Author's Note: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Author's Note: I'm back again! Hehehe, did you miss me? Um, in this part, Harry's talent is elaborated on. I'm sorry this took me so long to write, but my process takes a while, I was grounded, and I hadn't finished my homework. Typing this has been a gradual, weeklong process. Make my hours of labor worth something! Review my stuff!

INSTALLMENT 5

Harry stood, stunned.

"Yes, the world of the dead. Is it really so surprising? With everything that's happened to you, I should think that nothing would be that shocking anymore."

"Who ARE you?" said Harry, thoroughly startled.

"You've heard of me. Nicholas Flamel. Pleased to meet you. And by the way, you don't need to say things out loud. I can hear what you're thinking."

What the hell…

"I'll disregard that last one, Harry. And no, this isn't quite hell, but you're on the right track…"

"Am I dead?" thought Harry uncertainly. Well, I guess it can't be hell, it's too cold…

"No!" Flamel chuckled merrily, a sound that contrasted sharply with the barren marsh surrounding them. Harry began to relax. "You're in the world of the dead, the only living person who has access to it! You're what's called a necromancer."

"A what?"

"Necromancer. Blimey, this is going to be difficult. You have no idea whatsoever?"

"None."

"I see. Well, you mustn't stay here long. You're separated from your body, and it's very taxing the first few times."

Harry looked down at his body, which seemed to have a strange translucent quality. His hands were shaking badly, and he noticed for the first time that he was a bit unsteady on his feet.

"Yes…Open your eyes in your world to get out of here. Ask whoever had you do this exactly what a Necromancer is, tell them you talked to me, and tell them to write Albus, telling him what you are. Let Albus know that I need to talk to him about the implications of the prophecy. And ask them to tell you exactly what a Necromancer is. You'll find out your limitations eventually, but I can help you use your abilities to the fullest extent. I'll appear to you tonight in a dream. Until then."

He flickered and disappeared. The world around Harry spun once more, and it seemed to be getting farther away, but something reached out and struck him. It seemed to be pulling him back down, and it reminded him of the Devil's Snare which he, Hermione, and Ron had encountered in their first year. He struggled, and it's grip tightened in response. He realized it was the willow trees, as a withered branch grazed his face, splitting his lip. Blood dribbled down his chin, a warm trickle in the cold, dead world.

"Stay," it moaned. More trees suddenly appeared. "Graves will make a cozy bed…no one leaves…the world of the dead…"

Branches tightened painfully around his middle, making his diaphragm contract and knocking the wind out of him.

"Harry! Open your eyes!" he heard someone say in the distance.

The trees aren't real.

"Harry!" the voice said urgently. "Remember!"

The train…the voice…it belonged to Professor Lupin…He had to open his eyes there as well.

Harry remembered the train, the compartment…I'm there not here, I'm there not here…

"NO! This is the only reality! Our world! Your world!" The trees' hold on him became even tighter.

It's not real, it's not real, I'm there, not here…Suddenly, he felt himself jammed into a solid body, his eyes opened. Lupin and the compartment swam slowly back into view. He blinked.

"Are you all right?" asked Lupin worriedly.

"Yeah, I think so…What happened?" said Harry, perplexed.

"You tell me. Just what did you see?"

"Er-A guy." Harry's memory was quickly fading, his mind registering the events of the past few moments as an extremely odd dream.

"What was his name?" Lupin questioned. The boy was forgetting, and quickly. Dumbledore had warned him of this. He had to hurry.

"Nicholas Flamel," Harry replied, his voice calm and cold, betraying no emotion.

"Did he mention Necromancy?"

"Yes."

"Did he say when he'd see you again?"

"Tonight, in a dream."

Lupin shuddered inwardly. That wasn't Harry speaking. Harry didn't always remember dreams accurately; sometimes he forgot them, according to Sirius and Dumbledore. He had met Nicholas Flamel once, and while warm and friendly to his close friends and relations, he had a skin of ice that he could effectively pull around him to distance himself from others. That tone of voice, that flatness, he had only heard it once before: when Dumbledore had introduced the two men at a luncheon he had hosted.

"You're a Necromancer, then?"

"That's what he said. What's a Necromancer?"

Good, that's him again. He was about to forget, Flamel must have stepped in, and prodded his mind, or something like that. "Necromancers see dead people. Literally."

"But I had my eyes shut."

"You have the ability to channel with spirits in a world unattainable to the rest of us. You can also allow spirits to possess you, so that they can speak directly to the living without your intervention. Of course, that's a very personal decision because they'd be controlling your body, your mind, your actions."

He was interrupted as the door of their compartment opened and Hermione stepped in.

"Hello, Hermione!" said Lupin brightly, dropping the grim tone with which he had been speaking to Harry with.

"Professor Lupin!" exclaimed Hermione. "What a pleasant surprise! Hello, Harry…" she trailed off as she saw the puzzled intensity of the gaze that Harry was fixing Lupin with. "Am I intruding?" she asked hesitantly.

"No, not at all!" said Lupin smoothly, shooting a swift glance at Harry that effectively told him not to mention their conversation. "Harry, Hermione, I'm going up front to speak with the conductor, I'll be right back," he announced, exiting.

"Last time he said that, he owled Dumbledore. Have you been getting into trouble?"

"No, why ever would you think that?" said Harry dully.

"What were the two of you talking about?" she asked, perplexed, taking a seat next to him.

He sighed and looked at her. She was startled at the look in his eyes. The normally limpid emerald eyes were now blank, expressionless, hollow, empty. To her, he looked tired and slightly ill.

He looked so alone. She grasped his hand impulsively. It was colder than ice.

"Harry, your hand! It's so cold! Are you sick?"

"Not that I know of," he replied, abruptly withdrawing her hand from hers.

"You should go see Madam Pomfrey or something!"

"Why? I feel perfectly normal, and people would think I was a coward."

"Well, I wouldn't, and anyway, I'm more concerned about your health than your reputation."

Harry smiled. "That's good to know."

She leaned towards him, and he thought the look in her eyes was alarming: A longing for something more than friendship. He backed away as best he could. She draped one arm around his neck and leaned into him, her head on his chest, her other hand reaching below Harry's chest, between his legs…Harry realized what she was doing and was about to stand up and tell her off… Thankfully, someone knocked on the door.

"May I come in?" asked Lupin's voice from behind the door.

Hermione looked at Harry, disappointed. He was, in fact, much cuter than Ron. His body was proportionate, his eyes were a dream come true, his hair…Well, that could be fixed. His frame was still gaunt, however, Hermione suspected that he would shoot up rapidly over the next year. His growth spurt had to be coming, and paired with the Hogwarts diet, he would have a body any girl would admire. She absolutely HAD to hook him before the other girls got after him. However, he didn't seem remotely interested, and those eyes, she as certain, would be trained upon Cho Chang.

Ha! As if! She only goes for older guys, and they have to be cute, to boot! She thinks she's SO perfect! And that makeup! It's very well-applied, wonder how long it takes her? Well, with a face like THAT, I can't say I blame her! She'll never like him! So many other guys are after her already, besides, Harry has common sense! He'll want a girl with guts, a real Gryffindor, not some bookish Ravenclaw!

"Absolutely!" called Harry. Hermione hurriedly got back into her own seat. Lupin entered the compartment and closed the door behind him.

"I have to get back to the Prefects," said Hermione as she stood up. She left.

"She tried to TOUCH me!" said Harry, alarmed, as the door closed behind her.

To his surprise, Lupin laughed.

"With all due respect, Professor," Harry snapped, "I don't think it's very funny."

"You're now officially a teenager," he said, grinning. "I was wondering when she'd fall for you or Ron." Oops, wrong thing to say. "Tell me exactly what happened, I have to tell Sirius!" he said gleefully.

"She sat down next to me, and then she grabbed my hand, and started going on about how cold it was and how I should see Madam Pomfrey, then she leaned into me or something…her eyes were really scary, they didn't look like her at all, it was like they belonged to some crazed psycho…"

"She said your hand was cold? May I see?"

Harry held out his arm. Lupin touched the back of his wrist and shivered.

"You're a Necromancer, all right." Harry withdrew his arm. "So where were we in our discussion about Necromancy?"

"About how people can control me."

"Ah, yes. They can do things that you normally wouldn't want to do, especially if they're in there against your will. Necromancers are quite rare. The last one, as I'm sure you already know, was Flamel. He wasn't much good at it, though. He could only talk to Muggles, and that was if he was a mile away from the bodies. He came 500 years after Godric Gryffindor, so we weren't expecting another for 500 years after today…"

"I'm sorry, but this is getting seriously fucked up."

"WHAT!" said Lupin, in the closest thing he had ever emitted to a bellow.

Harry cringed. "Excuse the language?"

Lupin chuckled again. "How many times have people told you you're like your father?"

"Er, Sirius at the end of my third year, lots of people say I look like him…"

"Well you are. That meant that you have no clue what's going on, right?"

"Something like that."

"In that case, maybe I'd better leave it at that. Albus can probably explain better than I can."

"If you say so."

"You want me to tell you more?"

Harry shrugged.

"I'd suggest that you try and get some sleep. You could conceivably be up a very long time once you get into Dumbledore's office."

"Okay," said Harry agreeably, closing his eyes. He's here, and he probably knows about my dreams, he wouldn't tell me to do this if he thought it could hurt me…He thought uncertainly.

"I'll just go and check around a bit, talk to my old students, shall I?" said Remus, finding an excuse to leave Harry to his sleep. But there was no response. He smiled sadly to himself. The boy looked so innocent. But he was capable of so much….and if his resolve were not enough, if he succumbed to the darkness, then all was lost. To think that a boy who could decide the future of the world could look so defenseless, so prone, so…weak.

Damn, is that the end? Don't kill me, I'm SORRY it took so long! I had trouble portraying Lupin, and I was grounded, it took me a while and 4 hours of housecleaning (INCLUDING: Dusting, cleaning the floor with ammonia, washing every decoration we have, cleaning the chandelier, polishing the furniture, etc.) Thankfully, tonight my parents are out, and last night they had a party. If you people want some idea of how long it takes me to write a part, here's what I do before I post my part on ff.n, how I write it, etc. So if you get impatient, just think of how much work I'm doing for you:

  1. I have the whole series plotted in my head. I know whom I'm going to kill and what I'm going to do.
  2. I have a part in the middle all written up, waiting to be typed: THE FIRST POSSESION!!! My main problem is writing parts between 4 and whatever number I'll give that one. I have to write the parts in between, then I'll be able to give it a number.
  3. I sit thinking in a class where it's either too easy or too hard for me to comprehend (normally math, science, or art, but in art Mr. Weiss has been known to take papers and rip them up in front of the class. He did this with Henry's (EEW!) math homework, and he took a note from my friend and never gave it back, he took away my poetry journal but thankfully gave it back, but I think he read it, and he took an article I was writing for our school newspaper.) The idea comes to me.
  4. I pull out my X-Men folder where I store finished, typed, good original stories that I wrote for English (I intend to post The Silver Disk on ff.n eventually) and in progress fanfics (that I haven't typed up yet.) Of course, blank paper is in there too!
  5. I take a sheet of loose-leaf paper out, and I start to write really small on it. (I write 2 lines on each line, and I don't switch lines between speakers or have paragraphs or any type of normal formatting, but I do spell properly and write out the words.) I draw an imaginary line between each line, so that 1 line becomes two, and I write 2 lines on each one. This whole stuff about how small I write is irrelevant. Suffice it to say that this is very small and very neat and legible, although most people can't read it! (This prevents my friends from thinking that I am still an obsessed Harry Potter freak, and stops teachers from thinking I'm a perverted sicko when I torture Harry! Hehehe.)
  6. Once I have finished writing out the part on looseleaf (I write several, because I misplace them and start from where I left off, then I find the old ones, some I rip to shreds…etc.
  7. Finally, I finish all my homework, have done an hour of piano and half an hour of clarinet, and it's before 7:00 PM or a weekend. (Sometimes I get up from 5-:45 to eat breakfast, feed my cat, pack for school, make my bed, and get online by 6:30 so I can check my email, respond, and write some fic.) I type fic after I've written it out, because writing it out gives me something to work with once I've gotten a keyboard, and because it holds me over between sessions on the computer, which I don't get as frequently as I would like. I could conceivably type my fanfiction at school and home because I'm in the Technology TA so I get anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour at school to use the computer for whatever I want except IM or email. Someone tell me how to format a floppy disk on a PC and if PC Office 2000 files are compatible with Macs equipped with the program, and I will. You'd seriously help me crank out these installments, so if you have any suggestions on floppies, IM or email me ASAP and I'll try to take your advice!!!
  8. After I've gotten it all typed up, with minor and major (sometimes I don't like the way it's going, so I change the flow completely) I fire it off to my wonderful beta readers:

· Rufus

· Quillow

· Metal Mouth

You guys (oops, gals, all of ya!) rock.

Teresa, you've helped me immensely on plot development, you know exactly what I'm going to do, sorry I didn't respond to your email, looking forward to seeing more of your Ginny fic. (Go Anita Fleming! I just HAD to be a Muggle, though, right? J/K, thanks for the namesake!) Your one about James and Lily was TOO funny. I think that you and Quillow are the 2 people who know my entire story line. I began to relate it to Lexis who had the misfortune of reading this story at Abbie's…I'm not sure she understood.

Really, Lexis, I don't blame you for not liking it, if anyone else was writing this other than me, I probably wouldn't care much for it either, especially the second part. You have a strong stomach, I commend you. ("What's her name and I are going to be mates!" LOL, LOL!!! "We're going to go make baby bats!!! ROTFLMAO!!! Little joke there, sorry.)

Rufus, I can't wait for the next part of yours, you know I love it, and so do lots of other people! (I still get to beta you, right?) And do you know who won the Manchester v. Newcastle match? I watched about a minute of that, but I didn't finish my math in time to go watch the rest. (That and it slipped my mind.) Quillow, yes, I love your fic too, you know that! You didn't email me the 5 ideas L j/k. I can wait, as you said, college is important! Good luck with all the projects, I LOVED your English, and your Neo-Nazi paper seemed quite well informed. The newspaper dates threw me off a bit, though, and the part about the guy who got smashed into the glass door having bled to death in 2005 minutes seemed a bit out of whack. (Did you mean 25 minutes?) In some parts it sounded like Hitler did all this stuff in the 90's, and that can't be right, can it? Pyramus and Thisbe was outstanding! It was so good! You'd better have got an A!

Note to the beta people: This part, I'm sending to all of you, but I'll decide who to send it to based on the response time. Does that work for you? I'll send the next part to whoever replies first for this one, the second to whoever responds second, third part to the third, etc. Everyone will (hopefully) get to read the fic equally and you'll still have to go to ff.n to read the parts you didn't beta! (If you changed your mind about beta-ing me, just write back saying that. I understand. And tell me if you don't like any scenes I have. Grammar and spelling edits are good too. Love ya all!)

~_^ Thanks is you read this far!

Coqui the Mighty Frog

Oh yeah, and it all belongs to JKR and WB, you know the rest.