Shakes the Memory

A/N: Well, you all talked me into it. ^_^ Disclaimer from first chapter applies.

Every street lamp that I pass

Beats like a fatalistic drum,

And through the spaces of the dark

Midnight shakes the memory

As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

~T.S. Eliot, 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'

The next morning began normally enough. Harry woke a bit late, rushing to get washed and dressed, and sent Ron and Hermione off to the dining hall without him, promising to join them as soon as he was ready. He made sure to put his dream journal in his bookbag. There would not be enough time to see Dumbledore about it before his morning class, Divination, but during the lunch hour he could easily steal a few minutes.

He slid into his usual seat at the dining table, between Ron and Neville. Hermione sat across from him, Ginny Weasley on her left. Fred sat on Ginny's other side, and across from him, next to Ron, was George. Harry relaxed as he began to butter his toast. The strange dreams that had haunted him last night began to dissolve in the light of daily routine. He smiled at Ron, then paused, staring. At the end of the Gryffindor table was a strange figure.

"Who's that?" he asked.

Harry's innocent query was met by a chorus of blank stares. Fred and George raised eyebrows in unison, Hermione stopped stirring her tea to look up at him, and Ginny set down her glass of pumpkin juice to look around.

"Who's what?" Ron asked thickly, trying to swallow a bite of sausage at nearly the same moment.

Harry gestured to the stranger, studying him from a distance. The other boy had a delicate build, high cheekbones, almost effeminate features. His fingers were long and delicate, his skin was pale, and his hair was black, framing his face in feathery waves. "I don't recognize him," said Harry, "is he new?"

George snickered, "You're joking, right?"

Hermione looked concerned, "That's Mateo, Harry…he's been here since our first year…Mateo Theofanos."

"He's joking, Hermione," Fred replied, "I know you don't think you need an alternate, Harry, but he's a good flyer…"

"A what?" Harry blinked.

"Are you feeling all right, Harry?" Ginny asked softly, "Maybe you should go see Madam Pomfrey…"

"I'm fine…an alternate what?"

"Seeker," Fred rolled his eyes, as if this should have been obvious.

"He's a Seeker? For Gryffindor??" Harry stared, "Since when?!"

"Since last year…he helped out with some informal pick-up games while you were busy with the Triwizard Tournament. Angelina thought he was good, so when she became captain this year, she asked him to be your alternate. We've *been* through this, Harry…it's not an insult to your abilities, no one's trying to replace you, we just--"

"But where did he come from?"

"Little Gidding." Hermione answered, "I told you, Harry, he's been here as long as we have. Don't you remember the detention in the Forbidden Forest? First year?"

"Yeah, I do, it was you, me, Draco, and Neville."

"And Mateo," Neville added timidly, "He went with you and Draco, when you found the dead unicorn. Remember? Malfoy startled me, and then Hagrid made us switch partners…"

Harry shook his head, "I've never seen him before in my life!"

"You've seen Hagrid plenty of times." Ron blinked.

"Not Hagrid, him!" Harry gestured at Mateo.

"Okay…second year," Ron suggested helpfully, "He was the one that suggested we ask Moaning Myrtle how she died, remember?"

"You and I came up with that idea!"

"Third year," George added, "The Quidditch match, where you…fell off your broom because of the dementors…he was the first one there. He and I carried you off the field. You wouldn't remember that, of course, but…"

"Next you'll be telling me he was in the Triwizard Tournament last year."

Hermione winced. "No," she said gently, "but he was a good friend of Cedric's…"

"Maybe you've taken a few too many bludgers to the head, mate," Fred looked torn between amusement and concern.

"I think you should go see Madam Pomfrey," Ginny reiterated, biting her lip.

"I feel fine," Harry protested weakly, "I just…"

"Good morning," a low voice said, just behind Harry, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I meant to ask what chapters we were supposed to read for Divination…"

Harry turned to find the boy in question standing a few feet behind him.

"Twelve and Fourteen," Ron answered, then added drily, "the orb warned Professor Trelawney that it might be wiser to skip the unlucky-numbered one."

Mateo chuckled, "How thoughtful of it." His voice was shy and soft, a bit like Neville's, but far lower in pitch. Oddly, when he spoke, everything around him seemed quieter. The muting effect was visual as well, and seemed to include the area around him. Colors seemed softer, lines seemed less intense. Harry took his glasses off to clean them, then looked again.

The strange wizard noted his stare and smiled, "All right, Harry?"

Something about the question sent a chill down his spine, "Er…actually…I'm not…feeling too great…I think I'll go up to the infirmary…" He stood, not taking his eyes off Mateo.

"Are you dizzy?" the boy asked mildly. "I could walk you there, if you like."

"No! Um…no…I'm fine…I'll just…go on my own." Harry backed away, then turned and half-ran for the dining hall door, almost running into some Hufflepuffs on the way out.

His friends watched him go. "Did…did you two have a fight?" Hermione asked Mateo.

"Mm? No, not at all…but I believe he did have nightmares last night. Perhaps he's still a bit muddled from them." The dark youth smiled forgivingly. "Mind if I take his spot?"

"Sherbet lemon! Fizzing whizbee! Sugar quill! Pepper Imp!" Harry shifted anxiously, racking his brain for possible passwords up to Dumbledore's office. He was quickly running out of wizard sweets. "Canary cream! Ton-tongue toffee! Help me out here," he implored a nearby portrait. To his surprise, a voice behind him answered, "Try 'Dragon's tongue'."

Harry jumped and turned around. The Headmaster was right behind him, smiling pleasantly. "You wanted to see me, Harry?"

"Yes, I--" he jumped and whirled again as the gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office began to shift with a faint, rocky, grinding noise.

A gnarled hand rested on his shoulder. "Is something wrong?"

The young wizard looked up into the venerable professor's eyes. There was a look of grave interest on his face. "A vision?" he suggested gently.

"N-no…well, I had a funny nightmare," Harry conceded as he was guided onto the stairs, "but that's not why I'm here. What's Dragon's tongue?"

"A mixed drink, actually, consisting of Firewhisky, fruit juice, and a little club soda. I had to stop using sweets as passwords sometime." His eyes sparkled mischievously.

Fawkes was asleep on his perch, a delicately-snoring ball of red-gold feathers. Harry refused to sit, his eyes wandering over the portraits of past Headmasters. He only recognized one: Dippet.

"Nonpareil?" Dumbledore offered.

"No, thanks…I'm not hungry…" Harry swallowed, "Professor? How can you tell if someone's been Confounded? I mean, like with the Confundus Curse?"

The older wizard folded his hands. "Well, Harry, there are tests, of course, but generally their behavior gives them away."

"What behavior?"

"Confusion, mostly, as the name implies. Particularly in cases where what the victim is coerced to believe something that stretches his or her imagination. The Confounded person has a gut instinct that what he has been forced to believe is not true; however, his logical mind, which is affected by the curse, conflicts with that instinct. The warring of the two can lead to insanity in extreme cases. The Confundus, while not one of the Unforgivables, is an illegal curse."

Harry sat down slowly, shaken.

Dumbledore studied him keenly. "Who is it you fear has been Confounded, Harry?"

"M-my friends…Ron and Hermione and Neville and Ginny and the Weasley twins."

"It would take a wizard of extreme power to confound that many people at once. Are they behaving in an unusual way?"

"Behaving…? Well…no, not really, but there's this strange boy, and they all say he's been here since first year, but I *know* he hasn't."

Dumbledore frowned at the wall for a moment. "What is this boy's name, Harry?"

"Mateo something…"

"Mr. Theofanos?" Dumbledore's frown deepened. "How long has Mateo been here, Harry?"

Harry eyed the Headmaster warily, unsure what to make of his suddenly altered tone. "Just since this morning as far as I can tell…"

Dumbledore stood slowly and moved to an ornate teakwood cabinet in the corner of the room. He tapped it with his wand, and the door popped open. Stacked inside were several dozen leatherbound ledgers. He picked one up and opened it, flipping through the pages. "Well, well…" he looked up at the Sorting Hat, which was perched on a shelf above his head. "Do you remember Mr. Theofanos?"

"I remember all of them," the Sorting Hat answered placidly. "Every pupil who's ever laid hands on me."

"And…?"

"He'd have made a good Ravenclaw," the hat sighed, "but he insisted on Gryffindor. He was a bit shy when he came to us, but I understand he's opened up a little since."

Harry stared, dumfounded. "But…but…that can't be right! I *know* I've never seen him before this morning! If it was just that I hadn't noticed him or something, that would be weird but it would make at least a little sense. Ron and Hermione and the others kept telling me about things he did with us, and I can remember the things happening, but I don't remember him being there!"

Dumbledore adjusted his glasses gravely, then approached Harry and laid the book in his lap. It appeared to be a list of all the students in his year. The third name from the top of the page was 'Theofanos, Mateo'. "Harry, both the Sorting Hat and these class ledgers are strongly warded. A charm or curse powerful enough to Confound them simply could not have escaped the notice of the faculty."

"But…Crouch got to the Goblet of Fire…maybe someone like that could have--"

The headmaster cut him off gently, "Harry. No. I, too, remember Mr. Theofanos' arrival here, his sorting, and many other events in which he took part. I also remember his mother's school days here." He took the book back, folded it, and returned it neatly to its place. "I think we had better have Poppy take a look at you, Harry. I'll walk you to the hospital wing."

He shook his head in disbelief, but made no protest as he was helped up and led from the room.

"No, there's no traces of mana on him at all," Madam Pomfrey said, eyeing Harry through a strange sort of scope made of crystal and iron. "It can't be any long-term curse on the books. They always leave traces."

"What about around his forehead?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"Just the usual."

"Wait, the usual?" Harry's voice cracked. He wasn't used to being submitted to such intense scrutiny, and he was beginning to find the hugeness of Madam Pomfrey's eyes as reflected through the scope unnerving.

"Your scar leaks a bit of power now and then, Harry," Dumbledore told him gently. "Poppy noticed it last year. It doesn't seem to be harmful, however."

"You might have told me," he muttered.

"Severus? Can you think of any potions that might have this effect on him?"

Snape looked over from the corner he had been lurking in thoughtfully. "None that could be administered without his knowledge. Has anyone given you anything nasty to drink lately, Potter?"

"Not outside of potions class," he retorted, then regretted it immediately.

Snape's eyes glittered dangerously, then he relaxed and smirked slightly. "Then have you partnered Longbottom in potions recently?"

He shook his head.

"In that case, Headmaster, it is unlikely that a potion is the cause of Mr. Potter's memory loss. I hold to my original belief that this entire affair is merely an adolescent cry for attention."

"There's another possibility," Madam Pomfrey said uncomfortably before Dumbledore could reply. "AHMS. He's at the right age."

Dumbledore winced slightly, and Snape's smirk vanished.

"What's AHMS?" Harry's voice squeaked slightly, much to his chagrin.

"It stands for Ashton-Hyberger Magical Syndrome," the mediwitch explained, " It's…found mostly among children and teens from nonmagical backgrounds. When they enter the wizarding world and their bodies get exposed to high magic levels, it sort of short-circuits something in their brains. It doesn't happen to children from even half-wizard families, because they're exposed to magic from birth."

"How bad is it?"

"Early symptoms include headaches, fatigue, memory loss, confusion…It's a chronic, degenerative disease. Rarely fatal, but…most of those who come down with it have to remove themselves from the magical community, or else their organs will start failing one by one…"

Harry sat very still. It sounded like his worst nightmare: being faced with the choice of death or exile from the wizarding world.

"But you don't necessarily have it," she hastened to reassure him at a look from Dumbledore. "Memory loss is just one of the symptoms, after all. It may just be psychological, anyway, ordinary stress can cause memory problems. You should be tested for it, that's all I meant to say."

"Can you run that sort of test here, Poppy?" asked the Headmaster.

"No, I'll have to have a specialist brought in from St. Mungo's, with the proper equipment."

Harry rested his head in his hands, tuning out the remainder of the conversation. As if it wasn't bad enough that he had Voldemort trying to kill him, now his own body had to turn on him. Or his brain, at least. He took a few deep breaths, then looked up to find Snape staring at him expressionlessly. There was deep anger and bitterness in his stony gaze, but for a moment, Harry thought he saw a faint glint of pity as well. It unnerved him more than anything Madam Pomfrey had said.

He stood abruptly. "I want to go back to class."

"I'd rather you stayed here, Harry," the mediwitch pushed him gently but firmly back onto the cot.

"So eager to attend Divination?" Snape queried, his expression resuming its usual mocking quirk, "Anxious to hear dire predictions from Sibyl Trelawney?"

Harry said nothing.

"Hm," Dumbledore patted Harry, "Severus has a point. I believe we'll let Poppy keep a hold of you for the remainder of the day."

"And tonight," Madam Pomfrey insisted, "We don't want him stressed further by nightmares, now do we?"

Nightmares. Harry blinked, remembering his latest journal entry. He ducked to grab his bookbag and pulled out the small book. "That reminds me--I had another dream last night," he told Dumbledore, rifling through the pages. As he reached the most recent entry, he was struck by the small sketch he had made in the corner. The boy with wings. Now that he looked at it again, there seemed to be something familiar about the face; more familiar than was warranted by the vagueness of his memory of the nightmare. He handed the book slowly to the Headmaster, who looked at the scribbled notes and frowned, nodding slightly. "I shall study this carefully, Harry, thank you."

"It was awfully weird…it might have just been an ordinary dream," Harry said slowly, his mind churning with half-formed thoughts.

Dumbledore nodded. "Still, it bears looking at."

After a few mumbled exchanges, both Dumbledore and Snape left the room. The mediwitch fussed with Harry's blankets a moment, then brought him tea and toast and insisted he consume them. At lunchtime, Ron and Hermione stopped by the room for a visit. He didn't mention anything about AHMS.

"It's just a stomach flu, I think," he said, "but you know Pomfrey. I'll be here for a week."

They were appropriately sympathetic. Ron offered to smuggle some sweets in to him, and Hermione offered to help him catch up on the work he'd miss while being bedridden.

"Well, you didn't miss much in Divination," Ron told him. "Trelawney was showing us tarot cards and she went into some sort of rant about death being among us. If you'd been there she probably would have insisted you were in for it. As usual."

Harry chuckled, but for some reason he couldn't put his finger on, it wasn't as funny as it would normally have been.

Dobby brought him dinner: a big bowl of stew, crusty rolls, and peach tart. Harry had little appetite, but if he hadn't eaten on his own, either the house elf or Madam Pomfrey would have force-fed him, so he polished off his plate with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. For the rest of the evening, he read his 'Care of Magical Creatures' text, until he fell asleep with the book still open on his lap.

It was neither a sight nor a sound that awakened him. He opened his eyes and found only darkness; black, pitch black, with only the dim gray outline of the infirmary door glimmering a dozen yards away. He groped for his glasses, which he expected to find on the stand by his bed, but encountered neither them nor the stand but something soft and warm and feathery that sent shivers of mixed terror and joy through his body. His breath hitched, and he jerked back, pulling himself into a crouch and clutching at a bedpost. The book on his lap tumbled off the bed, then onto the floor with a thunk. Out of the darkness a slender white hand crept, scooping up the fallen text and lifting it, then setting it gently aside.

Harry wanted to scream, but his voice would not obey him. He dug his fingers into the wood of the bedpost so fiercely the nail on his index finger cracked. "Who--" he gasped at last.

"Sssssshhhhhh," a gentle voice murmured out of the darkness.

Harry felt his body relax unwillingly, and he sank limply onto his side on the cot. A lean, milk-white form swam into his view, a boy about his own age, with dark hair and black eyes. Fathomless, glimmering black owl-eyes.

"Mateo…?" He asked softly.

"Thanatos," the other corrected, "Mateo is only an assumed name, as is the identity that goes along with it. Assumed for the purpose of…acquiring your attention."

"You've acquired it," Harry said grimly.

He was rewarded with a gentle, terrible smile. And then he understood.

With an effort, Harry pushed himself up into a sitting position, and in a voice that shook only a little he asked, "Are you here for me?"

And then without warning he found himself enfolded over and over again in black feathers and shining eyes, caressed and borne up and studied, looked into and over and through by hundred of thousands of eyes. Gentle eyes, fierce eyes, eyes that dripped tears of silver and crimson, eyes that snapped with hatred and shone with tenderness, eyes both familiar and alien. Harry covered his face silently, and he felt--he *knew*--that there would be nothing more terrible in the multiverse than to be looked into by those eyes and found wanting. Cold hands gripped his wrists and peeled his palms away from his face, gently but irresistibly.

Harry opened his eyes reluctantly, and found himself looking once more into Death's human face. "You have no cause for shame," Thanatos said gently, "And I did not come here to frighten you."

"Am I dead yet?" He asked dazedly.

"No. I am not here to end your life."

"Then why?"

In the dark somewhere, the folded wings rustled. "I need you. I need your help."

A/N: Bit of a cliffhanger. Sorry. ^_^;; Slight change of tone for this chapter, but I expect the heaviness and the lack of contractions to resume shortly. ;-) Actually, I'm glad the reviewers thus far have found the dialogue style appealing rather than stilted. I tried not to overdo it.

I almost left out the bit about AHMS. It doesn't further the plot, but I was so pleased with the character interaction and the idea itself that I couldn't stand to snip it. What do the readers think? Neat idea? Dumb idea? Did I do the right thing by leaving it? Should I try and weave it into the plot somehow?

Thanks to all who reviewed!

Frostbite Panda: That's very sweet of you…only how did you know I was a good author if you hadn't read the story? *confused* Oh, well, I'll take the compliment anyway. ;-) But there's lots of nice long well-written HP fics out there. You just have to search a bit. Look at other peoples' favorites lists (like mine, for example ;-) ).

The Red Dragons Order: Well…I guess he is an angel in a sense. The angel of Death. Thank you for the encouragement!

E: I'm still working that out, actually. But it's going to involve Harry and a lot of danger.

Katrina: Wow. Okay. ^_^

Soymilk: Grindelwald is starting to interest me, actually. Not that I have any fic ideas featuring him, but maybe I can work him into this fic a little. If anyone has any recommendations for Grindelwald fics, email me or leave 'em in reviews. I was going for creepy; I'm glad it came across.

Ozma: Oooooh, thank you for reviewing this one, too! That's really how I see Voldemort, actually, particularly after CoS: sort of an insecure, power-hungry, overgrown boy with a complex. Tom Riddle was such a promising kid, even at the age of sixteen, when he was already going bad. Somewhere along the line his own monomania got in his way. Makes me wonder what happened during the 'lost years'.

Kynight: Not sure yet, but whatever becomes of Harry in this fic, I can promise you he's not going to die. At least, not permanently. ^_^;;;

Teardrop: I always leave unresolved questions at the end when I can. But I secretly wanted to continue this from the beginning. I just hate to overwork a fic or a picture, and I wanted outside opinions before I went on with it. Thank you for the review and the encouragment!

Melanie: Thank you.

AngelOnFire: *big grin* I'm glad it affected you. I hope this chapter is just as good.

SHU and silverpen: Thank you. I will. ^_^