He skipped class the next day, in favor of studying in the Room of Requirement. He had finally started to learn real wandless magic, but he had to concentrate on it more than he was used to doing, and he couldn't cast anything with his left hand.
He had to go back to the basics for his left hand, and start with motionless spells like 'accio'. He kept his right hand held behind his back. It took him an hour to learn how to keep objects from 'accio'ing around his body and into his hidden hand, and another to get anything to even twitch when he wasn't accidentally casting with his right.
By Wednesday's training session, when Moody again didn't arrive, Harry had finally mastered his basic spells with his right hand, most importantly including bone mending charms, so he could again take up Moody's challenge. He knew for a fact that if he didn't master every goal Moody set for him, the trainer would walk away and never teach him anything again. He had to learn how to master pain.
So that night he put his wand to his palm, whispered 'dextra', and started to learn how to fight through pain. He quickly decided learning to suffer in silence would come later, if it ever did. For now, he'd scream.
Harry nodded to Moody the next Monday, and knew he had his trainer back. He'd come to a impasse when it came to pain.
It was like Vernon, he figured. He mostly understood it, he'd learned to live with it, but he was never going to like it.
"Son of a bitch, you actually did it." Moody said as Harry wandlessly healed his broken hand. He'd fought for an hour with it broken before he decided Moody had seen enough of his new-trained endurance.
Harry scoffed a laugh and nodded, absently rubbing at the renewed bones in his hand. They itched, but he didn't want to scurgify it away. He'd earned the itch.
"Did you break it yourself?" Moody asked incredulously.
"Every day this week." Harry answered calmly, throwing a fireball back and forth between his hands. It was becoming a habit, for when he was studying alone and had nothing better to do with his wandless magic.
"Damn I wish I'd wasted more time with you." Moody responded. Harry looked up at him and gently rose an eyebrow.
"I'd have liked to watch." He expounded.
"Right." Harry said with disgust. "Of course."
"Hey boy, don't you dare use that sarcasm with me, I'm making you what you are." Moody growled, pointing at him with a darkly-stained hand.
"You're sadistic." Harry responded, careful to avoid all traces of sarcasm. Moody barked a laugh at him.
"No, I just enjoy seeing Dumbledore's idiot wonder boy in pain."
"What's the difference then?" Harry asked.
"Eh?"
"Between being sadistic and enjoying seeing me in pain." Harry clarified.
"You, essentially." Moody answered as he limped towards his chair by the door. He got himself settled, and started rubbing the juncture where his fake leg met his knee.
Right.
That day Moody started him on dueling practice for real. The Room stopped sending out random spells, and left the two of them alone to fight. Harry wasn't sure how useful the training was; he was sure they lost an hour a day to Moody's sadistic cackles and insane phases when he'd be shooting everything in sight and twitching at every sound. Usually while they fought Harry knew that he'd be able to stop the entire fight by pulling his left hand behind his back and bringing his wandless shielding into the fight, but instead he allowed Moody to believe that he was still a capable duelist, and in return, Moody taught him speed.
Speed was something insanity had not taken from Moody's fighting. The man was physically slow, thanks to his ancient muggle-style wooden leg, but when it came to magic, the man could send off three times as many spells as Harry managed, and he did it without a single wandmotion or incantation. It was unlike the unpredictable spells that Harry took on with both hands. Moody was a single, almost unmoving target, and on that first day Harry didn't manage to send off a single well-aimed offensive spell.
At the end of the session, Moody offered to give him the 'only way in hell' he was going to become worthy of the Order, and threw him a vial of a bright-pink potion.
"You look like you've never worked a day in your life, and you fight worse. With the way you sleep, this will practically give you another seven days a week. It's called Mandrake Potion. Take a swallow a day." Moody barked, calling over the click-thump of his uneven stride.
"What does it do?" Harry called from his blood-covered place on the floor. To his surprise Moody just lifted a hand and flipped him off as he continued out. The Room of Requirement door clicked behind him.
Harry stored the vial in his clothes, and left the Room of Requirement to ask it for a library. He came back in and accio'd books on Advanced Potions. It took him an hour to find the potion, because Moody had misnamed it, it was called Mandrake Draught, the same that Snape had used in second year to wake the petrified.
Why in the hell..?
Harry looked at the Potion in his hand, and looked in another book, hoping to learn about alternate or original uses.
Mandrake Draught.
c. 900 A.D, England, Original Brewer Unknown
Originally brewed as a auxiliary means of torture via sleep deprivation, Mandrake Draught would be given in high doses, up to 4 ml a day to a victim in order to induce a constant state of awareness. Outlawed in the 1800s, the drug started to be used in the 1940s by students and businessmen to increase attention span and reduce stress-related health symptoms, and in rare cases, to stop sleeping entirely. Effects of sleep deprivation under the Mandrake Draught may include headaches, exhaustion, muscle aches and cramps, boils, skin infections, loss of appetite, diarrhea, dehydration, insomnia and short term memory loss.
It is rumored that in extremely high concentration, Mandrake Draught can wake up the petrified, but claims currently remain unsubstantiated.
When properly brewed, Mandrake Draught is a thin, fuchsia liquid.
Harry read the symptoms list, wincing.
This is not going to be fun, Harry thought. He'd already made up his mind. The Potion would save him the three hours a day he spent sleeping, and perhaps even boost his awareness and ability to learn. He had no choice really, if he wasn't willing to sacrifice his friends' lives for his own continued comfort. He'd learned the price of laziness already, and it was too high.
He drank the swallowful Moody had gave him, and waited for it to take effect. Within minutes he was grinning, and feeling ready to get back to work. He felt more than just aware again, he felt strong. Harry breathed in, and felt his lungs expand and contract easily. His persistant headache was fading, the constant ache in his muscles was gone. Harry ran outside into the 7th floor hallway and practically yelled aloud asking for his training room back.
He ran in and jumped out of the way of a coming spell. He was alive again, and he needed more of the potion.
It wasn't hard to figure out a way to get an illegal potion at Hogwarts. After all, he'd done it before. He knew what he was about to do again was immoral, but wars usually were, and again, the price for clear-cut principles was too high.
"Dobby. I've got a favor to ask of you." Harry called into the dark library, already panting in exertion, but holding a wandless shield over himself easily. A crack and a squeak heralded Dobby's arrival.
"Master Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby squealed, obviously thrilled. "Dobby is happy to Help Harry Potter sir!
"Yeah, Dobby, would you get me a load of Mandrake Draught?" Harry asked confidently.
"Mandrake Draught, Sir?" Dobby cocked his head as he spoke, obviously not quite understanding.
"I'm sure there is some in Madam Pomfrey's medicine cabinet. If not, try Snape's potions storage." Harry ordered.
"Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much too sir, and is proud to keep his rules for him. We is not supposed to take from professors' storages, sir." Dobby answered, his ears slowly flopping down in sadness.
"It's not against the rules. I wouldn't make you do that." Harry lied. "Would you help me?"
""Dobby is a free house-elf and he can trust anyone he likes and Dobby can do anything Harry Potter says he can do!" Dobby declared happily.
"Good. Leave them in my trunk when you've got them." Harry ordered, and saw Dobby's ears lift up slightly in his happiness. Dobby popped from sight, still smiling broadly.
Harry's good mood was gone. He wanted to curl up and cry, or, absurdly, run outside and punch something. Dobby had never even thought that Harry Potter might be lying about the rules. It wasn't hard to sacrifice his time and energy to train his mind, or sacrifice his money to buy illegal wands, but the only way for him to defeat the Dark Lord was to sacrifice his definition of 'good', and despite all his determination to do it, Harry wasn't sure he'd be able. Harry could barely stand lying to a house-elf for the greater good, he didn't understand how he'd ever manage to look a man in the eyes and kill him.
Harry threw himself back into his training.
The next week a small bottle of the bright pink acrid-smelling potion appeared in his clothes trunk.
This time after he went up to his dorm to say goodnight to McGonagall, he went straight to the bathroom and conjured a teaspoon. He measured carefully, following the directions he'd found in the Dark Arts potions textbook he'd found the potion's name in. The potion was originally designed as a torture device, so Harry was sure to measure out a 'medicinal' portion carefully. It wasn't really important to him why the potion was developed-it would allow him to learn faster and be more aware, without the need to sleep. He could train twenty four hours a day now, and that was all that mattered.
The potion got better as time past. At first he just didn't have to sleep anymore, but the affects started to build. His mind was sharper, faster, more awake than ever. He felt like suddenly he could focus, suddenly he could think, and his studying got faster. He was going to buy Dobby a wardrobe--the potion was perfect for him. Its side effects all seemed minor. He was cold all the time, but he magically heated his instant coffee and spelled his jumpers to stay warm and soon forgot about the cold entirely.
By the end of the second week, nothing was painful anymore. His thoughts didn't stray, didn't poke at him about guilt or stupidity or Sirius's death, because he had a book in front of him, or a spell to practice, and that was all there was. Training was the only thing he wanted or needed to do, so as long as he was studying, he didn't want for anything.
He was getting better so quickly now, and he hated how much time he'd wasted dawdling without the potion. Harry started to feel how incantation words shaped his concentration on his magic, and so shaped the spell he was doing. He'd never had enough focus to feel that before, but it was excellent, the theory behind silent and motionless magic made sense. All he had to do to make a spell was concentrate on how he wanted the magic to shape itself, and if he had the focus, he wouldn't need words or wandmotions or even a wand at all. He'd been able to do such things for months, but it was reassuring to feel how the theory worked.
His real skin was turning a little yellow, he noticed that Friday when he forgot to take his polyjuice in the Room of Requirement, but it wasn't like it was any reason to panic. Being pretty wasn't his concern anymore, as made obvious by his now dread-locked hair. He had no question that he couldn't take out the two-month-old braids.
That Friday was also when he noticed that he was quickly running out of Mandrake Draught, and that was reason to panic. Dobby would have given him all that he could possibly find at Hogwarts. There was no way he'd survive going back to living without the Draught, wasting three hours a day to sleep. He couldn't even stand the thought.
He blessed Dumbledore for marking that Friday as a Hogsmeade weekend, and signed up to go that Saturday.
He took a carriage to the beginning of town, and made sure it had driven away before he entered The Three Broomsticks. Inside he paid for enough Floo powder to get to Diagon Alley's Leaky Caldron, and stepped through the fireplace into the familiar pub. This time, without his wig, wizards and witches throughout the pub noticed and greeted him. He smiled and shook hands as he continued briskly through the crowd, to the back alley behind.
It was wizard etiquette not to watch as people made their way through to Diagon Alley, as poking different codes in the brick opened the wall onto different sections of the alleyway and a wizard's direction was to remain his own. Harry was grateful of the strange etiquette that stopped the crowd of fans by the doorway, and allowed him to close the door behind them. He transfigured a few pebbles from the ground into his familiar gray wig in a prayer to avoid any further fan introductions and folded his polyjuiced black hair beneath it.
Harry tapped in the code Hagrid had taught him, as he didn't know any others, and walked through to the entrance of Diagon Alley.
He only knew one shop in Knockturn Alley, but he'd started to think Borgin and Burkes held everything under the sun, as long as it was illegal, and if not, he was sure they would order anything for him, as long as he never directly requested it.
It was strange, hearing someone in Borgin and Burkes when he entered. He'd started thinking of the shop as a quiet, private place. This short, blond-haired costumer was being neither.
"-And you've yet to send me any instructions on how to do it!" The costumer was yelling in an angry, sneering voice that Harry recognized immediately. Harry quickly cast illusion charms over his face to keep Draco from recognizing him while allowing Mr. Borgins to see the same gray-haired boy who'd ordered books from him weeks before. He was grateful he'd never seen Draco in the store before, he'd only mastered the person-specific disguise charms a few weeks before.
"I still need a description of the damage on it, assuming you still can't bring it into the shop." Borgin replied politely.
"It needs to stay put, I told you that weeks ago!" Malfoy snarled. "If I get it fixed, I won't be able to bring it back in, and then what use will it be? You need to either come with me, as you've so graciously refused, or teach me how to do it. How complicated can this be, or is there less purity in your veins as you so claim?" Malfoy pulled his lip up in disgust.
"With only a description of its damages, I can't guarantee anything." Mr. Borgin replied carefully, obviously repeating what he'd said before.
Harry saw the dealer lick his lips nervously, and glance over at him. Harry nodded back, agreeing to wait.
The dealer looked like he'd just seen a miracle, and nodded gratefully at him. Harry watched, wanting to know what Draco was doing there.
"I'm not asking for much, you little fool. Keep the one safe, fix the other. I know you are quite devoted to this project, just get it done already!" Malfoy sneered.
"I need a description of the damages, sir! I know nothing about it. What would you have me do?" The dealer replied, scrunching his neck down into his shoulders as if he could hide.
"I'd have you come with me and help me fix the bloody thing, but I can hardly even get into the Room anymore with Po-" Draco cut himself off. "People always inside, locking me out." He revised. "So you will need to get off your arse, and give me a list of every possible way to fix any possible way it could be broken. Trust me, you will be paid grandly for your expertise." Here Draco sneered. "After me of course." He added proudly.
What is Draco up to?
"By the time I get back, you should have it done." Draco ordered, before turning swiftly.
Harry almost broke out in a grin when he saw Draco jerk away from him, obviously startled to find someone else in the room. Apparently he hadn't even noticed the door's alarm spell ringing as Harry had entered.
"Good evening," Draco greeted politely as he passed. Harry almost gawked after him, from hearing the polite tone.
Harry nodded in return for the greeting, aware that Draco would recognize his voice. Harry waited until he heard the door's ring announce Draco's exit, glanced back to confirm it, and approached the counter.
"So I should take it there's something here I'm not allowed to buy?" Harry asked, carefully sounding as annoyed as he could.
"Just that Vanishing Cabinet Sir, just that one specifically and it's partner is broken anyway, I can order you a pair any time if you'd like, there's a very good design selling in-"
Harry held up a hand to stop Borgin's nervous tangent, and went over to inspect the Vanishing Cabinet Draco had wanted. It looked on a face of it to be an ordinary dish cabinet in its size and shape, except of course for its lack of shelves. They were meant to transport people straight into warded places, such as protected homes. They'd been used in times of war for generations, as a way to run away into a place where the enemy could not find you, not if you destroyed the Vanishing Cabinet on the other side, anyway.
Is Draco scared about the coming war?, Harry thought, thinking about Draco's nearly constant disheveled appearance at school. He'd looked better just then, but Draco would be too proud to leave Hogwarts during a napalm bombing if he wasn't yet perfectly dressed.
Harry looked out of the side of the counter, and saw Borgin eying him nervously.
Better put the man out of his misery.
Harry approached the counter, thinking about how he wanted to go about the next negotiation, he didn't care if he wasted money, but he needed to keep the man's respect if he was going to get good quality of anything he bought here.
"Here's the deal, Mr. Borgin. I want Mandrake Draught, I don't want to go to the main sources and have questions poured over me, and I don't want to go wandering down Knockturn Alley to get it at a good price. So, if you've got it, I'm buying it from you. You name your price, I buy it at whatever price you put down. If it's a good price, I might very well need something convenient like this again." Harry said, doing his best to sound like a knowledgeable adult used to a bartering society for once.
As if I know what the main sources are or where to go in Knockturn Alley. Harry thought, safe in his occlumency.
"A respectable deal, Sir. How much would you like?" The dealer responded.
He has it here?. Harry thought, surprised and relieved.
"1600 ml" Harry guessed.
If nothing else, that'll get me through to the next Hogsmeade trip in November.
The dealer nodded at him, walked behind the curtained doorway to the back of his shop, and returned with three large corked vials of the bright-pink liquid to place gently on the counter. Harry recognized the potion instantly, and had to fight back a grin.
"That will be 1500 galleons for the draught, Sir" Mr. Borgin stated, slipping the potion vials into a silk envelope.
Following etiquette, Borgin quietly handed Harry a small burlap bag to transfer galleons into. Harry tucked it into his shoulder bag, and pretended to use his wand to accio 1500 galleons from his money-bag into the burlap without ever having to bring his money bag into the public area. Harry gratefully handed the bag back, stored his potion away, and went on his way. With this to help him, he might even be good enough for the Order before Christmas.
Perhaps I'll propose it then, Harry thought as he left the Three Broomsticks and joined the Hogsmeade crowd. He hailed a carriage to bring him back to Hogwarts as quickly as possible, and turned his thoughts back to what more he needed to learn.
It was that night that Hermione interrupted him during his training in the Room of Requirement. Harry was working on a frustrating wandless eviscerating hex when her voice startled him out of his concentration.
"Harry, I need to talk to you." Hermione said.
"Hermione, I need to work." Harry replied automatically, slowly settling himself back into his concentration.
"No." She replied, almost like an order.
Harry looked up in surprise and saw a determined look in her eyes.
Damn it.
He knew better than to argue more, it would only waste more time. He dropped his focus, letting out a frustrated sigh and gesturing for her to continue.
Please let this be quick. I am quite seriously not in the mood for distractions.
"Harry, you love me, right?" Hermione asked, instantly sounding about to cry. Harry looked up again, startled and wondered what was going on. He wasn't good with guessing people's emotions, and that was only worse with girls.
"Yeah..." Harry answered, hoping she'd explain whatever she needed to quickly. He hated to see her upset, but it was his job to keep her alive, and that was a bit more important than cheering her up on a bad day. Harry wasn't sure what to do, he didn't want to tell her to go away-- he had no doubt that would hurt her and he'd probably waste twice as much time having Ron yelling at him later, but he had to study so he could protect her...
"Just remember that with what I'm about to tell you, okay?" Hermione continued, her nose sniffling but her voice sounding clear again. Harry nodded slowly, still confused.
"Harry, if you don't promise to slow down with this training thing, I'm going to tell Dumbledore what's going on." Hermione said firmly.
Harry's thoughts cut off immediately, leaving him staring at her with his mouth agape.
In the train, he'd told her everything, she knew too much. He had thought he should tell the truth to his friends, he'd been young and immature, and he'd thought that there was something important about truth, even though he didn't know what it was anymore. It was illogical, but it had felt urgent.
Damn it, I listen to logic, not emotions.
It had backfired. Harry could hardly process it. She was betraying him. To Dumbledore. Hermione was going to betray him to Dumbledore.
"Hermione, if you do that, I'll never trust you again." Harry replied, hating how cold his voice sounded, but somehow at the same time wishing it could sound ever colder.
"Harry don't take it like that! I'm not betraying you! Really, I'd never do that. But look, Ron says you stay up all night, with a spell to hide the light hoping he won't notice. Your eyes are bloodshot, you look exhausted, I only see you in class, otherwise you're running into here. You're emaciated, you're sick, you can't do this."
"Yeah, I look like shit. How does that justify you betraying me exactly?" Harry interrupted her, glad for once that his voice did reflect his actual emotion: anger.
"You're killing yourself Harry! What do you expect I do, sit back and watch?"
"Yes! That's exactly what you need to do. Remember that whole thing on the train, you promising to think like a soldier too now, if I had to, you would too? Fine then, think like a soldier. What is one man's life worth if his death can take out the Dark Lord?" Harry shot back.
"You say the Dark Lord now." Hermione noted quietly.
"To remind myself what I'm dealing with, what's your point?" Harry threw his words at her.
"Killing yourself now isn't going to help with Voldemort at all!" She argued.
"I'm not killing myself now, Hermione. I'm studying so I won't get killed. I need you to let me do that!" Harry demanded.
"You can't do this on your own Harry!" Hermione was yelling shrilly now. "I know you want to but you can't, you're sick, the whole school had been gossiping for weeks about what drugs you're taking. And the truth that you're here in this room every night instead of taking care of yourself is almost worse. You're running yourself into the ground."
You have a saving people thing. Harry's mind repeated at him.
"Yes, I'm tired and it's hard, Hermione. But guess what, that might be the only way everyone I love will live through this next year! Yeah, guess what, I don't think Voldemort is going to be laying low for much longer, which means he's going to be out to kill me again. How many people do you think he'll plow through before he gets to me this time? Thirty? Fourty?" Harry asked rhetorically. "So I've gotta go to him, forgive me if I don't dawdle through my training." Harry finished, glaring back at the wand in his hand and feeling for his magic, though he was unable to concentrate enough to think of a spell to practice with. He was furious but it didn't feel good this time.
"I know you have to train, it's just how you're doing it that frightens me." Hermione answered, sounding calm again.
"Which mean's you're going to tell everything I trusted you with to Dumbledore." Harry repeated, unable to believe it.
"If you don't slow down, yes."
"Get out, Hermione, I am in way too dangerous a mood for you to hang out here now convincing me you are going to do this."
"Harry, wait-" She sounded like she was going to cry again. Harry understood now.
"Leave Hermione."
"Harry, give me another choice! Tell me anything, tell me you are going to sleep more, eat a little more, slow down a bit."
"No." Harry answered shortly.
What am I going to do after she tells Dumbledore? Maybe she won't actually- Harry tried to stop lying to himself, if there was one thing he knew about Hermione, it was her diligence.
Damn it, Hermione!
"Alright." Harry answered, thinking up a better option that having Dumbledore suddenly paying too much attention to him. "Alright, what if I tell a professor here, tell one professor that I am training myself to fight the Dark Lord, then will you forget this?"
To his relief, she nodded slowly.
"Okay. Okay I won't tell if you will." She gave in, smiling a little before running a hand over her face and wiping the relieved expression away.
She didn't want to do this, a forgiving part of him said. That sliver of forgiveness didn't last long before he remembered what she'd just tried to force him into.
"Then ask Snape in a week if he knows I'm training myself to be a hero." Harry ordered. She nodded.
"Hermione?" Harry called her attention back to him as he slowly put his book down and stood up.
"Yes?" She responded quickly.
"I suggest you get out, now." Harry said carefully, struggling to keep his temper under control until she left the room. As soon as the door clicked behind her, Harry's anger exploded into hexes that ripped apart the benign training room. Harry punched a wall and his magic ripped a hole all the way through it. Harry turned around and tore the sand targets to pieces by hand.
It was his response to losing people, Harry recognized, to destroy every inanimate object in sight. This time, for once, he didn't have to fix it again afterward. The Room of Requirement would give him new sand bags the next time he trained.
"Snape." Harry called in the hallway when he saw the professor in the hallway the next morning.
Snape turned in the hall at his name, but didn't even bother to respond once he'd seen who'd called for him.
"I'm making myself sick by working really hard to defeat the Dark Lord." Harry stated, doing his best to sound like one of his young classmates.
"I'm glowing with pride." Snape drawled, and continued on his way.
Harry nodded to himself, and returned to the Room of Requirement, fighting off a laugh, the crisis narrowly avoided.
Harry finally got through his last book on occlumency that night. He decided he'd continue his hour practice sessions every day, knowing the quiet meditation strengthened his mental barriors and helped him with his magical detection. As long as he was still continuing in both, he'd keep practicing, but at least now he didn't have to devote study time to the skill. He'd learned all of what little there was known of occlumency already. He thought perhaps only Dumbledore, Snape, and the sphinxes who'd originally discovered the power still had things to teach him about the art.
"I'm doing alright." Harry muttered to himself as he rook his polyjuice and Mandrake Draught that morning. He hardly had to bother with the polyjuice anymore; he only left the Room of Requirement for Transfiguration, Defense, and meals in the Great Hall. He used the polyjuice 24-7 anyway. He could never know what friend would burst in on him unexpectedly to worry about him next. The polyjuice was expensive but he had a massive amount of galleons in his vault and he was willing to sacrifice them.
By the next week, he could cast all of his spells nearly as well wandlessly as with his wand. His rosewood wand was beginning to feel like a prop; he only took it out during his classes to hide his wandless magic. Spells like transfigurations that were primarily based on his concentration he found easier to cast without the wand in his hand; it distracted him from focusing on what he wanted the magic to do, rather than what wandmotion or incantation he'd learned for the spell.
The Room of Requirement surrounded him with spells, and he could block them all at once, casting shields around himself in response to the magic he felt headed toward him. It gave him child-sized bags of sand to 'protect' while he fought, and he started fighting with his right hand while he cast shielding spells with his left. The Room of Requirement started pushing him harder, giving him harder and faster spells to block, and set him running and dodging through the gymnasium again to give himself time to identify and block the assortment of advanced spells attacking him.
It was that week that the dizzyness and shaking started. He didn't mind the dizzyness all too much in itself, but he couldn't hide the shaking in his hands. Hermione had started glaring at him and complaining loudly about Snape's irresponsibility every time Harry's fork or spoon clicked against his plate wrong or fell from his grip at table. Harry didn't dare try to push magic through is wand with his hands flailing about randomly, which meant he was left casting wandless magic around his wand, a surprisingly difficult feat to pull off.
By the next week, the 27th, when notices about the Christmas break started showing up around the school, Harry knew for sure that something was going wrong. He couldn't remember if he'd told Ron he wasn't going to the Burrow for the break, or when he'd last seen Ron at all, or even what the third class of compression charms designated. He was forgetting things, forgetting his schedule and his plans and his lessons.
That Saturday he spent three hours re-memorizing spells he'd known for weeks, only to discover by the end of the day that he'd forgotten most of them again. He spent that night working over his old books, concentrating even despite a headache that would have crippled him months before. He was stronger now, he could deal with it.
By the end of that night he was starting to think pain tolerance was the only thing he'd really learned. The more he revised what he supposedly already knew, the more he seemed to forget. He was losing everything. It affected everything. His spells, his concentration. He tried to remember old spells and had to struggle with them. His head pounded in pain until he couldn't think past it, no matter how tolerant he'd become. It was like all his thoughts couldn't process anything but pain, he couldn't think of anything else, despite the book in front of him. His books were nothing, just objects, just series of squiggles that he couldn't make sense of, and didn't want to.
"DAMN IT!" Harry shouted, bringing the magic inside him up to his palms and pushing it out in a fireball spell.
All he released was smoke.
Harry stared at the thick dark mist settling into the air, and admitted to himself that he was scared. He was losing everything that made him strong. What would he do if he couldn't bring down the Dark Lord? Would the Order be able to manage it without their 'Chosen One'? Was the prophesy wrong?
That's possible. Harry thought hopefully as he mentally gathered his energy together to try the spell again.
The prophesy was made by Trelawney after all. And who could say what 'Dark Lord' it was referring to? Grindewald called himself the 'Dark Fuhrer' after all, it wouldn't be too surprising if another 'Voldemort' megalomaniac who called called himself the 'Dark Lord' was 'vanquished' by some schmuck born in July.
Harry cast the fireball again and got a spark. He almost relaxed into his success before he remembered how destructive the spell was supposed to be.
God I hope the prophesy is wrong, Harry thought desperately, before he mentally slapped himself.
No. Harry ordered himself, gritting his teeth painfully. He would work past this, he would kill the Dark Lord, whether or not the prophesy was true. He wasn't working to fulfill some foolish woman's prophesy, he was working to keep his friends alive, and he wouldn't rest until he was finished doing that.
Harry stumbled out of the Room of Requirement, only noticing once he stood gasping in the hallway that he was feeling exhausted again. He hadn't felt tired since he'd started with the potion, but now it felt like the only thing his body was made for was lying down and sleeping. Harry left the Room of Requirement, deciding to replace his library with the training room. Hopefully semi-fatal spells heading for his chest would convince his magic to work when he focused on it.
I need the training room. I need the training room.
He couldn't stop just because it hurt. He'd take a thousand more spell wounds before having to mourn a friend again.
Harry stumbled back into the Room of Requirement. A single spell attacked him. He blocked it with the correct shield, but still he felt magic pass through the block he was concentrating on. The hex ripped striaght into his shoulder. Harry stumbled from the push of it and fell to his back, barely catching himself with his right hand. He heard it crack when he landed, despite the light fall. Pain scrambled up his arm, and he dropped down to his elbow, only to fall straight into the path of an incoming spell. He choked back a scream as it burned its way through his chest. Harry looked down and saw his stomach gushing out blood--the spell had gone through him. Another slash opened in his leg as he pushed himself up to crawl and wasn't fast enough.
Harry pulled his way from the room, like a slug pushing along the floor, leaving a sticky trail of blood. He had just gotten the thin door closed behind him when he realized what he'd done. He'd run away. He couldn't just do that, he was the weapon, he had to fight, to train. Harry crouched outside in the hall, unable to walk back and forth before it.
I need to learn to be a weapon. I need to learn to be a weapon.
He went back in.
The door clicked too softly behind him. Harry wanted it to have slammed, a firm conclusion to what the Room had just told him.
You are not a weapon. You cannot learn to be a weapon.
He'd entered an infirmary room. A few low cots in rows, clean sheets, bright magicked lights, all mocking him.
What was going wrong? He'd been getting so good, mastering everything he'd set out to learn, studying twenty four hours a day.
He was like that wizard baby he'd seen at the World Cup tapping someone else's wand against a slug uselessly, playing at magic.
The Room of Requirement had delivered him a hospital room when he'd asked to train, because training him would be useless, and a fucking magical room had figured it out.
Fuck.
Blood was pouring out of him from somewhere. He couldn't cry, couldn't even crawl to the bed to hide under the sheets. His legs trailed behind him, too heavy to drag now. He was soaked. Cold. But blood was warm. That didn't make sense. He should feel warm. But cold, he was cold.
He thought he heard a door open but it was all mixed with a weird whooshing sound in his ears. It sounded like a wave, but it was only whooshing in, and in, and in. Maybe that was why he was cold, Harry thought, because he was wet. He didn't like being wet. It was cold. He was supposed to be warm.
~~HP~~
It was supposed to be warm, Harry thought ridiculously as he woke up. He had the sudden feeling that it was going to be fun to open his eyes, that there was something amusing to watch, and struggled to do so. But his eyes were heavy and were partly stuck together, but then he knew that that was okay, that was normal, and someone was taking care of it. He felt something wet and warm sponge over his face, unsticking his eyes. He tried to open them, there was something for him to watch!, but it was too hard, and he settled back down, wishing he didn't have to miss it.
Harry woke up and forced open his eyes. A white, clean ceiling spun in circles above him. But that wasn't right, there was supposed to be something fun to see. He knew it would be that way, there was something fun going on. Harry closed his eyes again, and tried to concentrate on that feeling that there was something fun to see, and he wanted to see it.
He heard laughing first. It was a cackling, animal-like sound that he associated with hyenas at the hunt. He opened his eyes, remembering that he wanted to, though he wasn't quite sure why.
Then sight came, with its colors and shapes and movement all at the same time. The color was red and black and brown, and it was all mixing together and moving frantically around. He couldn't remember why he couldn't see before, but now he could, and that was good. He felt tall and proud and glorious, and he liked what he was seeing. He was seeing something good. But no, there was something wrong about it. Harry tried to look closer, to concentrate, because something didn't fit, and he didn't know what.
Red was fire, and a brown house behind it sat in the darkness. But no, the house was in the fire. But that was okay, that fit, houses could be in fire, what was wrong?
The laughter, the laughter was wrong. Laughter didn't match with burning houses. And his happiness, his happiness didn't fit either. He tried harder to understand.
And it clicked. It wasn't his laughter, it wasn't his happiness. He was Harry, and he didn't burn houses for no reason. That was someone else, someone else who didn't fit with anything in the world. That one whose laugh didn't sound like a hyena anymore, because hyenas were alive, and alive things could laugh, but that one was supposed to be dead. And he wasn't dead, he was Harry. Voldemort was supposed to be dead.
And then the world righted itself, and he could see.
Death Eaters were running around the house, laughing and calling to each other. They pointed and laughed and clapped each other's backs and Harry wondered how they recognized each other through the masks. They were everywhere.
Slowly Harry's vision turned and looked back at the house, now spitting flames meters above the roof. The scene then slowly shifted back toward the Death Eaters running through the village, and Harry figured out that he was seeing through Voldemort's eyes, and that the Dark Lord was turning his head. Death Eaters were running into houses together, and scrambling out, dragging muggle women and children by their hair. They were to be pushed into a pile in the middle of the town. They were in Barnton and the men were to be killed without further ado, Harry knew, though he didn't know when he'd learned it.
Harry watched a muggle woman scream and claw at her doorway as she was dragged from a brick-sided home. She was punched, but she didn't stop. Then Harry saw why; a wide-eyed, silent curly-blond-haired little girl was looking out from that doorway, one arm clamped over a little white My Little Pony like it was the most important thing in the world.
"HENTI!" The woman was screaming, kicking her limbs in every direction and pulling towards the house. "HENTI!"
Harry saw a stream of red light hit the woman, and her mouth clamped shut.
Harry pushed to try and escape through the Dark Lord's eyes, to appear at the scene so he could grab the woman and her child, and protect them while he wiped the scene clean of the monsters and their masks, but he didn't even feel anything to push against.
"Looks like you got yourself a screamer. You're a lucky one, Arsenius." A Death Eater called to the man dragging the now-silent woman.
"Nah, I'm for the silent crying type. Go grab the whelp, I'll bring her to the trees." 'Arsenius' replied.
Harry felt Voldemort's approval, felt his plans to raise Arsenius through the ranks. Harry wanted to throw up, wanted to wake up so he could puke the whole memory out of himself.
I'm asleep, Harry realized, and then he wasn't anymore.
A white ceiling spun around him. Harry tried to sit up to puke, but knew as soon as he tried that he wasn't going to make it. He couldn't even lift his head. Suddenly, his body was turned sideways, and his vision shifted to see a man-shaped blur sitting in front of him. Harry wondered if he was still in Voldemort's head, and then he was throwing up.
Harry tried to stay in the white room that was so soft, but he couldn't keep his eyes open.
He went back to a pile of bodies. Harry tried to find the woman that he'd seen but he couldn't. All he saw were arms and legs lying over each other like dirty barbies in a toy bin. It's hard to find faces in a pile of bodies, Harry learned. All he could see were the limbs. He wondered, with that thought, where that My Little Pony was, where the children were. There were no small limbs in the pile. Harry tried to close his eyes, but Voldemort was still staring at his success, so Harry couldn't stop either.
"What now, my Lord? The night is young." A Death Eater asked him, and Harry recognized the voice. Arsenius.
Harry felt a stirring of anger at the name.
Voldemort was pleased.
"You pick, Jugson." Voldemort replied. It was strange hearing that hiss of a voice surround Harry in his thoughts, detached from everything that he could see. Harry was almost overwhelmed by how helpless he was while looking through Voldemort's eyes. He couldn't do anything,he couldn't close his eyes or fight or get out.
"Thank you, my Lord is generous. I'd like to drop in on a town called Bandon, for a bit, my Lord." The man replied, bowing.
"Visiting Daddy?"
"Yes, my Lord, my Lord remembers well." Arsenius replied.
Not another town, Harry wanted to moan. He didn't want to see any more fire, or women. Harry tried to close his eyes, and was surprised by the darkness that surrounded him. The sounds and smells of Barnton were gone, replaced by clean air that Harry gasped into his lungs.
"Bandon, they're going to Bandon." Harry tried to scream at that swirling ceiling. It came out as a whisper that rasped into the clean air. Harry tried to yell for help, though it made his lungs scream, but his shout came out no louder than before.
Then he was back in Voldemort's head, too tired to stay awake in his own. Harry wanted to scream and kick and cry to go back to the white room, but he didn't have any body to cry with.
His vision was lurching forward, closer and closer to a small town. Everything was deceptively quiet. The Death Eaters had orders to chose a house and stand by it, quietly. They'd enter at once.
Harry wanted to run and hide when he focused on the masked figures walking in mass around him. They were perfectly silent, and organized beyond anything Harry had seen in the wizarding world. They went and walked through the town, splitting up together and walking down streets around him, and yet seemingly never thinning the crowd of them. There were simply so many dark robes and black masks that the eye lost count. The town streets were black with moving Death Eaters. It was a nightmare choreographed with the loud clicking of dozens of dress shoes on cobblestone streets.
Voldemort followed one of his Death Eaters up to a house this time. Harry didn't know how he'd survive watching such horror from up close. He prayed to wake up before they reached the house's ugly front porch.
The Death Eater rang the doorbell. Harry suddenly wanted to scream, when he heard the cheerful ring inside the home. Ding dong ding dong, diing dong diing dong. It seemed horrendously obscene.
Voldemort and Harry watched the lights flicker on one by one down the house. The Death Eater took off his mask, but Voldemort was behind him, Harry couldn't see anything but the short brown hair on the back of his head.
No!, Let me see the bastard, dammit! Harry fought to move Voldemort's body, to make that one step that would let him memorize Arsenius Jugson's face. He needed to see.
"Thank you for this chance, my Lord." The young man said as he knocked on the door three times.
Harry's vision tipped as Voldemort lightly nodded his head.
The door opened, and the gasp of a muggle brought Voldemort's head back up to focus on a man in front of him.
"Arsenius, what are you doing here?" The muggle man barked, sounding almost exactly like Vernon.
"Not even going to invite me in, Father?" Jugson drawled, before dipping his face down and replacing his mask. Jugson stood back up swiftly, the mask in place, and his whole image was different. He looked taller, proud, and dangerous now. Harry felt a shiver run through his thoughts.
Finished whatever sick act they'd waited for, Voldemort shot his Dark Mark into the air to begin the scene, and Harry felt the Dark Lord's wave of relief as the first screams started. No one would ever think of him as powerless again.
Harry had to watch it all, that time.
The children were left hanging from trees, he learned, and Harry wished he'd never wondered. It made him connected to it, somehow.
The Death Eaters cackled and sent wild spells at each other as they poured out of the village in force hours later. They all apparated away on Voldemort's orders.
The night was hauntingly silent afterward. Harry could hear the wind passing through the streets, but the fires barely crackled as it went by. Even the birds seemed to pass the time in vigil.
The fires were almost dead before Voldemort heard the popping sounds of Order members arriving too late. Harry heard Voldemort chuckle to himself, a proud, humorless sound that followed his throught that no one was even close to able to fight against him. Dumbledore was an old man, and he renewed in a restored body. The Potter boy was useless, just a symbol to be killed so those of little faith would return to him. Voldemort released his laugh again, and prepared himself to apparate.
The white ceiling wasn't spinning the next time Harry woke up.
Arsenius Jugson. Harry tried to speak as he woke, to ensure he'd remember the name. Instead he felt himself puking, and being turned to the side. Throwing up was good too, whatever he could do to get those sights and thoughts out of his head, everything but that name.
He needed to get out of the white room. Harry tried to lift his head, and started to raise it. He needed to leave, but as soon as his head left the pillow he could feel the energy pouring out of him, like water tipping out of the back of his head. He only made it up an inch before his head fell back, and by the time he made it back he didn't have the energy to keep his eyes open anymore.
So back to hell it was.
I can't do this forever, Harry thought as he opened his eyes and saw that he was no longer in the white room. But he would, Harry knew. He'd continue watching it forever if it meant he could wake up and whisper the information that would help take Voldemort down.
How many raids do they do in a night?
Harry woke up gasping names and crying.
"Fenrir, Nott, Rabastan Lestrange, Jugson, Jugson that bastard-" Harry started to cough and it felt like his lungs were trying to burst from his chest.
"He's awake." He heard a woman say over his coughing. A whooshing sound roared up and died down somewhere nearby. At first Harry thought the village fires had been restarted, until he realized he was in the white room, and there were no villages here.
He didn't get to stay there for long, and the Dark Lord somehow still wasn't done.
"Not back there, not back there!" Harry pleaded as he woke up again, even as he felt his vocal cords ripping in his throat..
Just let me stay in the white room, Harry thought desperately as a face made its way into his vision.
"You were an idiot to go there in the first place, Mr. Potter, I'm hardly inclined to make you do it again." A voice answered, coming straight out of the face above him.
Harry stared at the place in that face where the voice left, wishing he could understand that phenomena but too tired to think about it. He just wanted to sleep, why shouldn't he sleep? Harry knew he wasn't supposed to, but he couldn't remember any reason why he shouldn't, he was so tired..
"The villages!" Harry croaked as he remembered.
Don't sleep, no, no not back there, don't make me go.
Harry heard his thoughts plead again.
"Drink, Potter." A woman's voice told him. Harry didn't understand what that meant, there was nothing to drink, and he didn't want anything in his mouth after seeing-
Harry started to throw up and felt himself turned on his side in time. He felt a rough cloth enter his mouth and pull the taste out.
"Henti." Harry groaned, still remembering the curly haired little girl, despite the latest town he'd seen destroyed.
"Drink, Potter!" The male voice barked from somewhere above him.
Oh. There was a cold glass cup at his lips.
"It will help keep you here, Mr. Potter." A female voice came from beside him to explain.
Yes, yes, need to stay, not back there, no villages. White room, just stay in the white room.
"One would think after killing your Godfather, you'd put more effort into Occlumency, but I see you have reached a level of idiocy that not even death can influence." The male voice said with a tone like a smirk.
"Henti." Harry stated. He found that string in his mind that connected him to his personal hell, and pulled.