According to the library, there was no known way to reverse the memory charm. If one had the memories stored beforehand, simply viewing them in a pensieve would be just as good as the real thing. Otherwise, if one had a general idea of what had happened the false-memory charm could be used to restore a facsimile of it.
Harry frowned, tossing the latest book aside. They all had to be wrong. He had experienced for himself that it was possible to recover erased memories. Perhaps Silviu had just performed the charm poorly? This seemed unlikely to him. Whatever disparaging things Petri liked to say, Harry was sure that the vampire was good at mind magic, even the kind that needed a wand.
"What are you doing here?" a familiar voice demanded in a loud whisper. Harry twisted around in his chair to see Terry and Anthony approaching, each with an armful of books.
"What do you mean what am I doing here?" Harry shot back. "Library's public." Terry dropped his books on the table with a dull thud and wiped his hands on his robes as if to clean them.
"I thought you finished your homework," he said.
"I did," said Harry with finality. "I'm doing other research."
"On what?" Terry glanced over at the pile of books already scattered haphazardly across the table. "Memory charms? Did someone find out some dark secret of yours?"
"No," said Harry. "I'm looking for how to reverse them. I think someone got me with one."
"Seriously, mate? Did you forget something important?" Terry asked.
"I'm not sure," Harry admitted. "I want to remember, either way."
"I s'pose that makes sense," Terry agreed. "Find anything?"
Harry shook his head. "These all say there's no counter to it, but there's got to be. Everything has a counter."
"The Unforgivables haven't got a counter," Terry pointed out. Harry glanced at him askance. Somebody had clearly been doing some extracurricular reading as well.
"Yeah, and they're unforgivable. The memory charm sure isn't," he said.
"Maybe you can ask Professor Flitwick," Anthony suggested.
"While you're at it, ask him if he can assign shorter essays," Terry added. Anthony swatted him on the shoulder.
"That's not a bad idea," Harry said, regarding the former suggestion.
Professor Flitwick graciously agreed to see Harry after lunch, despite it being Saturday. He walked Harry up to his office, which was still as crammed full of books as ever, and offered him a biscuit from a long tin.
"Er, no thank you, sir," said Harry, as they had just eaten. Professor Flitwick shrugged and took one for himself.
"So what was it you wished to see me for?" he asked.
"I was reading in the library, about the memory charm, and was wondering if there's a counterspell. None of the books mentioned one," Harry said.
"There isn't, which is why the spell is only to be used by licensed professionals," Professor Flitwick said sternly. "Please tell me you haven't been practising it, young man."
"I haven't," Harry reassured him. "But are you completely certain there's no counter? Maybe not a spell, but something else. Would it wear off on its own if it was cast improperly?"
Professor Flitwick shook his head. "The memory charm doesn't hide or somehow artificially prevent you from remembering your memories. It erases them on the spot, so there is nothing to 'wear off.'"
"But," Harry protested, hesitated, and then decided to continue on, "It's just that it's happened to me before. That I was memory charmed but I eventually remembered—had the memory of what happened, that was removed."
Alarm flashed across Professor Flitwick's face, solidifying into wide-eyed concern. "Are you—I don't mean to doubt your story, but are you sure? You weren't just told what happened? A replacement memory might form in that case, and it's not exactly the same."
Harry frowned and tried to think on what had actually happened. He'd sort of remembered in a dream, he thought, and it had been a bit jumbled. But it had cleared up over the next few days, the recollection of the minute in the graveyard where he had screamed at Silviu for killing Nalrod, and the vampire had leaned down and pinned him to a gravestone and called him a foolish child before biting him to prove it.
"I'm not absolutely certain," Harry admitted, "I remembered it in my sleep so maybe it was a dream. Afterwards there was physical evidence so I knew more or less what happened. But I remembered him saying some things that I definitely didn't remember at the time, and I don't know how I would've come up with them."
"Our minds are remarkably capable of filling in details," said Professor Flitwick, though his words sounded too cautious.
"I suppose," said Harry, unconvinced. "But, so, are you completely, totally certain that it's impossible to actually recover memories erased by the memory charm? It's just, for what it's worth, sir, it really does seem to me like I did."
"I..." Professor Flitwick stopped for long enough that Harry was pretty sure he did know something, but didn't want to say it.
"There's a way, isn't there?" Harry said. "Is it a secret? Is that why it isn't in any books?"
This seemed to resolve the professor's indecision, and he gave a sort of jerky shake of his head. "There's no true counter," he said firmly, "but there's a known, let's say, pseudo-counter. In fact, they are mutual pseudo-counters, in that they partially reverse each other's effects."
He was obviously stalling, so Harry said, "What's the other spell?"
"It's entirely illegal. It's called the cruciatus curse. Do you know what that is?"
Harry nodded. "It's a torture curse, one of the Unforgivable Curses," he said.
"So you can see why I, well, why I hoped that you hadn't really recovered that memory of yours," said Professor Flitwick.
"Yes sir, it makes sense now," Harry agreed. Only, it probably made sense in the opposite way of what the Professor was thinking. He had been exposed to the cruciatus curse shortly after the memory charm, which meant that it was entirely possible that he'd recovered his true memory. He chanced one more question. "Sir, but how does that work? I don't see how the two spells could be related."
"Torture, it does strange things to the mind," Professor Flitwick said, sounding rather uncomfortable with the topic. "The cruciatus curse, in particular, affects only the mind, and not the body. Nobody really knows exactly how it works, as it isn't possible to conduct experiments, but there's a theory that the victim of the curse reaches desperately and indiscriminately into the past in order to avoid the present moment, and that that can forcibly recreate the lost connections. I was a bit imprecise earlier, in saying that the memory charm erases memories. What it actually does is erase the connections between memories, which is effectively the same thing, except in this horrible case."
"Oh. Thanks for explaining, Professor," said Harry. "Er, sorry for bothering you with this on the weekend."
"No, it was no trouble at all," said Professor Flitwick, his genial mood returning. "You're always welcome to ask me questions. Was there anything else? How's your structure sight charm coming along?"
"Oh, it's okay," said Harry. He hadn't practised it much after finding out how many light years away he was from actually being able to use it in real life. "I got a bit stuck after three colours."
"That's a common place to run into trouble," said Professor Flitwick. "If you'd like, I can recommend some books with exercises."
"Er, sure. That would be great, sir," said Harry.
Professor Flitwick smiled at him. "If you need some motivation, let's say you won't need to hand in your regular Charms homework if you can show me your progress on each exercise in this book." He scribbled something down on a bit of parchment, and slid it across his desk. "It should be in the library, and there's one exercise for each chapter, so let's say you try to do one a week. Of course, I don't mean to assign you extra work—you're certainly welcome to continue handing in the usual assignments if you'd prefer."
"No, I mean, I'd love to do these other exercises instead. Thank you, sir," Harry said quickly, more pleased than ever that he had caved and shown Professor Flitwick his mastery over the entire first year Charms curriculum after the previous week's practical, where the professor had jokingly asked him if there was a spell he didn't know.
"I talked to Professor Flitwick and he cancelled my homework," Harry told Terry later, rather smugly.
"You're having me on," said Terry. "Wait, I thought you already finished it anyway."
"For the rest of term," Harry clarified. "I'm totally serious."
"No way," said Terry, shaking his head. He was grinning, but when Harry tried his best to present a stoic mien, his face fell into a frown instead. "Really? How?"
"Well, he gave me some other stuff to work on instead," Harry admitted. "I already know the first year charms."
Terry groaned and clapped his hand to his face. "You got my hopes up for nothing. I definitely don't know all those spells, and I definitely wouldn't want more work even if I did. You're mental, you know."
"Thanks," said Harry. "I do know."
Terry was the one who couldn't know how right he was. For a good, solid moment after learning from Professor Flitwick that the cruciatus curse could reverse memory charms, Harry had seriously considered asking Petri to torture him over the Easter holiday. That was actually proof that he was going bonkers, and was also some kind of imbecile.
After all, he didn't need to recover the actual, exact memory that Professor Quirrell had removed. Who cared about that? He just needed to know what had happened that night, or rather, whatever it was that he had seen, that Professor Quirrell would rather he hadn't seen. Had the Dark Lord appeared, perhaps? Had Professor Quirrell done something to Harry?
The old thought came back to him that Professor Quirrell had been cursing him somehow this whole time, first with the Evil Eye and now that that wasn't an option, more directly.
The thing that was missing from all this, still, was the motive. Just what did the professor, or more likely the Dark Lord, want from him? If it was information on how he had survived the killing curse, Harry couldn't see how tutoring him in random curses was useful at all. And if the Dark Lord still wanted him dead, surely he really would be dead by now? Petri had implied that he himself, an adult dark wizard with some modest skill, would probably be so outmatched in a duel against someone like the Dark Lord that he might as well off himself if he couldn't escape. Harry didn't like the sound of those odds.
What if, he thought suddenly, he just asked? He was tired of tailing Professor Quirrell around under the invisibility cloak while he did nothing interesting whatsoever, and getting caught a second time would just be too much. The Dark Lord obviously knew that Dumbledore knew that he was in the castle and was currently doing nothing about it, and Dumbledore probably knew that he knew—at this point, Harry squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his temple—he wasn't sure that there was any advantage to his continuing to pretend that Professor Quirrell was duping him with his flimsy excuses.
On the other hand, he could be missing something vital, literally. What if his asking somehow prompted the Dark Lord to immediately murder him? That didn't make any sense, but worst case scenarios had to be considered seriously when dealing with an actual, confirmed murderer. If only there were a way for him do some sort of hypothetical experiment, to see if he would end up alive and well after the confrontation or not.
Wait. He had a time machine.
This was perfect. It was probably what Professor Quirrell himself had been doing with the time machine in the first place. He would wait where he intended to be in the future, and watch for whether he showed up. If he didn't, that meant something terrible had happened to him, so he just wouldn't go back in time. But if he did see himself, then it was a sign to go ahead.
Harry conducted a dry run of this experiment Sunday afternoon, where he decided while practising the structure sight that he would come under the invisibility cloak and tap himself on the shoulder at precisely three, after going back in time and jumping off the fourth floor landing in the main heptagon, while the moving stair was elsewhere. He'd always wondered if it was really safe for there to be no handrail or anything.
"Do you need to be somewhere soon?" Hannah asked him, after he paused in his practise to check the time for the third time in as many minutes. It was already five minutes past three, but maybe he was running late.
"Er, no," said Harry. "I'm just bored."
"Stop studying then," Hannah suggested.
Beside her, Neville sighed deeply, muttering, "I wish."
"I'm not really studying anyway," Harry admitted. He was just sitting with the structure sight spell applied, staring at the blobs of yellow and pale blue that swirled about lazily in a silvery soup. Hannah and Neville were reliably distinguishable to him, but it was anybody's guess what everything else was. He wondered if he could use this spell to see the invisibility cloak, which had to be highly magical. If so, it clearly wasn't anywhere else right now besides in his pocket.
Ten more minutes passed, and Harry had to accept that he apparently would not be going back in time. But now he realised that he still did not know whether it was safe to fall four floors after all. He hadn't gone back in time at all because he hadn't seen himself, but of course he hadn't seen himself because he hadn't gone back in time!
He groaned and buried his face in his hands.
"Seriously, take a break," said Hannah. "I need one too. Do you two want to go sit by the lake? It looks nice out."
"Yeah, sure," said Harry, cancelling his spell and glancing out the window. It seemed to be a cloudless day.
"I need to finish my Potions essay," said Neville, but he put his things away and joined them anyway.
Spring was beginning to make itself known in the vibrant green of new grass and the pale, delicate buds of nascent wildflowers. It was still quite chilly outside, even with the sun shining overhead, and as they had all neglected to grab their cloaks, Harry cycled a stream of hot air among them to keep warm.
"What's that charm you're using? Warming charm?" Hannah asked.
"Yeah," said Harry. "It heats up the air and lets you move it around. I learned it for cooking but its also useful for warming or drying things."
"You cook?" asked Hannah, looking surprised.
Harry shrugged. "I'm trying to learn," he said. "My uncle doesn't really believe in food, and we drink nutritive potions all the time. It's awful."
"You mean, you drink potions instead of eating?" said Hannah, aghast.
Harry nodded glumly.
"I didn't even know that was possible," she said. "I can't even imagine… I mean, my mum's not the best cook, but at least we have food. But wait, you learned this charm for cooking? You don't need magic to cook, you know?"
"You need magic to cook if you haven't got a stove or an oven," Harry said. "That's the tricky part."
"You don't have a stove?" Hannah demanded, incredulous. "Wait, are there magic microwaves?"
Microwave—there was a word Harry hadn't heard in awhile. Aunt Petunia didn't believe in frozen, ready-made meals, so although the Dursleys had owned a microwave for the sake of having one like everybody else, it had rarely seen use.
"What's a microwave?" asked Neville, and they had to explain. He still looked quite bewildered as to their point, even afterwards.
"This warming charm works about the same," Harry told Hannah.
"But what if you can't cast the charm?" Hannah asked. Harry shrugged.
"I supposed someone could enchant a box to do the charm," Harry said, "but it might be hard to have it have all sorts of options."
"What options?" said Hannah. "It just needs to be at one heat, and you put it in for however long it takes. You know, like a regular microwave. You, er, you have used one?"
"Once or twice," said Harry.
"I forgot you live somewhere wizarding," said Hannah. "My mum's a muggleborn and we live in her old house. It's all muggle there."
"I lived with muggles before," said Harry. "My aunt and uncle. Different uncle."
Hannah nodded. "Well, I think it would be pretty neat to have a magic microwave. Then you could save some food as a snack and warm it up later."
"You could just keep it warm, though," said Harry. "There's a charm for that."
"I thought warm food goes bad quickly," Hannah protested.
"The charm sort of freezes things—well not literally freeze, like cold, but keeps them preserved. It's used for ingredients usually, like for cooking or potions, but I don't see why you couldn't use it on ready food," Harry said. He wondered if it would be a viable strategy to learn the stasis charm and fill up a bag with enough Hogwarts-made food to last a whole holiday. That could actually work.
At this point they finally reached the shore of the lake, where the grass tapered off into gravel and formed a rather unpleasantly grey little beach. Hannah dragged her trainers through the rocks in an effort to smooth them out a bit before she sank to the ground cross-legged. Harry and Neville copied her.
"That charm sounds useful," Hannah said. "Should we put it on the suggestions for next week?"
"Sure," said Harry. "I can't actually do it yet. It's called the stasis charm."
"I'll put it on there," she said. "Vote for it."
"Okay," Harry agreed, though he figured he'd go ahead and vote for whatever caught his interest anyhow.
"Did you read that book?" Neville asked Harry. "The one with the horticulture charms. I mean, it's okay if you didn't. We've had lots of homework."
"Some of it," said Harry. He hadn't really had time to try out any of the charms, however, as they required seeds and he had enough spells to practise already.
"Gran showed me the growing charm over the holiday," Neville said, smiling broadly. "It's a year two spell but it's not all that hard. I was wondering, I mean, if you're interested, we could ask Professor Sprout if we can practise in the greenhouses after lessons."
"Sure," said Harry, surprised at the vague discontent that stirred in his chest at the thought of Neville mastering a charm before him. He pushed it to the back of his mind. The charm sounded useful, so he would learn it.
"What's it for?" asked Hannah. "Growing stuff, obviously, but I mean more specifically."
"Well, it just makes things bigger, really," said Neville. "But when you cast it on plants you can make them actually mature."
"Only plants?" Hannah pressed. "What about animals? People?"
Neville slumped a little. "Er, I don't know. I don't think so. That would be bad, wouldn't it?"
"It's probably one of those things that would need an impossible amount of will to do," Harry guessed, "so you can't actually do it in real life, even if it should theoretically work."
"Makes sense," said Neville.
Hannah nodded, and then turned away to look out over the lake. Neville seemed content to follow her example. Harry considered his failed time travel experiment. It wasn't too late—he could still go back in time and tap himself on the shoulder. But what would happen if he did? Would that then inspire him to instead go back in time and jump off the fourth floor landing, and get himself seriously injured or killed, resulting in no shoulder tap occurring?
This sort of thinking had to be unhealthy. Maybe he ought not to do potentially life-threatening experiments when somebody else might have already done them. Was there perhaps a book on time travel in the library? He could hit himself for not having thought to check before doing something foolhardy.
"Look!" Hannah called out suddenly, pointing somewhere towards the middle of the lake. Harry looked, but didn't see anything.
"What?"
"Up there!"
Harry tilted his head up and saw the unmistakable figure of somebody on a broomstick corkscrewing through the air. They suddenly dipped down and skimmed across the surface of the lake, before regaining altitude and swerving away towards the opposite shore.
"Quidditch practice?" Harry wondered. But the Quidditch field was on their side of the lake.
"Racing, I expect," said Hannah.
Indeed, as they looked on, several more people on brooms flew into view and followed the first flier's trajectory. One of the racers bumped into another and threw them off, sending them tumbling into the water.
"Er, do you think they're okay?" said Hannah, standing up and approaching the edge of the lake uncertainly. Neville said nothing, and had gone pale.
A moment later, a smooth, white something surfaced, carrying a speck of black that was clearly the fallen racer. It rose higher and higher, and revealed itself to be an enormous tentacle.
"It's the giant squid!" Hannah exclaimed. "How cute!"
Harry glanced at her sceptically, but she wasn't even looking in his direction. He turned back to the lake and saw with some alarm that the tentacle was coming towards them, quickly and inexorably growing larger and larger.
Finally the gigantic appendage flopped onto land, and Harry scrambled backwards a little to avoid being splashed. The tentacle wiggled slightly, and rolled a very sodden student onto the gravel shore before withdrawing with a loud plop of displaced water.
The beached student groaned in a familiar way, and then rolled over. It was Terry.
They hurried to his side.
"Terry, are you all right?" Harry asked, pulling out his wand and blasting him with the hot-air charm.
"Mmph," said Terry, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thanks," he said, when the charm ended, leaving him windswept but dry. "Oh, hey, it's you. Ugh, that's embarrassing. Pretend you didn't see that."
"See what?" Harry asked.
"Exactly," said Terry, pushing himself slowly to his feet, and Harry belatedly realised that he was talking about the broom accident.
"Are you hurt?" Harry asked. He'd fallen into the water, but from that height it might not have been much better than land.
Terry bent his arms experimentally and winced. "A little banged up," he said, "but I don't think anything's broken."
"Episkey," Harry said, trying to clear up any bruising.
"Oh, that feels good. What's that?"
"Healing charm," said Harry. Wasn't that obvious?
"Thanks. Glad you're such a bookworm, mate." Terry turned and looked into the distance above the lake, squinting a bit. After a few moments, he turned back and asked, "Say, did any of you see what happened to my broom?"
Harry glanced to Hannah and Neville, who both shook their heads. He shrugged. "Sorry mate. We were more focused on the part where you fell onto the giant squid."
"That's what that was?" said Terry. "That's actually pretty wicked. Minus the falling part. Ugh. I need to find that broom. It's a school one and Madam Hooch is going to kill me if I lost it. Or worse, broke it."
"Maybe you can borrow another one to go look for it," Harry suggested.
"Fat chance of that," Terry said immediately, shaking his head. Then he glanced thoughtfully to Harry. "But maybe you could. Madam Hooch loves you."
"Er, I wouldn't go that far," said Harry.
"She'll let you though," said Terry with certainty, and Harry had to agree.
"Count me out," said Hannah. "I hate flying."
"You're not half bad at it, though," said Harry.
"I still hate it," she said firmly.
"I still need to do my Potions essay," Neville mumbled, looking down and fiddling with his hands. Flying and Potions regularly competed for the bottom spot on his list of preferred subjects.
"Come on," said Terry, tugging at Harry's sleeve, and he reluctantly left his other friends by the shore.
"Do you think it's gone in the lake?" Harry asked.
"Nah," said Terry. "Probably flew off somewhere."
"How are we supposed to find it then?"
Terry shrugged. "I'm thinking if we go up high we'll be able to see over the grounds and try to spot it that way."
This sounded to Harry like looking for a needle in a haystack, but he supposed he didn't have anything better to be doing anyway. If only he could cast the summoning charm properly, maybe they could use that.
"Wait, what about your mates in the broom racing club?" he asked Terry. "Can't one of them just summon it? They're mostly older years, right? Also, should you let them know you're okay?"
"Ugh, I don't want to show my face back there on foot," said Terry.
"Didn't you get pushed off your broom?" Harry asked. "It's not like you just fell out of nowhere."
"Still a rookie mistake," said Terry.
"You are still a rookie," Harry pointed out, receiving a deep sigh in return. "Is it really that serious? I thought it was just for fun."
"It is fun," Terry protested, "it's just—the racers are a bit of a tough crowd, and I want to compete for real next year, so I really need to work on, well, everything."
Harry frowned. That still didn't seem like cause to not ask for help when it was needed. If anything, it ought to be the opposite. He wasn't sure if he liked the sound of broom racing club so much now.
"You should join," said Terry, oblivious to his misgivings. "You wouldn't have any problems. I bet you'd get picked for a team right away."
"Are there house teams, like Quidditch?" Harry asked. While Quidditch was a sport beloved by the whole school, with game days chock full of hyped up house rivalry and packed stands, broom racing was rather unpopular as a spectator sport and Harry had never even heard of anybody going to watch, much less gone to see it himself.
"Nah, not enough people," said Terry. "There's two teams, Dragon and Phoenix, but they're not fixed. Though usually Dragon's mostly Slytherins and Phoenix is everybody else. But Belby, you know him? He's with Dragon."
"I think I've seen him before," Harry said lamely. The name rang a bell—it must be an older Ravenclaw.
"He's a second year, but he's even smaller than you," said Terry. "Fast little blighter. Dragon's the better team, I think. The Slytherins are all really good and Flint, you know, their Quidditch captain, basically uses the racing team as his reserve. He races too. I think he spends all day flying—don't know how he has time to do homework."
"I never see Slytherins do homework," Harry complained. "Ever." It was a miracle that Vince and Goyle seemed to be getting passing marks, considering he was pretty sure neither of them could read or write, and Vince spent all his time eating, "reading" comics, and playing games, with occasional extracurricular Charms practice in between. They had to be cheating somehow, but Vince always deflected whenever he attempted to ask.
Terry laughed. "Too right, mate. Okay, you go ask Madam Hooch to borrow a broom, and I'll wait here."
They had arrived at the broom shed by the Quidditch pitch, which was currently in use by the Hufflepuff team. Madam Hooch was on the field, eyes trained on the practice overhead.
"She looks a bit busy," Harry said.
"Just go. It'll be fine," said Terry. His confidence did nothing to bolster Harry's, but he ventured off onto the pitch anyway.
Madam Hooch's hawk eyes immediately zeroed in on him as he approached, and she walked up briskly to meet him.
"Mr Potter! I'm afraid only Hufflepuffs are allowed on the pitch at the moment," she told him sternly.
"Er, of course, Madam Hooch. I was just hoping to borrow a broom to er, join broom racing practice."
Madam Hooch glanced back up to the Hufflepuff team, seemed to decide that they were doing fine for themselves, and gave him a curt nod. "All right. Come along."
She led him back behind the broom shed, where Terry was now nowhere to be seen, and opened the heavy padlock with a tap of her wand. The doors swung open, stirring up a cloud of dust, and she ushered him inside.
Harry reached out his hand and trailed it through the air some foot away from the bristles of the brooms, which were laid out on either side of the shed on racks. He felt a sort of nervous energy ghosting over his fingertips as they came near each broom, but none felt right until… there. That was the one he had usually used in flying lessons.
He removed the broom carefully from the rack and shouldered it before walking out.
"Sign your name here," said Madam Hooch, handing him a rather ratty roll of parchment and a quill. It was lined and full of names of previous borrowers. Harry signed on the next blank line and put the date and time. "Make sure to bring it back before six," Madam Hooch told him.
"I will. Thanks, ma'am," Harry said, smiling. She gave him a small smile in return, and then shooed him out of the shed and returned to the Quidditch pitch after locking up again.
"Nice, you got it!" said Terry from behind him, and Harry jumped a foot into the air.
"Where'd you come from?" he demanded.
Terry grinned. "I was just around the corner so she wouldn't see me. Let's go."
"Are we going to walk over there?" Harry asked, glancing sceptically over to the lake. It was a non-trivial distance to the other side.
"Walk? Mate, we have a broom," Terry said.
"One broom," said Harry.
"Two people fit on one broom," said Terry. "I'll sit in back and you steer."
"Er, are you sure?" Harry thought that the broom handle seemed rather thin for two. Then again, there was no reason why a bloody broomstick ought to be able to fly with even one person, either. It was all magic.
"Positive," said Terry. "I fly my little brother around all the time at home."
Harry mounted the broom and then stood there uncertainly, resisting the automatic pull to take off, as Terry put one leg over the shaft behind him and then put his hands on Harry's shoulders.
"Ready when you are," said Terry.
Harry kicked off and shot into the sky, noticing no extra load from his passenger until he tried to accelerate to his usual top speed and found it beginning to vibrate a little earlier than he was used to.
"Merlin's balls! Too fast!" Terry yelled in his ear, and Harry obligingly slowed down, afraid of dropping his friend for a second dip in the lake. The broom stabilised, and they coasted comfortably several meters above the dark water.
When they had made it to the middle of the lake, Terry called for him to stop.
"See my broom anywhere around here?" he asked. Harry pulled up to a hover and pushed up his glasses, looking all around.
"Nothing," he said.
"Me neither," said Terry. "Go higher. Maybe it drifted up."
They flew up, higher than the trees in the Forbidden Forest, and surveyed the grounds again. He could see the whole lake, but there was no sign of any lone broomstick floating about. Near the edge of the forest, Harry spotted the broom racing club, with about a dozen fliers doing laps through an obstacle course with flaming hoops.
"You sure they didn't just bring your broom down?" Harry asked.
"Maybe," said Terry. "But I want to make sure it's not anywhere else first."
This seemed like very backwards logic to Harry, but he declined to comment, since it was clearly a matter of pride for the other boy. Instead, he continued to scan the tree line.
A flash of movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention—somebody, it looked like, had just gone into the forest. He grasped the broom handle firmly and tapped the screw at the edge of his glasses. His vision zoomed in, darting down through the gloom cast by the thick wood and homing in on his quarry. Dappled sunlight skimmed over the sprinting figure and illuminated a flash of purple—Professor Quirrell's turban!
The charms on his spectacles wouldn't go any further, and he reset his view and rubbed at his temples in an effort to soothe his eye strain. He couldn't follow the man now, but perhaps he could do one better and go earlier. After all, he had a time machine.
"Look, there!" Terry said suddenly, and Harry followed his gaze over to the part of the forest close to Hagrid's hut. At first, he didn't see anything out of place, but then there was a brief flicker of movement and he spotted that, sure enough, a riderless broomstick was hovering just level with the top of the trees.
"I see it," he said, and tugged at their broom to speed across the rest of the lake.
"Down!" Terry shouted as soon as they hit the ground, hand outstretched, and his wayward broom meandered lethargically over to him. "Down," he said more firmly, and it sped up a little to zoom the rest of the way into his hand.
"Glad we found it," said Harry, who was a little amazed at their success. Terry grinned at him.
"Thanks so much, mate. There's still nearly an hour of practice left. Want to come?"
"Er, sure," said Harry, thinking it would be awkward now to decline. What was the harm in seeing the club for himself? "Race you there?" he suggested.
"You're on," said Terry, and swung himself onto his broom. "Ready, set, go!"
Harry kicked off a bit late, but he pressed himself as closely to the broom as he could and caught up to Terry in moments. Ignoring the angry vibration of the handle, he urged it forwards ever quicker, angling it towards the fiery obstacle course that lit up the shore. Feeling adventurous, he dove straight down into it, passing through a triplet of rings and narrowly skimming underneath another flier coming from the opposite direction. He tugged up to clear a vertical wall of flames and ducked below a gigantic fiery X, before he found himself zooming through a small crowd of students, many of whom hurriedly dove out of the way despite the fact that he was well above their heads.
His broomstick was careening towards the ground, so he tugged up and leapt off at the last moment, managing to land on his feet. Jarring pain ran up his legs and struck his knees like a hammer, but he remained upright. His broom, now riderless, slowed and floated back down to the ground beside him.
"Bloody buggering hell Boot, watch where you're going!" yelled a tall, heavily-built boy in Slytherin Quidditch robes. Harry thought he might be Marcus Flint. "Wait, you're not Boot. Who the hell are you?"
Terry chose that moment to arrive, though somewhat more placidly, as he'd gone over the obstacles and descended in a spiral rather than a dive.
"Boot, there you are you little bugger. Finally. And who the hell is this?" Flint demanded, pointing to Harry.
"This is Harry," said Terry. "He wants to join racing."
Harry wanted no such thing, but before he could say so, Flint turned to him and said, "That one of those rubbish school brooms?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact it is. Is that a problem?" Harry shot back, perhaps unreasonably annoyed by the older boy.
"Race me," said Flint in lieu of answering, and vaulted onto his sleek Cleansweep Seven, taking off without so much as naming a destination. Harry scrambled to follow, but found himself tailing Flint even at what felt like maximum speed. Determined not to be totally shown up, he urged his now violently trembling broomstick to go just a bit faster, sticking right behind Flint's bristles and refusing to let up an inch.
Then, as if taunting him, Flint accelerated even more, stretching the distance between them alarmingly. Gritting his teeth, Harry angled his broom down and dove, hoping to make up what his broom lacked using the raw force of gravity. At this speed, he could hardly see past the wind buffeting his face, and only the broom's protective charms kept him from being blown off his seat.
With the ground fast approaching, he corkscrewed rather than pull up, taking advantage of his moment upside down to look for any sign of Flint. The older boy was keeping pace with him higher up, and hadn't managed to make it too far ahead.
As they reached the bend in the lake Flint suddenly slowed to turn. Harry swore as he shot past, trying to use his momentum to gain altitude instead of distance in the wrong direction. He looped upside down and dove again, homing in on the other boy's position. Then Flint descended as well, going lower and lower, and Harry realised he was about to land.
Harry repeated his earlier stunt, dropping aggressively head-on towards the ground and only pulling up to leap off at the last minute. This time, he was better-prepared for the impact and bent his knees enough to absorb the blow. Flint alighted beside him.
"Not bad for a firstie," he said, shouldering his broom. "Shame you're not in Slytherin or I'd snap you up for Quidditch. Ravenclaw team this year's that good, eh? Didn't need you?"
"It's pretty good," Harry agreed. Ravenclaw had beaten both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, the latter by an astonishing margin of two hundred twenty points. If they won against Slytherin later this term, they were practically guaranteed the Quidditch Cup.
"We'll see," Flint muttered. "Well, if this is what you're like on that utterly shite broom, you're welcome to race for Dragon team as soon as you get a decent one. So that'd be next year since racing doesn't get you firsties a special exception on the broom ban. In the meantime, we practice every Sunday from two to five. It's optional," Flint said this word like it was a foul curse, "but if you don't want to be a loser I suggest you show up."
They flew back around the lake to join the rest of the club. Flint declared that Harry was "decent," and handed him off to the actual club leader, another Slytherin named Emilia Wilkes. She was as tall as Flint and almost as broad, and her short blond hair had been moulded into a crest of spikes.
Despite the impromptu tryout Harry had been subjected to, Wilkes informed him that actually, anybody could join the club and attend practices as they liked. Skill was only necessary if one wanted to join a team, though the teams themselves were loosely defined.
"Racing's a one-on-one sort of thing," said Wilkes. "so we have a champion at the end of every year, but also we have the teams for relay racing and such, and you can boost your score by joining in. The champion gets to hold on to this for a year."
Wilkes tugged at a chain around her neck and pulled up a silver pendant in the shape of a broomstick. "Lifetime pass to any league Quidditch game." She grinned widely and dropped the chain. "I'll be sad to give this up when I graduate."
After giving him a quick run-down of practice, which mostly consisted of running drills through various obstacle courses in shifts, Wilkes left Harry to make acquaintance with the other club members.
He found some familiar faces. Vicky Frobisher was there, as well Tonks. They were both part of the Phoenix team.
"Wotcher Harry," said Tonks. "Didn't know you could fly like that! I bet Flint's tried to recruit you for Dragon—well you should join Phoenix. It's way better."
"How does that work, anyway, if you can just choose a team?" Harry asked.
"Only six people per team fly for relays," Tonks explained. "So really it doesn't matter if you aren't in the top six, and if you're on the edge of course you're gonna join whatever team you can make it onto. But Phoenix is still better." She stuck out her tongue at Flint's back.
When Tonks went to fly with the next group, Terry pulled him aside. "You know Tonks?" he asked, almost in awe. Harry shrugged.
"She's in charms club too," he explained.
"She's really good," said Terry. "Probably the best in Phoenix team. She was runner up last year after Wilkes."
Harry nodded absently, looking around for anybody else he knew. "Are we the only first years?" he asked.
"There are some others but they aren't here today," said Terry. "Half the Slytherins, technically, but they hardly ever show up. A couple 'Puffs."
Finally, Wilkes ushered them over to enter the obstacle course. Going at it in the right direction was rather easier than when he'd haphazardly careened through it earlier. It was a vertical circuit, starting out low and then rising high up for the return journey. The "obstacles" had been drawn with what Harry recognised as the flame drawing charm flagrate, so as to be suitably obvious but also mostly harmless to fly through.
Some people left after a few rounds through the obstacle course, and Harry decided to go as well after his second go around. The course was fun, but it was nearly five, and he had things to do in the past. He wasn't sure how far back the time machine could go and didn't want to miss Quirrell on account of spending too long flying around in a circle.
Waving goodbye to Terry, Harry flew off towards the Quidditch pitch to return his broom. Halfway there, he thought better of it—following Professor Quirrell through the forest might be easier from above—and he changed course for the Forbidden Forest.
He landed just short of the perimeter and glanced around and up to see if anyone might be watching. Nobody was in sight, and the blinds on Hagrid's windows seemed to be down. Reaching deep into his pocket, he felt for the silky material of his invisibility cloak and tugged the garment out, wrapping it securely around himself and draping the remainder over his broom. Then he searched his other pocket for the time machine and pulled the chain over his head.
Holding his breath, he gave the outer ring an experimental turn. It moved easily, and his surroundings blurred. When they grew still again, he drew his wand and checked the time. Four o'clock. So one turn equalled one hour. Well, that was easy enough.
He glanced up, searching for himself and Terry at the shore or above the lake. They had to be coming around any moment now. And there! They'd just taken off, a small black blur over the water. He had to be on alert for Professor Quirrell. Perhaps now was the time to take to the sky.
Would the cloak hide him properly while in the air? The broom fit underneath it, certainly, but it seemed like he might have to fly vertically to get it to stay there while in motion. He clutched the broom close to his chest and kicked off, quickly clamping his legs around the shaft. Thankfully, the charms that made a buffer of air between the rider and the broom adapted well enough to give him a seat to balance on.
Hovering among the branches of a large oak, he considered whether there was anything to be done about the gap in the cloak underneath him. As long as he didn't fly directly above Professor Quirrell, he thought, he should be fine.
When Terry and his past self flew up high, Harry ascended as well and started looking around for Professor Quirrell's approach. There was no sign of him anywhere on the path to the castle, which couldn't be right. Harry pivoted slightly and nearly jumped out of seat when the turbaned man appeared from behind Hagrid's hut, slinking through the shadows at the forest's edge.
He couldn't fly very quickly at all at this angle, but was more than fast enough to follow Professor Quirrell's rustling steps through the forest. Harry doubted it was safe to go any faster anyway, given all the ducking and weaving he had to do to avoid being caught in a tree.
Professor Quirrell seemed to be looking for something very specific. Every once in a while he would stop by a bush and examine it, before moving on. It was always the same sort of bush, Harry noticed, leafless and thorny. Sometimes, there was blood or even a dead animal caught on the thorns. Whenever he encountered something like that, Professor Quirrell would vanish it.
Harry was about to give up—perhaps Professor Quirrell was just doing some esoteric gardening—when the next bush yielded something familiar. Unicorn blood.
Professor Quirrell glanced around nervously, and Harry checked to make sure the hem of his cloak was past the last bristles of the broom. It was.
Like they had done during Harry's detention, Professor Quirrell searched for a blood trail and began to follow it. Harry followed him in turn.
Soon enough, they found the unicorn, practically impaled on one of the those same bushes, only whose thorns had grown to the length of swords where they pierced the animal's body. Professor Quirrell cast a body-bind on the unicorn, and then a spell that made the thorns retract, before he knelt down and leaned in close.
Harry gaped as the man pressed his lips to one of the wounds and began, unmistakably, to drink the silvery blood.
Well then. Obviously, that had to be what he hadn't wanted Harry to remember that night, during the detention. He hadn't just killed the unicorn, he'd drunk its blood. Its cursed blood. Why?
Professor Quirrell was sick, Harry recalled, with something that Madam Pomfrey had apparently never seen before. Unicorn blood was supposed to be some sort of restorative, so he was probably drinking it to keep himself alive.
Harry felt a little ill watching the man, whose face betrayed horrible anguish as he haltingly continued to drink, opening up new wounds when the old ones ran dry. His lips were smeared with silvery-blue blood, his eyes clenched shut as if to avoid seeing what he was doing. He seemed to be having serious trouble swallowing each mouthful, but swallow he did, again and again.
Well, it couldn't taste good, Harry thought. The smell of copper and something like ozone was thick in the air, almost oppressively so.
There really wasn't any reason to stick around. He'd seen what he had come to see. This was Professor Quirrell's secret, or one of them.
Later that evening Harry paced up and down the magical creatures section of the library, conflicted. Should he tell somebody about Professor Quirrell? What he was doing was definitely illegal. That was clear from any book where unicorn blood was mentioned.
Why it was illegal, or even bad, Harry could find no explanation for. Everywhere it only said that fresh unicorn blood could keep anybody alive for up to a few weeks, no matter how ill or wounded, but the price was too grave to be paid. The drinker would only be half-saved, live only a half-life ever after. He would be cursed even in death. But nowhere did anybody explain what the curse actually did, and how it could possibly be worse than dying.
He glanced through the gap between the aisles toward the rope that cordoned off the restricted section. If there was any more detailed information, it would be in there, he reckoned.
Donning his invisibility cloak, Harry waited for Madam Pince to leave her desk before waltzing right past the dividing rope. He paused there with bated breath, but no alarm sounded, so he continued on.
The books here, unfortunately, mostly did not have their titles on the spines, which made it difficult to tell what topic section he was even in. If he could do the summoning charm… he resolved to practise that charm properly as soon as he could.
Instead, he picked a random book off the shelf and opened it. This proved to be a very bad idea.
It began screaming immediately, and closing and replacing it did nothing to help. Withdrawing his hands to ensure his invisibility, he turned and sprinted for the main library, vaulting over the dividing rope just as an incensed Madam Pince came running past, wand in hand.
"Silencio!" she muttered, and the screaming stopped. That would be a useful spell to know too, and it was frustrating that Petri had suggested it was beyond his level. "Who's there? This is the restricted section! Come out here at once!"
Harry hurried to make himself scarce as Madam Pince began scouring the aisles for the offender.
There went his hopes of free access to the restricted section. At the very least he would have to figure out how to counter whatever alarm spell was on the books.
That still left the matter of understanding what unicorn blood really did. He supposed he ought to owl Petri about it and forget the matter for now. He headed up to the owlry, still invisible.
"Dear Uncle Jochen, why is it bad to drink unicorn blood? What exactly does it do? I saw somebody drinking it. Should I tell anybody?"
To his surprise, his scribbled note got a response in a matter of hours, rather than days, as was usually the case when corresponding with Petri. The letter did not come by owl, but rather by house elf while Harry was in the loo.
There was a telltale pop behind him and Harry shoved his robes closed before whirling around, only to come face-to-face with Rosenkol's too-large black eyes.
"What are you doing here?" Harry demanded, trying to discreetly do up his trousers with just one hand. He had never got out of the mugglish habit of wearing them under his robes. In response, Rosenkol threw a piece of parchment at him. Harry caught it on instinct and pried the folds open with his thumb and forefinger. It was blank.
Before he could ask, Rosenkol said, "The password is Feuerwald. Wizardling is not to be misplacing parchment without clearing it." Then the elf vanished as instantly as he'd arrived.
"Feuerwald," Harry said obligingly to the parchment. Immediately, dark green ink blossomed across the page in Petri's neat, looping handwriting.
"Lieber Harry," it said at the top. Of course it would be in German. Harry scanned the rest of the letter nervously, hoping he was up to the task of reading it.
It is probably unnecessary to go this far, but foresight is better than hindsight. I do not want to challenge the Dark Lord. Do not leave this parchment in plain sight. Best hide it among your other parchments, or burn it. You must say the password again to clear it.
Drinking unicorn blood is a provisional solution to a permanent problem. After the first drink, one becomes dependent on the blood, which temporarily works against its own curse. If one goes too long without drinking, one will sink into a deep, incurable heavy-spirit…
Here Harry paused and frowned at the word, before trying the dictionary spell. It came up with "melancholy, depression, gloom."
…a deep, incurable depression that leads shortly to suicide. People who believe in such things say that the curse either destroys one's afterlife, or condemns one to eternal pain after death, but those claims are obviously not proven.
Unless the Dark Lord is a fool, which I do not believe, he is not the one drinking unicorn blood. Either it is a servant of his, or somebody unrelated.
I recommend you inform Dumbledore. Write him an anonymous note with a dicta-quill and send it with Rosenkol. However, if the Dark Lord makes himself known to you, you must cooperate with him no matter what. Your life will depend on it.
If you have questions, send them with Rosenkol.
Yours,
JP
Well, that was reassuring. Play both sides—was that it? Harry supposed it was sensible. Ostensibly, Headmaster Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards on the right side of the law, was, well, on the right side. Only, Harry himself was half tangled up on the wrong side, had done things that probably stuck him firmly on the wrong side, even, and he had nothing but Headmaster Dumbledore's goodwill and Lord Voldemort's yet-unknown motivation to defend him from two unfathomably powerful wizards.
"Feuerwald," Harry muttered to the parchment, and was gratified to see it abruptly turn blank. He folded it up and shoved it in his pocket. He had an anonymous note to write.
Creeping out of the toilet, and he glanced around the dormitory and ascertained that it was still empty before he went rummaging for some parchment. Petri had obviously forgotten the part where he didn't have a dicta-quill.
Instead, he set the parchment on his side table and started casting the colour-change charm on it. Getting the letters to come out right was much more difficult than Petri or his professors made it look, and he kept making misshapen blobs.
"Quirrell is drinking unicorn blood in the forest," he finally managed to print.
It wasn't quite as impersonal and regular as a dicta-quill would have managed, but he didn't see why Dumbledore would recognise his mangled handwriting out of a hundred students anyway. He folded up the note and, after an uncertain moment, called out, "Rosenkol!"
Thankfully, the elf popped into view immediately.
Harry frowned. "I thought you couldn't apparate on Hogwarts grounds," he muttered. Now that he had a moment to think, he distinctly remembered seeing something to that effect in Hogwarts, a History.
"Wizards cannot be apparating," Rosenkol corrected. "Elves be apparating anywhere."
That sounded like a rather disturbing security risk, Harry thought.
"Oh," he said. "Can you deliver this to Professor Dumbledore then? Preferably while he's not there. Like his office, or something."
"Rosenkol understands," said Rosenkol, taking the offered note and disapparating with a snap of his fingers.
Harry sighed and tried to put the whole matter out of his mind. He just needed to cancel his meetings with Professor Quirrell somehow, as soon as he could, and then he wouldn't have to be involved any longer.
Somewhat to his surprise, the meetings cancelled themselves, or rather, Professor Quirrell failed to show up even to Defence lessons, apparently unwell again. After about two weeks of an ill-tempered Professor Snape as a substitute Defence teacher, Harry began to suspect that his anonymous tip had done more than he'd expected, and that Professor Quirrell had actually been cut off from unicorn blood.
Did that mean he was going to die? Was he already dead?
Easter morning, Harry stewed uncertainly over his hot cross buns, hardly able to taste them. All the Easter holiday had passed with Professor Quirrell's seat at the high table empty. It hadn't been much of a holiday, with the majority of students in Ravenclaw remaining at the castle to get a head start revising for exams, which were scarcely more than a month away. All the other professors had been present to hold their office hours, which made his absence all the more conspicuous.
"What happens if we fail our exams?" Terry wondered aloud, looking about as glum as Harry felt, though probably for different reasons.
"You're not going to fail," said Anthony.
"Yeah," Lisa agreed, for once. "You're a clever chap."
"Thanks," Terry muttered. "But what if? Maybe I should skip racing practice today..."
"You should just drop racing," said Lisa. "What's the point? You can't even compete."
Terry looked quite torn between argument and agreement. Harry, who found the opportunity to do insane aerial stunts every Sunday rather exhilarating, tried to step in.
"You'll be fine. Don't you have an E average?" he asked Terry.
"I've got a A in Defence," Terry muttered. "Bloody Snape." This was said very quietly, and with a furtive glance to the high table, as if Professor Snape might be listening in on their conversation at this very moment. Harry glanced up as well, unable to help himself, and was again greeted with the sight of Professor Quirrell's vacant place.
"He's better than Quirrell ever was," said Lisa. "At least he actually teaches."
"That's exactly the problem," said Terry.
"Do you know what's happened to Professor Quirrell?" Harry asked, though he supposed he probably had the most information out of everybody.
"Finally gone and offed himself I bet," said Lisa. Harry leaned in, feeling himself blanch.
"What? No! Not actually?" he blurted.
"I didn't mean literally," she rushed to say, holding up her hands. There was an awkward pause, and Harry took a large bite of his bun to avoid having to say anything. It tasted like paper in his dry mouth.
What's done is done, he told himself, taking one last glance at the high table. Somebody who drank unicorn blood, anyway, knew that they were getting themselves into something inextricable. Professor Quirrell was the one who had chosen to do it.
But had he really? Harry had got the idea by now that, unless one was Albus Dumbledore, one did not simply refuse the Dark Lord and expect to live. It was an unpleasant thought that stuck in his churning gut like a lump of lard.
On Monday, when lessons resumed, Harry found himself almost relieved to see Professor Quirrell back behind his desk in place of a surly Professor Snape. The man looked more like a walking corpse than any inferius Harry had ever seen, but he seemed to be alive, at least.
Having grown complacent from Professor Snape's utter lack of interest in him, or rather, utter lack of ability to recognise him, he was blindsided when Professor Quirrell manoeuvred in between him and the classroom door with a stuttered, "Mr P-Potter."
"Er, yes, sir? Good to see you, er, recovered, sir," said Harry, trying without success to sidle past, as if he had somewhere to be.
"Thank you, Mr Potter," said Professor Quirrell without much enthusiasm. "Would, would you like to resume our usual sessions this evening?"
"Er, are you sure you're..." Harry wasn't certain how to phrase it kindly that Professor Quirrell looked like death warmed over.
"Very sure," said Professor Quirrell in complete monotone. Bloodshot, fish-like eyes were set deep in his skull, and Harry had to suppress a shudder.
"All right then," said Harry, finding himself incapable of generating an excuse for refusal.
Like the last time Professor Quirrell had been ill, it seemed that their meeting would be taking place in his quarters, rather than the office proper. The password had evidently been changed back to "Peppercorn," as well, and Harry wondered if it was entirely for his benefit. That seemed like excessive paranoia.
Then again, he thought a little guiltily, he had tried to sneak into Professor Quirrell's rooms at one point, so perhaps it was warranted.
This time, he walked down the pitch dark hallway leading to Professor Quirrell's room with more confidence. The door at the end was wide open, though dimly lit by only glowing embers in the fireplace, and he stopped to announce his presence at the threshold with a soft, "Hello, Professor."
There was no response for a long moment, and Harry wondered if the professor had fallen asleep again.
Then he felt a moment of horrible foreboding, and without further warning his scar was on fire, like the cruciatus curse had concentrated itself into his forehead. He couldn't move; he was bound tightly in endless coils but the where and how of it escaped him completely. He felt long and sinuous, and yet simultaneously bodiless.
But that wasn't right. Through the agony, he saw himself, somehow, standing up, even walking forward, haltingly. How could he remain upright when it hurt so much?
It's all in my head, he thought.
"Harry Potter," he said out loud, in a drawn out whisper, but he couldn't have been the one to say it. "Let me in."
In? In where? Let me out!
With that thought, the pain suddenly disappeared, as if it were never there, leaving no aching aftermath. Quite like the cruciatus in that regard, he noted a little numbly.
He'd been let out. The red eyes were still there, watching from behind his own eyes, but his body, it was out, no longer engulfed by the coils of the red eyed creature. They had rolled up tightly and fit themselves into the crevices of his being, and by the moment he was forgetting what they felt like, and then he couldn't feel them at all. Only the eyes were left.
Glancing up at the Professor Quirrell's full-length mirror, he froze. His eyes shined red, and they pierced the darkness easily without the help of his spectacles, which were horribly askew on his face. What had just happened to him? He crossed the room to get a closer look, and only confirmed what he'd first seen. Unmistakably red eyes, bright like a cat's. Behind him, Professor Quirrell, it was plainly obvious, was out cold on his bed, still as pale as a corpse. He might even be dead.
"He's not dead," Harry said aloud, and again he was sure he hadn't meant to say anything. He felt the sudden urge to giggle, so he did. He laughed uncontrollably for some long seconds, but then bewilderment began to overtake amusement and he frowned at his stubbornly red-eyed reflection.
"What is going on?" he asked himself.
"Your lesson for today," said his reflection wryly, and he felt his mouth move without his bidding. He looked past himself in the mirror at the prone Professor Quirrell once more. Was he responsible for this, whatever "this" was?
But no. The professor wouldn't have referred to himself in the third person. It was somebody else. And who else could it be?
"Lord Voldemort?" he guessed, and it felt so true that the expected moment of self-doubt never came. The Dark Lord was here. A thrill of terror shot through his heart, but then it faded without a trace, overwhelmed by surprise and confusion.
How was this even possible? Where was here? All that came out was, "Where?"
His reflection smiled at him, almost indulgently.
Right here. In his body. Somehow.
"How?"
"I admit, I did not expect it to be so easy," he said. "Most generous of you to share your body with someone in need. I simply knocked, and you let me in."
That was right, Harry remembered. He'd let in the red eyed creature, the Dark Lord. There hadn't exactly been any other option.
"What are you going to do?" Harry asked. Was the Dark Lord planning to take his body and simply abscond with it? He shuddered, the beginnings of panic stirring in his chest. Whatever the case, there was nothing he could do about it. How was he supposed to fight someone who was literally in his body?
"Do not fear, Harry," said the Dark Lord. "I mean you no harm. Have I not taught you, helped you all this time? I ask only a small favour of you now, Harry. Lend me your strength."
"How?" Harry asked, when he finally managed to comprehend the implication of the Dark Lord's words. He must have been in Professor Quirrell's body all year, just like this, and of course that explained everything, and in particular how Professor Quirrell could recognise Harry. Well, at least, it seemed less implausible that the Dark Lord, and not just some random professor, had the wherewithal to bypass the fidelius charm, though the exact mechanism still escaped him.
"Just like this," said the Dark Lord. "Lie down. Relax. Let me teach you about possession."
"Possession? So that's what this is?" Harry understood the general idea, of course, just from muggle stories about demons and ghosts. But he couldn't recall ever hearing about it in the wizarding world, and hadn't entertained that it was a real phenomenon until now. He lay down on the soft rug as bidden and stared up at the ceiling, where he could make out every ridge and crack. Cautiously, he pulled his glasses the rest of the way off his face, and his vision blurred for only a second before sharpening once more into impossible perfection. He pressed his lips together to hold back a question, but then his mouth began to move to answer it anyway.
"Yes. My eyes, as you will have noticed, have manifested by replacing yours. Physical transformation is a common side effect of voluntary possession."
Harry was a little sceptical about the "voluntary" part. He recalled being in excruciating pain at the time. Was coerced permission really still permission?
Wary of offending the Dark Lord, he asked, "What's involuntary possession like then?"
"Brief," said the Dark Lord. "Painful."
So it was just the excruciating pain part, and then he supposed it would be over.
"Professor Quirrell didn't have red eyes," Harry said, glancing to the side, where the professor remained insensate on his bed. He didn't, did he? Harry rather thought it was something he would have noticed.
"No," the Dark Lord agreed. "He had my face on the back of his head."
Despite himself, Harry reached up in alarm to pat at his own head, but all he felt was a soft handful of hair. He laughed mirthlessly, chagrin and unease warring within him as he lay back down.
"Why, er, why did that happen?" he asked, hoping it wasn't going to be a further development. He didn't want to walk around with a ridiculous smelly turban all the time, and anyway the very idea of having a second face was just horrific.
"His soul and mine are not compatible," said the Dark Lord.
Harry frowned. Just what was that supposed to mean? "And ours are?"
The Dark Lord did not answer for a long while, and then he finally said, "Yes; to a much higher degree."
Sensing reluctance, Harry decided not to press the topic. It still felt surreal that he was speaking to the Dark Lord, and yet, it was also familiar. They had been meeting all year, after all, and Harry just hadn't known it, so this ought not to be any different.
But it was different. Why had the Dark Lord chosen to reveal himself now, like this?
"What are your questions?" asked the Dark Lord. Harry took another moment to think of something safer to ask.
"Professor Quirrell is ill," he began. "Is that why you, er, possessed me instead?"
"Yes... more or less. A long possession is very taxing on the body. But I cannot go without a host, for I am mere shadow and vapour. A shadow does not see, or speak, or move on its own. Do you understand? You reduced me to this. Now, it is only fitting that you will help to restore me."
"All right," Harry agreed, to preclude any misunderstanding. He had no choice, did he? His heart sank lower than he ever thought it could go, leaving him cold. "But, sorry, what do you mean I, er, reduced you? I didn't do anything, I don't think."
"Perhaps you did not," the Dark Lord allowed after a beat. "I blame you as one blames a stone in the street for a fall. You exist, and that's the trouble."
A familiar sentiment, and Harry still very much did not like the sound of it.
"I quite like existing," he said, though it failed utterly to come out as smoothly as he had intended, and instead escaped as a stuttered whisper.
Now he felt it, his heart fluttering and his whole body winding tighter by the second. Despite it, or perhaps because of it, he laughed. Or did the Dark Lord laugh? He could not tell.
"You are useful yet," said the Dark Lord. "Fear not."
And he did not fear. In the most peculiar fashion, his breathing evened and his muscles uncoiled, tension melting away until he remained only a serene puddle on the floor.
This is what it feels like to be Lord Voldemort, he thought vaguely.
He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew he was waking up in his bed in Ravenclaw Tower, a beam of sunlight shining directly in his face. He sat up straight, shivering as he shed his covers abruptly. The bed hangings had been tied back, and he patted furiously at the bedside table for his glasses before finally discovering them on the far side, placed neatly into their case.
That alone confirmed that it most certainly had not been a dream, that he really had been possessed by the Dark Lord.
Was he still possessed?
No, he doubted it. For one, he couldn't see anything, and the Dark Lord's almost preternaturally perfect vision had been, admittedly, a nice change. Shoving his spectacles onto his face remedied that problem, and he set about looking for his wand, which wasn't on the table nor in his robe pocket. He was halfway to spinning in circles and wringing his hands when he finally unearthed it from, of all places, under his pillow.
There was also a note there. How considerate.
"Remember to report to Professor Quirrell's office on Friday at 8. Detention for stealing."
Scratch that. How inconsiderate. He frowned at the last part. Stealing what?
He hurried to his robe, which had been hung up by itself in the wardrobe, and dug around in the pocket for his remembrall. Even before his fingertips brushed against it, however, he realised with some panic what the stolen item had to be. The time machine!
Indeed, no amount of rummaging under his bed or in his pockets produced it, and he could only conclude that the Dark Lord had somehow taken it. Stupid, stupid. Which exactly was the stupid thing he'd done, he wasn't sure, but he was definitely stupid. He buried his face in his hands.
Presently, there was rustling and groaning to his side, and he remembered that it was a Tuesday morning, and he had dorm-mates whose greatest worries were probably lessons and exams. Those were things he ought to be worried about as well, but after last night they seemed impossibly irrelevant.
"What time is it?" Stephen mumbled, one arm across his face to block out the light and no wand in sight.
"What time is it?" Harry obligingly asked his wand. "Six."
"Too early," said Stephen, and rolled over.
He was right, Harry thought. It was too early to be up, and certainly too early to be having a mental breakdown. Detention on Friday. Well, the Dark Lord hardly seemed to be in a rush over the matter. Tossing his wand and glasses on the bedside table, Harry unfastened the hangings to block out the outside world and flopped back onto his bed, resolutely pushing his unease away.
Notes: Alas, no more time turner for Harry. He gets into enough trouble without it.