Erised's Bane
Author's Note: Okay, second chapter up in a couple of days. I'm really trying to catch up, seeing as I want to have this story done before I graduate and really start getting busy with college and all of that junk. So anyway, here's an update and a brief summary of the story to date...
Harry, after an uneventful summer at Privet Drive, hears of an attack on muggles nearby where he lives. He is out wandering at night when he confronts a young girl whose parents were victims of the killing, Megan Wyatt, and he himself is arrested as a suspect in the murders. He is rescued from the prison by none other than Snape and whisked away to Hogwarts, where he stays until school begins. He also finds out that whoever rescued him was NOT the real Snape.
He then meets Professor Young, who is the new DADA teacher. Young is an enigmatic figure, who at times is very against Harry fighting, and the next volunteering herself to teach Harry how to fight. Many things happen in school, including the fact that Hagrid's new snakes seem to be related to Nagini, and the DA has become an official club. Besides this, he is forgetting his nighttime visits to the Room of Requirement, where he talks to Sirius through the Mirror of Erised...or is it really just a dream?
Harry also finds out that the wand, which he briefly lost during the skirmish in the fall, is in fact not his wand. He begins dating Susan Bones, Neville and Ginny seem to be dating now, and Ron has declared his love to Hermione (who is currently attached to Dean) and has been turned now. Now, at the Burrow again, Harry has just been given an unusual gift by Young...a golden locket with pictures of his past and a lock without a key, as well as some strange news....Young is, in fact, Harry's godmother.
And so the story continues...
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter book series belongs to Ms. J.K. Rowling, not me. This should seem pretty obvious to you since if I was J.K. I could make a pretty penny from this stuff, and I wouldn't be giving it away for free on the Internet.
Is it Christmas Yet?
The Burrow was unusually quiet. Harry sat pensively at the table in the middle of all the calm. The sun hadn't yet come up and even Mrs. Weasley was nodding of as she stood at the stove, looking anxiously at Harry, who himself was wide awake. "It's Christmas morning, Harry, perhaps you should go back and nap till the others wake up."
"I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley." He said dully. "I'm just sitting here."
"Well, at least eat something this morning." She said with a frown, as she set the first batch of pancakes on the table. "What with the smell of this in the air, the brood is sure to be up soon."
Harry shrugged and pulled a plate over, spearing a couple of pancakes and tossing them on the plate. He dribbled a thin stream of syrup on them and cut a piece with his fork, but the minute Mrs. Weasley left the room again he set the fork down and lay his chin on his palm. His head hurt from so much thinking, and he was getting tired of all the thought he had had to put forth lately.
A few years ago, he would scarcely have thought that the course of ones life could change in a few moments. That would have been before he found out he was a wizard, before he had found out he had a godfather and then lost him.
Now his life had changed yet again, because he suddenly understood that not everybody that he had a relationship with would necessarily be close to him. After all, Young was his godmother and she never looked at him with anymore than a casual, educated interest. There were those times that she seemed protective, but now Harry had to wonder if it was for his gain or the Order's.
He didn't want to think about it, though. He didn't want to imagine how many other people knew who Sabrina Young was, or if she would even tell anybody that now he knew as well.
He didn't want to think about what could make his mother choose such a callous, unfeeling woman to take her place.
He didn't want anything from Young altogether. He wasn't asking for a mother, he didn't need one. He had lived his life perfectly fine up to this point without a godmother and he could very well just forget that Young even existed. What was another betrayal in his life, after all? There had been so many, and Young wasn't somebody that he could trust.
"Hey Harry, up early again?" He looked at the staircase. Ron was rubbing his eyes as he came down, yawning wide. "I know you're eager to open presents but it's no use, mum won't let us touch them until every single person is up."
"Good morning to you, too." Harry said with a wry grin that belied his emotions. Ron sat next to him and helped himself to the pancakes, scooping up a giant spoonful of eggs when his mother set those on the table as well. Harry said nothing, despite Ron's efforts to talk through mouthfuls of breakfast, and was soon enmeshed in voices from all sides.
"Oh, Harry dear, Susan should be arriving around noontime, I thought I'd remind you."
Harry looked up at Mrs. Weasley and blinked. He had completely forgotten that Susan was visiting. A blush slowly crept up his neck and he ducked his head down, taking a desperate bite of his food to hide his embarrassment from the Weasley's. Fred and George saw this of course, and didn't take pause to wonder if teasing Harry was the best course of action.
"Look how he pines for his lady-love Fred." Said George with a melodramatic sigh. "I can scarcely believe how he's lived without her for this long."
"I'm certain his heart can start beating once again now that Madame Bones is returning to his side." Fred leaned down on his clutched fists and batted his eyelashes. "Ahhh, l'amour."
"Eez zat French I hear?" Harry looked up in time to see Fleur coming down the stairs with Ginny at her side. He noticed that Ginny looked quite pretty, with her hair in a complicated plait, and wondered if Fleur had done her hair.
Mademoiselle Delacour was becoming herself, dressed in silvery robes that were laced with blue ribbons. As a mass the Weasley brothers groaned as Fleur pecked Bill on the lips, sitting down beside him.
"Well, it looks like everybody is here." Said Mrs. Weasley, putting her hands on her hips. "So as soon as everybody is done eating..."
"Presents!" said Ginny with a hoot.
Mrs. Weasley scowled and Mr. Weasley chuckled. "Now now, Molly, you know you'll miss this when all these are gone."
"And when, may I ask, will I ever be able to scrape all this lot from my house?" she said, giving the group a mock scowl.
"You know you love us mum, so admit it and quit trying to lock us up in St. Mungo's Clinic for the Mentally Impaired."
"I'll try." Said Mrs. Weasley with a snort. Harry continued to pick at his plate until Ron stood up, stretching.
"Well, that's it for me. I think I'll just...."
"Wait until everybody else is done."
"Right mom." Harry followed him to the sitting room, where a giant frosted tree was standing, glinting with silvery lights.
"Let's see..." said Ron, looking towards the floor at the various piles of packages in shiny paper. "Here we go, it's the Harry pile." He gestured to a group of packages marked with his name, which sat next to an assortment of cushions. Harry sat on one and Ron took up residence at the pile next to him.
"What's this all about?" said Harry, examining the other piles that were stationed around the room.
"Ah, I see you've never experienced a traditional Weasley Christmas morning. Mum likes to keep things separated, since there's so many of us. She'll never forget the year we accidentally switched presents and I ended up getting Ginny's stuffed doll." He grimaced. "That thing still gives me the creeps."
The rest of the clan finally trickled into the room. Harry laughed out loud when Mrs. Weasley entered, deftly slapping Fred's fingers with her wand as he attempted to unwrap on of his gifts. "All right..." she said, looking around the room to see that everybody was there. "Go on, then."
Everything erupted as the mass unwrapping began. Harry grinned wide, watching as Fred and George competed in their corner to see who could unwrap their gifts the fastest. Then he turned to his own gifts and picked up one addressed to him in Hermione's familiar script. He found inside a book...of course.
"1,001 Best Kept Secrets of the Aurors: Potions, Spells, and Scrolls." Harry read out loud. "I wonder why she thought that would come in handy." Then something softened on his face as he picked up something else that had fallen out of the wrapping. It was a journal of sorts. He thought it might be something like the planner she had given him before, but a further look revealed a note.
Harry,
This book has a charm on it like the one I put on the coins last year. Use it to talk to me and Ron...I've given one to him as well. Use the pen I put with it, it erases everything we write the moment a conversation is done. I figured we could use it in the library so Madame Pince doesn't yell at us as much.
Hermione
He glanced over and saw Ron look for a long moment at the leather-bound journal before setting it deliberately aside. Then he turned back to his own gifts.
There was a strange puzzle in an old box from Remus...he said he had found it in an antique shop in Diagon Alley and thought it might be a stress relief for Harry in his letter. He got from Mrs. Weasley more fudge and a dark gray sweater with an embroidered HP on the chest in silver, and from the twins a package of treats from the WWW for use, as they said, in the 'pursuit of extracurricular activity', or as Mrs. Weasley took it, for cutting class.
Charlie gave both Harry and Ron traditional daggers that he had gotten hold of in Romania. Harry was rather interested in this, as his was about six inches long and the handle was bright gold in the shape of a dragon, with glowing ruby eyes.
Treats from Ginny and Fleur merited a grin, and Bill gave him a book on cursebreaking that, according to him, was most helpful in a tight jam. Harry hadn't seen it before, in either the Hogwarts library or his own personal bookshelf, so he made a note to himself to go through it for any information that might seem helpful.
Ron gave Harry a set of long lasting sugar quills, one of which was supposed to stimulate the thought processes, and he in the middle of sucking on one of them and contemplating when there was a noisy whoosh at the fireplace.
"Susan!" he got up and went over, catching Susan as she stumbled out of the green flames. She grinned up at him and stood on her own feet, wobbling slightly.
"Are you all right, dear?" said Mrs. Weasley with a frown.
"I'm fine. Flooing always makes me a bit dizzy."
"Glad you could make it, Mistress Bones." Said Fred with a flourish, before he noisily bit into a shrieking fudgecake, making Mrs. Weasley roll her eyes.
"Fred and George, right?" she said as she took off her scarf and knit cap. "Your swamp last year was brilliant. In fact, I still have a bunch of the fireworks you sold me."
George beamed. "I like this one, Harry. She's a keeper."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't mind them, Susan, somewhere along the line they got the idea that they were funny."
"It's quite all right." She said, before sitting down nearby Harry's piled. She glanced over and raised a brow. "Nice sweater. I like the dagger. Who gave it to you?"
"That would be me." Said Charlie.
"It's from Hungary, right?"
"Romania."
"Oh." Susan reached over and picked it up. "I guess it is, it just seems like I've seen something like it before. In fact, I think Professor Young has one very similar to it in her collection."
"Collection?" said Charlie curiously.
"Mmm." Susan turned over the dagger and looked more closely at it. "Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. She has a collection of over a hundred swords, but she has a few daggers as well. I met her when I was about thirteen, when she still lived in America. She bought a handful of rare cursed daggers from my aunt. I do wonder if she ever got them unjinxed..."
"Perhaps." Said Harry, as he took the dagger back from Susan. He definitely didn't need the conversation heading towards Young, especially not in the mood he was in. Trying to be lighthearted, he held up his sweater. "So what do you think? Dashing?"
"I think you look lovely, Harry." Said Ron in his most serious voice. Harry was very glad that when he looked up Ron was pretending to wretch.
"Oh! That reminds me, here's my gift for you." Susan pulled a small wrapped package from her pocket and handed it to him. He took it and turned it around, wondering what could be inside. He carefully unwrapped it to reveal a glass box that contained a very small version of the British Quidditch team flying around a field.
"That's awesome!" said Ron as he looked into it. "Very cool."
"Thanks." Said Susan, who blushed very slightly. Harry was suddenly very aware of the gift he had for her, which was currently laying unwrapped in his room. "I have something for you, let me go get it." he said, before handing the box off to Ron and taking off up the stairs.
He frantically looked around on top of his dresser, hoping that Susan wouldn't be too upset he hadn't wrapped it. Then, to his surprise, he saw a nicely wrapped gift sitting beside his things. There was a note beside it, which made him laugh as he read it.
Harry,
Sorry to take matters into my own hands but I noticed this little gift wasn't wrapped. Brilliant girl that I am, I figured it was for Susan and wrapped it for you. You owe me, Harry, because I'm certain you don't realize how much trouble you would have been in otherwise.
-Ginny
Remembering that he would have to buy Ginny a chocolate frog later to thank her for correcting his little mistake, he took the present and ran downstairs. He had bought it at Hogsmeade shortly before the break, and now presented it to Susan.
She was smiling as she opened it, and the smile widened when she saw that it was a jewelry box. She flipped it open and gasped, drawing out a bracelet with several multicolored stones that sparkled prettily in the light. "I love it!" she said, throwing her arms around Harry and kissing him on the cheek, causing him to blush brightly and to awkwardly kiss her back. While Ginny helped Susan to put the bracelet on, Harry scowled at Ron for the faces he was making.
"Hey, where is everybody?" said a sudden loud voice from the kitchen. Everybody turned as Tonks entered, with bright red hair streaked in holly green. Remus followed, looking decidedly gray but refreshed, and Moody brought up the rear. "Ah, here's the gang!" she said, sitting down beside the twins. "How is everybody?"
"Just dandy." Said George. "You just missed seeing the lovebirds exchange their vows of undying affection."
"Who?" she said, looking around. "Bill and Fleur?"
"Nope." Said Ron, joining in the game. "The other ones."
"Oh, I see." Said Tonks with a big wink. "Then you must mean your mother and father. Nice to see the romance is still alive after all these years."
"Not them!" said Fred. "Are you kidding? We killed the romance long ago."
"Fred, remind me of what you just said the moment you have your first child." Said Mr. Weasley from afar. "I'd like to have something to laugh at when we've got the house to ourselves and you've got yourself a little redheaded brood to deal with."
"Har har." Said Fred. "And actually, Tonks, you're wrong once more."
"Oh? So who were you talking about?"
"Harry and Susan."
Tonks blinked and turned her neck all the way around to where Harry and Susan were sitting, just a little too close to be 'just friends'. "Ohh..." she said on a crest of realization. "I didn't know you had a girlfriend."
For at least the fourth time that day Harry felt himself go red. "Yeah...Tonks, this is Susan Bones. Susan, Nyphadora Tonks."
"Nice to meet you." She said with a grin. Then she looked around and cried out. "Professor Lupin! And Professor Moody."
"Nice to see you again." Said Remus, shaking her hand. "Hufflepuff, right?" she nodded.
"As for me, it's just plain Moody." He shook her hand as well, and it was to Harry's surprise that he saw she didn't even flinch once.
Mrs. Weasley, though distinctly frazzled, went automatically into the matron of the house mode. "Well, now that the gangs all here, why don't we let the festivities begin?"
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Harry couldn't sleep. He was staring at the ceiling, hands over the medallion he kept securely on his chest, as Ron snored nearby—a scenario he had had all too much of lately. He waited a long moment before sighing and getting out of bed and making his way downstairs. It was too his surprise that when he got there, somebody was already seated at the table, a cup of something steaming and delicious smelling in his hands.
"Remus?" Harry said, not even trying to hide the fact that his voice showed him to be wide awake.
"Harry...still awake?" He turned and gave him a long, searching look, his tired face looking as gray as ever in the warm firelight. "Why don't you have a seat? Have a cup of Molly's cocoa."
Harry sat down as Remus poured him a cup from a nearby kettle, taking it in his hands and letting the warmth seep into his fingers. He sipped slowly at it and for a long while neither he nor Remus talked, and he was suddenly reminded of a very similar heart to heart in this same kitchen. Well, he knew that he wouldn't get the answers he sought from anybody else...it was now or never, he decided, and he resolutely set his mug down.
"What can you tell me about Young?" Harry said, looking at Remus' face for a reaction. There was none. Instead, Remus just continued to sip at his cocoa, looking off into nothing as he thought.
"I can't tell you much...unless perhaps there is something she told you herself?"
"She told me about my aunt...that she and my mum used to get along." Remus looked over at Harry, as if deciding whether or not to humor him as they both knew this wasn't really what he wanted to talk about.
"Well...yes, she did. There weren't any deep dark secrets there, really, just misunderstanding and a lot of wasted years. They certainly weren't the best of friends, but as I understand it Petunia was growing more and more jealous of Lily over the years. The fact that Lily was a witch wasn't an issue until...later events."
Harry, knowing the events of which he spoke, nodded. "And...Young herself?"
Remus raised a brow. "What about her?"
"Well...she's my godmother."
A long moment passed as Remus set his mug down on the table and his shoulders fell. He took a deep breath and released it, looking towards the fire once again. "Yes, she is. I am glad she finally told you. I wanted you to know sooner...if I could have made her, I would have had her looking in on you all these years, making sure that you were well taken care of, but she has her own method behind such things."
"She said something about...about truth and affection. I don't think I quite understood..." Harry said slowly.
Remus nodded. "You must understand something about Sabrina Young, Harry. I am sure when you first met her you thought her quite ditzy? Perhaps even still she is occasionally like that, especially in public?" Harry nodded, glad that Remus had voiced one of those things that had been confusing him. "It's all a lie." Remus said flatly. "She hides herself, Harry, because she doesn't like people knowing who she really is. I doubt that many people back in our school days saw behind her carefully constructed façade...they thought her a bit of a bumbler, if ever there were one, even though she made some of the highest marks in our class, and even if she was one of the best players on our Quidditch team."
"But my mom was one of those people that saw beyond that?"
Remus nodded. "Yes, and after a time, when we finally got on their good side, so did the group of us four. But even though she eventually showed us the true side of her, she never showed us anything beyond that. Her emotions were and have always been a complete mystery. I honestly couldn't tell you her feelings, even though I have always trusted her with her intentions."
"So...I can trust her with the truth, but not affection? That's what she said. What does it mean?"
Remus took another sip of his cocoa before continuing. "I'm certain you noticed that Sabrina is overly qualified for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She knows a good bit about it...in fact, the only person who rivals her knowledge in this is probably Professor Snape."
"Snape?" Harry, despite his attempt to understand, was more confused than ever. "So why doesn't Dumbledore ever give him the job?"
"He's been trying to lure Sabrina over here ever since you started at Hogwarts. He's hired underqualified teachers who he has believed would be gone in at least a year or so...and, as you can see, it worked. If it hadn't been for my little secret getting out, then I would have kept the position until I could get Sabrina here to take it from me. And Sabrina could never be a Potions professor...the most horrid odors used to come from her cauldron."
"But why did she take the job now?" Harry said.
"Because she had no choice." He said solemnly. "Sirius was gone, and with Voldemort returned, she couldn't bring herself to leave you alone here." Remus finished his cocoa and stood. "Sabrina only took this as a last resort. She's no protector, as I'm sure she's told you. She wasn't in the Order before by her choice, even though she was the only of her friends who wasn't. She didn't go into hiding with Lily and James and you either..."
"She was going to go into hiding with us?" Harry interrupted.
"Yes. It was in her intentions at first, so there would be extra protection in case something happened. But...at the last minute, she refused." He ran a hand through his hair, and Harry saw that as tired as he had looked before he was now positively exhausted.
"And after?"
"Sirius was arrested. I would have tried to keep a watch over you, but I still wasn't trusted by the community because I was known to have been such a close friend of Sirius' and James'. If word had gotten out that I was a werewolf at that time, I would have been sent to Azkaban without trial, as a coconspirator. But Sabrina...she could have stayed. She didn't, though."
"But my mom hadn't expected her to." Harry said, completing the story. "That's why Sirius was there."
Remus nodded. "They were like two parts. They were to work together for your future. Sirius was supposed to have been something of a friend, an confidant for you through these years. Sabrina was destined to teach you, to show you the truth behind your magic though not necessarily to guard you against it. That's the way things were supposed to be, anyway."
"So what does that mean?" Harry said.
Remus smiled gloomily. "Take her word for it. But when the time comes, don't expect her to give her life for you as your godfather did."
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This story has gotten confoozling. I hope you guys understood all of that. I know it might be a tad much to take in all at once, but I'm doing the whole revelation thing and I have a lot more story to get to in a couple of chapters. The plot is complicated, I know, but things will eventually tie together in the end.
*special note* Special smoochies go out to my random crush of the week! I ain't telling who it is, just in case anybody I know actually happened to get a hold of this chapter and read it, but this person is kind of cool and I like him lots! So go me! (Huggle-pounce)