#five
It was nothing short of chaos: there seemed to be redheads everywhere, hugging their own and bubbling with ceaseless questions. Ginny, for her part, gave as good as she got, but waited on the answers, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. The racket they made could have roused Father Time himself, if only to pummel the offending noisemakers with his apocalyptical horn.
As Snape burst onto the scene, he decided only two things could drive the Weasleys into such a frenzy: either someone had died or someone had been saved. The latter, he concluded after a moment of observation, before he was pulled into the thick of it, much to his own chagrin.
It took a good amount of periwinkle sparks to calm the crowd. When the excitement died down, Dumbledore was standing before Ginny, questions clearly gathering thickly around his tongue. And it became clear enough for Snape to get a glimpse of her-- Merlin, the girl looked positively impish! Old instincts stirred from within, and caution borne from long days of spying began to arise. Perhaps she was under Imperio, or an equally sinister potion, sent here to be the ruin of them all.
You're so fucking cynical, Professor.
That caught Snape off-guard. The voice had brushed against him like a frozen wind on the last of autumn's leaves, and he felt himself growing cold, as though the room's temperature had lowered by a few degrees.
Maybe he was hallucinating.
'Fraid not, Professor. Right on cue, and the unknown speaker fell headlong into Snape's simple trap. There was a presence here, maybe a simple ghost or fae, maybe something with darker intentions and Voldemort-oriented. No, it had called him "Professor…" Just my luck to have vengeful, dead students after me, he decided. "Dumbledore--"
Snap. Something clamped down on his nervous system, and he was no longer in control of his own body for a brief, terrifying moment. Something caressed his mind, something light and dark and overwhelmingly powerful.
Ugh. Had a pretty poor time since I left, eh?
"Who the hell are you? Show yourself!"
All the Weasleys and Dumbledore spun to stare at him. Snape stiffened, cursed whatever it was for embarrassing him on top of everything else, and opened his mouth to explain--
"Hey."
Like they were attached to a turntable, everyone about-faced to meet the new voice. Several had wands drawn and pointed at Harry Potter, who was standing dazed by the large grandfather clock.
He lifted his head, as though noticing them for the first time, and looked past them, eyes unfocused. A shadow lay over them, Snape realized, like a film of oil over water. His features were as keen as a blade of ice, but his eyes dulled them to normalcy.
Then Snape realized, wait, this isn't right. This shouldn't be happening. Potter should be dead. The words spun briefly in his thoughts but he couldn't make sense of them for a moment. Then reality clicked back into place like a key opening a lock and he brandished his wand.
"You are not Potter!" he snarled, and shot a rather malicious curse at the offending individual.
Potter ducked it. "Professor, I'm not really an imposter." He glanced over at Ginny, frowning. She had a grin on her face that was faintly reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat, or maybe just a mad bobcat. "Dammit, you're not making this easier!"
"You call that an entrance?" she shot back hotly. "You didn't even do anything cool! We all think you're dad and you come back with a 'hey'?"
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" he asked irritably. "Pull open the skies and smite the sun? If you had just agreed to tell them everything, we wouldn't have to go through this…" he turned his attention back to the others, who were still shocked into immobility. "Hi. I'm Harry Potter. And we'd like it very much if you believed us."
There was a thump as Mrs. Weasley fainted.
"Ginny…" Dumbledore looked uncertain. "Perhaps you would like to explain?"
#
"Out with it, Potter."
He made a face. "Professor, we do have a first name."
"How did you do it?"
"Do what, Professor?"
"You know what I mean."
Harry suddenly found his patience waning. Why did he stick around? Why couldn't he have just dropped Ginny off and be done with it? Ron had tried to jump him and he'd accidentally hexed his former best friend out of reflex. Mrs. Weasley had started crying, blessing the name of Merlin and a half-dozen other long-dead wizards. Fred and George had pinged him with questions. And now Snape was trying to fry him with his glare o'death.
He suddenly could no longer deal with these people anymore. He could fight and kill Death Eaters. He could survive until the last human on earth was dead. But--Merlin! When did he become so anti-social? It seemed Azkaban wasn't a great place for developing people skills.
Give it up, he realized. You know the truth. You don't need anyone else anymore.
Version stirred restlessly at the back of his mind, all coiled anticipation and intent, like a wary hunting cat. Let's go, he suggested. You really don't belong here. Not with people. Others are calling. Remus is calling. Sirius is calling. We have people to free and Death Eaters to hunt.
Come, taste the blood on the wind. We could get at least a dozen more in by midday.
"Potter! Are you listening to me?"
He interrogates like Vernon, his other commented wryly. Come, let me deal with him so we can go. Didn't you hate him once? You can again.
Snape felt the shift before he saw it, but the clues were very subtle. It was something in the way Potter stood, leaned against the wall, casting multiple shadows from the indoor lamps. It was something in the way the light fell across him-- or didn't. He seemed to grow in stature but not in size, and the air around him stirred. And then he looked up, and Snape took in a harsh breath.
This was not Potter. He was sure of it. This was some demon that had stolen the boy's skin and draped it around himself as an ill-made cloak. This had cold fury in his sharp-featured face. This had eyes like a cat staring up from the very pits of hell.
He backed away as those slitted pupils regarded him. The predator in them smiled. "Do you know who I am, Snape?" No, he truly didn't. "Can you guess who I am?" No, he couldn't begin to imagine who this being was--demon, devil, ghost spirit, shadow, dream… nightmare? "Will you stop asking us questions?" All he could do was nod, dumbly…
And then Harry was back, the veil lifted from his eyes. There was an apologetic look on his face. And Snape wanted to ask so badly, but he didn't dare.
#
They were all outside now, the ones who knew, and the sun blinked in and out of rolling clouds above them. A few birds trilled capricious tunes and the wind whistled over the grass in an equally whimsical countermelody. Gordic's Hollow burned with color, most of it natural.
Only Snape stood in brooding gloom with his pale complexion and black cloak billowing like a column of smoke in the breeze. He had a mood to match, forced to stand watch over someone he didn't like and was maybe even a little afraid of.
Said person was stretched out in the grass, peaceful bliss relaxing his usually intense features.
Ron, under strict orders to keep away from his one-time friend, had listened in earnest to what Dumbledore had to say: "Harry, if he is Harry, is most likely dangerous and in all probability, from what Ginny has told us, completely insane after his ordeal in Azkaban." So the redhead was surprised when Harry opened one eye into a glowing slit at him and said, "come 'ere, Ron," like they were back in the Gryffindor common room and he needed to copy homework. Ron didn't budge an inch; everyone was looking at Harry now.
"Merlin, Ron, you'd think I was gonna hex you again or something."
Ron looked away.
Harry let out a long sigh and said, "alright, Headmaster. Let's get on with the interrogation while my free will still has the attention span. We can't waste too much time here. There are still others to retrieve."
"Very well, Harry." Dumbledore was always one to take things in stride. Harry levered himself up so he could see his questioner, one hand still buried in the roots of the grass. "Are you really Harry Potter?"
Harry closed his eyes in lazy contentment, enjoying the cool messages the earth was sending him. "There's no need for that. You can either believe what I tell you or not, because who I am doesn't change the news I bring."
"Fair enough. What is this news?" Dumbledore's gaze was direct and penetrating, but Harry found it annoying. Too long had this old man manipulated his fate and the fate of those around him against his ever-continuing crusade against Dark Magic. Harry had long since decided to go freelance. He was only here at Ginny's request, and maybe to scare the shit out of Snape too. But now that those wishes were fulfilled, he really wanted to leave.
"Voldemort's headquarters in London has been leveled. Most of the Death Eaters there are dead. Some are not." Sing with us, the plants said, and we'll tell you how to catch the green man who stalks this ground. Harry listened in earnest, concentration on Dumbledore already slipping. The green man grants you wishes if you find him-- one if in the grass, two if in the trees, and three if in the brambles.
"London? Breached?" Arthur Weasley repeated. "That's impossible! I thought Ginny was making that part up! There are fifty Death Eaters stationed there!"
Harry looked bored. "Only one now," he commented, staring absently at a random tree. Two wizarding children ran around it, screaming; one had a play-broom that hovered about a two feet off the ground so that when she mounted it, her toes skimmed the grass. Harry felt suddenly depressed. HE wanted his Firebolt.
"Like the Mongols," Severus was muttering distastefully, but under his breath, for he remembered Harry's new personality and fierceness. "Losing London will deal a severe blow to Voldemort," he reasoned, "but not a devastating one. He'll recover quickly."
"We should capture the city," Arthur said excitedly. "Make it so he can't take it back."
"Oh? And how do you plan to do that?" Snape sneered. "With the forces and time that we don't have?"
"It's better than just leaving it there for him to come back to!" Arthur replied ardently.
"That's not the matter of importance right now," Dumbledore interjected, stopping their dispute. "No, the issue at hand is…" he turned to Harry, who was still focused on the playing children. "The issue at hand is what to do with him."
"Do?" the boy in question echoed, turning his head a bit over to leer at his one-time mentor. His eyes were glassy with madness. "Do? We didn't come here to have you meddle in our affairs, Headmaster. We came to drop off Ginny and enlighten you of the current situation. And, while Gordic's Hollow is rather amusing, we're full. We're leaving."
Leaving? Version stirred slowly, a lazy cat rising from a nap in the sun. He started making the calculations for the jump. Harry rose, dusting off his clothes. With uncharacteristic affection he looked at the Weasley family and smiled. Then he grabbed a double fistful of the magic inherent to Gordic's Hollow and made the leap.
Dumbledore's face, as always, betrayed no signs of surprise. He watched as Harry's form flickered, then vanished into a few blue and black butterflies. Harry, on the other hand, was intent on the destination.
He went a long way.
#
Sirius Black, eh? Is that who I am?
I like repeating the name. It seems friendly somehow. A useful name; I can murmur it like a prayer or spit it like a curse, and yet it remains the same: Sirius Black.
No, that's not me. I fool myself. I think of the name and sometimes the image of a laughing, dark-haired fellow-- not me, of course-- swims slowly to surface. I wonder if I knew him, or if he is like Harry. Imaginary.
I know Harry isn't real because I remember someone like him, only my fractured memories tell me he's older now. Or was that his father? They did look remarkably alike, if I can remember correctly. Harry comes and goes though. The walls and bars and locks of this place can't hold him. That's because he is a dream. His edges are blurry. He is an old memory twisted into a delusion, and I think he is dead.
I like being a dog sometimes. It's easier for me to think that way, because there's less to think about. Death isn't as near when I'm a dog, but I still hear them talk.
We're on a list, it seems, to be fed to the Dementors. Yesterday it was a fellow by the name of Gilderoy Lockheart or something like that. Poor bugger. I'm still a ways off on the list, but my time is soon and sure to come. I look forward to it, because then I will be able to see Harry and his father and remember who I am.
Would you look at that? Harry's come to visit again! Good lad, always knows when I can use some cheering up, even though he's only a hallucination and I'm insane. There's something different about him every time. Sometimes he brings food-- dry crusts, water, a piece of stale meat or moldy cheese if I'm lucky-- and sometimes he sits down to play cards with me, except that there aren't really any cards and he's not really there.
He didn't bring either this time. His eyes are green and his hair is black. He looks so awfully pale. He used to be tan, I think, from flying and weeding his aunt's garden. Sad that I can remember more about him than I can about myself.
A shadow flickers behind his eyes. I haven't noticed it before. He extends a hand, I see that it is dripping with blood.
"Come with me?" he asks.
I take it.
#
Harry was going to be sick, seeing the state Sirius was in.
The cell was clearly a place to keep the dead, or the about-to-die. It was horrifically small, about two by two meters in dimension. There were three thick concrete walls and a barred door for the fourth. There were no windows and there was no light. Soiled straw lined one corner and a hole clearly meant for excretement contaminated another.
Sirius himself took the "skin" out of "skin-and-bones." He was half-naked, shivering convulsively on the straw. His hair was long and densely matted. His skin had an unhealthy sheen to it, lined with swollen blood vessels and dotted with sores and scabs and scars. His eyes were glazed over with a feverish, delirious film, staring at things Harry couldn't and didn't want to see.
Look at us, Harry thought. Look at us, and what we used to be. He began to feel bitterness creep into his heart. Version replaced it with the cold burning fires of vengeance. There was blood on his hands now, and there would sure as hell be a whole lot more by the time he was done. He thought, amused, does Voldemort even have blood?
He took Sirius and jumped.
There were many places that he could have gone. He could have dropped his godfather off at Gordic's Hollow. But there would be no hope of Sirius recovering his sanity there. Harry wasn't even sure if he wanted him to.
There was a place, Version told him, and it made him laugh to think of it. Therefore, that was where they would go.
Some parts in England were still lovely and unblighted by civilization or Death Eaters. The Slytherin line obviously had not ended with Salazar, and there was at least one secluded manor that Snake-face didn't know about. Harry grinned. Maybe it even had house-elves. Hermione would kill him for thinking that if she were here.
It was in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by trees that rose like bristles from the earth. An overgrown estate, covered in wreaths of ivy and barely perceptible to the casual observer after three hundred years of neglect. Like Hogwarts, the only thing that had kept the walls from crumbling and the flora from invading inside was the network of spells Slytherin's ancestors had laid across his home.
Once he had the place pictured in his mind, Version worked out the corresponding details and made the jump. Even now, Harry didn't know how it worked. He'd flown off Azkaban into London. Only then did Version inform him of an alternative way of getting around. It was older than Apparating, lost as wizards grew feeble-minded and distant from the earth and its wild things. It involved inherent calculation and the ability to solve a puzzle by instinct.
Harry and Sirius shifted out of space and into being, standing in the main foyer of Slytherin's manor. Harry searched mentally for a house-elf, frowned when he found none, and proceeded to form a mental map of the place.
He found a floor plan with pretty colors and a tourist's guide. A long walk down one grandly furnished hallway, dark and gloomy, yielded to another on the left, then a finely carved door at the end. The master's bedroom was here; he assumed it would be the one with the best accommodations.
The Slytherin bedchamber was as extravagant and excessive as the rest of the mansion. It was sprawling, with tall, narrow windows facing south and a ceiling chandelier that could have belonged to Louis XIV. It was difficult to find the bed amidst all the luxury, but once he had Sirius settled down on a mattress the size of a small country, Harry began to address medical needs.
He pulled out his wand and conjured a modern-day Muggle first-aid kit, then devoted the next hour to personally cleaning Sirius' many injuries and infected sores. Then, well aware that his now-sedated godfather couldn't very well step into a bathtub, Harry used a modified cleaning charm usually reserved for recalcitrant stains. Finally, as he was beginning to stir, Harry drew the rough outline of a laden table in the air, then watched it flesh out into the real thing with a satisfied smile.
"Harry? Did you bring cards this time?" Sirius asked weakly. "Damn me, they moved me into another cell again. At least they changed the straw…" he went on rambling, blinking rapidly and completely unaware of his surroundings. Harry didn't know what to do. Insane people were ill-equipped to help other insane people.
"Sirius, look at me."
Haunted eyes gazed upward, reluctantly.
"Sirius, you're out. You're free."
"Go 'way… you're not real."
"We're as real as you are, Sirius. Look, there's food here if you don't believe me."
Sirius blinked. Food was good. He reached out with a skeletal hand for a piece of bread. He took a bite, chewing slowly. After about two seconds, something in him snapped and he began to scarf it down, hand reaching out readily for another piece… he was stopped by Harry.
Was it Harry? Sirius mused. Sure, he looked exactly like Harry, but something didn't fit, like his outer appearance didn't match the person inside. And there was something funny about his eyes too. Fascinated, he leaned slightly forward to get a better look, and froze. His godson's pupils were slitted vertically, like a cat's, almost lost in the endless green of his irises.
Version grinned, amused. "Meow."
"Merlin, Harry, what did you do to yourself?" Sirius demanded, backing away.
Ignoring his godfather's shocked expression, Harry passed him a piece of cheese. "Don't eat so fast; you'll throw it all back up again."
Sirius began again, "what did you --" and stopped, for Harry's features were normal once more. Hallucination, his mind declared. Another hallucination.
"You're not hallucinating, actually," Harry told him nonchalantly, peeling a vibrantly red apple. Somehow the feel of the peel falling away from his knife was relaxing. "I'm Harry. You've already met Version. Here." He parted the apple, offering Sirius a slice.
His godfather wolfed that down too, followed by a cup of water. "Version? You're a sharesoul now?"
"Is that what you call them?" Harry wondered. "That sounds pretty lame… Version takes care of me. He keeps track of stuff and helps me out with spells and things. My head would be a mess without him."
Sirius shrugged. He felt like he should feel more concern over Harry's multiple personalities (or was it bipolar disorder?), but he really didn't care. He was healed, fed, warm, and out of hell. It seemed almost rude and ungrateful to worry about his godson now.
"So… d'you know what's going on?" Harry wanted to know, leaning forward attentively with one hand under his chin, elbow propped up from the table. "I guess they didn't let you guys out much."
Sirius blinked. "Oh, yeah." He fumbled for something to follow that up with and couldn't find it. Finally, after about a minute's worth of silence, he said, "so we're all gone now, right?"
"You mean the Order?" Harry quirked a brow. "I thought you knew the Order was doomed from the start… wrong generation, I suppose." He chuckled, suddenly very amused.
"Is Hogwarts…"
"Flat," was the response. "Or something like that. Lucky for Dumbledore, Gordic's Hollow still stands. Or sits. Whatever." And so Harry spent the next five minutes filling Sirius in on the state of the world, at least as much as he knew.
Then the last question was asked:
"Where were you all this time, Harry?"
#
It took a week and what Harry considered to be a shitload of food to nurse Sirius back to partial stability. The man was, like many things thrown into the war, no longer what he had been. Harry's original intention was to hand him back to Dumbledore (who he considered to be a most gifted zookeeper), but after spending a few days with Sirius, he decided it wasn't going to work out that way after all.
A lot of the old fire was gone. Sirius was nothing short of shell-shocked. He took the world in too many parts at a time and walked and talked as though in a daze. He still saw things, strange things like monsters crawling up from the deep recesses of time; he visited places too far away for anyone else to find but close enough to cause him ceaseless nightmares. Twice, Harry had tried to negotiate his way through Sirius' mind, and twice he had been blocked or repelled, as easily as a leaf sheds droplets of water after a rainstorm.
At first Harry had considered the possibility of the presence of another strange power like Version, but that hypothesis was soon dumped. Sirius didn't have something extra in his psyche; rather, he had something missing. And as he watched his godfather gaze through objects as if they were made of glass, Harry began to feel the stirrings of a lost emotion in his soul. Pity?
The house had been good for him, Harry saw. Long walks outside had restored his health. Time seemed to pass differently here, and Harry was sorely tempted to let it all drift away in the sun-drenched gold of the woods or on the dew-beaded rolling lawns in the mornings. But a week was a long time, almost longer than they could afford, and Harry know that staying longer would have dire consequences.
Sirius always seemed to know more than he let on, but he spoke little and spent most of his time counting the saw-like edges of mulberry leaves or running his fingers over glass and polished wood. At night, he would look to the skies, as though there were something written in the edges of the stars, some bookkeeping meant for him and him alone.
It was insanity, yes, but a different type of it, though still as powerful and compelling. There was a different light in his eyes now. They were no longer fever-bright but lit by something just as strange. They had become a smoky cornflower blue, and Harry discovered that he could not see their details clearly.
But he seemed relatively okay now. He was quietly responsive and aware of what happened around him. A newfound peace had settled over him, and he seemed to know when Harry, who didn't really require sleep, left in the evenings in search of Death Eaters or maybe even Voldemort himself. And Sirius recognized the night he meant to go after Remus, because he stayed up watching the moon and did not rest at all.
#
a/n: okay, so that was the repost. i am now done with all six aps, which means i might be able to follow a sane schedule of updating from now on. which means i am going to reread this entire fic so i can figure out where the fuck i am and where i was going to go before school swallowed me, chewed me up quite thoroughly, and spat me back out.
props to tristhe for the betaing.