Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.
Sorry this one was posted a little later in the day than all the others. I had less time to write it. I'm going to try and stick to my current rate of posting, but I'm starting my new degree soon, and hopefully finding a job as well.
Chapter 28
'Transfigure your thumbnail into something different,' Salazar instructed.
Harry gave the painting a flat stare. It had only just begun to grow back.
'Nobody will notice if it's still missing,' the founder sighed. 'The whole point is that you learn to reverse the effects of transfiguration upon one's self.'
'Can't I just transfigure something else?' Harry asked. There were hundreds, thousands of things he would rather test this on than himself.
'It's a counter for spells applied by a wizard or witch to themselves,' Salazar reiterated tiredly. 'It will obviously not work if you try it under different circumstances.'
'Fine.'
Harry tapped his half-returned thumbnail with the tip of his wand, wincing at the sudden feel of cold he received when it turned to bright steel.
'Shiny,' Slytherin remarked. 'I'm sure nobody will notice if that ends up being permanent.'
'What's the incantation?' Harry demanded. The second task was steadily growing nearer. It was early February already, and he was barely any closer to managing the self-transfiguration. He blamed Salazar for this. The painting had made him spend hours in the library researching and learning about how gills worked so when that he, and by extension his magic, understood the changes he was going to make.
'Redeo,' his ancestor replied. 'Focus on making things as they were before.'
'Redeo,' Harry repeated. His nail returned to its former colour. Sceptically he tapped it with the tip of his wand and was none too surprised to hear the ring of steel.
'At least it is less conspicuous,' Salazar smirked. 'Try again.'
Harry fixed the portrait with a baleful glare, but repeated the process regardless, this time with more determination and focus.
'That's more like it,' Slytherin nodded. He was mimicked by the serpent at his shoulder.
Harry's nail had not only lost its metallic nature but regrown to the size it had been before his splinching on the return from Diagon Alley.
'Now can I actually try transfiguring my lungs?' he asked. It felt like the longer he took to manage this the further he fell behind the other champions. He knew from Fleur Delacour that they were already well on their way, and that had been three weeks ago.
'I suppose we are running out of time,' Salazar admitted. 'There's only a week and half left to the task in which to master it, remove any teething problems and for you to get used to the sensation of breathing so differently.'
'I'd best get started then.' Harry raised his wand, but stopped when Salazar shook his head.
'You'll need water to breathe afterwards,' the founder reminded him, as if he were an idiot. 'You'll have to get reacquainted with the pool.' An amused smile had found its way onto Slytherin's lips at the idea. He hadn't been able to watch the last time Harry had been forced to take a dip, but now his ancestor had a front row view.
Not this time, Harry decided, raising his wand again.
A very powerful warming charm left the pool of water steaming slightly in the cool of the chamber and looking a far more attractive prospect than before.
Salazar looked rather crestfallen.
'I congratulate you on your cunning and independent thinking,' he smiled after a moment of mourning for his lost entertainment. 'Not so long ago you would have simply jumped in without a second thought if I told you to.'
'I won't be blindly following instructions again,' Harry told him proudly. 'Not even yours.'
'Good,' the portrait hissed fiercely. 'Rushing into things blindfolded will get you killed.'
'I'm amazed I'm still alive,' Harry grinned brightly. Rushing into things blindly was a fairly good way to describe the last three years of his life.
'Get in the water,' Slytherin commanded, 'and try not to drown yourself.'
Harry stripped off his robes and sat on the tip of the forked-ended bridge, then he lowered it until the water to reached his jaw. He took a deep breath.
'Are you ready?' Slytherin asked.
Harry placed the tip of his wand over his chest and pictured the inside of his lungs changing. The small sacs that were his alveoli lengthening into long, wavy filaments, transforming his lungs into something he imagined as rather resembling the tendrils of an anemone. He took a deep breath, sucking air into his lungs.
No sense of relief came with the action. The desire for oxygen only increased.
Ignoring the growing urge to use the reversal charm and give up he ducked his head under the water and gulped down a lungful of the lukewarm liquid.
It was slight relief, but once his lungs were full he could barely empty them, the muscles of his diaphragm lacked the strength to force all the water out and he could no longer rely on diffusion to act in his favour.
'Redeo,' he croaked, spluttering water everywhere. Slytherin looked on, worried, as Harry coughed up several mouthfuls of liquid before pinching the bridge of his nose.
'I take it that it did not work?'
'I can't get the water out of my lungs once I've breathed it in,' Harry informed him. 'Without some action to move the water my internal gills will fail and I will drown.'
'You'd best return to the library, then,' Salazar decided. 'I can't help you here, you need some sort of changes to your chest muscles to help move the water in and out, but without detailed study you could end up killing yourself far too easily.'
'Back to the library,' Harry grumbled. He'd spent far too long in there already for his liking. It wasn't that he had lost his enjoyment of reading or discovering new aspects of magic, more the company he had to keep avoiding.
Hermione seemed to have abandoned her loyalty to Hogwarts completely in favour of her new friend Viktor Krum. Harry imagined it had had something to do with her not being able to coexist with Ron without another person as a buffer. If Krum had shown any appreciation for her intelligence she would have jumped at the chance to have someone to impress.
Fleur frequented the library almost as much, but she had confined herself to the enchanting section of the library and seemed to still be doing her best to avoid anything so terrible as eye contact with Harry. He'd spoken more to Viktor Krum than to her, and he'd only repeated the same informal greeting to the Bulgaria a few times when they found themselves reaching for the same section of books. Harry suspected that whatever solution Krum was preparing was similar to his own. At the very least it was relevant to transfiguration.
'Off you go,' Salazar encouraged gleefully. The portrait knew full well that Harry disliked having to dodge Hermione every time he spent any time in Hogwarts' Library.
Harry re-dressed himself, grateful to be warm and dry, even if he would have to come back later. He'd already suggested, several times, that he do this in the Room of Requirement which could cater to almost every whim. His ancestor had never taken the idea very well.
Slytherin had been outraged that he'd wanted to use Godric and Rowena's room rather than his, and incensed that Harry would try something so dangerous somewhere he could not be present to offer assistance. He suspected that Salazar's ire had at least as much to do with the former as it did the latter.
'Actually,' the painting decided, 'before you leave, I should teach you a very useful charm. There are plenty of things that you don't want or need others to discover and this piece of magic can be enormously useful in managing that once you've mastered it.'
'What's the spell?'
'The memory charm,' the founder revealed with unnecessary drama.
'I know the incantation and wand action already,' Harry agreed. Lockhart had claimed to be very good with the charm and he'd certainly demonstrated some power over it when he'd wiped every adult thought from his own mind. It could be very useful. At the very least he could use it to sabotage his rival champions. It would be tragic if they happened to forget their solutions to the first task a few moments before it began.
'You need to know exactly what you are removing' Salazar told him firmly, 'else you could end up doing significant damage. It's almost impossible to remove events that have great meaning or importance on a permanent basis as the mind clings to them and they resurface. Once an idea is ingrained it can be very hard to get rid of, so the sooner the charm is performed the better. Focus on wiping something clean, a board, a window, any such visualisation will work. Mastering it will take some time'
'How exactly am I to practice this?' Harry inquired.
'Well once you have a rudimentary grasp you can ask someone to let you test it once, and then do it over and over again.' Slytherin chuckled. 'They'll never notice and as long as you only remove small things you won't do any lasting damage or leave any suspicious gaps.'
'I'm sure I can find a more moral way,' Harry smiled. As amusing as it would be to play pranks on Malfoy, or Ron, or anyone who had wronged him, it was quite a bit too dangerous to try his novice obliviation on another person.
'I would not suggest that you test it on yourself,' Salazar warned.
'I'm not going to,' Harry responded. There were plenty of things that he'd like to forget. The sensation of ripping his soul apart was the first thing that came to mind, and it was shortly followed by Fleur's kiss, Katie's betrayal, and a horrible image of a naked Dudley.
'Good,' the founder said dryly. 'You're much better than you used to be, but you still have moments of brainless Godricness now and again.'
'I'm going to the library,' Harry told the painting, hefting it back over the bridge into the study. 'I'll come down here to practice once I have a solution or two.'
It was somewhat inevitable that Viktor Krum and Hermione were once again in the library. Harry strode around the back of their table, confident that Hermione was not going to look up from her book, and if she did, he was sure he should not care. She had wronged him, broken his wand, there was no reason that he should be afraid of or avoiding her. People only avoided those they knew that they had wronged, or those that might hurt them.
Hermione was neither to him.
Harry pored over the section on the anatomy of magical water creatures, now he regretted abandoning the Care of Magical Creatures at the start of the year. He wasn't exactly sure what he was looking for, so he browsed through every book that seemed like it might be vaguely useful.
'You're looking at water creatures too,' someone muttered shyly behind him. Harry whirled and too find Neville, who squeaked in surprise at his sudden motion and at the sudden appearance of the first few inches of Harry's wand.
'I am,' he replied calmly, tucking his wand back out of sight. 'Sorry, Neville, I didn't mean to startle you.'
'I'm easily startled,' the nervous boy assured him rather morosely. He looked really rather miserable.
'What are you doing here?' Harry asked him. Poor Neville looked like he hadn't been sleeping.
'Returning a book,' he explained, 'at least until I saw you over here.'
'And now?' The shy, clumsy Gryffindor shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
'I was going to make you an offer,' he admitted eventually. 'I thought it might be the best way to speak with you.'
'What kind of offer?' Neville wasn't wrong, but Harry couldn't think of anything he had that might be useful.
'Well I couldn't help but notice that Hermione has been checking out and reading books to do with water creatures and transfiguration in her attempt to help Viktor Krum.' There was surprising condemnation in the boy's voice. Evidently disloyalty was something that Neville truly could not understand or condone. Harry's respect for him grew a little.
'The second task is underwater,' Harry told him. Neville was certainly not going to help his rivals after being so scathing of Hermione, one of the few who had always been kind to him, over her betrayal.
'What do you know about Gillyweed?' Neville asked with sudden confidence.
'I assume I might find it useful,' Harry deduced, 'given the name and its relevance to our conversation.'
'It would let you breathe underwater with ease,' Neville assured him. 'I don't know where you'd find any on such short notice. It grows in the Mediterranean and isn't normally harvested until summer.'
'I have a way of breathing underwater,' Harry said absentmindedly. 'I just need to perfect it.'
'Oh.' Neville looked very downcast and Harry took pity.
'That doesn't mean I can't help you, Nev.' His friend's eyes snapped up at hearing his nickname for the first time since they had talked in the dormitories of Gryffindor Tower.
'You would?'
'As long as it is within my power. I do have the tournament to consider.'
'Of course, I understand. I was hoping you'd help me with, well, everything,' Neville admitted, ashamed. 'Everyone calls me a squib and I can't ever seem to get anything right. You improved so much since last year and I hoped you'd help me.'
'Everything,' Harry murmured. He would quite like to help Neville, to give him the push that would let him stand on his own two feet, but it was a serious commitment. 'Have you asked Hermione?' he wondered aloud.
'No,' Neville denied. 'She's too busy helping Krum to speak to anyone in Gryffindor much anymore and the other guys all study different things, play different games and sports to me.'
'They left you on your own, didn't they.' Harry saw, for a brief moment, a shadow of himself in Neville Longbottom and wondered if he was left to suffer how like Harry he might eventually become.
Would he crumble, or survive his crucible?
'I'll help you,' Harry decided. 'Weekends, between lunch and dinner, for however long you need or want. Meet me on the seventh floor at the top of the stairs the third weekend after the second task. I'll help you, Nev.'
'Thank you,' Neville smiled, straightening, and Harry was gifted a glimpse of the wizard he could be if he was ever allowed to find some strength within himself.
'I'm only helping you help yourself,' Harry told him.
'At least you are helping,' Neville muttered. 'Ron, Seamus and Dean; they don't care. It's like we were never friends.'
'You can find new friends, Nev,' Harry assured him. 'You'll find equals, people who understand and respect you for who you are.' Salazar's words slipped all too easily from his tongue, as if Harry still wholeheartedly believed them. The truth was that even as he said them he could only think about Fleur Delacour, someone who should have been everything to him that he had just promised Neville.
His friend stood tall, never noticing the doubt that Harry felt. 'That's what you're doing,' he realised. 'You're being yourself.' There was blatant admiration in Neville's tone and Harry remembered that his grandmother was renowned for her fierce, overbearing manner. His friend might have never had a chance to try and be anything but what his guardian had wanted him to be.
'There's nobody else we can be,' Harry finished simply. It sounded rather silly in the open, but Neville nodded and something that was almost determination flared to life in his eyes.
'Thank you, Harry,' he said clearly, without any sign of his stutter.
'I'll see you on that weekend, Nev, we'll make sure nobody ever calls you a squib again.' It was too close to the magical equivalent of calling someone nothing for Harry to stomach. 'Don't listen to any of those prats, Nev,' he added as his friend began to walk away, 'they're still just children. We're growing up faster, we've had to.'
Harry was not the only one that had been abandoned by Gryffindor Tower, it seemed. He wondered, in between returning his current book and reaching for the next, how many other students there were who slipped into the cracks at Hogwarts. Nobody really ever paid much attention to Neville except when he was causing disasters in class. Casual dismissal and neglect were what currently defined his friend.
The injustice of it remained in the back of Harry's mind as he perused through the library.
His search only came to an end when he was assaulted by a small grey ball of feathers. Sirius' owl.
The Shrieking Shack, today, Harry read. The ink was still wet and had formed a faint, mirrored duplicate of the words on the other side of the piece of paper. Carefully he ushered the tiny owl into the pocket of his robes. Madam Pince would ban him from the library for life if she thought he had brought a bird into her domain.
He looked back at the small stack of books he had yet to investigate, and then down at the message in his hand.
I'm not likely to find another solution, he decided. One was probably, hopefully, enough. A change to the exterior of his lungs, allowing them to expand and contract in the same way as the book described a heartbeat. None of the books on water creatures had contained anything useful, they all had external gills and swam around to keep the water moving, or had to come up for air.
As swiftly as he could he replaced the books back on the shelves, waving his wand to levitate them up and back to their original places. The second they were in place he checked the Marauders' Map and, sure enough, right beneath the picture of the Whomping Willow hovered a label with his godfather's name.
Sirius was waiting.
Harry hurried out of the library, ignoring Hermione's shock at seeing him stride past their table. Sirius had risked a fate worse than death to come so close to the school. It must be important.
He swept down the corridor overlooking the greenhouses, scattering second years on their way to Herbology, and out into the Whomping Willow's corner of Hogwarts. Helga Hufflepuff's worst herbological creation, at least if he listened to Salazar, was suspiciously still. Either Sirius had already pressed the knot on the trunk, or it was waiting for him to stray too close before swatting him like a fly.
'Papilionis,' he murmured.
The black-winged, delicate butterfly made it halfway to the tree before being flatted by a branch the width of Harry's body.
Lying in wait, then.
Harry levitated a small piece of wood from underneath the trunk of the tree and used it to press the button. There was no sense in trying to reach it himself and being squished like his conjured insect. The tree shivered and froze immediately.
Sirius was waiting at the very start of the passageway.
'Harry,' he grinned, enveloping him in in a hug. His godfather was looking surprisingly clean and well-fed for a wizard on the run. His robes no longer hung off him and his skeletal appearance had returned to the well-built, if lithe, figure he must have had before being sent to Azkaban.
'I managed to return to my family's home,' Sirius explained, seeing Harry's confusion in his appearance. 'I'd offer to show you, but it's under the Fidelius, and really not very homely. Perhaps in a year, when that miserable house-elf has managed to restore the place to a liveable standard.'
'Is it safe?' Harry didn't mind how dirty the house was if there was a chance that the Dementors might sweep in and take his godfather's soul.
'Fidelius Charm,' Sirius repeated. 'There's few things that are safer.'
'Who's the secret keeper?' Harry was of two minds about the Fidelius Charm. On one hand it was incredibly secure, only one person could give up the location, but on the other, his parents had been under the charm when Voldemort had come for them.
'Dumbledore is,' Sirius enthused. 'I'd like to see anyone try and get the secret out of him.'
'That's good,' Harry agreed, keeping his reservations about Albus Dumbledore to himself. The headmaster would keep Sirius safe. He did his utmost to keep everyone safe if they were innocent. Only Harry, the sacrifice, was meant to be risked and lost.
'I didn't come here to talk about how safe I was,' Sirius began, drawing back and speaking much more seriously. 'I want to know what's going on. There's no way to send an owl to where I'm staying without knowing the location and Dumbledore was adamant that he tell nobody yet.'
'Everything has changed,' Harry answered simply.
'It seemed that way. You were a boy last year, when I came after Pettigrew, now you walk and speak like you aged a decade in eight months.' He started back down the passage to the rotting building.
'I suppose I have grown up,' Harry decided. 'I wasn't strong enough, Sirius. Every year I've been thrown into some new situation and each time I've escaped by the skin of my teeth and because of others. That won't last.'
'You aren't meant to be strong at fourteen, Harry,' his godfather told him gently.
'I have to be,' he shrugged. 'My enemies are not fourteen, so I can't act like it either.'
'As right as you are,' Sirius replied sadly, 'I wish it were not true.'
'Wishes like that, they just don't come true,' Harry said bitterly.
'Are you stronger?' Sirius asked.
'Yes,' Harry declared, 'much stronger, but it isn't enough. The wizards I have to surpass are amongst the strongest ever born.'
'Power is not the only way to be strong,' Sirius remarked. 'Lily, your mother, told James and I that back when we were in our last year and the war was on the brink of beginning. I suppose she was right.'
'Being powerful will make me strong,' Harry countered half-heartedly. He did not want to argue with the words of his dead mother.
'Then be powerful,' Sirius exclaimed, 'but be strong too. Win this tournament you've ended up in, prove that you're better than everyone who turned their back on you. If your childhood has to be sacrificed then get everything you can in return.'
'I will,' Harry responded firmly.
'Good,' Sirius grinned. 'Now tell me what's happened since your last letter.'
'A lot,' Harry whispered, remembering the flash of green light and Peter Pettigrew's empty eyes.
'It doesn't sound like it was good,' Sirius said after a moment of silence. They reached the Shrieking Shack, climbing up into the building through the only intentionally made entrance. Most visitors came through the hole on the far side of the building.
'Some of it was,' Harry smiled. He was free of Riddle's soul fragment, had Salazar, and maybe Neville too. He clamped down on the line of thought before it took him to kissing Fleur in the Room of Requirement.
'I've learned so much more this year than any past one, my new wand has been perfect for me, I have goals, dreams, that I could not have before.' His face darkened. 'It cost me the friends who didn't understand why I had to change. I've been all but alone.' His voice cracked at the end, betraying Harry's feelings more strongly than he had intended to.
'I was alone in Azkaban,' Sirius' grin had vanished. 'There's nothing there to keep you from the inside of your mind. The Dementors keeping stirring your thoughts, pushing the most miserable, painful ones to the fore every time they draw near. It was enough to start eating away at my sanity, and I knew I was innocent, had something to cling to that they couldn't touch. The others; their screams were almost as harrowing as the cold of those creatures. You'll find something, an ideal, or a goal, to devote yourself to and that will be enough to stop it consuming you. Afterwards, when everything else has fallen into place, you'll find yourself surrounded by people and not so alone as you thought. I came out with only the goal of killing Pettigrew. Now I have you and Remus.'
'Things get better,' Harry paraphrased.
'That's the only good thing about hitting the bottom, you know that there's no further to sink. My mother said that to me when I was sorted into Gryffindor,' Sirius grinned. 'She hated having a respectable, unbigoted child.'
Harry snorted. Sirius Black's school days had been anything but respectable. He was joint holder of the record for the number of detentions received in a single school year.
'How's the second task going?' His godfather's eyes gleamed with excitement and pride. Harry knew instantly that he would have been one of those who had put in their own name.
'I'm going to transfigure myself. The task is underwater.'
Sirius beamed even more proudly.
'To be able to do such advanced transfiguration at your age is exceptional,' his godfather patted him firmly on the back, 'becoming an animagus requires lots of effort, but less understanding of magic than you'd expect. I'd imagine you could give it a shot soon enough. I wonder what you'd be, another stag, like James, or maybe a bird, you seem even better at flying than your father was.'
Harry listened cheerfully as his godfather launched into speculation about his animagus form, simply very glad to be able to talk someone who truly cared about him.
AN: Please read and review. Thanks to anyone who does. I've reached over a thousand now, which feels like it should be some sort of milestone in itself. Is it?
