Boggarts again
The returning 8th years were gathered together in an old unused classroom. A cabinet in the back of the room rattled ominously.
Professor Blankett, the latest Defence Against the Darks Arts (newly instated class) professor moved close to the cabinet before turning to face the class. His eyes were a watery blue and he was a good foot shorter than the majority of the male students. Well not Harry, but most of the other men in the room. Rumour was that Professor Blankett was a retired Unspeakable.
'I know you've all likely encountered and learned how to remove Boggarts in earlier years, but tackling Boggarts again as more mature students is a different experience than tackling one when you're a child.'
The small group of mature students shuffled uneasily. No one was excited for this lesson. Too many horrors had been seen, too many terrors experienced in the last year that this group felt little confidence facing the creature of fear itself.
Hermione was watching Professor Blankett with a tension and grit Harry recognized from their travels in the past year. He vaguely recalled she hadn't had a chance to face a boggart in their 3rd year and wondered what it would have been before? Ron was staring at the cabinet with something akin to disgust and determination. He would not see spiders again.
Looking around the misfit group of students, Harry took note of all their faces. Determination, resignation, exhaustion. Not everyone from their year had returned. Hermione had been insistent that the three of them finish their education. Ron and Harry had been reluctant initially, but in light of Ron and Hermione's blooming relationship Ron was much more amenable. Harry found himself more often than not distracted and unable to focus on the subjects and topics and people around him. So many things just seemed so unimportant now.
Surprisingly Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson had returned. The only two Slytherins to do so.
'Each student will take a turn banishing the boggart using the spell you all know.' Professor Blankett motioned for the class and unanimously the class chanted 'Riddikulus' with little enthusiasm.
'I'll give you all 5 minutes now to think about your fears, how they've likely changed over the years and how you'll counter them now.'
The class fell silent. Harry's mind drifted. Fear. Did he still fear dementers? Yes and no. He knew how to defeat them, but encountering one unarmed still made him sweat. There were so many voices now, so many others joining the chorus of his parents death. Atleast it would be easy if the boggart assumed the form of a dementor again, but what if it didn't?
What did he fear now? Death? No, not anymore. Death of loved ones? Dumbledore's words floated through his mind, "Don't pity the dead, pity the living?". No. Voldemort's return? That was a terrible thought.
'Alright please line up.' No one moved. Professor Blankett remained unfazed and simply waited.
Hermione marched forward. Ron followed but Harry did not.
'Very well.' Professor Blankett nodded, 'Miss Granger.' He stepped out of the way and with a flick of his wand the cabinet opened.
The class watched with mounting anticipation and dread. Hermione's jaw and hands were clenched tightly, she'd already raised her wand. Then there it was. Ron. Pale and lifeless on the floor, his blue eyes were open and vacant.
Her voice was firm, 'Riddikulus'.
Ron's body shifted and rather than becoming something they could all laugh at, became another form. Two bodies now lay lifeless on the floor. 'Riddikulus!'
Mr. and Mrs. Granger's lifeless forms twisted and merged to form a single contorting form on the floor. It was Harry. Harry watched detached as the image of his own body jerked and flailed on the floor. The Boggart-Harry's eyes were rolled back in his head, his face trapped in a horrible grimace, hands clawed at the Horcrux's chain that was tightening around his neck suffocating him as the locket red-hot pressed into his chest. His shirt had been sliced open and blood swelled from underneath the locket. His own tortured grunts filled the classroom. He could feel others looking towards him.
This was after the night in the Godric's hollow. He remembered that night, although of course he wasn't aware of what was happening as he re-lived the murder of his parents. His and Voldemort's minds blending and melding.
Hermione gasped, 'R-Riddikulus!' The helplessness and terror she'd experienced that night must have been horrible. Did she fear for Harry's death, or the control Voldemort had gained over Harry's mind that night?
Harry's form shifted and was taken up by the cackling form of Bellatrix Lestrange wielding a knife dripping blood. 'Let's see just how dirty her blood is!'
'RIDDIKULUS!' Hermione roared.
A hefty and ornate chandelier appeared and promptly crushed the cackling form of Bellatrix Lestrange.
'Great job Miss Granger! Next!' Professor Blankett called out. Hermione stepped back looking accomplished but exhausted.
Sounds of someone clapping filled the room as Ron stepped forward. It was Draco Malfoy, he wasn't smiling but he looked Hermione in the face, clapped a few more times and inclined his head. He surely remembers that night and that very chandelier that Dobby had dropped on Bellatrix, nearly killing her. Hermione nodded back and turned to support Ron.
The boggart was swirling and predictably adopted the form of a dead Hermione. Her frizzy hair lay partially across her face.
'Riddikulus.' Ron's voice was strained. The form did not change, blood began to seep from underneath Hermione's dead form.
'Riddikulus' Ron repeated with more force. The form changed. The brown hair morphing into the Weasley red. It could have been anyone in the Weasley family. More forms joined the one on the floor. Ron's family dead and laid out before them. Harry felt queasy.
'Riddikulus!' The forms merged and changed. This time Harry was on the ground limp, glasses askew. Voldemort stood above him triumphant, his foot pushing Harry's blank face to the side.
'Riddikulus!' Ron's voice was growing stronger.
Molly Weasley now stood before them very much alive but her face full of malice. 'How dare you return home! It shouldn't have been Fred! It should have been you!' It was shocking to see and hear such hateful things spill from this woman's lips. Ron was faltering.
'Come on Ron!' Harry called out. This was too similar to what the horcrux had pulled from him that night in the forest.
'How could you think we'd be proud of you, you're a coward!' Molly's voice shrieked.
Hermione stepped forward, 'Ron, you know that's not true, that's not your mother.'
'Riddikulus!' Ron yelled and Molly Weasley's mouth disappeared as her robe flew up and tangled around her making her trip backwards.
'Good Mr. Weasley! Next!' Professor Blankett called out and Harry understood. He was letting the boggart get to them, for it to go too far, to force the students to act.
Ron stepped back shaky. Susan Bones stepped forward and the form of more dead family members covered the floor.
Ron re-joined Harry at the back of the class. Harry reached up to clap Ron on the back. The red head gave him a small smile. Hermione linked her hand with Rons.
The trio watched as their classmates one by one dealt with the horrors of lost family members and friends. In some cases Voldemort and his death eaters appeared. They'd all encountered so much death and pain in the last year it was hard to imagine any of them ever fearing something as silly as spiders or banshees or mummies ever again.
Harsh laughter erupted from the class suddenly as Neville's boggart posing as a victorious Voldemort was suddenly wearing the very outfit Neville had outfitted his Snape boggart in third year.
'Very good Mr. Longbottom!' Professor Blankett called out. Neville stepped back, triumph and laughter in his eyes.
'Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, or Miss Parkinson please step forward.' Harry hadn't noticed it was only the three of them left.
It wasn't very Gryffindor of him but Harry didn't move. Ron and Hermione did not prompt him. Pansy dramatically sighed and stepped forward annoyed.
Harry briefly met Draco's eyes. The look in his eyes was not discernable.
Pansy raised her wand as the boggart swirled and settled on the form of Pansy herself. Her body was sprawled across the floor, her left arm barred, the ugly dark mark standing out starkly on her pale skin. She appeared dead.
Pansy seemed shocked and unconsciously gripped her left forearm. The class whispered unkindly.
Blood began to seep from a wound that appeared below the mark. A thin slash across her wrist.
'Miss Parkinson.' Professor Blankett prodded.
Pansy muttered something but nothing happened. The trail of blood was slowly making its way towards her. Her form began to take on a greyed out look. The edges of herself were blurring and disappearing.
'Riddikulus.' Pansy said louder and the form began to change. It was her family, alive but on their knees and destitute. Their clothes ragged and heads lowered in shame.
'Riddikulus!' Pansy shouted and the forms seemed to dissolve.
Malfoy stepped in front of Pansy and gently pushed her back. Professor Blankett did not comment.
The boggart swirled and shifted, finally settling on an image of Draco himself. He was kneeling, his blond hair a mess as he slashed with a blade at his marked arm. Blood welled up red and bright as it splashed onto the classroom floor.
'Riddikulus.' He said the spell with little emotion.
The boggart twisted and became his mother and father. They were seated at a table and they looked scared. Trapped. Voldemort stood behind them, a clawed hand placed on the shoulder of each parent.
'Riddikulus.' Draco called out firmly.
Bright searing fire filled the room. Animals charging within its flames. Draco stumbled back away from the flames despite the lack of heat. Harry closed his eyes. It was the fiend fire that had killed Goyle.
'Riddikulus' Draco called above the roar of the fire and a large amount of water was suddenly dumped from the ceiling, heatless steam filling the room.
'Excellent Mr. Malfoy! Mr. Potter you're up!'
Harry started, he'd nearly forgotten he'd have to participate. It felt like the whole classroom was staring at him now. Malfoy retreated from the front and gave Harry a solemn nodd. Harry walked forward slowly.
The boggart locked onto him and began it's shift shaping. For the third time that day Harry was looking at himself.
It was an exact replica of him. Pale and thin, but alive. The boggart-Harry didn't say anything but continued staring at him. Harry tilted his head and the boggart mimicked. He could hear the class murmuring behind him. He swallowed thickly. The boggart mimicked. He raised his wand to say the spell. But the boggart, wandless, spoke. And it was in a voice similar to his own but harsher. The words sounded like parseltongue, but Harry couldn't be sure if they truly were. He was supposed to have lost that ability.
'Do they all know?' boggart-Harry inclined its head to the class.
'Do they all know just how much of a freak you are?' boggart-Harry continued. 'Master of Death!' It called out loudly, mockingly.
It's appearance was changing subtly. It's face becoming gaunter, paler, eyes darkening.
'Do you even understand just how different you are? How unnatural the things you've done? Surrounded by death…embraced by death…you've seen things no mortal should ever have seen.' It's voice was accusatory and biting.
The boggart-Harry seemed to be struggling now, limbs tensing and twitching. It's face was contorting but always snapping back to stare into Harry's face.
'You can't touch something that dark and not be permanently damaged by it.'
The boggart-Harry's eyes lifted to the scar on his forehead, before it pulled on it's own button down shirt, popping it open to reveal his disfigured chest. The scar from the locket was hideous, a mess of scar tissue, red and shiny. Next to it the second lightning bolt scar almost looked innocuous. The scar on his own chest felt hot.
'That darkness is within you still. You can't un-see those things, can't un-learn them. You can't remove it.'
'Harry!' someone was calling his name but from a distance. All Harry could focus on was this disturbed version of himself. It was right. He didn't belong among normal folk, never has, never will.
The boggart-Harry's face suddenly twitched violently. The image was unsettling. The twitching stopped, the boggarts face looking even more strained stared back into Harry's.
'It was inside you the whole time. You let it survive!' the boggart hissed.
The green eyes darkened to pools of blackness that widened unnaturally on his face. The boggarts features adopted a look of horror and pain as it fell to its knees before him. Harry staggered back, unable to look away from the pits of darkness on his own face. He knew what this was.
Sure enough in the next moment black and red coils appeared around his, pulling taunt, squeezing him.
This was the possession.
He stepped back again, beyond horrified. He could feel a ghost of the pain, the unbearable pressure from before.
But he had beaten it before. He had pushed him out!
Harry raised his wand and called out loud and firm 'Riddikulus!'
The coils disappeared but boggart-Harry remained, still and unmoving, his head bent forward now.
Harry could feel his own heart pounding in his chest, just underneath the second lightning bolt scar.
Boggart-Harry stood swiftly and opened his eyes. Scarlet looked back at Harry.
'No.' Harry said firmly. Thoughts of the spell gone.
Boggart-Harry smiled slowly. 'No?'
The boggart began to circle Harry slowly, head raised in confidence. Harry pivoted to keep the Boggart in view.
'But it would be so easy.' Boggart-Harry looked delighted.
'You know how to do it. You shared his mind after all.' Boggart-Harry smiled, 'Bound by body, mind, and soul.' The boggart mocked in a loving voice.
'Shut up!' Harry snarled out. Boggart-Harry laughed, high and cold. Voldemort's laugh.
'You're so alike. You must see it.' The scarlet eyes continued to burn into Harry's own.
'You may have killed the one person on this planet that would understand you now.'
Harry didn't answer. The thought horrified him.
'You just have to reach out, he's not truly gone, he never will be.'
'He's a part of you now forever. He's marked you as his equal.' Boggart-Harry paused in his circling, 'Twice.'
'Potter! The spell!' a classmate called out in the distance. It sounded vaguely like Malfoy.
Boggart-Harry leaned in close. 'You are him. You will become him.' it whispered.
'Riddikulus.' Harry said without much emotion. The boggart swirled away from him reforming into a mass on the floor feet away. There were shouts of horror in the classroom. The weak, pitiful sounds coming from the mass on the floor were familiar. Harry knew exactly what this was. But he did not fear it itself. Why had the boggart conjured this?
He approached the frail unwhole body and called out 'Tom Riddle.' The creature's back was to him so he circled around widely, his wand ready. He looked down on the creature he'd encountered before. But something was different this time. The eyes were still red, but they were not slit-like and the nose was not snake-like.
Harry crouched nearer. The creature struggling to breath and exist had a lightning bolt scar on its forehead. Harry pulled back repulsed. It was him. His soul.
The wretched thing raised a thin arm towards him.
Harry could feel bile rising up in his throat. He clamped a hand over his mouth and stumbled away from the thing and raised his wand, 'Riddikulus.' he mumbled from behind his hand.
The boggart swirled and re-formed. A small cupboard re-appeared where the creature had been. A plain, white, cupboard barely large enough to stand in.
His cupboard. Harry was almost relieved.
The door opened with a creak, the door swinging wide. Inside was only darkness. The same colour and depth as the Boggart's eyes earlier and Harry understood.
He was alone, he was different. He was truly a freak.
Harry began laughing harshly, not unlike the deranged version of himself earlier.
'Riddikulus' He called out and the cupboard was consumed in flames. Harry's harsh laughter continued until the cupboard was just a pile of ash.
'Okay, Mr. Potter. Thank you.' Professor Blankett stepped forward and gently pushed Harry away from the smouldering pile of ash.
The class was staring at him oddly. Some with confusion and fear, others with pity. His stomach turned. This he could not handle. Professor Blanlett was talking again, an essay, 3 feet, due Monday.
Harry rubbed his face with his hands. 'Let's get out of here.' It was Ron. Hermione was nodding beside him.
'Potter what was that thing?' Pansy called out as the trio turned to leave the room.
More than one student was listening, they all wanted to know.
Harry turned to her 'Which one?'
'That horrible creature on the floor?'
Harry turned to look back at the spot the creature had appeared.
'It was a damaged soul.'
He turned and left the classroom swiftly before anyone could ask anything else. He would not be staying at Hogwarts. He will leave tonight. He just had one stop he needed to make in the forest first.