This time, just like all the others, Harry Potter didn't realize his mistake until after he'd made it.
This time, just like all the others, he was spared from his own idiocy. At the expensive of others.
As he lay in the hospital bed, drifting in and out of consciousness, he wondered what was wrong with him. He wondered if Sirius felt any pain, and if he would become a ghost. He wondered why he was always so infernally "lucky", why it was destined for him to kill the Dark Lord, and why he couldn't. Why he wouldn't.
Before he opened his eyes again, Harry checked the room for other occupants. Left of him was the shattered blue of Neville Longbottom's Cruatiatus-wracked frame, and beyond him the cool green of Hermione overlaid with the glaring red of the Imperius. They were recovering. Sirius wouldn't.
To the right of Harry was a window, and an enormous ball of barely contained white power he correctly reasoned was Dumbledore. Then it hit him -- I can't do...whatever this is. Even as he thought it however, he continued. He felt the low throb of the castle's magic all over and around him, embracing but not suffocating.
Experimentally, he turned his focus to Dumbledore. Whatever he had expected to happen, it certainly wasn't this. He felt compassion and concern in the energy surrounding the older man, and confusion, and weakness. How strange to feel weakness coming from a man so strong. How... wrong. He reached for his glasses, which he knew would be on the table next to him. He had had enough foggy awakenings. His vision, at least, would be clear.
As soon as Harry opened his eyes, Dumbledore began to speak, but Harry didn't hear him. He was overwhelmed by the comfort and trust vibes Dumbledore sent his way. It made him uncomfortable. Why would a trustworthy person need to send out trust signals? Finally, Dumbledore's voice reached him.
"Because, Harry, there is no time to properly gain trust. You have to trust me now, if we are to have any chance at stopping Voldemort," Dumbledore said in answer to his unasked question.
The thought of the Headmaster reading his mind was more than a little disconcerting to Harry. "I have always trusted you, Headmaster," Harry said very coldly. Where did that come from? he thought.
Dumbledore seemed more saddened then offended when he answered, "And I have trusted you, though it may not seem so. Now however is not the time to explain. I need you to let me read your mind, so I may find out the fate of Voldemort."
Harry sneered in a manner surprisingly unlike him. "More than you already have, I suppose you mean?"
"Surface thoughts, Harry, and nothing more. Anyone could read them, and without a spell. You yourself could do it with practice," Dumbledore said by was of explanation, before he continued, "But now I need to read your deep thoughts, deeper than emotion or interpretation, to pure memory. It's like a Pensieve, but faster. From them I can ascertain Voldemort's location."
Harry considered for a minute. He would really like to help Dumbledore, and through him the side of light, but he had the strangest feeling he couldn't. His thoughts seemed strangely locked. He didn't know why he knew, by the knew that no one, not even the famed Albus Dumbledore, could enter his head. He was actually rather surprised his surface thoughts could be seen.
"It won't work, Professor, but you may try" He said simply.
Dumbledore winked, and said "I think you underestimate me, my boy." Harry said nothing. He knew he was not underestimating his professor. He didn't know how he knew, something that was happening more and more often since the battle, but he knew he could predict the old man's power almost to a number.
Harry felt that selfsame power now. He heard the soft words Dumbledore whispered, and heard harsher, deeper voices repeating the words in infinite permutations behind the old mans voice. Dumbledore had expanded the power to cover him, and the bed, and was gently prodding Harry's mind. When he closed his eyes, and focused his newest sense on it, it looked white, felt like the sunshine and smelled of lemon. It was immense, and warm, and as it tried to enter his mind soft and featherlike. He felt the attempts redouble, and increase in power twice, and then a third time. Every time it rolled around on the very edge of his mind, like water on glass, and the slipped away. It was, as he predicted, ultimately futile.
Dumbledore suddenly looked very old, and despite the twinkling of his eyes, afraid. "Thank you Ma-mister Pott-," He paused for a second, "Thank you Harry, for allowing me to try. I don't blame you, and I am sure I can locate the Dark Lord some other way." He left.
That was odd, Harry thought, just as Madam Pomfrey came in.
"Drink up, dearie," She said infinitely more cheerful than was, in Harry's opinion, necessary. "Tomorrow it's back home, my boy. How about that then?"
Harry drank his Dreamless Sleep to save having to comment. Madam Pomfrey left, after she was sure he was really asleep. Upstairs, in the Gryffindor dorms, one of Harry's best friends slept fitfully. He was remembering the things the brains had made him see, and nursing the scar on his arms. All this aside, however, he was alive and he was content.
Upstairs in his private study, Dumbledore paced silently. He thought of the first time he had seen that trademark sneer and heard that icy tone. He thought of the first time he learned of wizarding history. He thought, and he paced, and had no idea what tomorrow would bring. He was anything but content.
Morning came too fast for Harry, as was often the case with Dreamless Sleep. Ron and Hermione were sitting next to his bed. Neville was gone. Sirius was gone. Sirius was gone forever. He put on his glasses and opened his eyes. Things swam into focus.
"Ronald Weasley, if you do not take your hand out of mine, I will hex you into next week," Harry said. Ron jumped, not realizing Harry had awoken. "Hermione, yours can stay." Hermione giggled and rolled her eyes, torn between teasing and (not so) secret affection.
"You know," Ron said, only half joking, "I'd thump you, but after You-Know- Who it hardly do any good, would it?"
Kill the spare. The words popped into Harry's mind unbidden. "Can we talk about something else?"
Ron smiled nervously, "Of course, mate."
Ron talked about Quidditch, and Hermione about grades, and Harry only half listened to both of them. He missed Sirius, but he was glad to have such understanding friends, glad to be alive, and glad he hadn't killed Tom.
Where did that come from!?, Harry thought, uncomfortably. I have been trying to kill Tom- No, Voldemort- for the last 5 years. He must die.
Then so must you, His own mind whispered back at him.