A/N- This was designed to be a one-shot, then a two-shot, then three-shot. This last chapter was incredibly difficult to write, and I cried. Please review at the end, for this is where I will end. Thank you for reading and enjoy!


Tabula Rasa: CHAPTER 3

And this jolts Harry to sit upright. He blinks his emerald eyes into the face of an old enemy, though he cannot recall above faint emotions. There is also a current of loyalty in there as well, and if this isn't odd enough, this man apparently steals into his room every day.

"Who are you?" Harry demands.

"I'm a man who has done you wrong." The man has long greasy hair and a great hooked nose. He appears to be shocked, but relieved, and just a little bit on edge.

"How?"

"It doesn't matter now." Snape tells him. "If you are to hate me, I would like you to do so with all your memories."

"I- You have my memories? I can get them back?"

"Be quiet, for Merlin's sake!" Snape hisses. "Tell me how you knew not to drink that potion. Now, preferably!"

"I, there's a book!" Harry blurts, even though there's no definite reason to trust this man. "It was under my pillow."

"So that witch was thinking after all."

"What witch? Who? Hermione?"

"Never mind." Snape snaps. "She served her purpose and it was her own fault she couldn't stick it out till the end."

"What? Did she die?"

"Does it matter? Look, Potter. If you did, indeed, read your journal, then you should know there's only so much time before Thomas comes in."

"But why's he the enemy? He's the headmaster!"

"And I suppose you believe everybody who tells you who they are?"

"Well, I-uh." Harry blushes. "Well, how do I know you're not lying too?"

"Because who would lie about being your enemy? What would that gain me if it weren't the truth?" Snape questions. "Compare that to your best friends, an old lady who knows your parents, a school nurse."

Harry chews on his lower lip. He doesn't quite get it. He's only been introduced to these people this morning.

"So...Ron? Hermione?" Harry whispers.

"They're not here. They're off, leading the resistance."

"Poppy?"

"She's fighting too."

"Minerva?"

"Dead."

"But they're here. Everyday..."

"Polyjuice." Snape says simply. "It lets them appear to be someone else."

"What about Thomas?" Harry asks desperately. "What about Thomas?"

Snape locks his eyes with his.

"He wants you dead."

"But I'm not!" Harry says.

"But you are." Snape raises an eyebrow. "You can hardly call this life, can you? You can't fight him. He keeps you as his prisoner."

"You're lying!" Harry protests.

"Even so." Snape tells him. "The resistance will be here in a few minutes, ideally within the time it takes for Thomas to show his face. We had originally planned to do it in two days, but there was an unexpected development yesterday. Another person discovered that their son was polyjuiced. In their selfishness, they decided to end their own life than save yours. You may wonder why I tell you this. Why I've never told you this before. It's because it's time. The Wizarding World has waited too long for the Dark Lord's reign to fall, and finally, I've been able to develop a cure. It would be pointless to delay when suspicion is at its peak."

Harry sputters incoherently, unable to truly comprehend how a complicated plan could have developed, in what he feels was a few hours.

"You are fated to kill him, Mr. Potter. It's a lot to ask, but surely another sacrifice won't make a difference."

And before Harry can ask another question, or senselessly open and close his mouth like a fish, Severus Snape disappears beneath a silver cloak. Not a moment too soon, for the door opens again and it is the Thomas from his description.

Pale skin, brown hair, black eyes. He appears to be calm, but Harry's scar begins to prick, and Harry recognizes it: This is the man who killed his parents. This is the You-Know-Who Ron had talked of, and the Thomas Snape had warned him of. Suddenly, this confident powerful individual is nothing but a monster. The smile he wears is hungry, not warm, and the way he moves is not graceful as much as it is predatory.

"Hello Harry." he says elegantly. "I'm the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Thomas."

Harry knows this all already. He knows that this is not merely a friendly introduction but a power play, that the friends he had been introduced to in the morning were nothing but hostages- and fake ones at that.

"Hello." Harry says, playing the part.

The tall man walks closer to him, hands behind his back, eyes gleaming and calculating.

"How are you feeling? Poppy said you had a pretty nasty fall when the curse hit you...Is your scar bothering you at all?"

There's a slight hesitation Thomas surely latches onto.

"Yes." Harry finally concedes. "It tingles a bit. But what does that have to do with the curse?"

"Well, some say you have the power the Dark Lord knows not. And if you were aiming to kill the Dark Lord, the power might have coursed through you and reacted with the curse."

The explanation is so terrible Harry doesn't see how he could have missed it before.

"Oh, I suppose." Harry nods. "But if the Dark Lord is dead, then why does it matter if I have something he doesn't. Many people have things others don't. Like black hair. Or glasses."

"I don't think you understand, Harry." Thomas tells him sweetly. "I'm trying to help you."

He takes a step closer and raises a finger to Harry's scar. He flinches back instinctually, but he can feel Thomas' eyes on him, and he wishes he hadn't reacted at all.

"I need you to relax, Harry. Can you do that for me? Shut your eyes and relax? Let everything go. Let everything down."

Harry doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable, but the alternative is instant death. It's not a difficult decision. Harry shuts his eyes.

Not long after, there is a force that slams against his brain. It is sharp and small, like a surgical knife meant for fine incisions. It slices along his conscience, ripping where it can, tearing where it can't. Finally, Harry can't take it anymore. With a cry, magic shoots from his core through his mind, effectively making the Minister stagger back.

Thomas growls, the sound coming from his throat in a feral sort of way. And then, suddenly, beyond all hope, there is a bang from the hallway. And another. And another. Thomas looks sharply at Harry before glaring at the door. Harry wonders if this is it, if this is the resistance. He wonders if this is truly the right thing to do, if these people will be better than the last. Finally, he wonders what Severus will do, where he is, and what will happen.

Thomas pushes back his sleeve and presses an ugly black mark on his left arm. Harry's scar flares up, but otherwise there is no change. Thomas tries again, and again, but nothing happens. There is no one left to call. More shouts resound from the hallways, louder bangs, crashes, and shouts. Harry could close his eyes and picture the battle of Hogwarts if he wanted, but he doesn't. He keeps them open and watches as Thomas regards him coolly. Harry doesn't know it, but Thomas is contemplating his life as a decision of two factors: To learn of the unknowable power. Or to risk letting his enemy escape. To kill. To spare. To kill. To wait. It will only take a few more hours for Harry to start again, anyway.

So the Dark Lord is utterly unprepared when Snape slips a wand into Harry's hand. He is utterly baffled when the wards are broken, and the little white door is knocked down to reveal a tall, red-haired man with freckles, and a brown-haired witch by his side. He nearly gapes as he sees them, alive and well, and healthy.

"Surrender!" Hermione shouts, brandishing her wand. She looks older, more mature. She has curves and she has wrinkles and she has spirit. She is so different from the crying damsel in his room every morning. She is so different Harry gapes.

"Avada-!"

"Ron, NO! We need to bring him to justice!"

"THIS IS JUSTICE!" Ron yells. He is an older, more mature Ron as well. He has dark auburn hair and faint freckles on a handsome face. He has grown lean and tall, but his voice commands power. He has changed, or perhaps he has never been. Harry cannot recall.

Thomas looks between Harry, desperately clutching his wand, and the team of aurors behind Hermione and Ron.

"So it took you this long, did it?" Thomas mocks them in a honey-coated voice. "You've let your savior rot in this made-up reality for how long?"

"SHUT UP!" Hermione growls. "This is the end, Riddle. You can't win."

"But you can lose." Voldemort says, and points his wand at Harry. "It's your choice."

Some of the aurors back away, but some, like a certain blonde haired man, remain in front.

"You killed my mother!" Draco shouts. "You killed her!"

"No, Draco. She killed herself." Voldemort laughs, and it is high-pitched and cold. "She died for him."

"Don't fuck with him, Voldemort!" Hermione threatens. "Lower your wand!"

"Do you honestly think you can make demands of me?" Thomas laughs. "You're in as much as a scrape as I am!"

And it's true. Harry is on the other end of his wand, and Voldemort at theirs. It is essentially a gridlock, and confusion lurks beneath the stillness. And then, Draco lunges. He runs at Voldemort, teeth barred, hands extended. Reason has fled him a while ago, but losing his mother was the last straw.

In that moment, Harry aims his wand upwards at the man formerly or perhaps recently known as Thomas, and shouts the words always on the tip of his tongue.

"Avada Kedavra."

It is barely more than a whisper, but the curse strikes its target.

And Voldemort falls down dead.

TRTRTR

It is a quarter to midnight at the Burrow, where the tattered remnants of the Order gather around the fire. They, who are alive, speak of the lost years. They, being Lupin, Sirius, Tonks, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, Fred, George, Ginny, Kingsley...

Harry is 20 now. Hermione and Ron are engaged to be married.

Draco weeps in his room. Poppy weeps before them all, white-haired, and thinner than Harry remembers.

They all look at Harry as if they cannot believe it. They cannot believe he is alive and they can't believe he thinks he it is the day after the Final Battle. So much has changed. So much is the same.

They look to Snape for guidance, for he is the secret leader. He explains in full the conditions in which Harry had suffered. They suspected but did not know- they donated their hair after all. The story which Snape fed Voldemort was really quite remarkable. He told him that Ron and Hermione were dead, that he had harvested their scalps and grew their hair with potions. He said he would have to perform a de-aging spell on the luckless volunteers, usually lower ranking Death Eaters who had already learned the Script.

The photo album Severus had provided the Dark Lord for use in the illusion was another sacrifice Harry had inadvertently made. Snape promises he will get it back, but Harry isn't sure he wants to see it again. He's seen it every day after all.

It is ten to midnight when Severus brings out the cure. He says there is one more confession he must make.

"The mind is a complicated mechanism." he says. "It is the source of our personality, which is built upon memories. There was and always was a horcrux living inside you. You were the seventh horcrux."

The entire room is silent. They all strain to hear, for Snape was as secretive as Dumbledore when it came to explanations.

"It is gone now. But for seventeen years it manifested itself into your soul because it influenced your actions which filled your memories. It was a part of you just as you are a part of you. There was no way to get it out except by killing you, which we didn't want to risk. Another option would have been to let the Dark Lord kill you, but this had an innumerable unpleasant outcomes. There was one other way to save you though...I cast the Tabula Rasa." Snape said quietly. A hush swept over the crowd. "There were many benefits to this choice as opposed to the others. One thing being that you didn't have to die. The other benefit was that the horcrux itself lost its hold on you. Every day, you did not just forget twenty-four hours. A part of you broke off, chipped, died. You began forgetting names, places, friends, family...everyone, including yourself. It loosened the horcrux from your soul...purging you, little by little. Without the memories, the horcrux became a floating factor again, no longer intertwined with your own personality. And then of course, the other benefit was that the Dark Lord did not feel the rush to kill you. He believed you had a power the prophecy alluded to, though Dumbledore believed it to refer to love. The Dark Lord always was obsessive. He acted the way Dumbledore planned with flying colors. He even devised a schedule which he believed would make you more amenable to him. The only drawback was that we had no idea how long it would take. The cure was still being developed, and then the actual rescue attempt had to be devised. And then of course, you had to perform the killing curse for the Horcrux to be ejected from your soul."

"Like a horcrux?" Hermione asked. "Except that Harry was splitting apart Voldemort's soul from his own soul?"

"But that's terrible!" Ginny protested.

All eyes were back on Harry. His face was rather pale, but whether that was from captivity or something else, like fear, no one was sure.

"So I ask you now." Severus said, speaking only to Harry. "This will not return your memories of the past three years. This will only restore what you've forgotten previously, from the Final Battle back, and of course, today. So I ask: Now or later?"

It is a minute to midnight. Harry doesn't know. These betrayals are by people he can't recall. And the tears these people shed are for someone Harry has forgotten.

He takes the potion from Snape and drinks.

He drinks as the Weasley clock chimes midnight.

TRTRTR

Harry wakes, dazed and confused, in a gold and scarlet room. He fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand and jams them on his face. Outside in the hall, Hermione squeezes Ron's hand and asks, "Are you ready?"

Ron shrugs. "I'll never be ready for this."

And slowly, very slowly, they push open the door, where Harry sits on his bed and smiles.


A/N- Please Review