And yes, I did mean to write this chapter this way. Please don't kill me for any revelations that start appearing here. We're in endgame territory, but every chapter after this one has a revelation in it, and nothing is what it seems until the game is over. Watch the pieces carefully.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Gone Round the TwistHarry opened his eyes slowly. He could feel his shoulders aching first, beforehis head, before his scar. He thought that was odd, but he didn't try to roll them or stretch, as might have been his first action on waking otherwise. He turned his head slowly from side to side instead, and saw the dimness of the hospital wing around him. He was sprawled in a bed, and Snape was asleep in a chair beside it, looking uncomfortable. Harry wondered if the discomfort came from the position or actual worry over him, and then dropped that line of thought as too potentially uncomfortable for him in turn.
I'm sorry.
Harry managed to stifle his gasp in time, which pleased him. Let Snape sleep. What do you mean? he whispered back, wondering if thoughts that were too loud or too deliberately formed could wake an Occlumens.
I said that I would show you some key to my identity, the voice murmured. Instead, I hurt you. The pain was what I felt in the past, but that doesn't mean that I should have hurt you.
Harry reached up and touched his forehead, but still, his scar refused to ache. He wondered why, given the voice's claimed connection to Voldemort.
I don't know, the voice explained. I told you, I can't—
Remember anything about who you were, I know, Harry finished with a weary sigh.
The voice whined in his head, sounding rather like Connor when he'd just got in trouble and was in danger of being sent to bed without dinner. I'm sorry.
Apology accepted, Harry said, because otherwise he felt as though this might go on forever. But please tell me if you remember anything. Then perhaps we can move your voice back into your own rightful mind, and stop your own suffering as well as other people's.
You would do that for me? The voice sounded both wary and pleased.
Of course, Harry said. You can share my memories. You must have seen that I would want to put you back in your own body.
Oh, yes. You're compassionate that way. I'm sor—
Snape chose that moment to stir and wake up. He looked Harry directly in the eye, and his face tightened.
I can tell you what he's thinking, offered the voice smugly. Want to know what he's thinking?
Not particularly, no, Harry snapped back at it. Too late; he had the feeling that the voice had already drifted away from his mind like a cobweb. He didn't know where it had gone, probably to Snape's mind, but he hoped that it wouldn't come back and pass on the thoughts it found there.
"What happened?" Snape asked quietly. "You have been unconscious for more than a week, Harry. This is Friday night. It will be—" He swished his wand, conjured a clock in mid-air, and studied it for a moment. "Saturday morning in two hours."
Harry shook his head, even as he tested his sore muscles and found them weak enough for what Snape said to be true. "There's a voice in my head," he said. "Something that speaks about a connection to Voldemort, and being able to read the thoughts of people who have a connection to Voldemort. He said he couldn't remember who he was, so I asked him to give me a clue, and he showed me. Pain," he added, just in case Snape didn't understand what he meant.
Snape's breath hissed out of him as if Harry had punched him in the solar plexus. Then he leaned forward and clenched his hands on Harry's shoulders. "Use your Occlumency," he demanded. "Force him out."
Doesn't work that way, the voice said smugly, drifting back into his head. You can tell him that. I come through your scar, and through his Dark Mark. Unless you can obliterate those, then I can keep talking to you. Did you know that Snape's bad habit used to be biting his toenails?
Harry tried to snicker and gag at the same time, and wound up choking. Snape shook him to get him to pay attention. Harry looked up and shook his head. "He says that it can't be done. The connection to Voldemort is my scar, or your Dark Mark, and there is no way to close those."
Snape pursed his lips around another hiss. Then he said, "We will discover a way. I will not have someone in your head who hurts you. Not again."
That was only one time! The voice was indignant now. You'd think that he'd trust you by now.
I wish you would go away and shut up, Harry thought wearily at it.
The voice gave him a sound that Harry thought was the equivalent of sticking its tongue out, and then the sense of another person in his mind left again. Harry let his head sag back on the pillow. He was not sure what he thought of all that. Perhaps the voice had been unhinged by all the pain it had gone through—or, rather, its owner had been unhinged by all the pain he had gone through. That would explain the ridiculous mixture of suffering, apologies, and childish teasing.
Yet another insane person in my head, Harry thought, as he closed his eyes. How wonderful.
"We will find a way to defeat this," Snape whispered, stroking his hair away from his forehead. "I promise you, Harry. I will not see you suffer more than you already have. What I can do to protect you from harm, I will."
Harry smiled in spite of his immediate desire to answer that he was the one who did the protecting, not Snape. He let himself slip into sleep, half-listening for echoes of the voice as he did.
It did not return.
When he woke, Draco was there, and scowling at him.
"You're stupid," he accused Harry.
Harry managed to raise his eyebrows. "Really?" From the light around him, he assumed it was Saturday morning, and that seemed surer from the lack of sounds in the halls and the steaming bowl of porridge that sat beside the bed—though there was really the same breakfast in the hospital wing every morning, come to think of it. Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to trust her patients to consume anything stronger than porridge. With some help from Draco, Harry managed to sit up and maneuver the tray onto his lap. He began eating, and sighed in relief as he found that he could grip and lift the spoon. Having someone else feed him was the ultimate in humiliation as far as he was concerned.
"Yes," said Draco, crossing his arms over his chest and staring Harry down. "Trust you to talk to someone who just strolls into your head and starts telling you that he came through your connection with the Dark Lord." He had the sense to say the last quietly, at least, and with anxious glances at the door to make sure no one was there first. "Snape told me what happened. Honestly, Harry. Why didn't you come and wake me up? Why did you demand clues to his identity?"
Harry blinked at him. "Because you were already asleep, and I wanted to know who it was. Wouldn't you have done the exact same thing, Draco?"
"I would have screamed like someone was using Avada Kedavra on me, that's what I would have done," said Draco.
Harry shook his head and sipped the porridge again. "Yes," he said. "We're two very different people, Draco."
"Yes," Draco echoed, sitting back in his chair and giving Harry a dark look. "I'm sensible, and you're stupid."
Harry chuckled, which only made Draco scowl harder. "Who won the Quidditch match?" he asked, knowing it would have taken place the first Saturday that he was unconscious.
Draco's stare this time was long and slow. "We did, Harry," he said, as if talking to a first-year. "Honestly. It was Hufflepuff. The only one who's worth anything on that team is Diggory, and he wasn't flying that well. We took the Snitch after only an hour, and we've got the Quidditch Cup unless Gryffindor or Ravenclaw manages to pull six hundred points out of their arses on the next game." He nodded, looking satisfied with himself.
"Well, good," said Harry. "And classes?"
Draco shrugged. "Were the same as ever. Professor Lupin is moving us on to vampires next." The glee in his voice made Harry suspect that would probably be Draco's favorite lesson. "Snape is having us brew a potion you'll have no trouble with, of course, and Longbottom made his cauldron explode." He paused, his brow wrinkling. "And Loony—"
"Luna, Draco—"
"—came and left this for you." Draco held up a necklace thick with swan feathers and blades of grass. "She should something about it protecting you against the Wrackspurt invasion you're suffering." It was obvious that Draco was trying hard to keep from snickering. Harry ignored him. Luna's gift was heartfelt, and he always wore the necklaces for at least a short time, until the string unraveled or too many of the objects fell off and got lost. He put it around his neck now, pleased to note that his hands didn't shake.
"I'll have to tell her thanks," he muttered, and then looked back at Draco. "Has Dumbledore decided what to do about my brother's lessons yet? Or has he made any progress in finding out who put those spiders in our room?"
"No to both." Draco could manage a snort that would make a thestral proud when he wanted to, Harry thought. "Idiot. If he would just use a few mind-reading spells, the way you know he could, then he would probably have the answers to both questions in no time at all."
"He's not going to do that, Draco," Harry said, and finished the porridge. Draco put the tray back on the table for him without prompting.
"Why not?" Draco demanded, as he fluffed Harry's pillow without being asked, either. Harry restrained a comment about him being Madam Pomfrey in training that would probably get him punched. "He compels people all the time. Why is this different?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know, but he must have his reasons for not doing it." He closed his eyes. Sleep was close, and sounded more and more tempting the more he thought about it.
"You just forgive everyone too easily, Harry," Draco muttered, but he sounded affectionate rather than despairing. Harry was sure he felt a soft touch to his scar just before sleep claimed him.
Harry leaned against the wall of the first floor corridor and let out a shaky breath. After he'd eaten lunch in the hospital wing and proven he could walk around the room without breaking stride, Madam Pomfrey had reluctantly agreed to let him go back to the Slytherin common room. She'd offered to escort him, or to call one of the Slytherins up to escort him, but Harry had politely refused both. He had to make it on his own, or he would have to doubt how much he had recovered.
Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all, he thought, as the world danced around him. He closed his eyes and gave his head a good shake, in hopes that would cure it.
"Harry."
Harry opened his eyes swiftly. He hadn't heard that voice in weeks, at least addressing him. He straightened as much as he could and pulled his magic around him in wary defense. It answered at once. Weak though he might be in body, it was strong, and it had been bored, Harry suspected, during the week in which he hadn't used it. Now it snarled, low and eager, in his head.
Sirius stepped out of the shadows and stood looking him over, smiling faintly.
Harry blinked. He hadn't paid that much attention to Sirius in a long time, and was astonished to see how much better he looked. The dark shadows beneath his eyes were gone, and he had a touch of color to his cheeks that hadn't been there before. His hair was trimmed from the messy shoulder-length tangle it had been. He also waited without strain for Harry to acknowledge him, where before he would have been jittery and might, Harry thought, have used compulsion.
"Sirius," he said finally. It was as much as he wanted to give, but it seemed to be enough for his godfather, who nodded and let his smile widen.
"Listen, Harry," he said. "I wanted to apologize for being a right git earlier in the year."
Harry stared at him, and lost his voice. When he found it again, it was to say, "You call trying to kill me, and attacking Snape, and pouring your brand of poison into Connor's ears, just being a right git?"
"I could use a stronger term, but I didn't know if you would want to hear language like that from your dear old godfather," said Sirius. His smile turned self-deprecating. "I fully expect you not to forgive me. You forgive almost everyone, I know, but I also know I crossed the line." He shrugged. "Just wanted you to hear the apology and decide if you wanted to accept it or not. I'll be talking to Connor, just as soon as Dumbledore lets me have contact with him—" he rolled his eyes to show that he could take and appreciated the joke "—and telling him to apologize, too. It's painful that this has gone on as long as it has." He nodded to Harry and turned, as if he would walk back up the corridor.
"Wait!" Harry called.
Sirius turned and raised his eyebrows, waiting.
"What made you decide to apologize?" Harry demanded, taking a step away from the wall. Perhaps shock was giving him strength, but this time he didn't think he would collapse. And it felt weak to be leaning on the stones, and the last thing he wanted to do was show weakness to Sirius. "This is—out of the air. A bolt of lightning." Sirius's lips twitched, and his eyes went to Harry's scar, but he didn't say anything. Harry pressed forward. "Why now, and not before?"
Sirius blinked and drew out the golden ornament that hung around his neck. Harry stared hard at it. It was round, studded with rubies and small golden chains leading back to the main one that looped around Sirius's neck. Harry could sense the song of powerful magic around it. Of course, Dumbledore had made it for Sirius, and only Dumbledore in Hogwarts had magic that powerful.
"This," said Sirius fondly, regarding the thing as he might a Christmas gift. "This finally tamed my thoughts, and gave me the help I should have asked for long since." He looked up and winked at Harry. "But your poor old godfather was too stubborn, and thought he could handle everything on his own. It's brought me back slowly. First I could control my behavior, then I could stop feeling the urges to do things like attack you or hex Snape, and then I could control my words. And now I've seen that I was always in the wrong." He shrugged when Harry's stare sharpened. "Like I said, I don't expect you to forgive me. But the option is there." He turned as if he would amble off.
"Wait!" Harry said again, and again Sirius turned around and waited patiently. Harry had to think of what question he wanted to ask. His mind was buzzing with confusion, and insistence that this reconciliation couldn't be true, that it was too easy. "How does it work?" was the only question he could ask without sounding rude.
"Order," said Sirius happily. "It traps my chaotic thoughts when they would get out of control, and brings them back into patterns that do what I tell them to. I have to think of the consequences, which is something that I almost never did before. That means that I can't really play jokes, anymore." He pulled a wry face. "But I would much rather be sane than otherwise."
Harry nodded. He supposed something like that would work, though since he had never known just how deranged Sirius was, he had never been sure how powerful a corrective Dumbledore would need to give. "And you really want to continue being my godfather?" he asked.
Sirius blinked slowly. "That isn't something I would willingly give up, Harry," he said, a hint of reproof entering his voice for the first time. "I said I would be your godfather the day you boys were born, and I always will be. Regretfully, as long as you won't forgive me. Happily, if you do."
Harry stared again. He wanted to let himself accept this, truly he did, but he remembered how Sirius had apologized and then changed his mind before. There was just too much chance that the same thing would happen again.
"It'll have to be regretfully, for right now," he said.
Sirius nodded. "I expected no less." He shrugged. "But let me know if you ever want to talk again, Harry." He walked away this time, and Harry let him go, with dignity. He did favor his left side slightly, Harry thought, but that could be the result of a broom injury while he helped referee the latest Quidditch match. Harry had been unconscious, and hadn't asked Draco about that—not that Draco would have considered something like that worth reporting.
I'm missing an awful lot, with Sirius, Harry thought, and for the first time in months, he regretted it.
He turned and pursued his course back to the dungeons, in a more sober and thoughtful frame of mind than he had been since awakening.
"He said there was no way that we could keep him out of our heads as long as we still bore our connections to Voldemort," said Harry, eyeing the thick potion Snape was brewing. It didn't look like any he'd seen before. It was currently the color of dew, but it kept violently changing color, and had been seventeen different ones in the last seventeen minutes. Even now, as Snape scattered powdered newt eyes into it, it burped and changed into a purple mass.
"I don't care," Snape snapped. "He must have been lying, and if he was not, there are potions that will counteract any intrusion. We have worked too long and too hard on your mind, on your Occlumency shields and your other defenses. I will not see you vulnerable that way."
Harry looked over and rolled his eyes at Draco, who stood on the other side of the room, against the wall. Draco didn't roll his eyes back. He was watching Snape as though he would memorize all the steps of this insanely complicated potion, and he had an intent frown on his face.
Harry frowned in turn, and sat back on the chair they'd provided for him when his legs began to shake, kicking at the rungs. Draco seemed to think that Snape's potion would work, and that the voice, whoever it had been, needed to be kept out of his head. Harry supposed he could see that. His pain, and then his being unconscious for a week, must have been terrifying for them.
He couldn't help but feel cautiously hopeful. He hadn't had any more pain through his scar since that initial outburst, and the voice had not returned. The reconciliation with Sirius was odd and unexpected and not something he was going to fully trust, but it had the potential to turn out well. This was the first day he had been awake, and he could still move around with short rests, and he seemed to have no permanent side effects from the pain. He also had less homework to make up than he might have, since he was far enough ahead in most of his classes to know the material for the third year by heart. He could rest until Monday, if he wanted to.
If he had seen Connor, or had some assurance that his brother had visited him while he was in the hospital wing, then his life would have been as close to content as it ever came.
Harry closed his eyes and tried, again, to work out what the best solution to that problem would be. Perhaps he should simply tell Connor that Sirius had approached him and offered to reconcile? That might shock his brother into dropping the act, and telling Harry why he had been so intent on trying to protect Sirius. Harry had no doubt but that his godfather was the heart of the matter. Lily might have been, originally, but Lily was outside the school, and Connor seemed to have accepted that her magic was not coming back no matter what Harry might do or say. Sirius was nearby, and vulnerable to a powerful wizard like Harry, should Harry decide that he wanted to hurt him.
What would make him certain beyond a doubt that I was going to hurt Sirius, when we haven't even talked to each other in months? And he did seem certain. What would make him think—
Harry's eyes flared open, and his breathing quickened. The prophecy. The prophecy he heard. Fuck, that must be it. I have to find Connor and tell him about Sirius trying to reconcile, then. Maybe that will persuade him to tell me what the prophecy said, and we can try to avoid it together. Or figure it out. It wouldn't surprise me to know that he's interpreted it wrongly.
Harry tried to hop up from the chair in his restlessness, and found he couldn't; his legs had gone to sleep. As he shook them and tried to get the tingles out, Draco strolled across the room to him, just incidentally getting between Harry and the door.
"And where do you think you're going?" he all but chirped.
"To see Connor," said Harry, impatiently wishing that his left foot was not waking up with such sharp pins and needles. "I just figured something out about why he didn't want me to hurt Sirius. It's important."
"You aren't," Draco corrected, his voice still chirpy. "You aren't going anywhere alone, and you aren't going anywhere near your brother until you're fully recovered."
"That's true," said Snape, without looking away from his potion. It was now the color of new grass, Harry saw, and smelled like nasty cheese. The color changed again as Snape added crushed rose petals, and at least the smell was more pleasant now.
"You don't understand," Harry insisted. "Connor heard a prophecy in February. I think the prophecy said—or he imagined it said—something about me hurting Sirius. That's why he's been resisting me so hard. I have to go and explain to him that I don't intend to hurt Sirius, but I need to know the prophecy, so that we can work on it together."
"You are not going near anyone but other Slytherins this weekend." Draco's eyes were flinty. He held up a hand when Harry opened his mouth to object. "No, Harry. You could have fucking died. Yes, again, I know, but that doesn't make it any less important. You had a fucking voice in your head, and you can't be trusted not to risk your health on the whim of the moment. You are staying right here until Professor Snape finishes his potion and tests it."
"But why?" Harry demanded. He knew it was a stupid question, knew Draco must have been more worried than he let on all along, but this was so important, more important than silly House prejudices or their odd idea that his twin might hurt him. Harry could pin Connor to the wall again if he had to.
Draco's face flushed, and he leaned nearer Harry. "Because I refuse to let you die," he said. "Sit. Down."
Harry sighed and sagged back into the chair. He couldn't outrun Mrs. Norris at the moment, and he supposed that taking Draco with him when he talked to Connor wouldn't make much of a difference—
Wait. Yes, it would. All right, I'll put Draco under a Silencio before we start the actual conversation.
Harry relaxed. Draco eyed him suspiciously, and then turned and looked at Snape. "Is the potion almost done, sir? I think that we should feed it to Harry before he comes up with some other insane plan."
"Almost," said Snape, and the potion turned clear again. Snape studied it with his head on one side, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the edge of the cauldron. Harry burned to say something about that, since it was one of the things that made Snape take House points from Gryffindor in class, but he kept silent. This was not the kind of atmosphere into which he wanted to throw that remark.
Into that silence came the flutter of wings. Harry looked up in surprise as an owl flew through the slightly open door of Snape's office—the potion had had to send its fumes somewhere—and over to him. It was a barn owl, one of the ordinary school birds, and it took off again the moment Harry removed the parchment from its leg. Harry supposed it had already been fed or paid.
He unfolded the parchment, and frowned. It was blank, without the slightest trace of a note to make this worth whoever had paid the owl. Was it a joke, perhaps? Something like the Marauder's Map, where he had to speak a specific phrase to get it to work?
It would be just like the twins to send me a blank piece of paper that explodes in my face, he thought then, and cautiously held it away from him.
Words began appearing on it in the next moment, in a flowing, looping hand that he didn't recognize.
Hello, Potter.
Now comes the night, and out of this darkness, there will be no morn.
Harry stared. This had to be a joke, and perhaps he was supposed to recognize the last words as some quote from a song or a poem, but he didn't. Who would be writing to him like this?
"Who are you?" he asked aloud, and then realized that was stupid. If this parchment functioned like the ones he and Connor had used, then he had to write back, not speak.
Snape looked up sharply. He didn't appear to have noticed the owl's arrival. "Is the voice in your head again?" he asked.
Yes, said a smug tone from the back of Harry's mind.
Harry shook his head, because he couldn't have Snape bothering about that right now. "Someone's writing to me through a piece of parchment," he said. "Do you have a quill?"
Draco raced to retrieve him one, and stood behind him, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, as Harry braced the letter on the table to write back. Who are you? Do I know you?
The answer appeared almost at once. Harry could hear the laughter. Oh, yes. In the past few months, you have come to know me very well.
Harry narrowed his eyes. Who are you? He underlined the middle word for emphasis.
Come, Harry, you are not able to figure it out? Oh, I am so disappointed in you. Of course, I suppose that you could have been a bit too trusting. Trusting Slytherins and Headmasters and former Death Eaters…and rats.
Harry's breath rushed out of him. "Peter?"
Very good, the answer appeared at once. Oh, yes, I have eyes on you, Harry, though I am not there with you. We're going to play a little game now, since everything is ready at last. See if you can figure out the moves before I make them. Or just after I make them, which is the more usual course. Let's have some fun.
In the next instant, Snape screamed.
Harry's head jerked up, and he saw his guardian sagging to the dungeon floor, his right hand tearing at his left arm. Draco shouted and bowled over to him, helping him tear. In moments, the sleeve was pulled back, and Harry could see the ugly flare of the Dark Mark. Just seeing it made his scar burn, and he closed his eyes and fought back pain and nausea and the thick bile of betrayal.
"What do you want?" Harry shouted, easing himself off the chair. Snape's screams were inhuman. Harry reached out towards him with magic, but found nothing that he could affect. The pain was coming from inside Snape, through the connection that he had forged long ago and of his own free will with Voldemort. Harry could practically see the conduit, coiled like a shimmering serpent atop the dark one, but he couldn't touch it.
He glanced back at the parchment even as the reply to his question formed.
To play. You have cost my Lord enough time in the past. A swift death is out of the question. To make you suffer, to make those whom you love suffer…yes, I think that will do well enough.
How is your brother, Harry?
Harry swore under his breath and reached for his pocket. Of course, this was the one day that he hadn't brought any of his maps with him, and he couldn't see where Connor or Peter was in Hogwarts. And Snape's screams were driving nails through his head, pushing him closer and closer to the edge over which panic would bear him.
He had to do something about that.
Harry focused all his will on Snape, and whispered, "Consopio."
The screams stopped as Snape fell asleep. He would have fallen, too, but Draco caught and gently laid him down. Harry stood amid the sounds of his own panting for a moment, then turned back towards the parchment.
That was clever, scrawled the mocking message. Very clever. You can send someone to sleep when he suffers pain, yes. But it won't be as easy next time.
I will give you the answers that you've wanted, Harry Potter. But first, I think you should go to the second floor. There's a locked door there that I want you to open, one that leads to an office you haven't entered all year.
Harry closed his eyes. He knew what the message must be talking about. The door to Sirius's office.
He snatched up the parchment and walked towards the door. Draco joined him without comment, and caught Harry when he wobbled. His eyes dared Harry to say anything about that, anything at all, to send him away or tell him to stop. But Harry just nodded to him.
"We've got a game to play," he said, and then turned and cast a ward over Snape's office as they left it, to hold Snape safe against any harm that might come to him. He barely thought about it as he created it, though he did make sure to close any small holes a rat might have crawled through. His shock and pain had given way to something else, something that was familiar and crawling out of the darkest parts of him.
As he hurried towards the second floor, Draco supporting him where necessary, ice raced along the walls beside him and behind him and ahead.