Author's Note 10/9: Sorry for the extreme delay between updates, nothing to be done about it. I will continue this story to its end, no matter how long it will take.


Harry's eyes opened slowly, adjusting quickly to the total darkness around him. Though he could not see, he was not worried; his other senses weren't hindered and thus he could at least sense that he was safe. "Where am I?" he asked, comfortable enough to not question that fact that he couldn't see for the moment.

"Do you remember finally giving in to the ones that have pleaded with you for years to let them take care of you?" a voice asked calmly, the same voice that had spoken earlier with Severus Snape. Of course, Harry had been unconscious at that time, but it was also the same voice that had been speaking to him for years.

"Vaguely, it's all kind of fuzzy around the edges," he replied, stretching lightly before settling down again. He was lying on a bed, but didn't recognize it. It was far too soft and comfortable to be his bed at the Dursley's.

"We claimed you as our rightful master, and did so with your permission, Harry Potter."

"…Oh."

"Oh indeed, Mr. Potter. There is just one thing that you need to do, master, before we can let you see," the voice said gently. "We need you to break the bond you have with both the dark one and the darker one, and to break the blockages the darker one put on your powers and your thoughts."

"That sounds…difficult."

"It is a lot easier done than it sounds, master, and we will be here to guide you through the process. However, we cannot do this for you, for we cannot directly touch your mind."

"Oh…so, how do I do this?"

"You know how to meditate, yes?"

"Yeah. I taught myself…a long time ago."

"Well, slip into a light trance."

Nodding absently, Harry relaxed and slid expertly into a trance, surprised to notice that as he did so he also slid into his own mind. Frowning in concentration, he looked through his mind.

The same expansive darkness that had been there when he had awoken was present in his mind, though in this darkness there were emerald-green stars and quick bursts of silver-green lightning strikes as well. Glancing around, he could only see more and more of the odd mental set-up.

"Now what?" he asked absentmindedly, searching his own mind with an accuracy that only slightly disturbed him.

"Find the blue-black thread first, master. We must sever your tie with the dark one first, as the darker one's bond relies on it," the voice replied soothingly.

"Who is this dark one, anyways?" he asked absently, looking for what had been described to him. There were many ways to describe one who was dark, after all. He assumed, for the moment at least, that the darker one was Voldemort.

Once he found what he was looking for, he reached out to gently touch the strand, surprised at the strength of the spider-web-thin wire. "And how do I break this without hurting me or the dark one?"

"The dark one is the one who killed your parents, master."

"Voldemort?" Harry paused after this word escaped his lips, blinking, having cut in before the voice could finish its statement. Well, there went his theory about the darker one.

"And there is no way to avoid the pain for either you or the dark one, master, just yank on it and it should let go of its hold on your mind."

"Wait, how did Voldemort get a bond like this in my mind? And why is he the dark one? Who is this darker one, if not Voldemort?"

"You have always had this bond, master. Ever since that night the dark lord's curse rebounded." As for the other questions, they were ignored for the moment. The shadows saw no need to answer them just yet; the time to answer these questions had not arrived. Soon, very soon indeed, they would be answered.

Harry shivered a bit and pulled on the wire without further hesitation, silently vowing to do something about the dark lord some time soon. He winced slightly as it came out fairly easily, and he watched as it immediately turned to ash.

"What now?"

"Golden-red this time, master."

He searched for the next one, and was dismayed to see that this one was far stronger, and thus far thicker, than the previous one. "Who did this?"

"The darker one, master, who you questioned us about just a few moments ago. Your very own Headmaster caused this to grow in your mind."

Harry glared at the cable-thick strand, and blinked in surprise as it frayed a little bit. He watched as it then repaired itself, attaching more little strands to its base, where it attached to his mind. It seemed that it healed itself whenever damaged; that would make this one far more difficult to remove than the last had been.

"Take care of it quickly, master. His hold is far greedier than that of the dark one; he does not wish to let you go free. However, he does not actually have access to this connection without looking into your mind in person, so he cannot strengthen it from where he is at now."

Harry growled and started working on this one as quickly as he could, using his anger to shield himself from the pain caused by each tiny strand coming out of his mind. He worked quickly in order to combat the self-healing portion of the bond.

In a fairly short amount of time, the cable was out and fading away; he refused to move on to the next step in what the shadow wanted until he was absolutely certain that it was gone. When the last bit of it faded from his sight, he sighed with relief and let his muscles relax, wincing a bit. That one had certainly hurt more than the last one, as well as taken longer to remove.

"The blocks now, master." The voice was gentle and reassuring, and Harry smiled weakly as he heard the acceptance and devotion towards him. He was somewhat tired already, but knew that there was more that he had to do before he could rest.

Feeling slightly better due to the acceptance from the voice, he searched his mind instinctively for more of the golden-red. There were patches over some places that were golden-red, and they faded quickly at his simple touch. Soon, his mind was healthier: the colors brighter, the defenses surer, fewer blaring weaknesses present. Clearly the blocks had been weakening something to do with his mind (and, perhaps, also his body); this only served to make more anger appear in Harry towards his 'beloved' Headmaster. Putting the anger to the side, he felt curiosity bubble up: why were they so easy to remove?

"Without the bond of the darker one over your mind and body, master, the dams no longer had any power backing them. They stood because they were placed there, but no longer had any foundation. If you had tried to dissolve them before untying the bond, you would have failed miserably due to the blocks being strengthened with any signs of tampering. In turn, the bond would have strengthened – perhaps to the point that removing it would have done serious damage to your mind."

"Ah," Harry said simply, and climbed out of the trance smoothly. Stretching with his eyes closed, he spoke. "Now what?"

"Now, master, you are ready to reappear to the world as the master of shadow. We, master, are your complete and utter servants; do not feel guilty, for we chose this of our own volition. Without you, master, we would be nothing; we require a master who has suffered at the hands of those supposed to care for them, else we can do nothing to help the world. In addition to having suffered, our master must be magical; we cannot bond with one without magic." Here the voice paused for a few moments, letting Harry absorb this information.

"However, now that we think about it...there is one more thing, master, that we feel is important for you to do before you do your part to make yourself seen in this world. Master, while you have gained many strengths due to your bond with us, there are a few things that you must do before announcing yourself to the world as our master. These are not difficult things, beyond a little pain, but they are essential in order to truly call yourself master of shadow.

"First, which is what we have just done, is to clear your mind of any presences that do not belong. In your case, it was the bond formed due to the current dark lord's attempt to kill you, and the bond your Headmaster created in an attempt to keep you under his control. With this out of the way, we are assured that you are acting out of your own will, and not forced into doing anything that you do not wish to do.

"Secondly, though no less urgently, we are to guide you in dissolving barriers that others, or perhaps yourself, have put up in your mind. This, for the most part, you have done yourself over time: your Headmaster attempted to cause you to fear your gift of Parseltongue, but you refused to fear something that had never caused you harm – and even came to relish the fact that you had a gift that few others had, and made a vow to yourself to bring a good name to Parselmouths around the world.

"The Headmaster did initially succeed in prejudicing you against Slytherins, but over time you have come to realize that not all Slytherins are dark, and not all Death Eaters were Slytherins. In addition, we have guided you in destroying the blocks that the Headmaster put up to block various abilities, from greater strength to a few other things that we will find out in time." At this time, the voice took a break, presumably to let Harry process things, and not overload him all at once. Or maybe just to take a brief break because it wanted to; it was hard to tell.

"Lastly, which is a task we will undertake in a few moments, we must purge your mind of webs of deceit, created by yourself or by others. In order to be our true master and tell others that you are our master, you must be able to see the world without prejudice caused by others. That is, you must view the world with your eyes alone; no other has the power to dictate how you feel in any way, shape or form. As a master of shadow, it is known that nobody has the right to tell you what to think besides yourself – not even the Ministry or your friends. While this may seem like a right everyone has, it is not true (as you well know by now), but it is a right you will claim as your own."

With that, the voice paused, waiting for Harry to catch up with all that had just been spoken of. In time, the shadow thought, this master would due much great in the world; the current state of affairs is the reason why they decided to claim a new master, after all, and having a master as well known as The Harry Potter would just make everything easier in the long run.

"Okay, I think I understand. You helped me purge foreign influences – the bonds – so that I wouldn't be influenced against my will. You pointed out the blocks, so that I wouldn't be unduly prejudiced against others, and so that I would have access to my full powers. And now...well, I don't quite understand, but I think you are trying to say that we are going to dissolve anything else that lingers from other people's input, to let me see the world as I know it, untainted by other viewpoints forced upon me." With this statement, the shadows knew they had picked well. They knew that their explanation was not clearly spoken, and yet this child had understood, and was able to explain to them what they were trying to say – showing that despite the sometimes awkward phrasing, Harry was smart enough to read between the lines.

"Exactly, my love." The shadow wrapped around Harry's body, embracing the one they now called master. They switched to a new endearment, deciding that they had, in fact, made the correct choice, and would be perfectly content to serve this new master for the rest of their combined days together.

"Okay. What do I look for?" Harry was taking things one at a time; without the influence of the dark lord or of the Headmaster, he realized that he was calmer, and that he could think far clearer than before. He never noticed before, he realized, because both bonds had been in place since he was very young; otherwise, he would have fought the slight haze of confusion, and perhaps broken at least one of the two bonds, if not both. Besides that, he knew he could trust the shadow; he was their true master, after all, and thus they would never betray him.

"My love, think of a closed off room, a room with only one door, from which nothing can escape without your permission. Think of everything anyone has told you of what might be expected of you, either as a wizard or a male or whatever you can think of. Imagine that each of these suggestions are inside of this room, confined, unable to escape." The voice was soothing, guiding Harry into a slightly deeper trance, keeping him focused on the task at hand. A one-roomed building of sorts started to form in front of them, perfectly round in shape; though the shadows had not described it in any detail, Harry instinctively made it so that nothing could hide once inside. The voice continued along the same lines until the room in front of them was solid, at which point it waited until Harry opened his eyes, having finished this part of the task.

"Very good, my love," the voice praised, causing Harry to blush slightly. "Now, let's take a look inside, yeah? Don't worry, even if the door is wide open, nothing can leave this room without your permission."

At this point, Harry entered the room just created. Inside, it was dark until Harry thought to add light; after that, it was bright enough to reach every point in the circular room, but not bright enough to hamper vision. Harry looked around in curiosity; he wondered what form the coercions in his life would take.

The walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in squiggly worm-like lines of all imaginable colors (though golden-red was more common than other colors). Each one moved slowly, insidiously trying to make their way out of the room – but unable to, thanks to the way the room had been set up. Harry watched as a couple of the worm-like creations tried to wiggle their way out the doorway, but were stopped just before they could make it through; it seemed that the shadow was true: nothing in this room could leave without his say so.

"My love, now we need you to destroy each and every one of these worms, okay? This will enable you to act without the barriers that society has put upon you; you will no longer have an outside force dictating what is right and wrong. Instead, you will decide for yourself, based on past and future experiences, what you believe is right and wrong. In this way, my love, you will rise above the petty rules that others have created. With the destruction of these worms, along with the barriers and bonds from before, you will be tied down by none besides yourself, and your future mate."

With this having been said, Harry considered the effect of destroying things in his own mind, and thought on how to do this with the least amount of pain to himself. He didn't ask the shadow for its opinion, because he wanted to be able to rely on himself; he knew that this was something that had to be done on his own. Experimentally, he tried grabbing one of the wiggling worms, only to find that every time he tried to, they managed to escape his grip. No matter how hard he tried to keep them in his hand, there was nothing he could do to keep it there.

Humming thoughtfully, his next attempt was to imagine one of the insidious things burning; when this succeeded, he jumped at the sudden flash of flame. However, this caused much pain (as the fire burned not only the worm, but also the room it was held in); he decided that even though this worked, he would try other, less destructive things. He wasn't a big fan of pain, after all, and he would need to concentrate for long enough to destroy each and every one of these worms.

This time, instead of one of the worms being the source of fire, he decided to take another path. He focused and created a fireplace nearby the door, so that the rest of the room would be unharmed; in this fireplace, he imagined a fire hot enough that nothing living (as he imagined the worms to be) would be able to survive. Once the fire started burning in its black-and-green sort of way, he imagined each of the worms being pushed in, as though the room was shrinking. He made sure to add in the thought that it wasn't actually shrinking, more that the wards keeping the worms inside the room were shrinking, forcing everything towards the fireplace.

He watched impassively as the worms were pushed closer and closer to the fire, each one burning quickly and disappearing with a small flash. He made sure to not lose control of the fire; he didn't want it to go burning at the room around it, after all, as that was likely to be far more painful than the hair-pulling sensation that was caused by each destroyed worm.

Once that was done, he sat down heavily and let the fire go out; it took a lot of sustained concentration to keep a fire like that burning in the mind without letting it harm the mind itself. Breathing as though having run a marathon, he rested; he could feel that the shadow was proud of him, and couldn't help the little bit of a smile on his face.

"Well done, my love, very well done indeed. With that over with, my love, we can now finish our job of healing your body. Rest, my love, and next time you wake, you will know where you have been taken." And with those words, the world faded to calm black once again, Harry having fallen into a deep, healing sleep.