Chapter 9: I - Bloodless Crimson Red
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Harry isn't ready. His knees feel weak, his heart races and his intestines twist at the presence of the nightmarish turbaned shape.
This is it.
Then again, even if he isn't ready, there is still something keeping him from faltering. He's come this far. Harry moves on. His wand is a wrist flick away from him. All his nervous symptoms emanating from the 'what am I doing' throbbing at the lower end of his consciousness are suffocated by the force that keeps his spine straight, his senses alert and his head empty of hysteria. He very carefully doesn't process the way the man's disgusting aura wants to make him turn heel.
Quirrell is standing in the middle of this large, dimly lit and elaborate stone hall. Quirrell is standing in front of something. His back is turned. If Harry had a mind for semantics right now, he would be reminded of an empty classroom, stony like this one, and the mirror in it. Because the object of the man's fixation is a large, ornate mirror. But Harry is unable to note how this one has a grimier tinge to its darker frame compared to Erised, or how it seems to swirl with something reminiscent of a graveyard's mist, something which Erised's glass didn't do.
He stops, at some distance from Quirrell. The man doesn't acknowledge him from his mirror fixation, even as the echo of his steps fades.
It's silent. And it makes Harry realize that, whatever will happen here, he will be alone for it. It will be as silent around his mind as ever.
Quirrell turns around, and Harry's breath hitches. He expected the foul air to constrict even further once he finally met the man face to face, but… with the back of Quirrell's turban no longer facing him, it ebbs away. Slightly.
"Ah, so the legend himself showed after all", Quirrell greets haughtily. His voice makes his aura ripple in waves. It may not be as bad with the back of his head turned away, but Harry still cringes at how with every breath he takes, he shares air with that. "I was suspecting you might, but to actually see you standing here…"
"I was told you have a stutter", Harry hisses lowly. "Not that I would know."
"Right, not that you would know. You skipped out on a lot of knowledge, you see. A good lesson in defense may have actually raised your chances here a bit."
Harry could respond, snark about how he got a good enough impression of the Defense classes from his classmates already. Or he could speed this up, get it over with, and minimize the time he has to share air with this abomination. Minimize the time the abomination itself has left…
He has his wand in his hand with a flick. The source of power in his chest, at his core. He reaches out, and his wand arm rises in accordance, he has his concentration bundled so his magic can do the same, cold and clear, to take care of this as swiftly as it did with the troll, which is how he even knows himself to be capable of targeting the sensible everything within a skull from afar-
But Quirrell is not the troll. Quirrell knows that his opponent going still in concentration means both danger and an opportunity on a silver platter.
(Blazing hot searing) where Harry is (cold freezing glacial) it hurts, (the blaze should not hurt him but it chooses to, their Host of voices should not have waned from his perception but it did), it's silent, he feels himself (FALL). There's ringing in his ears, a knot of sickness flying free around his stomach as he is thrown back, his laboured breathing that's knocked out of him as he makes hard contact with the floor, and the echoing thump produced by that.
"Blunt, are we?", Quirrell's nonplussed drawl is heard. His casual tone in no way acknowledges his own wand he has drawn and used. "Throwing ourselves into a confrontation, headfirst and with no plan. Hm. The great Harry Potter could have been expected to do better. They really let anyone into Slytherin these days."
Harry's hand had been so pleasantly cool around his cold wand. Now it burns burns burns, the wand is gone and he hates the sensation of it in particular. (The one who is the heat to his cold should never have turned that against him), he shouldn't know what it feels like to be set ablaze.
Just like he shouldn't know the silence.
So silent, why is it so silent? He can't do this, he needs them. Why is he alone then? There should be others, what others? Others who would be here for him, who would never turn away (but they did) and who would help him up where his trembling limbs fail to make him stand, whose healing touch would have him no longer needing to cradle a burnt hand against his chest.
The burnt hand that, moment earlier held his wand, his wand is not on him. It's on the floor Harry himself is shakily standing up from, and is covered by a shadow drawing near. That shadow connects to leather shoes, and with their every step the hem of black robes swings about them. Quirrell takes the deliberately measured step to land his foot on Harry's wand, and kick it away as he saunters closer.
Harry looks up. What he gets for that is having unspeakably cruel eyes bearing down on him. Quirrell's expression and the everything he exudes, it carries that stench even Harry can barely stomach. And in that stench is a lazy twitch of thinned lips.
"Come now, boy", Quirrell jeers half-heartedly, almost bored. "Give me something to make it seem like I'm fighting the great saviour of the wizarding world here, not trampling some half-baked brat."
Harry presses his hand closer to him, and his eyes flit to his purloined wand-
"Crucio."
'Help me'
...He hears something. Someone screams, and that someone is him. But that isn't what he hears.
It is no longer silent.
'Help me'
It echoes in his head, in the dead, empty space. It's a broadcast, a voiceless whisper, sent out into this silent world. Spoken by him. His voice fits into the emptiness surrounding his mind, because this room exists to hold voices - and his own is one of them.
All this time, Harry could fill that silence himself.
And if someone else out there lives in the same silence, they will hear.
'Help me', and he calls out some more. 'P-please, if you're out there, hel-'
(Nobody will hear)
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Except someone did.
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(...nobody will hear)
(Nobody has heard until now)
(Even if he is free of the Cage, free to broadcast, and be it with his limited self's limited voice, everyone who could hear is with the Host he has been severed from)
(Nobody has fallen with him, nobody is down here and drifting in this voiceless vacuum alongside him-)
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Except someone is. Someone was happy with drifting in this voiceless vacuum, which, in the span it took to rip open a candy wrapper, lost the silence which made it idyllic.
He stills. Someone is there, a faraway presence. Still, he hasn't made a sound and himself known along with it. He is safe.
But whoever's on the other end of that desperate call isn't. And it sounds so frail. It has to be one of the little ones. His hidden wings don't surface but his old ache does. The little ones, who were even littler than him in the face of the war instigated by the top assholes, and now one of them must have followed his lead and dropped out like him.
He shouldn't.
He does.
He answers his kind in kind.
'...Easy. I heard. Where are you?'
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'-heard- ar- -ou-'
(...What?)
That was garbled, foreign, far away and it wasn't him.
Harry gasps. When he does so, the real world returns to him, his chest aches with his laboured breathing, so does everything else, his nerves reel from the white hot blaze they were set onto and in his field of vision captures a cruel snarl on a turbaned shape, Harry feels he is back on the ground. He doesn't stay there. Nor does he stand up.
Back into himself he goes, far away enough so that what his body feels and his eyes see doesn't reach him.
'Please, I can't do this alone, I can't be alone-!'
(He recognised the voice)
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He doesn't recognise the voice. But he hears it more clearly. No wonder it sounds so frail. This human voice and its human language, here. Again, only one of the little ones could have dropped out and landed human. So thoroughly human, that they only know to broadcast into this space but not speak their natural Enochian.
'Alright,' he replies again, in the same human language - English - and more steady this time. He aims it aimlessly at the Host-less void he is no longer alone in, and hopes it will reach. Should he get an answer, he knows the general direction he aimed at was the right one, and he will be able to follow suit. 'Which one of you went and got themselves human and in trouble?'
Plus, the faster he acts, the less likely it is that his unknown sibling's voice will by chance reach somewhere the Host could hear.
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'-got thems-man -nd in -ble?'
Someone is there, yes, but why aren't they here? Does that mean- no, no they can't and won't leave him. Harry doesn't know the what why or how about anything right now, but that doesn't matter. His rational mind that cannot comprehend doesn't matter. All he knows - feels - is that whoever is behind that faint whisper of a voice not his own, he needs them.
(Moreover, he knows them)
The hurt inside him has grown venom before he knows it. Words form on their own. His inner voice is hijacked. Harry is thrown to the side, both mentally and physically, and as he grasps to make heads and tails of his reality, he fails to note what the part of his mind that stands strong against all chaos speaks into the silence:
'If I let you know it's me… are you going to turn away again, Gabriel?'
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He thought Michael was too busy having their entire lot depend on him, now that Dad's out for milk. He thought Raphael was too busy following orders. He thought they were bound to their duties up there and Lucifer was bound in a more literal sense anyway.
It could only have been one of the little ones calling. One of the little ones who'd had enough, just like him, and fled. Only to then land human on Earth.
...Not one of the little ones. Heh. That's what he gets.
What. The. Fuck?!
With that, his thinking stops. Mechanically, he sees to getting far far away, swaying under the pull of his rotating mind, and only a few stray candy wrappers prove he ever was here.
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Nobody answers anymore.
(...figures)
'No! No no no', Harry urges and when that doesn't work, he calls out with his other voice too. "No, come back, don't leave- DON'T LEAVE ME!"
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But Gabriel has left.
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"Are you actually insane, little Potter...?", his ears register but his mind doesn't, Harry has something more urgent to do. He calls out again. But nobody's there anymore. And the silence cuts into him even more so than before he knew it wasn't unbreakable, before he knew something could be done about it, but now he knows someone is out there and just leaving him like this, why-
(He knows why, he knows their betrayal. Even if he does not comprehend)
Why is he alone?
(Why indeed)
Nobody will come for him. He only has himself.
(And he is tired)
Harry dodged the Crucio with his mind only, his nerves are erratic and afraid of the pain that will course trough them at any moment, be it because of a forbidden curse or because he has to move. So he doesn't.
Still, his body gathers without his input.
(So tired of fighting)
The dissonance makes him feel like he's flying. It's nice.
(He doesn't want the next fight, he doesn't want to face his single worst opponent)
Quirrell is sneering down in self-satisfaction.
(Oh, not that one. After all, it only counts as a fight if it's family...)
(...anything else is a massacre)
From where he fell, Harry rises. He is allowed to do so, it's fun to let them struggle. (Him) and Quirrell, they both know that.
The tension in the air of this ornate stone hall deep underground, it hangs heavy like the vast castle above their heads. It's only held up by the quaint amusement Quirrell gains from seeing the bug knows he will squash in no time put up a brave act.
As for Harry, he takes a steadying breath. Wherever this ease of his comes from, that same wherever also puts words in his mouth he otherwise wouldn't have thought to combine himself, here and now.
"I was a little absent there, my bad", he manages and his tone smiles where his mouth doesn't. "Can't forget, I still want to know why you stink like demon-"
Did he say something? Did Quirrell say something? It all goes under. Both in Harry's memory and the sound of his snapping fingers, his thundering steps as he bolts, then evades, before watching an explosion of writhing energy leave him. It doesn't hit, no problem, his fingers are poised to snap again, but he waits the fraction of a second so he can see Quirrell's face once the other is done dodging the first attack, and can turn around, but not in time to do more than watch Lucif-
Harry reels.
He gets his balance back, swifter than normal, is poised and ready to strike in the same motion and so fast, his mind needs to catch up on what is happening.
He moves well. He never learned, he just knows. His wand is still on the ground, very close to him in fact, and he needs it, but not for spells, he can do those and he did, unthought and unarticulated, at a snap of his fingers.
Only when he starts moving does he grow aware of Quirrell and his wide eyes on him. He poses no threat for now. Harry can crouch down and pick up his wand, and the moment he feels its weight back in his hands, it does something with him which is best explained with the uncanny satisfaction on the parts of his weekend detentions, when it came to mincing all sorts of organic parts.
"How did you do that?"
But Harry ignores that. He's panting, he realises. Sweat trickles down his face.
(Ha)
(Now this is more like it)
(He has magic, this time it's even his own, and he's finally holding it in his hand again)
(Come to think, the centaur was his last recipient)
(Yes, and it does nag on him just the teensiest bit, that something dealt a killing blow didn't die, revolting anatomy or not. Think of revolting, it has been stinking of demonic bastardisation around here for far too long)
"What else are you hiding, Potter?!"
(So what is he waiting for?)
Harry can snap his fingers. He doesn't need the wand at all. Yet it feels right, like everything else that makes no sense at all but is the reason he's still alive, and somewhen, in a future lifetime when he is safe and sound-minded again, he knows he can question it then.
For now, there is the cold.
Harry ceased thinking of it as his magic, instead, he feels it. His is the cold, the delicate grace of feathers falling onto fresh snow. His is the might of an avalanche. Likewise, his is the sadism of frostbite, sinking fangs deep into all things flailing and warm, until their struggles drain out from under him.
(...and now, at last, just touch it to where he needs to feel something other than that play-pretend wood in his grip)
(He knows it to be possible, after all. His little encounter with the centaurs taught him as much)
When Harry exhales, he sprints. He doesn't question why he approaches the enemy with a long-range wand. The closer he gets to a shape that startles into action with an animalistic bellow, the closer he is to channeling all things cold into the direction of that wand angled at his side. It was never warm in his grip anyway.
(He prefers it a whole lot colder, this extension of him)
Spurred alive by something wild in his eyes, Quirrell whips his wand out with a snarl on his lips, and that snarl forms words, as aimed dead at Harry as his wand.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green, a zirr of something powerful in the air.
That flash of green, weaker, paled by the silver it reflects off of, and the zirr dies.
Where Quirrell's greatest attack tore trough without effect, a power vacuum is left. Except that is no vacuum anymore, something new has occupied it. Something vast enough to be just barely there, because only a tiny sliver of it can fit into this space.
The rest lurks hidden behind green eyes.
Harry stands upright where the Killing Curse flashed a second prior.
Then his gaze widens, and slowly falls downward. That is not his wand. That is not the color of his wand. That is not the shape nor size of his wand. That-
"Master!"
Before Harry can make sense-
"Master!", Quirrell shouts again, too many things are not adding up and Harry can't bring them to. Except for one.
Blade.
Not sword, knife or dagger, but the word that lies as balanced on his tongue as the item on his hand.
"Master, help m-"
A raspy voice responds.
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Somewhere else, one clear thought is briefly had.
'Help me', Lucifer had said initially, as if there's anyone on this planet who can breathe at him funnily and not get gored seven ways to Sunday. 'Help me'. Ha, what a joker.
Who is out and walking the Earth in the first place and what's that with the human sounding voice-
And then Gabriel's mind returns to its incoherent spiralling.
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Chaos. So much impossibility, reality isn't real anymore.
Since entering this room Harry has been burned, thrown around and cursed, and from somewhere far away his body is signalling as much. But he is having none of it. Behind each of his uncannily graceful movements is a new way of thinking, one that has stopped working with (pathetic) terms like 'pain', 'exhaustion' and 'fear'.
As such, Harry stands still as he watches Quirrell not meet his eyes. The man's gaze is faraway as his hands move up to his head.
Where a raspy voice has responded. One that wasn't Quirrell's.
The fabric falls away.
Oh. That's why the feeling of all things wrong is strongest once Quirrell looks away. Once the exposed back of his head is facing Harry. Quirrell isn't the root of it.
Still. Fear has stopped existing. So has reality. The drive that keeps Harry's eyes focused, his posture unyielding, his magic obedient to the snap of a finger and the energy around his wan- his blade - cold; That same drive also puts words in Harry's mouth.
(All these times he was present in Albus' memory illusion thingie, all these times he could hear himself be initially misaddressed by a different name…)
(He has an idea)
It doesn't make sense. But sense has stopped being a concern for a while now.
Of the unnaturally pale, serpentine face with the scarlet eyes which protrudes from the back of Quirrell's head, and of which his gut screams that it can only have the one name… eyes wide with undue excitement, a grin baring his teeth, Harry asks one thing glibly:
"Let me guess- you're that Tom?"
Silence.
Then two explosions of sound shatter the air.
Voldemort screams. An inhuman sound born of an inhuman mind, and the inhuman emotion in it only grows apparent as rage at the words woven out of that scream;
"YOU DARE SAY THAT NAME OUT LOUD-!"
And Harry laughs. He is a fully functional human being, not a tumour growing out of someone's head. As such, he laughs with fully functional vocal chords, and not whatever anatomical aberration allows a mismatching Janus face its raspy voice. His voice is stronger. His laughter is louder.
The tale of Voldemort's outrage isn't over. He redirects it to Quirrell, who buckled. Be that either under the onslaught of Harry's bullseye taunt or his master's turmoil.
"You-", Voldemort snarls as Quirrell makes moves to scurry away. "Stay, cowardly scum!"
"Yeah", Harry adds his own two cents. "We're not done. Stay please!"
His vibrant green eyes meet Voldemort's deranged red ones. Voldemort. Yes, and he feels every bit like the Dark Lord he is infamed to be. But Harry, in the face of evil growing from the back of a man's head, doesn't back down. This is a new way to feel. A new him, and he lets mania pull the corners of his mouth up. The excited beating of his heart, the way his blade catches the light at every little movement - and there's a lot of those, he's bursting with energy - it all begs the question; If he has survived until now, is standing proud and strong, what else can he do?
('Let's find out, shall we') , and he grins wider.
"So", Harry says. "Tom. It's been you around all along, huh?"
If anything, Voldemort's expression grows darker. More demonic. Come to think…
"Harry Potter…", Voldemort hisses, and Harry wants to never hear his name be said by that voice again. "At last-"
"Yeah, yeah, no", he interjects, haughty in a way that can only stem from his core-deep ease, "cut it." The blade in his hand gives a twitch and a twinkle at that. "Less of this, you'll only say what I want to hear from you. Can we agree to be courteous here, Tom?"
He quite enjoys speaking that name out loud. The frozen look of wide-eyed fury carved into the creases of a snarl in Voldemorts face gives ample opportunity to study the scarlet on the irises and the slit pupils. One of his eyes twitches. Harry tilts his head.
"There we go. Now, I've never felt something as demonic…", at that, his nonchalant tone sways. He catches it. "I've never seen something like you. What are you?"
Voldemort's reaction is the shift of his curled lip and the narrowing of his eyes.
"If you're not gonna answer you'll be forcing my hand-"
Like an unleashed electric charge, the furious howl of Voldemort's spurs up movement, makes the body shift around and a hollow-eyed Quirell point his wand at Harry again.
Within a snap he is left by one more powerful surge of magic, and the only wand this room contains anymore clatters down where Quirrell stood. The man himself - and along with that, Harry notes the way he keeps his own palm outstretched - is pressed to the far wall with a crack. His feet are a good portion off the ground. His breathing is laboured. And Harry, with the same mind that allows him this impeccable control of his magic, knows to leave him that and not increase the power he exerts from his outheld hand. Much.
He shifts it. Just a little. Quirrell's breathing is further pressed into a wheeze, and every muscle of his seems to be pulled in tighter by the wall. Harry, palm outheld, takes his time to approach, idling with his blade as much as he can one-handedly. He's dying to test his newfound treasure out. The unwavering grin on his lips and the fire in his eyes is from that. But the small laugh comes from another realisation. If Quirrell is pressed like that against the wall, how must Voldemort fare back there?
With every step Harry comes closer, a brittle understanding dawns in Quirrell's eyes. Harry has his magic wrapped around his bare fingers, he shouldn't need to get close. But he does. With that blade in the other hand, loosely hanging from his side. Twirling playfully.
"Now Tom", he calls out, just to make sure it's known he doesn't care to address Quirrell, despite only being able to look him in the eye. "I do want to know what I caught here. In case you can't see from back there, I have a little something in my hand and I'm coming closer with it. Start talking."
Quirrell's mouth doesn't move, yet, "that name… you dare…."
Harry's playful tone remains just as playful. His child's voice is still just that. The sadistic note was there all along. So there are no words left to describe the new edge in his voice, the unspeakable something glinting in his brilliant eyes along with it.
What's there to say other than that Harry is speaking with the same intonation as the wraith of a Dark Lord.
"What's there to dare if little Tommy is too stupid to properly purge the world of his dead name?", he spits. "It's not like that's impossible, I'm standing right here. Should've done a better job making sure they don't dare to connect who you were to who you are. Tough luck, you bloody amateur."
Quirrell's eyes bulge, his body would constrict if he wasn't petrified to the wall, except- it moves. It bubbles under his skin, his face with his fearful expression is pulled into something grotesque. It happens in the span of heartbeats, yet Harry keeps track of it all. His blade still at his side, it can be ready to whip up any split-second.
Then something black and formless bursts forth.
"No", Harry has called out before he processes what this means. "No!", he shouts again, at the thing in its truest form and the way he can feel his apprehensive hyperfocus leave Quirrell to follow it. He has no (wings) here. Only his legs. And they don't serve to get him where the black, now-faceless wraith storms its way many metres up into the air.
"No! No, no, no, no, come on!", Harry finally screams up at the top of his lungs. "You don't get to flee like that! 'Cowardly scum', was it? Come on now!"
But it's impossible to tell the shadow of the stony crevices apart from where the black wraith melted into them.
Chest heaving from something heavier than just some shouting, Harry lets his gaze fall back down. The blade in his cold, cold hand- it came out of nowhere, his wand is not here, but this unearthly metallike item is. He would like to study it a lot closer. But right now, he would rather put it to use.
On the ground, can finally catch sight of the slumped figure's bare back of the head. He notes how it still moves. Trembles. He doesn't like that. That's gotta change. Voldemort has escaped him, and the one who hosted him needs to suffer for that.
(So he sees to it)
Once his prey is dead, the predator's grip on Harry's mind loosens. The first thing he does is pull away. Close his eyes, close his mind, shut down his thinking so there can only be darkness. For once, he seeks it. It's dark, silent, which means it's just him here, but also the smell of iron. It still intrudes. He has many aches, yes, because he was cursed and burned and thrown and- and there are also other aches, the ones in his muscles. He moved and sprinted, he exerted himself. Because he-
(Yes. You killed. Don't look away. This is your doing)
Before him lies Quirrell. Quirrell is dead. But 'Quirrell is dead' is quite the understatement. A more fitting description would be: In a sea of deep crimson, which is even black in some places, the fleshy pieces surrounded by torn rags - that have long since lost their colours to the red - don't move around anymore.
Harry would bend over and make his nausea and the pressure rising in his gut air, but instead he-
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-he looks up.
Bottle. Cap. Why is he looking up? Doesn't matter. The tall stony ceiling above is made out of stone. It's grey stone. Between each stone the area is weathered black. That is what he sees when he looks up. Stone. So the metallic smell doesn't make any sense here, where is that coming from again?
His neck is starting to cramp as he keeps on feverishly looking up. Again, why is he looking up? What is there below? The source of the metallic smell.
Bottle. Cap. It doesn't matter. And Harry is good at bottling up what doesn't matter. For example, yet another weird dream he had recently. Or his own doubts about his own person.
What kind of person is he, to do something like-
(You did that. You have to be proud of it. Don't look away, look at what you did-)
No.
His grasp on the present is tentative. His perception is bombarded, what he does happens like a buffering movie.
(Look at what you did!)
He moves, but doesn't know he's walking. One moment he's here and the next he has no recollection of how he got a few steps farther ahead. Frames of his life go missing.
(This is your life's work, this is your life. You have to feel good about it)
Harry stops. He doesn't feel his hand, he doesn't know if it closes around wood or metal, if it's cold or not, he doesn't even feel his sickeningly fast heartbeat, he only feels sick. But because he feels nothing, the sick he feels is in the mind.
He keeps walking. He passes the mirror that's also there and that Quirrell had been interested in, back when he was still aliv-
Door. Flaming or not, that's the exit that leads back to life.
Dumbledore is there. The coppery odour never faded. And on his face is the same expression that Harry would wear if he weren't too numb for it.
A wave washes over him, and when it leaves it finally takes the smell with it. And the blood. But Harry doesn't see it, so there's no blood, there never was. Only Albus can see how the crimson coating him all over dissolves like a bad dream.
They look at each other. Dumbledore's face has grown stony. Impassible. And Harry, with his glazed, widened eyes, lets his gaze flit all over that expression, like he's trying to decipher a book in a foreign language.
Though, he should be good at foreign languages. There's no such thing as foreign languages if he speaks all of them- what?
"Professor Albus, sir", he greets. "I... I need to tell you something. It's about Quirrell."
Except he isn't in Dumbledore's office. He got into this tall room by passing the flaming doorway behind him, and the flames didn't even hurt. That, or his nerves were too fried to register it. Come to think, why is one of his hands burnt red? Harry should have remembered that happening.
"Harry-", and Harry startles, badly. Dumbledore is here. Since when is Dumbledore here? He should remember.
"He poisoned the dog", his voice goes on without him. "Yes, he poisoned the dog, I need to warn you..."
But something happened since then. And Harry should remember. He should remember many things. Maybe it would explain why Dumbledore looks positively disturbed.
"Harry," he asks gravelly. "What happened here?"
But Harry doesn't remember. Except he does, because he answers.
"I went to see if everything was alright after Snape likely had poison stolen off him", he shrugs, both at Dumbledore and himself. He has no idea where this is going, so he lets his voice lead him to it. "It wasn't. Alright, I mean. There was a problem. But I- I made sure it wouldn't ever be a problem again."
His body is weird, starting to shake, making him cramp over his suddenly revolting stomach. At least his voice is normal, as he talks over his fastened breathing. "Yeah, I did that."
Weird, weird body, acting like that. Weird, weird Dumbledore, looking at him like that. All Harry wants is for the contents of his stomach to stay where they are and for the world to make sense again. If he can't have a normal life, he can at least have that.
"And...", Dumbledore starts off, but then he takes a quick moment to compose and decorate his voice into something more at ease. "And what did you do?", he finishes, in a tone with which he might just have tea. Harry likes that. Responds to that.
"Not much, really", he shrugs, casual in kind. He feels the ease -or is it apathy? - spread from his mind to his body. A muscle on his face twitches, and he remembers his face can emote, something it - going by the numbness in his features - didn't do over the course of this conversation. "I mean, there wasn't a lot to do. Once he couldn't handle a half-baked brat, he escaped."
Dumbledore remains unperturbed, both in the calm mask he put on and his teatime tone. "Ah. So that means that, if I were to walk into the next room, I would find nothing?"
Harry is silent. He heard, but whether he understood is another question.
"How exactly did you solve this room's riddle?", Dumbledore tries again. Is there a riddle- there is.
„I don't know", Harry answers, "it almost solved itself. Sometimes I'm smart like that. I should remember…"
"What should you remember?"
"…"
"Harry? Did you hear me?"
"…I used to remember everything. Now I remember nothing. I-"
"I see. Rest now."
And Harry gladly leaves this troubling waking world.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
Albus not so gladly goes to enter this troubling memory world.
The images of what he had to clean up in the room of the Philosopher's Stone are fresh on his mind and will likely remain so until he dies. Interestingly, all the bloody traces of a fight were to be found around a far wall, the twin of Erised - Noisreva - and the Stone it guarded seem to have gone largely ignored. (Poor Ismelda. Her help was for naught.)
Then again, that is precisely what he wanted, no? There's no denying it, he has the weapon he hoped for in hand. Something to wipe out Tom Riddle with. He can't stop, just because he knows it works more efficiently than he could have ever imagined.
But, he can't neglect the one bearing the weight of something so deadly.
There's nothing to be gotten out of a sleeping child. The downfall detail not being 'sleeping' but 'child'. He saw Harry leave the room, bloodied all over but not wounded enough to warrant it, feebly trying to act like what happened wasn't that bad. Doing so not in the face of Albus, but rather for himself.
He wills himself to stay composed as he enters the memory. Chances are what he is about to meet is likely not sleeping and, despite looking the part, definitely not a child. He will not allow it power over him, will not let it spike his heartbeat upward in apprehension.
That resolve is broken the moment he enters the pensieve and is again greeted by wide, troubled eyes.
"Professor Dumbledore", Harry asks shakily and Albus has yet to correct himself to see the serpent here. "What's going on? Weren't we just elsewhere?"
Silence.
"Uhm, Professor? Why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wro-" in anxiously kneading his hands, Harry seems to notice the bloody memory-given state they are in. As he stares disbelievingly at them, he also seems to take note that something is wrong with his just as blood-streaked, ashen face.
"Why am I like this", and his voice begins to go up with the beginnings of hysteria. Albus' heartbeat speeds up. "Pease, can you tell me, what's going on-!?"
"…At ease, Harry", and Albus has to take that advice to heart as well. "There is-"
The grin splits the mask apart.
"Gotcha", the serpent smiles.
In a strange way and despite knowing this forsaken creature is the reason of his distress in the first place, Albus is glad for the serpent's too familiar evil to be back, and calm him down from threatening to feel overwhelmed by yet another impossible occurrence.
"And yet", he says, "despite all the tricks you lay on me, I am still not over how you can actually be here and perceive me."
"Hm", comes the reply. "Not bad, Albus. Really not bad."
This again? Not unduly being called by his first name, but the same opener their last conversation had. When the serpent displayed something other than malice, and said these same words. That seems like ages ago, before Albus knew what literal bloodbath he would find in the room that holds the Stone.
Maybe it senses his confusion.
The serpent's expression flickers, and something else breaks the surface for a moment. This time around, Albus doesn't need to process how jarring it is to see something beyond just evil in its eyes. If his tentative assessment is right, it is impressed by him.
"Alright old man", it says. Not maliciously. Just condescendingly. "In return for the favour you did me, I guess I'll allow you to have this. Now, ears open and mouth shut while I still feel indulgent."
Albus' eyebrows furrow at the tone, but his rational brain is already analysing the situation. This can't be good, the last time it used the word favour was every time it diligently played along in this very memory, and indirectly gloated in advance about how it was about to rip his magic away. Sometimes, there remains a phantom pain under Albus' sternum. And the last time it handed out information to him just like that was when it threw him off its tracks as he was so close to catch a glimpse of its true writing. Akkadian. Hah.
Though, what kind of creature can pull forth an ancient and dead language as a simple diversion-
The serpent's voice keeps Albus grounded.
"This world isn't real, yada yada, you know the drill", it huffs. But it voice grows clear when it needs to be. "And this illusion is intangible to you. Except for pausing and rewinding, you can do nothing, else you wouldn't have just let me play around. And because you're intangible, you can't vibrate air and reflect light. So yes. I shouldn't be able to perceive you. You asked a great question, congrats on being one of the less mindless ones. You can die knowing you did so on top of the dirt heap."
It does a little clap, like a mildly impressed flea circus visitor.
"Bravo."
The closing affront aside, this is fascinating. Albus' mind, knowing vague, shadowed things his conscious doesn't always have at hand, immediately notes an affinity with the workings of nature. Why that is and what vibration and reflection mean here, he will have to look up later. There are so many different layers going on here, so many facets of the serpent's being, and he only has the one mouth to speak up about the of them at one time. Good at being in several places at once, yes, and Albus can't quite keep up…
But.
"Oh please", he says amicably. "Do not mistake me for all that intelligent when I fail to understand so much."
The serpent narrows its eyes ever so slightly.
"For example, why would I do you a favour?", Albus continues candidly, "even with the intelligence that sets me apart from my mindless peers, I fail to understand why I should have done someone as pleasant as yourself a favour."
It scoffs.
"Excuse me. Now that I think about it, you are right", comes the piqued reply, which for the serpent means its tone is positively venomous. "Why should a human like you do a favour to someone else? You are too rotten, too selfish for that. Your existence certainly never did me any good."
This inhuman thing cannot stand humankind in general. Albus should have figured, but it's good to have direct confirmation.
Wait.
If that's the case, what does that mean for Harry Potter and the human day to day life he performs?
The serpent continues.
"You made your life easy, kept that door unlocked and the invitation open, until I came along and took care of your Tommy for you. Not gonna lie, it was fun, it was eye-opening… but excuse me for daring to think my enrichment was your intention."
"I see you know Tom."
It lights up in a way that uncannily resembles how it mimicked Harry in the beginning, except this time the face it makes may be the one young Harry made every year on Christmases and birthdays.
"Ooh, I do, I do!", it breathes excitedly. "Voler de la mort means nothing if you still dare to speak Tom's name out loud! Thanks for that, ha-!", and it laughs. It actually laughs out loud, and it comes from deep within its belly. Albus never heard Harry laugh. Would he sound the same, if he were in control of himself and found a reason to laugh so earnestly?
Then he has finished processing the sounds of the serpent's delight, and he feels sick to the stomach.
The serpent looks so gleeful, if it weren't for the blood streaking its ashen face, it would look like an actual child. The image of what was left of Quirinius resurfaces. This is what that joy is all about.
In accordance with Albus' rising horror, the serpent caps its laughter and snaps its piercing eyes around to pin him down again.
"Tell me what that thing is", it growls. "Because sheesh, little Tommy stinks."
What is Tom. A question he can get behind. Yet Albus notes the way it describes how it perceives the world. What kind of senses does it have, that it can describe Tom as 'stinky'?
"…You were unable to garner that from the source itself?"
"On top of being blind, I'm lame too. The thing escaped."
Is it very wrong that Albus, for a fraction of a second, thinks good for him at that?
But. Blind, it says. Lame. Despite the massacre it left behind.
"Then you know as much as I do", Albus states.
"Quit bullshitting me", is hissed back. "You know lots of things. In my - excuse me, little Harry James Potter's - day to day live, all your Hogwarts cronies keep looking at me how they always did. You keep this little thing here for yourself. You know how to keep things for yourself. Like your dirt on Tom. You two have a history, you know Tom's name after all."
He answers to that with an observation of his own.
"On several times you have distanced yourself from humankind. You make it out like you hate us. And you have history. You are too advanced to be just eleven years old."
Pause. Then a sneer is made, saying I know where you're going but keep running that mouth of yours.
"You describe yourself as blind and lame", he continues. "yet Harry Potter is a perfectly healthy - albeit slightly undergrown - individual. I reckon that by using words like that, you mean something other than Harry's inherited need for glasses and his inability to outrun a jackalope. And that begs the question. What are you, when you are not blind or lame?"
The serpent is frozen in its worst expression yet.
"Say", it starts in that velvet tone that spells out danger. Its voice is almost pleasant. "What series of chemical misfires in that grey lump of yours makes you assume I'd just tell you like that, hm?"
"It wouldn't be a fair exchange if I simply gave you what I know", Albus stands his ground. "You will tell me who or what you are, who or what Harry Potter is, and I will tell you about Tom."
It clicks its tongue and makes a disappointed face.
"Aww. We could've gotten along so well if you weren't so stubborn. Because make no mistake, Albus. I do fair exchanges with those who are worth fairness" and to emphasise that, it casts sly eyes upon their surroundings and in-memory Albus, who is about to suffer for the nth time.
The real Albus narrows his eyes.
"If that is the case, I'm afraid I have no information to give you."
Something far worse than an outburst happens.
Nothing.
The serpent doesn't react to not getting its way. It just stares coldly, but that cold is ever-present, it's impassive that way. There is no rear up to its constant anger. Just unsaying nothing.
As if it already constantly is at its most furious, living the superlative. As if it doesn't even feel like to bothering to word it out.
His occlumentic defences are up and in top shape, yet it has them bypassed. It's using his brain instead of its voice, leaving him the silence and the insight he has gathered about its character to formulate for himself what it most likely wishes on him.
The image of Quirinus' remains resurfaces.
Is there a satisfied gleam in the serpent's unblinking eyes, does it know it's working, or is he imagining things? Is he reading into something where there is nothing, is there no actual threat on his wellbeing either and he's imagining that too, or is this just now wishful thinking-
Either way, nothing more stands to be gained here. Albus leaves more troubled than he arrived. That should teach him about seeking out this place in order to sort himself out.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
Bit of bone. Part of an intestine. Smidge of spleen. Here and there, some of the pieces can still be determined as what they once were from just a glance.
Yup, this is his good old violence. Pathetic piece of shit that Harry Potter is. Turning tail and running just like that. He doesn't do what he did as Harry. Here, he has no choice but to keep looking, because this is what he did, what he does and what he will do again. This is what he stands for, and he has either the option to feel proud of it or be a cowardly piece of shit himself.
Lucifer keeps looking and looking at the pool of disjoined human remains before him. Another name adds itself to the annals that begin with Lilith's name. Because this is nothing. No, this isn't nothing- this is his life's work. Michael, Raphael, Gabriel- this is what he lost them for.
Something happens. The human mess loses its humanity. Minced flesh and bone, organs and fabric, everything that resembles anything and everything that doesn't anymore, it vanishes. Only the lake of blood remains. But even it changes. Gone are the hues that range from dried copper over reds to congealed black- all there remains is bright crimson in a cleaner shape. It lost its chaotic, organic look. Now it looks sterile and polished.
No, Lucifer didn't lose them, they left- they betrayed him. Because he did it for them and their kind, his fight against the human parasite is for all their collective good.
Why isn't he happy?
Well, of course he isn't happy. He's been Caged for an excruciating time, and he still is, in a way. The only release he has from his silent and dark torture is a demeaning existence as a human. Looking like the very thing he is out to destroy.
Still. It was alright, walking out and about all these months ago, attacking humans, slaughtering centaurs. It was and still is hilarious to toy with little Albie. It was a blast one-upping that strangely demonic Tom fellow. Not so much a blast having him escape and being unable to give chase, but still- weak and restricted as he is up here, Lucifer is able to have fun.
So why not now? Did he… did he maybe do something wro-
The red puddle twinkles in a way real blood doesn't.
Before he veers off thinking something stupid, Lucifer gets a hold of himself.
Silly him. Stupid him. Idiotic him. Oh, he is so, so great, the greatest, he is, but he can make for such a witless creature sometimes, piece of shit- no wonder, looking at Harry Potter…
Lucifer is happy, because he is his truest self. His greatest self. Because he keeps massacring humanity every chance he gets, against all odds, and remains true to himself that way. And because he remains true to himself, he is happy. Even if he doesn't alway feel it, he is.
He has to be.
He keeps looking at the neat liquid that in no way resembles real blood anymore and fails to do anything about it…
Alongside an actual blanket, something else covers Harry in a sweep. It tears him from his dreams, this ripple of energy surging across, scanning him. There is no sensation on his skin, but there is one arriving in his brain. He hitches awake. Like a sentient being capable of getting spooked, the foreign energy surrounding and poking him flees. It's gone, from actuality and his mind, which is in the process of shelving it as part of his feverish dreams. They are allowed to be nonsensical. As if he has any actual say in it.
Nonetheless, he has both wand and Lumos out and is scanning the room. For something. Or someone. Yes, because down there, along with Quirrell, Tom Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore, there was someone else. Not present in person but in voice and mind and oh, where even is he right now?
Harry's addled mind is stuck processing how this is the Hospital Wing and why he is here and why it's the middle of the night. His Lumos casts many dancing shadows, and if one of them dances out of line, it goes unnoticed. Because Harry has only had so much time before the reality at hand comes crashing down on him.
Going forward, Quirrell won't be a problem anymore.
He- it comes up again. Adrenaline carves its way trough his veins like acid. His gut clenches, and what is in there threatens to come back up.
…Then again. T'was fun, wasn't it?
It was. He has had moments of fun down there.
Harry wills himself to ignore his screaming lungs and take his next breath at a reasonable pace. Like the one after that. And the one after that.
The sea of crimson and all that, those messy details that don't want to come to him, that wasn't so bad either?
Because else that would be pretty stupid. If one has fun with a blade, that is what's bound to happen. And he isn't stupid, is he? He knew what he was doing and where that was leading.
No. He isn't stupid. Harry is amidst the smartest, and he has the grades to prove it. He doesn't deserve to be called stupid because he isn't. He hates being called stupid, nobody is allowed to do that, not even he himself.
With his breathing, everything else stabilises.
Also, it wasn't that bad, was it? The outcome?
There was a sea of crimson, deep and rich in colour like a ruby. It pooled pretty neatly, there were no smears where it formed pristine red edges against the grey of the stone. Again, any details beyond that won't come. The source of so much blood won't come. So that doesn't explain why Harry was so upset back there. Why was he so upset back there? Silly him. A simple pool of crimson is quite the mild sight, after all. Just red. Nothing more.
And the guy deserved it.
With the sensible part of his mind that dragged him into such a visceral reaction finally muffled, Harry's body grows still.
Yes. Finally. There would be no more Quirrell to ruin his Hogwarts experience. And there was even something unexpectedly pretty the vile man could provide, namely a nice ruby colour. Either way, he deserved it. For being so disgusting. He deserved deserved deserved it.
Then again, that hadn't been Quirrell himself, he had only seemed like he emanated it because he carried with him the actual quell of it.
Harry opens his eyes. To him, it's Voldemort. Something else doesn't make sense. Why'd he call him Tom again? The part of his mind that contains that very logical connection is gone, leaving him to scratch his head about it. Tom? Of all things? Really?
Wait. What was that about having fun with a blade?
Harry flicks his wrist in the way that is as natural to him as breathing. His hand closes around smooth, cool wood. Briefly, he considers how he took to this as easily as he did, when Professor McGonagall told him that getting practiced with a quick-access wand holster like his usually takes significantly longer.
His wand glints in the moonlight, as wooden as ever as he puts it down. And Harry, for the first time since getting it, interrupts his marvel at an actual magical wand that is his to think stick. Boring, underwhelming stick.
Come on, he prods. Get exciting.
But the wand laying on the covers in his lap mocks him with how much of a wand it keeps on being. Then, wrapped in the memory of all things cold which extended from his chest to his grip, he gets the idea that maybe his hand needs to have contact with it for this. Once again, Harry notes how his wand's wooden grip fails to warm up in his hand, no matter how long he holds it. A wizard's trademark. Because he is a wizard.
And yet. Get exciting, and in the empty, moon-lit room he barks a laugh to himself. Then that shred of emotion is gone, leaving him unable to conjure another one. Unable to laugh or freak or reassure himself out of what he knows - fears, anticipates - has to be done. Is desired to be done.
There is no reason to clamp up when thinking about the tall, stony room. Which was accessed by passing three-headed dogs, flying keys, stony chesspieces, the whole ordeal. Because everything that happened in that final room is… well, not logically sound, but Harry can live with himself perfectly fine knowing what he did. He can go back into the stony room and relive the abstract memories freely, because he forces them to STAY THE HELL AWAY from his rhythmic heart and not make his gut constrict again.
There. Easy. Now, what was he onto again?
Right- wand knocked away from his hand, hand burned red hot, not very pleasant but it's fine now, thank Madam Pomfrey most likely and the one who hurt him is dead, but to get to that he needed his wand back from the ground, unbound magic straight from his hand but before he could be a beast like that there was the him on the ground, and he did something- the call.
Forget the wand, what about the call?
Yes. Yes yes yes, there was a call, his voice in the darkness, but it did nothing. Except it didn't, because there- there had been another voice. They were together in the void. For moments, the world around his mind hadn't been silent and dead anymore. He hadn't been alone. But then he was, in the face of his two-faced opponent.
Harry's anger isn't hot. It's cold.
They just left him there, whoever it was. Then again, why was he expecting something else in the first place?
Why would he be owed help just like that?
His anger dissipates, but the cold remains. His magic has walked this path already. This time he doesn't have to guide it, it follows the broken in tracks by itself. From the source of power at his core outwards, pulled to his wand like by a magnet.
Even more so than the act of sheathing and unsheathing it from his holster, this comes intuitively and with little hardship to him.
Wand is a word he had to learn. Blade comes to him intuitively. And this time he can watch it happen up close. A faraway voice wonders, shouldn't this be harder than it is, after all, he's performing a feat they haven't gotten remotely close to in Transfiguration class. And he's doing that to his wand, can wands even be transformed?
Can normal wizards do this with their wands as well?
Whatever 'this' is.
It's longish and delicate. It has no embellishments whatsoever, and even something akin to a handle is only marked out by a slight nick to the shape, where its thin triple edge melts into the base. Its weight is something he needs to concentrate on, and even then it has an ethereal quality to it, like it's weightless but his brain needs it to have one so it can comprehend.
It's the most perfect thing Harry has ever seen. As he runs his fingers over it, he closes his eyes to let his haptic senses do the rest. The cool handle is smooth and of a length that allows both hands to grip it. Then, one remains in place, while the other travels down one of the three edges. The tips of his fingers graze it until down to the tip, yet they come away unscathed. Because just like every human has the instinct not to bite their finger off, even though jaw force would allow for it, Harry has the instinct for where and how forceful he can touch his blade's edges.
This thing has killed
He cramps up so suddenly, only his instinct keeps him from tensing his hand around it and slicing his fingers off.
Get exciting is what he wanted, he got what he wished for, and now he's trembling. He is holding an object that has been used to take a life.
(Correctly incorrect. He can't forget the plural, but apparently he can)
His vision swims. When it stabilises again, that's his wand he is holding again, nothing indicates it was ever anything else.
Take a life. No matter how his mind may take the horrific image of small human pieces strewn around in a lake of their own crimson blood, and paint over it until only a neat red puddle is left in his memory, it cannot repress reality; Once upon a time, there was a man who could walk and talk. And now that's over.
Murderer.
His mocking scoff has left Harry before he has pieced together how he can possibly react like this in the first place. What kind of person he is to react like this.
Murderer... but he's no murderer, because murder is wrong. But he can't be wrong, he isn't. He certainly doesn't feel wrong, thinking about it. He did, while exiting that room and running into Dumbledore for some reason, and upon waking up here, but that doesn't mean anything. It's over now.
And there was nothing wrong in ending Quirre- killing, you killed killed killed him. Murder would be if he had killed someone who was never out to harm him first… it was just and deserved self-defense. Not murder, that's wrong.
Ha, great, he knows murder is wrong. And that has to mean everything.
Because what kind of person would he be otherwise?
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
"No sir", Harry says. "I- I have no idea what I meant when I said I used to remember anything. Was that what I said? Everything… everything after that room is blurry."
"Hm", Dumbledore notes neutrally. It's a clear early year and early day morning, and the soft golden light of a new spring shines in past the Hospital Wing's translucent white curtains. In stark juxtaposition to the reason Albus is here.
"You killed Quirinius Quirrell", he states. There is no way around it. The boy startles like a whip is cracked next to his ear.
"I- he attacked me first", Harry scrambles to push out, but why is he this skittish? He did kill. 'Kill', not 'murder'. 'Kill' is fine. "It was self-defense. If anything you are at fault here, I only even went after him because I had no time to come convince you to believe me about him! You didn't even believe me the first time! And why was that door unlocked to begin with-"
Dumbledore raises a hand.
"At ease."
He eases and grows silent.
"You are right in what you say to me, but, Harry, do you know what I saw when I went into that last room?"
A wince.
"Indeed", Dumbledore says. "I would say that goes just a tad bit beyond mere self-defense, wouldn't you say?"
"I… slipped", comes the reply.
"You slipped?"
Harry nods slowly. He doesn't dare meet Albus' eyes. If he needed any proof that he is talking to a child and not an unabashedly malicious entity here, this is it.
"In what way did you slip?"
That breathes some life into Harry, in that he straightens up.
"You have been the Headmaster of this school for how long?", he asks strong and clear. "You can't tell me that nobody else ever slipped."
Then he looks back down and folds in on himself again. Like a snake, the boy slipped out of that tight spot. He mentally tips his hat.
"Ah. I see what you mean", Albus is forced to admit. But that line of questioning isn't over. "Yes, there have been too many incidents for even me to remember them, and I have a nifty little way of storing what I remember. Do you know what a pensieve is?"
Harry looks at him like he is making no sense. Hm. Albus waves it off.
"Doesn't matter. But, what does matter is, in this school's history there hasn't been an incident of wild magic quite to the levels of what you did."
Harry gives a tired wince.
"Has anyone else ever been in my shoes?", and there is an undertone of resignation in his voice, before that shifts to steel. "Give me no reason to feel like my life is in danger and I can tell you my magic won't react like- like that again."
He nods good-heartedly.
"Rest assured, my boy. There are times in many a wizard's life when they learn just what magic is capable of in moments of great stress. I just regret you had to have that experience so early, and that I have failed you like this."
One who doesn't tell lies, and the other who breathes them. Then-
"Sir, he had Voldemort hanging out the back of his head."
Harry expected Dumbledore to be anything other than smiling serenely.
"Doesn't that surprise you?", he repeats for good measure. "All this time, your employee was walking around with Voldemort under his turban."
"I rather wonder how that doesn't surprise you as much, seeing as you only bring it up now."
"It's just… so much happed."
"Is there something you want to tell me?", and Harry quickly wards that question off, now that he has a means to.
"Until I know how Voldemort came to be, no."
Dumbledore takes a breath to answer-
"And I don't mean how Voldemort came to be here in Hogwarts", Harry dares to interrupt. "Which is supposed to be safe and all that. That… you seem to be on it. I mean, who is Voldemort? How did he become what he is?"
Oh. On one hand, Albus could get the answers from Harry. But if Harry hears something which is meant as leverage over the serpent, the possibility is too high for it to hear with his ears.
"I'm afraid that is something not meant for you to learn yet", is all he says.
"Hm. If you say so, I guess… Is there anything else you need to discuss or can I go?"
"That's all from my side" Albus says with a twinkle in his eye. "I will get going myself. But I'm afraid if you want to leave the Wing, you need Madam Pomfrey's blessing rather than mine."
Harry is silent.
On the way out, Albus' eyes light up. That light is hidden under the usual twinkle by the time he has turned back around.
"By the way, you wear your socks properly every day, you never plan to instigate a House ghost riot and you are human, correct?"
A bamboozled Harry can only manage "Of course, w- what kind of question is that?", before Headmaster Dumbledore has whirled back around and left for good. "Sir? Sir!"
And Harry is left to wonder. What a kooky man.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
Five people are perched on and around a Hospital Wing bed, and Harry is sitting cross-legged on top of the sheets at the center.
"You were going to detention with Professor Snape", Theo asks. "Tell me how exactly you ended up in the Hospital Wing again?"
"I went to mince frog brains but ended up mincing something else instead", and that's Harry's mouth running away without him. Short of slapping his hand on his mouth, he freezes. He shouldn't have said that, what he said was wrong and he prepares for the incoming end of his newfound everyday life as he knows it-
"No", Greengrass asks. "Seriously now."
Her tone, dried by the matter of act, is his saving grace. Harry relaxes.
"Can't answer that one, Greengrass", he answers and wonders if the others note how out of breath his voice is or if he just imagines it. "I mean- I don't exactly know myself..."
"Hm", is all she says. "By the way, you do know it goes both ways, right?"
Harry blinks. "What?"
"You don't have to wait on us to offer to call us by our first names, you can do it too."
Oooh. "What, really?"
Harry had his own little thing going on with his brief scare earlier. The others have their own little thing going on as they pass a quick glance around.
"Yes. We thought you were aware all this time and just sought to keep your distance", Zabini says, who Harry could actually call Blaise from now on, how awesome is that-
Theo quickly has to exclude himself, "Count me out" he blurts, but Harry ignores him as he beams and points at Zabini-soon-to-be-Blaise.
"So no more 'Potter' this and 'Potter' that, I'm Harry from now on. Right Blaise?"
Ever the more reserved one, Blaise gives a faint half-smile. Success. Harry, ever the first to get a new spell right in class, makes the face usually reserved for Neville when the knut finally drops for him too. And he chuckles. It's definitely not a giggle, not at all, that's a chuckle. One "and the same goes for you and you" later, and Daphne and Draco join the mix.
"So" he closes the subject and opens a new one. His hands fan out. "How's life been while I was out? Had any Defense classes today? How's Quirrell doing?"
He gets looks, the impression he said something wrong, and a renewed bout of oh no oh no oh no-
"It's… Sunday morning", Blaise says. "Are you sure you are well?"
"Oh", Harry manages. Theo must have smelled something, because like a shark he aims to catch the secret flailing invisibly trough the air.
"Harry", he asks, "what exactly is there with Quirrell? Did something happen?"
"Um. No. Nothing."
"Nothing in his head maybe…"
At Draco's quiet but welcome mutter, Harry laughs out. "Exactly! Where've you been all my life, Draco, my like-minded chum!"
That anxious energy, with which he had his panic spike up, has repurposed itself into a different flavour of hyperactive. Blaise and Daphne raise 'you can't be serious' eyebrows, they're so in sync it's hilarious. Draco has to compensate for a light smile that came out of nowhere by instead frowning indignantly.
Only Theo is left to deal with an uneasiness that doesn't want to wane from the back of his mind.
"Nice how we've all congregated nicely-", Harry continues, rolling with his mood. His mood decides it wants out. "But I'm out. This room's boring the sweet Merlin out of me."
"Don't we have to see Madam Pomfrey-"
Something magical must be going on, because Harry is somehow halfway out the open door.
"What?", he stops to shout back. "You have to see Madam Pomfrey? You poor injured darlings, you", and the door slams shut.
Pause.
"Well, that just was in no way normal", Theo states blankly. "Can we agree on that?"
"What does normal even mean with him?", Draco counter-asks a fair question. "Let's get going, the longer we stand around the longer he's out ruining our House reputation."
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
Life goes on. Classes go on too, and only once does Harry get the idea to snap his fingers at a Charms task. Nothing happens. He's glad for that, it means he's normal and looks like a regular first-year class clown, not an impossible prodigy.
He doesn't dare try to coax his blade out of his wand again. What was he thinking, referring to it as a boring stick? What an insane thought. This is his world, where everything is fine and there's no evil he needs to root out any longer. It's not boring, it's peaceful. He likes it that way. Free of any coppery odour.
On one particular night, one particular announcement is made. Before the empty dishes arranged on the foodless tables get company, Dumbledore keeps stands tall in anticipation. While he waits for the Hall to get the cue and start to quieten, Harry fiddles with his fork. And drops it.
Silence at last, perfect for Dumbledore to speak- but that isn't the kind of silence that suddenly encompasses Harry again.
In tune with everyone else, he looks at the direction of the Headmaster's spot at the end of the Hall. But from there, Harry doesn't bother with that.
Dumbledore stands tall and commands attention by himself, the space around him is empty. To his left, the spot of air is just as empty as to his right. But it isn't Dumbledore's right Harry keeps fixating.
'Hello?', he asks on reflex, with the new voice he discovered he has.
…Nothing. His voice remains the only new discovery.
Harry turns away and looks at the empty plate in front of him. It reflects his frown. The world reaches him again, as does Dumbledore's voice.
"-thus Defense against the Dark Arts will remain cancelled for the remainder of the school year. As for the according exams, they will be annulled as well-"
Bunch of model students that they are, most of the Hall immediately dissolves into chatter and quiet whooping.
Right. Quirrell is gone out of this world.
"What are you smiling at?", Daphne asks.
"Wh-" is he smiling? He is. Even beyond the general celebration of cancelled exams that has calmed down, which gave her incentive to question. "Oh, uh. I, uh…"
Smooth. She chuckles light-heartedly. "Harry, if you dream with your eyes open, how about you get more sleep instead of always being the first one up in the morning."
He shrugs in a what can silly old me do kind of way, and they move to the next topic, which would be some upcoming Quidditch game. Oh, the finals, right, and Harry has to make up for his lack of Quidditch affinity by acting like he cares if Slytherin or Hufflepuff will win, as to preserve his image in the eyes of Draco.
This is his world. Now freshly Quirrell-less. Life's fun.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
The last night at Hogwarts. Their room at night. They are asleep. The silent newcomer. He has intruded into this magical world in order to face, and this time will be the one when he doesn't run.
Like he found his way into the castle despite its intricate wards, he finds his way into a dream. A dream that grows too real.
"Hey", Gabriel greets wryly. "Been a while, Lucy."
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•
When Harry wakes up the next morning, his face is tear-streaked and he doesn't know why.
•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•≠•