Despite everything, Harry was glad of one thing: that Sirius was pulling him away. Harry didn't want to see the reaction of Ron, Hermione or Dumbledore -- and especially Karkaroff.
When Sirius managed to do more than mouth soundlessly, Harry heard him say, "Harry, what'd you do that for?"
Harry's immediate reaction was outrage.
"You make it sound like I did it on purpose!"
"There's no denying you did do it --" Sirius began sheepishly.
Harry wrenched his arm from Sirius' grip and stopped walking. Sirius stopped abruptly and was staring at Harry like someone else had died. This look only made Harry feel worse.
"Look, I didn't know I could speak Parseltongue!" Harry shouted, feeling the onset of a vehement rage. "What else don't I know about myself!" He was feeling distinctly uncomfortable and the look Sirius was giving him, the one saying he didn't really know what to do, wasn't helping.
"You can --"
"Like I want to know right now," said Harry crossly, staring sharply at Sirius.
"Sorry..."
They had not walked any farther than a few corridors. Taking a seat on the bottom of a staircase, Harry rested his elbows on his upper legs, gripping his elbows with the opposite hands. He wasn't looking at Sirius and instead was giving Sirius' shoes a cold look, as though angry at them too, although they hadn't done anything to him -- yet. To Harry's almost pleasure, Raides had kept quiet so far. She probably seemed to think that she wouldn't help any by speaking.
Sirius took a deep breath and then said, "I wouldn't be surprised if some people start thinking that I'm in this with you." Sirius made it sound as though it was some sort of big crime they'd been planning for years. "I would stay, I really would like to, but now I really have got to go back with Lupin and Snape."
"And what do I do about the fresh wave of people calling me a --"
"Dark wizard," Sirius cut in, "or Voldemort's supporter, I know. You'll just have to ignore them --"
At this, Harry looked up and shouted, "It's kind of hard to ignore them when they're muttering darkly about you in the corridors everywhere you go!"
Sirius, who a minute ago was looking proud of himself, now fell silent again, realizing that what he said perhaps wasn't the best thing in the world to say. He was just about to give it another go when Dumbledore spotted them, also looking like someone else had died.
Another thing Harry was glad of was that Sirius spoke to Dumbledore, letting Harry's fragmented thoughts collect in his head. He didn't think they'd ever become one, which possibly would have let him answer the question that Dumbledore asked him ("Can't you control it?").
"Really, Dumbledore, he didn't even know he could do it until a few months ago," said Sirius matter-of-factly which made Harry feel a tiny bit better. "We really should have told him on the outset. I don't see a reason when I look back now..."
"That really was stupid." Raides piped up from her resting place. "And didn't Ron suggest Harry practice it?"
"That would have meant sacrifices on your and Hermione's part," said Sirius, making Harry feel bad again. "I hardly think --"
"I hardly think," Dumbledore cut in swiftly, which was lucky because Raides was staring daggers at Sirius, "that practicing possession to the point of total control would have helped. In my experience, it requires many more months than we would have had." And this brought Harry somewhere in between Sirius' and Raides' words.
"How is Karkaroff taking it?" asked Raides, reading Harry's mind.
"As we speak he's heading to the Owlery to inform the Ministry," said Dumbledore gravely.
Harry's stomach lurched. He moved his elbows farther out, now feeling sick to his stomach. How long would it be before members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad came personally to ship him off to Azkaban? Or worse yet, just kill him on the spot? He had once heard Cornelius Fudge talking about them. When Hagrid suggested he would beat up the then-thought-to-be-murder Sirius Black with his bare hands, Fudge said that no one except Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad were trained to deal with him. Harry had a sudden picture of two wizards in black robes, each carrying either a long wand or a short staff in dark sun glasses.
"And what's the Ministry probably going to do?" Raides continued.
Dumbledore, who so far had his hands neatly folded in front of himself, looking remarkably calm in Harry's opinion, now stopped the corner of his mouth as it twitched consulsively. Did the thought of Mr. Fudge make him angry? thought Harry incredulously.
"All of us who stand here," Dumbledore began, "know that possession is among the foulest abilities a wizard or witch could have." Harry now put his head between his knees, the spit he'd been swallowing fighting to come up his throat. "There might very well be a trial if Karkaroff gets his way and by the look of him when I managed to get away, he just might."
A small voice in Harry's head, which unmistakably belonged to Raides, suggested he possess Dumbledore and go talk to Karkaroff himself. Harry ignored it; he wasn't about to go and violate anyone else's trust.
"Harry," Dumbledore said (Harry didn't look up), "I daresay you'd rather not be at such a trial and while it has happened before that the accused has not attended his or her own trial, I also daresay keeping you out of this one in particular will be difficult indeed."
Harry, too sick to nod, grunted to show he agreed. His head was pounding. His heart was thumping painfully. Above all, he didn't want to go to Azkaban. As long as he had Dumbledore, he knew everything would be all right... as long as he had Dumbledore... He hadn't failed Harry in six years (except perhaps the hitch with dropping him off at the Dursleys) and Harry didn't have any reason to believe that Dumbledore would fail him now.
"So what do we do now?" Sirius asked of Dumbledore.
Harry looked up for a moment but felt his stomach losing the battle with keeping his food inside of it and went back to his previous position.
"Harry should avoid running into Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore suggested, a grim note of amusement in his voice. "He took being possessed as a personal insult and thought it was a mistake that you gave yourself a zero instead of a ten. I don't think I need to say that, for one, there will probably never be another Triwizard Tournament, and two, he wants the rest of the tournament called off or the Hogwarts champion disqualified."
"Either way, I don't think he has much a very big chance of winning with Sebastian as his champion," Raides commented, laughing. "He ran from Aragog and I swear if he really was a dog, he'd've had his tail between his --"
"On a side note," Dumbledore cut in again, "none of the other champions managed to complete the task."
"I didn't either," said Harry in a defeated voice. "It was just luck that this stupid necklace was what I needed."
"Harry --"
"Save it," said Harry shortly.
He took the necklace off, and as he held it in his fingers, nothing came over him, no sweeping calmness, no brilliant shower of relief. Then he threw it on the stone-flagged floor as though it was going to poison him -- more. Suddenly again he remembered the conversation with Bane, Ronan, Firenze and Gemma but it appeared he had thrown his voice away too. Instead, he told Raides inside his head.
Raides then explained to Dumbledore and Sirius what had happened. When she was finished, Sirius was staring at her like she was going to kill him where he stood and Dumbledore was looking scandalized. Also, Raides took another stab at telling Harry to possess Dumbledore but he ignored it again.
"How, exactly, does the Explicatrix function?" asked Dumbledore.
"Harry pointed his wand at himself, shouted, 'Exsolotum enodo --'"
"I didn't say that!" Harry was able to exclaim indignantly.
"Yes you did --"
"What d'you mean, 'you didn't say that,'" said Sirius suddenly, sounding alarmed. "Are you trying to tell me --"
Harry finally looked up, his sickness leaving him in face of now Sirius thinking that he has the Mark of Ancients.
"Go on," Harry taunted in a soft, deadly voice, "go on and say it."
Sirius hesitated. He hesitated too long, though, and seemed to decide it was best not to say it. He turned to Dumbledore for help.
"And what happened next?" asked Dumbledore, Harry putting his head between his knees again. Raides walked to Harry, apparently asking permission to speak to Dumbledore. Harry nodded at her, though very subtly.
"Harry threw it at the ground and it smashed to pieces," Raides explained. "It was like Animus Speculum except, as you saw, it was gold. I imagine it would probably have been another color if Harry had been in Slytherin --"
"And what did it do?"
"The crystal reformed, reminding me of the spell Frustum Compingo --"
"But I never used that before, how did you --?" asked Harry slowly.
"Before we could even gape at it for too long," Raides continued, in a matter-of-fact tone, "it blurted out the entire riddle. It would appear that it knew everything Harry didn't and had to figure out. What he wasn't supposed to know, all except for the riddle of course, it didn't. It knew exactly what was going on." Here, Raides let her tail clutching the Explicatrix fall into Harry's view, who's head was still between his knees. With a weak hand, he pushed it away. "And why would they keep information on what it does from you, anyway?" she added, voicing what Harry had been wondering and by the look on Sirius' face, what he had been wondering as well.
It was a change of heart for her, looking concerned about someone else. Good or bad, Harry didn't know yet. Dumbledore, on the other hand, either didn't notice or care; he stared -- something Harry didn't often see him do -- apparently lost for an answer. Why had they kept it from him? I probably would have found out, Harry reasoned with himself bitterly, if Raides hadn't tried to eat them. He shot Raides' tail a dark look as she pulled it away.
"I don't know," said Sirius as though this was all a big conspiracy to confuse him, "this doesn't make any sense. Of every wizard on the entire planet to keep information from, why you?"
"Perhaps they don't trust it to anyone but an ancient?" suggested Raides.
"Maybe," Harry mumbled darkly.
"The more pressing issue," said Dumbledore, "though admiteddly not as important, is probably that of Professor Karkaroff. Harry, you need to speak with --"
"I'm not talking to him in person," Harry told Dumbledore firmly. "I'm not ever --"
"In that case," said Dumbledore, his voice going quiet so that Harry had to strain his ears, "then we need a way to make it so that you don't have to speak to him in person."
Did Dumbledore mean what Harry thought he meant?
"Albus... ?" asked Sirius, probably thinking along Harry's lines.
"I have not used the ability since my twenties where I accidently used it on an ant to hurl myself out of a thirty story window," Dumbledore told Sirius, recalling an apparently embarassing memory. "When I returned to my body, my mother --"
"Albus!" repeated Sirius, this time indignantly. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" Harry saw that Raides was grinning more broadly than she had ever been in the past half hour.
"I shall go as myself and Harry will take on your form."
"Albus -- possession?" said Sirius as though Dumbledore had gone mad -- and Harry had to agree. "What if Karkaroff finds out? What if the Ministry finds out! You'll be in trouble, too! You'll get removed!"
"What if? That's a risk I'm willing to take," Dumbledore stated firmly. "I'm sure, Sirius, as Harry's godfather, there's certain risks you're willing to take as well, aren't there?"
Harry now looked up, still feeling sick, still feeling worse than he'd ever felt in a long time but he had to see what Dumbledore was doing, what sort of look he was giving Sirius. Dumbledore wasn't glowering at him but he was wearing a look that suggested, however groundlessly, that Sirius didn't really care about Harry at all. His blues were fixed upon Sirius, his chin raised, looking down at him through his half-moon spectacles and his eyebrows were raised in question. Dumbledore's hands were also folded behind him and he was emanating that powerful something that Harry had come to know so well. After a bit of looking at Dumbledore, Harry looked down again.
Sirius' reply didn't come; Harry suspected his mouth was hanging open in disbelief or it was moving but there wasn't any sound.
"Are you telling me, then, that there are risks you are not willing to take?" Dumbledore asked, his voice still quiet.
"Albus, possession?" was all Harry heard Sirius repeat.
Harry heard footsteps, saw Dumbledore's feet and then felt his hand on his shoulder. It did very little.
"Sirius, we already stand in the face of one accusation of possession," Dumbledore began in a dangerously serious sort of voice. "I believe Harry has his own questions for Professor Karkaroff that would do well not to be asked by someone else."
Harry didn't really think this was true but wanted to hear the rest of what Dumbledore had to say so he kept quiet. But Dumbledore didn't say anything and seemed to be waiting for Sirius to reply -- and he didn't. Harry was a little more than slightly disheartened to hear the silence, which could only mean one thing: Sirius didn't think that possession was such a good idea. Harry was inclined to agree -- if the situation hadn't been so serious. If he was at least in a different appearance, Fudge and Professor Karkaroff couldn't keep accusing him.
Just say yes, Harry thought desperately, deathly afraid of what could happen should someone else find out, probably feeling just as scared about it as Sirius, just say yes...
And then, bringing a wave of relief on the order of the Order of Merlin necklace, Sirius nodded and Harry hoped that his mere thinking didn't influence the decision.
"I don't like this idea, Albus, I really don't," Sirius let Dumbledore know, an equally dangerously serious expression on his face.
"To be honest, I don't either but as we've run out of options, I don't see another way." Harry heard repeated footsteps, indicating that Sirius was spinning nervously on the spot. "One way or another, we must try to convince Professor" -- Dumbledore cleared his throat significantly as though he didn't think much of Professor Karkaroff being a professor much longer -- "Karkaroff that his life is not in danger. I myself will die before there is a death on these grounds." He spoke as though this settled the matter and so confidently that Sirius had no choice but to accept it. "There is no denying to anyone that Harry possessed him. Not many are going to see it as accidental -- despite the fact that he had given Harry a zero," he added hastily because Harry started to speak.
The next thing Harry heard, drowning out Sirius' words, was a pair of angry footsteps so loud that Harry doubted whether a hoard of angry hippos would overpower it. The bad part about it was that it was just one person: Karkaroff.
"DUMBLEDORE!" he demanded so loudly that Harry started, and then, most unfortunately, Karkaroff caught sight of him, shrieked and scampered away. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or feel worse.
Sirius was just about to open his mouth again when Madam Maxime found them, closely followed by Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge.
"Sirius, I want you to take Harry to Gryffindor Tower," Dumbledore said quietly to him. "The password is Cardus Chiliarches."
As Sirius lent Harry a hand to grab to stand him up, Fudge said, "And where do they think they are going?"
"The matter does not concern you, Cornelius," stated Dumbledore. "Before you begin accusation, I suggest you take a look at the state Harry himself is in. As you can see, his complexion is very white and he can't even stand up without feeling distinctly sick. What can that tell you about how he feels?"
"Dumbledore, I demand that you step aside! Where are they going? Mr. Black, Mr. Potter! I demand that you come back here!"
Sirius didn't look like he was paying any attention. The voices trailed away as he led Harry up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. Harry didn't think words were all that important at the moment and all he wanted to do was put as much space between himself and Professor Karkaroff as possible. Sirius didn't say anything as he led Harry along a corridor, behind a tapestry, all the while his arm around Harry, clutching his opposite shoulder and Raides walking along idly. But it was when they were getting closer to the Fat Lady that Sirius seemed to feel the need to say something that made Harry feel as good as he possibly could with the thought of being sent to Azkaban on his mind.
"Harry," he began, sounding a little apprehensive, "I've got something I've been meaning to tell you but I don't know how you're going to react."
"If it's something about Karkaroff or other," said Harry listlessly, "then I don't want to hear it."
"It's not that," Sirius said hastily. "It's, well..."
"What is it already," said Harry, not thinking it could be anything as important as worrying about spending a lifetime in Azkaban.
"I -- er -- I told Ron and Hermione but asked them not to tell you because I was saving it for the right moment."
"This is the right moment, is it?"
Harry looked sideways. Sirius looked away. Harry looked straight again.
"I -- I was thinking when, you know, this is all over and Voldemort's dead and everything" -- Sirius said this as though it was going to happen in a matter of minutes -- "and you wanted a -- a new home --"
"Didn't we already have this conversation?" said Harry, feeling a bit disgruntled, "Last I remember, Pettigrew escaped that night and the both of us nearly died."
"Well, I -- I was thinking of -- of adopting you."
Harry stopped walking, Sirius' arm sliding right off his shoulder.
"Just to make it official and everything, you know?" said Sirius hastily, as though Harry wasn't taking it the right way. He stopped walking too and turned to face Harry, who didn't know what to feel. "I mean, I know it won't be the same as having -- but if -- if you don't want to --"
He abruptly stopped talking as though it wasn't worth continuing and the both of them walked on.
"Password?" asked the Fat Lady and Sirius said, "Cardus Chiliarches," to her.
As she swung forward to admit Harry, Sirius and Raides, Raides curled up by the fire and Harry sat on one of the squashy armchairs near her. Sirius, Harry's... father? The idea sounded absurd, and yet...
"Maybe, maybe once Voldemort's -- but my name's cleared now!" exclaimed Sirius indignantly. "And I don't have to hide anymore and once Voldemort's dead, everything's going to be all right."
"Once Voldemort's dead," said Harry blandly. "Once? How do you plan on killing him? You can't!" shouted Harry, who found himself on his feet, the sick feeling in his stomach gone in the presence of rage. "He's immortal, remember?"
"Don't you remember what you learned earlier? He's not!"
"Then why doesn't someone just go and kill him already?"
"Because --" Sirius began, but he faltered. "Look," he went on, in a calmer sort of voice, "this isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about you. Later, when it's all over, you're going to need a place to stay -- no, to live -- and I want you to come and live with me, have a normal life and you can live out that month before you're considered an adult, while you're still a kid..."
"My childhood was sort of stolen from me," said Harry angrily, who fell into his seat because Raides pushed him hard in the chest with her powerful scarlet tail to make him sit. "What would be the point?"
"FORGET ABOUT VOLDEMORT FOR A MINUTE!" roared Sirius -- and then he went quiet and added, "Don't you want to just think about what it's going to be like when he's dead and buried? Having a normal life? Without worrying about having to get killed every waking moment --?"
"That would be nice, wouldn't it?"
"You're not making this any easier, Harry," said Sirius flatly.
"It's not -- it's just --" Harry tried to say, but he found he couldn't continue.
"It's not what? What is it, then?"
"It's just," said Harry, stalling, trying to find the words. "I'm just sick of it, sick of everything."
"Go on," said Sirius, whose face had gone deadly serious. He seemed to have taken this as an opportunity because he stood in front of Harry, sat down, and stared up at him intensely. Harry wasn't sure if this made talking easier or not.
"I'm sick of Fudge, sick of Death Eaters, sick of dementors, sick of Raides" -- Raides didn't say anything --"and I'm sick of Voldemort!" said Harry, his voice rising.
"Well, in a few months you won't have to be sick of anything except me."
Harry wasn't quite in the mood for laughing so he went for blinking instead.
"Now come on, Harry. We have an idiot to fool -- or a fool to -- oh nevermind, just come."
Harry's stomach clenched. He almost felt like he was back in Privet Drive, that pen in his hand before he dropped it.
The interrogation with Karkaroff hadn't gone very well in Harry's opinion. Ron and Hermione, who had been so adamant about not speaking to him were suddenly speaking to him again that very night -- though Harry wasn't sure how long it was going to last and he wasted no time in telling Hermione this.
Harry had just finished telling them what had happened when everyone had been long gone from the common room.
"Tell me again what Dumbledore did?" asked Ron, who sat in what looked like a drunken stupor, not paying attention to a word of the rest of the explanation after hearing what Dumbledore did. The fire was burning low in the fireplace now. Half of Harry wanted to get the entire conversation inside Ron's head while the rest just wanted sleep.
"Come on, Ron, listen," said Hermione, whose mouth had been half open for the last hour. She didn't seem to notice she had dropped her homework and it had fluttered into the fire and burnt to a crisp.
"If you want to talk to me, then listen," said Harry testily. "Possession." Ron looked as though Harry had mortally offended him. "Sirius wasn't much for the idea either, but --" He cut himself off, not knowing how -- or carying much to, especially to them -- put something into words. This something was that, however illegal he knew it was, purposely using possession to trick someone, he wanted to see, wanted to know what Karkaroff was thinking.
"So -- so it was you into Sirius with Dumbledore talking to Karkaroff and Fudge," Hermione said, mostly to herself.
Harry nodded, saying dully, "Yes, and if it wasn't for Dumbledore, I'd be in a cell at Azkaban awaiting to be put on trial."
"And how was it that you got off?"
"Dumebledore said he spoke to me and said it was an accident, that I can't control it -- which is the truth!" cried Harry.
"And Fudge doesn't believe it?"
"Fudge is an idiot!"
"But..." Ron prompted, clearly waiting to get told the entire conversation all over again.
"HE DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE!" Harry remembered roaring at Fudge, and Fudge, who thought he was speaking to Sirius, pulled a face that suggested he thought Sirius was a vicious murderer again.
"Good night," said Harry to Ron and Hermione and he left without another word, feeling slightly better at their confused faces.