Disclaimer: I am nothing but a worshipper of the great J.K. Rowling playing in her universe. Anything you recognize is not mine.

A/N: Updated 03-06-2005

°Parseltongue°

DARK PHOENIX

Chapter 14: Interlude

"We used all the tests that exist and the only two wizards powerful enough to overcome Officer Moraine's resistance to the Imperius curse are Dumbledore and Voldemort," Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt told the assembled Order of the Phoenix.

"So the logical conclusion would be that You-Know-Who broke his followers out himself?" asked Molly Weasley.

"There is the hic," answered Shacklebolt. "The wand used was indeed Voldemort's, but the magical signature left in the area presents significant differences with the aura we analyzed in the Ministry last June."

"Besides," continued Dumbledore, "The breakout was not done according to Tom's usual manner. Voldemort tends to kill those not of use to him, yet Officer Moraine was only stunned. This information leads to the disturbing notion that someone else is helping the Dark Lord, someone powerful and compatible with his wand… The question is, who is it?"

"I can answer that question," came Severus Snape's weary voice. He strode in the kitchen of the Phoenix Headquarters and poured himself some much needed Firewhiskey before turning to face the curious crowd. Most of the Order was there, as this was an extended meeting. The Potion Master continued: "However, the identity of this person is not only deeply disturbing, it also comes with many questions." Some of what was obviously worry broke through Snape's usually frigid demeanour.

"So your last visit has been informative. Tell us, Severus. Who is it?" The Headmaster had an impatient air about him, something that was rarely seen. His apprehension was palpable. If his spy was worried, the situation had to be bad indeed.

Snape gulped down his Firewhiskey before answering: "Harry Potter."

There was a shocked silence followed by chaotic exclamations of disbelief, each member trying to be heard over the others. Even Dumbledore was speechless for a moment. Finally he gathered himself and silenced everyone else with a loud BANG of his wand.

"Are you sure, Severus?" he asked once everyone was as settled as they could be.

"Yes, every source concurs. All the Death Eaters are talking about the Boy-Who-Lived breaking them out of Azkaban. I couldn't believe it myself, but all the evidence is there." He looked defiantly at his audience, daring them to object.

One did: "But Harry would never join Voldemort," said Remus piteously, looking more worn out than ever.

Snape threw him a piercing look. "That is where the questions come in. As far as I know, and I know enough, Potter did not join the Dark Lord. It was a transaction of some sort. Evidently, only the Dark Lord and Potter know the exact terms of this exchange. However, their partnership, if it can be called such, turned sour. Rumours say the Dark Lord tried to double-cross Potter and kill him, but it was Rodolphus Lestrange who paid the price." Snape seemed torn between glee at Lestrange's death and resentment at the fact that the Boy-Who-Lived was so powerful.

"What do you mean Lestrange paid the price?" threw in ex-Auror Alastor Moody.

"He's dead. Potter killed him, I believe."

"What? You must be kidding! Harry would never do such a thing!" exclaimed Molly.

"Could you bring me the body to test it?" asked Shacklebolt, always rational.

"No, I could not." Snape narrowed his eyes.

"Why not?"

"Because there is no body to test. Only a bit of cinder, and it has probably been dispersed already. I do not know what happened, but it was bad enough to shake the Dark Lord. He refuses to speak about it. I think your only chance to find answers is to find the brat."

Dumbledore looked uneasy, but still took action. "Do you have any leads on where Harry could be?" he asked his spy.

"The only information I can give you is that he was in Little Hangleton a few days ago."

"Then we will begin there…"

°°°°°°

Colors, sounds, shapes, heat, smells, taste, cold, darkness and light all blended together in a maelstrom of confusion. No sense of space, no sense of time, only the everything and the nothing that was here, and here was nowhere. Indescribable feelings turned and flew around chaotically while all senses were standing still. Or maybe it was the other way around. Impossible to tell in this area beyond physicality where dwelled unordered information in its purest form.

An eternity passed in a nanosecond and a nanosecond lasted an eternity before Harry finally recovered his sense of self and finally centred and anchored himself in the chaos he usually called his mind. He remembered his goal and started sifting through his thoughts and those that were foreign. It was these foreign thoughts, those he had stolen from Voldemort, that had caused this chaos within his psyche in the first place. And now he had to order them before they drove him to insanity. This was Occlumency at its highest level and his control and ability was shaky and rough at best. He had no choice but to learn fast, though. He couldn't doubt himself, or his control would snap and his sanity would be destroyed.

He started by returning his own thoughts and memories back to where they belonged. They had been roused by Voldemort's mind-copy, magnifying the confusion that was caused by the presence of the mind-copy alone. One by one he picked them apart, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, easily recognizing what belonged to him by the familiarity. He placed them back in their "files" or "compartments", that being the closest analogy possible. This explanation was to be taken widely, however, as these spaces continuously overlapped each other. One's mind was not something that could be described in mundane terms.

This first task was soon completed, though this was a relative assumption because time had no meaning in this state. His own thoughts obeyed Harry easily as they seemed eager to return to their ordered condition. He now had all of his faculties back and felt much more confident. He could now start sorting through the Dark Lord's mind, still dancing haphazardly around.

As he "looked" closer, he noticed something very strange. Amongst Voldemort's thoughts and memories he could sense other entities. One of them was the dreams and the knowledge of the Unforgivables Voldemort had implanted during the possession in June. Harry recognized Voldemort's "flavour", even though his own mind had assimilated them and dulled the Dark Lord's magical signature. The dreams he destroyed; maybe one day he would manage a peaceful slumber. The knowledge he kept. It would come in useful in the future, he was certain.

As he continued his examination he noticed there were two completely different signatures hanging around, and they definitely did not origin from Voldemort or himself. They did not seem threatening right now so Harry decided to take care of Voldemort first. Besides, the traces of assimilation on them indicated they had been there for a while.

He reached for the earliest memory of Tom Riddle, having come to the conclusion that a chronological approach would be wisest. Understanding comes easier when there is context, and context is found in history.

As he slowly worked his way through Tom's childhood years, analyzing the memories and filing them in an untouched part of his brain, he realized how similar both their lives were.

The orphanage in which Tom grew up was a dark and loveless place. The children were not children, but charges, things to take care of by obligation. The kids all slept in the same cold room and the clothes and food were the strict minimum for survival. The children had to cook their own food, that is, if they were allowed on that particular day, and clean the place themselves. There was of course the occasional beating when they did not work to the satisfaction of the matrons.

Most of the children found comfort in each other, but not Tom. He was the outcast, the freak. No one wanted to stay close to him for too long. Everyone knew strange things happened around him. Besides, he was particularly hated by the master of the place and no one wanted to suffer because of association with him.

The years passed with Tom's treatment getting progressively worse as he got older. His bursts of accidental magic grew in frequency and in power, warranting more isolation and beatings. Through the insults thrown at him, he learned that his father had abandoned his mother for some obscure reason and that she had died giving him birth. This led him to blame everything on his father. It gave him a focus for his anger and made going through the day easier, albeit slightly.

Then, at eleven, he received his Hogwarts letter. His first glimpse of the magical world gave him hope of a better life. A hope that was to be shattered.

Hogwarts had been Harry's salvation. There, he found friends, people who cared about him. It hadn't been all nice –his fame was notoriously difficult to deal with –but Hogwarts had given him the love and the acceptance he had needed.

Hogwarts had, in Tom's case, been his downfall. He was shunned by his fellow Slytherins because of his blood, and shunned by the rest of the school because he was Slytherin.

Rejected by his peers, he buried himself in books and knowledge and encountered the Dark Arts. At first it was just innocent curiosity, spurred by the discovery of being the descendent of the Dark Wizard Salazar Slytherin, but the intoxication of casting a Dark Spell soon became an addiction, and that addiction soon skewered his judgement. His hate towards his father and towards the orphanage spread to all that was muggle, and his failure to be accepted by his peers mutated in a determination to be feared as their superior.

The change was gradual and became irreversible once he made his first kill through Salazar's Basilisk. The fact that he was never caught only added to his belief that he was superior.

He was not careless, however. He recognized Dumbledore as a threat and wisely kept a low profile during his last Hogwarts years.

Once he left Dumbledore's supervision, he dropped fast and deep into the Dark Arts. He was entirely corrupted by his hate and his illusions. The night he killed his father cemented his madness, making him irredeemable.

At the same time, he realized he was not yet unstoppable. He, too, could be killed by an Avada Kedavra or a knife in his chest.

Thus began his quest for immortality.

The following years were a succession of Dark Arts mentors and rituals aiming for immortality, most of them being failures. At the same time, the new Dark Lord started collecting followers and torturing Muggles. Both just because he could, just to affirm and confirm his superiority. His Mark and his name became feared, spreading terror until he met a green-eyed baby.

At this point Harry hesitated. On one hand, he was terribly afraid of seeing this memory, of seeing his parents die. Especially since he would be seeing from the murderer's point of view, feeling his emotions of joy. On the other hand, there could be the key to defeating the Dark Lord. By knowing why he had survived Harry could find out how to destroy him for good. He couldn't let such an opportunity pass because he was afraid.

In the end his sense of duty prevailed, aided by a bit of morbid curiosity.

The memory did not tell him much that he hadn't figured out on his own. Both his parents died bravely, albeit instantly. However, when Voldemort's body was destroyed by the reflected Killing Curse, Harry knew exactly what had kept Voldemort earthbound.

The Dark Mark.

The Mark linked him to his followers, and his followers were bound in flesh. Therefore, Voldemort could not leave this world and go into the next. The Curse did kill him, he hadn't found a way to immunize himself, but his soul, mind and spirit were earthbound. He was less than a ghost, but he continued to exist in this plane.

The next thirteen years of memories were broken, bits and pieces of images and sound without any sense. Most of the time the Dark Lord had no body to support his essence, and even when he did, the animals he used could not support complex thoughts. So Harry got very little information from this period. The only memory dense enough to be noted was Quirrell's possession, but it was of no use. Besides being confusing mixed perceptions, that attempt at immortality had been a complete failure for the Dark Lord.

Voldemort only regained a rational mind in the body Wormtail created with unicorn blood and Nagini's venom. It wasn't human, but it was able to support the complexity of a human mind. With these memories, Harry was able to fill in the blanks in the series of events which led to the Dark Lord's rebirth.

Not much there was useful, but he gained priceless knowledge about the ritual that brought Voldemort back in flesh.

Through the memories he had glimpsed yet, Harry had extracted Tom Riddle's knowledge of magic to use as his own. Potions, spells, charms and multiple theories; Harry took everything. Anything could be used as a weapon and weapons were what he needed in this fight.

He wasn't going to fall for the Dark Lord's tricks again, and that meant knowing exactly who he was facing. Knowing his history gave Harry an inside look of Voldemort's personality.

With that thought in mind Harry finished examining the memories of the last year. They were relatively boring, seeing how Voldemort had spent most of it biding his time.

The last month, on the other hand, was quite interesting. It was hard proof that Voldemort had planned to have him killed since the very beginning. The Loyalty Spell had only been a safeguard. He didn't want a repeat of the failed Killing Curse.

Well, now Harry knew all of the Slytherin's tricks, and it was time Voldemort had a taste of his own medicine. It wouldn't be easy, and he might get burned in the process, but he would do it.

Finally, he was finished ordering what he had stolen from Voldemort's mind. Strangely, he did not feel tired after such work. Then again, there was no sense of time here, so it followed logically that there wasn't any exhaustion either.

So he turned his attention to the two foreign signatures he had noticed earlier.

He started with the most recent one. Examining it, he realized it was far from human in nature, but it was highly magical. When he finally threw himself into it, he realized that this was actually instinctive phoenix knowledge, a by-product of his potion mishap. It was biologically subconscious. In other words, Harry could not understand or use it consciously. From the little he managed to gleam, he knew the mechanisms for flying were somewhere in there. Reassured as to its nature, he coaxed it to return to the "spot" it had originally claimed for itself, deep in his subconscious.

The second one was even more puzzling. Not only was it not human, it wasn't even alive. It was, however, undeniably sentient. What really puzzled Harry was the link he sensed. The entity, or whatever it was, was tied to a physical object.

Another strange thing was the way it stretched, touching many layers of Harry's mind, like an intricate web with an obscure purpose.

Wary of this alien presence, he played it safe and started by observing how this sentient being influenced him.

Its first objective seemed to be erasing all of Harry's inhibitions. Well, that explained why he had been so reckless lately. And why he felt no remorse about his kills. All that would keep him from doing what he desired was locked away by this entity.

The second thing it was doing influenced him physically. It was actually instructing his muscles to develop, as well as enhancing his sense of balance. The process wasn't instantaneous, but he would have noticed the effects if he had been paying attention to his body. Good, Harry thought, this will be useful.

Harry really warmed up towards this being once he saw the next thing it was doing. It was working in the grey area between his conscious and subconscious thoughts, teaching him, so to speak, how to fight. No wonder he used his daggers so easily.

Suddenly he knew exactly what this sentient being was. It obviously was the Dark Daggers themselves! But why would it influence him like that?

As if they had heard him, he perceived the answer. We want blood… anything for blood…

The first thought that went through Harry's mind was: Well what do you expect from Vampiric Weapons? Then he realized why these weapons had chosen him and not a vampire. The latter would keep the blood for themselves, while Harry had no interest in it, only interest in killing itself, either in defence or in vengeance.

For now the daggers were actually helping him, so he left everything intact. However, he was going to monitor it closely. He had no interest in becoming a mindless killer, and eventually that was the Dark Daggers' goal. They were sentient, yes, but they were simple-minded and entirely focused on their desires.

Harry was about to let go and return to the waking world when something jarred him. He was pulled into the connection he shared with the Dark Lord. It was not surprising. He had been using active Occlumency for a while and he needed rest, real mental rest. Conserving his energy, he did not resist the pull. Instead, he focused on being as unobtrusive as possible, hoping the Dark Lord would not notice him.

The images came in a rush and nearly blinded him. It was a battle, a battle against the Order of the Phoenix. It was a good thing Voldemort's head was known terrain to him. It made hiding, but also getting information, easier. As the Dark Lord was occupied with the fight, Harry looked at what had happened since he had retired in his own mind.

He was surprised when he realized it had been over a week since he had raped Voldemort's mind. Had it really taken that long to sort through the memories?

Even so, that week had been uneventful. Voldemort had been quite shaken, Harry realized with glee. Trying to get past that event, he had organized a Muggle torture raid in Little Hangleton itself, which is where he was now. But, they had stumbled on the Order and this was now an intense battle.

Harry's attention was brought back to the battle as he saw one of the fighters of the Order fall to the Death Eaters. It was one he recognized, one he loved. Remus Lupin.

Voldemort ordered a strategic retreat. He had a hostage now, and that could be quite useful. Not to mention entertaining. As he Apparated back to his stronghold, he noticed Harry in his mind and vehemently cast him out. Amongst the strength of the push, there was a strong sense of surprise.

Harry woke up abruptly, back in the waking world, in his trunk, with only one thought in mind: He had to save Remus!

TBC