Chapter 9
"That was... intense," Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington said, tilting his head to the side. He observed the young Gryffindor in front of him with an interested look on his face. "What kind of magic was that?"
Harry Potter smirked briefly, calming his slightly accelerated breath. "Intense magic."
The ghost just nodded in his direction as if to concede a point. He raised a translucent hand and brought it up carefully against the invisible screen apparently separating him from the rest of the world.
"It feels warm," he commented, looking down at the glimmering stones of the summoning circle currently restraining him. He made a low, noncommittal sound before expressing his opinion on the matter in a single word. "Fascinating."
"It is quite fascinating indeed," Albus Dumbledore agreed from his seated position behind his desk. He tinkered a little with a small golden instrument in his hands before putting it back down on his desk. "The tracer did not detect any unauthorized energy."
The boy-who-lived smiled brightly at that, honestly pleased by the discovery. According to the Headmaster of Hogwarts, if this new device was oblivious to Dresden magic, then odds were those at the Ministry would be as well.
The summoning spell hadn't been very difficult or tiring, but it was nothing more than the first step, the appetizer, in a manner of speaking. The precautionary test had been made and what was left to do was kicking up the ante and getting to the real deal.
The summoning of a demon.
Sure, Sir Nicholas had hardly the spiritual power of one – at least according to what Dresden had learnt from Justin – and he had also been advised by Professor Dumbledore not to resist the magic, but Harry wasn't worried. He was positive he could do it. Hell, he had killed an uber-demon, an Outsider! Surely he could summon a lesser one…
Of course, that was if demons even existed in his world. That was the biggest question mark in the equation. Did they exist like they did in Dresden's world? What about Faeries? Was there even a Nevernever out there? And how could it be possible that Albus Dambledore had never stumbled upon anything even remotely similar in over a hundred and fifty years of life? He was friend and ally with many magical creatures, after all, some of them considered beings of the Nevernever in Dresden's dimension, and he had categorically ruled out the possibility they could have hidden something like that to him.
Harry really didn't know what to think and had yet to muster up the courage to try and find out these answers. He didn't know what to expect. His worried mind had come up with so many different and disastrous scenarios that the simple thought of opening a pathway to the spiritual world made him sweat cold.
In the end, he had talked about it with the Professor who had convinced him to try the most harmless course of action conceivable. After thinking it over for almost a week, Harry had finally admitted that summoning a being from the Nevernever to the relatively secure confines of a circle would be the safest choice, safer than tearing a hole in the barrier between worlds in any case. And strangely enough, at least to Dumbledore's eyes, said 'being' had to be a demon. Not a little fae, or a weak shade, or intangible spirit, but a full-fledged, physically-monstrous, inherently-evil demonic creature, simply because Dresden's teacher had never bothered with anything less. That meant that the only Name – capital N – Harry knew and could use for the summoning of a being of the Nevernever was one belonging to a hellish resident of Down Below.
Exception made for Lea, but the boy-who-lived didn't intend to go down that road. Yet, at least…
Getting the demon into the mortal world wouldn't be exactly a walk in the park, nor a pleasant social-call, but Harry's mind was set and there wasn't much that could change it. Since the Headmaster had come up with nothing useful on the subject of alternate dimensions after his research, then he neededto find information somewhere else. And what better place than the admittedly not-so-friendly but supposedly closest and easiest-to-access world of Demons?
Harry Potter grimaced. It was no wonder Dumbledore wasn't all that convinced.
"I trust no one witnessed your disappearance," the Professor was saying in the meantime, looking at Sir Nicholas with serious eyes.
"Of course not, Headmaster," the translucent figure replied. "I did right as you told me and stayed well away from my fellow ghosts in the castle."
The old wizard worked his hand through his white beard. "And how do you feel? Did the summoning harm or tire you?"
Sir Nicholas exhaled slowly, his eyes shifting to Harry. "Yes, I'm definitely tired. I can feel Mr. Potter's pressure keeping me trapped inside this circle and I can't seem to be able to stop fighting it, although it seems useless for now."
Harry exchanged a brief look with his Professor before nodding.
"Very well," Dumbledore said, standing up from his chair and walking behind his young student. "Now Sir Nicholas, I ask you to try to reach freedom from young Harry's grasp with all your might. But please, stop your efforts the instant you feel like you cannot continue any longer."
During this explanation, the Gryffindor ghost hadn't moved his eyes from Harry, an odd look of wonder on his pale face. He then bowed slightly in his direction and brought his hands up against the invisible barrier once again. He poked at it with an interested expression, making a tiny portion of its surface appear with a glimmer, before pushing with both palms.
Immediately, Harry felt a force acting against him and had to renew his efforts to stop the summoned ghost from bursting free. He pushed out his will with determination and firmness, drawing it from his annoyance at being caught slightly off guard despite the warning. He fought the pressure building up from inside the circle as sweat started pearling his scarred forehead, and forced himself to ignore the strained scream escaping Sir Nicholas' lips. He started gaining ground soon and watched as the ghost's figure slowly shrank as his will increasingly deflated, until it stopped struggling completely and with just a little push he couldn't feel any presence inside the circle anymore.
He blinked his eyes, panting slightly and stumbling back against Dumbledore. The old wizard quickly led him to an armchair.
"Sit down, my boy," he said, gently urging him down and producing a glass of water out of nowhere. "Did the banishing work as intended?"
"Yes," Harry said, gratefully accepting the cool drink. He gulped it down quickly and waited for his breathing to calm down. "I just sent him back. He should be all right."
"And are you?"
The young Gryffindor shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, it wasn't all that tiring. A ghost's will is generally weak as far as spiritual beings go. I'll just need a bit more of juice for when we'll give the demon a go."
The Headmaster raised his eyebrows in confusion. "I'm sorry, juice? Should I ask a house-elf to bring some from the kitchens?"
"What? No!" The boy-who-lived snorted, amused. "I meant… I'll just need more energy. I meant power."
"Oh." Dumbledore nodded his understanding. "You will have to forgive an old man such as myself, Harry. I'm afraid I am not as informed as I would like to be about today's youth expressions and phrases."
Harry couldn't help but frown a little at that.
"It's not your fault, sir," he admitted. "It wasn't as much a 'youth' thing rather than a muggle and an American one. Hermione and Ron tell me I've started using odd says and sentences recently. It's been like this ever since my first dimensional travel. The funny thing is I don't even realize it when I do." He shook his head with a sigh. "And was it just words choices…"
The Professor put a firm hand on his shoulder.
"What is it that bothers you, my boy?"
The young Gryffindor hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
"I mean... it isn't just what I say, or how. Sometimes I can't immediately tell if a memory is really mine or if it's Dresden's, until I focus on where it's set and who is involved. The other day I was in the common room and I was halfway through the story of how I had dislocated my shoulder when I realized it had happened to him." He sighed exasperatedly, not bothering to retell his Headmaster about the distraction that had cost him his second trip to Dresden Land. "And for the love of me, I can't remember which of us stole a candy from a shop on the way home from primary school!"
The old wizard smiled slightly at that, though Harry tried to wipe it away with a dark glare. He had stood up at some point of his rant and had started pacing the office.
"It's annoying," he finished, standing beside Fawkes and petting the feathers on his back with not exactly gentle strokes. The phoenix made an irritated sound and forced Harry's hand away with a practiced use of his beak.
"I imagine it could be," the Professor said.
"And it's not just that either!" he continued hotly, storming to the window. "I'm… I'm not who I was a month ago! I'm… changing. My behaviour, my personality or whatever! Even Ron has realized it. I notice things that wouldn't have attracted my attention if they had been on fire before all this mess happened, and I act oddly where women and girls are concerned." He tossed his hands in the air in a frustrated gesture. "I held the door for Pansy freaking Parkinson the other day!"
"I see," Dumbledore said seriously. "That must have been quite embarrassing."
"Yeah!" Harry agreed quickly before thinking that maybe the old wizard was actually mocking him. He stared at him suspiciously and the man eventually stopped restraining his smile. "You're making fun of me," the young Gryffindor accused a second later.
He sat down grumpily as his Professor sighed quietly.
"My dear boy," he started, opening his arms widely, "I fail to see what is so distressing about being a gentleman with the ladies."
Harry shook his head and snorted despite himself at the man's choice of words. He resumed frowning soon enough, though.
"It's not like me," he grumbled while rubbing his scar. "It's not me."
Everyone was silent for a long second, even the portraits of the past Headmasters who usually couldn't keep their mouth shut at all. When Dumbledore spoke up again, he was looking at him with a sad, almost nostalgic expression in stead of the amused one of before.
"Of course it is you, Harry," he said gently. "Changes are a part of growing up."
"It's just Dresden influencing me," the young Gryffindor rebuked, almost growling.
"Yes, I will not deny that." The old wizard returned to his seat behind the desk and eased his back on the comfortable leather chair. "But that is precisely how we all change. Something appears which influences our opinion, our way of thinking, our very being. Whether it is a moving book, an upsetting experience... even a whole set of new memories." He opened a drawer from his desk and pulled out a simple wooden box from it. "They come in contact with you and slowly become part of you. They inevitably change who you are."
The boy-who-lived raised his head and met the man's eyes. He was forcefully reminded of two crystal blue puddles and hundreds of people altering their waters by stepping into them. That wasn't very dissimilar to what Dumbledore was saying at the moment, Harry thought, wondering not for the first time what the Soulgaze had showed on the other side. The Headmaster had never offered an explanation and he had never asked for one. And it was probably best that way.
The Professor smiled again and opened the square box with steady hands. A second later, he produced a lemon drop from it and put it on the desk in front of his student.
"At that point," he resumed, "it hardly matters whether it was you who stole that candy or not. What matters is... would you steal it now?"
Harry thought about it for a long while under the murmurs of agreement of the portraits all around. He stared hard at the lemon drop, reflecting about his Headmaster's words and slowly accepting them. They made sense, in Dumbledore's quirky way.
When he finally raised his gaze up to meet the man's eyes, he felt more relaxed than in weeks, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
He left the lemon drop where it was.
"Thank you, sir," he said quietly, seeing the usual grandfather-like smile making its way through the Professor's face.
"You are quite welcome, Harry," was the other's reply. "Now, I think it is time for us to rest for the night. Tomorrow should be quite an interesting day – St. Valentine's and Hogsmeade weekend."
The boy-who-lived didn't like where the conversation was going at all. When he saw the twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes, he could only groan and put his face in his hands.
"You know about it too?"
"Of course. Your date with Ms. Chang is one of the most discussed topics circulating around the castle, after all."
The young Gryffindor just shook his head. "I'd never have thought you listened to Hogwarts' rumours, sir."
"Some times I do not need to…" Dumbledore replied at once, smiling amusedly, "when I start them."
"About time!"
The happy cry coming from beside him made Harry Potter lower his eyes from the flying owls delivering letters overhead to his female best friend sitting next to him. There was no trace of Hedwig anyway, while Hermione was avidly scanning the piece of parchment clutched in her hands.
"What are you-" he started over the confusion of the Great Hall, only to be immediately interrupted by the excited girl.
"Harry, this is really important," she said breathlessly. "Can you meet me at the Three Broomsticks around midday, today?"
The young Gryffindor winced slightly, his eyes wandering on their own towards the Ravenclaw table. "I don't know. It depends on how my date goes, I guess."
"You can bring Cho along if you must, just be there."
"What is this all about, anyway?" Harry wanted to know.
"I... there's no time to explain. I have to answer this quickly," she said, waving the piece of parchment in her hands. "Will you come?"
Harry deliberately ignored her in favour of turning to Ron. "Do you know what this is all about?"
The young Weasley shook his head. "No clue."
"Harry!" Hermione called in annoyance. "Answer me!"
The boy-who-lived just picked up the nearest water jug and slowly poured himself a glass. "You know, you probably could have already told me in the meantime."
"You're such a stubborn prat some times," she huffed irritably. She shifted her eyes around guardedly for a moment before leaning towards her friends. "I asked Luna's father if he would be okay with printing the story of Voldemort's return in his magazine. He agreed." She showed them the letter. "This is from the reporter who will interview you. I have to tell her where and when to meet us. Do you want to do that, Harry? Do you want to tell the magical world what the truth really is?"
"On the Quibbler?" Ron asked skeptically.
"What other options do we have?" she whispered harshly at once. "The Daily Prophet has been printing lies and calumnies the whole year! I say we better let them hear our version instead of just staying quiet."
Ron seemed to be seriously thinking about it as he stuffed a sausage in his mouth.
"You know what? This could work," he said when he had swallowed. "This could definitely work. I'm all for it."
Hermione seemed pleased as she turned towards Harry. "What do you think?"
The boy-who-lived stared intently at her, pondering the idea. His eyes shifted around the Great Hall, watching as dozens of Daily Prophets were opened and read by the Hogwarts' populace, certainly filled with such useless news that would have made him laugh if he had still bothered to look at it. He couldn't help but glance at Umbridge and the smile on her face almost made him gag.
He turned towards Hermione again.
"Okay," he told her seriously. "Let's do it."
The words were barely out of his mouth that the girl shot up from her seat and ran out of the room, her parting words about seeing him at the Three Broomsticks at twelve still hovering in the air. Ron just shook his head and ate another sausage.
"Mental," he said, distractedly.
"You'll be there, Ron, right?" Harry asked a bit self-consciously. Now that he had agreed, he was starting to feel uncomfortable at the idea of giving an interview.
The young Weasley put down his fork. "Can't."
"Why?"
"Angelina wants a full-day training." He shook his head, looking glum. "Like that is going to help..."
"Of course that is going to help!" Harry said irritably, raising his voice a little. It still grated him that he couldn't play anymore because of Umbridge's ban, and seeing Ron depressed about playing annoyed him a little. "You're a good keeper, just be confident about it."
"Yeah, right," Ron said, but he didn't sound like he believed that at all.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! I know Quidditch and I'm good at it. Why can't you believe me when I say you're good?"
"You just say that because we're friends," Ron huffed.
"I'm friends with Hermione too and I have no problem in telling her she sucks on a broom!"
He made a face almost immediately upon uttering those words and Ron picked up on them too.
"That didn't come out right," the red head said, grinning at the boy-who-lived's blush before going back to his sulking. "But, anyway, of course you can tell her that since it's just undeniable."
Harry drew a calming breath and shook his head.
"Just believe me, okay? You're good, and with training you can become very good." Their eyes met for a dangerous second before Harry lowered his gaze to an indeterminate freckle on Ron's nose. "I have to go now. When I come back, I want to know exactly how the training with Angelina went, alright?"
He stood up and walked away, pleased to notice that his friend's shoulders seemed definitely less tense than before.
A quick trip to the bathroom later, Harry was stepping into the Entrance Hall. Cho was already waiting for him in front of the doors leading outside, and as he approached her, he could feel a warm blush rising on his face. He couldn't help one quick glance at the bare portion of legs under her Hogwarts' uniform and one at her soft-looking lips moving as she greeted him.
"Hi," she said almost breathlessly.
"Hi." He forced a smile, feeling wild butterflies rampaging inside his stomach again. "You look very pretty today."
A small blush crept to her face. "T-thanks."
"Uhm... shall we go?"
"Oh, yes."
They joined the line of students ready to visit Hogsmeade, signed Filch's scroll and finally stepped outside. The day was breezy, but not very cold, and Harry felt good to walk beside the pretty Ravenclaw under the pale morning sun.
"You know," she started, looking down at her feet. "It really surprised me when you asked me to come to Hogsmeade with you. I thought you didn't want to."
The sentence shocked the boy-who-lived. He had been sure his crush couldn't have been more blatantly obvious than what he had showed. "Why did you think that?"
Cho bit her lower lip in an expression that he could only define as cute. "Do you remember the first day after the Christmas break? I stopped you in the hallway..."
"Yes," he said thinking back to the day. "You wanted to ask me- Oh." He played the scene over and over in his head and could only put his face in his hands, stopping dead on his tracks. "You wanted to ask me out to Hogsmeade." He shook his head. "And instead, I thought you wanted to know about the DA."
He chanced a glance at her and found her with a little smile playing on her lips as she continued walking. "So you really hadn't realized," she said. "I wasn't completely sure..."
"It's just that so many people asked me about the DA that day!" he tried to defend himself but failed miserably to his own ears as well. He groaned depressedly and caught up to her. "You must be thinking I'm the densest wizard in the whole world."
Her smile got a little wider. "The thought might have crossed my mind."
He sighed loudly and scratched the scar on his forehead.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry, Cho."
"It's okay," she said, smiling a little at him. "You made up for it in the end."
"Yeah," he agreed with a snort, "by asking you while running from Filch."
"That was pretty funny, actually," she admitted, giggling cutely. "It took me a while to connect that to what had happened to Umbridge in the Great Hall." She rounded on him, a large grin lighting up her face. "It was you, right?"
In seeing that enthusiastic expression, Harry would have never found the force to deny. Even if Umbridge had been right there, he would have probably admitted it nonetheless. "Yes."
"I knew it!" she… cheered? "The Weasley twins were too stunned themselves and they usually gloat about their pranks in some way, anyway."
"I was too busy washing the red ink off my hands," he said, "although I was tempted to show them around for a little while."
Cho let out a small chuckle that made his heart skip a beat. "That would have been so Weasley-like."
"Probably," the boy-who-lived admitted. "I just settled for using the same red ink for my Defence essay the next day, instead."
That made Cho laugh longer and the young Gryffindor could hardly think of a more beautiful sound. If this was the result of pranking Umbridge, then he'd devote his whole life to it.
"That was brilliant," she said breathlessly. "And much more Harry Potter-like. A more direct and discreet gloating."
He blushed slightly and didn't raise his eyes to meet hers.
"Is that what you think of me?" he asked her curiously. "That I'm a direct and discreet person?"
She flashed him a smile. "Among other things."
They both turned their heads at the sudden screeching coming from a large group of Slytherin girls walking nearby.
"Potter and Chang," Pansy Parkinson sniggered. "Urgh, Chang, I don't think much of your taste... at least Diggory was good-looking!"
Harry rolled his eyes at her.
"At least I'm good-mannered, unlike some people who shall remain unnamed. And I'm not talking about Voldemort." After everyone's predictable gasp, his smile got a sweet, annoying quality to it. "What? Never heard the name, Parkinson? I think you know him as 'My Lord' from Malfoy's mouth."
She hissed dangerously at him, but the boy-who-lived almost laughed at her poor impression of a snake. "You're just a dirty halfblood. You aren't worth the slime under Draco's boots."
"You know, Pansy? I think you're perfect for each other," he said cheerily, his smile never wavering. "You're not only as pompous and pretentious as him, but your name after marrying him will be just great." He tilted his head to the side, looking up thoughtfully. "Pansy Malfoy. Perfect. It fits you both."
"He's twice the man you are!" she shouted, reddening in anger.
In answer, Harry arched a single eyebrow before producing the most ridiculously outraged expression he could muster.
"How dare you! Wait until Father hears about this! He'll have you expelled!" His expression went back to one of mild amusement after his impersonation. "You're right. I can't think of anything more manly than that. Does he wipe his snot on his own or does he wait for you to come around with a handkerchief?"
Pansy's face had turned purple with rage in the meantime and she clenched and unclenched her hands repeatedly. The girls all around her had all but quieted and were looking at the scene with avid interest.
"How dare you!" she said furiously and Harry didn't even try to hold back his snort. "Take your… your trollop over there and get out of our way, you half-blood, muggle-loving-"
"Careful, Parkinson," Harry said coldly, his eyes narrowed. "Cho is twice the woman and the witch you will everbe. I would think it over twice before insulting her, if I were you."
Pansy was practically showing her fangs by that point as she started whispering harshly. "How-"
"Dare I?" the boy-who-lived finished for her.
With one last incomprehensible snarl, the Slytherin girl stomped away, followed more calmly by her group. Harry kept on smiling in their direction until they couldn't possibly see him anymore, then the expression dropped off his face as he frowned in contempt. Part of him still struggled against these kinds of reactions inherited from Dresden, but it couldn't be denied that it felt good to vent some of his everyday's frustration on people who actually deserved it. When he turned around again, it was to see Cho Chang looking at him with a small grin. That too felt good.
"I probably wouldn't have bothered answering to the likes of Parkinson," the pretty Ravenclaw said quietly, "but it was nice of you to defend me."
The boy-who-lived blushed a little.
"Well, I was also defending myself, you know?" he mumbled, shrugging and resuming the walk to feel less like an idiot.
"Well, I appreciated that anyway."
She fell into step with him and they stayed quiet for two endless seconds of silence before she eventually spoke up again.
"Do you remember the first time we flew against each other in third year?"
And that was it. Quidditch took over the scene for the next half an hour or so as they entered Hogsmeade and wandered through the big shops of the magical village. They talked about the World Cup and the Hogwarts' one, about the latest broom that was going out on sale soon and about who in the school could really try out for a professional career after the NEWTs. Not even the topic of the ten escaped Death Eaters or the DA could compete with the huge passion they shared about the wizarding sport.
Harry was positively stunned by how easy it was to speak with Cho. The only conscious effort he had to make was stopping himself from staring at her lips or ogling at her body, but apart from that, it was like talking to Ron or Hermione. The job would get more difficult every time he made the pretty Ravenclaw laugh, but he always felt so entranced by how her chest quivered and how her lips stretched whenever she did that, that he found himself ever so eager to amuse her.
"That cat is evil, I tell you," he was saying with a serious expression, nodding wisely.
"Oh, I don't know. I find Mrs. Norris kind of cute." Cho smiled at Harry's incredulous look.
"When she was petrified, maybe," he rebuked. "Why couldn't we get a competent, deadly Basilisk instead of a half-assed one, anyway?"
The pretty Ravenclaw laughed again, and that, at the moment, was everything Harry desired.
"But then Hermione Granger wouldn't be with us, wouldn't she?" she said more quietly after a moment.
"Nah, she's too smart to die." He walked up to the display window of a bookshop.
"Is she?" Cho asked from behind him as he peered at the moving pictures of the magical bestseller of the moment.
"Yeah." He strengthened up quickly. "Oh, that reminds me. I have to meet her at the Three Broomsticks at midday."
He turned towards Cho in time to see her raise her eyebrows.
"You're meeting Hermione Granger? Today?"
"Yeah." His eyes shifted to the poster of the escaped Death Eaters. "It's… it's something important."
Suddenly, he felt very embarrassed. He didn't want to tell Cho he was going to be interviewed. It would make him sound like a self-obsessed braggart and he was no Lockhart. He had never been comfortable with his fame. Of course, if all went well, Cho would simply find about it once the Quibbler issue was out. It wasn't like it would remain a secret for long, or at least that was the point. But that didn't change anything, as far as he was concerned. He didn't feel like telling her.
"I'm sorry. It came up just this morning and I couldn't postpone it." He shrugged a little, not really looking at her. "Oh, but it shouldn't take very long," he hurried to say. "And I really would like to spend the afternoon with you. If you want to."
She seemed a little embarrassed as she answered. "Y-yes. I'll just have lunch with Marietta and Lisa. We can meet again after that."
"Alright," Harry agreed happily. He quickly steered the conversation to another topic. "So, where do you want to go now? I don't know if Zonko's has anything new for sale, but it could be worth a try."
"What about coffee or tea?" she asked tentatively as raindrops started to occasionally fall on them. "I know of a really nice place just up here. Haven't you ever been to Madam Puddifoot's?"
"I don't think so, no," the dark-haired boy said shaking his head, and Cho smiled brightly.
"Come with me, then."
She took his hand in hers – which almost killed him right there and then – and led him up a side road that Harry had never taken. The teashop they arrived to was cramped, had frills and bows tied all over the place and golden cherubs hovering above small circular tables. There were only couples in there, Harry noticed with a jump of his stomach, and some of them were quite busy apparently eating each other's faces. The boy-who-lived nodded numbly to whatever Cho had just said as he followed her to a free table and sat down.
"What can I get you m'dears?" a stout woman, probably Madam Puddifoot, asked them.
"Two coffees, please," Cho replied after an interrogative look in Harry's direction. The young Gryffindor nodded to her as he finished glaring at the cherub tossing confetti at him. The colourful attack managed to ease his nervousness a little, and even though he continued running his mouth like an idiot, he found himself more calmed than just a few moments before.
"Why is he targeting only me?" he whined, trying to disentangle the offending pieces of paper from his hair. "Not that I wish you were subjected to this kind of treatment either, but this is unfair."
The Ravenclaw giggled cutely, reaching out with her hands and passing her fingers through his hair.
"There," she said with one last pat. "Perfectly messy again."
He hoped there was no blush on his face as he grinned nervously at her. "Thank you."
Their coffees arrived soon after that, and amidst Cho's laughter, Harry managed to get Madam Puddyfoot to reroute the seemingly jammed cherub away from their table. They were relaxing, abusing Umbridge in any verbal way they could, when Roger Davies, the Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain, entered the teashop with his girlfriend. Cho greeted him quietly as they sat at the last remaining free table in the room.
"He asked me out, you know," she eventually said, looking down at her cup. "A couple of weeks ago. Roger. I turned him down, though."
She raised her eyes, searching his, and he avoided contact with practiced experience. Soulgazing his date was probably the last thing the boy-who-lived wanted at the moment.
"Are you regretting it?" he asked with a cheeky smile, while looking at a point between her eyebrows and hoping she wouldn't answer affirmatively.
"No," she said after a moment of painful hesitation. She looked at him seriously. "Do you?"
"What? No! No, no," he blurted out lamely. "Of course not. I'm having a great time with you and... and I can't think of a better place to be right now."
"Except for the Three Broomsticks with Hermione Granger, right?" Cho said, her face assuming an odd expression Harry didn't immediately recognize. It was somewhat familiar and-
He remembered. Elaine. It was exactly – exactly – the face Elaine sported when she and Dresden talked about Patricia Vice, a pretty girl a year behind them who occasionally flirted with the young wizard. He could see the similarities clearly, only with the Ravenclaw's soft features in place of the American's sharp ones. He could only stare at her silently, a hesitant smile slowly creeping to his lips.
"What?" she demanded and it was impossible not to notice her blush.
"You are... you're jealous of Hermione?" he half-asked, partially incredulous and partially amused.
"No!" she shouted hastily, reddening even more. "That's… I'm not!"
"Okay, okay!" Harry raised his hands in a apologizing gesture, but he was still smiling sillily. They stayed in silence for a moment, both of them looking down at their cup. "Anyway, just so you know, Hermione is just a friend to me," he continued quietly. "A good friend, but just a friend. I don't fancy her."
His attention was suddenly attracted by the kissing sounds coming from Roger Davies' table and he momentary stared at him as he literally slobbered over the blonde he had glued to his face.
Harry took the coffee and slurped it down to try and cover his slip, but couldn't quite stop himself from glancing at Cho. He was about to speak up and break the silence when she beat him to it.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you for ages," she said very quietly, and something in her tone made Harry feel really uncomfortable. "Did Cedric…" She took a deep, shuddering breath and struggled to continue. "Did he… how did he…"
Harry's stomach dropped as if he had just swallowed lead. He didn't want to talk about that and immediately felt annoyed at Cho for even bringing it up during their date. But there were unshed tears in her eyes now, and her lower lip was trembling slightly behind a few locks of dark hair that had strayed in front of her face. He couldn't bear seeing such an expression marring the Ravenclaw's features and that had only partially to do with Dresden's chivalrous nature.
He stood up and tried to say something. Then he shut his mouth and fought against the slight lump in his throat. Cho looked even more distraught now that he was staring down at her and he quickly averted his gaze.
"Come with me... if you want to know."
He threw a galleon down onto the table and exited the teashop, not once looking behind his shoulder. The door closed and he found himself in the rain, large, bruising droplets falling on his head. He felt more than saw the door open and close again and Cho come to stand next to him. Then he started walking.
He led her to the Three Broomsticks.
The sun had just set when Harry Potter and Cho Chang walked back up to Hogwarts. The other students were all making their way to the security of the castle, speaking softly to each other as if to not disturb the peace that had descended around them with the approach of the evening. Even the forest and the lake seemed to keep quiet in order to honour that silence, and only the sporadic cry of a bird and the rippling of water could be heard by the retreating students.
Harry turned to face the lake for a moment, taking a deep breath before closing his eyes. He moved his left hand slightly, pointing it at the water, palm down. The calm, steady energy of the lake acknowledged him with an interested buzz against his fingers. It was fascinating. The Hogwarts Lake, as well as the Forbidden Forest, gave him an incredibly strong vibe when he concentrated on them, unlike any lake or forest Dresden had ever encountered in his world. There was something magical in both of them that not even Professor Dumbledore had been able to explain when he had told him about it. Now, neither of them could even come close to Hogwarts – feeling the castle with his magic had given him a hours-long headache when he had tried – but as something literally infused with magic, that was to be expected.
It was interesting how his wizard senses had grown recently, or possibly grown accustomed to Hogwarts magic, instead of the Dresden kind. The former had turned out even easier to perceive than the latter, strangely enough, and the boy-who-lived had soon realized that the ability worked best if he was familiar with the actual source. By now he could sense his own wand from a dozen feet of distance, for example. It was pretty useful.
"What are you doing?"
Cho's question brought him back to the present. He opened his eyes and turned to her, finding her looking at him with a curious expression.
"Don't you read the Prophet? I'm nut," he said, nodding. "I don't need a reason to do crazy things."
"Seriously," she said giggling slightly. "You had such an odd face, with this little, knowing look…"
"Yeah, well, I was just contemplating the lake." He shrugged, making it evident that he didn't have anything else to say, and she let the matter drop. They shared a moment of companionable silence before she spoke up again.
"Those at the Prophet are the nut ones," she said in a quiet voice. "What you did today was very brave."
She beamed at him even though her eyes were shining with unshed tears. She had cried a lot that afternoon. The interview given to none other than Rita Skeeter had lasted more or less two hours and Cho had been in tears for a good portion of it. Harry hadn't known what to do or say to her so he had just gone on with his answers, not even looking in her direction, but halfway through the story of Voldemort's ritual, he had somehow found her hand in his.
"What was so brave?" the young Gryffindor asked, blushing slightly. "I just told her the truth."
"But we both know what will happen once it's published." She took a step forward, moving very close to him. He forced his body to stay perfectly still and neither bolt away nor rush to her.
"Who reads the Quibbler, anyway?" he said nervously.
"I will," she replied at once. "And I will make sure my friends and family get a copy too." She lowered her head, eyes hidden behind a curtain of black hair. "Thank you for taking me with you. I know it must have been hard."
Harry tried a nonchalant shrug, but it came out more as a short epileptic crisis in his opinion.
Calm down, idiot.
"You wanted to know," he said eventually. "It was the right thing to do."
The silence stretched on and on for seconds that felt like hours to the young Gryffindor. He didn't know what to say, and in reality he didn't want to say anything. He kept on staring at Cho's lips, so full and red as she bit on them nervously, and for the umpteenth time that day, the urge to kiss her felt almost uncontrollable.
Scratch that 'almost'.
He didn't even have to think about it when he put his hands on her shoulders and leaned towards her.
When Harry Potter entered Albus Dumbledore's office later that evening, there was a large, silly grin on his face. The Headmaster of Hogwarts looked at him curiously from behind his desk but the young Gryffindor couldn't bring himself to school his features into a straight expression. He plopped down on the other armchair and idly noticed that the man's eyebrows had risen.
"Harry," he said, "you sat on the chalk."
The boy-who-lived blinked his eyes a couple of times before shifting slightly on his seat. The snapping noises coming from the once intact stick of chalk sounded very loudly in the otherwise silent room.
"I knew it?" he half-asked not much convincingly. "I needed smaller pieces, anyway."
"Is everything alright?" the Professor asked him and a little smile started forming on his face as well.
"Yeah," the young Gryffindor said distractedly, extricating the chalk from underneath him. He put three small pieces on the desk.
"I imagine the date with Miss Chang proceeded well, then?" the old wizard said in amusement. His smile got a little wider as Harry blushed slightly. "Ah. I see."
"Can we drop it please?" the boy-who-lived asked, his grin nowhere to be seen now.
"Why? It is perfectly understandable, after all, for a young wizard and a young witch to-"
"Don't finish that sentence!" he said quickly.
Dumbledore smiled amusedly as a long silence fell in the room.
"Did I ever revealed to you how I was convinced that the power the Dark Lord knew not and you possessed was love?" the Headmaster asked eventually.
"What? Really?" Harry snorted. "Did you think I should have loved Voldemort to vanquish him?"
The Professor looked pretty disturbed by the thought for some reasons.
"No, nothing of the sort," he said. "I have long since rethought that theory of mine, though, in light of more recent events."
"Speaking about it," the young Gryffindor started, "aren't we going to do it tonight, finally?"
"I will hardly do anything," the old wizard said, looking at his student with a measuring look. "Do you feel up to it?"
"Yeah," Harry answered, brushing chalks off his hands. "Why do you ask?"
Dumbledore looked pointedly at his increasingly more stained uniform and the boy-who-lived stopped trying to wipe his hands at once. "You appear to be… unfocused."
"I'm fine, sir, don't worry about it," he tried to reassure him.
"Harry, you told me that summoning a demon was a rather difficult 'piece of magic', as you put it." The Professor was looking at him with utmost seriousness now. "I do not want you to put yourself in danger."
"Sorry," the young Gryffindor said, finally with a straight face. "You're right. I need a lot of concentration for this thing. Just give me a second and I'll be ready."
He closed his eyes under his Headmaster's concerned gaze and took a deep breath. Images of one pretty Ravenclaw immediately sprung up in his mind, some coming directly from what had happened during their date while others were simply the result of Harry's rampant imagination. He fought back the silly smile from returning to his face but couldn't help but linger on the memories for one more minute before banishing them from his head.
He focused on the darkness of his eyes-closed world and on the silence surrounding him, throwing fears, worries and desires away and into an isolated corner of his mind. He breathed in and out in a regular rhythm, trying to still his very being in the meantime. When he blinked his eyes open again ten minutes later, the world presented itself to him in perfectly vivid details.
"I'm ready," he told his Headmaster, standing up from the soft armchair. He ignored the pieces of chalk falling from his butt to the ground.
"Your Occlumency has remarkably improved lately," the old wizard said with a nod.
"Thanks to your real lessons, sir," the boy-who-lived replied, putting the littlest emphasis on the world 'real'. In his actual state of mind, he couldn't seem to care all that much about Snape and his teaching methods.
"I severely doubt that is the reason," Dumbledore commented as his student walked up to the glimmering stones on the floor. "I am sure we have Mr. Dresden to thank for this as well. His experience with meditation aided you more than whatever I could do for you in so little time. And some of his techniques seem to be much more suitable to you than mine were."
Harry didn't bother with an answer as he shifted his feet just outside the circle, splaying his legs in a comfortable position. He looked down at the lines of copper interweaving to form a perfect circle and at the colourful gems forming another one on top of it as well. Taking in their faint glow under the light of the candles, he shifted his gaze to the Professor. The man had the materials delivered in record time. It had come as a huge surprise when the old wizard had presented them to him, much sooner than he had expected… much sooner than what hehad been told was possible.
It appeared that being Albus Dumbledore could give you quite a few advantages.
The old wizard hadn't asked any money in return despite the materials' obvious expensiveness but he had insisted upon making him assemble his circle in his office so that he would always be there to help. It had been one of the most important parts of their deal of sorts, together with the termination of Dobby's shadowing assignment and less defined security measures. All in all, it hadn't been that bad. The circle had already been a great help to broaden the range of tests about Dresden magic and Harry was glad he had gained access to it so soon, even if under Dumbledore's supervision.
"It is remarkable how the wizards of Mr. Dresden's world are able to control the power behind Names with such magnitude," the Headmaster mused quietly while Harry drew out his wand and put it on the shelf beside him. "Our kind can only achieve the simplest things with them and the process is so unpractical that it is often considered a waste of time and energy."
If the young Gryffindor hadn't been so concentrated, he would have shrugged his shoulders, probably. "Dresden magic can use Names for pretty much anything, summoning only being one of the most common uses. With a real Name, a wizard can call all that is spiritual, given the right amount of power."
Dumbledore's brow furrowed upon his golden-rimmed spectacles. "All that is spiritual? I was under the assumption you could only summon creatures belonging to the Nevernever."
Harry's eyes shifted to the old wizard in hearing his confused tone.
"Summoning, yes. Well, usually. The Nevernever is the spiritual world," he explained, fully turning towards his thoughtful Headmaster. "And that's where spiritual beings come from, usually. It's pretty rare for one to… let's say have a different origin."
"But you could hypothetically summon a spiritual being even if it did not belong to the Nevernever, do I understand it correctly?" Dumbledore asked.
"As long as it's no longer attached to its physical body, yes," the young Gryffindor replied uneasily. The topic was moving in a direction he wasn't exactly comfortable in taking. "I could summon it, track it, empower it, even destroy it... hypothetically."
He looked at his Professor and found the twinkle in his eyes more unsettling than usual.
"And souls?" the old wizard pressed on and now he definitely didn't sound like someone asking disinterested questions anymore. "Could it be possible to call such an entity to the circle?"
"Uhm, I doubt it, sir," Harry said nervously, his focus wavering dangerously in front of the uncharacteristically eager Headmaster. "There's no way my magic can reach them wherever they go when their bodies die."
"But suppose… suppose for a moment that these souls were unable to reach their final destination and were… restrained for some reason or another in our world…"
The boy-who-lived started rubbing his neck, now more than a little uncomfortable. Dumbledore was seriously freaking him out now. He was asking questions that were far too specific to represent a simple intellectual curiosity.
"I guess that technically, hypothetically it could be done," he started. "But sir, trying to influence death with magic is extremely dangerous, and..." He paused for a moment, searching for the right way to say what he felt. He gave up on trying to maintain his concentration and looked at the old wizard straight into his eyes. "And it's wrong. It's wrong on so many levels."
His focus shattered and he started babbling almost incoherently about how magic came from life and how it was a hideous, almost sacrilegious act to direct it against the same matter from which it came, a soul, but he stopped when the Professor raised a placating hand and seemed to understand where Harry was headed.
"I never intended to ask you such a thing," he said calmly. He almost looked like his normal, granfatherly-self again, but there was a grim glow behind his golden spectacles. "And I am sorry you misinterpreted what I was trying to ask you. If you let me explain from the beginning, it will all be clear in little time."
Silence fell for a long minute despite the man's promise of a clarification. When Harry realized what the Headmaster's expression was actually conveying, he couldn't help the feeling of dread from spreading throughout his body.
Albus Dumbledore looked guilty.
That wasn't a good sign at all.
"I have not been entirely forthcoming with you, Harry," he said and the boy-who-lived could only feel his fear increase as the old wizard looked at him directly in the eyes and sighed.
"I still have to tell you about Voldemort's Horcruxes."