Title: Forgetting Innocence (5/6)
Author: Fabs G.
Summary: Sequel to Faking Innocence. Harry & friends happily return to Hogwarts after the Christmas holidays, not knowing that Voldemort already has a plan between his hands.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: slight Sirius/Remus. Hints of Ron/Hermione but not until the last chapter.
Warnings: Contains very mild slash (just some kisses, people!)
Disclaimer: Lovely Joanne owns nearly everything here! All I own here is the plot, Professor Fengel and Methilda Shotclear
A/N: Sorry it took me so long to post!! The end of chapter 4 caught me starting uni again, and as I broke my leg, I'm in a wheelchair. It's not easy. But here is chapter 5. Sorry again!
A/N2: There's a part where Harry has to measure a liquid. I have no idea how you nice people in the UK measure liquids, so I used litres, which I'm familiar with.
Enjoy! Review!
------------------------------ CHAPTER 5: The Dark LordA week had passed since Hermione had discovered him in the Forbidden section. Harry looked outside the window and to the sky, where the crescent moon was still high outside and the stars still shone brightly. It was well before dawn, but Harry needed the time until breakfast to check on his potion, brewing in a lost secret room in the castle. Harry got up from his bed and dressed silently, putting all his care in not waking Ron, Dean, Neville or Seamus.
Ron, however, was already up.
"Where are you going?" he whispered just as Harry had grabbed his bag.
Harry spun around, completely oblivious of Ron sitting at the edge of his bed. "I- I can't sleep anymore" he tried. Hopefully, Ron would believe him.
"I'll come with you"
"NO!" he said in a loud voice before stopping himself. He looked around, hoping against all hope the other three boys would still be asleep. Different ranges of snores confirmed it, "No, you stay. Try to sleep. I've been up for hours"
"You think I'm stupid, Harry?" Before Harry could say anything Ron grabbed Harry by his elbow and steered him down to the common room. While Harry slumped into one of the armchairs and felt very much like a murderer in trial, Ron simply stood before him. "You think I'm stupid?"
"Ron, what-?"
"I know what you're doing, Harry!"
"Why does Hermione have to tell everyone?" said Harry, more to himself than to Ron.
"Because she's worried. Besides, I saw you in the Forbidden Section with the Marauder's map. She only filled in the blanks"
"You of all people should know what I'm feeling Ron" Harry could feel the anger flowing again through his body. He seemed to be getting angry easily lately.
"What are you talking about?"
"When Voldemort took Ginny. In our second year. You of all people should know how it is to have someone in your family kidnapped and have no idea if they're dead or alive"
"This is different Harry" said Ron with a voice that let through just how much it was taking him to keep control of himself.
"No it isn't!"
"Yes it is!" Ron finally exploded "I didn't use a Dark Arts spell. I didn't even rescue my sister, you did! The people's hero!"
Harry scoffed exasperated "Oh no. Oh is that what all this is about?" Ron didn't answer. He merely crossed his arms and stared at Harry, as angry as Harry had seen him only once. In their fourth year, when he had been chosen the fourth Triwizard champion.
He stood up and grabbed his bag tighter. "Today or tomorrow I'm going to get Remus from Voldemort's hands. Who knows, you might get lucky and your professor might return all alone. Then you'll have no one to be jealous of" he pushed the portrait of the fat lady open and left a very troubled Ron behind.
Harry tiptoed silently towards the end of the fifth floor corridor. He checked the map again, assuring no one was near and stood before a coat of armor. He opened the visor, put his hand inside and emerged with a large silver key chain. From the end of it, a mini wand hanged sparkling slightly. He inserted the mini wand in a tiny hole in the wall behind the coat of armor. The wall slide sideways and let Harry squeeze thorough it into an extremely small room he found by pure chance once when he had been under the invisibility cloak and with the map in his hands.
He lighted the candles with his wand, threw the invisibility cloak, the map and his bag into a chair and concentrated on a large cauldron bubbling in the middle of the room.
He checked again the page he had nicked from the book in the Forbidden section.
Instant Location PotionTry this when you want to locate someone. It works better if you want to locate a possible victim of murder, but it works for people you care about too.
You will need: Textual words that had once been said by the person to be located (To be said to the potion just before adding the ingredients)
Three Doxy teeth
Ten Billywig Stings
¼ litre Dragon blood
Powdered root of Asphodel
Wormwood powder
Your own blood
Add at your blood at the very last, after boiling and right before taking the potion
Harry had had a hard time finding all by himself some of those things. The words from "the person to be locate" had been an easy one: all he had done was read a passage from Hairy Snout, Human heart. Dragon blood had been easy too, they had studied it thousand of times in potions. Asphodel and wormwood too, but the Doxy teeth had proven a challenge. He had gotten it just in time and in order not to lose the time of brewing, he had had to come to the cauldron and add them in the dead of the night.
He looked into the cauldron once again and relieved, saw it had turned into a nice shade of dark green, with black bubbles exploding in its surface every now and then.
Trembling slightly, he realized that all what was left for the potion to work was his blood. He could go get Remus as soon as the next minute.
Not doubting once, he took a knife from his robes- and left it behind, going back to his bag to grab two vials of a yellow liquid- Portkey Potion. As he had no idea where he was going to end up- or if was going to end up somewhere at all- he thought a portkey would come quite useful to the time of leaving- if he had the chance to leave at all, he reminded himself. He pocketed the Portkey Potion together with his wand.
He returned to the cauldron, took the knife again and made a slight cut in his left arm, careful to make all the blood drop inside the bubbling liquid. As he bandaged his arm, the dark green liquid turned purple and then red with a series of sparks. Minutes later, it returned to the same shade of green again. He reached into his bag again and took a goblet out of it, filling it with the nasty-smelling liquid.
He took a sip of it- absolutely disgusting. He finish the goblet and just when he thought it hadn't worked, he felt as thought someone was pulling him forward. He tried to walk backwards, not wanting to crash on the cauldron in front of him, but realized that he wasn't in the room anymore. He wasn't even at Hogwarts.
The potion seemed to have worked, after all.
Everything in front of him was a confused blur, but he was still able to distinguish places. He saw Hogsmeade rush past him. It was as though watching a speeded up film of someone walking very fast.
After about half an hour, clutching the wand in his pocket tightly, he felt himself bump headlong with something and fell to the ground. He looked up- he was in the hallway of a very large house, and had fallen right in front of a door. He got up from the floor, checked that the Portkey vials weren't broken, and looked around, hoping no one had seen him.
Had the potion worked or was he just stranded somewhere all alone? This house looked as abandoned as a house could look- cobwebs, dust, even blood. He looked at the door in front of him- if the potion had worked, then Remus should be somewhere near- maybe behind this door. He reached for the handle- and jumped backwards when a moan came from inside the room.
"Remus?" he whispered
Silence. Then…
"Harry?" called in a whisper Remus' voice from inside.
Harry opened the door magically with the Alohomora charm, locked it behind him and looked into the room- it was absolutely dark. He took his wand from his pocket and waved it around, lighting a few candles.
The sight that met his eyes was one he would never forget. Remus was curled up in a ball in one corner of the room. His robes, torn in several places, were heavily bloodstained and his face and arms had so many bruises purple seemed to be the main color of his skin. He had a long bleeding gash across his arm, which he was covering with one of the ripped sleeves of his robe. His hands were tied and were cutting through his wrists, bleeding slightly.
Harry run to him, kneeling down besides him and cut the ropes of his hands. Before any other thought crossed their minds, both hugged as though they were father and son. Harry took his wand and performed a simple clotting spell on his several cuts.
"Harry, you should be here! What are you doing here? How did you find me?"
"You don't want to know"
"Harry…"
"We can talk about this later, alright?" he left his wand on the ground and took an empty inkbottle from his pocket. He placed it on the ground. He reached into his other pocket and took one of the vials of Portkey Potion, dropping the liquid on the ink bottle while he said 'Hogwarts!'
They both reached their hands to touch the inkbottle but just in that moment, the door of the room burst open and Peter Pettigrew entered, wand in hand.
"Accio Inkbottle!" he said, and the inkbottle soared past Harry, crashing against the wall besides Pettigrew.
"Peter please!" started Remus, but it was no use.
"Expelliarmus!" and Harry's wand flew from his hand just as he had taken a hold of it. Pettigrew caught it before it crashed like the inkbottle. "The Dark Lord wants to see you, Potter. Walk. Both of you" He pointed his wand at them and, having no option, they walked in front of Pettigrew.
Pettigrew did not look into Remus' eyes once.
He steered them downstairs, along a long corridor and finally into a very large room. Fire crept in a fireplace, and an armchair was placed in front of it. There were a few scattered sofas and chairs around.
Pettigrew pushed them inside the room and retreated to a corner. Harry's wand still hung limply from one of his hands.
"Welcome, Harry Potter" said a cold voice. A tall thin figure rose from the armchair, its red eyes unmistakable. Lord Voldemort. "How noble to come to the rescue of the werewolf. I didn't think you'd have the courage enough to face me voluntarily after our small… encounter last year but oh my… I was wrong"
"You bastard" said Harry "If you want me why don't you get me instead of others?"
"Harry, no!" whispered Remus.
"If you say so…" said the cold voice of Voldemort "Crucio!" Harry fell to the ground, writhing in pain from the unforgivable curse.
"No! Stop!" yelled Remus, knowing it was no use "Peter please!" he looked at his former friend, quivering in the corner and avoiding looking at either Remus or Harry, still screaming from the pain. "I don't believe you!" he said, anger flowing through him "We used to be friends! I know you feel guilty! I know you miss stuff!"
"Wormtail, be nice and kill the werewolf. You right silver hand will do." said Voldemort, still torturing Harry.
Remus got a step closer to Pettigrew. He was in perfect reach of his hand, but he had to convince Peter. "Peter, listen to me! I know you can't change what you did to James, but do something for him and let me save his son! Give me Harry's wand!"
Voldemort, tired of Remus' incessant shouting and of Pettigrew's disobedience, redirected his wand from Harry to Remus. Harry crawled on the floor shouting not from pain but desperation. Remus was not paying attention to Voldemort, who was raising his wand and pointing at Remus. Harry shouted, knowing he was about to watch another death at the hands of Voldemort. And this time it wasn't someone he fairly knew. It was someone he knew too much. Someone that would hurt.
Remus hadn't given up. "I heard you when you called the Wolfsbane 'killjoy' I know you fear us, but also miss us! Hand me Harry's wand! Wormtail!" he hissed. The sound of Peter's old nickname coming from Remus' lips and not Voldemort's seemed to make all the difference in the world for Pettigrew. Still trembling violently, he stretched his hand, looking at Remus in the eyes for the very first time in years and he tossed him Harry's wand. He then kneeled down, curling up into a very small ball in the corner, watching the scene with his watery eyes, knowing exactly who he wanted to die and who he wanted to live.
Remus whirled around and saw Voldemort pointing his wand at him. Both voices shouted the same curse with the same hatred.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Not aware of the particular effect it had when Voldemort and Harry's wand dueled against each other, Remus opened his eyes as wide as plates when he saw that the two wands connected.
"Don't break the connection!" shouted Harry, scrambling to his feet "Don't break the connection! Mum and dad are coming!"
Remus looked at Harry, who was now by his side, as though he had gone mad. He was probably going to ask something but the shadowy figures of Cedric Diggory, Bertha Jorkins and Frank Bryce, the Riddle's gardener, emerged for the wand. Cedric smiled at Harry. They retreated, getting closer to Voldemort and looking at him straight in his red eyes. Voldemort, although he was now aware of their shadows, still looked afraid of them.
Another shadow emerged from Voldemort's wand. This time it was a redhead and Lily Potter fell to the ground. Harry looked at Remus, eyes watering heavily and shaking from head to foot. Harry clutched Remus' hand, keeping the wands connected.
"Lily" he whispered.
Lily Potter barely had time to smile back when James emerged from Voldemort's wand. Harry's parents smiled at both Remus and Harry.
"Hello Moony" said James to a very amazed Remus. "Hi Harry" his eyes darted to Peter for a second, but they didn't recognize any particular expression.
"You take care of my boy, okay Remus?" said Lily, as though they were alive and going on a long trip and not dead and in front of Lord Voldemort.
"James… Lily" Remus had a million things to say to them. He wanted to say how much he missed them, how he was sorry he hadn't been of help to prevent their deaths, how he was sorry he hadn't spotted Peter before, but words failed him completely. "I- I didn't-"
James only smiled widely "You don't need his wand to be with us. Use the portkey, Harry"
Only now Harry realized he still had a vial of Portkey left in his pocket. He made sure Remus kept the connection alive and run to one of the fallen chairs around, picking it up and smashing it against the wall, where it broke to pieces.
Behind Harry, more victims kept emerging from Voldemort's wand but they hardly paid any attention to Harry or Remus.
Harry grabbed a long piece of wood that had once been a leg and run back to Remus side, placing the wood on the floor.
"Break the connection Moony! And tell Sirius to stop blaming himself or I'll start haunting him!"
He saw him wave goodbye to his friend as he took the vial of portkey potion and dropped it over the wood, saying 'Hogwarts!'. The last they saw as they grabbed the portkey to Hogwarts was James, Lily and Cedric closing in on Voldemort, followed by dozens of other victims surrounding him completely, all of them smiling widely in the most perverse of ways.