Ok, so I sat down to write this chapter at least 10 times. And every time I read the last line of the last chapter…
/Reenactment
La la la! Going to write my fanfic, lots of nice comments. Love everyone, world is good.
(reads chapter 8, enjoying it, thinking of ideas; gets to last line)
gasp! O.O What!? Why did I leave it there? What… what was he going to say?!
(looks furtively in both directions, runs away crying)
/
Write outlines! That's my only advice. Anyway, enjoy!
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/ Chapter 9: The-One-That-Took-Too-Long /
OOoOOOoo
"Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives." Dumbledore says sadly.
Harry glares at him. He is perfectly aware of what the prophecy says and is heartily tired of people quoting it to him all the time. "I know, and that's what I did- gathered all the pieces of that megalomaniac's soul together and destroyed them."
"Ah." Dumbledore says, stroking his beard.
Harry pinches the bridge of his nose tiredly. He knows the Headmaster isn't going to say anything more until Harry asks him a question. Harry also knows that he is in no mood to play the old man… spirit… Dumbledore's games. After staring at each other for several moments, the older wizard sucking on an ethereal lemon drop and Harry grinding his teeth, the younger finally breaks. "What exactly is wrong with what I did, hmm?"
"Oh, my." Dumbledore says, smiling contentedly and twinkling. " Well you had the general idea right, my boy- but the problem is 'either must die at the hand of the other.' Technically speaking, you died first. By your own hand."
"But if that's what the Prophecy says then I couldn't have killed myself in the first place." Harry is now almost as confused as he is frustrated.
"Exactly."
"Exactly?"
"Note that you didn't die." Dumbledore says, stroking his beard.
Harry's jaw drops open and he just stares at the other wizard.
"My boy, while there are no flies at these Crossroads, you might want to close your mouth." Dumbledore chuckles.
"B… Tha…. No!… Someone…" Harry splutters, gesturing randomly.
"Indeed, Harry. You put us in quite the tight spot! The Powers That Be were going to make us do it all over again."
"Again?" Harry repeats, feeling faint.
"Oh, yes. With karmic debt." Dumbledore shakes his head sadly.
"Say what?" Harry isn't sure what 'karmic debt' is, but every time Dumbledore has looked like that in the past, he was about to say something really horrible. Like, 'the Dementors have joined Voldemort' or 'I spiked that lemon drop with Lust Potion- oh hello Minerva!' or 'Alas, earwax.'
"For failing, you see. We didn't get it to turn out quite as it was supposed to. You were supposed to die but end up living, for example." Dumbledore pauses, looking pained. "The penalties they were proposing were quite harsh." He leaned forward, looking at Harry intently. "You remember the Dursleys my boy?"
"Rather hard to forget the people who raised you." Harry says, still intimidated by the air that Dumbledore is inducing but puzzled at the seeming non-sequitur. "They were alright. I have enough socks to last me the rest of my life." Harry thinks back to the sheer creativeness his aunt and uncle had displayed with 15 years of socks for Christmas- some of the ones he had gotten were truly odd.
Dumbledore for a second looks even more deathly serious. "Never underestimate the power of a good pair of socks."
"Um, okay." Harry says, disturbed as Dumbledore's expression becomes more mild when he goes back to the topic of them having to live their lives over again with 'debt.'
"The PTB were suggesting that your debt consist of the Dursleys keeping you in a broom cupboard."
"A broom cupboard?" Harry interrupts incredulously.
Dumbledore continues seemingly without hearing. "And instead of socks every Christmas, only one sock. Ever. Dirty, and without its pair." Dumbledore shakes his head sadly.
"They were going to make me live through child abuse as punishment for trying to save the world?" Harry asks incredulously, unsure whether he feels hysterical or just mad.
"The Dursleys, it seems, did everything they were supposed to. As such, they get rewarded."
"My relatives want to lock me in a broom cupboard?" Harry asks, dazed.
"And make you work like a house elf, not just weed the garden on Saturdays for allowance." Dumbledore continues with a nod. "Fortunately Severus came up with a solution that satisfied the PTB."
Harry almost asks how the current solution could really be called anything of the sort, but then has a sudden thought. "What were they going to do to Snape?" Harry asks suspiciously.
"Ah. Apparently, they thought it would be marvelous to make him completely obsessed with your mother." Dumbledore looks over his glasses at Harry. "As you can see from the reality you ended up in, they had an attraction, and did know each other as children. However, you will be pleased to know that in our world that didn't last much past the Sorting, and Snape moved on. He was something of a ladies' man with the Deatheaters, so I'm told."
Harry's face gets a particularly sour look on it as he starts to imagine such a thing, so he roughly shoves the image out of his mind.
Dumbledore pauses dramatically. "So they were going to make it so that he would feel guilty at her death, so much so that he would never touch another woman in his life."
Harry, though he spared no love for the cranky Potions master, found he did have enough of a purely male sentiment to be horrified. "Never?"
"Dies a virgin." Dumbledore confirms.
"Wow." Compared to that, living in a cupboard and working like a slave seems pretty tame. "I can see where he would want to avoid that. At least he doesn't live all that long and dies pretty spectacularly." Harry says, not sure if that really makes up for it. No sex?!
"Actually, they were going to have him die rather anticlimactically pouring out all his deepest secrets to you." Dumbledore muses.
"What did he do to these beings?" Harry asks, appalled.
"Remember when you fell off your cursed broom? When that hypogriff mauled you after if got Malfoy? When you failed Potions? Fell though that trapped stair and Peeves had to fish you out of the insulation?"
"With a liberal helping of Dungbombs? Who could forget?" Harry sighs.
"Ah. Severus was supposed to prevent all those things, but he still is somewhat irritated with your father." Dumbledore nods to himself. "And they were going to make his hair not just greasy- but literally impossible to get clean."
"That's just petty." Harry says, though his lips quirk up a bit at the thought.
"Yes, well. Severus came up with the idea of letting the two of you figure out a better way to come to a conclusion on all this. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for both you and Tom to have the childhood you were denied and come to peace."
"Oh. Well that went sort of pear shaped, didn't it?" Harry says sheepishly.
"Hmm."
"How are Voldemort and I supposed to come to some sort of peace with each other, though? I mean… he's a dark lord! You know, evil."
"That's for you to figure out, my boy."
Harry frowns. It seems that it is too much to ask to have answers from the meddling old fool when they really matter, though perhaps hearing all the indignities Snape was going to suffer was worth it. Except… "But he's in my body! You say they were going to condemn Snape to celibacy- fine. But how am I supposed to chat up the ladies with Volemort running commentary?" He's whining. And he doesn't care.
"Harry, they would hot have set you something impossible." Dumbledore stops and considers. "And if they did, then we can try it the other way."
Harry sighs brokenly. Really it is more of a sob but he doesn't want to admit that. "What were they going to do to mother?"
"Teen pregnancy."
"Dad?"
"Mediocre Quidditch playing."
"Sirius?"
"No trial and Azkaban for thirteen years."
Harry stares at the Headmaster. "What did he do? He worked really hard during he war."
"Ah, yes. But he managed to prank the PTB after he died." Dumbledore shakes his head in a way that screams long-suffering patience for the vagaries of youth.
"Wow." Harry isn't sure whether to be impressed, annoyed of amused. "What were they going to do to you?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Nothing." Harry says flatly.
"Someone needs to remember what went wrong my boy, in order to ensure you die and come back properly." Dumbledore looks rather pleased at the thought.
"They were going to have you remember this whole thing so that you could orchestrate everyone's lives for a higher purpose?" Harry is so stunned it almost feels surreal. "How ever did you turn that down long enough to go with this plan?" He asks sarcastically.
"It was difficult, my boy. Very difficult. But I had to think of what was the Greater Good." Dumbledore looks off into the distance, his eyes glazed with happy contemplations.
"I'm ready to go back now." Harry says, more than a little disturbed.
"Excellent, most excellent." Dumbledore says with a warm smile. "Just think it and it will be done."
Harry does just that, and as quickly as possible. Karmic justice? Hah! Leaving someone as meddling as Dumbledore is without help in that sort of position- that was punishing the whole universe, not just a couple poor fools that couldn't figure out how to die properly.
OOoOOOoooOO
Tom grunted as he levered himself over the edge of the Chamber entrance, then let out an unmanly shriek as the basilisk decided she needed to help and tossed him into the air and tumbling between his wife and the Headmaster.
Voldemort's paralyzed body floats up gently, the nudge the basilisk gives him dampened by the Mobilicorpus spell.
"We should move this to someplace a bit more cozy, then?" Albus asks the assembled people.
"The ladies bathroom does have a certain atmosphere." Snape muses. Everyone stares at him and he smirks.
/What are you going to do with the young Speaker?/ The basilisk asks, resting her head on the edge of the Entrance and looking bored already.
/We will need to have a conference on the best way to deal with him./ Tom answers her, giving the Headmaster a signal that it is alright.
/You could assign him to be my caretaker./ The basilisk offers helpfully. /There is an intolerable build up of skeletons in the entryway, and the sewage removal ditch has been backed up for centuries./
Tom looks at her, turning a bit green. /We will certainly consider it./
/Good./ The basilisk raises her head and looks down at the assembled humans regally, pointedly ignoring them recasting the anti-basilisk charm over their eyes. /I will leave you to your long human discussions. But I need to talk to you later. Both of you./ She gets a shrewd gleam in her eye. /And through you perhaps the entire school. I can not stand idly by as that hat spreads Gryffindor lies any longer./
/Yes, ma'am./ Tom says humbly, a corner of his mind wondering if he wasn't supposed to be the master in this particular relationship but deciding not to argue the issue.
The basilisk slips back into the Chamber and the sinks close back over, innocently guarding the entrance once more.
"Well, to my office, then?" Albus asks.
OoOoOOoOOooO
"Myrtle, dear, if you would please let the Headmaster and I deal with this…"
"No, Tom! I am his mother as much as you are his father and I want to figure out what is wrong with him so that we can help him. We have been working with this poor boy for years and that he is finally communicating, even if it is in a magical language that only you can understand… well, that's a huge leap in progress."
"Pussy whipped." Comes the comment from the thoroughly trussed up dark lord in the corner.
Tom doesn't even spare the effort to glare at the other Parslemouth. Instead he furiously tries to think of something he can say to convince his wife to leave the room so that he and he Headmaster can discuss what to do. With anyone else in the room they cannot say anything due to the Command Harry had put on them. And it was becoming intensely frustrating to have his adoptive sons and wife spouting off increasingly wild theories while he sat there knowing the real answer but being unable to say anything. Tom opened his mouth to try another tack just as Voldemort went absolutely rigid in his bonds. Though to everyone else the boy is simply hissing, Tom can hear the screams for what they are.
"Harry! Harry dear!" Myrtle exclaims worriedly, rushing to the boy's side. Severus as well moves to his foster brother, Jeff right behind him.
Tom stays in the corner and Albus inches to his side. "What is he saying, Tom?"
"Nothing, he's screaming." Tom says, a distressed look on his face.
Finally Voldemort slump in the chair, the only things keeping him from going all the way to the floor are the bonds that were restraining him.
"Ooo."
"Harry?" Myrtle asks hopefully.
Tom turns to the older wizard by his side hurriedly. "Albus, was that a hiss?"
"No." Albus replies, a calculating look on his face.
"Wow. Just think about it and you'll be there. Right." Harry moves to rub a hand to his temples and finds them unresponsive. When he frowns at the magical restraint it skitters off in seeming terror.
"Harry!" Myrtle exclaims joyously, gathering up the small body in her arms.
"Can't… breathe!" Comes a gasp from the patch of black hair visible over Myrtle's arms. The foster mother releases him, holding Harry at arms-length and staring at him smiling.
"You're talking." She beams.
"Ye-es…" Harry says, looking puzzled before he recalls the pretense he had been keeping up. "Ah."
"Harry, my boy." Albus starts, though he stops when Harry jumps a little and squeaks. "Are you alright?"
"Er… yes. Sorry. A… bad dream?" Harry trails off with a bemused expression on his face.
"Harry, dear, what has been going on? How are you feeling?" Myrtle asks.
"You gave us a scare jumping into the Chamber of Secrets and coming out with a basilisk." Severus adds.
"I did what now?" Harry asks, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. Before Severus can repeat himself, though, he continues. "You'll have to excuse me for a moment." And with that, the boy slumps in the chair again, eyes gone glassy and unfocused.
"Harry!" Three voices call in concern. When those three realize it had not been five voices, three sets of eyes turn toward the Headmaster and Head of Slytherin House, hard suspicion in their eyes.
"Tom." Myrtle says coldly.
Tom clears his throat. "Yes, dear?"
"You know about this, don't you?"
"I don't…"
"Don't play with me Tom Riddle! Tell me what you know this instant."
"Er…we can't."
"Can't, or won't?" Myrtle asks, her eyes turning dangerous.
"Can't." Tom says with a definite wince.
OoOoOOoOooOOooOoO
When Harry's soul comes back into their body, Voldemort's is shoved back from the control seat instantaneously. But instead of the anger and hate he is expecting to feel, he experiences something else entirely. It fills his chest in a way similar to how rage does, though it seems settled deeper, almost in his gut. And where rage makes him feel less aware, less conscious of the present- this feeling makes him almost painfully aware of it. It feels… it feels sort of good.
He had been marveling in the sensation for several minutes when Harry notices the lack of running commentary in his mind. That combined with the whole opening the Chamber revelation and Harry retreats from consciousness to have a little chat.
"What were you thinking?" Harry asks, annoyed having come back from an out-of-body experience and literal soul-searching, dimension altering mind walk to find Voldemort wreaking havoc. He is back partly to help the ungrateful soul even the gods had given up on, and look what he's done.
The basilisk looks at Harry with a somewhat loopy expression.
"Er… Voldemort?" Harry asks, now somewhat concerned. Had his trip back damaged the other soul somehow? It would be just Harry's luck to have ruined all chance of success before he even properly started. "Hey…" Harry says, reaching out to the basilisk. The second his fingers touch its skin, the world expands.
Harry is inside Voldemort's emotions now, finally sensing him like the other seemed to use against Harry constantly. Harry is shocked. Voldemort is… happy? And not just eating-your-favorite-ice-cream happy, either. Full blown elation.
:It's good to have you back, Harry./
A/N: Phewph! Posthing this thing before my computer crashes or something! Sorry it took forever. Read above for why… also I'm crazy busy. I'm not some high school student or something with nothing but time to waste (I wish… sort of… well, the free time bit anyway, high school was only so-so). Anyway- I've been writing some original fics in past tense, so forgive me if I tense hopped! I know I do it anyway. Mostly because I like to switch it up every other story… eheh ;P. Thanks in advance for the reviews- you all rock! Even if I get only one more- that's 100 review! Wooohooo!
