Harry's eyes snapped open. They stung with the raw prickle of interrupted sleep, but he was wide awake now and could not imagine closing them again. He sat up in the darkness and rolled out of bed, careful not to make a sound as he replaced the covers over the warm spot he had vacated. Lowering himself, he reached underneath the bedframe until his fingers struck something solid. He felt along the metal ridges until he secured his grasp around the handle of his trunk and tugged ever-so-softly.
For a moment, he paused, struck by the ridiculousness of what he was doing. What was he doing?
The moment passed, the fog of sleep returning with a sudden vengeance and washing away all doubts. He must be dreaming.
The clasps clicked unavoidably, deafening in the silence and secrecy. Harry tensed. He lifted the lid of his trunk slowly, very slowly, slipping his other hand inside. Instantly he felt the slippery material of his invisibility cloak, which he had shoved on top of all his other things. He drew it out with a soft swish and let the lid fall gently. Standing up, wary of the creaking of his knees, he toed the trunk back under the bed and draped the cloak over his body. Then he waited.
All was quiet but for the very faint susurration of breath from the other side of the room. Petri was still asleep. Letting out a relieved breath, Harry crept through the curtain and across the main room with measured steps. Then he ascended the stairs agonisingly slowly, pushing open the door with the crown of his head.
Blinding sunlight flooded inside. Abandoning his previously languid movement, he shot up out of the house, dropping the casket door and only catching it at the last moment, slipping his fingers out gently. His eyes stung horribly. When he could finally see again, it was only to discover that everything was blurry. He had forgotten his glasses.
This was a very disappointingly logical dream, Harry thought with some disgruntlement, but it was too late to go back now. He trudged across the gravel, wincing as it bit into his bare feet. The grass sprouting wildly over the real graves was cool and slippery, but no less sharp. He did not have to go far, anyway, only into the shade of the yew trees that shielded Knockturn Alley from view. There, he called out softly, "Winky!"
Winky appeared before him with a distinct pop, trembling and wide-eyed as she always was. She reached out. Harry parted the edges of his cloak and took her outstretched hand, and they disappeared.
Terror crashed over him like ice water as the space between space disgorged them on the other side. He was in was Barty's sitting room and this wasn't a dream. Winky had let go and vanished immediately, leaving him alone.
Alone. And he was still invisible. Reigning in his thundering heart and rapid breathing with the full force of his will, he turned full circle on the parquet flooring, glancing every which way, as if the Dark Lord might be hiding behind the banister or under the tea table. As he relinquished his panic, the fog threatened to overwhelm him again, but now that he had recognised it, he could keep it at bay with well-practised indignation.
The imperius curse. How could he be so stupid? He had assumed, just because he had overcome the curse, that the Dark Lord had dispensed with it thereafter. But why should he have? Resisting the imperius curse did not dispel it. In fact, Harry knew that nothing short of the caster's death could end the curse from outside. Once it had been resisted in the first place, once the victim was aware, further resistance wasn't too difficult, but Harry had been so stupid and had let down his guard.
Dumbledore had been absolutely right to suspect it. Harry had dismissed the thought at the time—of course he had. That was how the imperius curse worked. He knew that. Shame and fury crawled down his back in the form of cold sweat.
He stepped cautiously over to the floo, nerves heightening irrationally at the slight thump, thump of his bare footfalls on the waxed wood. Nobody appeared to stop him, and he relaxed minutely as he reached the fireplace. If Voldemort was relying on the imperius curse, perhaps it would not be too difficult to escape after all.
He glanced up to the mantelpiece. His heart sank. The floo powder jug was missing. Just in case, he searched all around for a few minutes, clinging to the foolish hope that Barty had just redecorated since summer, or that his myopia had blurred out something obvious, but no, there were no containers of any kind near the hearth.
His fingers twitched. He didn't have his wand. Even if he had it, he wasn't sure it would have done him much good, but without it he felt naked. He was also in his nightgown and barefoot, so that feeling wasn't too off the mark. Giving up the fireplace, he moved for the physical exit instead, daring to walk more quickly now. His hand hovered mistrustfully over the door handle. It wouldn't be cursed, would it?
Since when was he that circumspect? Harry grit his teeth as he realised what was going on. The Dark Lord had told him once himself. Provide a reason for action, and the victim of the curse would do the rest. There, softly, in the back of his mind, a gentle voice whispered for him to stay in the room. He had no chance of getting out. He didn't want to displease the Dark Lord.
Harry forced his hand to close around the handle, despite every warning bell going off in his head. They were all false, manufactured to cow him into submission. He tugged the door open and promptly screamed.
A middle-aged man stood on the other side, mouth open in shock underneath a well-manicured handlebar moustache. His wand had sprung into his hand, and he was glancing warily about the seemingly empty room.
"Harry?" he called out.
Harry stiffened, wondering how the man knew who he was. Was this a Death Eater he had not yet met? He tried to sidle out of the way, but this plan was foiled when the man promptly cast a human-revealing charm and then nailed him with the Full Body-Bind curse. Harry toppled over and his cloak fell away. His heart galloped in his chest.
"Oh. Sorry. Why were you hiding?" asked the man, an almost sheepish expression crossing his face. "I thought maybe it wasn't you. Finite."
Surprised to find himself free to move, Harry jumped cautiously to his feet. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Oh!" said the man, eyes widening in an expressive way that did not suit the severe cast of his face. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a flask, which he quickly unscrewed and took a swig from. It was like somebody had run a flat iron over his face—all the lines straightened out, and the grey bled from his hair until it shone like burnished gold.
"Barty?" Harry said, stunned at the transformation. He squinted, doubting his vision, but it was undeniable. A now-familiar set of features grinned back at him. Barty was running the tip of his wand over his upper lip, erasing the rather uncharacteristic moustache.
"Sorry about the face. I wasn't expecting you in the middle of the day. Had to run back from work. Been impersonating my old man so nobody knows he's kicked the bucket," Barty said, grimacing. "Conveniently, we look alike."
Harry blinked, his heart still threatening to burst out of his chest. Barty didn't sound like he was about to deliver him to his death, but appearances could be deceiving.
"Sorry," Harry finally said. "I'm not—I'm not really sure why I'm here. I thought…"
He decided it would be better for him not to go into too much detail about what he had thought, and was still thinking.
Barty waved a hand. "Don't worry. I've been expecting you. Master told me you'd be here some time this week, said he'd instructed you to sneak out when you wouldn't be missed." He checked his pocket watch. "Are you sure this is a good time? Your guardians out or something?"
"Asleep," Harry said, supposing that 'instructed' was one way of putting it. "We're usually nocturnal."
"Ah, that's right. I forgot you associate with vampires," Barty said, shaking his head. "Do you want to sit down?"
Harry glanced down to where he had been twisting his invisibility cloak into a tight knot and forced himself to relax, trying to bring his meagre occlumency to bear. He gathered up the fabric into a loose pile and took a seat at the edge of a chaise longue. Barty flopped down on the couch across from him.
"I'll summon him now, but I don't know how long it'll take him to respond. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?"
Harry blinked. "That would be nice. Thanks."
Barty snapped his fingers, and a moment later Winky was scurrying into the room with a tea set balanced above her head. She must have been skulking about the whole time, listening in. Harry hid a grimace. The way elves could fade into the background like that was incredibly inconvenient.
Paying her no mind, Barty pulled up his sleeve, taking a moment to admire the Dark Mark reverently, before pressing a deliberate fingertip into the scar. It flared black, and he inhaled sharply in pain, though by the ecstatic smile on his face one might have assumed it was pleasure.
Harry closed his eyes, focusing inwardly in case he might get a vision from the Dark Lord, but nothing happened after a few moments. He wondered for the first time if his occlumency was perhaps blocking their strange connection, and if that was not one of the reasons why Voldemort had been so adamant to have him learn it in the first place. When he opened his eyes, Barty was still staring into space, grinning. Harry's gaze flickered to the Dark Mark. He touched his own left arm, remembering what Lord Voldemort had done with it that day in the forest, with the dementors, and how it had hurt for weeks afterwards.
"Barty, can I ask you a sort of personal question?" Harry murmured, sipping at his tea and shivering as it warmed him up from the inside.
"Go ahead," said Barty, turning his head languidly.
"Does it ever hurt when you do magic?"
The smile slid from Barty's face in an instant. "Have you been experiencing pain?"
Harry shook his head hastily. "No, it's not that. I just read about magical sensitivity in a book. It said that people who do dark magic can get it…"
Barty relaxed. "Yes, that's right. To answer your question, it only hurts when I cast the cruciatus curse. But that's fair, don't you think? That way, my victim and I, we're connected in a special way." He clenched and unclenched his fist, a lazy grin spreading across his face.
"Right," Harry mumbled, blinking. "Why only with the cruciatus? Do you know?"
"Simple enough. It's hard to cast the cruciatus curse calmly. I'd even say it was impossible, if I hadn't seen Master do it time and again. Emotion affects magic, you see—anger and excitement are especially powerful conductors. But the cruciatus is already one of the most intensive curses around, so amplifying it with emotion takes quite the toll on the body," Barty explained.
Dumbledore had said something like that once, Harry remembered suddenly. Emotion leaves traces. He had also said that Hogwarts didn't teach those sorts of things.
"Where did you learn about all that?" Harry asked. "Are there books about how magic works?"
"There are books, but every author has his own theory," Barty said. "Nobody really knows for certain, you see, because nobody has ever figured out how to measure magic. Of course, I think Master's theory is right, or he never would have got as far as he has. He's immortal, you know?"
"Yeah," Harry said. He rather thought that he knew first hand how immortal Voldemort was, having been the one to put it to the test. "What do you mean by 'measuring' magic? As in how much of it there is?"
"How much there is, whether it's even there at all, anything! We can detect magic once it's in use, but what is it like before we cast a spell, when nobody's trying to use it? Does it really even exist in that state? We can't even answer that basic question," Barty said, slamming his palm down on the arm of the couch with sudden vehemence.
"How could it not exist?" Harry demanded, mystified. "There are things that affect magic in the air, aren't there? Dementors. Nullifiers." He bit his lip.
"Passive magic is still magic that we're using," Barty said. "We can influence it long before it enters our bodies. Some people even think magic actually comes from wizards, that we create it. That's codswallop of course—there are magical plants that grow in isolated places, for Merlin's sake. But who knows? Maybe those plants create magic too."
"Does it matter which it is?" Harry asked.
Barty shrugged. "I suppose in most ordinary contexts it doesn't matter. But we might be interested in theoretical questions like whether it's possible to run out of magic."
Having felt before what it was like to run out of magic, Harry was sceptical. "So you're saying that we don't know if dementors really suck all the magic out of the air?"
"I'm saying that we know that they don't. It's a purely psychological effect. You can prove that with occlumency," Barty said. "A skilled occlumens can block out a dementor's aura completely, and their magic won't be affected."
"Oh," Harry said. He resolved to practise harder at occlumency. It seemed to be such a vital skill. "Why don't they teach everybody occlumency? I mean, do they? Later on at school?"
"No, at least, not in my day. I learned everything I know from my master. It requires a lot of one-on-one instruction and trust to teach occlumency, and most people never need it. Legilimens and dementors aren't exactly common," Barty said.
At that moment, three heavy knocks resounded through the house, and Winky popped into view by the table.
"Master's master is being at the door," she announced.
"Already? Quickly, invite him in, Winky," Barty said, jumping to his feet. Harry scrambled to follow, feeling foolish and underdressed in only his nightclothes. This low-level embarrassment somehow managed to override the dread of his imminent doom, leaving him flustered rather than trembling.
The Dark Lord swept into the sitting room like a tall black spectre. Barty, predictably, threw himself onto the floor, while Harry bowed awkwardly from behind him. Lord Voldemort's utterly blank face suggested distraction, or perhaps even urgency. He nodded to Barty and then moved straight to the point.
"Harry, are you prepared to learn your fate?"
Harry froze, wondering if he was about to die, but the Dark Lord only held out a pale hand. Hesitantly, Harry reached out, and the Dark Lord's fingers closed around his securely. There was no pain in his scar, just a faint squeeze on his body. The world shifted around them, more smoothly than any apparition Harry had ever undergone. A musty scent rushed into Harry's nostrils, and he blinked against the dappled light shining through a network of needled boughs. They had appeared in a coniferous forest. A frigid wind bit at Harry's exposed neck and ankles, seeping through the thin material of his nightgown.
Lord Voldemort, still holding his hand tightly, turned to the trunk of a tree taller than any Harry had ever seen. The Dark Lord placed his palm against its rough bark, pressing against it with a look of intense concentration.
A moment later they were inside the tree—or so Harry's dumbfounded mind immediately supposed. They had appeared in a cramped circular chamber, perhaps five metres across and barely tall enough to accommodate the Dark Lord's considerable height. The wooden floor was marked with concentric rings, and the walls were rough and gnarled, almost veiny. Incongruously, the space was furnished with an ordinary desk and a chair, as well what appeared to be a handheld gas lamp, which glimmered with soft orange light.
Lord Voldemort had let go of him and taken a step back. In the dim illumination, Harry could make out no more than an indistinct form silhouetted by lamplight. The room was suffocatingly silent, and he could hear his own heartbeat thudding inside his chest.
Finally, Lord Voldemort spoke. "Pay close attention," he said, reaching into his pocket. He produced a familiar white orb. Harry's breath caught. The prophecy.
With a violent jerk of his hand, the Dark Lord dashed the orb to the ground. Harry yelped and recoiled as it shattered into a cloud of brilliant dust at his feet. At once, a smoky figure began to coalesce from the remains. His jaw dropped as he recognised Professor Trelawney.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
The Dark Lord leaned forward, his eyes literally glowing red in the gloom.
"… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…"
Harry's heart sunk to the bottom of his stomach like a stone.
"… the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"
What power? Harry felt on the verge of terrified laughter. In this moment, alone with the Dark Lord, he was more powerless than ever.
The Dark Lord was still staring contemplatively as the apparition faded away into formless smoke, which drifted hazily to the ground. His wand had appeared back in his hand, where he twirled it absently.
"I see," he said at length, turning his bright eyes on Harry. "Neither can live while the other survives. What do you make of that, Harry?"
This question startled Harry out of his deepening panic—he had almost missed that line, given the other, much more worrying contents. He took a moment to think, but could come up with nothing better than, "It can't be literally true. We're both alive right now. My lord."
Lord Voldemort looked a little amused, but he nodded. "To live may also mean to tolerate, as in to live with something. However, I believe that I can live very well with your survival."
He closed the distance between them at lightning speed and poked Harry in the forehead. There was no pain besides the blunt impact of the bony finger against his temple. The hand trailed down to close over his shoulder. Harry could see now that the Dark Lord was smiling, as if he had just shared an especially witty joke. This good humour was bewildering after what they had just heard, but Harry was reluctant to question it. Instead, he was busy with the unsettling thought that of course, things would be so much better if there were no Dark Lord. Petri would still be the worst person in his life, and he could live in ignorance of his fate.
His gaze flickered to the shards of glass that lay strewn over the wooden floor. No. The Dark Lord might have been the one to kill his parents, possess him, and threaten his continued existence, but all of that had been directly caused by the prophecy, not only presaged. At least, until now, Harry had assumed this to be the case. But how was that possible?
"My lord," he said, wetting his lips, which were painfully cracked, "If you didn't know the prophecy until now, why did you come after me as a baby?"
Lord Voldemort's eyes shuttered, and Harry tensed, but he answered without incident: "I did not know the entirety of the prophecy, but I had heard the first part of it and thought to nip the problem in the bud. I admit that it never once occurred to me that I would be at risk. After all, the words given to me never said that I would be vanquished, only that somebody would be born with the power to do so."
Harry tried not to frown, because frankly he did not see what had changed. Why was the Dark Lord now willing to let him, the same person, live, when before he had been happy to kill a baby in order to prevent any possibility of somebody becoming stronger than him? Though he itched to know, Harry wasn't suicidal enough to pose this question.
The Dark Lord answered it anyway. "Now, in hindsight, I understand that you were not born with any special power at all. I have caused this power in you, the power to vanquish me, through my own folly. Now we have heard the entire prophecy. No matter how we strive to avoid the outcome, it will come to pass. So, we must leave open a possible future that both fulfils the prophecy and is amenable to us both. Tell me, Harry—how long would you like to live?"
Harry's heart jumped back into his throat at this terrible question. The Dark Lord was hardly a foot away from him, inside a doorless, windowless room. There was nowhere to even attempt an escape. "I—a long time, please."
"A hundred years? A thousand? Forever?" the Dark Lord suggested. These timescales quelled Harry's panic somewhat.
"Not forever," Harry said honestly. A strange gleam came into the Dark Lord's eye. "But a hundred sounds pretty good—how long do people normally live?"
"An ordinary wizard lives about a century, though he can make it to two or even three hundred if he is lucky. I plan to live until the end of time, and you will not stop me. When the time comes that you tire of this life," the Dark Lord paused here, eyes narrowing, "then you will seek me out, and I shall kill you."
Harry thought furiously about this proposal. It seemed to fit into the wording of the prophecy, but for one thing, the very line that the Dark Lord had first drawn his attention to. "My lord, what about that line, that neither can live while the other survives? It might not be true now, but…" Harry swallowed, but he felt it had to be said, "it has to come true in the future, right? Doesn't that mean that any agreement we come to now will eventually fall apart?"
Lord Voldemort peered at him shrewdly, finally releasing his shoulder. "The prophecy is a description of the future, until one day it becomes a description of the past. But the future is always ahead of us. As long as we are alive, we remain firmly in the present, which is a product of our choices and nothing else. I do not intend to promise what I cannot deliver. And you, Harry? Are you suggesting that you would break your word to me?"
"No, of course not," Harry said, a knot of trepidation still churning in his chest. How could he articulate his worry without accusing the Dark Lord of dishonesty? He was reminded inexorably of the future he had seen, the smoky flashes of spellfire in the fumes of Aleksandra's skull and the solid column of light in the crystal.
Slowly, but no less threateningly for it, the Dark Lord moved his wand until it rested lightly under Harry's chin. Harry stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe.
"Do you believe that I could not kill you this instant if I so desired?" the Dark Lord asked conversationally.
Ever so slightly, Harry shook his head, entirely cognisant of the smooth wood ghosting over his throat. "I'm sure you could, my lord."
The wand disappeared into the Dark Lord's sleeve, and Harry let out a shaky breath, his whole body trembling. He felt numb.
"In that case, you must trust that I do not wish for your death. Indeed, I desire the very opposite for you—a long life, safe from harm," said the Dark Lord.
This was too much for Harry. "You ordered my death," he blurted. "I almost died at school."
"And yet, here you are, alive and well," Lord Voldemort said coolly. He slipped into the smooth, whispery tones of Parseltongue. "Trust me, Harry. You have more to offer me than you know. You have and will continue to help me, and Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers."
Some reward, Harry couldn't help thinking, but aloud he said simply, "But why? Why… pretend to want me dead?"
"Dumbledore," Lord Voldemort hissed, the blocky syllables of the name falling from his lipless mouth like stones. "Dumbledore must never suspect that I hold anything but ill will towards you. Did you never wonder why the prophecy, a prophecy about me, was told to Albus Dumbledore?"
"Because he's your enemy, my lord?" Harry suggested.
"And for all that he is my enemy, the prophecy does not foretell his victory. He does not even feature in my fate. This is proof that he is nothing more than an old coward, unable to face me head on. All he can do is orchestrate circumstances from the sidelines, sharpen others into tools to fight his battles for him." The Dark Lord betrayed more passion in these words than Harry had ever seen him express. His scar throbbed with each declaration, though not entirely unpleasantly, like a lingering burn rather than the usual knife's edge.
"My lord, Dumbledore told me that he couldn't ever kill someone. But he refused to say why," Harry said. He felt a twinge of uncertainty at revealing this information, but remembered then that Dumbledore had given him leave to tell the Dark Lord everything.
The Dark Lord scoffed. "Doubtless he does not wish to sully his soul. He must believe himself still innocent."
In a moment of clarity, Harry realised that he was standing in front of what might be the world's foremost expert on tampering with souls. His mouth went dry. How to ask what he wished to know?
"How can a soul be sullied? I thought—my master, he told me that souls are the same as forms. How can that be good or bad?" Harry said. He flushed as the words left his mouth, wondering if asking the Dark Lord to humour him here was too much.
But the Dark Lord's eyes glinted with interest rather than derision. "Like any value judgement, this one refers to some arbitrary standard. Dumbledore believes that continuity is the highest virtue. A whole soul, from birth to death—he believes that such a soul will guarantee the most coherent afterlife, and that any break in continuity will deny him that privilege. He is not wrong about the bare facts," he said, to Harry's surprise. The Dark Lord smiled grimly, "but he has missed the point entirely. To sacrifice the life one already has for a pipe dream of the next is the height of foolishness. Do you not agree, Harry?"
When it was put that way, the Dark Lord's position was difficult to argue against. "I suppose so, my lord. But there really is an afterlife? It's not just superstition?"
Lord Voldemort tilted his head to the side. "The answer depends on how you define afterlife. After a wizard dies, he does indeed continue to exist in some form or another. But there is no life as we know it after death. If there were, we would no longer call it death, but some other name. You are, of course, wondering what the afterlife is like. I cannot offer you an answer, for I have never died. My personal suspicion is that it is not like anything from the inside, because it is devoid of will, the very basis of conscious experience."
That was right. Will was something unique to the living, and magic could not create will. And things without physical bodies, according to Dumbledore, also had no will. But then… Harry swallowed and decided to take the plunge. "How did you live without a body?"
Lord Voldemort leaned forward, and Harry's scar twinged. "You are a very curious boy, are you not?" he whispered into Harry's ear. "Curiosity is not a sin, but you would do well to temper it with due caution. The price for some secrets may be higher than you can afford."
"Yes, my lord," Harry said, averting his gaze. He felt a terrible prickling at the back of his neck as he took his eyes off the Dark Lord, but better that than risk challenging him any further.
The Dark Lord put a bony hand on Harry's head, brushing the fringe from his scar with a sweep of his thumb. "Dumbledore must be desperately trying to find a way to end me," he mused.
Harry could not help going rigid. Hastily, he said, "Yes, my lord, he is."
The Dark Lord laughed softly in the back of his throat. "Show me." He pushed Harry's head back. Though he was smiling, his eyes were cold, two ruby pinpricks that bored into Harry's mind like needles.
Harry thought of Dumbledore, of a forest in Albania and teachers in China. A forest in Albania. They were inside a tree right now, in a forest. Could it be?
"We are, indeed, currently in Albania," Lord Voldemort informed him. He did not seem particularly concerned about what he had found in Harry's memories. "As usual, Dumbledore knows more than he should but not enough to change anything. He has no idea how precarious his position really is."
Harry had no idea, either, of what the Dark Lord was talking about. Lord Voldemort chuckled softly to himself, releasing his grip on Harry's hair. "You will understand soon enough."
With that, the Dark Lord extracted them from the tree and returned Harry to Barty's house, where the floo powder jug had mysteriously reappeared. Even ameliorated by magic, the fire felt uncomfortably hot against his frozen extremities, and he almost landed on his face in the dirt as he stumbled out into the owl shed at Sixty-Six Knockturn. Each step felt like walking on needles, and he was half convinced several times that he had stepped on a sharp twig and torn up his foot, but he managed to get back home unbloodied.
He wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and never get up again, but he remembered that he had Christmas shopping to do. If he laid down, he had the strong suspicion that he would be unable to work up the willpower to exit the covers for the rest of the day, so he forced himself to stay clear of the alluring mattress and instead only ducked into the curtained room to finally get his wand, change into his robes, and put on some shoes, tiptoeing past a slumbering Petri. On the way out, he grabbed his winter cloak and picked up the note with his werewolf protector's address:
Remus Lupin, 343C Purefair Alley. To floo call: half measure floo powder, head only.
Slipping it into his pocket, he took the stairs two at a time to try to inject some pep into his sluggish body. It didn't work; his head pounded with ever greater intensity in the crisp winter air and his leg promptly cramped.
Back at the public floo, he slipped a knut into the powder dispenser, cranking the dial on its side to the line marked '1/2', whose purpose had finally become clear to him. A puff of glittering powder caused the flames to whoosh into a familiar green, but Harry was still nervous about sticking his head in there. What if it tried to pull him through anyway? Gruesome images of his head twisting off his neck, hurtling its bloody way down the green corridor before flopping out of some unfortunate's fireplace, flickered in his mind's eye.
He shook his head at his own ridiculousness. People must do this all the time.
"Three Forty-Three C Purefair Alley," he enunciated. The fire flickered with what he hoped was acknowledgement. Taking a deep breath, Harry knelt down and stuck his head into the flames.
It felt a little like putting his face in a basin of water, only he could still breathe and see on the other side. What he saw was a sparsely furnished sitting room with rough wooden flooring and a threadbare couch that was missing a seat cushion. There was nobody in sight.
"Hello?" Harry called out. It would be just his luck if nobody was home, or he had called the wrong address.
But a moment later, a door at the flickering edge of his vision thumped open and Lupin rushed into view, clad in muggle trousers and a white cotton shirt.
"Hello, can I help you?" the man asked, kneeling down in front of the fire. The vantage point was strange—Harry still had to look up to see his face, even though it was barely a foot off the ground.
"My uncle said that you could take me to Diagon Alley," Harry said after a beat. When Lupin looked confused, he amended, "He said you could take Harry Potter to Diagon Alley."
"Oh, yes, that's right," said Lupin with a distracted smile. Harry noted that his teeth looked perfectly human. Was he really a werewolf?
"Sorry if it's sudden, but are you free right now?" Harry asked.
Lupin nodded. "Give me a moment to get ready and I'll come through the floo."
Harry pulled his head back with a sudden feeling of vertigo. He backed up, peering into the orange flames expectantly. About a minute later they flared green and Lupin came sliding out, twisting to his feet in a practised motion.
He had put on a lumpy grey coat over a set of brown robes which fluttered about his ankles, not quite covering the hems of his trousers. Harry supposed he looked shabby enough to be a denizen of Knockturn, but his gentle, clean-shaven face ruined the effect.
"All right. Where to first?" Lupin asked, making for the door. The suddenly disgruntled owls in the shed rustled their feathers and clicked their beaks as he passed by.
Harry already had Neville's present from Petri's stock—a remembrall colour tuner, so that left sweets for the rest of his friends, except Hermione, who had something against sugar. He'd get her a book of some kind.
"Sugarplum's, I suppose," Harry said, wincing internally at the future state of his gold bag. Their handmade, bespelled confectionery was truly extravagant in every sense of the word.
Lupin raised an eyebrow. "Sweets before dinner?"
"It's not for me," Harry felt it necessary to say. "Christmas presents."
"Why not Honeydukes?" Lupin asked.
"I forgot to put in an owl order," Harry said, sighing.
"No matter, we can simply go to Honeydukes now, if you want," Lupin offered.
"In Hogsmeade?" Harry asked, eliciting a short laugh.
Lupin reached out and ruffled his hair. Harry stiffened for a moment, but it was a much warmer gesture than anything Lord Voldemort had ever managed, so he relaxed. "No, there's a Honeydukes on Latter Alley."
Harry blinked. "Where? I've only been to Diagon and Horizont."
"It's on the other end of Horizont, past Corkscrew Avenue," Lupin explained, whereupon Harry discovered that he had been pronouncing 'Horizont' incorrectly this whole time, and that the 't' was silent.
Harry did not like the sound of Corkscrew Avenue. Wizards, he had noticed, named things extremely literally, possibly due to some grammatological principle he had yet to learn. Knockturn, for example, lived up to its name by being active at night, dingy during the day, and full of twists and turns, while Horizont ran straight from east to west except where it had to wrap all the way around Carkitt Market. Incidentally, Carkitt Market had a very worrying name too, but Harry had already been there several times and was still alive. Perhaps the idea was that anybody who shopped there would want to die after realising how much money they'd inadvertently spent.
Instead of going up Knockturn towards Diagon Alley, they went the other way, past Annette's house, which was as far as Harry had ever gone in this direction. The houses here seemed even shabbier than in the upper part of Knockturn, if that was possible. Everywhere he looked he found peeling paint, cracked facades, and sloping roofs with missing shingles. Soon enough, Knockturn Alley ended entirely and they turned onto a different street whose cobblestones were overgrown with yellowing knotweed and foxtails. A chipped sign hanging from a lamppost with no lamp read, 'Purefair Alley.'
"You live here?" Harry asked, trying not to frown.
"Just around the corner," Lupin confirmed, pointing out a grim block of flats peeking over the rooftops of some dilapidated townhouses. Harry couldn't keep his face from twisting.
"Don't mending charms work on houses?" he asked.
Lupin's lip quirked up ruefully. "Not everybody has the privilege of carrying a wand."
Uncertain how to ask politely, Harry figured he would just ask impolitely. "Are werewolves not allowed to have wands, then?" If Lupin was supposed to be protecting him, he thought it would be a relevant detail.
Lupin stiffened noticeably, missing a step. He looked askance at Harry, though he didn't seem offended. "I suppose Peters told you about my condition? Werewolves are considered to be wizards, thankfully, so there is no wand ban for us. However, most werewolves these days were infected as children, and so didn't get the opportunity to attend Hogwarts. I was lucky. When I was about school age, Dumbledore had just become headmaster. He knew about my condition, but was willing to make accommodations."
"That was kind of him," Harry said. "Does that mean there are werewolves at Hogwarts now too?"
"I should hope not," Lupin said with a nervous laugh. "It's is a rare affliction. Most of us try our best never to infect anybody else. Theoretically, if we all did our part, the curse could be eradicated in a generation."
"How does it spread?" Harry asked, screwing up his face in thought. "In my textbook I think it said humans turn into werewolves when bitten. Does that mean any bite, or does it have to be the full moon?"
"It's a bite while transformed, of course. We're perfectly human the rest of the month, and as likely as you are to bite someone," Lupin said, pressing his lips together.
"Right. I didn't mean anything by it. I just don't know much about werewolves," Harry said quickly. Lupin had sped up somewhat, and Harry found himself jogging to keep up. He wasn't sure if the werewolf was being completely forthright—he had clear incentive to appear to Harry in a favourable light, but at the same time, the things Petri had told him might well have been exaggerated. Merlin knew the man had little regard for half-breeds.
"I suppose you wouldn't," Lupin allowed, his face softening somewhat. He slowed down again, which was fortunate, as the cobblestones had dwindled to uneven gravel and they were knee deep in dry, prickly grass. "You're in your second year at Hogwarts?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah."
"What creatures have you covered in Defence so far?" Lupin asked.
Harry had to take a moment to think about this question. Professor Quirrell had largely covered the basic theory of defensive magic, focusing on how to call for help in case of an attack and all-purpose spells to impede threats. Lockhart, well… there had been the pixies.
"Nothing, really," Harry said. "Just some household pests."
Lupin made a surprised noise in the back of his throat. "Really? What about red caps or hinkypunks?"
"I don't think so," Harry admitted, flushing a little. He supposed they sounded familiar enough to have been in his creatures textbook, but they certainly weren't one of the ones whose blood was useful for any special enchantment, or he was sure he would have remembered them.
"Red caps you ought to learn how to deal with, at least," Lupin said. "I remember there were some living in the Forbidden Forest when I was a student. Mostly just a nuisance, but nasty if they get the drop on you. They're elves who've fixated on blood, and they'll try to bash your head open to dye their clothes red. The name red cap comes from their cap, obviously, but pretty much everything else about them will be crusted with blood too."
He made a face, and Harry mirrored him.
"You said they're elves? Like house elves?" Harry asked, glancing around with some trepidation into their gloomy surroundings, as if expecting a bloodthirsty elf to come sprinting out. They couldn't rightly be said to be walking on a city street anymore. Though lampposts in varying states of disrepair still poked out of the ground at intervals, the buildings had all but disappeared into tangles of brush and untidy rows of gnarled trees.
"Not like house elves," Lupin said, chuckling. "Well, maybe a little like the deranged cousin of a house elf. They're magically very weak, though, so almost any defensive charm or hex will work on them. The important thing is to not let them sneak up on you. Any time there's been significant blood spilled outside, human or animal—it doesn't matter—you should be on the lookout. The good news is that they'll try to kill each other too, so there's not too much danger of them ganging up on you. Still, there was one time that my friends and I were out after curfew—which you shouldn't do, by the way—in fact, you shouldn't do any of the things I'm about to mention—anyway, we were out trying to kidnap a few bowtruckles, and Wormtail, our small and clumsy friend, fell out of the tree and cracked his skull on the ground."
"Wormtail?" Harry repeated, stopping and glancing back.
"Sorry, Peter was his real name. My friends and I all had childish nicknames for each other, naturally, when we were children. We called ourselves the Mauraders," Lupin said, before continuing his story.
Harry stopped paying attention, trying to remember where he had heard that name before. Wormtail. He mouthed it, and the shape of it on his tongue was familiar. His eyes widened.
"Do you still keep in touch? With your school friends?" Harry asked the moment there was a pause. Lupin's face fell, weariness etching premature creases into his brow.
"No. I'm the only one left," he murmured.
"Sorry," Harry said, but he had to know. "But do you mean they're all… dead?"
Lupin's expression darkened even further, though he answered anyway. "Dead or as good as," he said.
Wormtail wasn't dead, or at least, he hadn't been dead a few months ago. Harry was sure it had to be the same person he had seen in his vision, crying and grovelling at Lord Voldemort's feet. What were the odds that two unrelated people would be called Wormtail? Lupin had said it was a nickname for his friend, and Harry was pretty certain it couldn't be somebody's surname. But maybe Lupin didn't know that he was still alive. The Dark Lord, Harry recalled now, had been surprised to see him.
Harry remembered what Petri had said about Lupin knowing his parents.
"Did you know my father—I mean, James Potter? Was he one of you… Marauders?" he asked.
"He was," Lupin said.
Harry bit his lip. "Can you tell me, no, can you tell Harry Potter about his father?"
These words sounded totally ridiculous to his own ears, but they worked. Lupin seemed to warm up considerably when reminded of Harry Potter. Harry trailed behind him a little, hoping that if Lupin couldn't see him, the fidelius charm would not redirect his attention.
"James was… the centre of our group. We were pranksters, the four of us, but really only because James was a prankster. He was the one who came up with most of the good ideas, had the most vision. Peter and I tagged along for the ride. We would be the lookouts or the distractions. I was on library duty most of the time—we must have accidentally studied twice as much magic as we were supposed to, trying to execute all of James's far-fetched plans." Lupin paused and let out a wistful sigh. "James was never one for book learning. He preferred to just 'do it,' as he would say. Had an incredible talent for transfiguration. To this day I probably couldn't replicate some of the things he managed as a teenager. Once, he turned every single fork and spoon in the Great Hall into chopsticks—all by himself, because none of us could manage even one, since they were solid silver."
"Wow," Harry said, trying and failing to estimate how much cutlery that was. It was strange to hear that his father had been a practical joker. The general opinion in Ravenclaw of people like the Weasley twins, who deliberately did annoying things to people, was exactly that they were annoying, but Harry could admit that swapping all the silverware was a little bit funny and mostly harmless.
Lupin had other anecdotes too, one after another, some of them relating to Harry's mother. Apparently she had hated his father for most of their time at Hogwarts. Conversely, his father claimed to have fallen in love with his mother at first sight, and spent the next seven years pursuing her with ever more outlandish displays.
"How did they end up together then?" Harry asked, mystified.
"They got to know each other better in their seventh year, when they were Head Boy and Girl. By then, James had grown up quite a bit. We all had," Lupin said, sobering. "Lord Voldemort's crusade had come right to our doorstep. There was no staying out of it once we left school."
"And the Marauders split up, because they were on different sides?" Harry asked, trying to understand what had happened to Peter and the unnamed fourth Marauder. He felt a cold stab of worry. Would ideology divide him from his friends too some day?
Lupin looked straight at him all of a sudden, as if realising for the first time that he was there.
"How did you—never mind. I must have accidentally mentioned Sirius's name. I was trying not to. You have to understand that even after what he did, I simply cannot bring myself to believe that seven years of friendship were all a lie. Something must have happened towards the end, something big. There was a lot of pressure on everybody at that point. I myself had to rebuff several attempts to recruit me to Lord Voldemort's forces," Lupin said. He seemed far away, and Harry wasn't sure he really believed what he was saying.
"What—what exactly did Sirius do?" Harry asked, knowing full well that Lupin had not named him. Unlike 'Wormtail', 'Sirius' did not ring any bells, which was odd, given that Lupin seemed to expect him to recognise it.
"What didn't he do?" Lupin murmured ruefully. "He betrayed James and Lily's location to Voldemort. They were hiding under a powerful enchantment—pardon me, I forgot you would know about this one already—the fidelius charm. But they put their trust in the wrong person. We all did. And then, as if that wasn't enough, after Lord Voldemort disappeared, he went to finish the job. Hunted Peter down and murdered him in broad daylight."
Harry blinked in astonishment. How was that possible, when Peter wasn't dead?
"This happened a decade ago?" Harry asked, just to make sure he wasn't missing something obvious. Lupin shot him an odd look, but quickly wrenched his gaze away to stare into the distance.
"Yes. Sirius was locked up in Azkaban until the breakout this summer. I assume you've seen him on the wanted posters?" he said.
"Right," Harry mumbled, though it wasn't true, as he hadn't looked too closely at who exactly had escaped from Azkaban—there had been nearly a dozen people.
Lupin sighed. "I'm surprised he hasn't shown himself yet. He was always absolutely single-minded about getting even at all costs, and we all thought he would want revenge for what happened to his master. Lord Voldemort must be using him for something else, but I can't imagine what. Subtlety certainly wasn't one of his strengths."
Harry frowned, resolving to study up on the Azkaban escapees. If the Dark Lord was still set on pretending that he wanted Harry dead, then they would all be a threat to him. He could at least memorise their faces.
"How many followers does Lord Voldemort have?" Harry asked, suddenly worried.
"Nobody knows for certain except Lord Voldemort himself," Lupin said, "but back then he had hundreds at his beck and call, whether they were Death Eaters who had sworn themselves to him, people he'd blackmailed or bewitched, or sympathisers whom he'd made grand promises to. We believe he is actively recruiting, but not back to the level of his old following yet."
"Who are, 'we'?" Harry asked. It was the second time Lupin had referred to some collective.
"Those of us who are working to oppose Lord Voldemort," Lupin said. "Watch out!"
He snatched the back of Harry's cloak just in time to save him from colliding with a broomstick zooming through the next intersection. The rider twisted around and shouted something rude.
"Thanks," Harry said, stumbling back warily, but Lupin continued on, making a tight turn onto a wide, sloped street. There were more broom riders flying up and down the centre, stirring up a chilly wind. Beneath their feet, the path was properly paved again, though the trees had not thinned. Instead, buildings seemed to have sprouted right out of the wood, hanging from a network of boughs like massive rectangular fruits. A large sign affixed to a nearby branch read: 'Vertex Alley – Spyer's Spire Straight Ahead.'
Harry looked straight ahead but didn't see anything besides a rocky hilltop at the end of an increasingly steep incline.
"Are those stairs?" he asked, squinting into the distance.
"Ah, yes. I hope you're up for a little climb?" said Lupin with a wry grin. "Don't worry. We won't have to go all the way to the top, only about a quarter of the way."
"What's Spyer's Spire?" Harry asked in lieu of answering. They were already beginning their ascent.
"It's this invisible tower at the top of Vertex Alley. Bit of a tourist trap," Lupin told him. "We can visit it if you like."
"No. That's all right," Harry hunched forward as gravity began to assert itself at an unpleasant angle. A gaggle of teenaged girls passed them, strolling along as if on perfectly flat ground. Harry stared after them with incredulity. Lupin caught his look and smiled.
"They're wearing moon shoes," he explained, leaning in. "Make you very light on your feet. But you've got to be careful not to stomp too hard or you'll bounce right off the ground."
Harry continued to watch them for a few moments, but none of them bounced away, so he focused on keeping his own balance as they reached the steepest part before the outright steps began.
Just when he started panting in earnest and misting up his glasses, Lupin steered him to the right, onto the exposed root of what had to be a tree of titanic proportions. Harry quickly wiped his lenses on his cloak and shoved them back onto his face to have a look around. Craning his neck, he tried to see where the branches even started, but his view was obscured by the thick criss-crossing canopy of the comparatively smaller trees that lined the alley, all bedecked with dazzling fairy lights in a rainbow of hues.
"There's Latter Alley," said Lupin, gesturing towards the gaping maw that had been carved into the giant tree's trunk. A lamplit hollow on the first floor gave the impression of a monstrous winking face. Somehow, despite its jagged smile, it seemed welcoming.
"This is brilliant," Harry said. "I can't believe I didn't know about this place before."
As they passed through the mouth into the tree proper, he marvelled at the glittering orange stones that had been set into the walls and ceiling to serve as illumination. Of course—open flame would have hardly been appropriate next to so much wood.
"It's small," said Lupin. "More of a thoroughfare than its own destination, but it's got a few good spots. Honeydukes, of course, and the library."
"There's a library?" Harry demanded. "How did I not know about this before?"
But the library wasn't like the muggle public library, nor like the library at Hogwarts. The sign over the front door read, 'Athenaeum of the Alleys,' and below it, in all capitals, 'MEMBERS ONLY'.
"How do you become a member?" Harry asked.
"There's a subscription fee," said Lupin, "Or you can donate something they don't already have to get in for free, but the main sponsors have to approve it, and they decide how much time it's worth, so it can be a bit tricky. It's worth it, though. You can't take any books out, but you can take as many notes as you like, or even make duplicates if your wandwork is up to scratch. They have a lot of rare and unique tomes in their collection."
"How much is the fee?" Harry asked.
Lupin grimaced apologetically. "Twenty galleons a year, or three hundred for a lifetime. It's probably better to go the book donation route."
Harry winced. "And how do you know if they haven't got a book?"
"Anything old and handwritten is a likely bet. Back in the day we sneaked a few Black heirloom grimoires out from under Sirius's mum's nose to buy me lifetime access," Lupin said, smirking. "They didn't ask any questions."
Old and handwritten—that gave Harry an idea. "Does it have to be in English?"
"Probably not," said Lupin, "though you might get less time if it's in a language other members are unlikely to know. Why, have you got something?"
"I have this book I picked up from a junk shop. It's in Old English or something. It's about… ghosts," he said, deciding not to mention the inferi. "It's not like you really lose anything by giving up a book, right? You can go in and read it whenever you want. Or even make a copy first."
Lupin nodded, looking amused. "Let's not get carried away. We came here for sweets, didn't we?"
"Right," said Harry, a little chagrined at the realisation that he had forgotten sweets in favour of books. If he wasn't careful, he would find himself waking up mounted to the Ravenclaw knocker.
Harry had never been inside a physical Honeydukes store before. Unlike Sugarplum's, where everything was arranged in austere glass cases like at a museum, Honeydukes was bursting floor to ceiling with open wooden bins full of sweets. Everything from Fizzing Whizbees to Ice Mice to Sugar Quills could be grabbed by the handful and purchased by weight, three sickles and seven knuts a pound. Other, larger confections that came in boxes, like chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Beans, were simply priced at a sickle each.
Harry scooped up something from each bin (except for the one with cockroach clusters, which nobody liked), figuring that he would go for variety. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Lupin going to the counter with a pair of Honeyduke's brand chocolate bars. He quickly added a few to the pile balanced precariously in his arms, to send the werewolf later as thanks for taking him out. At the end, after a few moments of dithering, he tossed a handful of Blood Pops on top as well.
The witch behind the counter regarded him with a glazed look as he unloaded a cascade of sweets in front of her. She blew a dolphin-shaped bubble with her Drooble's Best, which floated into the air to join a menagerie of other blue bubblegum animals, before she waved her wand to count up the total.
"That'll be eight sickles and twenty-three knuts," she said, "Would you like a bag for that? It'll be another knut."
"Yes, please," Harry said, and she swept his purchases into a cloth sack with her arm. It bulged all over, clearly not charmed with any kind of extension charm, and Harry had some trouble feeding it into his pocket.
"That wasn't too bad," Harry told Lupin cheerfully as they exited the shop, having expected to spend upwards of a galleon at Sugarplum's. He took out a blood pop and shucked off the wrapper, sticking it in his mouth. It didn't wake him up like real blood, but the sugary, metallic taste was pleasant nonetheless. "Want one?" he asked Lupin, holding out another.
"Is that a blood pop?" Lupin asked, bemused. Harry nodded.
"They're pretty good."
Lupin accepted the sweet and gave it a hesitant lick. "Not bad," he agreed, popping it into his mouth and smiling slyly with the stick poking out of his teeth. "Does it enhance my image as a bloodthirsty beast?"
"No," Harry said, laughing at his exaggerated lisp.
"James used to sneak these into my bag when I wasn't looking," Lupin said, sighing fondly. "And cockroach clusters too. I'd banish them right back into his things, of course. Some of them probably circulated for years."
"Does anybody actually eat cockroach clusters?" Harry asked, making a face. Even Vince wouldn't go near them, and that said a lot.
"Sirius would on occasion, just to be disgusting," Lupin said with a choked laugh. "Merlin, I should have known he would turn out to be a nutter."
A melancholy look passed over his face, so Harry tried to change the subject. "Is there a bookstore around here? I need to get my other friend something. She's in Gryffindor, but she reads more than all the Ravenclaws combined."
Lupin chuckled. "Reminds me of me," he said. "I don't know about a nearby bookstore… Obscurus Books might actually be the closest one."
Harry groaned. Obscurus was all the way on the northern side of Knockturn Alley, and he had no idea where they were now, but they must have walked at least twenty minutes in a different direction.
"Come on," said Lupin, grinning mischievously, "We can go through Corkscrew Avenue."
Harry swallowed another groan and nodded. If Lupin was up to taking him, who was he to complain?
Corkscrew Avenue went around the hill under Spyer's Spire, rather than straight up it like Vertex Alley did, so fortunately the meandering walk wasn't too rough. Harry was astonished when the street plateaued at the next juncture, right under a sign welcoming them to Horizont Alley. The Fountain of Fair Fortune burbled merrily in the distance. An attempt to map out their route in his head failed miserably, so Harry just accepted it and managed to finish the rest of his Christmas shopping in good time.
"If you're serious about donating that book you mentioned to the athenaeum, just give me another floo call and I'll take you there," Lupin reminded him.
"Thanks," Harry said, having forgotten about his earlier idea entirely. After they parted ways, he almost rushed to dig the book out of his trunk, but reconsidered when he was faced with the inviting sight of his unmade bed. The library could wait.
