10 – Week One
It had been very strange watching all of the students leave Hogwarts. He had helped Dean, Seamus and Neville pack up and had even worked at packing Ron's things despite the fact that the other boy was still in the Infirmary. The last day of the year had been hectic and filled with much chaos and confusion as everyone dashed about trying to be certain that nothing was left behind. Harry had tried to be helpful and had assisted the younger students by casting many featherlight charms on various trunks, boxes and bags.
He had gone down to the train station and saw his friends off, promising Ginny and Luna that he would look after Ron and Hermione. Then after the Hogwart's Express had pulled out of the station and begun its long journey back to London Harry had returned to the castle.
It was eerie how empty the castle seemed. Almost hollow, as if all the energy had been sucked right out of it. Harry had never realized just how much the students affected Hogwarts. Even Gryffindor, which Harry had always considered his home ever since he had first been sorted, had a creepy and abandoned feel to it. The lack of students was only magnified by the lack of felines. At the moment it was just him and Crookshanks in the entire tower.
Crookshanks must have felt the emptiness too because he followed Harry around like a furry shadow and often curled up on his lap or by his head and purred or demanded to be petted. Harry didn't mind the companionship at all.
The first day after the students were gone set the pattern for the rest of the time Harry spent at Hogwarts. He woke up, spent a large amount of time grooming his fur with "TERSUS SAETA!" and a magically controlled brush. Then he fought his way into his clothes and transfigured them to fit him. That was the worst part of it all and he had to restrain himself from just walking about wearing nothing but his fur.
Once dressed, Harry would pack up his bag with a bunch of books, parchment and quills, ink and anything else he thought he might need. Mostly this was very advanced transfiguration for himself and whatever Hermione had requested the day before. Then he would take himself and his bag to the Infirmary.
Once there, he enjoyed eating breakfast with Hermione and chatting lightly before they began to study their various books. The specialists that had examined Ron believed that he would eventually come out of the coma and they encouraged everyone to speak with him and let him hear their voices. In the morning, Fawkes came and perched on the edge of his bed and trilled at the injured boy. The soothing trills and coos seemed to let Ron slip into a more peaceful and tranquil rest as well as provide a soft and lovely background noise for Hermione and Harry to read to.
After that he ate lunch with Hermione and then shuffled off for a long and intense study session with Professor McGonagall as they went over the more advanced and esoteric transfiguration theories. Finally, he would be released from the private lesson and they would head down to the Great Hall for dinner. As the only student there, he ate with the staff which was embarrassing as his eating skills were still a bit shaky. Although he had to admit that he picked up a lot of gossip as well as advanced theory, depending on the topic of conversation that night. It was actually a lot of fun since Snape was not there. If he had been, Harry was sure that each dinner would be a nightmare of insults, degradation and anger management.
After dinner activity depended on Professor Dumbledore's schedule, which was usually quite busy. Sometimes he was sent up to Gryffindor to either relax or study and sometimes he was led up to the Headmaster's office. On those nights he was tutored by the Headmaster, they worked mostly on occlumency. Voldemort admitting that he had Snape purposely batter at Harry's mind in order to weaken it instead of teach him the art of occlumeny had deeply disturbed Dumbledore. He was also convinced that the Dark Lord had done something when he had tried to possess Harry that had locked him into the half transformation he was in at the time.
From the Headmaster, Harry was learning a lot about magical meditation. The meditation was to help him to connect more firmly with the well of magic inside him and to 'clear his mind'. Snape had never explained what 'clearing his mind' actually meant, let alone what it entailed. It was a long and arduous process as it involved reliving all of his memories, cataloging them and the emotions that they evoked within him. Then those memories would be filed away inside his mind by category and placed under a magical lock that only he should be able to undo.
Once all of his memories were cataloged and filed away, he would then focus on a single mental concept that would be placed at the forefront of his mind. Anyone seeking entrance in his mind would then be confronted with this concept. That was the first layer of defense, that which clouded his mind. If they were able to go past that concept, they would find his memories locked up behind magic. Someone strong enough could blast through those magical locks, but they would be risking destroying his mind and the memories attached, in the process.
The three-fold process was very difficult, although he at least now knew what he was expected to do. His favorite, by far, was trying to connect with his magic. He envisioned his magic as red-gold sparkles that flowed through his body in a wave of heat and joy. Not so surprisingly, the visualization was much like what had happened when he had first bonded to his wand and he found it easiest to do so with Fawkes crooning in his ears. Submerging his consciousness into that swirling wellspring of Phoenix inspired magic left him breathless with joy and hope, and he often awoke from such meditation to find Fawkes in his lap as he pet and purred at the bird cooing at him.
Professor Dumbledore usually just twinkled at them both in delight.
His least favorite of the three was cataloging his memories. Unfortunately, he had a lot of bad ones. He tried to pull up a good memory for every three that were bad. This helped since reliving the memory meant that he also felt the emotions that they created. He found that he was dividing his memories, not only by who was in them, but how they made him feel.
Memories of the Dursley's that evoked a feeling of shame or fear he tossed into a mental version of the cupboard under the stairs. Inside the cupboard was a mental construct of Ripper and outside the door was Uncle Vernon. The door itself held many magical locks. Between the three, Harry didn't think anyone would get in without permission.
Memories of the Dursley's that evoked loneliness or anger were put into the smallest bedroom upstairs. The door was locked with a construct of Aunt Petunia guarding it outside in the hall. Crookshanks was in there guarding the memories, but he could come and go through the cat-flap at the bottom of the door.
Memories of Snape and potions class were deep inside the dungeon of his mind, locked inside a giant man-sized cauldron with the lid strapped tightly on top. The blinded basilisk was wound tight around it, keeping all comers away even as the floor leading up to it held lots of booby-traps and trip-wires.
Memories of classes and studying were carefully pasted into books and then placed inside a heavily warded glass-fronted bookcase. A large desk sat before the bookcase with a mental construct of Hermione acting as librarian and guardian. Across the way, memories of games and fun times playing were bound to giant chess pieces and set up on a large booby-trapped board. Ron sat by the board and fussed with the chess pieces, moving them about and playing a never ending game against Harry's mind.
Oddly enough, Harry's memories of Voldemort all seemed to file themselves away. At first he just accepted it as his mind trying to protect itself, but after a while he began to truly wonder at it. Confused and slightly concerned, Harry followed a memory of Voldemort when it flew off to file itself and found himself drawn down into the Chamber of Secrets. The flickering lights were dim and the hissing of snakes echoed off of the damp stone walls as memories swirled about his head in chaotic bursts of Dark magic and pain as if a tornado spun itself in the very air of the Chamber.
Right in front of the memory of Salazar Slytherin's statue, where the real life corpse of the basilisk would have laid, was a jagged rent in the air. The tear was lightening-bolt shaped like his scar and it throbbed with Dark magic. A thick black oil-like substance dripped out of it to pool on the ground where it hissed and steamed as it slowly ate away at the stone. The stench of decay and brimstone stung his nose and he could feel a pull on his magic that seemed to originate at the torn part of his mind.
Over to the side was the avatar of young Tom Riddle, Hogwart's Head Boy. Tom was pale and his face lined with pain even as he hunched over and clutched at his stomach and head. He scowled at Harry, his eyes burning red.
"Flooding your body with Light magic might slow down the process and it might cause me great pain. That won't stop me, however. Nothing will stop me!" The avatar's face twisted up in a grimace of madness and hate. "I am Voldemort! And I will have your mind and body for my own."
Sheer unadulterated horror flung him out of his meditation. He found himself sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room in front of the fire, panting for air and shivering at the chill that was soul deep. He didn't even stop to consider that it was late at night; he simply stood up and dashed for the portrait of the Fat Lady. Flinging her aside in panic, Harry ran blindly through the hallways and corridors, often dropping to all four paws to bound along like a lion instead of on two legs like a man.
Skidding to a halt outside of the stone gargoyle blocking the Headmaster's office, Harry barked out the password, "Fizzing Whizbees!" and didn't even wait for the stone to finish moving, instead squeezing through and dashing up the steps. He had blurred flashes of falling into the office when the Headmaster opened the door and then babbling in a panic at the poor man while Dumbledore tried to simultaneously calm Harry down and pull his own dressing gown on. It finally took taking a dose of calming potion before Harry could even manage a coherent statement.
Shaking with chill even as he cuddled a crooning Fawkes on his lap, Harry stared into the flames in Dumbledore's fireplace and tried to explain.
"I was in Gryffindor and I was meditating. Trying to clear my mind and organize my memories, you know?"
Dumbledore nodded, but Harry was staring into the flames and didn't notice.
"That's when I realized that all my memories of Voldemort were acting oddly. I mean, I have to go through each memory one by one in order to tuck them away like you showed me, but those memories are different. They were putting themselves away without me doing anything." Harry shivered again. "I decided to find out where they were going and to try to figure out what was different about them."
A cup of tea was set before him, but Harry didn't see it. Instead he cuddled Fawkes closer and kept staring into the flames.
"I followed the memory and it led me down into the Chamber of Secrets. There were all these memories swirling around and a giant tear in reality shaped like my scar hung in the air, tainting everything around it with Dark magic. Worst of all, He was there. Taunting me and threatening to destroy me."
"Harry."
Harry turned unseeing eyes on the Headmaster. His mind still replaying the vision he'd had during his occlumency practice.
"Harry!"
Giving a good hard shake, Harry pulled himself out of his panic and horror only to see Professor Dumbledore looking at him with sad tired eyes.
"I'm sure you've often wondered why I didn't just take copies of your memories of Peter Pettigrew and place them in a pensieve to help Sirius prove his innocence."
Harry blinked in confusion of the strange topic that seemed so far away from what he'd been talking about. Frowning as best he could with a lion's mouth, he shrugged.
"The reason that I didn't do so is because a pensieve will show whatever a mind can remember, whether said memory was of an event that happened in the real world, or a dream that happened in the sleeping world." The older wizard sighed. "The mind is an amazing thing and it can invent images, sounds and even scents out of nothing more than thought."
"It is because of this that a pensieve can be used for investigative purposes, but is inadmissible as evidence in a legal trial. It is also due to this very same reason that I can have you place the memory of your vision in my pensieve so that I can review it in great detail."
The Headmaster leaned down and helped him stand up with surprisingly strong arms. Still cuddling a cooing Fawkes close to his chest, Harry was led over to a corner of Dumbledore's office and watched as the old wizard opened up a cabinet and slid a large and highly polished pensieve out of it.
"Now Harry, I'm sorry to ask this of you, but I really need to understand your vision. Please focus on the memory, from the very beginning to the very end and push it forward to the front of your mind. When you are ready, nod your head. What I'll do is touch my wand to your temple and pull the memory from you." A twinkle reentered Dumbledore's eyes, "You'll still remember it, but the memory will not be nearly as strong or overwhelming to you."
Nodding, Harry closed his eyes and concentrated. It was not a pleasant memory, but he tried to remember all of the details he could so that he could have them pulled from his mind. Once he was sure he had it all, he nodded his head again. He could feel a gentle tap on his temple and then the strangest sensation of having his brain painlessly stretched and dragged out of his skull as if it were taffy.
He opened his eyes just in time to see Dumbledore's wand with a long string of shiny silver stuff hanging from it. Then the old wizard stuck his wand in the pensieve and deposited the memory strand inside of it. Harry shivered again and Fawkes cooed at him comfortingly.
He waited with fidgety impatience as the Headmaster slid inside the pensieve and viewed his memory of the vision. Part of him was glad to share the burden of it, but part of him was terrified of being rejected due to it. It wasn't anything Light or noble, it was Dark and horrible and utterly evil. And it was inside him. Harry shivered once more and Fawkes began to sing softly, washing his very being with Light magic in an effort to calm and sooth him. After an eternity that only took ten minutes or so, Headmaster Dumbledore came up out of the pensieve and gazed into middle-space, a thoughtful look on his wizened face.
"I will have to think on it carefully, of course, but I do believe that we can fix this."
That was the exact opposite of what he'd been expecting. "Huh?"
The Headmaster chuckled softly, his eyes seeming tired, but hopeful. He gestured Harry back over to the fire and poured them both tea.
"I said that I believe we can fix this." He paused and took a sip. "Your skills at occlumency are not quite up to it yet, but they will be I assure you. I can think of several options that might have an effect on the Chamber in your mind, but we will need to have a firm plan in place to deal with all of the various portions. I believe, and I think you'll agree, that the tear in the air that was shown in your vision is a representation of the link you have with Voldemort through your curse scar."
Harry nodded his head. That's what he had felt that it was too. "Yeah. And it's dripping evil into my head."
The Headmaster frowned and nodded. "I too noticed that effect. The evil and Dark magic radiated by Voldemort is leaking into you, just as the goodness and Light magic that you have is leaking into him. That is why his Avatar inside your head is so ill; the Light magic hurts him deeply."
The old wizard arched an eyebrow up over the rim of his glasses.
"I also believe that it is that Avatar which is preventing you from completing or reversing your animagus transformation."
Harry's swirling thoughts stuttered to a stop at that concept. He'd never even considered that something external might be hampering him. He had just assumed it was his lack of skill that kept him locked in this halfway state of man and animal.
"Oh? How could he…I mean, he's not really there, is he? He's just a mental construct. Right?" Harry glanced down, fidgeted slightly, and then looked back up. "Kind of like the mental constructs I've built to guard my other memories."
The Headmaster nodded his head gravely. "Yes, indeed. Young Tom is a construct. I just do not believe that he is one of your making. I think that instead, Voldemort created him when he tried to possess you in the Department of Mysteries. He couldn't complete the possession because his reptilian nature was diametrically opposed to your feline nature. It was a painful experience for you both, but he was able to create that construct and leave it behind in the hopes of widening the link and weakening you."
All of the fur on the back of Harry's neck stood on end at the very thought. He turned stricken eyes on the Headmaster. "How do we get him out?!"
Dumbledore held up one hand palm out and made calming gestures. "That, dear boy, is the trick. And a goal we will both have to work towards. For now, bathing you in Light magic such as Fawkes is doing will keep him weak and unable to hurt you. I also believe that your being stuck in a leonine body restricts him greatly as he is not compatible with the processes your brain goes through in this form. In the end we will have to force the Avatar back through the link and hopefully seal it shut. Then those swirling memories can be cataloged, organized and locked down." He paused and eyed Harry for a moment. "It might even help to alter the way the Chamber appears in your memory."
Harry frowned at that last bit. It seemed like an odd thought and a bit unnecessary. Dumbledore chuckled at him.
"Harry, right now he is surrounded by images and symbols of his own power. He can draw strength from them. He could not do so from images and symbols of your own power. They would be of a foreign shape and…flavor, so to speak."
He paused for a moment and considered that idea. If Voldemort drew comfort and strength from an environment based on the Chamber of Secrets, how would he feel to constantly face a huge larger than life statue of Dumbledore or Godric Gryffindor? And instead of columns shaped to be large venomous snakes, he could change them to be statues of Phoenixi, Griffins, and Lions. He could trap the memories in those glass spheres that the Ministry used to contain the Prophesies and paint the walls in red and gold.
That'd probably give old snake-face a headache just looking at it.
"For now," Harry looked up at Professor Dumbledore, "I want you to head to the Infirmary. You need to get a good night's sleep, so that means you need to take some Dreamless Sleep Potion."
Harry scrunched up his nose as best he could and attempted to make a 'yuck' face. It must have worked because the Headmaster chuckled lightly.
"Yes, I know that it's not your favorite, but you do need sleep. You mustn't let yourself become run down, depressed or worn out. Voldemort's avatar would take any advantage he could, and that would give him too much of a helping hand. Instead, we will endeavor to keep you strong, healthy and in good spirits." Professor Dumbeldore gave him a serious look. "Now that we know the truth of his plans, we can defend against them and put a stop to them. Despite his pretenses to the contrary, he is not all powerful nor is he infallible."
And oddly enough, it was that last thing that helped Harry the most. Voldemort was not infallible. He was just as able to screw things up as Harry was. And while he was a great deal more powerful than he had been without a body, he still wasn't up to his full strength. Even if he had been, he still wasn't all powerful.
Plus, Harry had strong and caring allies. He had the Headmaster and Fawkes, Professor McGonagall and Mad-Eye, Sirius and Lupin, and all of his friends. Voldemort's allies were the Death Eaters and most of them were locked up by the Ministry or were insane or dead. With Minister Fudge out of office, that meant that Voldemort's power was waning in the Ministry as well. It didn't really matter if Fudge had been a true believer or was just greedy for Death Eater bribes, he had been instrumental in aiding the Dark and now he was stopped.
Harry just had to keep in mind that he was just as strong and that things would work out. He couldn't give into his fears or let despair drag him down. He had to keep hope alive within him.
Before he knew it, Harry was standing in the Infirmary with Professor Dumbledore whispering with Madam Pomfrey. He wasn't quite sure how they'd gotten there as he'd been lost in his own thoughts. A moment later he was been fussed at and tucked into the bed that he cheekily thought of as his own by the softly muttering matron. She quickly poured a dose of Dreamless Sleep down his throat and then she plucked his glasses off of his face and helped him to get comfortable. He tried to thank her for her help but drifted off into a deep still sleep before he could.
A second later he blinked open his eyes to find that the sun was streaming into the room brightly from an open window. Birdsong and the sweet scent of flowers and grass drifted past his nose. He was cuddled down into a soft warm nest of blankets and looking across the Infirmary at Hermione. The young witch slowly lowered her book and gazed over at him. Their eyes met and Hermione's face stretched into a smile.
"You're awake."
Her voice was soft and breathy. Harry was certain that it was only his enhanced hearing that let him catch her quiet voice even as he felt his ears swivel around to focus on her.
"Um…yeah."
Her smile twitched and she shifted on her bed.
"It's about time. It's nearly lunch already and you've spent most of the morning snoring." Her smile shifted into a smirk. "Or should I say purring?" Hermione flapped a hand in the air. "Well, either way it was a loud rumbling sound and it made it difficult to concentrate on reading."
Harry chuckled slightly and pushed himself into a more upright position. Without thinking he reached for his glasses on the side table and carefully fitted them onto the bridge of his nose.
"So…what happened?"
Harry arched one furry eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"
She huffed slightly and then spent a brief moment wheezing and trying to catch her breath. Harry instantly felt bad and was tempted to climb out of bed and go over to fuss at her. It always worried him terribly when she showed signs of having difficulty breathing.
"I mean," she whispered breathily, "what happened to bring you to the Infirmary in order to be dosed with Dreamless Sleep?"
"Oh." Harry fidgeted slightly and tugged lightly at his blankets.
"Harry?"
He looked up at her and saw that she was staring at him with a look of concern and affection. He didn't want to have that look turn to disgust or rejection. Harry didn't think he could survive in a world where Hermione hated or feared him. She was in many ways the rock upon which he leaned when things were tough.
On the other hand, he'd never had a problem that she didn't seem to make better. She was able to break overwhelming problems down into smaller and more manageable chunks or to figure out some bizarre solution that no one else would have thought of.
"Well," he reached up and rubbed his paw against the back of his head ruffling his mane. "You know how I've been working with Professor Dumbledore to learn occlumency?"
Hermione nodded silently and Harry looked down and fussed with his blankets again.
"Last night I was practicing and I found out what it was Snape was preparing me for."
Harry glanced up and watched Hermione blush, look extremely pained and glance down at her lap. She had been mortified when she found out that Snape had betrayed them all and had used the occlumency lessons to attack Harry's mind and make him more vulnerable to Voldemort. Hermione had been one of the people who had insisted that Harry attend those 'lessons' despite his protests and complaints.
In spite of it all, Hermione had believed in the man and had defended him. His betrayal had nearly destroyed her trust in all authority figures and Harry was sure that she'd never trust or respect anyone again just because she was supposed to. Snape had injured her in a way far more terrible than Dolohov's curse; he had killed her innocence.
"Anyway, I noticed that my memories of Voldemort were acting strange. They were sorting and filing themselves without my help or direction."
He had spoken with Hermione before about his lessons with Professor Dumbledore so she knew how he had to relive his memories and then sort them before locking them away. Harry had even gone so far as to ask her permission to create a mental construct of her inside his head to guard over a portion of his memories. He could think of no one better to protect the memories he had of learning magic and studying for tests. At the time, she had been fascinated and honored. After agreeing to let him use her image as part of his mental defenses, she had then quizzed him ruthlessly for the technique.
Sitting in that warm sunny room, Harry explained how he had been filing more memories of studying his transfiguration with Professor McGonagall and chatting with his mental Hermione when he realized something was odd with the Voldemort memories. He told her how he followed the memory when it floated off to file itself without being 'viewed' by him and how that memory had lead him to a mental recreation of the Chamber of Secrets.
He was afraid to look up and watch her face while he described what the Chamber contained and how it made him feel. He didn't hold back, he just didn't want to watch as she became disgusted or afraid. Not that he would blame her; the very thought of Dark magic dripping into his mind and an avatar of Voldemort living in his consciousness made him want to throw up and then find someplace to hide from himself.
"Oh Harry…" A small hand touched one of his large paws and he looked up in surprise to find that Hermione had climbed out of her bed and carefully made her way over to his. She was now sitting on the end of his bed, her hand petting his paw comfortingly. He clutched at it in mild desperation and gratitude.
"It'll be alright." She offered up a watery and wavering smile. "We'll find a way to make it better. I promise."
He didn't even think about it, he just shifted closer to her and wrapped his large furry arms around her, tucked his muzzle into the soft bushiness of her hair and clung to her. They spent a long time just holding on to the other; giving support as much as taking it.