"He is the Dark Lord, you saw him rise from the Diary, Ronald. Why are you fighting me on this?" Harry complained after being told that it was impossible.
"Did you forget the part where we had our memories wiped, Draco and I? When did you learn of it?" Ron answered back, his tone level but clearly annoyed.
"When he kidnapped me after sending Vampires to attack Hogwarts or does that not ring a bell to you?" Harry snapped back, clearly not expecting the conversation to go this way.
"Don't snap at him," Draco cut in. "In case it escaped your notice, a lot of things have happened during our time at Hogwarts. We haven't ever gotten together and discussed everything we've gone through. I believed you found it to be too painful to recall and so I left it alone," he finished, before Dudley responded in turn.
"We should all be talking about it, letting it fester will only breed a worsened mental state."
"Where should we begin, at Quirrell, or with the bullying? The latter is old news, whereas the former has been eclipsed by literally everything that followed it." Harry answers back.
"Hang on a minute, I still wake up worried about that kidnapping, reliving it in my dreams," Draco interrupted, inspiring a response from Elias.
"Being dragged through the Whomping Willow by my ankle still haunts me at night, so I get where you're coming from there."
"Surely this is all exaggeration," Daphne interrupted, shocked at their version of events.
"I mean yeah sure, last year was pretty intense, but first and third were just normal years, and in second year there were those attacks throughout."
"Yeah, and don't forget the Dementors in third year," Elias contributed happily.
"So you're saying that in first year you fought the Dark Lord, then in second year you attempted to fight the Dark Lord again, who is now our Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, leading to you fighting Dementors in third year AND then the tournament. Are you sure this isn't fiction?"
"Unfortunately, that's a very simplified account of our time at Hogwarts, but an accurate one nevertheless," Harry answered his girlfriend, kissing her and earning a look from Hermione that he failed to notice.
The bell rang cutting their conversation short, as they left to attend their lessons.
/_-/^_^-_-/
Potions that year was weird. For one, Professor Snape was a lot more descriptive and patient, actually bothering to explain the why and the how as opposed to just the what. The second weird thing was his attempts to find out how their Defence lessons were going this year, with the general consensus being that Professor Gaunt was a very strict teacher, but that his lessons were actually quite informative. They were halfway through brewing a draught to counteract phantom itching, when Lavender Brown mentioned their learning about Bone Breakers in their first lesson. Upon her retelling of the lesson, her potion exploded in front of her, with Harry casting a curved shield charm to contain the spillage.
When the class handed in their samples and began to depart, Harry stayed back to talk to their professor.
"Professor Snape, sir, permission to speak freely?" Harry asked once alone, causing the professor to raise his wand and begin casting privacy charms, which Harry mirrored in Parseltongue. The boy then began building up his mental barriers, layering them in the way that seemed to keep Voldemort out. Once he was satisfied he began pacing, earning a raised eyebrow from Snape, before settling on sitting down, tapping his feet with nervous energy.
"Does your frantic behaviour have anything to do with the fact that we have a barely of age version of the Dark Lord teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, or has something else whipped you up into a frenzy?"
Harry stopped at that, relieved that either Professor Dumbledore had informed him, or the Potions Professor had figured it out himself.
"That's exactly it, why is it nobody else sees it? I thought seeing him would break the memory lock on Ron, but to no avail. What could he be up to? He mentioned to me after our first lesson that he viewed teaching as a vacation, something to pass the time while he is sick of being a Dark Lord-"
"You met with him alone, why would you do something as dunderheaded and loathsomely Gryffindorish as to engage in a casual conversation with him?" Snape cut him off, furious with the boy.
"I didn't really have much choice in the matter."
"And what exactly does that mean, you have shown no such regard for professors you find to be unlikeable, need I remind you of your decision to leave lessons in your second year."
"Why has this turned around on me, I'm not the Dark Lord, nor am I in a place I shouldn't be," Harry shouted back indignant.
"You've been hiding something from me for a long time. I'm not an idiot, I know how to recognise a poorly obscured memory. It is so transparent that the metaphysical representation of said memory, or memories, is a literal black box. I want you to tell me what it is, and why you've elected to hurriedly hide it."
"Why is that any of your busin-"
"Don't you dare, Potter, you're walking on thin ice. You know what is at stake if you allow your Occlumency to suffer, you know the cost."
"I'm sorry, Professor, but how is it my fault that you have yet to teach me how to effectively block the Dark Lords, I've had to create my own method of blocking them involving layered walls of shields."
"Show me," the Professor whispered carefully, his face going slightly pale.
"Okay."
The two locked eyes and Harry reinforced his shields, with the Professor just looking on in shock.
"Are you aware that you're using the same warped version of Occlumency the Dark Lord has employed. Furthermore, as it is a technique that is unique to him, it gives me more reason to become suspicious. What exactly are you hiding?"
"I- I- I don't know how to answer you, what I first hid from your scrutiny within my mind has since become something else entirely, a much more tangled mess than before. If I am to tell you, I want a magical oath guaranteeing you won't tell anyone about this without my permission."
"I will agree to this and so I, Severus Snape, do hereby swear to keep this secret to myself, unless otherwise permitted by you."
"Hermione received a necklace at the end of our third year, or was it the start of fourth year? This necklace just so happened to contain a fragment of Voldemort's soul. I removed the necklace from her and kept it in storage, ultimately forgetting about it until the end of the final task. During that… occurrence, I was asked to do something unthinkable, fortunately, however, I was able to escape. Fast forward to the summer and I have now come into possession of the necklace and a small cup, also containing a fragment of his soul. I then performed a ritual with six other participants, whose identities I am unable to disclose in any way, this ritual was similar to the one I was forced into participating in with a few key differences."
"What sort of ritual," the dour man interrupted, dreading the response.
"I'm getting there, have some patience, please. The ritual was indeed the ritual you fear it is, I combined the two soul shards with the magic of the combined seven, as well as imprinting a strong set of morals that would be reinforced by the power of the ritual."
"You created another one, you're responsible for the fact that we not only have two Voldemorts, but now we have three. Unbelievable."
"You're blaming me for the first resurrection? That's pretty rich, considering that I was forced into it and was never a Death Eater!" he snapped, leaving before the Professor could even say a word and smashing down the privacy spells as he went.
"That boy is truly misguided," the professor remarked to himself, preparing the classroom for his next wave of classes.
/_-_-^_^_-_/
Near the end of September, Harry was walking around the castle on his own, occasionally pulling out the Marauders' Map to locate the Weasley twins.
"Fred, George, how goes the prank shop plan?"
"Ah Hibble, we were just looking for you. Dibble said you'd be trying to fix something or other."
"Where did you get those nicknames?"
"Dibble told us about your wonderful conversation with Lockhart. He seems to be genuinely focused on mind healing, look out, he could end up head-boy."
"Okay, something is weird with you two. What's happened to your twin-speak?" Harry asked the twins, before feeling two hands on his shoulders.
"Do you like them Harry- They're our newest product- we call them Dummy Decoys. They're not perfect yet- but you believed them to be us for a minute or two- so there is hope yet."
"So, I'm guessing your product line is growing fairly well, I'm glad to see you using the money I gave you to build."
"Actually- we haven't touched that yet- we're attempting to limit ourselves- our funds that is- so that we know we will be able to sustain ourselves- at least during the quiet phases of busines. That right there is a mixture of transfiguration, charms, and some tricks Professor Moody showed us last year."
"Could I have one? I only intend to use it to avoid a lesson." Harry asked the twins, his face hopeful.
"For such a noble cause- we shall gift you five- don't try to reverse-engineer it- there are some… nasty surprises in there for anyone who tries to figure out how they work," the twins warned, running off after Peeves.
"So Lord Gaunt, you want to play a game, let's play," Harry whispered to himself as he walked past Luna's latest poster, one titled "The Agenda of the Trees".
