KEYNOTE: Most characters, even characters who are friends of the Potters are going to assume Harry is Fleamont's bastard son. It isn't mean, just that half siblings are more likely to look alike than cousins/uncles.
Chapter 13 - This One
That there were inferi on the outside of his cave did not bode well. They were animateless rotting flesh, cut off from the magic of the cave. But they were fresh, still wet from the lake they had crawled out from. He could find no trace of who had opened the stones, not on either side of the entrance.
The basin was dry when he got to the island.
Two of his horcruxes gone.
Voldemort bowed his head, a simmering pit of rage pooling in his gut. His hands fisted at his sides, his ring biting into his fingers where he had placed it not hours ago. He raised his face to the darkness and let the magic in him rage. He roared at the ceiling, for the pieces of his souls he had lost, for the enemy he did not know.
No one heard him. But they would. And whoever was behind this would pay.
Would pay with more than just their blood and sanity.
He would take everything from them.
Including their soul.
Harry was in Transfiguration when it happened. By force of will alone he managed not to scream. But he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.
He had felt pain from his scar before, but somehow this was worse. It was as if Voldemort wasn't just holding his scar, but as if his entire body had become a tuning fork for his power.
Voldemort, it seemed, was far more powerful here than he had been in Harry's time. Which made sense, he still had his original body in this reality.
"Harry," Ted whispered, "Are you alrig-"
Harry's answer was falling out of his seat, his entire body twitching as if he were being held under the cruciatus curse. It didn't quite hurt that badly, but…
"Harry!" several voices shouted.
He was suddenly surrounded by people. He wanted to tell them to give him space. He couldn't focus on their faces, so they were just a blur around him. Had his glasses fallen off? His breathing grew more shallow and he wondered how long until he passed out. The edges of the world were darkening…
A cool hand touched his forehead, and it was as if a switch had been thrown. No pain, no foreign magic, and none of Voldemort's emotions.
He slumped on the floor panting, trying desperately to get a hold of himself. He blinked back tears and though he couldn't see the features of the face hovering above his, he could make out the color of her flaming hair and her green eyes.
He wasn't sure what he would have said or done next, because his mother removed her hand from his scar and the pain and fury came rushing back.
When his eyes began to roll back into his head, he didn't fight. He let the unconsciousness sweep him away into sweet, blissful, quiet darkness.
"What's wrong with him?" James demanded from McGonagall who had sent Ted and Remus to go get Madame Pomfrey. They were all afraid to move him because no one knew what had caused it.
"It looked like something was using the Cruciatus Curse on him," Sirius said.
It was suddenly hard to swallow, and James looked down at the boy who could have been his twin brother. A sheen of sweat gleamed on his too pale skin, his bloodless face was made worse by the violent shade the red his scar had turned. Harry's breathing was shallow, and his eyes were slightly parted showing the whites of his eyes, and every now and then, his body would twitch in some involuntary movement of pain.
It was like the Kelpies all over again, only this time James knew him. Or at least knew him better. Sirius had been right about him from the start.
Harry was a good person, and whatever this was, he didn't deserve it.
James looked to the side to see Lily, and for once he wasn't jealous of the concern on her face. He took her hand and squeezed her hand as he said, "He'll be alright, Lils." He had to be alright.
She squeezed back, almost clinging to his hand, "What happened?"
It was the same question Madame Pomfrey asked as she came into the room, shewing everyone back. She scanned his body with various spells. Ted Tonks watched her every move like a hawk.
"What happened to him?" Sirius demanded, his voice sounding panicked.
Pomfrey looked up to meet McGonagall's worried gaze. The Healer's normally stoic face when she was examining a student had cracked, her expression looked highly disturbed.
"Class is dismissed," McGonagall said abruptly, "Everyone, out of Madam Pomfrey's way. Mr. Potter, if you would not mind fetching the Head Master?"
James darted out of the room, running as if his life depended on it. He didn't know what was happening, and he had the sinking suspicion that neither did the adults.
"Can you describe what happened again, Minerva?" Albus asked.
She sighed but repeated, "One moment he was focusing on his spellwork, the next thing I know he is falling to the ground as if he was being tortured. Albus, it honestly looked as if he was being held under the Cruciatus Curse."
Poppy was lost in her own thoughts and had yet to respond to their questions. She was staring at the boy's head as if she could see through it and read the answers scrawled onto his flesh.
"Lily Evans touched his forehead and it stopped, whatever was happening, stopped. But the moment she lifted her hand it seemed to start again and he passed out."
"And that is perhaps the most curious of all. Had it been the Cruciatus Curse that would not have happened."
"Unless they hadn't wanted to risk hitting her."
"Which is certainly a theory."
"No," Poppy said, speaking for the first time since Albus had entered the room. They had sent James and his friends away.
"No," she said.
"What happened to him?" Minerva demanded, her voice harsh, showing how concerned she was.
All the staff seemed to adore the boy. And who wouldn't? The boy was as talented as his brother was without the taste for trouble, although he did seem to get hurt often.
Poppy ran her fingertips over his forehead, brushing back the wild black curls. "He said his mother had been killed by a dark lord, didn't he?"
"What of it? Poppy, just tell us what's happened to him?" Minerva pressed.
"This scar," she summoned a cool cloth and laid it across his forehead. "It reeks of the Dark Arts. I don't know how I missed it, I don't know how the healers at St. Mungo's missed it. Such an old scar -I can only say if it wasn't inflamed now, I wouldn't have known to look. Someone… someone tried to hurt him, badly, but they failed and left something behind. I can't tell what -exactly, but I saw something similar in my training."
"Can you remove it?" Minerva asked.
Albus stood, lifting the cloth back to take a look himself.
"Theoretically, but-"
His scanning spell told him what Poppy was about to say before she got the words out, "Not without killing him."
"What is it?" Minerva asked, as if by asking enough times the answers would suddenly present themselves.
"It's alive," Albus said, letting his magic glide over the boy's aura, "It's ingrained itself in him -this, this is ritualistic magic. I doubt even if we could find the original ritual we could not undo what was done, this is old magic-"
The boy's aura repelled his search spell, not violently, but enough so that Albus let his spell drop, "-wild magic. Tampering with this, would almost certainly kill him."
"What would kill him?" Euphemia asked in a voice of steel as she strode into the room, Fleamont and Pomona having to nearly run to keep up with.
They explained to the worried guardians what they knew, and Euphemia asked the next natural questions. "So why did he collapse today? Why was he in pain? And how do we keep it from happening in the future?"
No one had an answer for her. At least, not a good answer.
When next Harry opened his eyes, it was to the glaring rays of the morning sun. He groaned as the light poked at his retinas, he squeezed his eyes shut, and winced at the smarting pain his forehead.
His only thought was that he hoped that this younger, more powerful, more dangerous Voldemort had felt the connection they now shared yet.
Defeating the Dark Lord had suddenly been attached to a time schedule, because it had just become very clear to him, that when Voldemort did find out about him -which he undoubtedly would, Voldemort would destroy him.
From miles and miles away, he could tear through Harry's mind like a lit match in a haystack.
Now would be a good time to learn Occlumency, but he had low hopes that he would be any better at that now. Time travel had changed a lot of things, his effort and interest in school, his home life, his outlook on life, but it hadn't changed his base skills. And Harry just wasn't any good at the 'mind arts.'
"Harry," a gentle voice asked from beside his hospital cot -which he couldn't see but was familiar enough to recognize. "How do you feel, son?"
He turned to that voice and said, "Grandma," only his throat was so dry the sound didn't really make it past his throat. He coughed violently, sitting up to better catch his breath.
He was choking on the freaking air.
"Drink this, dear," his grandmother commanded, pressing a glass of water with a straw into his hands. She was sitting on the cot now, rubbing his back.
He held his breath and swallowed as much water as he was able.
"Slow down, Harry, slow," this from his grandfather who had joined in on rubbing his back.
Harry took several deep and even breathes, letting himself relax into the parental touch on his back. He was sure it had happened before, at some point, but at that moment, it felt like the first time somewhere cared enough offer such wordless comfort.
"Can I have my glasses, please?" he asked, hating the depthless haze of light and shadows in front of him.
Fleamont offered them and he put them on gratefully.
"Harry," Euphemia began, "do you remember what happened?"
He nodded, not at all wanting to speak. He didn't want to lie to them.
"Do you know why it happened?" Fleamont asked.
A sliver of the Dark Lord is in my head because he murdered my parents -your son, when I was a baby. But I magically survived the Killing Curse and now have a hotline to Voldemort's emotions and mind.
Aloud he answered, "It happens sometimes, but I don't know why."
It was a lie, and the reason why it had happened had been completely his fault. But telling his guardians that he had snuck off school grounds to look for dark artifacts in a cursed cave in the attempt to take out a Dark Lord, probably wouldn't have gone over well.
"Harry," Fleamont began gently, "the night your mother died… could you tell us again what you remember, please?"
"Screaming," Harry said shortly, "and green light."
"Green light that killed your mother," he said slowly. "Do- do you remember what spell the wizard used against you?"
He could have lied, but Harry had told Andromeda the truth, and if one person knew… well, it was easier to omit than to tell a straight lie that he might forget later on.
"Green light."
The look Fleamont gave him showed that beneath the friendly businessman, jolly husband, and doting father was a very sharp mind.
Euphemia suddenly hugged Harry tight, catching him off guard so that he hesitated before hugging her back. "You're ours now, Harry. We will protect you, I swear it."
"We swear it," Fleamont said, joining the hug.
They were both huggers. Harry hugged them back, tightly, and couldn't help thinking that they had it turned around.
It was Harry who would protect them. He had been sent back in time with the knowledge and the upper hand. He would do anything to keep this family safe. So what if he died? With a little bit of luck, he might be able to ensure a future where his parents could grow up and have multiple kids, where his grandparents might get to be great-grandparents, where- the list was endless.
Harry would do whatever it took to protect them.
He swore it to himself, to the bloody universe.
For the next week, Lily, James, and Sirius were insufferable to be around.
"If one of them asks me one more time about how I am, I'm going-" he ended with a growl.
Ted smiled indulgently, but his eyes were solemn as he scanned Harry over with an assessing look.
Harry couldn't complain, well he could complain, but he was just grateful Ted didn't voice his concern. While his little episode in Transfiguration had certainly been the worst Harry had experienced since his touch-off with Professor Squirrel, Ted had seen bits of the show before.
Harry had taken to soundproofing his four-poster, but Ted still woke each time he got up to use the loo or take a shower. And he knew what Ted saw, observant, would-be healer that he was, saw Harry's sweaty, shaking, and sometimes unstable state. Sometimes it was just dreams -nightmares of his parents and other memories, but mostly, it was the intense riding of Voldemort's emotions amplified from his greater power.
The other Hufflepuffs kept their distance from Harry now. They weren't rude or anything, but where they had once seemed open to building a friendship with him, now they were just pleasant acquaintances.
Harry sighed and flipped his bag open and pulled out his stack of books. Lovingly putting the extended Fantastic Beasts tome to the side to start his Charms essay. He looked up briefly and caught sight of Andromeda browsing a stack a few tables away from them.
He looked away before she caught him staring at her -again.
Ted elbowed him, "Are you going to moon over her forever. James might be a pathetic puppy begging at Evans' heels, but at least he actually talks to her."
Harry flushed, "It's not like that."
"Please, Potter. I'm not blind, and she certainly isn't. Make a move already, she won't say no."
He looked at him sharply, "Did she say something?"
Ted grinned at him, "No, but is there something you would like to share?"
He shook his head, pulling out some parchment from his pack.
"Oh, come on," Ted mock whined, his voice low to not attract the unwanted attention of the librarian. "Something happened last week. I've known Andromeda since I was a first year, and she's never looked at anyone the way she looks at you now. What changed?"
"Nothing," Harry said flustered, trying hard not to remember the feel of Andromeda's lips on his, trying not to wish to do it again with more accommodating surroundings.
"You're lying," Ted sang, his tawny eyes sparkling with humour.
Harry looked at him, and was suddenly reminded of Nymphadora. He couldn't pursue Andromeda, not if it meant undoing the cheerful Auror's existence.
Abruptly, Harry asked, "Don't you love her?"
He huffed, "Didn't we tell you already? There is noth-"
"I'm not blind either, Ted. I am not getting in between whatever you two have. I just can't."
Ted shook his head, "They aren't joking when they say loyalty can be a fault, were they? Harry, listen to me; I do love Andromeda. Merlin knows, I do. I would do anything for her, anything. But I don't love her romantically. Dromeda is family, and I don't want to date her. Besides, however I look at her, certainly isn't the way your eyes -undress her."
Harry's face went bright red, flustered, he protested, "I don't-"
Ted laughed, and Pince popped around her cart and shushed him.
"I don't do that," Harry whispered low once she retreated back into the stacks like a spider, how such a petite woman could invoke so much menace into a shush was a mystery.
"Harry, there is nothing wrong with liking a beautiful woman. A little suicidal, seeing as she's a Black and you will have to deal with her family, but you're a Potter, half-blood or no, legitimate or no, her family isn't going to smite you on the spot if you ask her out on a date."
Did Horcrux hunting in a cursed cave count as a date?
But the kiss they shared, as amazing as it was for him, he knew she had only kissed him to keep him from getting them both killed. Which wasn't personal, it was survival.
Harry felt his shoulders slump, even if he took Ted at his word, and if he could live with himself for preventing Nymphadora from being born, the chances of Andromeda actually being interested him were pretty slim.
She looked at him because she wanted to know what he had done with the Horcruxes, because she wanted to know his secrets -like where the Chamber of Secrets was, but she wasn't interested in him as a person. That was pure fantasy.
"Just drop it," he said, even to his own ears he sounded morose. "It is going to happen."
"Potter, your face is an open book, give yourself some credit. There isn't a girl in this school who wouldn't be slightly titillated to get your attention."
"Titillated?" Harry asked, amused, unable to picture that word with Andromeda Black.
"Titillated." Ted's voice was firm as he said, "You see the way girls fawn over James and Sirius, and aside from a few missing inches, you are just as good looking as they are."
"No, I'm not. Proof and point, no one fawns over me."
"Of course not, you're not an outrageous flirt. You're too polite, the good boy. No one knows what to do with you. Every girl who comes up to ask you out ends up asking for help on some assignment or talking about the weather. You give them those big blue eyes and earnest expression, and they simply can't find an opening to ask you something intimate."
"That isn't true."
"Potter, you are the Virgin Mary of wizards."
"Excuse me?" Harry asked, half smiling. It was one of those rare moments that he had heard someone in the wizarding world reference muggle religions outside of 'dear God.'
"You heard me, you are clean. Squeaky clean. You're so pure no one ever assumes the worst of you."
A thousand memories crossed Harry's mind.
Kill the spare. My son!
The taste of Arthur Weasley beneath his fangs.
He shook his head and looked down at his hands.
The feel of Quirrell's face melting, burning beneath his hands.
The words I must not tell lies, permanently scarred onto the back of his hand.
He stood up, grabbed his bag, and began shoving his books back into it.
"Harry," Ted started, sounding worried, "Harry, wait, I'm sorry. Wait-"
But Harry was already leaving.
Of all the things he was or wasn't, clean wasn't among them.
Ted let him go, brilliant friend that he was, he knew when Harry needed space, even if he had terribly misjudged where he sat on the morality measure.
After all, Harry was planning to murder a man -evil or no, it would still be murder, and if he hurt people along the way -like Crouch Jr. who had been committed to a wing St. Mungo's, so be it. Harry wouldn't let anything stop him from taking Voldemort out.
No, he wasn't clean, or innocent. He squeezed his hand, the words on his hand feeling like a brand, an accusation.
He was a liar.
After all, he didn't even have blue eyes, he was green eyed -like his mother.
It took Andromeda a whole week to corner Harry on his own. Every time she caught his gaze, he would look away, flustered. It was adorable -and irritating.
She never thought it would be this hard to seduce someone with this little experience. And he was inexperienced, he had none of his brother's ego, and none of Sirius' swagger. He wasn't even as comfortable in his own skin as Ted, yet Harry Potter managed to escape her grasp every time, like a fish in a river.
Of course, there was one haunt she knew she could snatch him in. Too bad the owlery wasn't much more romantic than a cave.
He nearly jumped out of his when she touched his shoulder, the letter had been about to tie to his Snowy Owl's leg fell to the ground.
She didn't give him time to think, to evade her. She was impatient, and his complete avoidance of her had given her time to decide, that yes, she did wish to pursue him. The handsome boy, with a thousand and one secrets, and enough magical power to make any girl go weak in the knees.
Her lips caught his, and he stopped pulling back. He kissed her with fervor as if he were trying to remember or outdo their first exploration.
His mouth wasn't dry this time, and he tasted like apple pie and pumpkin juice. When she pulled back, she was very pleased to see his dark blue eyes a bit dazed.
"Hello, Mr. Potter," she purred.
"Hi," he said a bit weakly, "Er, Andromeda, this is my familiar Hedwig, Hedwig this Andromeda Black."
Andromeda met the owl's amber gaze, and for a moment it felt as if the little feathered creature could read not just her mind, but her heart and soul.
Hedwig nodded at superiorly, and Andromeda couldn't help but feel as if she had just passed some impossible test. It left her feeling a little flat-footed.
In the time this took, Harry managed to compose himself, because he asked suddenly, "How are you at transfigurating roosters?"
She looked away from the bird to him sharply, "What?"
"Roosters. Hagrid's are all too young at the moment. I've been trying to transfigure an adult for the last week and I can't get mine to caw."
She was felt so confused. "Why? What do you need a rooster for?"
He smiled at her, mirth shining in his dark gaze. And suddenly Andromeda felt as if her being a Black wasn't something that would phase this boy. That perhaps anyone short of being a Black, simply wouldn't be able to keep up with this one.
AN: Please, review with your thoughts and reactions?