Monday – Antagonist
Draco Malfoy strode determinedly down the corridor. It was not a subtle stride; his every step expressing unbeatable arrogance and a passionate belief in his own superiority. Was he too proud? Maybe – but he didn't care.
"Draco."
In one quick and smooth movement he turned to see the girl who had accosted him. "What?" he drawled lazily.
"You coming later?" He nodded, and she smiled. Her name was Aya; she was pretty beyond belief, and in much the same way as him, she knew it. She was also extremely bright, and despite being only a normal Slytherin in the same year as him she probably knew easily twice as much. In one way he hated her, in another he admired. Whatever, he knew never to ignore her for too long.
"You heard about Potter?" he said.
"Yes... Apparently he's got some delusion problem," she replied coolly.
"Something is definitely different about him," Draco admitted. He still remembered the scene yesterday when he had actually walked away just because Potter had spoke in a loud voice. Ridiculous really.
"Anyway, I've got things to do," she said in a stern tone, making it sound as if he had been the one to accost her. A moment later and she had disappeared down one of the various twisting corridors in the place.
Maybe he hadn't watched her enough recently. For he couldn't believe that she had just stopped him for the banal chat they had just held. Perhaps she was nervous about something – one of her many schemes not coming together properly?
Whatever it was, he wouldn't let it interfere with his only schedule. While his father was still unjustly locked away, he would never let anything meddle with it. It was all coming together so well, and he would not let anything get in his way.
*–*
Harry ran hurriedly into potions, still slightly angry that he had let Madam Pomfrey detain him for so long. He couldn't afford to be late for this lesson, not even if he had had the best excuse in the world.
Snape turned on him the most his foremost foot touched the cold dungeon floor.
"Potter?" He had really been working on his severe voice in the holidays. "I presume you have a good excuse for being late."
A thousand answers sprang into his brain, and he almost swung around to glare at James Black for inspiration he was giving from countless talks they had had. Those thousand answers, while comical, would result in a similar number of punishments. He supposed he might as well start with the real reason.
"I was in the hospital wing, Sir."
"Ill?"
Well – was he ill? He wasn't quite sure what he was going through counted unless you put it under a category that he didn't want to think of. He was sane.
"Not quite Sir."
Snape glared at him. "Five points off being late, five off for avoiding answers and another twenty for wasting Madam Pomfrey's time."
Harry just nodded, and resignedly walked to his place. Long years of experience had ingrained in him that protesting to the headmaster's face just resulted in a doubling or worse of the punishment. As he went he couldn't help noticing the eyes of the class following him even more than he would usually expect. So rumours of what had been going on had got around.
He sat down in his place by Ron and Hermione. No, James. Even after yesterday his mind still kept slipping, and if anything it was only getting more frequent. He belonged here, not in that dream that he had slipped into yesterday. It had been a dream.
He tried to forget that when he squinted he could see that it was James sitting beside him, but a blurry shape that could only be Hermione. This was going to end soon, if he had to go to the Minister of Magic himself. Then another idea struck him – Lupin.
*–*
"You're late."
They all stood round him in a circle, their skin pale but their eyes blazing. Judging him.
Draco turned to the speaker. It was Aya, a cruel smile stuck on her face. Her blonde hair was slightly floating, and blue lines flashed across her irises ever few seconds. Her body was relaxed, and yet taut. Draco knew the look – the power was in her.
"I got you this." He pulled out the old book from his bag and the circle of people contracted. A few of them were unable to stop their hands reaching out to try and touch it. They wanted his father's book now, even from a few feet off they could feel its pull. He smiled and slid it back into his book. They were not getting it yet.
"Why do you hide from us Draco?" Again Aya spoke; she seemed to have become the spokesperson at the moment.
"Because I'm not sure whether I should help you or not," he replied.
"You know why you have to help us," she said, and her hand stretched out to his forehead. He grimaced as it connected and he felt a surge pass into him. He had had this before.
Before him a light suddenly opened up and the picture of an old man appeared. His garments may have been loose and his overall impression slack, but his eyes blazed with cold power in them. His hair may have gone white long ago, and now stretched below his shoulders, but he had lost none of his presence. Draco knew his name if he had never seen him before. He was called Dumbledore, and when he had been alive nothing had been able to stand before him.
"There stands the accursed one," the people around him intoned. "There stands the killer of our Lord."
It was ironic really Draco thought. Even after he had killed off the Dark Lord himself Dumbledore had not done enough. In giving up his life then, he had also given up his control of the school, and the lack of it had led to the people here being able to get away with what they were doing. Snape and McGonagall may be strict, but they were also fools. They knew nothing of the dark spells being undertaken right under their noses. One day they would find out, but by then they would have lost any chance they might have had of stopping this in time.
"Within him we can see the end and from where it shall restart." Aya and her comrades closed their eyes and Draco found his naturally being forced shut as well. Dumbledore's face loomed in his mind, and then expanded until it filled every crevice of him. And then, with a jolt –
Once again he ducked as something shot above him right where he just had been. He narrowly avoided slipping in a puddle created by the still falling rain, every drop of which seemed enchanted to sap a bit more of his strength. Across on the other side of the hillside Voldemort still strode angrily. He wanted this to be over; he was even impatient for it to be so.
Quickly he considered his options again. Run and desert the Potters. Cancel that. Try to capture Voldemort – well, it hadn't exactly been successful so far. Which left...
He stood up straight, making sure that his enemy could see him. All of his life he had avoided this, but now it seemed like he had no choice. Very well, but he knew that he could not survive if he went ahead with it. That would just create another like the one he was about to destroy.
Voldemort was staring at him curiously, but when the Dark Lord saw him muttering he quickly began his own spell. Too late.
He let out his hands and felt something pass out of him. A surge so mighty it felt as if his soul had left him. If this failed...
Voldemort gasped as the blue light struck him, and absorbed into his body. Then he began frantically calling. He had obviously never thought that his calm headmaster knew about, let alone could go through with such a spell. Yet he obviously knew the details of a destiny bond.
He rose his wand to his own head and watched as Voldemort started pleading for his mercy. This was the only way in which he could be sure. Together they had lived, and together, for their own causes, they had fought. Together they would die.
"Avada Kedavra," he whispered.
Draco awoke from the trance and found that it had actually given him some extra strength. "So?"
"So," the girl explained. "Our Lord was defeated by powers from his own domain. Treachery of the highest order. We must awake him again so that he can take his proper vengeance."
Draco just shook his head slowly. These people didn't know anything – they weren't that much better than an everyday cult. He knew the real reason why they wanted to awake him. They had touched the dark power, and found it irresistible. And it had blackmailed them into doing what it wanted – bringing back its lost son. He had touched it himself, and he knew its power. If he hadn't already got a quest he might have even fallen into its trap. But his own responsibility was his father.
"You've shown me that before, and it didn't work that time either," he reminded them.
"You brought the book this time, didn't you?" reminded a boy from behind.
He sighed, brought the book out again and threw it over their heads. While they were turning to get it he took the chance to escape from them and walk out of the room. The spells they would need were in that book, but also his own charms. As long as they worked everything should go his way. Six days now and this would all be over.
*–*
"You're having hallucinations?"
Harry wished that his former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher didn't make it sound so ridiculous.
"Yes. Kind of. As I just spent the last five minutes explaining."
Lupin's head shook in bewilderment, "I'm sorry... Just not a thing students normally complain about."
"You don't say." Harry had always liked his father's friend, but this conversation was getting nowhere.
"There is one spell you could try," Lupin admitted after a while of considering. "It uses the magic that Veritaserum and your pocket Sneakoscope are based on. If you enchant something correctly with a Veritus spell, say your glasses, they should be able to tell you if whatever you're looking at is truth."
"Truth?"
"Well, just to check that you're not seeing the future or something," Lupin explained.
Harry was glad at that moment that he hadn't told Lupin what the hallucinations were about. "Is this spell complicated?"
Lupin nodded. "Afraid so. About the only one who could probably do it in your class is Hermione, but there's not much chance she would do it for you after the way you treated her. Here, give me your glasses and I'll see if I can do it."
Harry blushed at the accusation, but took his glasses off at the same time and passed them into the fire from where Lupin's head was speaking. The man took them with his mouth and then disappeared for a few moments. He popped back a moment later and Harry took them back gratefully. He hated the blurry way the world looked when he didn't have them.
"There," Lupin said, sounding pleased with himself. "Wasn't sure if I would remember that one, but obviously I did. It won't last forever mind. It should wear off by, say, tomorrow."
Harry nodded. With the frequency they were coming that should be plenty long enough. "Thank you. I'm sorry, but I've got homework now and I really should be going."
His older friend nodded. "Glad I could be of assistance. Look after yourself, and make sure you tell someone if these things keep happening." With that he was gone.
Harry put out the fire, and left the empty classroom from which he had sneaked into.
"Harry?"
He turned at the concerned voice to see his sister Sally coming down the corridor.
"You alright? I heard that you were with the nurse last night."
"I'm... fine." he told her at last, "it's nothing serious to worry about." She didn't look as if she believed him, but then again she hardly ever did.
"If you say so," she said, and then she was off down the corridor.
He was about to turn to follow her when...
"Harry!" Hermione's call sounded worried.
"Harry, what are you staring at?" Ron's voice sounded concerned as well. Their voices must have been like that since yesterday.
"My sister," he replied, but from their looks it appeared as if the simple answer didn't make them feel any better.
"Harry..." Hermione again, her tone sounding like she had decided to ignore what he had just said. "Why are your glasses glowing?"
His glasses? He remembered something about them, but life was so confusing at the moment. Glowing meant something, he was sure of it.
He collapsed, and would have fell to the floor if his sister hadn't been there to catch. "You said you were alright..." She said it as if he had been lying before.
"Are my glasses glowing?" he asked desperately.
"Harry, we just told you..." Ron started.
"No," Sally replied in a puzzled tone. "Why would they be glowing?"
"Lupin put a Veritus charm on them," he told her weakly. "They should be glowing..."
"As in if you were seeing truth?" Sally looked no less confused.
He could hardly see now for the glow that was obscuring his vision. "This is truth," he said slowly. Furiously he pulled his glasses off and flung them against the wall.
"Harry..." Hermione's voice was more of a breath than anything else now. A breath of shock .
The fragments of glass still glowed. Aghast he flung his hand to his head, shut his eyes, and tried to make it all go away. Under his hand he felt a scar. A scar?
"You're not real," he told his sister coldly.
Her eyes widened, but she still managed to softly take his arm and she tried to pull him along.
"Terry and Ben, they're not real either." It felt good to get something like that out in the air. And horrifying at the same time.
"Me, Terry, Ben, Mum, Dad... We're all real," Sally tried to tell him.
Harry laughed bitterly. "Mum and Dad are dead."
"All right Potter," said Madam Pomfrey, as suddenly she appeared from some door. To his surprise that quite a crowd had built up in the last minute or two. "Just try and relax." She muttered a spell, and then his command on any reality began to disappear, and he sank into a deep and blissful sleep.
His hand slowly dropped from the scar. It was over, or at least it was for a time. The call from the other world had suddenly stopped, as if it had been blocked from him. He staggered along to a window side seat and dropped down into it.
"I'm fine," he said, but it was obvious Ron and Hermione didn't believe him. "Just fine."
"You don't look fine," Hermione said quietly, and Ron just slowly shook his head.
"Well," Harry admitted, "I could do with another pair of glasses."
Hermione just raised her eyebrows. "What did you do to the old lot? Glasses don't start glowing by themselves."
Harry nodded. "I'll explain later. I think I'm going to need the nurse?"
Slowly, very slowly, he made his way over to Madam Pomfrey's room. One minute later and she'd dug out some glasses he could borrow and set him on his way after a lot of well-chosen words. And then he pulled Hermione and Ron out to a deserted spot in the grounds.
"OK," he told them firmly. "You want to know what's been happening?"
They nodded. And so he told them. At the end both of them looked as shocked as he had felt earlier.
"Harry..." she started and Ron at the same time would say softly, "I..." and then they would both stop, waiting for the other to continue.
"Your parents," Hermione finally whispered
"What's it like?" Ron asked. "I mean... apart from them. Different?" At Hermione's accusing look, which clearly was one suggesting more tact, he tried to rationalise the question. "I mean, if we know what's different, it's the first step to knowing why."
"I suppose," Hermione said, "but I wish you'd go to Dumbledore or something."
"He's not around there?" Ron guessed, as Harry winced.
"No," said Harry. "So I guess he might be motivated to help at least"
"Are we around then?"
Hermione gave another quizzical glare at that.
"Yeah..." Harry told them. "You're both around more or less."
Ron looked worried at that but before he could comment Hermione quickly said, "You have a sister?"
Harry just inclined his head. "And two brothers. And Sirius has a son. And..." He stopped.
"It sounds like a better world really." Ron sounded like he didn't really want to be saying that.
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? I mean Dumbledore's gone, and Draco's father."
That almost brought a smile to Ron's face. "You–know–who?"
"Gone."
"That sounds like a big difference," Hermione muttered. "How did he get killed?"
"Dumbledore sacrificed himself in some way," Harry replied. "I don't think anyone knows why particularly or how he did it. Nobody really wants to speak about it. I just know that they found the two of their bodies on a field. No marks on either."
And then a great pain hit his scar. He gasped, and tried not to fall over. A face appeared in front of him – a deadly pale face. Its eyes spotted him and they gleamed in triumph. He knew that face – Voldemort.
*–*
Aya stood watching proudly as her master slowly hobbled towards her. His every step looked weak, but she could not make herself care. She had raised him from the waters like she had once vowed she would. And now he was hers and power would follow after it.
"Who... are... you?" he gasped. Deathly menace behind those words.
"I am your Master," she started.
"Wrong," Draco interrupted, walking down the lake's bank from behind her. He produced something small that gleamed for a while and then pocketed it again. "I control that book" – he pointed to the ancient volume she had just finished reading from – "and anything cast from it. You are mine, and it is time for you to perform your first duty."
He stopped and smiled at her. She glared back. And Draco didn't care – he didn't care one bit.
Author's Note:– Thanks for all of you who reviewed last time – sorry it took so long – but your regular reminders to keep going sure helped. Next instalment I'm not saying anything about, because if I do, the opposite will happen. Let's just say I hope it'll take a lot shorter. If you want you can leave your email address or use author alert or something – probably the most reliable way if you're interested in a third part. Oh yeah, and while I've got a rough idea for the next five days, any of your ideas for plots / subplots would be really helpful.