Chapter 9: Just Harry.

Harry stopped eating. The gruel was repulsive. He couldn't understand how the other soldiers could eat the stuff. Every bite made him gag.

A Death Eater came up behind him and prodded him in the back.

"Eat, Potter, before I shove it down your throat."

Harry stiffened. He stonily picked up his spoon and forced down a mouthful as the Death Eater watched. Seemingly satisfied, the Death Eater turned away. When he had his entire back turned, Harry took up his entire bowl and hurled it at him. The gruel collided with the back of the Death Eater's head and shattered into pieces. The Death Eater turned around with fury in his eyes. Harry gazed at him challengingly and returned his fury. He stood up, and threw his arms out wide.

"Go on," Harry dared. The Death Eater had smirked, wiped the gruel from his face, and simply walked away.

They stopped sending him on missions, and didn't include him in Training Sessions. Every day he got up, spent the entire day feeling restless and angry, and then lay on his bed every night, begging sleep to take him away. When he was awake he saw the boy's broken face. When he was asleep his evil self taunted him.

Sometimes he wanted to scream and destroy the world and then himself. Other times he wanted to curl in on himself and just fade away. For every moment of every day, he felt the absence of his soul.

The soldiers began to avoid him. Even the mates at his table averted their eyes and sat in silence at meal times. Meanwhile, the Rooks were downright terrified of him. Harry didn't blame them after he'd caught sight of himself in the shower room mirror.

He was terrified of himself. He was a pale shade of white and thin as a stick. He could see his ribs. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. And his eyes. They'd always been a bright green, but now they'd gone a muddy, murky green, as though the colors red and green had blended together in his irises. He looked like his evil self from Voldemort's horcrux. He looked like Voldemort.

He'd spent the next hour dry-heaving over the basin.

Just Harry. Just Harry. Just. Harry.

At one point, the Trainers must have gotten tired of seeing Harry brooding about, so they put him to work teaching the Rooks curses. The Trainers would tell Harry to teach the Rooks a certain skill, then they'd disappear for the rest of the day and return at the end to see the Rooks demonstrate it.

Harry quickly grew weary of teaching twelve-year-olds to kill, so one day, instead of teaching the Rooks the numerous different methods of getting yourself out of the way of an oncoming spell, he decided to teach them something from his Fourth Year at Hogwarts. When the Trainers came back, Harry counted them in, and the Rooks proceeded to dance the Box Step.

He was left alone again after that.

Harry sat resolutely watching Alecto Carrow teaching a group of Rooks the Entrail-Expelling Curse on the line of dummies. They were struggling immensely with the spell. Alecto appeared to be taunting them.

One of the Rooks turned to Alecto, raised his wand, and cast something. Harry was on his feet in an instant. Alecto easily blocked the spell and rounded on the Rook. Harry started to hurry over to them. No. He thought, and stopped. Neville is right. They have to learn to keep their head down. He'll get punished a little bit now, while will save him from being punished a lot later on.

Alecto raised his wand and the boy flinched under an unknown spell. Harry was rushing at them before he even knew what he was doing. He viciously ignored Hermione's voice chanting saving people thing over and over in the back of his head.

"Leave him alone!" Harry said, standing between the Rook and Alecto.

"Well, would you look at that," Alecto said. "The Crack comes to the rescue. This is none of your business, Scarface."

Harry folded his arms across his chest. "I just made it my busi-"

The Cruciatus Curse tore through him and for a moment he lost all sense as his body erupted with pain. But the pain was strangely muted. He locked his jaw shut against the searing hot knives on every inch of his body. I'm Harry. Just Harry. And he remembered.

The pain stopped to the sound of derisive Death Eater laughter. The Rook was shoving at Alecto, wand forgotten.

"Stop it! You're hurting him. Hurt me! Punish me! Stop hurting him!"

"Scarface is getting tougher," Alecto said as Harry sat up. "I don't think I heard a single squeak from that that entire time. Maybe I didn't do it right. Better do it again just to be-"

"NO!" the Rook jumped in front of Harry, holding his arms out to shield him. "Hurt me instead!"

Harry couldn't help feeling a thrum of pride for the Rook.

"I don't think so, Soldier. You'll start screaming and carrying on instantly. Nothing fun about that. Come on, it's the Post for you."

Alecto gripped the Rook and lead him away to the row of Posts. Harry imagined that they would tie him up and leave him there for a day of two. The Posts were designed so that you had to constantly stay standing. If you began to slip, you'd risk dislocating your two shoulders held behind you. Harry had only spent about a day on the Post – Death Eaters usually liked to come up with more exciting punishments for the Boy-Who-Lived.

The other Rooks gathered around Harry.

"That guy had it coming," one of them said angrily. "Why did you do that?"

Harry sighed. "Because I've got nothing left to lose." He got to his feet. "Now how about you idiots pay me back by never doing something as stupid as attacking a Death Eater."

"But, they're so infuriating," one of them said, balling his hands into fists. "They make us learn all this Dark Magic. I just want to learn how to turn my hair green."

"So do what the rest of us do and take it out in the Cage."

"I can't go in the Cage, I'd just get pummeled," the kid said.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Okay, how about this. If you ever feel yourself getting angry at the Death Eaters, take one of those dummies over there, imagine they're Alecto or Rudolphus or even Voldemort, and then you spell them into the next realm."

"Is that what you do?"

"Yep," Harry said, he pointed to the dummies in order. "The one of the left is Amycus, the one in the middle is Voldemort, and the one on the right is Wormtail."

Harry sighed and left the Rooks as they were. Maybe now they wouldn't be as terrified of him.

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

Vagnof stood and watched Lord Voldemort. He paced in front of a pensieve depicting the Dark Lord attempting to kill an infant, only to be ripped from his body. Voldemort moved back and forth in front of the memory, deep in thought. Vagnof remained silent and waited in the knowledge that Voldemort would address him when he was ready.

Finally, Voldemort spoke up and asked, "What do you know of the scar on Harry Potter's forehead?"

"Only that it was acquired on the night that is featured in your pensieve."

Voldemort glanced at the pensieve as though he had forgotten it was there, and then turned away in disgust.

"That scar is the source of our connection," Voldemort said. "It causes him pain whenever I am near. Sometimes I can feel an echo of his emotions. I know that he can feel mine. But why? Surely you have some hypothesis on the matter."

"I do not, My Lord."

"That night, I had intended to use Potter's death to create my seventh and final horcrux, but things went wrong. I had assumed that the horcrux simply hadn't been created, but now…" he trailed off.

"My Lord?" Vagnof prompted.

"When we made Harry's horcrux the other night. There were already two souls inside of him. One was his, and the other… was mine."

"My Lord," Vagnof said slowly. "Are you suggesting that Harry Potter is your seventh and final horcrux?"

"He has to be," Voldemort said. He turned suddenly to Vagnof. "You need to fix this, Vagnof."

"It seems to me that things couldn't have worked out for you any better, My Lord. Your horcrux is inside a boy who himself is essentially immortal. You've got your soul wrapped up in two layers, here."

"No!" Voldemort hissed. "Get it out of him. That is your new assignment, Vagnof. Get my soul out of that wretched boy's body."

• − ○ ◊ ○ − •

They days wore on, and Harry became more restless. It was like something was rising within him, building towards an explosion. He was in a perpetual state of suspense. He no longer slept at all. He just lay on his bed, feeling the beating of his heart, hearing Hermione in his head. The little sleep he did get was plagued by visions of his evil self.

He went to breakfast the following morning unable to keep still. He bounced his legs. He drummed his fingers against the table. His eyes darted around the room.

"Mate, will you relax?" Ron said. Harry's head snapped to Ron.

"It's trying to escape, Ron," Harry said deliriously. "The other half of me. It's trying to get out!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Harry," Neville said cautiously. "Are you alright."

Harry stared at Neville, and tried to blink away the lights that were fizzling across his vision.

"He's lost it," Ron said angrily. "Bravo! You've finally done it," he shouted at the Death Eaters. "You've finally driven my best friend off the edge!"

Harry snatched the front of Ron's collar and held fast onto it.

"Tell Hermione to leave me alone," Harry growled. He jammed his finger to his head. "She's in here. All the time, and she drives me insane with her… morals."

A Death Eater seized Harry and pulled him to his feet by the back of his collar.

"Get off me!" Harry snarled. He lashed out with his hands, and a pulse of energy blew everyone away from him. Harry cried out in pain and fell to the ground, feeling dizzy. The magical energy began to crackle around him. He tried to contain it, but it was already bigger than him.

"Get Vagnof!" Someone shouted. He heard the sound of hundreds of footsteps and panicked voices. The magic pulsed through him, each surge bringing a wave of pain with it. Harry steeled himself, tried to find something steady to latch onto, but the world was spinning away from him.

Where was Hermione now? Harry thought desperately. She had no words of wisdom for him.

Suddenly, he felt a weight on his arms, and his magic suddenly clicked off. It was there in all its painful wildness, and the next it was gone. Harry raised his arms, and found those infuriating little monkeys around his wrists again. He looked up and found Vagnof staring grimly down at him.

"Lo, Vagnof," Harry said. "Would you be so kind as to get these little assholes off me?"

Vagnof smiled. "All in good time, Harry."

He helped Harry up and lead him, tripping and stumbling, to the Atrium. He stood him in front of a dummy.

"Alright," Vagnof said. "I'm going to take off the monkeys, and when I do, I want you to take the most magically draining spell you can think of and cast it on this dummy. Ready?"

Harry nodded, and Vagnof flicked his hands. The monkey's heads jerked up, and they sprang from Harry's arms. He instantly felt the magic rush back in as though someone had just knocked down the dam. He raised his hands.

"Fyrefiend!"

The cursed fire leapt from Harry's hands and consumed not only the dummy, but half the Atrium. Harry kept the curse going for as long as he could, consuming everything within the vicinity in flames.

Harry finally terminated the curse, breathing heavily. The fire gradually dissipated, revealing an unharmed Atrium.

"Isn't it lucky this building is warded against Fiendfyre," Vagnof said matter-of-factly. "Feel better."

Harry nodded. He did feel better. With the release of the magic that had been building up inside him, so too could he release the restless feeling that had plagued him for so long.

"If you begin to feel restless again, come and cast a couple of powerful spells. That should do the trick," Vagnof said. He left quickly and abruptly.

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