Forging Reality
by DitzyDizzyDessy101
Chapter 11
'AYO!!
I'm baa-aack! (Not that it was a long break, or anything
Not much to say today, other than:
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And Disclaimer: Wow. I'm so proud. sniffs I just added one sentence to this fanfic. And guess what—I own that sentence. It reads "I'm warning you, Padfoot!" That sentence is all mine! This whole fanfic is mine! However, Harry Potter is not mine. By the way... what do you think of my (MY!!) fanfic. Do you like it? Review!
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3
XX Angst-y Mood XX
"I give up!" Ginny yelled, violently throwing the dusty old tome across the Room of Requirement. "I swear, there's nothing useful in here!"
"Harry? Ginny? Did either of you hear about Mandlebrook's class?" Hermione asked mildly, as if Ginny hadn't just shattered the companionable silence and brutalized the ancient book.
"No, what about it?" Harry asked, looking up from the books scattered in front of him.
"It sounded like the other seventh years are following our lead," she announced with a touch of pride in her voice. "A couple more Gryffindors walked out on her this morning, according to Michelle, and it sounded like the Ravenclaws were planning on engaging her in a debate, to see if she has any idea what she's talking about."
"That's all good, right?"
"Yes, so far at least," Hermione answered, "It might get out of hand, though, especially because we don't know how the classes for the lower years are. If the kids are learning anything at all worthwhile, which they might be, then we don't want them to follow our example."
"Yeah, well, chances are we'll get a new teacher in the next few days, anyway, and things will settle down."
Silence resumed for another few minutes, as each studied their respective books, until Hermione asked,"Where did you get these books, anyway? They definitely weren't in the library; we scoured anything in there that looked even loosely related to time travel."
"That old bookshop in Hogsmeade," Harry answered, trying to sound as casual as possible, and trying not to since as Hermione looked at him suspiciously.
"With what money?"
"I—okay, fine, Ron and I stole them, but we'll return them tonight!"
She glared at him, but Harry was saved her reprimand as Ron loudly entered the room, calling, "Sorry I'm late; had trouble escaping from the Marauders."
He froze, taking in Ginny's frustrated scowl and the worn book she'd thrown, Hermione's accusing glare, and Harry's defensive and placating look.
He mock-sighed in a long-suffering way and checked his watch. "Whatever the argument is, can it wait 'til later? We've got the first Imperius lesson in a few minutes."
Harry shot him a grateful look, glad for the distraction, and the four hurried to class, getting there just as the bell rang.
Doon-di Daan-di Dun-di
"Attention!" The chiseled auror trainer barked, glaring at all of them in a manner that, Harry supposed, must have been very imposing. As he glanced at the faces around him—their expressions ranging from nervous to downright terrified—Harry assumed that his efforts were effective. Harry himself, however, just thought it gave the man an angry purple hue and a stupid-looking glare.
"You lot are here to learn some of the most advanced stuff there is, stuff that, when you get down to it, leaves even the loosest terms of magic and skill far behind." He glared at them, as if daring them to contradict him. "This sure isn't going be a picnic, and if that's what you're looking for, I suggest you scurry right on outta here."
The man's prestige and air of superiority had, at first, fascinated the crowd of fifth, sixth, and seventh year students, so strange was it when coming from a man who looked as though he'd been through a meat grinder (Harry had been strongly reminded of Mad-Eye Moody when he saw the missing arm, heavily scarred face, and only half of a grizzled beard).
That had been before, however, back when Dumbledore had introduced him to the school. Now, without any other teachers around, any airs that Professor Radon put on had evaporated, as if they had never been, and before them stood a man who didn't look like he would hesitate to brutally attack anyone who so much as blinked without his permission.
"Before long, you're going to hate me and everything I stand for, you're going to beg for a break, because trust me, there is no way a bunch of pathetic little babies like you lot can measure up to my standards."
About half the class seemed to shrink at his words, while the other half sat up straighter and looked determined, as if to prove him wrong.
"I can look around the room right now and count on one hand the number of you lot that'll have a chance at this, and even then you have a lot of work ahead of you."
"You're too scared," he growled at a wide-eyed fifth year, who yelped, proving his point.
"Too weak," to Lyssa, and Harry was dismayed to see that she looked close to tears.
"Too cocky." James started, glaring at him indignantly.
"Too spontaneous."
"Too relaxed."
"Too dumb."
"Too dependent."
"Too hesitant."
"Too tense."
"Too cheerful."
"Too confident." He had reached Harry and was glaring down at him. Harry schooled his face to keep from flinching, careful to meet the professor's gaze coolly.
Radon circled the room, shouting insults left and right, but when he reached Snape, he paused, silent for a long moment before he whispered, "But you... You might have a shot."
Snape nodded curtly, his face unreadable, and Radon wove through desks in silence until he was, once again, in the front of the room.
"Haven't the faintest idea why Dumbledore thinks you lot will be able to handle it, but the pay is good, so I'm not arguing. Anytime you want to drop out, do it. I've got enough to be getting along with without babysitting a bunch of crybabies."
He sat on his desk, scowling fiercely at them all. Harry stared right back, feeling his fellow time travelers and most of the class do the same. As minutes ticked by, however, the silence started to affect students one by one, infecting them like a disease. A fifth year fidgeted, a seventh year shifted her weight, Cassie tapped her foot.
Still, Radon didn't move, and neither did Harry, determined to wait it out. In fact, the intensity of the silence and the man's glare didn't bother him all that much, because he assumed there was a strategic reason—if nothing else, it was a perfectly effective battle of wills.
Five minutes turned into ten, then fifteen, twenty... Radon was stone still; so was Harry.
At last, when a full half-hour had gone, Radon nodded sharply at the class in general and stood.
"That's three of you," he grunted nastily, "Three of you fifty or so babies saw the challenge for what it was and rose to meet it. Three of you didn't fail. Just what," his voice rose in volume, sounding like a cross between a bark and a snarl, "does that tell you lot?
"You!" He barked suddenly at Frank, "What's your name?"
"Frank Longbottom, sir."
"And you?!"
"Severus Snape, sir."
"You?!"
"Harry Potter, sir."
"Listen up, you lot! These three are the only ones to pass the first test. As far as I'm concerned, they have a serious advantage, having proved themselves somewhat adequate in the first go. Now si'down!"
The class hastened to obey, and he slowly walked—almost stomped, really—behind his desk and sat down, propping his feet up and lounging backwards.
"Both the glory and the horror of the Imperius curse," he growled,"lies in the fact that the caster has complete power over the victim. Life or death, normality or betrayal or killing spree—it sure isn't a game, so the kiddie gloves go off, and stay off for every instant you spend in my presence.
"Your only hope, if you're ever subject to the Imperius, is to fight it—and I am here to teach you that near impossible task. Do I think any of you will succeed? Not a chance. Do I think you'll need to? Absolutely. So why am I here? Because sometimes, every once in a while, we get a miracle, and someone can think back on their training and, when they need it the most, put it to good use. And if that saves one more innocent person, then by golly I'll teach you all I know."
His coarse, hardened monologue enthralled the students as much as it terrified them, for at last they were presented with a view of reality that didn't try to protect them, didn't dare sugarcoat the atrocities that they knew occurred every day. For that, they loved Radon, at least for the time being. He was handing them the keys to a different world, and they hadn't yet understood how bleak and hopeless that world was.
"One of our first objectives is to teach you what's you and what isn't. You're going to explore your mind until you know every crook and cranny of it. Learn to distinguish your thoughts from someone else's. Then, you've got to learn good, solid, common sense. All throughout we're going to have arguments and debates, to get you to take a stand and never waver. Then, and only then, will you try your hand at fighting the curse, and if you do well enough, I'll continue training you until you've got a real fighting chance."
There was a moment of silence as he let them absorb his point, then the bell rang and he called after them, "But there will be time for all that later. For now, homework: write an essay on the way the mind, specifically yours, works. Two feet."
A mad rush for the door followed, but chatter was subdued. People threw their packs over their shoulders and, without meeting anyone else's eyes, bolted from the room. Only once they had crossed the threshold of the door did the babbling break out.
"Can you believe him?"
"Batty, I tell you!"
"Terrifying, though. When he looks at you..."
"What was the challenge? How do people win?"
"How are we supposed to know how the mind works?"
"Two feet?!"
A wry half-grin graced Harry's lips as he turned to his friends. "What do you think?"
Ron scowled, scuffing the ground. "I say we go with the original plan, with Harry as a teacher. This bloke's mad."
"He was kind of—disturbing—you know?" Ginny agreed. "And a right little ball of sunshine, huh?"
Harry laughed, but no one else did, so he stopped quickly. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing, not really," Hermione answered, exchanging a glance with Ron and Ginny, "But don't you think he's a bit, I don't know, ruthless? Like he's trying to drive us all out of his class?"
"I think he's brilliant," he said quietly, and truthfully, but before he could explain to their gobsmacked faces, the Marauders burst in from behind them.
"Yeah, you would!" Sirius proclaimed, clapping him on the back. "The dude loved you."
Harry flushed, glaring at him. "It had nothing to do with—"
"Sure it didn't," James said, winking at him.
"Just listen for a second! It was like—like he's making the entire class a battle of wills. The staring contest was just the beginning, and he keeps being a complete git because he knows that anybody serious about learning how to fight the curse is going to try that much harder to prove him wrong. It's really...genius."
"What about all that about 'none of you have a chance'?" Remus challenged, but he seemed honestly curious all the same. "What about tearing us all apart like that? Lyssa looked like she was going to cry."
Harry winced, but just barely. "He was harsh, sure, but it's a mindset problem that he's trying to correct. One, it gives people something to work with to improve, and two, learn to take the things you hear with a grain of salt."
"So it's like he said!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly, comprehension dawning. "That we've got to sort out ourselves from other people, our opinions from his."
"Exactly."
"How do you know all this?" Sirius demanded, grinning wickedly.
"Yeah, you're not a mind-reader or anything, are you?" James asked.
Harry rolled his eyes, but before he could protest, a hand clasped his shoulder from behind. He spun around, drawing his wand, but when he saw that it was Professor Radon, he relaxed marginally.
"Sir?"
"Potter, would you join me in my office for a few moments?"
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. As brilliant as the man might be, Harry had no reason to trust him, and Radon's genius made him all the more dangerous. He felt the eyes of his classmates on him and, stowing his wand but not relinquishing his grip on it, he said, "Yes, sir."
He followed the man back into the classroom and through a small, unassuming door off to the side. As he stepped into the room, nerves taught and on full alert, he blinked as the lights flickered on, squinting to see in the sudden brightness.
"Si'down," Radon ordered, kicking a chair towards him but making no move to sit himself.
"I'll stand, but thanks."
Radon raised his eyebrows, but didn't protest. "Why are you in this class?"
Harry started. "What do you... I want to learn to fight the Imperius."
"Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not!" However honest he tried to sound, he shifted uncomfortably before he realized what he was doing, and he saw Radon focus in on the slight movement.
"Imperio!" Radon snarled suddenly, and before Harry could dodge or duck, it struck him full on.
The familiar feeling of false peacefulness washed over him, and for a moment he was free, floating, dreaming—but then he remembered and his anger fueled him to overthrew the curse almost instantly.
"What do you think you're doing?!" He demanded, but Radon's expression twisted into a satisfied smirk.
"I repeat: why are you in my class?"
Caught and without an excuse, Harry stared dumbly at him, but then the door crashed open and they both spun to face it.
"Harry!" Ron shouted, bursting in with his wand drawn, Hermione and Ginny right behind him.
"What's wrong?" Harry asked, heart quickening as he snapped into action mode.
"'What's wrong?!'" Hermione shrieked, "You go off in a room with him," she jerked a thumb at Radon, "and we hear yelling—you tell me what's wrong!"
Harry slowly let out the breath he'd been holding, lowering but not putting away his wand.
"He tried to put me under the Imperius," he answered as calmly as possible, ignoring his friends' sharp intakes of breath and glares, "and at the time I thought he was attacking me, but then I realized it was just to prove a point."
"And what was the point?" Ginny asked through clenched teeth, her face pale and her wand still trained on the professor.
Radon, bemused, also had his wand raised, and pointed it at each of them in turn.
"Somehow," Harry explained, "he knew that I could overthrow the Imperius, and he was trying to prove that he knew. I just wanted to know how he knew."
They looked sharply at Radon, who was staring at each of their wands in turn, weighing his options. Four to one, Harry knew, and Radon knew, were bad odds, especially when the professor had no idea of their skill level.
Harry knew they had won when Radon sighed, defeated, and started to justify himself. No one lowered their wand.
"At first, it was nothing more than a hunch. I always pay more attention to anyone who passes the tests, especially the first one, because they tend to be the most promising. But Potter... I listened to his explanations of my actions, and frankly, they were right on the money. But more than that, they sounded like he knew what it was like to be under the curse and what it took to fight it."
He eyed Harry, like he was a unique specimen in a science lab to be scrutinized under a microscope.
"My first thought was that he had taken the class before, or had known someone who had, but he spoke with firsthand knowledge, so I knew he had actually accomplished throwing the curse off."
They were silent for a long while after this revelation, until he growled, "Care to tell me how?"
"Long story, actually," Harry said at last, settling for a partial truth, "But we had this teacher—tutor, I mean—who was paranoid and thought we all should be familiar with the Unforgiveables, because he figured, what with the war, we would have to face them at some point."
Radon nodded in agreement, and Hermione said, "Then he got the idea that we should know what the Imperius feels like, for the same reasons. He cast in on each of us, and Harry fought it a little."
Radon's gnarled eyebrows shot up, and he studied Harry with new respect in his eyes. "And then he taught you? Yes, that would explain it..."
"No," Harry said, feeling uncomfortable under the hard gaze, "He cast it on me a few more times, until I could throw it off completely."
"Impressive. A natural..."
Harry shrugged noncommittally, avoiding his friends' eyes. "Is that all? Can we go?"
Radon nodded, but his keen expression never wavered, and they left the room.
Doooggi!
As soon as they were far enough away and knew they weren't being followed, they all took several deep, shuddering breaths.
"He gives me the creeps," Ginny stated, shivering a little.
"Come on," Ron said, his voice shaky, "Let's go catch up with the others. They'll be wondering where we are."
They finally found the Marauders down by the lake, beneath a tree that Harry and his friends had spent many an afternoon in their own time underneath. Long before they were close enough to be in regular earshot, the wind blew the sounds of raised voices their way.
"I hate this!" Sirius yelled, half-crazed and glaring, not at his friends, but at the wide expanse of lake and mountain and sky, and the wind whipped his words back towards them. "Why the war? The pain? The despair? I hate having to look over my shoulder—always wondering if the next breath I take will be my last, if the next person I see is a Death Eater in disguise!"
Remus said something soothingly, way too far away to hear, and Sirius slumped, as if defeated, against the tree. James then must have said something funny, because he and Remus and Peter laughed (although it looked a bit forced), but Sirius remained stony-faced and scowled darkly at them.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny exchanged glances, knowing the feeling all too well, and hurried towards them.
"Hey guys," Ginny said when they reached the Marauders, sounding so genuinely casual and cheerful that Harry almost forgot it was forced, "What's up?"
James grinned unconcernedly at her, ruffling his hair lightly with a swipe of his hand. "Not much. Sirius is just in a rather angst-y mood—he's got the whole 'I am a rebellious teenager, I hate the world and the world hates me' thing going on."
"James..." Ginny reproached slowly, exchanging a look with the others, but Remus beat her to it.
"Careful, Prongs, or he'll add tragically misunderstood to the list."
"Yeah, well, don't I have that right?" Sirius sulked, still propped up against the tree, "If there's ever a time to feel like the world is out to get you, wouldn't it be when you're in the middle of a war and you're on the top of your own parents' list of enemies?"
"How literally are we talking about?" Ron asked lightly, in a brave attempt to cheer him up, "Because for a war, these grounds are awfully quiet..."
"And if we're talking about an actual list," Harry added with a grin, "then give me a minute with your parents, and I guarantee I'll be higher on the list than you."
The time travelers laughed, and Harry reveled in the laughter, the utter normality of it. Tuning back in to reality, however, he saw only the looks of uncertainty and apprehension on the Marauders' faces.
He stopped laughing.
"Something wrong?"
"I—not really, but that's kind of morbid, don't you think?" James said, sounding ill at ease, "Not really a laughing matter."
Harry shrugged. "I take my amusement where I can get it." Then he grinned, "I'm rather notorious for getting the wrong people to hate me."
They didn't grin back—didn't look even the slightest bit amused—and Harry felt his smile falter.
He shrugged again, trying hard to seem nonchalant. "Maybe my sense of humor is a bit skewed, but at least they're with me." He jerked a thumb toward Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, as if to further prove his point.
An awkward silence settled over them, during which the Marauders continued to stare uneasily at them, until Hermione said, her voice a few octaves higher than normal, "So what brought about the depressed mood in the first place, Sirius?"
"Wha—? Oh! Oh, yeah. Lot's of stuff, actually. I mean, just the fact that we need lessons for throwing off the Imperius in the first place shows how bleak a place this world is, and then we've got Radon shoving it in our faces like that..."
He trailed off, looking at them directly and staring at them with a hardened, intensified curiosity, as if determined to bore a hole through them.
"I left home before sixth year," he said flatly, "My parents practically chased me out with their love for the dark arts, and blood purity, and all that rot. There were only two weeks left of summer, and the Potters' took me in, and this past summer I rented my own flat in Diagon Alley."
Harry only nodded for him to continue, and Sirius seemed almost puzzled by the lack of response.
The story went on. "So then, I was on my own, with nothing but my friends, a handful of galleons, and my belief that blood shouldn't matter and the killing has to stop. And every day, when I went off in the Alley, I was astounded because everyone was so scared and suspicious—of me, of strangers, of their friends, of their own shadow! What happened to make the world so hopeless?"
Sirius was working himself into a state, his voice rising in desperation, and no one seemed to know what to say to reassure him.
At long last, Hermione said, her voice once again much too high, "Sirius? Do you know what Harry's boggart is?"
He neither answered nor moved, and although Harry wished she could have left something so personal out of it, he kept quiet and Hermione pressed on.
"It's a dementor, and for a long time, we thought that meant that he was most afraid of fear itself. I don't think that's what it means, though; I think it means he's afraid of despair."
Sirius turned to face her, his face unreadable, and her voice strengthened.
"A dementor is stopped by the Patronus Charm, which is fueled by focusing on a happy memory. It's our happiness, our memories of good times, that drives away the despair."
"But it's more than that," Harry protested quietly, but he wasn't sure if he was talking to Hermione, Sirius, or no one at all, "Because just happy memories aren't always strong enough. I don't even use them, not anymore. I picture my friends, the people worth fighting for and living for, and that's much more powerful than, I don't know, my first time on a broom."
Dum-Dum-Dum-Diddi-um
"Oy! Harry! Over here!"
Harry turned around and saw the Marauders and Ron beckoning from the top of the dormitory stairs.
"What's up?" he asked when he was close.
"PRANK PLANNING!!" Sirius and James chorused loudly, and Remus hissed for them to shut up.
"We want to catch our targets by surprise, remember?"
"No one heard us, Mooney!" James said, "That's why the Common Room is so great—everyone's too caught up in their own conversations to care what we say."
Sirius told Harry, "I just had the greatest—"
"Hey!"
"Okay, fine, James just had a somewhat good idea for a prank—"
"I'm warning you, Padfoot!"
"But it's a bit tricky to pull off," Remus finished loudly over James and Sirius spontaneous wrestling match. "So we thought we could use some help. You in?"
Peter and Remus looked at one another, nodded, and gave both James and Sirius (still wrestling) hard pushes to send them tumbling down the stairs, then turned to Harry for a response.
"Sounds good! Let's get Ginny too, though, she'd hate to be left out. And we might as well ask Hermione, because on the off chance that she decides to help, she'd no doubt know a bunch of spells to make our job easier."
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