Chapter Ten.
On October the 23rd, Harry arrived at the Auror's office on Level Two of the Ministry to begin his final week of mental training.
In week one, they had put curse after curse on Harry, ranging from curses that made Harry feel insufferable pain to curses that made him feel devoid of any feeling at all. They had made him scream and they had made him vacant, blinded and deafened, and feeling nothing, not even the ground beneath his feet or the air in his lungs. It had been a long week, and Harry had spent the weekend in his home with the curtains drawn, wanting nothing but to rest.
In week two, Auror after Auror had tried to crawl into Harry's mind. As Harry had had quite a bit of training with Snape and Voldemort, this proved an easier task. Shacklebolt had smiled happily and called his mind 'impenetrable, like a bastion.'
Week three had been harder but doable. For week four, however, Harry had no idea what to expect.
He arrived at the Office early in the morning at eight, and was greeted by the door of the Training Hall by Gawain Robards, who stood quietly staring at Harry, his hands folded behind his back. Despite Harry's excellent performance so far, Robards had shown little joy at the prospect of him joining the team, and Harry had not yet been able to find out why. Every time he made an attempt of broaching the subject, or speaking to the Head of the Auror Office at all, the man declared to be busy and walked away.
Harry caught Robards' stare and stared back defiantly.
'Mr. Potter', Robards said finally. 'This week will be your final week of training. As I am sure you are aware, you will take your exam on October the 31st.' He grimaced coolly. 'You will officially be titled an Auror if you pass.'
Robards started walking slowly, circling around Harry like smoke circling a bonfire.
'But I must warn you, boy. This week will be the toughest yet. Trainees have lost their minds over this. Some have killed themselves over this. Do you understand?'
Harry clenched his jaw defiantly and nodded.
Robards stopped abruptly, and laughed a cold, disdainful laugh. 'You have no idea what's coming, do you?'
'I can't read minds, sir', Harry retorted.
Robards' face hardened. Then he said, coldly: 'Good luck, Mister Potter.'
The massive black doors opened, and Harry stepped into the Hall. It was an enormous circular room, with a balcony of seats circling above Harry's head. Kingsley Shacklebolt stood with his hands wrapped around the silver railing as he looked down at Harry. For the first time so far, he wasn't smiling. There was no hint of excitement, no sign of him being curious what Harry would do. Harry wondered what, if anything, could make Shacklebolt doubt Harry's abilities if he had survived everything else so far.
As he walked into the centre of the circle, five Aurors stepped from behind pillars, their wands gripped tightly in their hands. Harry frowned. Another duel?
'They're not here to fight you', Robards said suddenly from behind Harry. 'They're here to stop you.'
Harry's mouth set in a hard line.
'Introduce Factum Ventura', Robards growled, and he stepped aside.
The lights in the Hall died and showered its inhabitants in darkness until there was only a single, blinding light pointed at Harry. Harry shielded his eyes in order to see. He expected there to be a beast, or a phantom, or some other dangerous creature. Instead, there was only light, and Harry felt increasingly agitated as the seconds passed and nothing happened.
But then he heard something. A sputtering from below. Harry looked down at the floor and saw water, welling up from the cracks between the shiny black tiles. There were just droplets at first, but soon the sputtering became a ripple, and a flow, until a large pool of black water had manifested itself before Harry's feet.
Harry, absolutely lost on what to do, looked at Shacklebolt, who nodded slowly, and then at Robards. His face betrayed nothing, but Harry saw his knuckles, wrapped white around his wand.
'In', Robards uttered, gesturing sharply.
Harry looked down at the pool again, and saw nothing. Not even his reflection was there to greet him. It seemed unnatural, and unnaturally calm water, at that. Harry swallowed once, wrapped his hand tight around his wand, and lowered his left foot into the water.
A force like magnetism pulled Harry down into the pool, and soon there was the sensation of suffocation, of drowning, as Harry spun and spun and spun in a whirlwind of numbingly cold, pitch black water. He saw nothing and heard nothing, not even the struggling of his arms as he flailed them about, trying desperately to climb back towards the surface. It was a void.
And then there was screaming. It hurt Harry like a punch to the gut, and it was so inhumanly loud that his hands shot reflexively towards his ears, clasping down to shut out the sound. But it grew louder, and louder, and soon Harry's head felt like it was about to burst. He couldn't help it, he screamed in pain and felt the cold water force its way into his body. Finally, the crushing weight of pain and fear won, and Harry lost consciousness.
When he woke, the screaming had stopped. Harry could breathe, now, but he felt a dark presence, hovering right in the corners of his eyes where he couldn't see it. Harry, who was now standing in a pitch-black darkness, grabbed his wand and spun around, but the presence shifted as quickly as he had, and Harry was unable to catch sight of it.
'Who's there?', Harry demanded, circling slowly in an attempt to cover all the space around him.
The voice of a woman, hollow and calm, echoed around the room as it asked: 'Will you begin?'
Harry spun around again in an attempt to catch where the voice came from, but it was futile. It was all around, and whatever presence it belonged to moved faster than Harry could turn. Harry swallowed hard, clenched and unclenched the fingers around his wand, and nodded.
There was a blinding flash. Harry's body was thrown backwards with unnatural force. He found himself flying and then landing abruptly still on both feet, in front of his home in Godric's Hollow. It was snowing outside, and it was eerily quiet. From within shone a warm, orange light, and Harry felt his heart skip a beat. 'Hermione?', he tried to ask, but no sound came from his mouth, and his lips never parted.
Harry, feeling immediately uneasy in his body, was made even more uncomfortable when he suddenly started moving forwards, through the wooden gate and over the path towards the house's front door. An unearthly sensation, something like reverse paralysis, crept over Harry. He suddenly noticed that the garden looked different.
When he took out his wand with a pale, veiny hand and blasted the front door from its hinges, it was already too late. Harry stepped inside the home. A man yelled. Immediately after he saw someone rush upstairs, holding a bundle in her arms.
Harry's heart stopped beating, and restarted with a shock when he saw him. His father, standing at the top of the stairs, looking straight at Harry with a mix of fear and determination, and then towards something in the living room. Harry looked too, unwillingly, and spotted a wand laying on a dark leather couch.
'No', Harry stammered, and then: 'RUN!'
But again, no sound escaped from the throat that didn't belong to him. James Potter roared and stormed down the stairs, but Harry's pale arm lifted with unthinkable speed, and a flash of green was sent flying through the air. James crashed and landed backwards on the stairs, his eyes staring into nothingness.
A silent scream erupted from the depths of Harry's body and he fought, fought harder than he ever had. He demanded his hand to drop the wand. He demanded his feet to stop marching up the stairs. He demanded his eyes not to look at his father's face as he stepped over him, but his body was no longer his own. Closing his eyes didn't help. The vision was burned in his brain.
Harry felt hot fury scorch through his veins when the door to his room blew open. He screamed at his mother, but she stood defiant in front of young Harry's crib, her jaw set, her arms spread, her piercing green eyes staring straight into Harry's. With the second jet of light came a shattering scream. It might as well have been Harry's. He saw his toddler self only briefly, in passing, as if the owner of his body refused to look at him at all. The third flash of green felt as though it pierced Harry's heart, and a blinding light sent Harry backwards, flying again into the void.
He crashed onto the side of his body and heard something snap. Harry stayed down, breathing hard, biting back the tears, but though he tried, he couldn't suppress his rage. His roar echoed through the nothingness and came back to him in a consistently quieter resonance. There was only silence in response.
Harry wiped furiously at his face.
The presence was there, again. Harry grabbed his wand and spun, left and right, left again. 'What's going on?!', he demanded.
'You will continue', said the woman's voice.
'Wh- NO!', Harry roared, but the blinding light came for him again, and the force hit him straight in the chest, sending him flying.
He killed Sirius, after. His hand was pale, his nails long and unkept, and his voice wasn't his own, but Harry did it. He aimed at Sirius' heart and sent him through the grey veil. Harry watched himself stumble. He watched himself reach out, incredulously, and watched his face go blank when the realisation hit him. He begged the voice to stop. It was merciless. A punch to Harry's shoulder sent him into the next realm, and then there was Dumbledore, asking him: 'Please.' Harry roared in agony, and the light took him again. He saw Hedwig fly, his hand raise, and then Hedwig, falling from the sky. The punch came, and the flash, and then there was an explosion of fire, and he saw Fred Weasley's body fly against one of Hogwarts' stone walls, slumping weakly against the ground. Harry screamed, but his body hooted. Punch, flash, and now he slithered across a damp floor, striking at Severus Snape's throat as the wizard stumbled and fell. Harry tasted blood and felt suddenly so ill that he thought he might throw up. Again, he pleaded with the voice to stop, but there wasn't an answer. The punch, the flash. A hand around Remus' throat, a struggle, the Killing Curse. A hand around Tonks' screaming throat, next, her face furious and unafraid, and another Killing Curse.
By the time Harry was sent crashing onto his knees again, back in the dark void, he heard all of their screams, every single one, at the same time. His lungs felt like someone had their hands wrapped around them.
'Harry Potter', the voice echoed. 'You wish to become an Auror.'
Harry gasped for air and reached for his wand in a desperate attempt to defend himself.
'You must continue.'
'No', Harry pleaded. He gasped, again, and managed to inhale enough air to protest. 'No', he croaked again. 'Please.'
'Quid Fiet', whispered the voice, and a blinding white light struck Harry in the head.
The world spun beneath Harry's feet, blurring everything into one black mass, until he landed perfectly on his feet. But what he saw this time sent every last bit of energy within him flying loose. Hermione's face, pale, bloodied, and contorted with pain, looked up at him as Harry shut his hand tight around her throat. Harry roared until his voice failed and fought with every fibre of his being, but he only pushed Hermione away from him, sending her crashing into a pillar. Before she had landed on the floor, a flash of purple shot towards her. Her scream deafened Harry, and then he saw her fall. When her dying eyes met Harry's, the ground beneath his feet gave way, and the drowning cold took hold of him again.
He crashed onto the Training Hall's floor with an excruciating crush.