Harry Potter and the Mirror of Nostradamus
A/N: I got so mad when FF.net went crazy! Grrrrr…….Anyway, thanks so much for the reviews! You guys were really worried about Harry getting into trouble *Grins* You really think he'll go to Azkaban when he has the mirror to deal with? Hmm…you'll soon find out I guess….
Another thing- Dumbledore's one of my fave characters so you may be seeing a lot of him in this fic…hope you don't mind. Thanks to:
-Mella de Ranged (wow I think I can officially say that's my first flame EVER so thanks! To respond to u, I thought Harry changed a whole lot in OotP wat with all the shouting and he was perfectly ready to cast the Cruciatus, so it's not wrong to change a bit more is it? JK did it after all…Besides he was also angry this time because Bellatrix said something about Sirius..If ur not convinced or wanna argue it email me, thanks again)
-Kurbani ( glad u like it and u'll find out who the voice is in 10 seconds)
-Silver Meteor (thanks! O kudos?? )
-Nexus (Let's see if he'll get to Azkaban in the first place)
-vtangelchix (YES I'm glad you understand the great need to curse that hag *grins* )
-PhoenixPadfoot89 ( do u really think he'll get into trouble? This is Harry we're talking about)
-Hecate ( I don't know yet if he'll tell Ron and Hermione….probably yes)
-aniolek (thanks a lot! Well this isn't 3 times longer but it's pretty close…sort of ..)
-aziandorkess (maybe he was a bit too evil…but he'll be sorta weak in this one so it'll make up for it I guess)
- Lan (There'll be romance soon enough don't worry! And H/G too… And I'm sorry for mixing up ur name! *looks embarrassed* u were my first reviewer too…)
-MorphManiac (no need to be alarmed…..)
-JerseyGirl03 (yup Harry liked it too)
Chapter 3: The Capture and the Dursleys' Attic
Harry whirled around, losing his concentration and automatically releasing the curse. Lestrange's head jerked up and she gasped, lunging for her wand, but Albus Dumbledore beat her to it.
"Accio," the tall wizard called, and the wand zoomed towards him, landing neatly in his outstretched hand. Bellatrix started to run for it, but this time Dumbledore was too quick for her, and she hit the floor as his Stunner caught her in the back.
Harry took a step forward and immediately stumbled, feeling a sudden wave of dizziness consume him. Shivering violently, he steadied himself with the wall. His mop of dark hair was soaked and his T-shirt was sticking to him with cold sweat. He was suddenly aware of the dark blood seeping down his wand arm and his left knee, soaking his ankles and socks. It must have been the ropes of that curse she'd shot at him; they had probably magically sliced his skin. He winced, the pain just now hitting him. It wasn't that bad, though, at least not as bad as the pain he'd just created…
The reality of the situation was just now hitting him. He had performed the Cruciatus curse on a Death Eater. A dark, Unforgivable curse. And he had enjoyed it.
"I- I didn't think…it would actually…work," he said weakly, looking up. Dumbledore was watching him closely. "It probably…didn't even hurt…much." He leaned back, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself and stop himself from trembling. Was he going to Azkaban? Surely he couldn't worm his way out of this one.
"I heard her scream from the other end of the corridor," Dumbledore replied quietly. Harry started shaking some more. "I- no… she only yelled a couple of times, professor, I swear." Dumbledore nodded, walked towards Harry, and wrapped his cloak around the boy's shoulders. It was so long for him that it wrinkled up on the floor but Dumbledore didn't seem to mind. He waved his wand and the blood on Harry's skin disappeared. "Thanks," he mumbled.
"You'll be feeling like this for some time," said the headmaster gently. "You consumed excessive amounts of energy using the curse and it's obviously drained you. Harry, the Cruciatus is extremely dangerous, and not just for the victim, especially as the caster is untrained in Dark magic and using it for the first time."
"So that's why I can barely walk," Harry groaned.
Dumbledore nodded grimly. "A few more minutes and it could've killed you. You should be glad it hasn't already." Harry swallowed. "I-"
"And frankly, I don't even know how you were able to do it," Dumbledore continued sharply, his piercing gaze on the young wizard who was feeling very small.
"She told me how herself, would you believe it…" He gripped the wall as another wave of dizziness washed over him and he slumped on the ground, feeling better when sitting on the floor. Dumbledore crouched down next to him. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."
He might as well tell him; he was probably in major trouble anyway. "Last year, when we were in the…Atrium…you remember…" Dumbledore nodded. "Yeah, well, I tried to do cast it then too, and it didn't work…she told me I couldn't do it because- because I had to enjoy it…" He stared at the ground. He couldn't believe he had actually enjoyed it. And still a part of him didn't regret that he'd taken revenge for Sirius…
"Harry, that still doesn't explain how you were capable of doing it without any real training." Harry shrugged and was saved a response as they heard footsteps and Remus Lupin appeared in the corridor. His face was pale, his robes frayed, his hair rumpled and the gray even more apparent than ever. He glanced at the limp form of Bellatrix Lestrange on the ground, then at the two wizards who were getting to their feet. "Good job," Lupin grinned a little bit. "Which one of you two was it?"
Harry and Dumbledore exchanged glances. Harry shook his head fervently. He didn't want anyone to know what he'd just done. They would all know anyway when it was made public. "That was me," Dumbledore smiled, "but Harry was the one who managed to…disarm her."
"He would be proud, Harry," Remus said softly. Harry couldn't look at him but instead managed a nod and mumbled something incoherent. Would he really? Padfoot did say himself, that if only he could get his hands on her--
"Are you okay? You look terrible," Lupin was frowning concernedly as he looked at Harry. "I'm fine…" He looked at Dumbledore for help. "He's just feeling a bit out of it," Dumbledore told the ex- professor reassuringly. "Remus, here's the map. Can you find the rest and have someone take her to the Ministry? I'll be taking Harry back home."
Lupin nodded. "Of course. You know," He patted the map in his hands. "It was lucky Harry was looking at this when she came. Come to think of it, Harry, what were you doing looking at the map in the first place?"
Uh oh. This just keeps getting better and better. He didn't want them to know what he had been doing. Somehow, he didn't think they'd approve. Dumbledore would tell him not to dwell in the past and he remembered Remus once saying that the Marauders didn't care, that they would have liked to lure anyone out of school.
He glanced at the two wizards who were looking at him expectantly. He shrugged. "I was just- well I was feeling pretty bored, and I guess I really missed…Hogwarts," he finished lamely.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. Lupin looked at the map suspiciously. Neither of them seemed to buy it. "Right," said Lupin, "Well I'd best be going then before this…person comes to." He nudged Bellatrix with his foot, then cast the Levitating charm. Harry watched him march off the corridor with Lestrange's body floating above him.
Suddenly something hit his brain which was barely functioning at the moment. "Wait!" he called. Lupin turned around. "Do you think you could- erm…send me the map back as soon as possible?" Harry tried to ask as casually as possible. If he was going to Azkaban, he might as well have company. Lupin and Dumbledore looked at each other. "Of course," Lupin said finally, but he was frowning.
There was silence in the corridor after Lupin had gone. Harry's head was aching dully and his arms still did not feel quite right. He leaned again against the wall, wanting nothing better then to go to bed and sink into an endless slumber. But he couldn't, not just yet-
"Just how much trouble am I in?" Harry asked finally. Dumbledore eyed him carefully. "Not as much as you'd think," he replied.
Harry stared at him.
"Harry, Fudge has allowed the use of Unforgivable curses again. You know why. Of course, this development is mainly for the Aurors' use, but I doubt you would get a sentence for using it on a Death Eater. On the contrary, they'd like it." But he didn't look too happy. Harry knew Dumbledore had been against the use of these curses in the old days when the Aurors started using them on any person who was a suspect.
He felt slightly relieved. "So- I only get expelled then?" he said dully.
"No, Harry, you don't," Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He wasn't looking forward to next year, but in his heart he always considered Hogwarts his real home. "But I must tell you that it isn't…advisable to use these curses, definitely not in school, and in general as well. I know that there will come a time when you will be forced to-" Dumbledore looked meaningfully at Harry who understood, remembering the Prophecy. "But for the time being, I don't want you to use any of them, unless you are in dire need- for your own safety and sanity. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he replied, but it took him longer than he was supposed to. "It's just- she made some taunt about…Sirius," Harry swallowed. "I wanted to take revenge…"
"I know." And then he caught Harry off guard. "Do you regret it?"
He stammered, taken by surprise. "I- well… should I?" he whispered.
Dumbledore didn't look remotely surprised at Harry's reply, which was closer to the negative than the affirmative. "That's up to you to decide, Harry," he said wisely. Typical Dumbledore, thought Harry.
Dumbledore glanced at his watch. "It's getting late. Come on, the vacuum cleaner's still in my office." He reached inside his robes and took out a vial of liquid. "Strengthening Potion," he explained. "You'll be able to move around better. Drink up." Harry obeyed, and he was able to follow Dumbledore down the corridor.
"Professor," he said as he hurried to keep up with the older wizard's long strides. He had been putting this off for a while but he wanted to say it- after all, he'd already apologized to Hermione, sent an honest letter to Lupin( It was because of Harry that his best friend was gone-at least Harry thought so), and talked to Padfoot about it…
"Yes?" Dumbledore slowed his pace slightly.
"I wanted to talk to you about…something else…" They went up the staircase to the next floor. "I wanted to…apologize for, well I guess for the trouble I caused last year." He said this very quickly. Dumbledore stopped in his tracks causing Harry to bump into him. "Which part of it?" he asked, eyes twinkling.
"All of it, I suppose," replied Harry. He began ticking off his fingers. "The hearing at the beginning of the year-" Dumbledore interrupted, "That wasn't your -"
"I know- just let me finish. Anyway, the hearing, then of course, the defense group I was teaching, which got you into major trouble, then not practicing Occlumency, then-" He swallowed; all the memories of last year were painful. "Harry-"
"No- I need to get it over with…then falling for Voldemort's trick, putting my friends in danger (though it was them who insisted on going), and finally demolishing your office." Harry grinned ruefully. "So I'm sorry."
"Can I speak now?" Dumbledore asked, smiling a little bit. They were now down the hallway leading to the stone gargoyle. "Sure."
"The hearing is not one bit your fault. As for the defense group, granted, you were doing something illegal, but considering the cause, no one can blame you. And I forgot to mention that I was actually proud of all of you for it. The next bit was not only your mistake, but also mine, as I told you last year, and Professor Snape's for not teaching you any longer. And you had a right to be angry. Fizzing Whizbee." The gargoyle leapt aside and they went up the moving staircase.
"Yeah...I guess…"
"Don't give it another thought. You should get some sleep, Harry. Here," He took the vacuum cleaner from where it was lying on the desk in the office, and enabled the Portkey again. Harry said he would be fine going by himself but Dumbledore insisted he wanted to make sure Harry got there safely. They both touched the Portkey and were soon standing before Number Four, Privet Drive.
"When do I get to see the Weasleys, professor?" asked Harry as they were waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. He was steadying himself with the wall again, too worn out to stand by himself. It was past eleven at night and Harry had a feeling the Dursleys were not going to be pleased.
"Soon," Dumbledore replied vaguely. "At headquarters, probably." He watched Harry carefully for a reaction; he –correctly- guessed that the pain was just too strong for Harry to want to go to 12, Grimmauld Place for a long, long, time.
"Oh," said Harry. Then he nodded. "That's good. There're a few words I'd like to have with Kreacher," he said darkly. Dumbledore started to say something but at that moment the door opened to reveal a sleepy looking Petunia Dursley wearing a long flowered nightgown and hideous pink rollers in her hair.
"I've been waiting up for you," she snapped as soon as she saw them, taking in the sight of Harry with his bloodied, sweaty clothes, his deathly white face and his messed up hair. "And what the hell happened to you?"
"Nothing worse than usual," muttered Harry, stepping inside and motioning Dumbledore to follow. Honestly, where were his aunt's manners?
"It's a good thing your uncle's asleep- he would go crazy! What would the neighbors say?" Petunia suddenly seemed to take note of her appearance and flushed faintly, yanking the rollers out of her hair. Wizard, freak, or no, Petunia Dursley didn't receive any sort of visitor without looking perfectly prim.
"Nothing, probably," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "It's too dark for them to see anything. Mrs. Dursley, I am quite sorry for any inconvenience-" He gave a little bow, "And your nephew is fine, nothing a peaceful rest wouldn't fix," he said pointedly.
"Right- erm," Petunia shifted under his shrewd gaze. "Thank you for bringing Harry back…professor." She had guessed that this old man was the headmaster and the one who had sent her the Howler the year before.
Dumbledore nodded. "Good evening to both of you," And with a wink at Harry, he disappeared in a swish of robes, into thin air. Petunia stood gaping for a moment, then shook her head forcibly, turning to the exhausted Harry. She opened her mouth, hesitated, shut it again, then huffing, opened it once more.
"You didn't see him, did you?" she asked finally, surveying her nephew. Her question took him slightly by surprise. "No…no I didn't," he replied, staring at her. She actually cared whether he'd seen Voldemort or not? "That was last year," he added as an afterthought, curious to her reaction. She paled slightly. "Oh…right." There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well, what are you waiting for, boy? Go on up to bed," she snapped, resuming her normal, spiteful expression.
Harry, only too glad, complied, and he sank thankfully into the covers, forcing his brain to stay away from the thought of what he had done earlier that evening. But then something else pushed his way into his head, a flash of pain in his scar, and a sudden feeling of fury and frustration that wasn't his. He recognized the familiar sensation immediately; Voldemort was definitely not pleased about the capture of one of his best Death Eaters. Good, thought Harry. He squeezed his eyes shut, imagining a blank sheet in his mind, focusing on nothing and nowhere. There was no Snape to intimidate him now…the Occlumency worked and Harry fell asleep within minutes.
***************************
A persistent pecking on his cheek awoke him the next day, and he unconsciously shook his head, annoyed. He snuggled deeper into his pillow, but the nipping resumed and he groaned, blinking and looking around groggily. A pair of yellow eyes looked back at him and for a second he tensed, thinking he had finally received his OWL results, but then he recognized the owl that delivered the Daily Prophet. It was early today, though…he glanced at his watch and with a jolt realized it was past noon. The sunlight was streaming cheerfully through the window, its rays creating sparkles on his glasses as he stretched out his hand to put them on.
"Just a moment," he yawned, clambering out of bed. Everything ached and his body felt like lead. He fished around for some money which he put in the little pouch tied to the owl and untied the newspaper from its leg. A headline jumped out at him from the front page:
Top Death Eater Lestrange Captured at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
He skimmed the lengthy article quickly; there was nothing much that he didn't know, except that the Ministry had given her Veritaserum in an attempt to discover what she was doing at the school in the first place, but it had turned out that she was resistant to it and did not give responses to any of the officials' questions- Harry scowled at this. It also said that it was 'Lycanthrope Remus Lupin' who had handed her in and that the two ever-famous Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter were directly linked to her capture. What Harry Potter was doing at Hogwarts no one knew. Harry sighed in frustration; they just had to turn this around to make it about him, somehow. Bellatrix Lestrange would be tried and sent off to Azkaban as soon as possible. Somehow this didn't please Harry; it was only a matter of time before Voldemort took over Azkaban and freed all his followers.
He showered and feeling much more energetic, went downstairs; just to see if his aunt had some chore or other in store for him. A year ago he would have been afraid to get a lecture for getting up too late, but this summer he pretty much had free reign in the house. The place was oddly quiet- his uncle was at work and Dudley was probably off with his friends somewhere, if not still sleeping. His aunt was sticking her long neck out of the window, carrying out her favourite pastime: spying on the neighbors. She jerked it out when she heard him entering and nodded at him.
"There's some stuff in the refrigerator if you're hungry. And some toast left over from breakfast- you'll have to heat it," she told him.
"That's okay, I'll wait till lunch," he replied, looking around. The kitchen was clean, the living room was spotless, and the garden had been perfect the last time he'd been in it. In truth, he didn't mind chores so much anymore; they helped keep his mind off…other things. Besides, some manual physical work would do his body some good; he was sixteen after all- he had to look like it.
"Is there anything I can….help you with?" he asked cautiously. "No," came the short response as she turned back to the window. A frown creased her forehead as something seemed to occur to her. "As a matter of fact…yes…I've been meaning to do this for awhile…" She looked back at him quite sincerely and Harry could tell this wasn't about a chore.
"What?" He watched her curiously.
"Oh, well- you know," she shrugged nonchalantly, obviously trying to appear indifferent. "There's some stuff you might want to have … it belonged to-" Aunt Petunia cleared her throat uncomfortably "-your mother…been cluttering up my attic for years, really… I don't know why I never thought to get rid of it."
Harry stared at her, speechless. She had his mother's old things? He didn't know whether to be angry that she had never mentioned it to him before or excited that he was actually going to get them now.
"….nothing of value…just some old rubbish, of course-" his aunt was saying and finally finding his voice, he interrupted quietly, "Can I go up and see?"
"Of course boy, haven't you been listening?" she snapped. "Now I've got better things to do with my time, so I'll just show you around and leave you there." Harry nodded wordlessly. She obviously considered that she was doing him a huge favor- which she was, by Dursley standards- and was determined to show him that whatever he'd started to believe, she had not gone soft on him. Harry didn't care; all he wanted right now was to go through his mother's past.
The Dursleys' attic was a small, dusty room with a low ceiling so that Harry and Petunia had to bend over to walk inside it. Petunia pressed a white plastic button and dim light came out of the bare bulb. They stepped closer inside. There were old cardboard boxes scattered around, draped with dirty covers, a broken bike, a broken computer, a deflated basketball, an open box containing tarnished silverware, and only God knew what else. The place looked like nobody had been in there for years. Old cobwebs hung everywhere, and Harry was wondering where anything that his mother had owned could possibly be found in this junk, when Petunia gave a loud shriek and he jumped, his wand thrust out instinctively. Preparing himself for the worst, he edged closer, only to find his aunt's nose barely an inch away from a long silky thread at the end of which hung a- relatively- large spider. Of course, next to Aragog, it was microscopic.
Harry let out a groan. "For heaven's sake, Aunt Petunia, it's just a little insect," He pocketed his wand again, feeling flustered that he was so easily scared. "Little?!" she cried, stepping away from the offending insect in question. Harry shrugged. "It's nothing; I used to find spiders in my socks in that cupboard you used to lock me up in," he said very casually, kicking away an empty box.
For a moment his aunt just stared at him, taken aback, and he saw a faint tinge of pink flush her cheeks as she grasped for something to say. Then she shook her head, obviously deciding to ignore it. "This way," she said curtly, and Harry followed her over to a corner, tripping over the various pieces of junk strewn all over the place.
He saw a very ancient, very heavy looking, gold trunk sitting by itself in the corner. There were intricate designs running all over it, all in deep crimson. "In there," Petunia said. "Take whatever you want from it but don't touch anything else in here- got it?"
Harry nodded, not tearing his eyes away from the trunk which though old and corroded, seemed to be attractive within itself, somehow. "Was this hers too?" he asked quietly.
Petunia gave a brisk nod before turning on her heel and leaving the attic. He could hear her retreating footsteps all the way down the stairs.
