Harry Potter and the Slow Bloom Chapter 3: Revelations

1. I don't own Harry Potter.

2. I wish I did but…

3. I don't.

4. Happy?

Thank you to those who've left reviews. Prepare yourselves. From now on, this gets dark and ugly. It's about damn time things got nasty.

Harry slowly woke to a room filled with sunshine. His head didn't hurt anymore, and he'd had the best night's sleep that he could remember. He felt relaxed and he was no longer strung out.

His memories of the night before were confused, as if he'd been watching a film with scenes taken out of it. He remembered breaking down in her arms, telling her that he felt the same way about her as she felt about him, remembered her warm, soft weight against his chest. With a start, he realised that she'd gone, leaving a cold, empty space in the chair next to his bed. He lay back and sighed. Well, she had lessons to go to. There was no use dwelling on it. He'd felt so fragile last night, but it was all out in the open now. There was nothing else he could do apart from wait.

He turned back to his potions essay and finished the last few lines, praising it as an invaluable medical aid that nevertheless had to be used with caution. He held it up to the light streaming through the window, checking it for errors. The parchment glowed a deep yellow, the filigree veins crisscrossing the sheet in crazy scribbles, overlaid with the blue tracery of Harry's rounded script. It was a good essay. Even Snape would find it hard to mark him down on this one.

There. That was it. Until Ron came up to give him even more work, he had nothing to do, and he could feel his brain steering around to himself and Hermione without his bidding. No, not that. Something less…confused. Hmm, fine. Lupin, then. And Sirius too.

He felt all the old feelings open up. Confusion and sadness mingled with anger and desperation as he brought all the memories back. Sirius locked in the northern tower, bereft of hope, about to have his soul sucked away, astounded to see him and Hermione. Sirius, so happy at Christmastime last year, singing carols in Grimauld Place. Sirius, a surprised look on his face as he fell through the archway into eternity.

He had been almost the last link to his parents, their best man at their wedding. He was as close to a family as Harry had ever had, and now he was gone. Harry shut his eyes as a lump rose in his throat. He should never have gone to the ministry. He should have studied Occlumency harder with Snape. He shouldn't have said all those horrible things to Dumbledore. What good had it done, in the end?

Enough. You torture yourself too much, you know. It's like Lupin said. He would have wanted to go down fighting. So what are you going to do? Mope around here or go and get some answers?

He decided to listen to the little voice inside for once. It was the same one that had frozen him to the spot when Cho Chang had kissed him last year, the one that had told him that he'd been walking into a trap last June. Maybe he was going mad, but that was it. He was suddenly fed up with this place and he wanted out. He said as much to Madam Pomfrey. She turned a stony face on him.

"Very well, Mr Potter. Your leg will be stiff for a few days until the muscles ease up. In the meantime… "

She drew a cube in the air around his knee. It glowed golden for a moment and then vanished. Harry eased himself out of bed and stood on the cold floor. He took a tentative step forwards and gasped. His knee joint felt smooth and oiled, almost mechanical in its motion.

"Put your full weight on it. It won't break".

"What is it?" Harry was impressed. It felt like he was wearing a mechanical leg of some sort.

"It's a magical support. It is tied in to your knee joint and most of your leg. You won't be able to stress your leg while it's on, but it will wear off in a day or so. Come back to me when it does. In the meantime, good luck".

As he walked stiffly out of the hospital wing, not quite used to having the full use of his leg back, Harry could have sworn that he'd seen a ghost of a smile flicker over the matron's face. He looked back to check that he'd missed nothing, and it was then that he saw the silver bowl in the middle of the room. He sighed. One way or another there would be a reckoning. In the meantime, there was work to be done and answers to be had. He walked towards the Gryffindor common room.

"Well now, look who's back. Password?"

"Dragon's tooth." Harry clambered through the portrait hole. People looked up and stared. A few gasped.

"Harry's back!" Ten people mobbed him before he could take more than five steps into the room.

"How are you?"

"Is your leg okay?"

"Is Malfoy up yet?"

"Do you remember anything?"

"ENOUGH!" Two voices yelled. Harry's head whipped round in the crush to see Hermione stalking towards the little group with her wand out. Ron had taken up a flanking position by the fireplace and was looking murderous.

"Oi, you lot, give him space! Harry, mate, over here." Ron pointed up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. He glared at the group but attempted a smile anyway. "Harry needs rest. Later – we party. But not now."

"Watch where you're pointing that thing" muttered Dean darkly. "I don't want to end up looking like dear Draco."

With that, the three of them fled upstairs into Harry and Ron's room. Harry plonked himself onto his bed, exhausted from the intense panic that came from being mobbed and the ache in his leg. The support charm was working fine, but he couldn't expect it cushion everything. Ron and Hermione sat on stools, the three forming three points of a triangle. After a moment, realising how confrontational this was, each of them dropped onto the floor.

Harry looked at his two best friends. Hermione was older than he'd ever seen her look. She was looking straight through him with an air of concern, yet it was tempered with softness. He knew that she was thinking of the hospital wing and what had transpired there.

Some subtle change had been wrought in Ron. His hair was no longer lank and parted down the centre. It was feathered and darker. His face had filled out and his jaw and cheekbones were clearly delineated. Quidditch and his ferocious appetite had worked its magic on his long frame. He was no longer lanky; he towered, his face powerful. Maybe it was the trauma of the brains from the summer, but again Harry noted the quiet, menacing look. It was hard to see unless you knew him very well, as Harry and Hermione did, but it was there. Ron had become something to be feared by anyone who would cross Harry's path.

Harry cleared his throat. "Both of you… thanks. For everything." Ron and Hermione nodded, seemingly anxious to hear Harry speak. He paused, lining up his words in his mind. "I've accessed the augmented penseive. Ron, Hermione, all this… comes as a bit of a shock. I know we've all changed, but I didn't think you two would have. At least, not that much." He held Ron's gaze until his friend looked away.

"We've all become scarred. I can see it." Harry said, almost to himself. He thought of Sirius and then locked that thought away. He'd go and see Lupin later, get it all sorted out.

They nodded again, and Ron shifted uncomfortably, as if he knew what Harry was about to ask.

Harry looked him in the eye. "I need to know what happened with the brains."

Ron sighed, shut his eyes, and leaned back against the cupboard. "All right, but I'm only saying this once. Have you two ever – and Harry, I know how this sounds – have you two ever seen anyone being tortured?"

Harry froze. Hermione went white. Ron nodded warily. "Well. There you go. Harry, do you remember anything about the brains?"

Harry's mind went back to Ministry, to Ron fending off the flying hunks of matter spouting tendrils of what had seemed like film.

"They looked like they had things – memories – coming out of them. Like a reel of film."

"And you do you remember the names of the Death Eaters that died doing stuff for You-Know-Wh – damnit, Voldemort?"

Hermione spoke up hesitantly. "Rosier, Wilkes, some others."

Harry felt sick to his stomach. He could see what was coming, knew what Ron was about to say. By the looks of it, so did Hermione. Ron's breathing quickened and he gulped air in an effort for control.

"It was them. It was their brains. The bastards at the ministry ripped out their brains and left them alive in that tank for study," he hissed. Ron's face was screwed up in a snarl. "They thought they could get information on who was on Voldemort's side if they studied the memories of the people they'd caught. But they didn't use Veritaserum, that would have been no use. After all, only Voldemort knew who they all were. So they had to look directly into their memories, put them into a pensive, a special one. But their memories were still there, of all the people they'd tortured and killed." Ron's face had gone purple. His voice was full of rage. "Plus there was all the stuff that the Ministry did to them before they pulled the plug on them. And guess who got a face full of Death-Eater memories when the tank went to hell? Guess who's seen dozens of murders and rapes and curses? Guess who can remember having his brain pulled out? Me, that's who." Ron squeezed his head in both hands, as if he was trying to crush the memories away. "I saw it all, Harry. I can't get rid of them."

He rolled over onto his side and huddled up into a ball, arms crossed over his chest. Harry reached him at the same time as Hermione did. Not knowing what to do, he grasped Ron's shoulder and squeezed, hard, as Hermione took the other shoulder. His sobs wracked his powerful frame. Slowly, his hands crept upwards and took theirs. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, devastation written on their faces. They all linked hands, each of them grasping the other two tight, as their once innocent world came crashing down around their ears in splinters.

Later that night, unable to sleep and wracked with angry questions, Harry grabbed his father's cloak and the Marauderer's Map and stepped out of the portrait hole. He had had enough. He was going to find Lupin. He made his way to the Room of Requirement and halted in front of the blank space on the wall.

"I need somewhere where I can talk to Lupin. I need to know exactly what happened to Sirius and I need to know about the Brain tank." he commanded. He glanced down at the map, seeing a new room appear on the map as a door materialised in front of him. He stepped through and found himself in – what? How…? Had he picked the wrong passageway? Was there another room like this in the castle?

It was Dumbledore's office. Everything was there: the gadgets, the desk, the squashy red deep-backed chairs. Even – and Harry had to glance at the map – Fawkes. Yes, Fawkes was definitely there. As were Dumbledore and Lupin.

"Hello, Harry. Have a seat. We're been expecting you." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes came to rest on his, and Harry felt slightly cheated. Remus Lupin smiled wanly at him and answered the obvious question.

"This isn't a trick, Harry. Albus, as Headmaster, has the ability to – how shall I put this? – change the place that that door behind you leads to . I imagine anyone trying to get into the Headmaster's study right now is having a very hard time of it indeed."

Harry sat heavily in the closest chair. He was suddenly tired again.

"You know what I came here to ask."

"Sirius, I presume." Dumbledore glanced at Lupin. "Remus, perhaps you should tell him. You were his friend."

Lupin's expression closed up, and Harry saw a pained look flash across his preternaturally aged face before he spoke.

"Harry, do you know what is behind that curtain in the Department of Mysteries?"

"You're going to tell me that Sirius is dead, and that he can't come back as a ghost. I know that much. I talked to Sir Nick about it last summer." Harry's voice was stony.

"You're right. Avada Kedavra, Harry. The killing curse. It's nothing compared to what's on the other side of that curtain.

"What could be worse than death?" Harry wanted answers. Quickly.

Dumbledore spoke "The very question that has led Tom Riddle down the darkest of paths. Harry, Sir Nicholas, upon the point of his death, had a choice. To become a ghost, a shadow of his former self, and yet more. To die, and to face the mysteries of death. Or to embrace what is behind the curtain."

"Which is?"

"Nothing, Harry. Null space." Lupin gripped the arms of his chair momentarily and then relaxed. It had obviously cost him a lot to say that. "Do you understand what that means?"

"No."

"Neither does anyone else. It's like walking outside the universe. Imagine a place that isn't a place, or the inside of black hole. It's literally nothing. In the purest sense of the word."

"So Sirius… is gone. For ever."

"I miss him too, Harry." Lupin cupped his hands to his nose and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, willing away tears.

Harry was numb. He'd known. Oh, he'd known all right. Ever since the mirror that Sirius had given him hadn't worked. Enough was enough. How much did they know?

"I need to tell you both something."

He told them about what Ron had said regarding the brains. Their reaction was shocking. Lupin looked as though he'd been forced to drink a gallon of Wolfsbane potion in one go. Dumbledore's eyes went to slits and Harry felt his raw anger surge through the room. He hadn't known… the Ministry had acted without the Wizengamot knowing about it, Dumbledore wasn't involved… He felt relieved and sick at the same time. How much more was the Ministry hiding?

"I…see." Dumbledore turned to Lupin. "Remus, I need to take a message to the Order. Phineas Nigellus is nowhere to be found, so I cannot use him. Tell them that there is to be an emergency meeting. Everyone is to attend. As soon as possible." Remus nodded and left. Dumbledore turned to Harry and spoke softly.

"I imagine that you have many more questions, but I am afraid that they will have to wait. What you have told us changes everything."

"Sir?" Dumbledore's face showed concern.

"Harry. Tell no one. We may have more enemies than we thought." With that, Albus swept out of the room.

It was then that the full implications of Ron's story hit Harry. Fudge knew. Fudge and his predecessor had known the identity of every Death Eater from the moment of capture and had let some of them go. The analysis of their disembodied brains had surely revealed enough information for the Ministry to know for certain who was in with Voldemort and who'd been falsely accused.. Because of them, countless people had died. Because of them, Peter Pettigrew had been able to resurrect Voldemort, instead of facing life in Azkaban. Because of them, the Second War was upon them and now the Order would have to fight on two fronts. There was only one possible explanation.

The Ministry had turned traitor.