Book Three

Harry Potter, all related characters, and the original Harry Potter narrative are properties of J. K. Rowling.

Chapter 17
The Fear

Harry shook his head, trying to anchor himself back in reality.

That was reality, fool.

Over a score of his fellow students were gathered around him, most with expressions of concern. Harry checked himself - he was sprawled at the base of an elderly Yew, one of several that had been planted during the Age of the Founders. Lavender was still staring from the sixteenth floor of the Divination Tower; Harry could see her hair hanging from the window, still quite attractive even in the stillness of the afternoon.

"Is he hurt?"

"Just jumped from the tower, the daft-"

"-always doing crazy stuff like that."

"Threw up a shocker of a cloud when he landed, eh?"

"HARRY!"

Harry leveraged himself up to see Ron running from the castle, arms flailing wildly.

"Bloody hell, mate, are you insane?"

The students began to disperse, recognizing that this was merely one more in a long line of crazy stunts by the Potter boy. Harry noticed Ginny standing at the back of the crowd, glaring at him.

"Er, no, I think I'm alright," Harry assured the few students who had stuck around. "Thanks."

Ron stomped to a halt in front of him. "You jumped out a window to escape a conversation, Harry!"

Harry shrugged.

"You- just- ghaaa." Ron glared at him, adding to the force of the red scare currently trying to topple Harry's composure. "Are we going to have to explain girls to you, Harry?"

That could be useful knowledge, Cynicism jibed.

Shut up. "No," Harry replied, Engorging a nearby stick and hauling himself to his feet. Er, foot. "Excuse me."

Ron moved to block Harry's path, obstinately failing to realize that Harry had more important things to do than be lectured. "You're-"

"I need to talk to Ginny, Ron," Harry growled. He'd been putting it off, ever since the Incident with Clive Warrington.

Understanding quickly dawned on the lanky redhead's face, and he swung to one side like a narrow door, inviting Harry to take responsibility for other people's emotions.

Harry pushed himself forward, feeling that same strange anxiety that had just prompted him to jump out a window.

Cut it out, he told himself.

Not me, Cynicism insisted. I've never felt fear talking to women.

Ginny was only a few meters away. Harry slowed himself, not wanting to run her over.

I'm serious, Harry warned. He wasn't sure what he could do to back up such a warning, but sandbagging had worked fairly well against other mysterious evils in the past.

He felt Cynicism winding in on itself, in the mental equivalent of an exasperated sigh. Honest, I've got no idea what you're feeling. My experiential memory -

"Well?" Ginny interrupted, looking rather impatient. Harry realized he'd been floating in front of her for nearly twelve seconds.

"Er, sorry," Harry began. Ginny started tapping her foot, displaying further impatience. "For, well, getting zapped in front of you, I suppose." Why am I apologizing for something that happened to me?

Ginny scowled at him for a few seconds, letting him stew in self-imposed guilt. "And?"

Harry's left eye twitched. "Er..." What does she want?

This I have experience with, Cynicism responded happily. She wants something to make up for the bad feelings she's been having, which she blames on you. Try flowers, or a nice dinner.

I have a feeling I shouldn't thank you for this, but thanks. "And I'd like to take you to dinner?" Harry added, cringing ever so noticeably.

"You WHAT?" shouted Ron, still lurking by the trees.

Ginny raised an eyebrow, weighing the value of Harry's proffered meal. "Where?"

"Just, er, dinner," Harry managed, not sure what other options there were. "In the Great Hall?"

"Better if you cooked it yourself," Ginny retorted, obviously displeased.

Too much effort.

Shut UP! I actually enjoy cooking, remember?

I do not.

Harry raised his eyes to heaven. It was fortunate for Harry that Ginny had, at that precise moment, directed a particularly pointed glare at her brother.

"Alright," Harry decided. Ginny turned back to him, rather startled at his acquiescence to what she'd believed was a ridiculous ultimatum. "I'll get things set up... shall we say Tuesday?"

Idiot! You could have just given her a box of chocolates, or a plush toy!

Ginny seemed a bit shocked at Harry's sudden turn from flinching amateur to semi-competent romantic, but nevertheless managed to nod her approval.

There, that was easy enough. I don't even feel nervous anymore.

"Come on!" Ron yelled at them, his face as red as Harry had ever seen it. "This is- this is UNACCEPTABLE!"

"You could do the same, you know," Ginny told him, easily recovering her ability to speak when given the chance to puncture her brother's ego. "I hear you've already snogged Fay Dunbar."

Ron spluttered in protest.

Snogged? "Wait," Harry protested, his lost anxiety suddenly returning home with many new-found friends, "this is a romantic dinner?"

Ginny stopped taunting Ron for a moment, then slapped Harry clean across the face.

"Wha-"

"Don't offer if you don't know what it means!" she shrieked, then burst into tears and ran into the castle.

Harry waited a few seconds, just to be sure there wasn't something more to the exchange, then turned to Ron, who had been paralyzed by a mixture of guilt and shock. "Snogging?"

"I mean, well, yeah," Ron hedged, taking half a step back. "After Quidditch, you know, we convinced Ravenclaw to do an exhibition match last week-"

"I saw that. You were good."

Ron nodded. "Right, and I got the Snitch, so everyone was really excited. So..."

Harry realized his friend wasn't going to continue the story. "So cry havoc, and let loose the hounds of gooey kisses?"

"What? That's not - no," Ron replied. "No. It was a one-time thing. With her, at least."

Harry shrugged. "I'm just trying not to make Ginny angry."

"Seems to be your worst skill, mate," Ron jawed, trying futilely to inject a bit of humor to the situation. "Er, not that you should try to make her mad."

"So that's an OK on dinner with Ginny?"

Ron shot him a look of unmitigated fraternal fury.

"Or not."

Ron sighed, releasing his pent-up anger. "Nah, go ahead. It's what she's always wanted, y'know?"

"Your sister has always wanted a romantic dinner with me?" Harry felt that, if true, such a thing would be decidedly creepy.

"Yeah," Ron confirmed.

"Creepy."

"Yeah," Ron confirmed.

Is there an echo? Cynicism snidely interjected.

Yeah, Harry confirmed.

Oh shut up.

Harry grinned.


"...and then I had a half-dozen visions, all in a row," Harry finished.

Sirius was seated in the overstuffed chair across from him, deep in the Chamber of Secrets. "Harry," he said, "don't take this the wrong way, and know that I love you, but what the bloody buggering hell do you think you're doing?"

"Er, finding the shards of Riddle's soul to use as bargaining chips in our final battle?"

Sirius slumped into the thick padding. "I was going to guess 'getting your fool self killed' - AGAIN." He put a hand to his forehead, as though trying to contain the headache that had started to grow there. "Honestly, even when you're trying you end up dead as often as not."

"I did land safely," Harry objected. "I think it was just Cynicism waking up."

"Who the ruddy blazes is Cynicism?"

Harry hesitated. "My, er, evil inner voice. Probably the scar."

"...I thought Hermione sealed that up," Sirius said, sitting to attention. His eyes were clear, though beleaguered by Harry's constant self-destructive habits. "It got out that fast?"

"Apparently. I can tell when it's not my own thoughts, though. Hermione checked the seal on the way here, and it seems to be intact."

"Then how..."

Harry waved his godfather's concerns away. "It's probably inevitable, Sirius. I've got a shard of Riddle's soul in me, it's not going to stop trying to corrupt me just because we put an impenetrable wall of magic in its way."

"You have a point there," Sirius agreed. "Now about these visions-"

"I saw Kreacher," Harry informed him. "Among other things. And Riddle made a deal, I don't know what or who with - that's a different vision," he clarified, as Sirius began to genuinely panic, "but whoever Riddle was dealing with, he said he had to erase their memories."

Sirius hmmmmed. "Probably someone in a position of power, high security," he mused. "Ministry of Magic, I'd bet, or one of the more specialized wizard companies."

Harry scribbled that down on the notebook he'd borrowed from Hermione. Ron's conspiracy board didn't build itself, after all.

"Have to pass this on to Moody."

"Tonks."

"Right. Kreacher, you say?"

"Yes," Harry replied. "One of the visions, all I saw was him. Whatever fragment I was connecting to, it recognized my thoughts. It almost got started manipulating my mind."

"Scary," Sirius observed. "Any idea what old snake-face tied that chunk of soul to?"

Harry shook his head. "None."

"Ah, well. We can't get all our answers at once, I suppose," Sirius lamented. "But whatever it is, Kreacher probably knows all its secrets by now. I'll have a talk with him later tonight."

"Make sure to duck."

Sirius smiled. "I'll be packing a few surprises of my own," he assured his godson. "Kreacher hasn't beaten this Marauder yet!"

Harry grinned at that. Sirius might not remember most of his time as a Marauder, but - according to Lupin - the old mischief was as strong as ever. "Let me tell you what happened next, before you go," Harry insisted.

"Oodles of adoring fangirls mobbed you, drowning you in kisses?"

"Not quite oodles," Harry began. "I might need your advice on this one..."


Harry awoke Monday, near midnight, to the sound of wailing Castle-Elves.

"Attack! Attack! Hogwarts is besieged!"

Harry rolled out of bed, shrugging into his robes. "How?" he asked the nearest Castle-Elf, a squat creature wearing a large oven mitt and several napkins.

The Elf rolled one massive, glistening eye in his direction. "Lestrange."

The name was like a cold splash of sharp knives to the face. "Bollocks," Harry swore. He'd heard stories of Sirius' cousin; more telling, perhaps, was the fact that Sirius still had perfect recall on every memory of that twisted relation.

Then, too, there was her horrific torture of Neville's parents. They still hadn't completely recovered, and probably never would, though Neville had spent his entire summer rebuilding the bonds of family.

Harry glanced towards Neville's bunk.

"Harry," Neville told him, casually transmuting his own robes into something resembling archaic scale armor, "I'm going to start screaming bloody vengeance in a minute. I'm not sure when I'll stop."

Harry nodded. "I'll get the door."


Neville's blood-curdling shouts of utterable rage did full justice to the Thunder Room, which caught the echoes of battle-lust in his cries, amplified them, and threw them through the halls of Hogwarts at a thousandfold intensity.

Harry strapped his levitation pillow to the stump of his right leg, cursing the lack of functional magical prosthesis. Heck, he'd have given his left arm for a working right leg!

Wait, that sounds like a bad bargain.

Shut it, Cynicism. "Dean, Seamus, you ready?"

They nodded, grimly gripping their wands. Hermione, having already memorized Ron's standard plans, had gone on ahead with all of their female classmates.

"Right!" called Ron, pocketing the Marauder's Map. "I'll be looking for McGonagall, give her the full details on enemy positioning."

"We're looking at about a dozen Death Eaters, twice that in Dementors, three Werewolves - nobody we know," Harry added, "so cut loose. The enemy prefers curses, but may be using Transfiguration and Charms to create chaos."

"Which we won't be making better," Ron finished. "Just turn their chaos back on them, keep behind cover, stay alive. Don't leave each other alone, and do not get hit." It was no surprise that the Castle-Elves were keeping to the sidelines.

"If I get a shot, I'm taking those buggers down," Seamus asserted.

"No question." Ron nodded. "Get going!"

Harry pulled his invisibility cloak about himself, vanishing from sight. Sparkles was already racing through the corridors, eviscerating Dementors wherever he found them; Harry planned to take full advantage of his unfair advantage, and defeat any Death Eaters that managed to get past the Aurors.

"How'd they get past the wards, anyway?" asked Ron, adjusting his Airsights as he jogged alongside Harry.

Harry shrugged, not caring that he was invisible.

"Can't have just walked, that's for sure. Maybe they found a secret passage?"

"No," Harry replied. "The Map showed all those as clear."

Ron nodded. "They might've come in through the Chamber-"

"Riddle's not here," Harry assured his lanky friend. "No Death Eater can pass Scionny without a Parselmouth at hand."

"Left here. We'll be sending a few stragglers to Scionny, then, and heading in to help Neville against his nemesis."

"Right."

"No," Ron corrected him, only half-listening as he scribbled a hasty note. "Left."

Harry sighed, drifting into the left corridor. "Not really the time," he admonished.

"I'll handle these ones," Ron told him, double-checking the Map. "Neville's up on the third floor, looks like he'll catch Lestrange near Fluffy's old room."

"That's convenient," Harry noted, plotting a course. "You're off to McGonagall?"

Ron grinned at him. "Stay alive." He vanished in a hiss of orange vapor, rushing down the side passage that only went south (except on bank holidays, when it went fishing with the giant squid).

"Come on out, Skipper," Harry whispered. His familiar - unasked for, but plenty eager to please - complied, skittering from his left sleeve to his shoulder.

"I need to go faster," Harry told his arachnid companion. "I can't run, and I can't hover much faster than a snail, and people are in mortal danger."

A shrill scream sounded from the passage they'd just left, and was abruptly silenced. Harry smiled; the Dementors deserved worse than they were getting.

"A friend of mine used this technique in my first year," Harry continued, floating past the seven-storey staircase. "He wound up in a lot of pain, but he got the job done. Are you willing to risk it?"

Skipper clacked his mandibles excitedly.

"This might stunt your growth, as far as I know," Harry warned.

Skipper made a curious quivering motion, as if trying to roll his insectile eyes.

"Alright," Harry agreed. "Prepare to be a steed. Engorgio!"

Skipper's chitin pulsed as the spell's magic flowed through him, then he began to grow. New spines sprouted, seemingly at random, surging to dangerous length in an instant. The half-Acromantula's back broadened, roughening and flattening; his mandibles stretched to nearly a half-foot in length, and began dripping venom. Harry kept his wand in contact with the spider until it reached a good three feet of height, with a body as big as a sled and legs long enough to encircle even a portly full-grown wizard.

Skipper wobbled for a moment, testing his suddenly-massive footing. When he was certain of himself, he scuttled under Harry, settling in for a long, low-slung run through the Hogwarts Halls.

Harry adhered himself to his familiar's shell with a quick Sticking charm. "Ride, Skipper!" he cried, letting the edges of his father's cloak conceal his impromptu mount.

Skipper bobbed in joy for a moment, then shot down the corridor, faster than Harry could have run even with both his legs.