A/N: About a week, right? Well...tadda! Much quicker than my last. We made
it back from Lake Superior on our family reunion with our cousins (we're
going to see them all again at RAGBRAI in two weeks, but it they wanted a
family reunion before that, who am I to argue?) with much incident, but you
probably just want to read the story and not pay attention to it.
Gilthas: 'grins' What happened?
Me: 'groans' Bloody people at airport are completely pyscho.
Gilthas: Can you elaborate?
Me: No! So don't ask! Anyway, on the last day we actually jumped into the freezing cold lake like a bunch of morons (happy, excited morons, but morons just the same) and made our way back while turning blue. I'm afraid us Southern folk didn't expect it to be cold in July, even up North, so we didn't prepare properly. It was rather cold. And not just after we jumped in the lake. I...er...didn't exactly bring any tennis shoes...sneakers...shoes with shoe laces to all British people who aren't sure what I'm talking about. I just brought sandles. Bloody sandles. Oh, and socks, but of course, with sandles, they got rather wet in a hurry.
Gilthas: Stupid southern hicks.
Me: You're telling me. Plus, we didn't bring our bikes so I'm a week behind on RAGBRAI training.
Gilthas: The horror!!!
Me: Shut up. I heard that sarcasm. It's going to be a horror when I'm on the bike ride and dying going up a 5 foot hill! Oh, and I was to apologize at the abrupt switch from Harry1 to Harry2 in the last chapter. I had a marker thing there so you're know...but it didn't show up properly. Like the marker after this paragraph signalling that the story starts. It just isn't there! I put it there anyway though, tirelessly doing as I should despite the fact that it makes no difference...okay, I'm done. Read on!
Chapter 5: What?
Harry went to bed that night wishing quite fervently that Hermione had never pulled him aside. All that guilt that he had thought he'd worked through had resurfaced as Hermione's voice echoed in his head.
It wasn't your fault.
The words seemed to vibrate in his brain. The words themselves didn't matter. They seemed so...accusing in his head. She hadn't even looked at him after she had said them. Like she couldn't quite meet his eye. She did blame him. He traveled to a deminsion where none of it had happened, and his past followed right behind.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the hard hotel bed as soft. He could tune out his pain as easily as closing his eyes, but discomfort always seemed, too small to do anything about. So he twisted and tried to get to sleep. Gradually sleep overtook him.
Harry moved quickly through the crowd, trying to throw off the person following him. His hood was pulled low and no one looked at him twice. He kept moving swiftly. If the person caught him...
He shook his head and walked faster, just short of a run. He couldn't let her find him...
"Harry."
Harry stopped dead. She had found him. He didn't know how, but she had and now he was stuck.
"Sit, Harry," Ginny said calmly. "I just want to talk. Please stop running from me."
Harry swallowed hard. He was quite glad his face was hidden by a cloak. That meant Ginny could not see him frantically looking in all directions for an exit. How had he gotten himself into this?
She did see him hesitate, however. "Harry," she said quietly. "Please don't do this. I just want to talk to you."
"What is there left to say?" Harry asked coldly He found he could not look at her. Thankfully, his cloak was concealing his face. He made a promise then that he would work harder. When he saw Ginny orRon next, he would not have to hide his face to hide his emotions.
"You can't just leave it at that, Harry," Ginny said firmly. "You think you're all alone in the world and you're not."
"We've had this conversation before," Harry said, his voice not changing.
"But you haven't listened to me!" Ginny said frustratedly. "You haven't listened to anyone!"
"There's no one left!" Harry said, his voice rising somewhat.
"What about me, Harry? Am I no one? What about Ron? He's been your friend from the beginning! Is he no one too?"
"You were there when Dumbledore told me there were still Death Eaters looking for me," Harry said. "You know that anyone around me is going to get hurt! Why won't you let me keep you safe?"
"I don't need your protection!" Ginny hissed. "If you'd just stop taking responsibility--"
"When it's my fault!" Harry said, making sure voice didn't rise. There were people everywhere. He didn't want to be heard. He wanted to be invisible.
Ginny looked at him as though she was trying her hardest to figure him out and was turning up blank.
"He scares me," whispered a voice from a small child. Harry looked around. It was a little girl. She was sitting on her mother's lap, while her mother told her about the newspaper she was reading.
"Don't say that!" hissed her mother. "He's a good man."
"But he's always unhappy in the pictures," protested the little girl. "I thought if you were good then you were happy!"
"He's done a lot for us," her mother said. "You should feel very blessed to have him in your country."
"I don't want him in my country," said the little girl. "I don't think he's a very nice person."
Harry didn't have to look at the title on the front page to know who they were talking about. Ginny was watching them too. Being as silent as he could, he slipped away into the crowd before Ginny noticed he was moving. So he scared people, did he? Good. That meant no one else would be hurt trying to help him. No one would have to suffer. No one but himself.
Harry woke with a start and rolled over. He had been sleeping rather peacefully since his last trip and he didn't like the reappearance of his old nightmares. He felt guilt whelling in him again and forced it down. He couldn't do that. Not now. He still remembered every detail of that mother's conversation with her daughter though. Every detail.
He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep but after laying there for what felt like 30 minutes (it was really ten. He didn't have a clock in his run down hotel room) he decided that it was useless and got up.
He changed quickly and put his cloak around his shoulders. Not needing light of any kind to know what was around him (as a safety measure he memorized his hotel room from top to bottom and made sure he could walk it with his eyes closed), he made it out of his room without anyone from outside being able to tell from a giveaway light.
Crossing the hotel lobby by flitting from shadow to shadow, he made his way to the front door. Muggle cameras didn't see any better than Muggle eyes did when a wizard didn't want to be seen. He unlocked the door simply by pushing it and went out. Seconds later he Apparated and found himself at Remus's deserted house. He chided himself for not thinking of it sooner. He had been destracted by the violence and had not thought of what else might have happened.
He walked calmly inside, knowing that if there were wards, he would know before he hit them. There were none and when he reached the front door, he opened it without a hitch.
It was still dark inside, but the nearly full moon gave him enough light to see by. He held out his hand, palm up, and muttered into it, "Accio Talisman!"
Nothing happened.
Harry frowned and decided that a more advanced search might be in order. Tensing up in grave expectance, he raised his hand even higher until it was almost at eye level. He muttered, "Talisman!" in an almost angry hiss, pulling at invisible strings that held all magical objects. Three strings gave way and he knew they were coming toward him, pulled on by his single word.
At the last second, as he felt them getting nearer, he jerked out of the way, dropping the strings and releasing the spell. Where the items would have collided into him at dangerous speeds, they fell to the ground harmlessly at his feet. He scowled when he saw what they were. A pencil, a bottle of ink, and an enchanted spell book. He knew that with the spell he had just used, the talisman would have come whether it wanted to or not. That meant the talisman was not here. With a silent oath, he Apparated, intending to go to Black Manor where he could find Sirius and ask him whether or not Remus had been able to communicate anything about his attack.
Instead, he found himself at the entrance to St. Mungo's. Instantly Harry was on edge. Never before had he gone anywhere, not an inch, from his intended Apparition area. Something had pulled him there.
He felt something pulsing in his pocket and he slowly pulled it out. Lucius Malfoy's memory. It strained against his fingers, trying to go somewhere. It was being summoned.
He knew now what had clearly happened to his talisman. Draco had stolen it in the attack. If he knew that it would bring Lucius's memory back, then he must know that it was powerful. That meant he must have used it, which could explain Remus's unidentified illness. Harry could almost see the gears that had twisted in Draco's mind as he had slowly and stupidly discovered the power of the item. What could hurt could heal, right? Trust him to make a stupid first move.
Harry put the Remembrall back in his pocket and made his way to the ward where he knew Lucius Malfoy to be. He knew that his assumtions had been right when, as he drew nearer, Lucius's voice floated to him. "I say, I don't quite understand what the hurry is about. I'm perfectly happy as I am. Of course, I know that it means quite a lot that I remember you, but I know you now, don't I? You shouldn't be quite so angry."
Harry rolled his eyes in the dark. The new Lucius Malfoy was rather annoying when he didn't mean to be.
He silently crept toward the room. When he directly in front of it, he got down and looked under the door. On pair of feet. Draco alone in the room with his father. Harry knew that he could not underestimate him. He had the talisman. It was a very powerful tool. Though how he had gotten it to work, Harry was still guessing, though an idea was steadily forming in his mind.
Deciding that in this case, the only thing he could do was to open the door and go in, he pushed it open, loudly and obviously so it wouldn't be missed.
Draco looked up from his pacing. When he saw Harry, a slow smile crept onto his face. Harry took in the details. Malfoy did not have his wand out. The talisman was instead tucked in his hand. He would not hurt his father, that could easily work to Harry's advantage. Deftly he moved an inch and put himself closer to the bed.
"Potter!" Draco said, his voice dripping with venom, a fitting reminder of the evil smile on his face. "I should have known you would come!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. "You honestly expected that, after sitting around and doing nothing for five years, I would actually care about what you're doing?"
"So you just come in to meet my father every once in a while?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"Hello again!" Lucius said cheerfully. "How have you been?"
Draco's smile was wiped from his face in an instant. "How dare you defile my father's room with your presence?"
"I would be careful what you say," Harry said calmly, almost idolly as though only half of his conscious thoughts were on the conversation. It seemed to make Draco angrier. "You honestly have no idea who you're dealing with."
"No idea, huh?" Draco spat. "I know exactly what I'm dealing with! You don't have any idea how long I have plotted my revenge against you, Potter! I know all of your strengths! All of your weaknesses! You'll never get away with what you did to my father! I have prepared for this for five years!"
A small smile crept onto Harry's face. "It would seem that five years difference is not quite so great on the appearance as I previously thought. Everyone else I've met has already figured out by this time that they are talking to someone other than who they believed they were talking to. If you had indeed studied my fighting technique half as much as you say you have, you would know that I should not have simply walked through that door."
"What are you talking about?" Draco asked, his own pathetic ignorance making him even angrier. "What do you mean, 'someone other than who they believed'? What, are you Black in disguise?"
Harry had something of a hard time trying to decide if Draco's last sentence was a joke or not. In the end, he went for a negative on the question and tried to hide astonishment. "No. I'm Harry Potter, remember?"
"Then why are you rambling on on a subject that makes no sense?"
"Ah, that actually has the semblance of an intelligant question with some nearly intellgent thought behind it. I'm impressed, Draco. You're not quite as stupid as I thought you would be."
Anger made Draco's pale cheeks flush. "You had better watch yourself, Potter! You don't have any idea who you're dealing with! I have new weapons now, weapons you can't begin to comprehend!"
"Ah yes," Harry said softly. "The talisman."
Draco seemed unable to believe that Harry already knew about his great weapon. Harry couldn't believe he was forced to deal with such a fool. "What do you know of it?"
"It was I that brought it into this time," Harry said calmly. "Without me, you would never have known that it existed."
"It responded to my command!" Draco said, nearly spitting in anger. "It responded to me! Why would it possibly respond to me if you made it!"
"I didn't make it," Harry said calmly. "You did." Then he sighed as though he was performing a great service in explaining it. "As you clearly cannot figure it out with your tiny brain, I'm not who you think I am. I am Harry Potter, yes, but I am from a different time--a different dimension and in my dimension, I didn't get away quite as easily from Voldemort's wrath. If you give me that talisman now, I will not have to hurt you. If you don't, then I will, and I have to admit that I have never liked your family and will therefore take great pleasure in doing so." Harry suddenly felt a twist in his stomach that he did not allow to show on his face. It was not the thought of fighting Draco that did it, but rather the thought that his last sentence was perfectly true.
Draco seemed to understand for the first time that he wasn't dealing with the ammature from his own time. He took a step back.
"I say!" cried Lucius from his bed. "But what exactly do you mean by that?"
"I would tell my fool father to be silent if I was in your shoes, Draco," Harry said softly.
Draco was not listening to him. He fumbled into his pocket and pulled out the talisman, holding it in his palm. It was not still and dead looking now. It pulsed and glowed with inner light as though boiling lava from Mt. Doom was inside with all the evils that came with it. Vines shot at Harry quick as lightning. Harry knew what they were this time and flames shot from his wand that had not been in his hand a split second before. The vines writhed and burnt to ash before they touched him.
"You're going to have to do better than that, Draco," Harry said coldly. The room had illuminated briefly in the light from the flames and with the flames gone, it seemed darker. "You're forgetting again who I am and what I'm capable of. You hate the boy from this time, do you, for making your father loose his memory? I made your father loose his memory and trapped it so that it could never be recovered! Personally, I think I was merciful, seeing as how I murdered him in my own time!"
Draco seemed to believe everything Harry was saying and the darkness only enhanced it. The talisman lifted an inch from Draco's hand and fire spun around it in a single, concentrated flame. Flashy, Harry thought, but a fool thing to do because it gave Harry time to prepare.
Flames shot at him and were steamed away by a wall of water that rose suddenly from the floor. Water and flame alike vanished and Harry deemed it time to go on the offensive. In the darkness that came after the flames, Harry made himself invisible, not with magic, but by the skills he had used in stelth. He slipped along the wall quickly, knowing Draco's eyes would adjust any second.
"Did you loose me?" Harry whispered quietly from his place behind Draco. Draco whirled around to look but Harry had already moved on, flicking his wand so that the darkness did not let up. This was his turf now and Draco didn't have a chance.
Harry wriggled his fingers slightly, and whispered, "What's wrong? Afraid of what crawls in the dark?"
Harry could not see it, but he had created the allusion of a spider. Draco yelled and wiped something invisible from his shoulder.
"Draco?" asked a hesitant voice. "Draco? What's going on?"
Harry held back a sigh. Idiot Lucius Malfoy was still in the room. He had forgotten.
"Don't worry about it, Dad," Draco said coldly. His father's voice seemed to have restored some of his calm. "Maybe I should shine some light on the situation!"
The talisman in his hand glared in blinding light that should have illuminated the entire room...but Harry's darkness was not ordinary darkness and could not be dispelled by ordinary light. Harry seized his advantage.
"Do you think I don't know exactly how that thing works?" He hissed, flitting from shadow to shadow as Draco's eyes tried to see in the darkness while squinting against his light. The light dimmed until it was a soft glow. The darkness remained in tact and Draco now had a beacon leading straight to him. The fool. "Do you honestly believe that I would bring it here if I didn't know its strengths and weaknesses?"
"Then why did you give it to Lupin?" Draco asked, sure he'd caught Harry in a lie. "Why did you leave something like this with him?"
"Maybe I wanted you to find it," Harry said, mocking in his voice. "Don't underestimate me, Draco. Your father did that very thing. He's dead now...and so are you. You took a little longer, of course, but I got it done. Wasn't even that much of a challenge, to tell you the truth. The only problem was keeping the Ministry from finding out." Half of what he said wasn't true, but Draco didn't know that. He had not killed the Draco from his own time. He had killed a future Draco that had gone to the past after Harry had gone to the past...it was a terribly long story, but Harry's own Draco was alive...if not exactly well, rotting in Azkaban as he was.
"You're not a murderer," Draco spat. "You don't have it in you! You never did!"
"Want to bet?" Harry said from directly behind Draco. Draco spun and shot sparks from the talisman. Harry ducked as soon as he saw the talisman whipping around and elbowed Draco hard in the stomach, making him drop the talisman, before straightening in the same fluid movement and planting his wand at Malfoy's throat, forcing his head back.
Draco's eyes widened at Harry's lightning quick movements. He stared at Harry in fear for a split second before a grin found his face. He looked Harry calmly in the eye. "So you know all the tricks, do you?" His eyes slid over Harry's shoulder and Harry's head whipped around....
He was a second too late and he saw in that split second that the talisman did not require someone to hold it while it worked its magic. It was floating eye level with Harry and when Harry's eyes landed on it, it shot a beam of red energy and Harry felt the world going black. His last conscious thought before he crumpled to the floor was...'What?'
A/N: Bet you can't see that marky thing either, can you? Well, I put it there, signalling that the chapter is over. See? Chapter over.
Gilthas: They don't care! Just get on with the responses!
Me: 'glares' I do want to point out that instead of starry things, I have now put appostrophies so you can actually see the distinguishedness between the word 'glares' and 'I'.
Gilthas: 'Distinguishedness'? Is that a word?
Me: Is now! I made it up on the spot and if anyone wants to bother looking it up for me in the dictionary (which I doubt) you can tell me if it really is.
Gilthas: Take my word on it. It's not.
Me: 'sigh'
grand admiral chelli: Hehe!! I'll meantion that later...unless I decide to make you use your imagination! Mwahahahaha!!!! By gum. Nah, Harry wouldn't DRUG Ron or anything...probably just a charm. I'll meantion it later.
Allizarin Sylvain Phyre: Blah to the stupid astrixes! I have no idea why they don't show up! They used to...I think... Anyway, future Harry'll snap some sense into other Harry. He's good at that kind of thing....or else hitting him until he sees sense...or stars. I'm not sure who will save Remus...if he's even saved! Nah, I like Remus, but now Harry can talk to Sirius about things...after he gets out of this little predicament! Poor Harry! After all his training...
Brenna8: I'm so sorry about that! I put spaces and starry things in the original, but they cut them out when I posted! It wasn't supposed to just whip into it like that. I've actually considered labeling them something else, but don't both of them have perfect right to the name? It's not like one is less Harry than the other, and it just didn't work when I was writing it. So I left it. I have no idea why the computer is so mentally challenged and keeps bleeping out my starry things. I guess I'll have to right out 'starry things' so the computer can't possibly delete them...
eruve tinwen: ...Well...Future Harry just...er...didn't do so well against the talisman. No telling where he's going to be when he wakes up. Mwahahahahaha! Stupid talisman. Stupid other Malfoy from BTBT that made it and didn't explain in depth how it worked! Gosh! What is it with friends who don't do what they're supposed to!?! I made everyone in my family where Harry Potter T-shirts for the premier. We were out of town for it so I couldn't bring my cloak...or my Gryffindor scarf. We saw it in Washington D.C. My FRIENDS, however, didn't see it AT ALL until I dragged them, kicking and screaming by their TOES! Well, metaphorically speaking. ...Just a question...but you call shoes...thongs? We...er...don't. We call something else that...and you probably do too since you felt the need to elaborate. Oh! I think we might have hit the ticket (is that an actual expression?) with the biscuit thing! Now, you can eat McMuffins (all muffins? Muffins are something different in America than a McMuffin or a biscuit) plain, with butter or honey or something? Eh...this is far too complicated. I'm concidering reposting that chapter. After all, I made the huge, terrible mistake (along with the bicsuit ) of saying DOLLARS! How American am I? Stupid! I've even BEEN to England! THAT was disgraceful...
simpleinsanity: Eck! Sorry about that again! I switched Harrys in the middle of the chapter. I put starry things to seperate them, but lately, the starry things haven't been showing up!Future Harry interrogated Lucius. Present Harry was the one with Sirius at the end. I put the starry things there, I swear I did! They just...didn't show up!
LOTRfan86: Oh! I'm excited now! What kind of story are you thinking of writing? LOTRs of HP? I've read both and I've got a friend obsessed with LOTRs so I know quite a lot about it. As for advice, write enough description so the readers can get the picture without drawing it out. Try to make long sentences and use long words. Oh, and be VERY careful with how much slash you use, if any. I have personally been driven off many a fanfic because I'm horrified by the slash in it... I can beta for you if you want me to when you post your chapters. Just E-mail me the chapter and I'll read through it, write some comments, and send it back!
mashimaromadness: I don't think I've heard that song. Favorite group? Yeah, I think Hermione was just confused and she hadn't thought about it before. When it occured to her, she was a bit confused, is all. She's trying to put a good spin on this rather...unhappy and mean person before her, trying to fit him into the place as hero. She's having trouble though because every time she sees him or thinks of him, she thinks of him in terms of her friend, meaning that the future Harry represents everything that could have gone wrong with her friend and she sort of wishes he wasn't there to show her what would happen if the worst came. Eh...far to complicated to think of at this time of night...
Darkmoon Fleur: Confusing much? Man, I had to read your review twice to understand it. 'grins' I personally don't think guilt is the ONLY reason for fighting, but Future Harry honestly does. Even after the evil had passed and there was no need to fight any more, Future Harry fought until there was nothing much left to fight for and he still kept fighting, because he couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done and he thought that if he could correct every wrong, maybe it would be okay. Even Present Harry is starting to think that he should take up the fight. Why? Because Remus got hurt and he thinks he could have prevented it. Guilt. Again. It's just Harry's way.
Sara'magic: Sorry about the apostrophie. The starry thing isn't showing up at all and I felt I should put SOMETHING there to show I hadn't forgotten the star. Hey...no review? Eh. Oh well. I can forgive you...except that's its been ages since your last review! Golly Gee Whilikers! So how's the university search coming? Hey, did you know my cat had kittens? ...Don't know how you would, but still. Very cute. A yellow one, a gray one, and a white one. So...yep. Good luck with your university hunt!
Me: Tadda! Next chapter's done and in good time. Uh oh! What's going to happen to Harry?
Gilthas: ...he's going to die? Horribly?
Me: 'elbows hard' Of course not! So anyway, I left you with a cliffy and I expect many reviews complaning about it.
Gilthas: Can I go to sleep now? I'm tired.
Me: Ditto. Night everyone...
Gilthas: 'grins' What happened?
Me: 'groans' Bloody people at airport are completely pyscho.
Gilthas: Can you elaborate?
Me: No! So don't ask! Anyway, on the last day we actually jumped into the freezing cold lake like a bunch of morons (happy, excited morons, but morons just the same) and made our way back while turning blue. I'm afraid us Southern folk didn't expect it to be cold in July, even up North, so we didn't prepare properly. It was rather cold. And not just after we jumped in the lake. I...er...didn't exactly bring any tennis shoes...sneakers...shoes with shoe laces to all British people who aren't sure what I'm talking about. I just brought sandles. Bloody sandles. Oh, and socks, but of course, with sandles, they got rather wet in a hurry.
Gilthas: Stupid southern hicks.
Me: You're telling me. Plus, we didn't bring our bikes so I'm a week behind on RAGBRAI training.
Gilthas: The horror!!!
Me: Shut up. I heard that sarcasm. It's going to be a horror when I'm on the bike ride and dying going up a 5 foot hill! Oh, and I was to apologize at the abrupt switch from Harry1 to Harry2 in the last chapter. I had a marker thing there so you're know...but it didn't show up properly. Like the marker after this paragraph signalling that the story starts. It just isn't there! I put it there anyway though, tirelessly doing as I should despite the fact that it makes no difference...okay, I'm done. Read on!
Chapter 5: What?
Harry went to bed that night wishing quite fervently that Hermione had never pulled him aside. All that guilt that he had thought he'd worked through had resurfaced as Hermione's voice echoed in his head.
It wasn't your fault.
The words seemed to vibrate in his brain. The words themselves didn't matter. They seemed so...accusing in his head. She hadn't even looked at him after she had said them. Like she couldn't quite meet his eye. She did blame him. He traveled to a deminsion where none of it had happened, and his past followed right behind.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the hard hotel bed as soft. He could tune out his pain as easily as closing his eyes, but discomfort always seemed, too small to do anything about. So he twisted and tried to get to sleep. Gradually sleep overtook him.
Harry moved quickly through the crowd, trying to throw off the person following him. His hood was pulled low and no one looked at him twice. He kept moving swiftly. If the person caught him...
He shook his head and walked faster, just short of a run. He couldn't let her find him...
"Harry."
Harry stopped dead. She had found him. He didn't know how, but she had and now he was stuck.
"Sit, Harry," Ginny said calmly. "I just want to talk. Please stop running from me."
Harry swallowed hard. He was quite glad his face was hidden by a cloak. That meant Ginny could not see him frantically looking in all directions for an exit. How had he gotten himself into this?
She did see him hesitate, however. "Harry," she said quietly. "Please don't do this. I just want to talk to you."
"What is there left to say?" Harry asked coldly He found he could not look at her. Thankfully, his cloak was concealing his face. He made a promise then that he would work harder. When he saw Ginny orRon next, he would not have to hide his face to hide his emotions.
"You can't just leave it at that, Harry," Ginny said firmly. "You think you're all alone in the world and you're not."
"We've had this conversation before," Harry said, his voice not changing.
"But you haven't listened to me!" Ginny said frustratedly. "You haven't listened to anyone!"
"There's no one left!" Harry said, his voice rising somewhat.
"What about me, Harry? Am I no one? What about Ron? He's been your friend from the beginning! Is he no one too?"
"You were there when Dumbledore told me there were still Death Eaters looking for me," Harry said. "You know that anyone around me is going to get hurt! Why won't you let me keep you safe?"
"I don't need your protection!" Ginny hissed. "If you'd just stop taking responsibility--"
"When it's my fault!" Harry said, making sure voice didn't rise. There were people everywhere. He didn't want to be heard. He wanted to be invisible.
Ginny looked at him as though she was trying her hardest to figure him out and was turning up blank.
"He scares me," whispered a voice from a small child. Harry looked around. It was a little girl. She was sitting on her mother's lap, while her mother told her about the newspaper she was reading.
"Don't say that!" hissed her mother. "He's a good man."
"But he's always unhappy in the pictures," protested the little girl. "I thought if you were good then you were happy!"
"He's done a lot for us," her mother said. "You should feel very blessed to have him in your country."
"I don't want him in my country," said the little girl. "I don't think he's a very nice person."
Harry didn't have to look at the title on the front page to know who they were talking about. Ginny was watching them too. Being as silent as he could, he slipped away into the crowd before Ginny noticed he was moving. So he scared people, did he? Good. That meant no one else would be hurt trying to help him. No one would have to suffer. No one but himself.
Harry woke with a start and rolled over. He had been sleeping rather peacefully since his last trip and he didn't like the reappearance of his old nightmares. He felt guilt whelling in him again and forced it down. He couldn't do that. Not now. He still remembered every detail of that mother's conversation with her daughter though. Every detail.
He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep but after laying there for what felt like 30 minutes (it was really ten. He didn't have a clock in his run down hotel room) he decided that it was useless and got up.
He changed quickly and put his cloak around his shoulders. Not needing light of any kind to know what was around him (as a safety measure he memorized his hotel room from top to bottom and made sure he could walk it with his eyes closed), he made it out of his room without anyone from outside being able to tell from a giveaway light.
Crossing the hotel lobby by flitting from shadow to shadow, he made his way to the front door. Muggle cameras didn't see any better than Muggle eyes did when a wizard didn't want to be seen. He unlocked the door simply by pushing it and went out. Seconds later he Apparated and found himself at Remus's deserted house. He chided himself for not thinking of it sooner. He had been destracted by the violence and had not thought of what else might have happened.
He walked calmly inside, knowing that if there were wards, he would know before he hit them. There were none and when he reached the front door, he opened it without a hitch.
It was still dark inside, but the nearly full moon gave him enough light to see by. He held out his hand, palm up, and muttered into it, "Accio Talisman!"
Nothing happened.
Harry frowned and decided that a more advanced search might be in order. Tensing up in grave expectance, he raised his hand even higher until it was almost at eye level. He muttered, "Talisman!" in an almost angry hiss, pulling at invisible strings that held all magical objects. Three strings gave way and he knew they were coming toward him, pulled on by his single word.
At the last second, as he felt them getting nearer, he jerked out of the way, dropping the strings and releasing the spell. Where the items would have collided into him at dangerous speeds, they fell to the ground harmlessly at his feet. He scowled when he saw what they were. A pencil, a bottle of ink, and an enchanted spell book. He knew that with the spell he had just used, the talisman would have come whether it wanted to or not. That meant the talisman was not here. With a silent oath, he Apparated, intending to go to Black Manor where he could find Sirius and ask him whether or not Remus had been able to communicate anything about his attack.
Instead, he found himself at the entrance to St. Mungo's. Instantly Harry was on edge. Never before had he gone anywhere, not an inch, from his intended Apparition area. Something had pulled him there.
He felt something pulsing in his pocket and he slowly pulled it out. Lucius Malfoy's memory. It strained against his fingers, trying to go somewhere. It was being summoned.
He knew now what had clearly happened to his talisman. Draco had stolen it in the attack. If he knew that it would bring Lucius's memory back, then he must know that it was powerful. That meant he must have used it, which could explain Remus's unidentified illness. Harry could almost see the gears that had twisted in Draco's mind as he had slowly and stupidly discovered the power of the item. What could hurt could heal, right? Trust him to make a stupid first move.
Harry put the Remembrall back in his pocket and made his way to the ward where he knew Lucius Malfoy to be. He knew that his assumtions had been right when, as he drew nearer, Lucius's voice floated to him. "I say, I don't quite understand what the hurry is about. I'm perfectly happy as I am. Of course, I know that it means quite a lot that I remember you, but I know you now, don't I? You shouldn't be quite so angry."
Harry rolled his eyes in the dark. The new Lucius Malfoy was rather annoying when he didn't mean to be.
He silently crept toward the room. When he directly in front of it, he got down and looked under the door. On pair of feet. Draco alone in the room with his father. Harry knew that he could not underestimate him. He had the talisman. It was a very powerful tool. Though how he had gotten it to work, Harry was still guessing, though an idea was steadily forming in his mind.
Deciding that in this case, the only thing he could do was to open the door and go in, he pushed it open, loudly and obviously so it wouldn't be missed.
Draco looked up from his pacing. When he saw Harry, a slow smile crept onto his face. Harry took in the details. Malfoy did not have his wand out. The talisman was instead tucked in his hand. He would not hurt his father, that could easily work to Harry's advantage. Deftly he moved an inch and put himself closer to the bed.
"Potter!" Draco said, his voice dripping with venom, a fitting reminder of the evil smile on his face. "I should have known you would come!"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. "You honestly expected that, after sitting around and doing nothing for five years, I would actually care about what you're doing?"
"So you just come in to meet my father every once in a while?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"Hello again!" Lucius said cheerfully. "How have you been?"
Draco's smile was wiped from his face in an instant. "How dare you defile my father's room with your presence?"
"I would be careful what you say," Harry said calmly, almost idolly as though only half of his conscious thoughts were on the conversation. It seemed to make Draco angrier. "You honestly have no idea who you're dealing with."
"No idea, huh?" Draco spat. "I know exactly what I'm dealing with! You don't have any idea how long I have plotted my revenge against you, Potter! I know all of your strengths! All of your weaknesses! You'll never get away with what you did to my father! I have prepared for this for five years!"
A small smile crept onto Harry's face. "It would seem that five years difference is not quite so great on the appearance as I previously thought. Everyone else I've met has already figured out by this time that they are talking to someone other than who they believed they were talking to. If you had indeed studied my fighting technique half as much as you say you have, you would know that I should not have simply walked through that door."
"What are you talking about?" Draco asked, his own pathetic ignorance making him even angrier. "What do you mean, 'someone other than who they believed'? What, are you Black in disguise?"
Harry had something of a hard time trying to decide if Draco's last sentence was a joke or not. In the end, he went for a negative on the question and tried to hide astonishment. "No. I'm Harry Potter, remember?"
"Then why are you rambling on on a subject that makes no sense?"
"Ah, that actually has the semblance of an intelligant question with some nearly intellgent thought behind it. I'm impressed, Draco. You're not quite as stupid as I thought you would be."
Anger made Draco's pale cheeks flush. "You had better watch yourself, Potter! You don't have any idea who you're dealing with! I have new weapons now, weapons you can't begin to comprehend!"
"Ah yes," Harry said softly. "The talisman."
Draco seemed unable to believe that Harry already knew about his great weapon. Harry couldn't believe he was forced to deal with such a fool. "What do you know of it?"
"It was I that brought it into this time," Harry said calmly. "Without me, you would never have known that it existed."
"It responded to my command!" Draco said, nearly spitting in anger. "It responded to me! Why would it possibly respond to me if you made it!"
"I didn't make it," Harry said calmly. "You did." Then he sighed as though he was performing a great service in explaining it. "As you clearly cannot figure it out with your tiny brain, I'm not who you think I am. I am Harry Potter, yes, but I am from a different time--a different dimension and in my dimension, I didn't get away quite as easily from Voldemort's wrath. If you give me that talisman now, I will not have to hurt you. If you don't, then I will, and I have to admit that I have never liked your family and will therefore take great pleasure in doing so." Harry suddenly felt a twist in his stomach that he did not allow to show on his face. It was not the thought of fighting Draco that did it, but rather the thought that his last sentence was perfectly true.
Draco seemed to understand for the first time that he wasn't dealing with the ammature from his own time. He took a step back.
"I say!" cried Lucius from his bed. "But what exactly do you mean by that?"
"I would tell my fool father to be silent if I was in your shoes, Draco," Harry said softly.
Draco was not listening to him. He fumbled into his pocket and pulled out the talisman, holding it in his palm. It was not still and dead looking now. It pulsed and glowed with inner light as though boiling lava from Mt. Doom was inside with all the evils that came with it. Vines shot at Harry quick as lightning. Harry knew what they were this time and flames shot from his wand that had not been in his hand a split second before. The vines writhed and burnt to ash before they touched him.
"You're going to have to do better than that, Draco," Harry said coldly. The room had illuminated briefly in the light from the flames and with the flames gone, it seemed darker. "You're forgetting again who I am and what I'm capable of. You hate the boy from this time, do you, for making your father loose his memory? I made your father loose his memory and trapped it so that it could never be recovered! Personally, I think I was merciful, seeing as how I murdered him in my own time!"
Draco seemed to believe everything Harry was saying and the darkness only enhanced it. The talisman lifted an inch from Draco's hand and fire spun around it in a single, concentrated flame. Flashy, Harry thought, but a fool thing to do because it gave Harry time to prepare.
Flames shot at him and were steamed away by a wall of water that rose suddenly from the floor. Water and flame alike vanished and Harry deemed it time to go on the offensive. In the darkness that came after the flames, Harry made himself invisible, not with magic, but by the skills he had used in stelth. He slipped along the wall quickly, knowing Draco's eyes would adjust any second.
"Did you loose me?" Harry whispered quietly from his place behind Draco. Draco whirled around to look but Harry had already moved on, flicking his wand so that the darkness did not let up. This was his turf now and Draco didn't have a chance.
Harry wriggled his fingers slightly, and whispered, "What's wrong? Afraid of what crawls in the dark?"
Harry could not see it, but he had created the allusion of a spider. Draco yelled and wiped something invisible from his shoulder.
"Draco?" asked a hesitant voice. "Draco? What's going on?"
Harry held back a sigh. Idiot Lucius Malfoy was still in the room. He had forgotten.
"Don't worry about it, Dad," Draco said coldly. His father's voice seemed to have restored some of his calm. "Maybe I should shine some light on the situation!"
The talisman in his hand glared in blinding light that should have illuminated the entire room...but Harry's darkness was not ordinary darkness and could not be dispelled by ordinary light. Harry seized his advantage.
"Do you think I don't know exactly how that thing works?" He hissed, flitting from shadow to shadow as Draco's eyes tried to see in the darkness while squinting against his light. The light dimmed until it was a soft glow. The darkness remained in tact and Draco now had a beacon leading straight to him. The fool. "Do you honestly believe that I would bring it here if I didn't know its strengths and weaknesses?"
"Then why did you give it to Lupin?" Draco asked, sure he'd caught Harry in a lie. "Why did you leave something like this with him?"
"Maybe I wanted you to find it," Harry said, mocking in his voice. "Don't underestimate me, Draco. Your father did that very thing. He's dead now...and so are you. You took a little longer, of course, but I got it done. Wasn't even that much of a challenge, to tell you the truth. The only problem was keeping the Ministry from finding out." Half of what he said wasn't true, but Draco didn't know that. He had not killed the Draco from his own time. He had killed a future Draco that had gone to the past after Harry had gone to the past...it was a terribly long story, but Harry's own Draco was alive...if not exactly well, rotting in Azkaban as he was.
"You're not a murderer," Draco spat. "You don't have it in you! You never did!"
"Want to bet?" Harry said from directly behind Draco. Draco spun and shot sparks from the talisman. Harry ducked as soon as he saw the talisman whipping around and elbowed Draco hard in the stomach, making him drop the talisman, before straightening in the same fluid movement and planting his wand at Malfoy's throat, forcing his head back.
Draco's eyes widened at Harry's lightning quick movements. He stared at Harry in fear for a split second before a grin found his face. He looked Harry calmly in the eye. "So you know all the tricks, do you?" His eyes slid over Harry's shoulder and Harry's head whipped around....
He was a second too late and he saw in that split second that the talisman did not require someone to hold it while it worked its magic. It was floating eye level with Harry and when Harry's eyes landed on it, it shot a beam of red energy and Harry felt the world going black. His last conscious thought before he crumpled to the floor was...'What?'
A/N: Bet you can't see that marky thing either, can you? Well, I put it there, signalling that the chapter is over. See? Chapter over.
Gilthas: They don't care! Just get on with the responses!
Me: 'glares' I do want to point out that instead of starry things, I have now put appostrophies so you can actually see the distinguishedness between the word 'glares' and 'I'.
Gilthas: 'Distinguishedness'? Is that a word?
Me: Is now! I made it up on the spot and if anyone wants to bother looking it up for me in the dictionary (which I doubt) you can tell me if it really is.
Gilthas: Take my word on it. It's not.
Me: 'sigh'
grand admiral chelli: Hehe!! I'll meantion that later...unless I decide to make you use your imagination! Mwahahahaha!!!! By gum. Nah, Harry wouldn't DRUG Ron or anything...probably just a charm. I'll meantion it later.
Allizarin Sylvain Phyre: Blah to the stupid astrixes! I have no idea why they don't show up! They used to...I think... Anyway, future Harry'll snap some sense into other Harry. He's good at that kind of thing....or else hitting him until he sees sense...or stars. I'm not sure who will save Remus...if he's even saved! Nah, I like Remus, but now Harry can talk to Sirius about things...after he gets out of this little predicament! Poor Harry! After all his training...
Brenna8: I'm so sorry about that! I put spaces and starry things in the original, but they cut them out when I posted! It wasn't supposed to just whip into it like that. I've actually considered labeling them something else, but don't both of them have perfect right to the name? It's not like one is less Harry than the other, and it just didn't work when I was writing it. So I left it. I have no idea why the computer is so mentally challenged and keeps bleeping out my starry things. I guess I'll have to right out 'starry things' so the computer can't possibly delete them...
eruve tinwen: ...Well...Future Harry just...er...didn't do so well against the talisman. No telling where he's going to be when he wakes up. Mwahahahahaha! Stupid talisman. Stupid other Malfoy from BTBT that made it and didn't explain in depth how it worked! Gosh! What is it with friends who don't do what they're supposed to!?! I made everyone in my family where Harry Potter T-shirts for the premier. We were out of town for it so I couldn't bring my cloak...or my Gryffindor scarf. We saw it in Washington D.C. My FRIENDS, however, didn't see it AT ALL until I dragged them, kicking and screaming by their TOES! Well, metaphorically speaking. ...Just a question...but you call shoes...thongs? We...er...don't. We call something else that...and you probably do too since you felt the need to elaborate. Oh! I think we might have hit the ticket (is that an actual expression?) with the biscuit thing! Now, you can eat McMuffins (all muffins? Muffins are something different in America than a McMuffin or a biscuit) plain, with butter or honey or something? Eh...this is far too complicated. I'm concidering reposting that chapter. After all, I made the huge, terrible mistake (along with the bicsuit ) of saying DOLLARS! How American am I? Stupid! I've even BEEN to England! THAT was disgraceful...
simpleinsanity: Eck! Sorry about that again! I switched Harrys in the middle of the chapter. I put starry things to seperate them, but lately, the starry things haven't been showing up!Future Harry interrogated Lucius. Present Harry was the one with Sirius at the end. I put the starry things there, I swear I did! They just...didn't show up!
LOTRfan86: Oh! I'm excited now! What kind of story are you thinking of writing? LOTRs of HP? I've read both and I've got a friend obsessed with LOTRs so I know quite a lot about it. As for advice, write enough description so the readers can get the picture without drawing it out. Try to make long sentences and use long words. Oh, and be VERY careful with how much slash you use, if any. I have personally been driven off many a fanfic because I'm horrified by the slash in it... I can beta for you if you want me to when you post your chapters. Just E-mail me the chapter and I'll read through it, write some comments, and send it back!
mashimaromadness: I don't think I've heard that song. Favorite group? Yeah, I think Hermione was just confused and she hadn't thought about it before. When it occured to her, she was a bit confused, is all. She's trying to put a good spin on this rather...unhappy and mean person before her, trying to fit him into the place as hero. She's having trouble though because every time she sees him or thinks of him, she thinks of him in terms of her friend, meaning that the future Harry represents everything that could have gone wrong with her friend and she sort of wishes he wasn't there to show her what would happen if the worst came. Eh...far to complicated to think of at this time of night...
Darkmoon Fleur: Confusing much? Man, I had to read your review twice to understand it. 'grins' I personally don't think guilt is the ONLY reason for fighting, but Future Harry honestly does. Even after the evil had passed and there was no need to fight any more, Future Harry fought until there was nothing much left to fight for and he still kept fighting, because he couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done and he thought that if he could correct every wrong, maybe it would be okay. Even Present Harry is starting to think that he should take up the fight. Why? Because Remus got hurt and he thinks he could have prevented it. Guilt. Again. It's just Harry's way.
Sara'magic: Sorry about the apostrophie. The starry thing isn't showing up at all and I felt I should put SOMETHING there to show I hadn't forgotten the star. Hey...no review? Eh. Oh well. I can forgive you...except that's its been ages since your last review! Golly Gee Whilikers! So how's the university search coming? Hey, did you know my cat had kittens? ...Don't know how you would, but still. Very cute. A yellow one, a gray one, and a white one. So...yep. Good luck with your university hunt!
Me: Tadda! Next chapter's done and in good time. Uh oh! What's going to happen to Harry?
Gilthas: ...he's going to die? Horribly?
Me: 'elbows hard' Of course not! So anyway, I left you with a cliffy and I expect many reviews complaning about it.
Gilthas: Can I go to sleep now? I'm tired.
Me: Ditto. Night everyone...