A/N: Jeeze you guys really want Hermione to die.
oooooo
Unsurprisingly, Harry didn't sleep well that night. It was bad enough that he had the Goblin Nation depending on him to improve their reputation, now the entire Slytherin house was as well. He tossed and turned fitfully, stomach rolling. Eventually his exhaustion overcame his worry, and he fell unconscious for a few hours, waking when a storm outside caused the lake to began to crash at the windows sometime around six in the morning. Unable to fall back to sleep he got up and grabbed a quill and parchment from his trunk, and walked quietly out to the common room so he didn't wake anyone up. He spent the next few hours writing a letter home. Just putting his thoughts down on paper helped with the stress. A few older students wandered in just as he finished the letter. They gave him some odd looks that made his stomach cramp a bit again, and he quickly got up and went back to his room, where his roommates were just waking up. He quickly went into the bathroom and shut the door. Passing the letter through the mirror to Hoggle took only five seconds, and by the time Blaise opened the door he was already brushing his teeth.
Theo was all dressed and ready for breakfast when Harry finished in the bathroom. Harry tried to smile at him but felt like it came out as a grimace. He got dressed quickly and they headed down to breakfast silently. A few of the Slytherins they passed in the hall glanced at Harry, and whenever they did he felt that roll in his stomach again. Luckily when they got to the Entrance Hall, everyone's focus was on the four house hourglasses that tracked house points. The Gryffindor's hourglass had next to nothing in it. Harry and Theo traded surprised glances, yesterday they had been only about fifty points behind Slytherin. Harry raised an eyebrow at Theo, who rolled his eyes but obligingly shifted next to a Ravenclaw group and asked, "What happened?"
The Ravenclaw looked down at Theo, and then over at Harry, who pretended not to notice. "Apparently the Gryffindor prefects didn't do any kind of headcount. One of the first years had been in the third floor bathroom during the feast," Harry immediately began trying to remember if he'd seen Neville at the feast, frantically hoping the boy was okay. The Ravenclaw girl continued, "and they didn't even know she was missing for like four hours when one of her roommates finally said something." She. Her. So it hadn't been Neville, Harry let out a silent breath of relief. The girl leaned down to Theo and started to whisper, just loud enough for Harry to hear as well. "I heard she's in the hospital ward now because the troll went right in the bathroom she was using! I guess she was smart enough to hide in a stall and the troll wandered back out eventually, but she's totally in shock and, like, hysterical. Anyway, when McGonagall found out she took twenty points from each prefect, and ten points from each of the girl's roommates for not saying something earlier."
Harry knew that there were two prefects in every house for fifth, sixth and seventh years. That was 120 points, and then there was probably about five or six girls in the first year dorm, another 50 or 60 points. It would take them ages to gain those points back. Harry wondered if they even could.
Abruptly the crowd around the hourglasses quieted, Harry craned his neck around to find the cause, and found Professor Snape striding towards him. Harry instinctively straightened a bit. Professor Snape was smirking, very slightly, "Mister Potter. I hear you had the good sense not to take the rest of Slytherin house to the dungeon where the troll was reportedly waiting."
Whispers broke out briefly, but stopped when Professor Snape looked around. Harry swallowed, and finally nodded, "It didn't seem like a good idea sir."
The Professor actually smiled, and Harry blinked. He didn't think he'd ever seen the dour man smile. "Well, thirty points to Slytherin for a demonstration of such logical thinking and clear headedness under pressure. Logical thinking that even your headmasters and professors were not equal to."
Harry felt his face flush. His stomach was rolling again. It was bad enough that the idea hadn't even been his, it'd been Melody's, but Professor Sprout had already given him 20 points last night. Clearly he couldn't say any of that in front of the entire student body though. So he just swallowed and nodded, "Thank you sir."
Snape nods, and sweeps away, his exit undercut by the sound of thirty emeralds falling into the bottom of the Slytherin hourglass. Harry turns to Theo, feeling like he'd like he was about to burst out of his skin. "I'm going to skip breakfast. I'll see you in class."
Theo frowned, "Do you want me to go with you?"
"No." Harry said, quickly, maybe too quickly, because Theo's face did something weird. "No." He repeated again, softer, "I just want to be alone for a few minutes."
Theo nodded acceptance, and Harry quickly raced off, heart pounding. He needed to get away from all these people. Bad enough there was so many of them, but the way they always watched him was beginning to drive him crazy. He needed five seconds to be alone. Completely alone.
Luckily for Harry, he was labyrinth trained, and had been at the school for two full months now. He knew at least four places he could go to hide himself and not be bothered. He went to the empty broom closet behind a painting behind a tapestry in the dungeons. Their first class on Friday was potions, and he wouldn't want to be late. Once safely in the closet he pulled out his hand mirror with hands that he refused to admit were trembling slightly. He briefly considered who to call for, but knew almost immediately who he wanted to talk to.
"Sarah." He whispered, and the image of his own face in the glass wavered, before clearing, with Sarah's face peering out at him.
"Harry!" She cried, joyfully, but then her face immediately twisted into worry when she got a look at him, "Oh, darling. What's wrong?"
"Everything." Harry admitted, and spilled out the whole story.
When he finished Sarah was frowning slightly, and pressed her hand to her side of the glass, "Oh darling boy. I'm so sorry. Come through. Just for a minute. I need to give you a hug."
Harry bit his lip, but all he really wanted at the moment was a hug from his mother, so he placed his hand against hers, closed his eyes, and pushed himself through the mirror, making sure to drop his own as he went. As soon as he landed he was swept up into Sarah's arms, and he melted into the embrace happily. He breathed deep, pulling in both Sarah's smell, as well as the smell of Below. Hot sand and violets, fireflowers, the far far away smell of the bog, just enough to remind you it existed. They were in Sarah's private dressing room, and below him he could faintly hear the sounds of some of the goblins singing a song about cleaning the castle. Through the open window he could hear Ludo bellowing to some stones, and the sound of a canon. It was such a relief to be home for a few minutes that Harry felt tears burn in his eyes. He buried his face in Sarah's dress, embarrassed.
Sarah smoothed her hands up and down his back, and started talking after a few minutes of silence, "Your father is dealing with a few runners from yesterday. If we call him up here you can stay as long as you like. I'm sure he wouldn't mind setting time back for you."
Harry shook his head, and, feeling that his tears had dried up, finally pulled away, wiping roughly at his face, "No. I mean, no, I don't want to stay too long. Call him up though, so I can say hi before I go back. I have Potions in a half hour. Everyone's eating breakfast now."
Sarah smiled brightly, and laid her arm over Harry's shoulders, drawing him out of her rooms and down the stairs. "Well you shall have breakfast too then! I know how you're missing your breakfast cabbage. Probably we shouldn't tell any of the goblins you're back though," she said, conspiratorially, "as they may not let you leave again."
Harry summoned up a laugh from somewhere, and followed Sarah to the dining hall.
Ooooooo
For a few minutes breakfast was achingly normal. Sarah had gone in first to distract the goblins by asking them to clean out one of the oubliettes that rarely got used. Then they'd gone in together and Harry had had his breakfast cabbage. Sarah had held conversation together all on her own, telling Harry about all the runners they'd had in the labyrinth, how the new goblins were fitting in. Harry had just scraped the last of the yolk out of his breakfast cabbage, when Jareth appeared in the middle of the hall in a burst of glitter.
"Sarah. I just got a letter from Harry. We must go visit that wretched place right away -" Jareth broke off when he realized Harry was sitting in front of him. "Harry" Harry laughed, and jumped forward, landing in Jareth's arms. Jareth swung him around, hugging him close and tight. "Oh. Harry. I've been so worried. How are you? Your letter sounded horrible. How could those incompetents let a troll into a school with children?"
Harry let out a breath, feeling the stress he'd been holding onto melt out of him. After a moment he squirmed to be let go. Jareth sighed, but put him down. "It was Quirrell." Jareth frowned thunderously, and Harry continued, "He said the troll was in the dungeon, but it went after a girl on the third floor. And we were waiting outside the Hufflepuff room for a while. We didn't see or hear anything like a troll go through the great hall. And also, why would Quirrell even have been in the dungeons to see a troll down there in the first place?"
Jareth made a humming noise, and flipped his wrist a few times until a large mirror appeared on the wall. "Let's see what he's up to then, shall we?"
The mirror went gray, then shimmered, before focusing hazily on the Great Hall. Quirrell was seated at the head table, quietly eating his oatmeal. Everyone frowned as the image stayed hazy.
Sarah stood, abandoning the rest of her breakfast, to step closer to the mirror. Jareth squinted his blue eye at it, and then reached out and poked the mirror a few times. Harry felt the brush of something through the air, and realized, with some surprise, that he could feel the magic Jareth was using to analyze the mirror. It looked like his Hogwarts education was proving useful after all!
Jareth stopped tapping and shifted away from the mirror slightly, now glaring at it. Sarah couldn't seem to hold it in anymore, "Well? What's wrong with it?"
"No idea." Jareth admitted, with a casual air. Harry and Sarah traded concerned looks. "It does seem familiar somehow. I've seen this reaction before."
He didn't continue, staring at the mirror, which was now following Quirrell from the Great Hall through the corridors to the Defense classroom. "When did you see it?" Harry asked.
Jareth frowned, "Oh, who knows. Could have been yesterday, could have been centuries ago. I'll remember eventually."
Harry sighed softly, and looked back at the mirror. An idea occurred to him, "Dad? Can you look at a place through one of these? Or just people?"
Jareth gave him a half amused, half insulted look, "Anything. Of course. My magic has no limits in my own realm."
Sarah scoffed at that, quietly. Harry bit back a grin. Jareth was in a superior mood. That was always fun. "Can you take a look at what Dumbledore's hiding on that third floor corridor?"
Jareth blinked, and then grinned, "Oh smart. Very clever. That's my doing, making him so smart." Jareth said to Sarah, who rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth quirked up. Jareth turned to the mirror, waved his hand across the face of it, to clear it from Quirrell's office, and then he motioned Harry forward. "It'll be far easier for you than me, since you've been in the building. Place your hand at the top. When you're older you'll learn to do it without needing to touch, but this will work for now." Harry stepped forward, and did as he was asked. "Good. Now. Think of the place you want to see. Not just the name of the place, but it's relative location." Harry did so, imagining the third floor corridor, the place where the grand stair branched off into one of the only areas of the castle he hadn't seen. "Good." Jareth said. "Open your eyes and step back." Harry did so, looking to see an image of a wooden door.
Jareth raised his hand, and made a forward gesture. The image in the mirror responded instantly, jumping through the wood door to a large room. Standing nearly a story tall, in the center of the room, was a large three-headed dog. Jareth made a low, wanting sound.
"No." Sarah said. Harry repeated it, just a half beat later.
"But I want it."
"No." Harry and Sarah said again.
Sarah folded her arms imperiously, "We agreed. No more carnivores in the labyrinth. The fireys and the pole-biters are bad enough."
Jareth pouted a little, "You never let me have what I want."
Sarah raised an eyebrow, and smiled, "I definitely do, actually."
The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Harry looked back and forth between them before interrupting with a short, to the point, "Ew."
They both laughed, breaking eye contact to look at Harry. "Sorry darling." Sarah said, reaching over to hug him to her, his back to her front, so they could both still focus on the mirror.
Harry rolled his eyes, but relaxed against his mother, "You're both missing the obvious. The cerberus is standing on a trapdoor."
Jareth and Sarah refocused on the mirror, and Jareth made a noise of interest. He flicked his wrist, pointing down. The image in the mirror rushed between the cerberus's feet, through the trapdoor into a dark room. Jareth harrumphed, and snapped his fingers to lighten the image. The room was filled from corner to corner with a large, moving, plant. It was mostly made up of vines, and looked vaguely threatening. The family studied it for a moment, but it was mostly uninteresting. Jareth pushed the image forward again, through the room's only door into the next room. This room was also large, filled with tiny flying birds. There were three brooms leaning against the far wall.
"This is very strange." Sarah said.
Harry and Jareth frowned. "You think so?" Jareth asked, a little confused, "It seems like an interesting labyrinth. Though a bit straightforward for my tastes."
Sarah sighed, heavily. "Labyrinths are not normal Above. In fact, there mostly aren't any at all. Mostly there are corridors and steps and signs that tell the truth."
Harry and Jareth clearly didn't fully believe her. They traded glances. "Well that would explain the simplicity of this one." Jareth allowed. He waved at the mirror again, and the image jumped forward to a third room. A large chessboard filled this room, with man-sized pieces. Another door was straight ahead, on the other side of the board. Jareth sighed, and flicked his wrist forward again. "Not even any dummy doors in different directions. How dull." The fourth room abruptly changed his tone. A large troll stood in the center of the room. Jareth hissed in rage, snapping his fingers before Sarah could protest. With a pop, and small explosion of glitter, the troll vanished.
"Jareth!" Sarah protested.
"No." Jareth said, in a tone that didn't invite arguing, "I will leave the cerberus, and I will leave Quirrell. For now. But I will not leave a troll free to wander around the school my son is attending."
Sarah blew out a frustrated breath, "They'll know something happened to it. They'll probably replace it."
Jareth snapped his fingers twice, sharply, and the image zoomed all the way out to a bird's eye view of the castle. With a twist of his fingers a crystal ball appeared in his hand. He concentrated for a moment, and the ball glowed green. He snapped again, and the subtle movements in the image - trees moving in the wind, owls flying back and forth, the waves of the lake - froze. He stepped forward, and pressed the green glowing ball against the glass. He rolled it a few times until the ball grew to the size that covered the image of the castle. Once it was large enough he pressed the ball through the mirror. A shimmery dome appeared in the image, encompassing the entire castle. Jareth snapped his fingers, and the green shimmer disappeared. He snapped again, and time resumed. "There. No more trolls will be able to pass through that. They can try to install another, or to bring one in for another distraction, but they won't be able to. Now, shall we proceed?"
Jareth didn't wait for a response, snapping his fingers again to focus the image back in the room that had previously housed the troll. The image moved forward again, to the smallest of the rooms they'd seen. On the center table, there was a series of potion bottles. Next to the bottles a scroll remained. Jareth waved his hand and they focused on the scroll. It was a simple riddle, and all three of them scoffed at the simplicity. Jareth sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, and moved the image forward one final time. The red stone sat atop a stone pillar in the center of the room.
"Quite a disappointing series of challenges." Harry said. Jareth nodded in agreement.
"Though," Sarah asked, contemplatively, "How would you get out?"
Jareth cocked his head. It was true. The final room only had the one door. Someone would have to complete all the tasks in reverse to escape. Presumably the stone would have some kind of wizard magic attached to it to notify someone when it was removed. "A lobster trap." Jareth observed.
Harry sighed, loudly. "Well, this is interesting. But I'm late for class now."
Jareth turned to him, grinning. "Ah time. Mortals are so attached to it." Jareth waved his arm expansively, and a large 13 hour clock appeared. Jareth waved his hand counter clockwise and the hands shifted backwards obligingly, until it was ten minutes before Harry's potions class began. Harry motioned to the mirror on the wall, which was still showing the stone in it's room. He concentrated on his mirror that he'd left behind in the potions corridor. The image changed to a view of the dark stone ceiling. Clearly Harry had dropped the mirror face up.
Harry turned from the mirror abruptly, and gathered Sarah up in a desperate hug. Sarah grabbed him back tightly, "Be good my boy. I love you so much, and we're both so proud of what you've been doing."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. "I love you too Mom." He pulled away to find Jareth staring at him intently. He flung himself forward into his father's arms. "Thank you."
Jareth didn't move for a moment, before abruptly hugging him tight. He pressed a kiss to Harry's forehead, brushed his fingers through the boy's hair. "Be safe my son. And continue to do your best to be good and kind."
Harry nodded against Jareth's chest, before pulling away, clearing his throat. "Okay. I'll see you next month guys."
Harry didn't wait for another response, pressing his hand against the mirror, and pushing his way through.
Oooooo
A/N: Hopefully that better explains why Hermione is alive. -_-
