Author's Notes:
I am taking a direct section of writing straight from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as well as paraphrasing a section of dialogue. I do not own any of this, it belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter Ten
Taking the Knight Bus to Hogwarts was just about as much fun has Harry remembered it being. That is to say, close to none at all. Ron was excited as they boarded and climbed to the top deck, saying how he'd always wanted to ride this thing. After the third time he had to pick himself up off the floor after the bus gave one of its loud bangs and jumped, his opinion of the experience soured. Tonks managed to bride the driver into moving them up in the queue, and soon they were standing in front of the gates to the castle.
Harry spent the rest of that Sunday dreading the following night when he would be having his first Occlumency lesson with Snape. All that day and the next members of the D.A. found him, excitedly asking if the first meeting would be tomorrow.
"I'll let you know" he told them, trying not to use the excuse Snape had given him for needing to have extra lessons with him. Zacharias Smith kept pushing however, demanding to know why Harry wouldn't set a date.
"You take remedial potions?" he asked superciliously, "Good lord, you must be terrible."
After dinner, as he left the Great Hall, the person he'd been most nervous about seeing from the D.A. approached him. Cho Chang tapped him on the shoulder on his way up the Marble Staircase.
"Hi, Harry." She said, looking decidedly uncomfortable
"Oh, Hi Cho, had a good holiday?" Harry asked
"Yeah, it was pretty quiet." She replied.
Harry hesitated not sure what to say, then decided to stop avoiding the issue. "Listen, Cho, I'm sorry about what happened."
"No, no Harry don't be. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have acted that way." She said, looking sad.
"I just…I don't like you that way." Harry stammered.
"I know that, part of me has known that for a while but I couldn't help but liking you."
"I hope we can be friends?" Harry offered
"Of course we can. I'll see you at the next D.A meeting." She said before hurrying away up the stairs and disappearing.
At six o'clock Harry found himself standing outside the door to Snape's office, every fiber of his being telling him to run. The last time he had been in this office had not been a pleasant experience and He truly doubted this time would be any better. He knocked on the door and was told to enter, deciding it was better to go ahead and get it over with.
The office was dark and cold, with shelves lining the walls full of various slimy bits in different colored potions. Snape stood in front of his desk, and Harry's attention was drawn to the low stone basin that sat on it. It was Dumbledore's pensive that he had inadvertently found himself in last year. It appears Snape had just finished siphoning off memories into it.
Before Harry could say anything, Snape began speaking. He explained again what occlumency was and told Harry about a connection that seemed to exist between his mind and the Dark Lord's. The goal of these lessons was to teach him how to block Voldemort's access to his mind. When Snape said that he would be attempting to enter Harry's mind, a cold fear filled him. Would Snape be able to see his memories? Would he find out about Heather?
His fear must have reached his face despite his efforts to hide it. Coldly, Snape said "You're right to be scared, Potter. Now, take out your wand. You are allowed to use it in any way you can think of to defend yourself against me. I am about to break into your mind, you are going to resist me. Brace yourself…Legilimens!"
Harry had tried to prepare but Snape had struck before he'd even been able to put up a rudimentary defense. Quickly he could feel Snape overpower his feeble mental barrier and dive into his mind. The office around his vanished to be replaced by a memory of him watching Dudley riding a bicycle, then Aunt Marge's bulldog chasing him up a tree, Hermione lying cold and stiff having been petrified, Cho trying to kiss him under the mistletoe.
Almost as soon as it had begun it was over. He fell to his knees and heard Snape suck in his breathe. Looking up he saw a red mark on Snape's wand hand. It seemed Harry had stung him, ending the attack.
"You lost control, let me get to far" said Snape, anger in his eyes.
"Did you see everything I saw?" asked Harry, hoping somethings might stay hidden
"Most of it, yes. Now we are going to try again. Focus."
Harry closed his eyes, anger and fear filling him equally.
"Clear your mind, Potter. Release all of your emotions."
That's easy for you to say, thought Harry but he tried his best.
"Legilimens!" cried Snape and again Harry's eyes were filled with his memories. His mother and father waving at him out of the mirror, opening the ring from Sirius, Cedric lying dead in the graveyard.
"Noooo!" he cried, and the attack stopped. Somehow, he had fallen to his knees again, and he panted there on the floor for a full minute.
"You aren't even trying. You're allowing me access to things you fear, handing me what I need to destroy you!" yelled Snape.
It went on like that for a full hour. No matter how strongly he tried Harry could not stop Snape from entering his mind. His only consolation was that no more memories of Heather surfaced during Snape's attacks. Harry hoped that Snape hadn't seen the ring or had forgotten about it in the rush of the rest of the visions. During the last attempt, something clicked. The hallway he'd been dreaming about since the summer, he'd seen it before. It was the corridor to the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic.
When he told Snape about this revelation a cold fury filled the Potions Master's face. For homework he told Harry to clear his mind every night of all emotion, the next lesson would be two days from now. As Harry left his office his scar prickled painfully. Chills racked his body and he felt weak, almost feverish. In the Common Room he sat with Hermione and Ron and told them about the hallway in his dreams. Together they decided that must mean that the weapon that Voldemort was after had to be in the Department of Mysteries.
In his dormitory getting ready for bed, without warning his scar exploded with pain, and a high cold laugh rang in his ears. He couldn't think of anything else beside the intense maniacal happiness that filled him.
"Harry!" cried Ron, racing into the room.
With a sudden rush Harry returned to himself. Turning to look at Ron he said "He's happy. Something he's been hoping for just happened." Harry wasn't entirely sure how he knew this, but one thing was certain. Anything that made Voldemort happier than he had been in fourteen years would not be good news for them. Ron watched as he finished getting into bed, almost as if he were expecting Harry to burst out laughing again.
The answer of what had made Voldemort so happy was answered by the arrival of the owls carrying the Daily Prophet the next morning. Taking up the entire cover was a large picture of a fortress on a small island, topped by the headline Mass Breakout from Azkaban. On the following two pages were large pictures showing the faces of ten witches and wizards, along with their names and why they had been imprisoned.
The article went on to blame Sirius, causing Harry to remember the small package that he'd stashed in his trunk on his return two nights previous. The entire of the atmosphere of the castle had changed overnight. Children of wizarding parents had heard the names of these escaped death eater's all their lives, spoken with almost as much fear as Voldemort's himself. Occasionally in the corridors small knots of teachers could be see talking in low voices, not able to speak freely in the staff room anymore.
That evening Harry decided to return to his haven. He'd slept badly after his lesson with Snape the night before and he felt the need to recharge. In the privacy of the room Heather transformed herself and settled into her favorite armchair in front of the fire. To her surprise the Mirror of Erised was gone, replaced by the mirror that has been there previously. It had shown her what she needed to see, no more need for it to be here I guess, thought Heather.
From her bag she pulled the small rectangle Sirius had given her. Still uncertain about opening it for fear that Sirius would leave Grimmauld place, she slowly ripped open the brown paper. It was a small mirror, hardly larger than her hand. It was obviously old; the glass was covered in smudges and was cracked along one side. On the back Heather saw a note in Sirius's handwriting
This is a two-way mirror. I've got the other. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you'll appear in my mirror, and I'll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.
Slowly Heather turned it back over, the implications of it hitting her. She wouldn't need to worry about letters being intercepted, or Sirius being caught in the Gryffindor fireplace anymore. She could talk to him whenever she wanted. She was just about to say Sirius's name into it, almost longing to see his face again, when she stopped herself. No, she thought, I want him to see Heather, but there's something I need to do first.
It was still early, with curfew a few hours off. For a moment she considered changing back into Harry, but instead grabbed the invisibility cloak and the map from her bag. She was dressed in her uniform, so if she got caught somehow there was a chance she could get out of trouble, or so she hoped. Heather scoured the map for her friend's dots. Without surprise, Hermione and Ginny were located at a table in the back of the library. Heart pounding in her chest, Heater pulled the cloak over herself and left the room.
The library was thankfully almost empty, with most students not wanting to do homework their second night back. Hermione and Ginny had taken over a table, books piled high on a variety of subjects. Cautiously Heather approached them and gently tapped Hermione's shoulder. Hermione gasped in surprise and looked around but saw no one.
"It's me" Heather whispered, "I need you both to come with me."
Ginny, who had looked up at Hermione's gasp, asked quietly "Harry? Why are you invisible?"
"Because I'm fully dressed and don't want to be seen." Heather answered.
The two girls shared a quick glance between them before closing their books and hurriedly grabbing their bags. Together the three of them left the library. Outside, the two girls turned as if to go to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
"No, not that way. Follow me." Heather said, slipping them the map through the cloak.
Heather waited for Hermione to find their dots before moving off. With a rush she realized that her new name on the map would be extremely obvious. She knew that Hermione had found them when her eyes went wide. Ginny had been looking at the map, having never seen it before, and when Hermione pointed her eyebrows skyrocketed up. Quickly Heather moved off, leading them through several of her shortcuts to the seventh floor. When they reached the now familiar blank stretch of wall, Heather paced back and forth asking the room to let her into her haven.
Inside, Hermione and Ginny looked around the comfortable room, clearly impressed with it. Heather slid the cloak off and laid it on the back of one of the armchairs. She didn't face her friends at first but could feel their gaze on her back.
"Where are we Heather?" asked Ginny
"This is my place," She answered, then after a moment continued, "My place to be Heather."
"It's really nice" said Hermione, sitting down. Heather turned and looked at them, half expecting to see hurt expressions at learning that she had been hiding this from them. Instead, both of the girls were looking at her with expectant and content expressions.
"There's something I need to tell you both." Heather said, also sitting in her favorite chair and putting her hands in her lap to keep herself from wringing them. The tone of her voice must have conveyed that this wasn't something light and breezy because both Hermione and Ginny shared a brief look before focusing on Heather again. It took a moment to arrange what she wanted to say in her head before trusting herself to speak it aloud. "I'm a girl". It was a simple statement, but the effort of putting the words out into the room took a great deal of willpower.
"Of course, you are," blurted out Ginny before she could stop herself, "I mean you've been part girl for a while now."
"That's not what I mean. I mean that I don't want to be a boy anymore. I don't want to be part anything. I'm a girl." Heather said, managing to hold onto her composure.