RECAP: Voldemort is able to possess Harry with a curse that goes around Lily's Love/Curse which is what had stopped Voldemort in canon from touching Harry. The curse itself is more deep rooted and more powerful in and of itself rather than what Quirrelmort went through. Quirrel had to willing accept Voldemort, there is no consent to what Harry is going through and his willpower alone is not enough. Additionally, the curse is an active structure, it isn't like what happened at the end Order of the Phoenix where Voldemort just tried to enter his spirit into an unprepared body. This curse is more than just will against will, as is the case with the imperius.
Harry is eighteen and is not good at meditation. I am a Buddhist and if anyone ever tells you meditation is 'easy' then they are either not doing it regularly or they are trying to sell you something. Between the curse and Voldemort's maze-like mental barriers, Harry simply does not have the skill or know how to free himself despite having the will and strength to be capable of it.
Like technically I have the capability to play the piano, that doesn't mean I can play Mozart if I practiced for a week.
KEYNOTE: Voldemort has been in Harry for about two weeks now and be aware that if Voldemort messed with Snape's memories he could have erased/change more than just that night as we see is possible when Kingsley changes Miss Edgecombe's memory in Dumbledore's office.
AN: I have been thinking of taking the Disorder of the Phoenix concept and doing a fulllength no-time-travel version of the prequel if people are interested? Likely, that would be after this story and if I brought them back to America I would wait to see what happens in the new movies.
Chapter 29 - The Curse of the Jellyfish
Voldemort was ravenously hungry and it took all of his pride not to tear into his food like the Weasley boy across from him.
Voldemort had gone to visit Luna Lovegood Sunday night.
It had been a mistake.
Harry hadn't raged or fought but his… his emotions had been more than Voldemort had wanted to handle.
Crushing sorrow.
Remorse.
Such remorse. It was nothing Voldemort had ever experienced before. He was the Dark Lord, he regretted nothing, not in his life at the orphanage not in torturing or killing anyone.
But Harry regretted many things. He even regretted killing Quirrell and for a million other trivial events that by Voldemort's estimation weren't even remotely Harry's fault.
Voldemort prodded the mental bubble the boy was in.
Leave me alone.
Why do you regret so much?
Harry did not respond and the boy was depressed enough that his thoughts were too sluggish for Voldemort to make meaning of.
Hermione touched Voldemort's hand gently. "How are you doing?"
Voldemort blinked at her. He wanted to ask why she cared.
Because she's our friend, Harry's thought whispered from within him.
Voldemort pulled away from that touch, but not harshly. "I miss Luna," he said.
It wasn't a lie. Voldemort did miss her, her smile, her silly laughter, the way she saw the world-
Voldemort shook himself. No those are Harry's feelings.
"You really love her," Hermione said in soft wonder.
Yes, I do.
In a pained voice, Voldemort asked, "Can we talk about something else, Hermione?"
The Mudblood nodded and launched into a conversation about charm theory.
It was a good conversation. Despite himself, Voldemort found himself enjoying her intellect.
As they made their way to potions Voldemort could not divide where his enjoyment in Hermione's company and where Harry's enjoyment in her company began and ended.
A thrill of panic went up Voldemort's spine. What if it wasn't Harry who would become Voldemort but Voldemort who become Harry?
To console himself, Voldemort spent the first ten minutes of class thinking nasty things about Hermione and about all the children he had killed in the past.
It was amazing how even words seemed to cause Harry anguish.
Severus gave Voldemort a few looks but Voldemort had been sure while erasing the traitor's thoughts that he had erased the notion that Voldemort might be inside of Harry.
It was of course, possible that Severus could come to the conclusion on his own once more, but the thoughts would be far more elusive than his normal reasoning.
That being said, Voldemort did nothing to draw attention to himself, which was normal Harry behavior in Potions class.
At lunch, Voldemort tried to eat less but found it impossible. He had three servings and Hermione, ever-watchful Hermione noticed, though she said nothing.
Please don't kill her, Harry thought, please, there are thousands of reasons you could give her to throw her off the trail, please don't kill her.
I thought you wanted someone to notice?
Harry shook his metaphysical bars, Not if it means putting her in more danger than she always is.
How impractical of you, Voldemort noted. You would save one person, over knowing what I could do to all of them?
Harry didn't so much think but feel an answer.
It was such a complex response that Voldemort almost tripped over his seat when he reached his Arithmancy class.
The emotions were a tangled mass, anger, sorrow, regret, determination, caring and something else altogether unfathomable.
You don't have an answer, do you? That's why you feel this way. You wouldn't be able to make the choice of saving one versus many. You would die trying to save them all even if that wasn't an option.
Any decent person would.
And how can you save anyone after your dead? Voldemort asked.
Astoria snapped at Voldemort, "Oi, loverboy, we have a test today so pull yourself together. I know you've been consoling yourself by acting almost as bonkers as Luna but we need you present today."
Voldemort glared at her. I hate your friends, he told Harry.
Harry rolled his imaginary eyes, she gets less friendly when she feels emotions. She misses Luna too, even if she will never admit it.
Foolish.
Harry snorted, it reminds me of your reactions over the last two days.
If one could glare at oneself without being able to see inside themselves, that's what Voldemort did.
"Harry?" the Bones girl said. "Are you okay? You look constipated?"
Harry's mood fluttered for a moment as he grinned at Voldemort who was trying to take measured breaths to keep calm.
Keep Calm and Carry On, Harry sang the muggle phrase at him.
Internal growl.
Sirius was sitting across from Amelia Bones, getting himself registered as an animagus. He had one foot resting on his knees and he was leaning back in his chair. He was happy as a clam.
The prospect of sitting in the Auror's Head Office without anyone trying to jump him was glorious. There meeting had been set for just after lunch on a weekday.
Sirius felt like he was top of the world.
"So, Sirius, what are your plans for rejoining the wizarding world?" Amelia asked.
He shrugged. "No plans really, I don't have to work."
"Won't you get bored?" she asked. Her tone implied clearly that she would be lost without her work.
"I have Harry," Sirius said cheerfully.
"Yes, but he's at school most of the time and then he will get a job."
"Hello Sirius," Kingsley said coming into the room with energetic Tonks behind him.
"Are you coming for a job application?" Tonks asked. Her hair was pink and she was lightly bouncing in place.
Sirius thought that Harry, Luna, and Tonks could be great friends one day. Well, of course, Tonks was family now. Andromeda had invited all three of them over for dinner and even Xenophilius over he wanted to come.
The thought sobered Sirius. Luna was still in the hospital, and Sirius hadn't heard from Harry in two weeks. Unusual but not unexpected. If Harry didn't reach out by the end of the week Sirius was going to pay him a visit.
"Sirius?" Tonks questioned. "Are you alright?"
Sirius shook his head like a dog shaking off water and sat up in his chair. "Yeah, I'm alright. And no I am not here to work for the ministry."
"He's getting his name printed for the dog collar we have picked out for him," Amelia said.
Kingsley laughed, "Better make sure he has all of his shots, too."
"Yes, ha ha," Sirius said with a smile, not the least perturbed about being the butt of a joke.
"It's a pity you punched Albus," Kingsley said suddenly, his smile falling.
"You punched Albus Dumbledore?" Amelia asked stunned. "Why?"
"He earned it, that's why," Sirius said back, crossing his arms. "And the only pity about it is me not doing it sooner and more often."
"It's a pity because," Kingsley said, "you might be able to solve one of our Hogwarts problems."
Sirius tilted his head like a puppy hearing the sound of a container full of treats being opened.
Kingsley couldn't help but grin, "What would you say to upsetting the Minister for Magic?"
Sirius's grin was positively wicked, "I'm in."
Voldemort had no idea what was going to happen. Harry's interpretation of the Weasley Twins' plans had been a general theory of chaos and the notation that it would be bigger and more impressive than what had happened in the last timeline.
But it was Voldemort who had to give the signal and whether Voldemort himself would have been involved in such schemes was rather irrelevant. If Harry were the one in control, he would do it and Voldemort was curious enough to play his part.
It was a good thing he wasn't a cat.
When Voldemort snapped his fingers under his desk, causing a paper airplane to shoot out an opened window at the exact the moment Dolores Umbridge sat down at her desk the bats from hell were released.
The bats in question were the textbooks which had transformed into flying harbingers of doom. Hurricane around the room they began to go after the students, gnawing on their arms with paper teeth. While the textbooks closest to Umbridge went for her face.
Pansy Parkinson stood on her desk and wailed, "We are all going to die!"
Followed by Theodore Nott, "The end is upon us!"
Quickly taken up by Neville Longbottom who put one foot on his desk and brandishing his wand, "Today is a good day to die!"
Hermione Granger's call was the last to be heard by everyone as she drew her wand, "Apply theory to action! By the power of books, we shall prevail!"
The rest of the class period quickly descended into a competition between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors to see who could ham up their 'battle' against the textbooks the most.
One student went the entire way of playing out his own death scene. Falling limp to the ground, though Voldemort could see him breathing he was nevertheless impressed the boy managed to keep his eyes unblinking and unfocused. Some students were pretending to cry under their desks, others were running back and forth with their arms flailing above their heads as they screamed, some were tugging helplessly at the 'locked' doors, and the students pretending to fight were yelling 'why doesn't the defense spells work!? I am only doing what the textbook said!" Voldemort among the latter group who were pretending to fend off the books with little beams of light.
All the students were screaming and yelling as the books' paper teeth 'bit' at them, though the books were quite harmless to the students. Only Umbridge was suffering from book slaps, paper cuts, a stolen shoe, and being forced to the ground under the furious pile of Defensive Magical Theory.
The most remarkable thing of it all was everyone stayed in character, no one smiled or laughed. They all pretended the danger was real. Things came to halt almost an hour past the end of class when someone outside the class had alerted one of the other professors to the mayhem going on.
Filius Flitwick had the jinxed books disabled with three flicks of his wand. The offending tomes falling with a unified thud to the ground, inert and harmless.
A disheveled Umbridge sat up from where she had been held to the ground, her face a mass of bleeding papercuts, and her hair in a state resembling that of a rat's nest. She began scrambling on her knees, pudgy ringed fingers sifting through the confetti around her, searching for her wand that had been knocked from her grasp.
Filius summoned her wand wordlessly.
She glared at him, "How dare you? Give me back my wand, Halfbreed!"
The students who had fallen silent at the Charms professor's entrance held their breath, which in the case of the student playing dead was an interesting visual effect.
Filius hung back, his eyes narrowing. "I shall be reporting this to the Headmaster."
"There is nothing to report!" Umbridge shrieked rising to her feet, "All of these students have detention one of them must have done it!"
Filius headed towards the fallen boy. "They've been attacked and you -as their professor, have failed to protect them. Shameful that the DADA professor couldn't fight past a simple animation jinx." He knelt by the fallen boy and said very clearly, "Rennervate."
Voldemort felt that no spell had been cast, Filius had just said the word. On cue, the fallen boy bolted up, as he rose he exclaimed, "I'm alive!"
There was a beat of silence and then the class erupted into cheers and hollers of victory. People, Slytherins and Gryffindors alike, hugged one another, some cried at surviving such a 'horrific' event. Hermione kissed Voldemort's cheek causing him to stumble away from her. His reaction was lost in the mob that sucked them in that had begun to chant "Professor Flitwick! Professor Flitwick! Our savior!" They trooped down to dinner with that chant, loud and laughing.
Umbridge was left in her empty classroom without a wand and with the remnants of textbooks that were shredded beyond repair.
"Mum?" Luna asked, "How can I feel that I've missed you so much when we've always been here? And we have always been here."
Forever and always.
Luna shook her head, her inter torso turning, causing her blonde curls to wipe out around her. They were not her words and they were not her mother's words.
Who else could there have said those words? Who else was there?
A wind blew across the land, bringing with it the sweet toasted smell of grass baking under a hot sun with the crisp smell that foretold the change is seasons. The wind seemed to rage, turning colder and the scent of rotting leaves invaded her senses.
With a ripple, the landscape boiled, melting from a grassy field to a forest of mighty trees.
Only they were on fire, well, not on fire exactly, the color of burning fire was captured in the colors of the leaves, like a trillion little paintings of white, gold, yellow, orange, and red flame.
Looking upwards, Luna felt lost in silhouettes of trees trunk and branches against a canopy of fiery light, spinning in a world that was entirely movement, no rest, it was-
Her mother's hand squeezed her hand, grounding her.
"Mum?" Luna asked, her voice quivering.
"What's wrong, my little moon?" she asked.
Luna's eyes filled with tears, "I can't remember."
"Remember what, dear one?" Her mother asked. Her blue eyes sparkled, her beautiful face shining with love, and her hair alight with the backdrop of a vivid autumn wood. Luna thought it must be how she looked, they did, after all, look very much alike though she doubted she would ever be as beautiful as her mother.
"I miss you," Luna told her, searching her mother's face for an echoing sorrow that she felt in her own heart.
But there was no sorrow in her mother's expression only a serene happiness and contentment. "No need to miss me, I am right here. All that you love, all that we love is right here."
But Luna knew, knew she was forgetting something. She licked her dry lips and voiced the growing unease in her chest, "I'm afraid."
The wind roared around them, the leaves began to chatter and shiver and rattle together. It sounded like it was pouring but it was the only conversation between wind and forest.
Forest.
The trees were bare and the light was dim.
Luna knew this forest, knew this day, and she ran forward, deeper between the tall trees looking for something that she could not see.
Her mother was suddenly in front of her, hugging her, holding her, hiding her.
Luna hugged her back.
Her mother whispered into her ear, "There is nothing to fear. If you stay with me you will never fear."
The wind raged around them. Luna clung to her mother and knew that her mother was the reason she was in this forest, knew that there was something that could not be seen without her.
But as the wind pushed and pulled at them, Luna had the impression of memory. In this forest she was not alone, but-
They were standing at the edge of the sea and she pushed out of her mother's arms.
Luna had to rescue the jellyfish. One by one she levitated them back into the ocean, for hours, for days, for weeks, until Luna knew only that there were jellyfish to be saved and it was her sole duty to send them back home.
AN: Please review?
