Author's note:

Reuploaded chapter 7 Oct, to fix -- I hope -- formatting problems.

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Heart of Glass - 2

It was a sight that Hogwarts had never before seen -- a seething Harry Potter. "That's not the point -- I understand why it happened. The explosion you set off somehow destroyed them, too."

Dumbledore sighed. "So we think. We're only guessing, but we think that..."

"It had something to do with you blowing up the storeroom so no one would find the potions that Snape had brewed for Voldemort," Harry said. He met Dumbledore's gaze evenly. "I was in there quite a while. I recognized his handwriting, you know."

Dumbledore returned the gaze somberly. The only sound was the rustle of Fawke's feathers as he preened.

Harry threw himself into a wing chair and stared out the window, unsure of what to say -- what to demand.

The beginning of term had been full of tension and fear as the news spread that several Death Eaters had died, screaming to the end, on the day that Harry had been kidnapped. At the start of term Harry learned, to his dismay, that word raced through the wizarding community that harming Harry was hazardous to one's health. Even the members of his own house -- especially the newest ones -- were regarding him with awe-tinged fear.

What made it worse was that Harry hadn't done it. Whatever had caused several of Voldemort's supporters to die violent, painful deaths, it wasn't him. And no one had bothered to tell him. He glared out the window at the wind-tossed branches waving in the stiff fall breeze. The sun glinted off the lake and a group of first years looked to be enjoying their flying lessons, their robes whipping around them, making them look like giant leaves being blown across the sky.

"You mustn't think yourself responsible." Dumbledore said. "The actions were mine and mine alone."'

"But I *don't* think myself responsible. I didn't ask to be kidnapped, and I know lucky I was to escape. What I don't understand is why you never *told* me. Why you let me find out..." Harry paused, remembering.

The first night dinner had been awful, with an oddly quiet Slytherin table; its occupants defiantly glaring back at the furtive glances cast their way. Vincent Crabbe -- whose father had been among those who had exploded -- looked as if he'd shrunk two sizes, while Goyle was making the most of his mass and hovering near his friend protectively. Draco was quiet; watchful. The newest Slytherins were huddled near Snape, who looked poised to extend his cape, batlike, around their shoulders.

And whispers had echoed around him. "They said they all just screamed. Screamed as if their whole body had been lit on fire and then just... died. Or blew up."

Dumbledore's voice brought him back to the present. "We've done some investigating since then and it seems likely that, to ensure loyalty, Voldemort tied his minion's lives to objects that were then destroyed."

"And so your efforts to protect Snape, essentially, killed them," Harry finished flatly. The expression on Dumbledore's face took on a forbidding aspect. "You were trying to destroy the potions he'd brewed for Voldemort before the Ministry found them, weren't you?"

"Harry, there are things you don't understand, things that..."

"You won't tell me."

"I'm sorry, Harry."

"That's all right, sir." Harry said sarcastically. "I'm sure I'll find some things not to tell you about, too."

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Harry returned to Griffindor, avoiding the common room where Ron and Hermione sat together studying, their knees touching. Instead he quietly went up to his rooms and retrieved the object he'd guiltily been keeping a secret from everyone ever since the day he was kidnapped. Holding the crystal to his chest, he crawled into bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.

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Harry wrenched violently away from the hand clamped down on his shoulder. He thrust himself up to find himself sitting in the middle of his bed,the center of wide-eyed concern for the fifth night that week. His dreams had been dreadful; a kaleidoscope of images that only served to show him how lucky, all-in-all, he had been in his encounters with Voldemort.

"You've got to see Pomfrey, Harry," Ron insisted. His friend grinned halfheartedly. "No need for us all to suffer, right?" He nudged Harry with his elbow.

Harry tried to smile back. "Friends share, right?" But he met Ron's eyes seriously and gave his friend the reassurance he'd been seeking ever since the first time he'd scared his roommates awake in the early hours of the morning: "I'm not dreaming about what happened to me over the summer. Your father helped rescue me -- it really wasn't all that bad."

"But something's going on. Even after..."

"Cedric." Harry nodded shortly.

"It wasn't this bad," Ron continued. "Maybe it's, dunno, cumulative. Or maybe..." Ron's eyes flickered up to rest on Harry's scar. Harry's hand rose unconsciously to cover it.

"It's nothing to do with Voldemort. At least... It's nothing that he's doing to me. My scar hasn't been hurting."

"Well, that's a relief. But still. Promise me you'll see Pomfrey, at least?"

Harry nodded. "All right."

But the potion Pomfrey gave him only lent distance to the dreams. The terror abated, but the horrors that unfolded before his eyes did not. And even then, it was weeks before he realized he wasn't playing the starring role.

It wasn't until midway through term that he finally figured it out.

He'd taken to sneaking back to his room after lunch when most of the other seventh years took the opportunity to spend their time outdoors, in the section of the garden reserved for them. Initially Ron had followed him, still anxious about the nightmares that continued unabated. But Harry had convinced his friend that he was simply going for a nap -- a nap as much meant to enable him to stay awake during Divinations as to compensate for the sleep he'd lost during the night.

But what he actually did was carefully unwrap the crystal from the protective covering he'd devised for it and hold it against his chest as he stared vacantly up at the ceiling. Sometimes it felt as if the crystal was confiding him; sometimes as if he was getting a preview of nightmares to come. And sometimes it felt as if it was just another weary soul grateful for anything that would give it the strength to get it through the rest of the day.

The crystal also reminded Harry how to play a part, to keep his head up and act as if nothing was bothering him even as the news of what was happening became more and more grim. He sat at the Order of Phoenix meetings and watched the faces of Dumbledore's trusted inner circle and found the fortitude not to react as Voldemort advanced on them -- sometimes nibbling away at their defenses, and other times unleashing the sort of destruction that seemed to inspire Fudge to new heights in his attempts to convince a more and more unbelieving public that Voldemort was not a threat.

Harry stroked the ball again, yawned, and realized that, again, time had passed much more quickly than he had thought. Sitting up, he began the ritual had begun the first time he realized that he'd likely break the... whatever-it-was... if he carried it in his robes while he played Quidditch. He'd tried to bring it with him during the day, but became too afraid that Hermione's eagle eyes would notice the discernible lump he carried underneath his robes.

Initially Harry had set it in his trunk, in a nest of old clothes. But somehow leaving it lying in Dudley's hated cast-off seemed wrong. So he'd stolen a box from a care package sent to Ron by his mother and wadded tissue paper. Unearthing an empty box from his trunk, he wadded the paper under, around, and over it, then carefully placed the lid.

From then on, it became a matter of getting different, softer, stronger protection as cushioning . He'd sacrificed a pillow for the feathers within, and that had given him another idea. Owl feathers? There were plenty in the owlery -- he could cast a cleansing spell on them. From there it went to collecting down, and from collecting owl down to casting speculative looks at Fawkes.

That was when he thought he'd finally gone too far. For the brilliance of the phoenix feathers made the crystal seem dark and unhealthy, as if the crystal was shrinking in on itself.

Harry picked up the crystal and examined it and realized it wasn't his imagination -- it *was* smaller. And then, with clarity that sent Harry tumbling to the floor he had a vision of a werewolf stalking him, poised to spring, and then a hand yanking him back and throwing him to the grass. He looked up into the concerned eyes of... his father...

Harry sat up, gasping, and looked wildly around the room. He'd been stalked by werewolves in his dreams before, but this clarity showed that they were only faint echoes of a true terror. And now Harry knew to whom that terror truly belonged.

He stared at the crystal in dismay.

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