open, coughing a bit when he stepped over the threshold as clouds of ancient dust plumed into the air. It was stunning. High windows of stained glass were about the narrow room, four down each side, revealing the disturbed dust swirling in the colored moonlight. He looked at the images in the glass. They were beautiful, he thought. Men and women were frozen in odd scenes of vivid color around the room, none of which he recognized. He thought at first maybe they were historical figures, but he couldn't recognize anything that would mark them as wizards, save maybe one of an old man with a beard, holding a staff as columns of water rose up on either side of him. The heads of a crowd were below and around him. He had never known any wizards who used staffs, though, at least outside of muggle stories. There were low benches on either side of a center aisle leading up to a stone table with a moth-eaten cloth and old candles. In the center was a simple brass cross, and in front of the cross were two old cracking leather-bound books. Behind it, a wooden carving of three figures was set into the wall. They were all nearly naked men, with only cloths bound around their loins, very thin and gnarled- looking, as though they'd been starved half their life and occasionally beaten. They all had their arms outstretched. At first he thought that they were flying, or falling, but as he stepped around the table to look at them closely, he realized that they were affixed to crosses with nails or something going through their hands and feet. A plaque of some sort was tacked above the central figure, who seemed to be wearing a crown made of thorns. They all had their eyes closed and seemed to be peaceful despite their current situation. Harry laughed under his breath slightly, finding the whole scene to be somewhat ironic on more than one level, though he couldn't say precisely how.
Turning back, he picked up one of the old books on the stone table, sending up more dust. As he wiped the cover off, he revealed the title. In what was probably at one time gold leaf, the words "The Holy Bible" were stamped into the crumbling leather. Harry laughed out loud this time, wondering how stupid he could have been not to recognize this room for what it was. It was some sort of church. The men above the altar should have given that away, at least. He'd never read a Bible, but he remembered now that the one in the center was called "Jesus" and was supposed to be some kind of martyr or something. He opened the book, but as he did so, the brittle pages crumbled to dust under his fingers.
Of course, Harry had never actually been inside a church and knew very little about them. The Dursleys were not religious people. Indeed, they were almost as anti-religion as they were anti-magic. Harry had occasionally heard Uncle Vernon grumbling about people who believed in "spooks and superstitious nonsense" when there was something on the television involving religion, though his aunt occasionally attended a local church for social reasons. What confused him, though, was why such a room would exist at Hogwarts. As far as he could tell, the wizarding world, by large, was not religious either. Sure enough, Christmas and Easter were recognized as holidays, but that had always struck Harry as more a matter of English tradition than piety.
Placing the remains of the antiquated book back on the altar, Harry went and sat on the end of one of the benches, then proceeded to stretch out on his back along it, crossing his arms behind his head to gaze up at the colorful columns of moonlight. He decided he liked the room. It was quiet and peaceful, albeit exceedingly dusty. He wondered suddenly if Dumbledore knew about it, but dismissed the thought as silly. Of course he would know about it, he'd been at this school for age.
Perceiving that it was getting late, he finally stood up and went back to Gryffindor Tower. The common room was empty. He figured the Creevey boys were already in bed, and none of the other Gryffindors had stayed, so he went to bed as well.
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Over the following few days, he was drawn back to the dusty room he'd discovered, and spent much of his time studying or simply relaxing in one of the corners. He found it strangely calming to sit in the back corner and watch the light dancing through the windows, and there was no threat of him being disturbed by the few remaining students or the teachers. He wondered how long he'd be able to keep the room a secret from the other students.
Harry awoke on Christmas Day to find a small pile of gifts at the foot of his bed. He didn't open them immediately, as he felt somewhat guilty about blowing off his friends earlier. He couldn't really relate to them anymore, but they didn't deserve to be treated like that either. Finally, he sat down and slowly unwrapped his gifts. He opened the Weasley jumper first, then a bag of chocolate frogs and what could only be the latest Wheezes from Ron. He put aside the suspicious candies and ate one of the frogs. The card was another one of Dumbledore, the third one he had gotten. The portrait smiled at him, then disappeared beneath the frame.
After breakfast, Harry returned to his secret room to work on his holiday assignment for Defense against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore had managed to find a somewhat decent teacher for the subject this year. An elderly witch, who'd probably come out of retirement to take the job, spent their classes teaching mostly counter-curses, shield charms, and other defensive spells. Most of them were quite familiar to the students who'd been in the D.A. and the subject was easy going for most of them.
Glancing at his watch, Harry noticed that Christmas dinner would begin soon, and threw his books into his bag and headed for the Great Hall. When he arrived, he headed to the table, finding the only vacant seat next to Dumbledore. He was struck with the odd thought that Dumbledore had been saving it for him, as he usually found the headmaster flanked by McGonagall and Snape, but he didn't have the courage to ask. An extravagant dinner appeared courtesy of the house elves, and party crackers were passed around while the staff and other students chatted cheerfully. Harry pulled a few of the crackers. One contained a pointed hat printed with snitches who's wings fluttered against the blue background, another produced a bag of chocolate galleons, an a third revealed a small model of a brown hippogriff that blinked and occasionally pawed the ground. After the main course was over, Harry was helping himself to a plate of bread pudding when Dumbledore spoke to him for the first time since he'd sat down beside him.
"How is your holiday going, Harry?"
"Fine."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, clearly wanting more conversation from his increasingly taciturn student.
"It really is going fine. I'm nearly done with my homework, even."
Harry hesitated a second, then decided it probably wouldn't hurt to ask, since Dumbledore no doubt already knew about the room.
"Sir, do you know anything about that room at the end of the hall of unused classrooms on the seventh floor? The one that looks like a church?"
Dumbledore smiled brightly at Harry. Harry wondered why he was so pleased at the mention of a long disused room.
"I see you've found the old chapel, Harry. I don't believe that door has been opened in nearly a century. It wasn't used all that much when I was a student, if I recall. I believe at one point the school had a priest come in from the village and hold mass on occasion, but that was even before my time. When I was here, a few students still occasionally used it for prayer, though, myself included..."
The old wizard paused for a second, seemingly lost in his memories. Harry found it a very odd thing indeed to think of Dumbledore praying. He simply couldn't imagine the powerful wizard bowing before anything or anyone, or needing something beyond his own magic.
"I'm afraid there aren't many left in this world who truly put much faith in anything beyond what they see with their own eyes, wizard or muggle...
"Are you interested in religion, Harry?"
Harry considered the question. He'd never really thought about religion much before. It simply had never been part of his life.
"I... I don't really know, sir. The Dursleys aren't religious. They never went to church or anything, except Aunt Petunia when one of her friends invited her. I've never been in one..."
"Well, Harry, you are welcome to come by my office tonight, if you wish to. I have a book you might find useful."
"Uh, sure thing, sir."
Harry picked at the rest of his desert as Dumbledore engaged Professor Flitwick in an animated conversation. He found himself thinking about the figures behind the stone altar. Something about the one in the middle picked at the edges of his mind, like he was trying to remember something he'd forgotten. He'd been told, once, why that man had been put on that cross, why he had to die. It was something vaguely familiar to him, but he just couldn't remember why.
After dinner, he headed back to the empty chapel. In an odd sort of mood, he suddenly felt compelled to do something about the layers of dust. He transfigured a quill into a broom and swept up the floor, and some parchment into cloths which he wiped down the benches, altar, candlesticks, and carvings with. Maybe he'd wash the windows tomorrow.
Harry headed back towards Gryffindor Tower when he suddenly remembered the headmaster's invitation. He hadn't planned on taking up the offer, but as he was finished with his homework, he figured he might as well borrow the book. He needed something to something to spend the last week of the holiday doing anyway. He changed his course from Gryffindor Tower to the stone gargoyle. Standing in front of the statue, he realized that he didn't know the current password. He ran through a list of all the sweets he could think of, until he yelled out "Canary Cream" in desperation and the gargoyle finally stepped aside. He entered Dumbledore's office to find the headmaster sitting behind his desk with a pile of paperwork. He glanced around the room as he stepped forward. There didn't seem to be any lingering evidence of his tantrum from last year. The fact of it almost annoyed him, but he chose not to dwell on the emotion. It would do no good.
"Ah, Harry. There you are. I was almost afraid you weren't going to show up."
Dumbledore stood up from his desk and walked over to one of the bookshelves, running a finger down the row until he rested on one thick leather-bound tome, pulling it from the shelf. He walked back and handed it to Harry. Harry looked at as though he was expecting it to do something spectacular.
"It is just an ordinary Bible, Harry. I suggest you read the Gospels first, they're a little easier to understand than Old Testament books. As I told you earlier this week, you are always welcome to ask me for help if you need it, regardless of the subject."
After it became apparent that Harry wasn't going to ask any more questions, Dumbledore returned to his paperwork and Harry finally turned and left the room with the loaned book
Harry washed the stained glass windows the following morning and spent the rest of the week in the old chapel reading. He wondered how Jesus had really felt when finally knew he'd been asked by God himself to sacrifice his life for the world. Harry had not been asked to die a slow and painful death for the entire world, but plenty of others had died for his sake: his parents, his godfather, and others he may never even know about. He pondered which was a worse fate until he made it to the book of Acts and the stoning of Stephen. He suddenly wished that he could talk to this man, meet this Jesus character. He knew that some people prayed to him, but he felt silly talking to an empty room, even if only in his thoughts. How could anyone believe in something they'd never seen, believe in the love of someone they'd never met?
Harry went to bed the last night before the rest of the students returned from holidays feeling more off-center than he ever had in his life. Something stirred in him, making him want to believe in this "superstitious nonsense" but a thousand other reasons made him hesitant. Unable to sleep, he finally decided then and there to do something decisive. Throwing his invisibility cloak over his head, he walked back to the chapel and up to the altar. Now that he was there, he was gripped with an apprehension and slight anger that he couldn't explain, but he was determined to do this. He began to speak as his eyes traveled across the windows, the altar, and the carving.
"God, if you are there... "
His anger melted away at that moment into an odd sort of desperation as tears sprang unbidden to his eyes. He suddenly had the feeling that if this last ditch effort was fruitless, the rest of his life would be forfeit. All the pain of the past sixteen years seemed to topple onto his head at that moment: being locked in the cupboard and bullied by his uncle's family, sitting in front of the mirror of Erised knowing he could never have what it showed, seeing Ginny Weasley laying seemingly lifeless in the Chamber of Secrets while a monster tried to kill him, the suspicion of the other students that he was something tainted or evil, hundreds of dementors descending upon him, watching Cedric fall in a flash of green light and Voldemort's twisted form rising from a cauldron, losing his godfather in an instant while Lupin held him back, mentally begging Dumbledore for death while possessed by the dark lord...
"Please... Please be there..."
He sat down on the flagstones in front of the altar, drawing his knees up to his chin and staring at the dark floor.
"Please, I'm tired of being alone..."
He fell silent, crying softly for a time. The chapel was quiet, and dark. He thought he saw the shadow of an owl cross the window portraying the Lord's Supper from the corner of his eye.
Harry awoke the next morning feeling very stiff. He wondered when his bed had become so hard until he opened his eyes and, seeing the brass cross shining in the sunlight, realized that he was sprawled on the floor of the old chapel below the altar. As he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, he realized that he had not had a single nightmare for the first time in recent memory. No shadows had plagued his sleep or woken him in the middle of the night. It almost made up for the painful kink in his neck. He stood up and stretched, looking out over the grounds through a square of yellow glass. It was a clear winter day, the crisp blue sky looking green through his patch of the window. He felt somehow calmer than he had in a long time. Calmer than he could recall feeling, ever. Something had snapped in him the night before, he knew it, but he wasn't sure what. He'd never admit his suspicion to another human being, but maybe, just maybe, his prayer had not gone unheard after all.
-------
Harry was in a much lighter mood when the rest of the student body returned in the afternoon. He met Ron and Hermione as they entered the common room and sheepishly apologized for being so awful to them over the last semester. Ron didn't seem quite ready to forgive him completely yet, but Hermione gave him a brief hug and seemed relieved. At dinner, she seemed to have finally screwed up the courage to ask him if his improved outlook on life was the result of something that happened over the holidays. Part of Harry desperately wanted to share his experience with his friends, but he was afraid of how they'd react, especially Ron. He knew most people in the wizarding world looked down on religion, especially muggle religion, as something primitive, backwards, silly, or just plain madness. He wasn't really sure of it yet himself, anyhow. There was still a great possibility that his feelings were all just in his head, a madness indeed. Instead, he simply shrugged and told her that he'd had a relaxing break and had had time to think some things over.
The following day, Harry and the rest of the school had been expecting an ordinary day of classes and study. Nobody expected the attack. Not after so long without any news about Voldemort. Not so early in the new term, not in broad daylight, and certainly not on the grounds of Hogwarts itself. Harry had been on his way to Care of Magical Creatures with the other sixth year Gryffindors and the Slytherins when it happened. At first, they all thought it was some kind of joke. Nobody could believe their eyes, not even the Slytherins, when Professor Snape appeared at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, flushed and winded, wearing voluminous black robes and carrying a suspicious white mask in his hand, yelling about an army of approaching Death Eaters. The students were ushered back into the school in a panic and the entire staff gathered outside on the grounds. But sure enough, less than ten minutes later, a crowd of masked black-robed men appeared about a hundred yards away from where Snape had appeared, marching toward the school. Nobody could figure out how they could have gotten past the wards. ("Impossible! Nobody can apparate onto Hogwarts' grounds! It says so in 'Hogwarts: A History'," Hermione had exclaimed at first).
Harry somehow managed to slip away from the herd of students and stood off to the side behind a tree out of sight of the teachers. He knew it was foolish to do this, but somehow he knew he would have to face his destiny today. He was also certain he wouldn't be the one to die. He watched the scene unfold from his hiding place. He would know when to emerge, something would tell him.
Aurors, of course, had been immediately summoned by Dumbledore, and it wasn't long before groups of them appeared with odd junk in their hands ranging from quills to what Harry recognized as a remembrall, obviously having used quickly fashioned portkeys to get to the school. The Death Eaters descended upon the small army and the battle was quick and dirty. It took all the strength Harry had not to recklessly leap wand-out into the fight, as he watched aurors falling. He trembled as he saw familiar faces breath their last: Mundungus Fletcher, "Mad-Eye" Moody, and a few others he'd knew by sight but not name.
Suddenly, he saw him. The gnarled figure of the Dark Lord was standing at the top of a small rise behind the fighting, watching his servants do battle with a delighted sneer on his face. Harry grasped his forehead and fell to his knees as his scar burned more intensely than he had ever felt as Voldemort's gaze turned in Harry's direction.
"Please," Harry thought as he felt himself slipping away, "Please don't let me die this way... I can't..."
The pain did not diminish, but somehow Harry was able to stand despite it. He dashed madly through the trees, around the field where men and women were falling, unnoticed by those in the midst of battle. Suddenly, he stood before the demon that had made him an orphan so many years ago. Voldemort stared down at the boy with a twisted grin on his face, waiting for the short thin boy to amuse him with some angry epithet or accusation.
Harry was surprised that he was not afraid. He knew logically that he should be afraid of the creature before him, but something assured him that he would not die today. He looked calmly into Voldemort's reptile-like eyes as the demon's grin seemed to widen. Voldemort had not been expecting such a direct confrontation, after all, and he could not be more pleased. He'd never felt so confident of his victory in his existence. There was no way he could lose now, with the lamb so willingly walking to his own slaughter. He laughed, the sound sending a slight shiver down Harry's spine.
"Little Harry Potter... So you have come to me yet again. I must admit I had never expected such rash stupidity from you, even though you are such the consummate Gryffindor."
Voldemort drew his wand. Harry noticed that it was not the same one he had used before. He would receive no protection from shared cores this time.
"I believe we've done this before. It was... Unfortunate, how it ended last time. We never got to finish our little duel... You know, I'm in the mood for a bit of sport, so I shall allow you the first curse. I shall count to three. 1... 2...
Harry kept his gaze steady, he did not start or flinch. Indeed, he moved not at during Voldemort's speech. An odd thought had occurred to him while Voldemort spoke. He felt that he didn't have to kill Voldemort to win this. He didn't have to be a murder.
"I will not curse you."
By now, both sides of the battle had noticed the drama playing out above them. Auror and Death Eater alike stood in shocked silence, waiting to see how the final battle of this war would play out.
Voldemort looked at Harry with an amused, but faltering expression. He quickly regained his composure, and spoke at him in a mock-concerned tone.
"Is the Golden Savior of the Wizarding World scared?"
"No."
Voldemort laughed with wicked glee
"What a foolish child you are! You will pay for your insolence."
His grin simply grew wider and with a spoken incantation, a green flash sailed towards the calm child before him. The gathered aurors seemed to let out a collective gasp while a feeling of triumph welled up in the breasts of the Death Eaters. Harry felt the curse hit him square in the chest. Blinding pain followed by cold numbness spread from his center out through his body, to the tips of his fingers and toes. The world went black.
...
... ...
... ... ...
... ... ... ...
Harry thought he heard a soft voice whispering from somewhere, telling him not to be afraid, that he was safe. He believed it.
------
It was the Death Eaters' turn to gasp as Harry Potter rose from the ground, bleeding from his wrists for seemingly no reason, but very much alive. Harry looked down at the source of the blood he had scented with wonder. He recognized these wounds. He had seen them before, on a carving in a forgotten, dusty old room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts.
Voldemort stared at Harry with an expression of horror. He glared at the impossible child and hissed.
"How?"
Harry raised his hands as if the wounds could explain themselves. As Voldemort and the rest of the crowd continued to stare in confusion, Harry began to speak, feeling as though he were hearing someone else's voice, someone else's words.
"I once thought that no one loved me, but these marks are evidence of love. They are the evidence of sacrifice. Not that of my mother, but of another, of a deeper and greater love than someone like you would ever imagine. Through this love, I am guarded from evil like you. You cannot harm me."
Both the crowd and Voldemort himself now looked confused. He still did not understand what had happened or what Harry Potter had said. Voldemort stepped back a pace, steeled his expression and stared at the boy.
"You cannot hurt me anymore Voldemort, not truly. Perhaps you can kill me. Perhaps you can kill my family and my friends. Perhaps you can destroy the world itself. But you no longer have the power to truly hurt me."
Voldemort gritted his teeth and stepped backwards, Harry following him step for step. The child's voice grew louder, and now all present could hear.
"You are a coward, Voldemort. You believe you have great power, but you have none. Most people think your name means "flight of death" but they are wrong. Your name is "flight from death." Because you are afraid. All your quest for power and immortality are because of fear. The fear and hurt of a child who was abandoned by his parents and the world and thought that no one loved him. I pity you, Tom Riddle. I pity you because you allowed your heart to harden, you allowed yourself to become Voldemort, and you feel only hatred and anger. Because you will never know that you are loved, by the one same one who loves me. You will never know that, because you have closed your heart to all."
Voldemort sneered, his red eyes bright and fey. He gave an inhuman cry and again threw the killing curse at the child before him with all the force he could muster. A brilliant and terrifying green flash lit up the entire field.
This time, Harry did not feel the blow. For the second time in his short life, the killing curse would not touch him and rebounded upon its caster. Voldemort's eyes went wide as the energy came back on him, as he fell to the ground, cold, his face frozen in an expression of absolute terror. This time he would not return.
