A/N Well, it's later than expected but at least it's here relatively early.
I'd like to point out that not all of my chapters will be as reflective as
the last, as you'll hopefully see from this chapter. The next one however
does have a lot of that kind of writing. It's hard to slog through but it's
necessary to further the plot. Just sit tight and look forward to the VERY
important and exciting Quidditch match that's coming in chapter 19!
Enjoy..!
Chapter 17
Only the disbelief registered through the haze of shock that now cloaked Harry's mind. *Hogwarts.this is Hogwarts*
And the dream faded.
* * *
Even hours later, surrounded by the cheery lights of the Great Hall and waiting with his friends for the return of the students after the New Year, Harry still couldn't shake the feeling of unease that had settled firmly upon his mind the second he had realised what the ruin had been.
It wasn't the fact that Hogwarts had been ruined that troubled him, although that thought was more than disturbing in its own right. It was how real the dream had seemed. All of his Voldemort-induced dreams thus far had appeared surreal; the colours had been too bright or too drab, the scale too large. The simplicity of the image he had been confronted with in the dream frightened him, for if it hadn't been stimulated by Voldemort, the dream must have been real. There was no way he could have dreamt something of that clarity without there being a particularly nasty twist.
So the only question that remained was the most important and it was the one that had kept him up for the remainder of the night, long after Sirius had succumbed to sleep, long past the first signs of dawn had infiltrated the inky blackness of the night sky. It was the one that, even now, caused him to shudder with foreboding terror.
If the dream had been real, there were only two possibilities and they both pressed the same question.
Had the dream been of Hogwarts' past..or of its future?
* * *
Harry glanced apprehensively at the stage and then back at Ron. "Remind me again," he hissed to his red-haired friend who was looking around, equally terrified. "Why am I here?"
Ron stole a surreptitious glance at the stage before turning to Harry, mouth open and ready to say something, when Hermione turned around in a whirlwind of bushy brown hair with a decidedly disagreeable expression.
"Because it'll help you!" she whispered furiously at Ron. "Especially *you!*, she added, turning her glare on Harry who shrank back with fear at the unexpected onset.
With that, she turned back to the lecture they were receiving from Sirius and 'Mad Eye' Moody. *They* involved the entirety of the Gryffindor fourth, fifth and sixth years who were, not surprisingly, glaring daggers at the Slytherin fourth, fifth and sixth years currently glowering at them from across the room.
The aforementioned lecture involved an awful lot of wand waving as far as Harry could see and not a lot else. He was severely reminded of the second year duelling club and Lockhart's attempt at a block with a wand.
Still, it was fun to watch the emotions on faces change from excitement or perhaps fear, to utter terror whenever Sirius' roving wand stopped and pointed at an unsuspecting body. The morning when Sirius had been announced as assistant in the Duelling Club and substitute teacher for Hagrid's now frequent absences, still remained firmly imprinted in Harry's mind. A smirk found its way onto his face as he remembered the expressions of his classmates. Neville's in particular had been predominantly amusing.
The smile on his face, however, was promptly wiped off as Sirius' wand came to an abrupt halt when aimed at his head. Harry frantically tried to recall what the two teachers had just been saying, wishing heartily that he had been listening. His mind came up with something vague involving a demonstration of some sort. He came to the conclusion that Moody wanted to test him; Sirius just wanted to attack him for the hell of it. Perfect! Just his luck. This had to be some sort of joke.
However, Moody's wand that was now directed at his head too, supplied another story. Harry cursed abruptly and dived to the floor as a sizzling spell shot right through the place where his head had been a millisecond before. Suddenly, Ron burst into laughter above him. *Tickling charm* his mind supplied him.
Harry looked up from his position crouching on the floor in time to see Moody fire another spell at him. He dodged as best he could, crouched as he was on the floor, but the spell caught the edge of his robes as it zipped past, singeing them in the process. The fiery orange jet of light crashed into the floor, leaving a smoking trail in its wake. Harry could hear the gasps of the crowd. He cursed again, and leapt into the sea of legs surrounding him.
There was a brief moment of confusion amongst the crowd as they simultaneously tried to locate Harry and get out of his way. Harry leapt up again a few metres away and looked around like a startled deer.
Sirius had just spotted him and was pushing his way through the throng of students. Moody's magical eye could apparently see through human flesh as well as just about anything, as he was already advancing steadily, his wooden leg clunking ominously.
The excited whispering of the students infuriated Harry and he dearly wished he could strangle a couple of them, especially the Slytherins who were at the other end of the room pointing and laughing at his ungainly tactics. Malfoy wore a smirk that just begged for Harry to chop him into tiny little pieces. Right now, Harry was more than happy to oblige.
His attention was distracted from Malfoy momentarily as another spell began winging its way from Sirius' wand towards him.
Harry glared at Sirius. *Why is it always me?*
The spell glanced off the wall beside him and Harry did a mini victory dance, hypothetically speaking of course. He threw an impish grin at Sirius who scowled back. Out of his peripheral vision, Harry saw Moody line up for another shot and he instinctively swivelled to face it.
As the spell began to emerge, Harry was suddenly certain he knew what it was. How he knew, he couldn't have said.
And as it began its track towards him, Harry became unexpectedly aware of an imminent threat from somewhere else. His body jolted and turned away from Moody's oncoming spell. The whispering around him increased exponentially as the students stared in shock as Harry completely ignored Moody's spell.
There was a sudden strident shriek and the atmosphere of the room thickened tangibly. A huge mass of black energy abruptly burst into life above the Slytherins' heads and pulsed briefly before shooting straight for Harry.
Harry was ready and waiting for it. He shifted his body weight onto the balls of his feet ready to dodge if he needed to, when a tingling sensation started in his fingertips, gradually spreading outwards until his entire body was brimming with magic.
Time slowed.
He regarded the spell shooting towards him, still aware of the first that had still not yet reached its target and was now dangerously close. He had to avoid both spells; if Moody's incapacitated him, the second would kill him.
Harry suddenly felt very sleepy and something slid swiftly across his mind. When his head cleared, he opened his eyes and looked around. He got the distinct impression that, whatever it was looking out of his eyes, it wasn't him.
* * *
Sirius gave a brief frown as the atmosphere in the room shifted minutely from the tension caused by a good duel to the thick dark danger that preceded a deadly curse. He glanced incredulously at Moody. Sure, Harry was pissing him off too, but that was no reason to warrant *this!*
A closer look at Moody's countenance, however, and he knew it wasn't the ex- auror's spell. There was a high shriek that echoed loudly around the Hall. Everyone in the room shuddered at the sound. Except, Sirius noticed, Harry, who had just whipped around to face the Slytherins, intent on the area above their heads.
Sirius' eyes widened as a spell, black as the dead of night, materialised in the air and shot straight for his godson.
He groaned inwardly. *Not again!*
Sirius watched in what seemed to be slow motion as Harry stood his ground, unflinching, as the spell travelled at him. Sirius forgot to breathe as his godson suddenly wavered and his eyes shut.
*No!*
Abruptly, Harry's body snapped upright and his eyes watched the spell from beneath their lids. His entire demeanour was somehow changed.
But Sirius wasn't thinking about that right now. His mind was still on the bit where Harry had opened his eyes.
*Gold?*
* * *
Harry rolled over from where he had been sprawled on the floor. He sat up and looked around. And blinked. *What the.?*
Harry knew he wasn't always particularly observant but he thought he would have noticed before if Neville had been swinging from the ceiling. More to the point, he was pretty sure he would have noticed the rather large hole in the opposite wall.
He frowned heavily; he didn't like the feel of this. It was the sort of feeling that generally preceded the discovery of some great mystery in his earlier adventures. Harry blinked dust from his eyes and wiped his glasses on the front of his robes, glancing around for Sirius.
He located his godfather several metres away, extricating himself from a turned table-top. He opened his mouth to ask one of the multitude of questions already formed in his mind but was cut off as a sharp shot of pain raced up his spine. He let out a hoarse shriek and collapsed to the floor in a limp pile. He shut his eyes tightly, willing the burning pain to disappear. Gradually, slowly but surely, it lessened enough to be bearable, joining the continuous throbbing of his scar in the background.
Letting out a deep sigh, he resigned himself to his fate and cracked first one, then the other eye open.
He almost died of shock when he was presented with a concerned face right in front of him.
Sirius' eyes widened in shock as Harry shrank back but a second later, he gripped Harry tightly and studied him intently. Finally, he broke into a smile and pulled the teenager up into a fierce hug. "Green," he whispered nonsensically. "You're back."
Harry's eyebrows disappeared up into his hair as Sirius continued to murmur to him. Looking around, he saw that almost every person in the room was regarding him with a mixture of fear and awe.except for Neville whose features expressed sheer terror, but that didn't count, seeing as he was still hanging from the ceiling.
He frowned. Something had happened, something *big* that he'd done. Big enough to blast a hole in the wall, overturn several tables and propel Neville to the ceiling. And if the clock hanging crooked from the wall above him was still to be trusted, it had all happened in a matter of minutes, if that.
He swallowed and poked Sirius. Sirius' shaggy head lifted, blinking at him in surprise. "What happened?" he asked softly. There was a collective sharp intake of breath as Harry's words hung in the silence. Sirius looked worried.
"You don't remember?"
Harry shook his head slowly, wondering why everyone was casting each other shifty looks. Sirius took a deep breath.
"You.your eyes," he began, then faltered before picking up the thread and starting again. "It shot straight at you and you.your eyes they.".Words failed again. Silence reigned until Moody clunked his way towards the pair and finished what Sirius had started to say.
"Your eyes, son. They turned gold."
Harry stared, and stared, then finally blinked. Gold? This had to be some sort of a joke. Surely.
He looked up at Moody, silently urging him to continue. He was relatively sure that a simple change in eyes colour would not have caused Sirius to hide under a table or Neville to leap to a candelabrum in fear.
Moody's magical eye twitched and swept over Harry and around the room, pausing briefly on Neville before widening, then performing a quick charm to return the boy safely to earth. He turned back to Harry.
"I don't know," he admitted quietly.
At this point, several of the students snapped out of their trances and started talking excitedly amongst themselves. Harry dearly wished they would shut up; he still didn't know anything useful. Above the babble, he distinctly heard Tony's voice. "Bloody cool! D'ya think he'd do it again if I asked?"
Sirius exploded. "HE WILL DO NOTHING OF THE SORT!" he bellowed, and the room abruptly hushed. He forced himself to calm before continuing. "Do you have any idea how dangerous what has just happened was? Any one of you in this room, *including Harry and myself* could have been killed."
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught a glimpse of Malfoy smirking. That little ferret! What was he gloating about now?
"I'd like to know exactly what it was I did," he gently reminded. All eyes in the room swivelled to him before moving onto Moody who sighed and started speaking again.
"I've only ever seen anything like it once before. That was many years ago and in entirely different circumstances," he paused uncertainly, before plunging ahead.
A friend of mine summoned a demon from beyond our realm which later killed her. I don't know exactly what it was you did but you summoned something, or else it came to you unbidden. It wasn't a Dark creature, of that, at least, I am sure. But whatever it was, it was large and dangerous. And destructive." His eye travelled swiftly around the room, noting rumpled clothes, singed hair, not to mention the tables and the hole.
Harry stared uncomprehendingly at Moody. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be true.
But it was and it was only another worry to add to his already over-flowing list.
And suddenly, with a sick feeling, he realised what it was Malfoy had been grinning inanely for.
There was now the very high likelihood of expulsion.
Tbc.
A/N Well, there it is. Sorry for the slight delay. Chapter 18 should be up soon.
Thanks go to:
Bob
butterflygirl
ER
Elie
Irish rose
Nuts
Ashie- how's the letter coming along?
Lome_Roquen
Eriolgurl
jona- Auriellis is due for an update? Wow.I'm getting all light-headed!
Storyspindler-I'm still reading your fic. It's on my favourites but I haven't got round to reviewing yet.(sheepish grin)
Kat
Acy
Chapter 17
Only the disbelief registered through the haze of shock that now cloaked Harry's mind. *Hogwarts.this is Hogwarts*
And the dream faded.
* * *
Even hours later, surrounded by the cheery lights of the Great Hall and waiting with his friends for the return of the students after the New Year, Harry still couldn't shake the feeling of unease that had settled firmly upon his mind the second he had realised what the ruin had been.
It wasn't the fact that Hogwarts had been ruined that troubled him, although that thought was more than disturbing in its own right. It was how real the dream had seemed. All of his Voldemort-induced dreams thus far had appeared surreal; the colours had been too bright or too drab, the scale too large. The simplicity of the image he had been confronted with in the dream frightened him, for if it hadn't been stimulated by Voldemort, the dream must have been real. There was no way he could have dreamt something of that clarity without there being a particularly nasty twist.
So the only question that remained was the most important and it was the one that had kept him up for the remainder of the night, long after Sirius had succumbed to sleep, long past the first signs of dawn had infiltrated the inky blackness of the night sky. It was the one that, even now, caused him to shudder with foreboding terror.
If the dream had been real, there were only two possibilities and they both pressed the same question.
Had the dream been of Hogwarts' past..or of its future?
* * *
Harry glanced apprehensively at the stage and then back at Ron. "Remind me again," he hissed to his red-haired friend who was looking around, equally terrified. "Why am I here?"
Ron stole a surreptitious glance at the stage before turning to Harry, mouth open and ready to say something, when Hermione turned around in a whirlwind of bushy brown hair with a decidedly disagreeable expression.
"Because it'll help you!" she whispered furiously at Ron. "Especially *you!*, she added, turning her glare on Harry who shrank back with fear at the unexpected onset.
With that, she turned back to the lecture they were receiving from Sirius and 'Mad Eye' Moody. *They* involved the entirety of the Gryffindor fourth, fifth and sixth years who were, not surprisingly, glaring daggers at the Slytherin fourth, fifth and sixth years currently glowering at them from across the room.
The aforementioned lecture involved an awful lot of wand waving as far as Harry could see and not a lot else. He was severely reminded of the second year duelling club and Lockhart's attempt at a block with a wand.
Still, it was fun to watch the emotions on faces change from excitement or perhaps fear, to utter terror whenever Sirius' roving wand stopped and pointed at an unsuspecting body. The morning when Sirius had been announced as assistant in the Duelling Club and substitute teacher for Hagrid's now frequent absences, still remained firmly imprinted in Harry's mind. A smirk found its way onto his face as he remembered the expressions of his classmates. Neville's in particular had been predominantly amusing.
The smile on his face, however, was promptly wiped off as Sirius' wand came to an abrupt halt when aimed at his head. Harry frantically tried to recall what the two teachers had just been saying, wishing heartily that he had been listening. His mind came up with something vague involving a demonstration of some sort. He came to the conclusion that Moody wanted to test him; Sirius just wanted to attack him for the hell of it. Perfect! Just his luck. This had to be some sort of joke.
However, Moody's wand that was now directed at his head too, supplied another story. Harry cursed abruptly and dived to the floor as a sizzling spell shot right through the place where his head had been a millisecond before. Suddenly, Ron burst into laughter above him. *Tickling charm* his mind supplied him.
Harry looked up from his position crouching on the floor in time to see Moody fire another spell at him. He dodged as best he could, crouched as he was on the floor, but the spell caught the edge of his robes as it zipped past, singeing them in the process. The fiery orange jet of light crashed into the floor, leaving a smoking trail in its wake. Harry could hear the gasps of the crowd. He cursed again, and leapt into the sea of legs surrounding him.
There was a brief moment of confusion amongst the crowd as they simultaneously tried to locate Harry and get out of his way. Harry leapt up again a few metres away and looked around like a startled deer.
Sirius had just spotted him and was pushing his way through the throng of students. Moody's magical eye could apparently see through human flesh as well as just about anything, as he was already advancing steadily, his wooden leg clunking ominously.
The excited whispering of the students infuriated Harry and he dearly wished he could strangle a couple of them, especially the Slytherins who were at the other end of the room pointing and laughing at his ungainly tactics. Malfoy wore a smirk that just begged for Harry to chop him into tiny little pieces. Right now, Harry was more than happy to oblige.
His attention was distracted from Malfoy momentarily as another spell began winging its way from Sirius' wand towards him.
Harry glared at Sirius. *Why is it always me?*
The spell glanced off the wall beside him and Harry did a mini victory dance, hypothetically speaking of course. He threw an impish grin at Sirius who scowled back. Out of his peripheral vision, Harry saw Moody line up for another shot and he instinctively swivelled to face it.
As the spell began to emerge, Harry was suddenly certain he knew what it was. How he knew, he couldn't have said.
And as it began its track towards him, Harry became unexpectedly aware of an imminent threat from somewhere else. His body jolted and turned away from Moody's oncoming spell. The whispering around him increased exponentially as the students stared in shock as Harry completely ignored Moody's spell.
There was a sudden strident shriek and the atmosphere of the room thickened tangibly. A huge mass of black energy abruptly burst into life above the Slytherins' heads and pulsed briefly before shooting straight for Harry.
Harry was ready and waiting for it. He shifted his body weight onto the balls of his feet ready to dodge if he needed to, when a tingling sensation started in his fingertips, gradually spreading outwards until his entire body was brimming with magic.
Time slowed.
He regarded the spell shooting towards him, still aware of the first that had still not yet reached its target and was now dangerously close. He had to avoid both spells; if Moody's incapacitated him, the second would kill him.
Harry suddenly felt very sleepy and something slid swiftly across his mind. When his head cleared, he opened his eyes and looked around. He got the distinct impression that, whatever it was looking out of his eyes, it wasn't him.
* * *
Sirius gave a brief frown as the atmosphere in the room shifted minutely from the tension caused by a good duel to the thick dark danger that preceded a deadly curse. He glanced incredulously at Moody. Sure, Harry was pissing him off too, but that was no reason to warrant *this!*
A closer look at Moody's countenance, however, and he knew it wasn't the ex- auror's spell. There was a high shriek that echoed loudly around the Hall. Everyone in the room shuddered at the sound. Except, Sirius noticed, Harry, who had just whipped around to face the Slytherins, intent on the area above their heads.
Sirius' eyes widened as a spell, black as the dead of night, materialised in the air and shot straight for his godson.
He groaned inwardly. *Not again!*
Sirius watched in what seemed to be slow motion as Harry stood his ground, unflinching, as the spell travelled at him. Sirius forgot to breathe as his godson suddenly wavered and his eyes shut.
*No!*
Abruptly, Harry's body snapped upright and his eyes watched the spell from beneath their lids. His entire demeanour was somehow changed.
But Sirius wasn't thinking about that right now. His mind was still on the bit where Harry had opened his eyes.
*Gold?*
* * *
Harry rolled over from where he had been sprawled on the floor. He sat up and looked around. And blinked. *What the.?*
Harry knew he wasn't always particularly observant but he thought he would have noticed before if Neville had been swinging from the ceiling. More to the point, he was pretty sure he would have noticed the rather large hole in the opposite wall.
He frowned heavily; he didn't like the feel of this. It was the sort of feeling that generally preceded the discovery of some great mystery in his earlier adventures. Harry blinked dust from his eyes and wiped his glasses on the front of his robes, glancing around for Sirius.
He located his godfather several metres away, extricating himself from a turned table-top. He opened his mouth to ask one of the multitude of questions already formed in his mind but was cut off as a sharp shot of pain raced up his spine. He let out a hoarse shriek and collapsed to the floor in a limp pile. He shut his eyes tightly, willing the burning pain to disappear. Gradually, slowly but surely, it lessened enough to be bearable, joining the continuous throbbing of his scar in the background.
Letting out a deep sigh, he resigned himself to his fate and cracked first one, then the other eye open.
He almost died of shock when he was presented with a concerned face right in front of him.
Sirius' eyes widened in shock as Harry shrank back but a second later, he gripped Harry tightly and studied him intently. Finally, he broke into a smile and pulled the teenager up into a fierce hug. "Green," he whispered nonsensically. "You're back."
Harry's eyebrows disappeared up into his hair as Sirius continued to murmur to him. Looking around, he saw that almost every person in the room was regarding him with a mixture of fear and awe.except for Neville whose features expressed sheer terror, but that didn't count, seeing as he was still hanging from the ceiling.
He frowned. Something had happened, something *big* that he'd done. Big enough to blast a hole in the wall, overturn several tables and propel Neville to the ceiling. And if the clock hanging crooked from the wall above him was still to be trusted, it had all happened in a matter of minutes, if that.
He swallowed and poked Sirius. Sirius' shaggy head lifted, blinking at him in surprise. "What happened?" he asked softly. There was a collective sharp intake of breath as Harry's words hung in the silence. Sirius looked worried.
"You don't remember?"
Harry shook his head slowly, wondering why everyone was casting each other shifty looks. Sirius took a deep breath.
"You.your eyes," he began, then faltered before picking up the thread and starting again. "It shot straight at you and you.your eyes they.".Words failed again. Silence reigned until Moody clunked his way towards the pair and finished what Sirius had started to say.
"Your eyes, son. They turned gold."
Harry stared, and stared, then finally blinked. Gold? This had to be some sort of a joke. Surely.
He looked up at Moody, silently urging him to continue. He was relatively sure that a simple change in eyes colour would not have caused Sirius to hide under a table or Neville to leap to a candelabrum in fear.
Moody's magical eye twitched and swept over Harry and around the room, pausing briefly on Neville before widening, then performing a quick charm to return the boy safely to earth. He turned back to Harry.
"I don't know," he admitted quietly.
At this point, several of the students snapped out of their trances and started talking excitedly amongst themselves. Harry dearly wished they would shut up; he still didn't know anything useful. Above the babble, he distinctly heard Tony's voice. "Bloody cool! D'ya think he'd do it again if I asked?"
Sirius exploded. "HE WILL DO NOTHING OF THE SORT!" he bellowed, and the room abruptly hushed. He forced himself to calm before continuing. "Do you have any idea how dangerous what has just happened was? Any one of you in this room, *including Harry and myself* could have been killed."
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught a glimpse of Malfoy smirking. That little ferret! What was he gloating about now?
"I'd like to know exactly what it was I did," he gently reminded. All eyes in the room swivelled to him before moving onto Moody who sighed and started speaking again.
"I've only ever seen anything like it once before. That was many years ago and in entirely different circumstances," he paused uncertainly, before plunging ahead.
A friend of mine summoned a demon from beyond our realm which later killed her. I don't know exactly what it was you did but you summoned something, or else it came to you unbidden. It wasn't a Dark creature, of that, at least, I am sure. But whatever it was, it was large and dangerous. And destructive." His eye travelled swiftly around the room, noting rumpled clothes, singed hair, not to mention the tables and the hole.
Harry stared uncomprehendingly at Moody. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be true.
But it was and it was only another worry to add to his already over-flowing list.
And suddenly, with a sick feeling, he realised what it was Malfoy had been grinning inanely for.
There was now the very high likelihood of expulsion.
Tbc.
A/N Well, there it is. Sorry for the slight delay. Chapter 18 should be up soon.
Thanks go to:
Bob
butterflygirl
ER
Elie
Irish rose
Nuts
Ashie- how's the letter coming along?
Lome_Roquen
Eriolgurl
jona- Auriellis is due for an update? Wow.I'm getting all light-headed!
Storyspindler-I'm still reading your fic. It's on my favourites but I haven't got round to reviewing yet.(sheepish grin)
Kat
Acy