"Alohomora," Harry whispered, glancing reflexively over his shoulder. The stairwell was as empty as it had been a second ago. The lock clicked. He hardly dared breathe, feeling that it had been too easy. Wasn't security supposed to have increased? Then again, dementors could hardly cast unlocking charms.
Harry pushed the door open a sliver. Cool night air streamed inside, brisk but not icy. Before he could think better of it, he slipped through the crack and shut the door behind him.
A million brilliant stars winked at him from the clear sky. Harry breathed out a quiet sigh. It was not yet too late to turn around and go back. He could laugh at his moment of stupidity from the warm comfort of his bed.
The stars went out. Harry didn't even have time to flinch back before he was submerged in a sinister wave of opaque mist. Cold penetrated him to the bone, the pain bringing to mind long-forgotten echoes of the cruciatus curse. A chorus of screams sounded in the distance, and Harry choked on air, stumbling back blindly against the door. His useless fingers scrabbled for the handle, finding no purchase. He shouldn't have come. He never should have left the safety of the castle. He was an idiot.
A slick hand came down on the back of his neck. Harry froze, the image of Lord Voldemort for some reason flashing into his mind and sticking there, a horrible spectre. His vision resolved itself in the darkness and he stared into the eyeless face of a dementor.
Harry finally remembered to breathe, and calm filtered through his racing thoughts along with much-needed air. Dementors surrounded him, but he wasn't in any danger. The taste and timbre of their curiosity was unthreatening—they only wanted to know why he was here.
Why was he here? Harry's ears burned as he stared out past the crenellations of the astronomy tower, into the roiling cloud of mist that churned in hues of grey. He felt as if he were still dreaming. Only, in his dream, Percy had stood there, silent as the dementors, watching.
It had been reckless and stupid to come running out here. Maybe the dream was the product of a delayed, subconscious manifestation of the guilt he'd been searching so hard for. Maybe it had been prophetic, in which case it was doubly foolhardy for him to re-enact it.
The dementor holding him exhaled loudly, an improbable clicking noise emanating from its throat. The impression of Percy pressed up against the parapet burned itself into his mind's eye. Harry's stomach dropped.
"You were there," he croaked out, even though the words could mean nothing to a creature that communicated through pure concept. There was nothing to confirm, anyway. Harry knew with searing certainty now the delicious moment when all hope had extinguished itself in a soul that had once burned with bright optimism. Blindly, he tore himself away and ran to the edge of the tower. The dementor let him.
Harry's gut lurched as he stared down over the side. It was nothing like seeing the ground from atop a broomstick, buoyant with freedom. He couldn't even conjure up a feeble imitation of that joy, surrounded by hungry wraiths as he was, and only felt sick.
"Was it all part of his plan?" Harry demanded, tearing his eyes away from the dizzying drop. The astronomy tower was packed tight with dementors. Percy's final sight must have been something like this.
Harry flinched back as the answer struck him. "No, that doesn't make any sense." He kneaded his temples, reeling at the ridiculous information that had bloomed in his mind. Could dementors lie? He didn't see how.
"I never told you to kiss anybody," he insisted.
The air filled with rattling confusion.
"It was the Dark Lord, not me," Harry mumbled, closing his eyes as he tried to make sense of the story they'd provided. His nose itched with the nasty phantom smell of wet fish. He recalled standing at the base of a bleak fortress—Azkaban, it had to be. There would be untarnished souls for the taking at Hogwarts. Only muggle-borns and blood-traitors, however, to be defined by—
"Draco?" Harry blurted, dumbfounded. His blood ran cold. Of course. Draco hated the Weasleys. It was no wonder their fates had suddenly gone sour, if the dementors were consulting his mind for reference.
Harry couldn't get the nonsensical memory out of his head. It was, of course, impossible for him to have ever been at Azkaban to give dementors orders. Even if the Dark Lord had somehow possessed him without his knowledge, it would have been infinitely more convenient to talk to the dementors that were right here at Hogwarts.
Still, the dementors, for whatever reason, seemed convinced that they were the same person, perhaps because of what the Dark Lord had done at their first introduction.
Licking his lips, Harry asked, "Did he—did I have other orders?"
He felt monumentally silly trying at subterfuge with something that could literally see into his soul and pick it over at will, but either the dementors did not notice his motives or did not care. They reminded Harry of the Dark Lord's instructions in one great deluge, sending him doubling over.
Dozens of places, most of which he'd never even heard of, and even more people he'd never met, jostled for first position in his awareness. Dementors had no idea about the significance of names or appearances or any of the main qualities people used to identify things—they just communicated everything at once, all the parts of the soul that were open to their senses. Harry couldn't pick out anything useful in the jumble of concepts except that dementors were to patrol Diagon Alley, and that there were reference souls in each target location who would define what other souls were targets or off-limits, like Draco had unwittingly done for Hogwarts.
And did Harry have anything to add or revise?
Harry choked, trying to keep down the wild thought that he could stop everything, send the dementors back to Azkaban with just a request. Of course that was ridiculous. The Dark Lord would order them right back, only then he would be terribly annoyed.
"Can you not kiss anybody else at Hogwarts?" Harry asked, but by the time he'd finished saying it, the dementors had already wondered why, ascertained that Harry did not actually have a good reason to keep them from the majority of Hogwarts' population, and finally agreed to use Harry as a reference instead of Draco.
His heart sank. Negotiating with dementors was tricky. All the cards had to be laid out on the table at once, and as much as Harry would like for no one else to be hurt, he could not deny that it was unlikely that he would endanger himself to take revenge for someone he didn't know.
He wasn't even doing anything about Ginny, was he?
"You've just kissed two people. You don't need more," Harry tried.
A chilly tendril of mist coalesced around him like a cloak, not quite solid but not insubstantial either. It whispered in his ear. They needed souls. They were growing.
"Oh," Harry breathed, stumped for a logical rejoinder. He'd never before thought to wonder why there was more than one dementor. Growing.
Sensing that there was nothing more to be said, the dementors poured over the edge of the tower, drifting to the ground like sinister dandelion seeds. Harry shuddered as the temperature climbed rapidly back to normal, noticing now how rigid and clammy his flesh hand felt. He fumbled for his wand.
"Calesco," he muttered, wincing at the gust of hot air, then settling into his warmed robes with an appreciative shiver. Exhaustion struck him suddenly. He shook his head, creeping back through the door and locking it behind him. Fortunately, it was late enough that the prefects had long finished their rounds, and Harry was able to get back to his bed unobserved.
When he woke again, it was still mostly dark, though he felt refreshed. Hushed voices filtered through his bedcurtains. Curious, Harry sat up and poked his head out, finding two blobs that he assumed were Terry and Anthony whispering over a square board that was probably wizard's chess.
"Oh, morning Harry," said Terry, spotting him.
"What time is it?" Harry asked him, even though his wand was only two feet away.
"Like eleven," Terry told him.
Harry frowned and put on his glasses, only for them to mist up immediately. He glanced to the window. The blinds were drawn, and almost no light penetrated the thick, heavy fog hanging just beyond the glass.
Terry snorted. "Yeah, it's literally a prison in here. Don't even bother going downstairs. The dementors are hanging around just outside the big windows."
"Knight to E2," said Anthony, before cursing and reaching out to move his piece manually. "It's not working again."
"We could play something else," said Terry, his voice flat.
"Would it be better in the library?" Harry suggested, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. It was a bit cold, but Harry didn't notice anything strange about his mood. Or at least, nothing stranger than before. He was beginning to wonder whether long-term exposure to dementors had done something to him.
It didn't quite make sense, though. Dementors sucked out positive emotions. Surely guilt was not one of them?
He froze as his eye caught on a leather-bound book sitting innocently at the corner of his side table. That hadn't been there last night.
"No. Library's packed, which makes it even worse. They aren't delaying OWLs and NEWTs so the fifth and seventh years still have to study," Terry said, making a face. "At least we haven't got any exams, I suppose. Merlin, I'm not even happy about that. Shouldn't I be happy about that?"
Harry nodded absently, sliding his thumb beneath the cover of the book and lifting it slightly just to be sure. 'Property of Percy Weasley,' he saw. Of course it had appeared here. Harry was now the last person to have written in it. Suddenly paranoid, he grabbed the book and tossed it through the curtains onto his messy bed, glancing back to Terry and Anthony.
Neither of them was even looking in his direction. Anthony had his back to him, and Terry was busy using his rook to smash one of Anthony's pawns off the board.
Tugging on his stale robes and straightening them out with a cursory ironing charm, Harry asked, "Is there breakfast?"
Terry shot him a pitying look. "You missed it, but there are some snacks down in the common room, if you want to brave it."
Harry went downstairs. The common room, ordinarily bright and airy, now looked like the inside of a fishbowl with dozens of terrified fish huddled at the bottom. There really were dementors pressed up against the tall window panes, breathing patches of frost onto the glass. It would have been comical if the atmosphere permitted any humour.
Some thin silver mist was hanging around inside as well—the source appeared to be a group of sixth years who were unenthusiastically taking turns trying the patronus charm. Penelope and Robert were among them, looking especially haggard.
One of the larger tables near the blazing hearth was crowded with biscuits, pitchers of milk and pumpkin juice, and several large cauldrons, which Harry determined contained hot chocolate. He ladled himself a cup and glanced around the common room to see if anybody was doing anything interesting. Lessons had all been cancelled for the rest of the truncated term, and exams wouldn't be held until Hogwarts re-opened in the fall, so it should have been a festive time for students, but all he saw were listless faces and abandoned books and games. Most of the younger students sat motionless, staring into space.
Harry stuffed a chocolate biscuit into his mouth, washed it down with lukewarm cocoa, and made for the door. The library couldn't be worse than this.
Penelope stopped him by the bulletin board, indicating a pinned up sheet of parchment. "Hey, Harry, can you sign out and write where you're going? Just so we can keep track of everyone."
"Right," he whispered, though there was no reason to keep his voice down. Harry took the rather tatty quill hanging from the board and signed his name and 'library.'
"I've got some post for you as well, from this morning," said Penelope, digging two letters out of a pile on the desk by the door. The first one had his name in Petri's familiar scrawl, but the other was unaddressed and bore Hogwarts' seal. Curious, he opened it on the spot and found a form. "That's your elective registration sheet for next year," Penelope told him. "Just fill it out and give it to Professor Flitwick before—well, before we all leave."
There was a hysterical edge to her voice that Harry hadn't heard since before the winter holiday.
"Are you all right?" he asked, glancing up.
Penelope pressed her lips together. "I'm fine. As much as anyone can be, under the circumstances. I should be asking you that. You—how are you holding up?"
Harry, unsure how to configure his face, twisted it up and made a strained noise. "I'm fine," he said as well. Then, with an awkward nod, he gathered up his letters in one hand and left the room.
He would be scared too if he were Penelope, he supposed. First Percy, and now Gabriel was gone. That made half the sixth year prefects. Fortunately for her, being a prefect wasn't the real common factor. What had Draco had against Gabriel that had caused the dementors to target him, anyway? Maybe he had taken points from Slytherin. Or perhaps he was just unlucky enough to be one of the most prominent muggle-borns in the school.
Penelope was muggle-born too, Harry remembered suddenly. Perhaps she really was in danger. But no. The dementors were using him as a reference now, not Draco. They wouldn't go after his friends again.
Harry paused at the bottom of the stairwell to read Petri's letter, hoping there wasn't any more bad news. It was short and to the point:
Dear Harry,
Received notice that all students will be sent home on the 10th. Expect Lupin at the station.
I was also notified that you are to select elective subjects for next year. In addition to divination and arithmancy, I recommend ancient runes, as they are occasionally relevant in our profession.
Stay safe.
Yours,
JP
Harry spent a few extra moments staring at the note, as if he expected to find some secret meaning or hidden message. Finally, he pocketed it and continued down the stairs, pulling his robes more tightly around himself as he walked. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but the castle seemed draughtier than usual. The halls were disconcertingly empty, and the torches were lit as if it were night time, so that the statues and suits of armour cast forbidding shadows.
The library was packed, like Terry had said, and eerily silent. Usually, despite Madam Pince's glaring and hovering, whispered conversations were still carried out in the corners and far reaches, but today the students sat still as corpses, with only the occasional rustling of a page or scratching of a quill giving the suggestion of life. It was also noticeably frigid. All the windows were frosted over, and though multiple patronuses patrolled between the tables, they couldn't quite chase away the chill of abjection permeating the cavernous hall.
Harry made his way slowly towards the defence against the dark arts section, hoping to find out whether there was some link between dementors and his abnormal emotional state. He wasn't sure when it had started, though he'd first noticed something amiss when Vince had pointed out how nothing seemed to affect him. Vince had made it out like it was a good thing, that he didn't get sad or hurt or angry, and maybe he was right, but it was also different from how he used to be.
'Maybe I just grew up a bit,' Harry thought. But people didn't grow out of guilt and remorse, did they? Harry considered what the adults he knew were like, and paused. Maybe he really was making a big deal out of nothing.
As he rounded the corner of the first defence aisle, he nearly tripped over somebody sitting on the floor, and had to brace himself against the nearest shelf.
"Sorry." He froze as he finally got a proper glimpse of the person. It was Luna, tiny and dishevelled.
She didn't seem to have noticed him, even though he'd practically trodden on her. There was a large book clutched tightly to her chest, and her wide eyes darted back and forth erratically, as if following something only she could see. Harry knelt down and waved his hand in front of her face.
"Luna? Luna, snap out of it."
No response. Biting his lip, Harry took out his wand and closed his eyes, thinking of magical success. A lukewarm spark fluttered in his stomach, but it didn't feel like enough. His mind wandered back to what he'd learned last night. He could, in theory, command the dementors as if he were Lord Voldemort himself. It wasn't exactly a happy thought, but it gave him foolish hope. A sense of security—and wasn't that what Professor Flitwick had said was important?
"Expecto patronum," he whispered, and a thin stream of silver shot out of his wand and wrapped around him. He extended his arm, trying to direct the mist to Luna.
She shivered, blinking rapidly. Her eyes finally focused on him.
"Harry?" she croaked, glancing down at his wand. "What are you doing? Stop it."
"It's the patronus charm," Harry said, shuffling backwards. "Sorry, it's not very good."
"You're distracting the dementors," Luna said sternly.
"Sorry?" Harry's charm went out. He put his wand away and took a steadying breath as the chill rushed back, twice as strong.
"I'm listening to them," Luna explained, rapping her knuckles gently against the stone wall behind her. "They talk with their souls, you know. We can hear them and they can hear us, as if the walls weren't there at all."
Her voice was light and steady, but Harry saw fresh tears spilling down established tracks on her face.
"Right. Sorry for interrupting," Harry mumbled, confused. He stumbled to his feet, but Luna caught his hand and tugged him rather haphazardly back to the floor.
"Stay. Can you hear them?" Luna asked.
Harry had never heard dementors make any sound that could be construed as speech, so he figured she did not mean it literally. He closed his eyes and inhaled. The cold air froze his insides. He could feel the creeping press of a memory at the edge of his consciousness, kept at bay by careful avoidance, the razor focus on the present that he now instinctively maintained when dementors were nearby. It was almost easier not to think, to forget, than to see.
"Sort of," he finally said, opening his eyes to see Luna staring intently at him. "I could, but I don't really want to."
Luna considered this for a moment, and then said, "What do you hear? I hear my mum. She's screaming."
Harry blinked. "Ah. I hear my mum screaming, too."
Luna's hand slipped down to his and grasped it tightly. "If you keep listening, there's more. Don't be scared. I mean, do be scared. Be very scared, and sad, and keep listening."
Her breath hitched, and she leaned back against the wall, not bothering to wipe away her tears. Harry didn't think this could be healthy, but thought that showing solidarity would be better than trying to convince Luna out of her strange ideas. He squeezed her hand back.
Then, against his better judgement, he relaxed his mind and sank into the terror lapping gently at the shore of his awareness.
"Not Harry, not Harry. Please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…"
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!"
"… So be it, if you're so eager to die. Avada Kedavra!"
Harry gasped as green light overtook his vision. His heart was pounding. Lord Voldemort's voice—crisp, nonplussed, sardonic—sounded so real that he might have been standing right there, about to commit murder. Harry forced his eyes open, only to find that they were already open, and he was staring into pallid mist. He tried to flex his fingers and toes, and felt that Luna still had his hand in a grounding death grip.
He supposed he'd better keep listening. Letting out a shaky breath, he dove back in.
There was an explosive bang, and a woman screamed. Lord Voldemort's high voice rang out:
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl."
"No! Not Harry! Not Harry! Please—I'll do anything—not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"
"This is mercy, you foolish girl. Stand aside."
"Not Harry, not Harry. Please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…"
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead!"
Harry wrenched himself from the fog before the Dark Lord uttered the final words, occluding so hard he thought he might have blacked out for a moment. He blinked at the dusty mahogany shelf in front of him, breathing heavily, remnants of dread still coursing through his veins.
As soon as he managed enough calm to think on what he had just heard, Harry was hit with a rush of bewilderment. Lord Voldemort had offered to spare his mother three times. And nonsensically, she had refused, practically begged to be killed—in retrospect, it was blatantly obvious that she had had something up her sleeve.
But why had the Dark Lord even bothered giving her a chance? Harry vaguely recalled him mentioning something to that effect, but he'd hardly taken it seriously at the time. Only, now there was this: his own memory, freshly unearthed.
Then again, was it really his memory? He hadn't remembered it before, and when he thought back to it, it was tainted, impossible to uncouple from the presence of the dementors. His eyes widened. That was why Luna had told him to keep listening!
"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—"
There was a crack and the sound of erratic footsteps. A door slammed, and Lord Voldemort's thrilled laughter echoed nearby.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A telltale thump.
A whimper, heavy breathing, and a dizzying swooping motion.
"No, James… no…"
Harry lay on his back. He heard the scrape of something heavy being dragged across the floor. An interminable silence. Then a bang, a scream.
"Stand aside."
It was easier to resurface from the memory now. The parts he'd already relived had lost their sheen of horror, become almost rote. The recollection of his father's murder only brought up further questions. Lord Voldemort certainly hadn't wasted any time trying to dispense mercy there. How perplexing, when Harry's father had been a pure-blood and his mother one of the mudbloods the Dark Lord had supposedly wished to stamp out. Harry tried to go back in and hear more.
Instead, he saw the unicorn.
It lay dead in a pool of moonlight, blue blood trickling from its throat. A pervasive sense of dread coloured the scene. Harry gripped the slick, grooved horn in one hand and the nullifier, still hot, in the other.
Darkness enveloped him.
"Spiritus revocatur."
Harry felt like he was underwater, perhaps in a murky bog. Flashes of incomprehensible light and sound fluttered and refracted through the dark, oily surface above him.
"Immergo."
Unspeakable agony, crippling loneliness—
"Harry, shh, wake up."
"Mmph." Harry pulled himself back together, only to find that there was a small, clammy hand pressed against his mouth. Luna stared intently at him from less than a foot away.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
Harry nodded, gulping in air as she removed her hand. He glanced around, hoping he hadn't done something as embarrassing as scream in the library. But there was no raging Madam Pince imminently bearing down on them.
"You were saying incantations," Luna explained.
Harry glanced down to discover that he had released Luna's hand at some point and taken his wand back out. He stowed it hastily, trying to organise his thoughts. Had he just remembered something about making his horcrux? The possibility was brilliant and horrifying at the same time.
"Did you hear Ginny?" Luna asked, derailing his thoughts.
Harry blinked. "What?"
"She's in there," Luna continued, pointing her thumb at the wall. "If you listen hard enough, you can hear her talking too."
"I see," said Harry, even though he didn't. He supposed that it was technically true that Ginny was inside the dementors, but he doubted there was enough coherence left for any talking to be done.
Luna's lip trembled. "It's my fault, you know, that she got taken away. I shouldn't have lied to her about the blibbering humdinger. You can't really get rid of it, you see. You can only make it go away for a little while. But I thought—I thought if she just…"
"It's not your fault," Harry told her, squeezing her shoulder. "I knew about the… blibbering humdinger not being really gone. And I didn't say anything either."
"Right. The blibbering humdinger's following you too. I'm sorry," said Luna, sniffling. After a few moments, she asked, in a tiny voice, "What do you think it's like?"
Harry frowned. "What's what like?"
"Being inside a dementor," Luna clarified.
"I reckon it isn't like anything," Harry said. "It's basically death."
"No," said Luna. "It's not the same as death at all. Dead people are still out there, together. But Ginny's not with them. She's somewhere else, and we can't ever visit unless we talk to the dementors. She must be lonely."
Harry didn't say anything. It hardly seemed like the time to argue about the nature of the afterlife and the soul.
But Luna turned to study him intently and then said, "You don't think so?"
"I don't know," Harry muttered. "I don't think the dead or the kissed are really aware like the living."
"Of course they're not like the living. They aren't limited by having to be one person at a time, like we are," said Luna. "Wouldn't it be grand, not having to be yourself?"
The thought sent a shudder through his whole body. "That sounds awful. You don't really want that, do you?"
"I do. But don't worry," said Luna, blinking away fresh tears. "I've already told Mum I can't join her anytime soon. Daddy would be heartbroken."
She flashed him a watery smile.
Hesitantly, Harry asked, "Do you have dreams about your mum?"
Luna nodded. "I don't listen to her, though. I know she's only there because of a blibbering humdinger. It's been following me around for years, but I've never once been able to catch a glimpse of it."
Harry swallowed a warning about the dangers of speaking to the dead. Luna obviously already knew.
"Do you know why?" he asked instead. The thing that Luna was calling the blibbering humdinger had something to do with a propensity for prophetic dreams, he figured, but surely Luna hadn't been around dementors for years?
Luna shrugged. "Daddy thinks it's because I've got an important destiny, but I hope not. That sounds very unpleasant."
Harry snorted, misting up his glasses.
"Do you believe in destiny, Harry?" Luna asked.
"Of course," he muttered, closing his eyes since he couldn't see anyway.
Luna hummed. "Why?"
"Divination works," Harry said, sinking down into the floor as the horrible truth of his words lingered in the air. He felt like someone had draped a heavy blanket over him.
Luna didn't answer. At length, Harry mustered up the energy to paw his glasses off his face and wipe them on his sleeve. He glanced over and saw that Luna was staring into space again, eyes moving and lips fluttering. No sound came out. He debated trying to get her to snap out of it, but finally decided not to. She could have left earlier, if she had wanted to, but he supposed she was still trying to find Ginny somewhere amongst the dementors.
Swallowing, Harry relaxed again and tried not to flinch from the cold grasp of memory. If he could really see something about his horcrux…
Instead his vision was swallowed up by a column of cold, unforgiving stone, and from beneath it came blood, seeping out as if from a sponge. A shrill scream pierced the air.
"Harry, oh Merlin, stars, what do we do, what do we—"
No, not that. Harry pushed the memory of Halloween away, swallowing the acrid saliva that had pooled in his mouth before he let himself sink back into the fog.
He was lying under a scratchy linen sheet, bathed in lamplight and the faint smell of camphor. A young man in lime green robes leaned over him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Not any better or worse. My hand… are they going to be able to fix it?"
But he knew already that they weren't. The hideous sight of his blackened hand turned his stomach.
Harry clenched his fists, panting slightly as he resurfaced. Trying to find out more was probably futile and an exercise in masochism. He supposed if dementors could actually show you what you wanted to see, they would hardly be considered the darkest of creatures. Brushing his fingers through his damp fringe, Harry took a moment to clear his mind and properly push away the fog of despair.
Awareness of his surroundings restored itself to him along with the welcoming spark of curiosity, and he finally remembered what he'd come to the library for in the first place. Well, he supposed he'd come to avoid the depressing atmosphere in Ravenclaw Tower, but as that objective was clearly destined for failure, he could at least manage some research. His eye caught on the book in Luna's lap, and he reached for it. The title read: On the Foulest of Creatures. She wasn't using it at the moment, so he figured she wouldn't mind if he borrowed it.
He'd hardly cracked open the book when he heard, "Expecto patronum, expecto patronum," coming down the aisle like a mantra in a very familiar frustrated tone.
Setting the book aside and taking out his wand, Harry tried his own patronus. It didn't work—he suspected he'd been sitting next to the dementors for too long to have any residual happiness, and he didn't dare stop occluding to give himself a better chance at finding some new feeling.
Standing up, he peered around the shelf to see that it was indeed Hermione muttering the patronus charm to herself as she ran a hand down a row of spines.
"Hermione," he whispered, and she jumped a foot in the air, nearly dropping her wand.
"Harry! I didn't see you there. What are you doing here? Have you got the patronus charm to work yet? I thought I had it, but now I can't quite seem to—"
"It's a lot harder with dementors around," Harry said, raising his voice just a little to cut off her nervous babbling. "I can't do it either."
Hermione didn't look relieved like she usually might have at seeing that she wasn't academically behind. A vaguely ill expression settled across her face, and her lower lip quivered.
"I don't know what to do," she said. "I can't concentrate enough to study, but none of the other ways to ward off dementors are even remotely feasible."
"Study?" Harry repeated. "Exams are cancelled."
"They're not cancelled; they're just postponed to the start of term," Hermione insisted, the tips of her fingernails disappearing between her teeth. "That's even worse. I won't have access to the library at home, so I've got to make sure my notes are complete or I'll forget everything by the time we get back. It's a disaster."
"I'm sure your notes are fine," Harry said. "Better than mine, anyway."
"You don't take notes," Hermione muttered. She seemed to notice suddenly that she was chewing voraciously through her nails, and tore her hand away to hide it behind her back.
Harry shrugged. "You have an amazing memory, anyway."
"I don't, my memory's terrible, really," said Hermione. "I just revise a lot. If I didn't, I'd be a complete failure. I've got to find a way. There must be something…"
She turned her attention back to the shelves, hunching inward as she scrutinised the section on dementors. It was full of gaps. Harry supposed a lot of people had probably come around looking for the same thing.
Hermione took out one of the remaining books, flipped through it, then shoved it back with a groan.
"No good, it's no good," she hissed, face crumpling.
Pursing his lips, Harry stepped forward and tapped her gently on the shoulder. "I think you should get away from the dementors, have some chocolate. It's nearly lunch, anyway."
"Can't. It's bad for my teeth," Hermione mumbled, but she didn't resist when Harry started walking. He made for the downstairs exit, but she stopped abruptly as they reached the top of the stairs. "Wait, let me get my things."
She came back laden with a bookbag that was bursting from the seams.
"Leviosa," Harry muttered, holding his arm out as Hermione nearly overbalanced from the suddenly loss of weight.
"No magic in the library," she whispered furiously, glancing over her shoulder in Madam Pince's direction, but Harry quickly snatched her robe sleeve and started down the stairs. He rolled his eyes. They had made an exception for the patronus charm, so why not other conveniences?
"I reckon this bag weighs more than you do," Harry said at normal volume as they finally exited the library.
"I'm used to it," Hermione grumbled, adjusting the strap on her shoulder.
"Do you feel better?" Harry asked.
"A little," Hermione admitted, sweeping an unruly handful of hair behind her ear. "Dementors are really awful, aren't they? I don't understand why nobody's come up with a way to get rid of them."
For some reason, the way she said those words struck a strange chord of unease in his chest. Harry swallowed the inexplicable feeling down. "They're useful," he said. "They guard Azkaban. Well, at least they used to."
"That's barbaric," said Hermione, shaking her head. "I wouldn't want anybody subject to that, not even the worst criminals."
Harry shrugged. "It's pretty hard to keep wizards locked up. Dementors make it hard for people to do magic."
"But they haven't got wands in prison anyway, have they?" Hermione pointed out.
"Some people can do magic without a wand," Harry pointed out.
Hermione frowned. "I've never heard of that, besides accidental magic."
Harry pursed his lips. "There are people with special abilities. Blood gifts."
"Oh, I suppose I did read about that once," Hermione murmured. "People who can talk to animals, or tell the future, right? But that's different from regular magic, isn't it? I thought it was all a bit wishy-washy."
Harry, who happened to be able to talk to animals as well as tell the future, took some offense.
"Wishy-washy," he repeated flatly.
"Well how can you talk to animals if they haven't got their own language? And if they have got their own language, anybody ought to be able to learn it and talk to them. How could that be a magical ability?" she asked.
"I don't think it's really a language," Harry said, thinking about his experience with Parseltongue. "It's not like the animal would actually speak to other animals that way. It's more like casting a spell that gets your meaning across. And I think other people can learn to do it, if they try hard enough, even without the gift. It's the same with the inner eye—you can be born with it, but you can also learn how to do it."
"The inner eye," Hermione said, voice dropping precipitously.
"For divination," Harry clarified.
"I don't see how that's actually a school subject," Hermione sniffed. "I looked into all the electives, you know, and that one is all palm-reading and tea leaves and crystal balls."
"There's tarot and dream reading too," Harry said, frowning.
Hermione nodded. "Exactly. That stuff is all superstition. It doesn't actually work."
Harry scowled, resentment roaring suddenly in his chest. Who was she to talk about superstition, when before she'd got her Hogwarts letter, she hadn't even known magic existed at all? The feeling extinguished itself before he could get a grip on it, leaving only irritation.
"Of course it works. I can prove it," he said. Remembering what had happened the last time he had volunteered to prove that divination was legitimate, he hastily added, "Look, you can just ask Hannah and Neville. I do divination all the time, and it's really helpful."
Hermione's lips were pressed into a firm line. The furious itch in Harry's chest sparked again. Why couldn't she just see?
The itch persisted through lunch, after which Harry marched back over to the Gryffindor table to collect Hermione and Neville both. Neville had taken to carrying his gurdyroot around in public ever since the attack, which made him easy to pick out, since there was a gap of several metres between him and the next person.
"Dementors haven't got noses, you know," Harry told him, holding his own nose as he approached. He eyed the exposed and now somewhat shrivelled onion with distaste.
Neville shuddered. "They've got mouths, though. It's not the smell that matters, anyway. It's got an aura that keeps away predators."
"A stink aura," Harry insisted. "Anyway, tell Hermione where you got it. I bet she's curious."
Hermione, who had pulled the collar of her blouse over the bottom half of her face, turned to him suspiciously, as if she suspected it might all be a prank.
"I'm trying to show her that divination is real magic," Harry told Neville. "I don't understand why everybody seems to think it's not."
Neville shrugged. "I've never seen anybody use it the way you do," he mumbled. To Hermione, he said, "Harry's really good. He can just find things. And he really knows when something bad's about to happen."
Hermione didn't look convinced, but before she could muster a rebuttal, they were all distracted by a shout.
"Harry, Neville!"
Harry turned to see Hannah jogging over from the other end of the Hufflepuff table.
"Hi, Hermione," she added, seeing her standing behind them. "Do you lot want to come with us? There's going to be a party downstairs in honour of Gabriel and Ginny. It's in one of the dungeons so non-Hufflepuffs can come too. Hyacinth says it's our duty to stay positive no matter what."
Harry winced as he glanced over to the Hufflepuff table, where it looked like half the house was gathering up to leave the Great Hall at once. Hyacinth, the other Hufflepuff sixth-year prefect and Gabriel's counterpart, was at the head of the group, along with the Head Girl, a lanky witch whose name Harry couldn't pronounce.
The grin on Hannah's face was strained, so Harry made an effort to smile back. "That sounds great."
As they joined the mass of Hufflepuffs, Hannah pulled him to the side and said in a low voice, "I just wanted to say thanks, for the other day. You might have saved all our lives."
Harry blinked. "Huh?"
"You warned us about the quidditch match, remember?" Hannah said.
"Right. I'm glad you're all right," Harry mumbled. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "Do you think I should've warned more people? What if I'd told Ginny, or gone to the prefects?"
Hannah's face fell, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not allowed to feel bad about that, okay? They probably wouldn't have believed you, anyway. Merlin knows I barely believed you. I feel horrible for all the times I thought your whole divination thing was silly before." Tears collected in her eyes, and she wiped them away with her thumb. "Oh no… I've got to be positive. We're lucky it all turned out all right for us. Wait, that sounds horrible when I say it out loud."
"Just try not to think too much," Harry advised, patting her on the shoulder in turn.
He failed at taking his own advice, instantly turning to ruminate over what Hannah had just told him. He wasn't allowed to feel bad, she'd said. Well, he didn't feel bad. She had a good point, too. If he'd warned other people, there was no guarantee that they would have believed him. In fact, it was highly likely that they would not have, and things would have played out the same way. Ginny, at least, had had her own foreknowledge, and that hadn't saved her. That which was foretold would happen regardless of efforts to thwart it—Harry had seen that for himself.
"Where's Neville?" Hannah asked as they reached the bottom of the landing. Harry sniffed and realised that the nasty smell was indeed gone. Craning his neck in search of red collars, he finally spotted him towards the top of the stairs, at the back of the pack.
Harry pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "He's still up there with Hermione."
"Let's wait for him." Hannah stepped to the side of the corridor and let the older students behind them pass. "Do you think his gurdyroot thing really works?"
"No," said Harry immediately.
"What if it does, though? I'm trying to be more open-minded," Hannah said, worrying at her lower lip.
Harry was about to say that they should just ask Hermione to verify the facts, when he remembered most unpleasantly what she'd had to say about divination.
"Being open-minded doesn't mean believing in everything," he said instead. "We should try some experiments. I convinced you about divination with an experiment, right?"
Hannah nodded. "That's true."
"Speaking of which, could you help me explain to Hermione how divination is real? She says it's wishy-washy," Harry grumbled. Hannah flashed him a mischievous smile.
"Well, it sort of is," she said. "You're the real thing, obviously, but have you ever met a soothsayer? They charge three galleons to tell you whether your mum's going to have you a brother or a sister, and then get it wrong half the time!"
"Wait, have you got brothers or sisters?" Harry asked, suddenly realising he didn't know.
"A baby brother," said Hannah, smile broadening into something more genuine before it abruptly twisted into a grimace as the stench of the gurdyroot rolled over them in a nauseating wave, heralding Neville's approach.
"It's much better down here," Hermione was saying. "I can't believe I didn't think of it before."
"Think of what?" Harry asked.
"Dementors can't go underground, so everybody really ought to stay in the dungeons. Hufflepuffs are lucky their common room is already down here. Our common room is awful right now," Hermione muttered.
"Ours too," said Harry. Now that he stopped to think, it was clear that Hermione was right. Here, the torches burned merrily and chased away the cold and dark as fire ought to, and there was no crushing pressure at the edge of his mind. "Hey, since the dementors can't come near here, any chance you could put that away?" he asked Neville.
With a sheepish smile, Neville stowed the gurdyroot in his pocket, where it bulged horribly. The smell lingered like week-old socks.
"Ventus," Harry muttered, and a strong wind blasted down the corridor.
"Hey!" Hannah spit out a mouthful of blond hair.
"Sorry." Harry took an experimental breath. There was still a whiff of something off, but the majority of the rancid odour was gone.
Hannah waved her hand. "You lot go ahead. I think it's in dungeon five. I'm going to stop by the common room to get Ernie and Susan."
The entrance to dungeon five was readily apparent, not only from the steady flow of students passing under the arch, but also from the twisting black and yellow streamers that hung from the ceiling just outside. As they drew nearer, they could see that the interior of the room, too, had been plastered over with colourful decorations. Photos of both victims of the dementor attack hung on every wall. There was plenty of yellow, but also scarlet and gold—it seemed that the organisers, though Hufflepuffs themselves, had wished to equally represent both houses.
Just inside the entryway, they were greeted by Hyacinth, who held out a box.
"Hello, thanks for coming," she said. "You don't have to, but would you be interested in making a donation to St Mungo's in Gabriel's name? He wanted to become a healer after Hogwarts, so in honour of that we're trying to raise money and maybe get something named after him."
Harry produced all the loose change from his pockets, which totalled to seven sickles and thirteen knuts. Hyacinth fed them to her box, though she refunded him one knut with a meaningful look.
Right. Thirteen was unlucky. Harry quickly slipped it back into his pocket.
Neville contributed an entire galleon, and Hermione outdid them all, donating five galleons. Hyacinth's eyes went as round as saucers and she thanked them profusely.
"Was that too much?" Hermione whispered as they ventured further into the room.
"It was really nice of you," Neville said.
Hermione furrowed her brow. "Do you think we should do a collection like that for Ginny? I know Ron's family isn't exactly well-off. And to lose two siblings so horribly—I can't even imagine what's it's like for them right now."
"You don't think they would take it the wrong way, would they? You know what Ron's like about money," said Neville.
"Even if they say they don't want it, I don't think having money can make things worse," said Harry. There were things like funeral expenses, and anyway, Ginny wasn't even technically dead, so he expected they would be keeping her body alive somehow, which probably cost money.
"I'll talk to the prefects later," Hermione said.
"Should we stay by the door to wait for Hannah?" Neville asked.
Harry scanned the room, looking for anybody he knew. Mirages of vague recognition flickered constantly through his mind, but he really wasn't personally acquainted with any Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors outside his year. Not with Ginny gone.
He did spot one familiar face: it was Gemma, standing awkwardly in a tight group with the other four Slytherin prefects and the Head Boy. They were at the outer edge of a ring of a students, watching a gobstones game.
Neville moved to take refuge in a corner behind a tall table which was laden with tiny cakes, and Harry and Hermione followed. As they had just come from lunch, none of them moved to take any food. Harry thought suddenly of Vince, who surely would not have missed the opportunity to stuff his face. They hadn't spoken in a while, despite the magic mirrors, and he wondered how the other boy was doing, trapped at home. At least there wouldn't be dementors there. Perhaps it was lucky for Vince after all that he hadn't come back to Hogwarts.
It wasn't long before Hannah entered with Ernie, Justin, and Susan in tow. Neville waved vigorously at her and she made a beeline for their table.
"I'm famished," said Justin, outpacing her and snatching a cake delicately between his fingers.
"You weren't at lunch?" Hermione asked, glancing between the new arrivals.
"Not after what happened at breakfast!" said Ernie.
Harry looked to Neville and Hermione to see if they knew what had happened at breakfast, but they returned his blank gaze.
"I fainted," said Susan, rolling her eyes. "Only for a minute, though. You're all making a bigger deal of it than necessary."
"It is a big deal," Ernie insisted, taking a cake for himself. "What if it happens again and you hurt yourself? You can't go back upstairs."
"I'm going home tomorrow, anyway," said Susan.
"You heard back from your aunt?" asked Hannah, and Susan nodded. "Lucky."
"Wait, you're going home? How?" Harry asked.
"You're allowed to floo home if you can get permission from your guardian. It's got to be a private floo, though, so they can make a secure connection," Susan explained.
"My parents haven't got a floo," Hannah muttered. "Dad doesn't think it's worth it since he likes to apparate. Apparating is horrible though!"
"What's apparating?" asked Justin.
"It's like teleporting," said Hermione.
"What's teleporting?" asked Ernie, whereupon Susan cheekily remarked that it was like apparating, and was promptly shoved into the table. She clung on to the tablecloth for balance, snickering, and nearly upended the whole thing.
"Let's go sit over there," said Hannah, pointing to an unoccupied circle of identical squashy armchairs that someone had clearly transfigured out of classroom furniture and arranged around a repurposed desk. They stopped by the refreshments table in the back so that the Hufflepuffs could load up on snacks.
Ernie was still looking back and forth between Hermione and Justin as they took their seats. "Seriously, though is telly-portation a muggle thing? I didn't know muggles could apparate."
"Of course they can't," said Hermione. "It's a fictional concept, or it was possibly left over from before the statute of secrecy. You know, a lot of muggle myths and fairy tales have surprisingly accurate depictions of magic."
"Oh yes, I noticed that as well," Justin agreed. "Really, that's a good thing, though. Nobody would ever believe someone about witches flying on brooms and wearing pointy hats, because it's one of those things people know don't exist. They'll think it's a trick or people playing dress-up. It's brilliant, how everything's hidden in plain sight. It took forever for Professor McGonagall to convince my parents it wasn't all an elaborate hoax."
Hermione nodded. "Same here. My dad nearly called the police because he thought she was trying to kidnap me into a cult."
"The police are like aurors and hit-wizards," Hannah explained to Ernie and Neville, who looked lost.
"You ought to sign up for Muggle Studies next year," Hermione told them. "The curriculum looks a bit basic to me, but it's better than nothing."
"I don't know, I heard it's rubbish," Hannah said. "Do you all already know what electives you're taking? I can't decide."
Neville groaned and sank into his seat. "Don't remind me. I've got advice from literally every great aunt and uncle and second cousin who I've never even met. And all of it conflicts. Great Uncle Algie says I should take arithmancy and ancient runes so that I can be a curse-breaker for Gringotts, but Aunt Phyllis thinks I'll enjoy magical creatures and divination better. Gran has nothing good to say about any of the options. Wait, listen to this."
He rummaged around in his pocket before producing a somewhat rumpled letter, which he smoothed out and began to read: "'Magical creatures and divination are soft subjects for idle layabouts. Let us not even speak of Muggle Studies, which is at least fifty years outdated and taught with a blatant Legitimist bias. Ancient runes have no practical applications aside from glorified grave-robbing, and arithmancy will not suit your temperament at all.' What does that even mean, 'won't suit my temperament'?"
"Well, it's all about chance and uncertainty," Harry began, but he privately suspected that Neville's grandmother just thought it would be too difficult for him. She didn't seem to have a high opinion of his ability. Harry frowned. "You know, I have no idea what she's talking about. I think you'd be great at it."
"I don't know," Neville mumbled forlornly.
"What about you, Harry?"
Harry flashed a sheepish smile. "I want to take all of them, I suppose, except Muggle Studies. I can't see how that one will be useful."
"I thought we were only supposed to choose two," said Hannah.
Harry took out his sign-up sheet and pointed to the instructions. "At least two. I don't see any 'at most' anywhere."
"I'm taking all of them," Hermione interjected. "I already handed mine in to Professor McGonagall."
Hannah looked at her like she was mental. "They're going to be double periods each week. If you take five that's ten extra hours of lessons. How is it even possible to fit that in?"
Hermione shrugged. "Professor McGonagall said she'd make arrangements."
"Why are you taking Muggle Studies?" Harry asked Hermione, the absurdity of it hitting him belatedly. "Aren't you muggle-born?"
"I thought it would be interesting to learn about the muggle world from a wizarding perspective," she said. Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"Don't you dare say that you're going sign up for all five too," Hannah warned.
Harry snorted. "I wasn't going to. I wasn't even planning on taking ancient runes, but my uncle wrote me to say I should."
He had taken Petri's advice to mean that ancient runes were relevant to enchantment, but in light of Neville's grandmother's comment about 'glorified grave robbing', Harry thought there was a distinct possibility that Petri had been talking about necromancy.
Hannah groaned. "I wish my parents had advice."
"They went to Hogwarts, didn't they? What did they take?" Harry asked.
Hannah shrugged. "Mum did runes and creatures, I think, and I have no idea about Dad. But they just told me to pick whatever I liked."
"So pick whatever you like," said Harry.
"But I don't know what I like!" Hannah turned to her fellow Hufflepuffs. "What about you lot, what are you taking?"
"I don't know. I don't even know if I'm coming back next year," Justin said.
"What? Don't say that," Hannah cried.
Justin shrugged, his mouth forming an uncomfortable moue. "I want to, but I don't think my parents are going to be happy with what's happened. The dragon last year was bad enough, but at least no one got hurt."
"Just don't tell them," said Hermione.
Heads swivelled towards her, and she flushed.
"I didn't think my parents would like what happened with the dragon, either, but they never said anything. I realised after a while that they had no idea. I don't think Hogwarts sends notices to muggles," she said.
"Hang on, will they even know to pick you up from the train station on Saturday?" Harry asked.
"Well of course. I wrote them about that part, obviously, but I just made up a nicer reason," said Hermione.
There was a beat of astonished silence.
Neville, looking green, said, "My Gran would kill me if I lied to her like that."
Hermione squared her chin. "Well, there's not exactly a way for my parents to find out. They haven't got any witch or wizard friends to tell them, have they?"
"I wish I could be that brave," said Justin at last, shaking his head. "I mean, you're right that they probably wouldn't find out, but just imagining it is already terrifying. I'd be grounded forever."
"I'd be disowned," Neville contributed forlornly.
"Do you think Hogwarts will really open again by next term?" Ernie asked.
"They've just got to clear out the dementors, right?" Harry asked.
"Just," Hannah repeated, stretching out the syllable. "They clearly don't think they'll manage it in a week or two, though. I don't suppose sending out an army of patronuses would work."
Harry shrugged. "I expect they'll need to negotiate, which could take a while. They've got to give the dementors a better deal than whatever they have now."
"What do you think happened, anyway? I heard rumours that the last time they defected from Azkaban it was because of… You-Know-Who." Ernie's voice dropped to a whisper when he mentioned the Dark Lord, and they all had to lean in to hear him.
"I heard that too. I tried to look it up but I couldn't find anything," Hermione said. "I mean, people got there before me and checked out everything relevant."
"It's true," said Neville. "Gran wrote me all about it. She gave me a bunch of tips to stay safe, like… oh no. I've forgotten them all." He buried his face in his hands.
"You have to make sure not to panic," Harry said, tapping his chin. "Dementors are drawn to all kinds of excitement. If you're feeling calm, or even just depressed, they're less likely to notice you even if you're standing right next to them."
"I don't remember reading that in Dark Forces," said Hermione. "How do you know that?"
"I… read it in a different book," Harry hedged.
Hermione frowned. "What book?"
Supposing that he had technically checked it out completely legitimately, Harry said, "It's called Deepeste Risinges. It's from the restricted section. Professor Lockhart wrote me a pass."
"No way!" said Ernie. "I thought only people in NEWT classes could get teachers to sign passes for the restricted section."
"I probably shouldn't be saying this," Hermione began, reddening, before going on anyway, "but Professor Lockhart will sign anything if you tell him you want his autograph. I got him to sign a few passes for me too."
"What did you check out?" Ernie asked, leaning in even further. "Was it dark magic?"
"Ernie!" Susan hissed, smacking his shoulder.
"Nothing wrong with just reading about dark magic," Ernie said, sniffing.
"Let's see… not really. I got an advanced potions book and a history book that turned out to be quite graphic," said Hermione.
"What's the title?" Harry asked. "I bet Terry would love it."
"War of the Wands," Hermione told him. "It's about the sixteen twelve goblin rebellion. The more I read about it, the more questions I have. It's shocking how much society changed because of it. For example, did you know that there used to be a wandmaker's guild, but they were almost completely wiped out and never recovered?"
Ernie interrupted her with a loud groan. "Granger, come off it, let us enjoy our cancelled lessons in peace."
Hermione shot him a severe look. "You're the one who asked."
"Sorry," Ernie said, clearly out of regret rather than apology.
"Don't pretend you hate school. You're the one who studies eight hours a day for exams," Susan told Ernie, who sniffed again.
"Work hard, play hard," he said.
Hannah quickly steered the conversation back to its original topic. "Ernie, you didn't say what electives you're taking."
"Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures," said Ernie.
"How did you decide?" Hannah pressed.
"Oh, that's easy. Creatures is the only choice if I want to go into the family business. Muggle Studies is useless. I'm probably never going to see a muggle in my life. And ancient runes sounds even worse than history, so I'm out of options besides arithmancy—prophetic talent does not run in my family at all so divination is a no go."
"What's your family business?" Harry asked.
"We breed winged horses," Ernie explained, puffing out his chest comically. Next to him, Susan rolled her eyes.
"How did I not know that? That's fascinating," said Justin. "My family breeds horses too. Regular ones, though. I think my mum would love the idea of a winged horse. Can they actually fly?"
"Of course they can," said Ernie, and launched into an extremely detailed explanation about the comparative wing structures of Abraxans and Granians, and how that affected their flight speed and endurance.
"Exploding snap?" Susan asked, sorting through the pile of games resting on the table between them. Ernie and Justin continued to chatter away, lost to the world.
"Sure," said Hannah. "Susan, what are you taking next year? I think I'll just pick what you pick."
Susan shrugged. "I don't know. I was hoping to copy you, actually."
Hannah groaned.
"You should take divination with me," Harry told both of them. "It'll be fun and useful."
Susan looked up, her pale gaze suddenly piercing. "You're the one who warned Hannah about the game, right? Thanks. We owe you."
"It's fine," Harry said quickly.
"You've got real talent," Susan told him. "My aunt said you need a gift to be able to do divination."
"A lot of people have it. One in two, I think," Harry said.
"Did you really predict the attack?" Hermione asked in a quiet voice, glancing anxiously at the large photo of Gabriel on the wall next to them.
Harry shrugged. "I knew something bad was going to happen at the game."
"But that's so vague," Hermione muttered.
"Harry was right, though," Hannah said, her voice suddenly brittle. "He told us not to go. And he was right."
Hermione frowned. "Look, I'm not saying that he was wrong, but suppose there hadn't been an attack? Something bad was still bound to have happened. It's quidditch! Someone gets sent to the hospital wing practically every game."
"How about I read you?" Harry offered, suddenly frustrated.
Hermione looked baffled. "What?"
Harry dug his tarot cards out of his pocket and took them out of their box. "I'll read for you right now."
"Can you read for me too?" Susan asked.
Harry glanced over to her, surprised, and shrugged. "Sure."
"Fine," said Hermione, crossing her arms. Harry set his deck on the small table and dragged his overly large chair closer.
Harry sighed. "Well, what do you want to know about?"
"Whether there are any boys who like you," Susan suggested.
"Which exams you need to study extra for," said Neville.
"I want to know how they're going to get the dementors out of the school," Hermione declared.
There was a beat of silence, and then Susan said, "I think it's got to be something about your future."
"That is something about my future, though. It's extremely relevant," Hermione said.
"It's fine," said Harry. "I'm curious about that, too."
He cut his deck into thirds, sandwiched the top part between the other two, and dealt three cards. Determining how something was going to happen was a little different from his usual readings, which were focused on the 'why', but he figured he could make it work.
"All right. So the first card is about who is going to be involved," he said, flipping it over. He didn't need a causal chain extending into the past, only a direct cause.
Merlin, reversed. Untapped or smothered potential. Harry froze, his mind jumping ridiculously. He wanted to believe it was Dumbledore, only momentarily thwarted by being sacked, but it was a poor fit at best. If anything, leaving the school would have freed Dumbledore to better explore any heretofore unrealised powers.
No, someone else had come immediately to mind, but the idea seemed so ludicrous that Harry hardly dared give it voice.
"What?" said Hermione, clearly getting impatient with his silence.
Harry wet his lips, remembering what Professor Trelawney had said about being surprised at one's own conclusions. Maintaining a clear inner eye meant not lying about what he'd seen to make things fit his preconceived notions.
"It's Lockhart," he said, and couldn't help giggling. He clapped his hand to his mouth. "Sorry."
He flipped the next card. Five of swords. Seeing it only confirmed his initial understanding. Deceit, bad faith. After all, was somebody acting under the imperius curse not the very definition of deception? His eyes flickered nervously up to where Hermione sat with her jaw set in disdain. Why did she have to ask for something where he couldn't tell her the truth?
"He's going to use trickery," Harry said, and, suddenly inspired, added, "Like he did in Wanderings with Werewolves to take down the Wagga Wagga Werewolf."
A spark of hope lit in Harry's chest. Maybe the whole thing was less ridiculous than it had seemed at the outset. Maybe Lockhart would recover his wits, throw off the imperius curse, and pull off another impressive victory like the ones in his past.
The final card was the World. Success. The completion of a cycle and the start of another. "Right, he'll successfully drive off the dementors, and Hogwarts will open on time."
Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Well, given all his accomplishments, and the fact that he's the defence professor, Professor Lockhart is the most obvious choice, isn't he?"
Harry frowned. "Not really. You've been in his lessons. Does he seem like he lives up to his reputation to you?"
"Well, no," Hermione admitted. "But still."
"You're the one who asked for something we can't confirm for another few months," Harry said. "We'll see what happens then, right?"
Hermione pursed her lips. "Fine."
Susan dragged her chair forward. "Me next. What should I do to convince my aunt to take me to see my grandpa?"
Harry was taken aback for a moment, having not expected such a personal question. He gathered his cards, brow furrowed as he shuffled and dealt. He flipped the cards.
"Your aunt and your grandpa don't really get along. She blames him for something."
A diaphanous veil seemed to flutter at the edge of Harry's vision, tickling his mind with a rolling sequence of epiphanies. His mouth moved almost without his direction.
"She doesn't want you to have a relationship with him. You have to make her think that you want to visit your grandmother."
"But she's—"
"In hospital, I know," Harry said, blinking away cobwebs to better focus on the final card, the four of stars. "Your aunt will feel guilty… she doesn't visit as much as she should. She'll agree to take you."
Susan's eyes were round. "Thanks, Harry. I'll try that."
Harry nodded wordlessly, his mouth suddenly dry and his eyes stinging from the stark torchlight coruscating across the greasy lenses of his glasses. He pulled them off his face, attempting to wipe them clean on his robe.
"Ooh, Potter, are you telling fortunes?"
Harry shoved his glasses back onto his nose and glanced up to see two Gryffindor girls standing over his table—Padma's twin and a stocky brunette with a flower name, Violet or Lavender, he thought.
The girl glanced over to Hermione and grinned. "Who is Hermione going to marry?"
Hermione choked. "Lavender!" Harry had never heard her voice go that high.
"Be careful," said Susan, adopting a solemn air. "Harry's the real deal. He knew about my grandmother—I've never mentioned her to anyone. And he predicted the dementor attack."
"Did he really? Did you really?" Lavender demanded, wide-eyed.
Harry bit back a sigh. No doubt word of his prescience was going to be spread all around the school by tomorrow morning. Small mercies that everybody was heading home in short order and would have the whole summer to forget about it.
There was no use denying it, so he nodded.
Suddenly demure, Lavender asked in a low voice, "Can you tell my fortune, then?"
"I suppose," Harry said.
By the time he finished stammering through Lavender's future love life and Parvati's sibling drama, a small queue had formed behind the row of transfigured chairs.
"Can you sit my divination exam for me?" his next client, a fourth year Hufflepuff, asked.
Harry pretended to look at his deck, then glanced back. "No."
The boy chuckled and held out his hand. "Worth a shot. I'm Quentin Wakely. It's a delight to meet you, Potter."
Wakely wasn't the only one who had decided to join the gathering crowd for a chance to shake Harry's hand. Harry had to draw the line at signing autographs. He wasn't bloody Lockhart. He would have expected his unearned fame to have died down long ago, but a year and a half of fidelius and a tendency to keep to himself had backfired: until now, the vast majority of students had been deprived of the opportunity to brag that they had met the Boy-Who-Lived.
This renewed interest drew taut an itching strand of unease in Harry's chest. This party wasn't about him. It was about the ones who had died because of him. Only, nobody knew. In the haze of voices Harry heard the gears of speculation and exaggeration already grinding the truth into a fantastical shape.
"Potter predicted the attack, you know, but nobody believed him."
"They should've called off the game. I heard that none of the teachers would take him seriously, thought he was pulling a prank."
Firelight danced across the glossy paint of the cards. Harry's heartbeat quickened. He waited with bated breath for that sickening lurch in his gut, for shame and horror to creep up his neck and culminate in choking emotion. It did not come.
His stomach grumbled, and he figured he was hungry. It must nearly be time for dinner. He wanted to join his friends at exploding snap, to turn away and tell everybody else to leave him in peace.
Across from him, there was a small scuffle over who would sit in the closest armchair next. In the chaos, a tiny boy slipped through and climbed up, sinking into the weightless cushion. It was Harry's self-proclaimed fan, Colin Creevey.
He leaned forward, bracing against the little table that separated them. "Is it true? They're saying you knew the dementors would attack the quidditch game, that you tried to warn people."
He ought to put a stop to the gossip, Harry thought, but technically, it was true. This pedantic thought overwhelmed all reason, and he nodded jerkily.
"Are you psychic?" Colin asked. "Is it because you're a v—"
"No!" Harry shouted, clutching his deck so tightly he almost bent the cards. "No. A lot of people are… psychic. It's nothing special."
Colin nodded, and Harry had the feeling that he hadn't understood a single word.
"Can you tell my future?"
Harry laid out the cards. His breath stalled. Colin's pasty, beaming face looked suddenly like a grinning skull.
'If I don't say it out loud,' Harry thought, but he couldn't lie to himself. He'd looked, and he couldn't take it back. He swallowed, carefully laying his arm over the cards to obscure them.
"You… shouldn't come back to Hogwarts," he said, and Colin's face finally lost its beatific sheen. His eyes widened, betraying a hint of hurt.
Harry's unease returned tenfold, like a fist clenching around his heart. He was trembling, he thought, but when he eyed his hand, it sat deceptively still underneath the flickering torchlight. He couldn't stay here. Standing up was agony. His legs locked and his head floated. Somehow, he gathered up his cards.
"Never mind," he heard himself say flatly. "I have to go."
"Wait, Harry," said Hannah, turning away from the exploding snap game at the sound of his chair grinding over stone. Blood and laughter drained from her face as their eyes met. "Harry, what's wrong?"
Harry bolted. In a moment he was halfway out the door, barrelling haphazardly past a confused Hyacinth, who shouted a belated "Thank you for coming!" after him. It echoed down the corridor.
It was early evening now, nearly dinnertime. The dungeon air was cool and brittle, and as Harry ascended into the castle proper, the chill deepened into the familiar press of icy claws. A wave of despair crept over him, and he pushed it away only half-heartedly. For a moment, earlier, he had almost felt useful, believed the lie that foreseen was forewarned. It was foolish to have forgotten, so soon after Ginny's demise, that there were some things better left unknown.
Unable to help himself, he stumbled against the nearest wall and transferred his deck into his silver hand. As if hoping that he had been mistaken, he flipped the top three cards. The Tower. The Dementor. Death.