Last cliffhanger for a while.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Help From HermioneHarry had reached the Gryffindor portrait hole before he realized he had no idea what the password was; Connor hadn't seen fit to give it to him lately, and Harry didn't associate regularly enough with any of the other Gryffindors.
He paced and swore for a moment, then spun and looked up at the Fat Lady, who was staring back at him in interest. "Can you appear on the other side of your portrait?" he asked.
"Yes, dear," she said, giving him an odd look. "Are you all right? You're sweating, and pale, and frankly you look as if you should be in bed."
Harry nodded distractedly. He didn't have time for people parenting him, no matter how few people seemed to believe this. "Could you reappear on the other side of your portrait and call for Hermione Granger, please? It's vitally important that I speak with her."
"Of course, dear," said the Fat Lady, and gave him one more sympathetic look before she vanished. Harry waited, though he did force himself to stop pacing and lean against the wall. He didn't want to exhaust all his strength. He still had to persuade Hermione to go through with this plan, and that was likely to take some doing.
The parchment in his hands rattled. Harry warily lowered his gaze. The writing had a slant to it it hadn't had before. With a leap of his heart, Harry recognized Sirius's handwriting.
Harry, you must listen to me. I can't stop—
The writing jerked to a stop, a flying spot of ink appearing beside it, as though someone had roughly snatched the quill from Sirius's fingers. Harry waited, barely breathing, until the mocking hand appeared again. Sorry about that. He continues to fight, even though he knows it's hopeless. Really, is this a trait of all Gryffindors?
Harry narrowed his eyes, and added that hole in the story to the hole in the story about Sirus's spiders attacking after he supposedly regained his sanity. Peter would know exactly what Gryffindors were like, having been one himself.
The portrait swung outward just then, and Hermione poked her head out. Her eyes widened when she saw him. "Harry? Why aren't you on a bed in the hospital wing? I don't think you should be up yet!" Her voice was shrill, and rising further in her concern.
Harry wondered, irritably, why that was the first thing anyone thought of. He probably looked awful, but why would he have left the hospital wing and tottered up to Gryffindor Tower if this wasn't urgent?
"Hermione," he said softly, "I need your help." He motioned her out of the portrait hole, and then far enough away from the listening Fat Lady so that she couldn't overhear. Hermione followed despite the frown on her face, the gleam in her eyes saying that her curiosity had been roused. Harry had been counting on that.
He faced her, and tried to sound as normal as possible as he said, "I need to use your Time Turner to go back in time and listen to a prophecy."
Her face changed slowly, the scowl growing even more thunderous, her lips pursing. Harry winced in spite of himself. She looked sterner than McGonagall when the professor was angry, and that was saying something. But he held himself firm. There really was no option other than this. If this failed, then he knew of no way that he could learn Trelawney's prophecy, short of tracking Connor or Ron down and ripping the words from their minds. Trelawney would have forgotten the prophecy the moment she made it; all true Seers did.
"You need to what." The last word cracked like a house elf Apparating. Harry winced, and glanced at the parchment in his hands, but no new words had appeared. Apparently, the mysterious man, Peter or whoever he was, was willing to wait and listen to what happened.
"I need to use your Time Turner and go back in time to that day in Divination when Connor made you mad," he said. Still he kept his voice calm, though he could feel the panic boiling and straining at its leash. "Please, Hermione. This is the only way that I can learn it, and I need to know it. I think Connor's run off somewhere because he's so convinced that the prophecy said something about me killing Sirius. But I don't know that for certain."
Hermione nodded slowly. "All right. But, Harry, I've only ever gone back as far as three hours. This will be going back…months."
"I know," said Harry simply. "I trust you to make the calculations." They were both in Arithmancy, but Hermione was better at maths, no surprise there.
Hermione gave him a suspicious, sidelong glance. "You're not going to go off on your own and try to use the Time Turner the moment you have the calculations, then?"
Harry frowned. "Of course not. I don't know how to use it, and I wouldn't trust myself to be careful right now even if I did." He glanced at the gleaming chain just barely visible around Hermione's neck. "I trust that the chain is long enough to loop around both of us, and can take both of us back? I think that you need to hear the prophecy, too. You deserve it." If only so that she can understand how dangerous this is, and she won't argue with me when I have to leave her out of the final confrontation.
Hermione studied him once, then nodded. "We go back one hour for every inversion of the glass," she said. "Twenty-four hours in a day, more than three months…" She turned away from Harry, muttering, and waved her wand in front of her. A bit of parchment flicked out of her robes, and a quill joined it, making rapid scratches as she calculated.
Harry blinked and stared for a moment before he shut his mouth. He sometimes forgot how powerful Hermione was, until he saw her in action. She didn't have a specific gift like Connor's compulsion or his Parseltongue; she eschewed flashy magic. But she could cast many small useful spells that all worked together much faster and more smoothly than any ordinary wizard could have achieved, and she could maintain them effortlessly while she began another spell. As Harry watched, beyond the levitation charms on both parchment and quill, and the enchantment that made the quill write, she levitated a small calendar from her robe pocket to check for sure and certain on the dates of the months, all the while with numbers rushing through her head.
Harry shook his head—he winced as that motion made him dizzy—and waited. The parchment in his hands rippled briefly. Harry looked down.
She is a clever witch. And I stand ready to help you, of course, if you need anything.
Harry swallowed. It truly, truly disturbed him how clearly he could imagine the laughter every time the letter-writer wrote something like that. But he did nod and mutter, while watching Hermione to make sure she had her back to him, "Yes. I need you to command Sirius to command the spider." He patted the spider that hung in his robe pocket. "I'm going to need it to attack someone."
Done.
Harry ground his teeth, though he tried to keep his expression as blank as possible, given the watching house elf. The writer was pleased that Harry was playing his game, and treating him like some clever pet. Harry loathed being treated that way, but since he had to rescue Sirius, he didn't think that he could spend a lot of time voicing doubts.
"There!"
Harry blinked as the calendar, parchment, and quill shot away from Hermione, and she turned, taking the Time Turner out of her robes and beckoning to him. Harry started towards her, and found himself staggering as he actually got there. The pain in his head and his gut was flaring again. Harry blinked, and saw white spots, and then saw Hermione's white face.
"Harry," Hermione whispered. "I could go back by myself, and then you could go to the hospital wing and rest—"
"No," Harry whispered. He didn't dare trust that. The letter-writer might think that Harry wasn't playing by the rules of the game if that happened. And worse, Hermione might accidentally forget a word of the prophecy, or misremember what it said. Harry couldn't take the chance. He needed to hear the prophecy for himself, and hear the exact intonation with which Trelawney had repeated it.
He folded the parchment so that Hermione couldn't look at the conversation he'd had with Peter or whoever was holding the quill, and met her eyes defiantly. "I wouldn't sleep anyway," he pointed out. "I think Connor's running headlong into danger. And you know how protective I still am of him."
Hermione sniffed. "Without reason, sometimes." But she didn't argue any longer, pulling out the chain of the Time Turner and looping it around his neck. Harry tried to breathe as normally as possible while she held the hourglass up between them.
"We'll have to be careful when we get there," Hermione warned him solemnly. "We don't dare be seen by ourselves while we're in the past."
Harry smiled slightly as he felt the spider come to life in his robe pocket, its legs swarming and scraping at the cloth. "I think I know exactly what to do."
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, but began to invert the hourglass, chanting, "One. Two. Three…"
Harry joined the count, though he hated to hear how weak his voice had become. Stupid body. It can't fall down on me now. I can't afford to let it.
The world around them blurred and rippled like cloth. Harry didn't look too directly at it, since it made him dizzy and gave him a worse headache, but the voice riding behind his eyes seemed to enjoy it. Oooo. I never traveled in time before. Look! There's someone we must have passed hours ago. Whee!
They reached the last turn, and then Hermione gripped the hourglass and kept it from inverting again. Harry stood locked within the chain, panting. They hadn't traveled physically—they were still standing in the same stretch of empty Gryffindor Tower corridor as before—but he felt as tired as if they had.
"Harry?" Hermione's whisper was nearly timid. "I really think that you should lie down and rest."
Harry shook his head and smiled grimly at her. "No time. The prophecy happened ten minutes after the hour, and we've come just on it. We've got to move." He began to do so, using his magic recklessly to feed his flagging strength when he had to. It wasn't as though he had a better use for it.
Hermione trotted beside him with alacrity, and didn't even flinch when Harry cast the Disillusionment Charm on both of them, despite the cold feeling that it produced. Harry found the cold invigorating. On they moved, and then they were in the North Tower corridor, and Harry saw Hermione storming down the hallway, her face set. Knowing now what Connor had said to her, Harry couldn't blame her at all for being so disgusted. They watched her out of sight, and then shuffled forward.
Harry came on himself, staring in concern after Hermione. He took a deep breath, snatched a small stone from his robe pocket, and tossed it at his past self.
His past self focused on the stone, staring at it with a dark expression that Harry hadn't realized was so frightening on his own face. Harry pulled the stone down the corridor with his magic, and saw his past self draw his wand. That was the moment at which he added the spider.
His past self immediately became more concerned with the spider, which scuttled towards him with lifted mandibles, than with any potentially Disillusioned people sneaking along the walls. Hermione wanted to linger and watch the fight, but Harry gripped her arm and steered her past with main force.
Climbing the ladder was the hardest part, since they had to do it invisibly, and in as much silence as possible, and while keeping the chain of the Time Turner around both of their necks. Harry finally levitated the both of them, hearing Hermione squeak when he used both wandless and wordless magic to do so. But they didn't have time to wait. Beneath them came the blast of the "Reducto!" that had reduced the spider to smithereens, and past-Harry wouldn't be far behind.
Harry kept up the levitation once they were in the Tower, and they skimmed until they settled into the classroom entrance. Even then, Harry feared they would be too late, but they ducked through the veiled arch just as Trelawney, in front of Connor and Ron, rolled her eyes back and began her recitation of the prophecy.
Harry leaned against the wall, keeping his panting silent, and listened as hard as he could. This was the prophecy that Connor had been willing to fight him to keep hidden. It must be important in some way, even if Harry wasn't sure what that would be yet.
Trelawney's voice was a grating moan, a sound that was hardly human, and one that should have been too male to come out of the fluttering woman's throat.
"Five weeks before the time of longest light
There comes one who puts lesser foes to flight,
Who has a soul and magic cold as ice.
Now comes the hour
Of the black one's power,
And he shall die by the wand of the sacrifice."
Oh, Connor, Harry thought, his heart speeding fast enough to make him sick. No wonder you thought that I was going to kill Sirius.
"Now comes the hour all truth is revealed,
Now comes the hour the gray one takes the field,
And first decision sets the path for all.
Now kindness is tested,
Now soft heart must be bested,
And on that test he will stand or fall."
Harry saw himself come charging through the classroom at that moment, and he gripped the Time Turner and began to turn it. His past-self's head swung around, and Harry knew he had seen the gleam of silver that marked the place where his future-self and Hermione left.
Everything had gone as it was supposed to do, then, and now the prophecy bounced around in Harry's head, buzzing like an angry fly, even as he chanted the count of the Time Turner's inversions aloud with Hermione and the world warped and changed around them.
Five weeks before the time of longest light. That must mean five weeks before the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. And, well, this weekend is that. Approximately. No wonder Connor panicked when he thought I'd taken Sirius somewhere or done something with him today.
There comes one who puts lesser foes to flight… I don't understand that part. I know Connor thought it was me, though. And the part about having magic cold as ice fits as well. And what would my brother know about my soul?
The sadness of that thought threatened to distract him for a moment, from both the prophecy and the count of the Time Turner's inversions, but Harry turned his mind determinedly back.
The black one's power…no doubt Connor thought that meant Sirius, though I don't understand how he can be in power if he's a captive. And "die by the wand of the sacrifice" sounds pretty damn blunt. Either I'm going to kill him, or Peter will.
I don't understand the rest. I suppose that the gray one could be the gray Dementor, but if the Dementors had some reliable way of finding Peter, they would have used it by now, and then perhaps we wouldn't be in this mess.
They chanted the final number, and then Hermione gripped the Time Turner and held it still again. Harry blinked around the empty Divination classroom, then removed the Charm from both himself and Hermione. A glance out the window showed that it was still late afternoon, only slowly slanting towards sunset. Harry nodded. That meant he shouldn't meet many people on his way to…wherever it was that the letter-writer wanted him to go; they would be either lingering outside still, or heading to dinner.
The parchment rattled. Harry unfolded it and read it.
The place where Connor and Sirius practiced their lessons, Harry. The last safe place. Oh, yes, did I mention that I have your brother now, too?
Harry felt a flash of anger. Hermione gave a little shriek as the walls around them abruptly froze, and then she slipped on a patch of ice, and tugged on the Time Turner's chain. Harry ducked his head to get it over his neck, never removing his eyes from the parchment. So he had to rescue two captives instead of one. That wasn't such a huge change, and it would only give him more rage to take Peter, or whoever this was, down with him.
Without killing Sirius, if at all possible.
The parchment finished, The Shrieking Shack.
Harry nodded sharply. He liked that answer. He approved of that answer. He would be dealing with Peter off Hogwarts grounds, then, and in a place that most people still believed was haunted. He turned to leave.
"Harry!"
He paused and blinked back at Hermione, who was scrambling to her feet. She had her wand out and a look of confusion on her face.
"What was all that about?" she demanded. "Did the prophecy say what I think it said? Are you going to kill Sirius?"
Harry shook his head. "Prophecies are notoriously vague and hard to interpret," he lied smoothly. "I don't think that's what it means. And now I'm going to find Connor and tell him so. I think I know where he might have gone."
"I want to go with you," said Hermione. "You're not well enough to face him alone. Or get Draco, at least, though I would think I'm less likely to get angry and send a spell at Connor."
Harry let out a careful breath and shifted from side to side. It was only his imagination that his stomach was churning, he reminded himself. The voice in his head had said this wasn't the kind of pain that would make him sick. "Hermione, I can't. This is something I have to do alone."
"I knew it," said Hermione, with the soft, vicious tone of a pouncing cat, and then her hand shot out and grabbed the parchment before Harry could stop her. She looked down at the writing, and her eyes widened as she read. Harry simply thanked Merlin that the whole conversation wasn't there.
When she looked up, her eyes were still wide, and her face pale enough to make her gaze stand out as drowning dark. "Harry," she breathed. "What is this?"
"Something bad," said Harry shortly. He had to hope that the writer wouldn't consider Hermione's reading of his letter to be a betrayal of the game they had played so far. "Listen, Hermione, I've got to go."
Hermione laughed, though it was more like a bark—short and unamused. "If you think I'm going to let you go into danger when you're this sick, alone, you're mad. I won't insist that we tell any of the professors if you don't want to, but we are going together."
Harry shook his head. "Consopio," he said, and Hermione fell asleep. "Wingardium Leviosa," he added, and eased her to the floor.
Then he snatched up the parchment, scanning it anxiously. The writer hadn't added anything. Harry began to walk out of the Divination classroom, but had to stop and lean against the wall, his face to the stone as he panted.
Could he really do this? The weakness in his body was growing, and the magic he poured into it drained out immediately, like water through a holed cloth. Could he really go and confront Sirius's and Connor's kidnapper on his own?
It isn't a matter of ability, Harry thought, as he opened his eyes and straightened. It's a matter of necessity. I have to go alone because Peter, or whoever this was, won't let me bring any help.
You have me.
Harry jumped a bit before he realized that the voice was coming from inside his head. Oh, yes, you, he thought back, as he eased out of the Divination classroom and towards the ladder. I don't suppose you've remembered who you are.
No. But I remember that I could see through Sirius's eyes, too, because he had a connection to Voldemort in the form of the curse. I can't right now. I don't know why. Maybe Peter did something to keep me out. The voice sounded sulky. But if we get close enough to him, and I can break this barrier that prevents me from seeing, I might be able to help you. Or maybe I can even enter Peter's mind and tell you what he plans to do next.
Thank you, Harry murmured.
He made his way out of the North Tower and carefully through the corridors towards the front entrance. He made liberal use of the Disillusionment Charm to hide from the people who passed him, despite the sickness swimming in his gut. He supposed he could have Apparated directly to the Shrieking Shack, as he had once before, but that kind of Apparition on Hogwarts grounds would definitely have attracted attention, from Dumbledore if no one else. Harry wanted to keep anyone else out of this. The more people got involved, the more loss of life there would be.
Harry reached the entrance hall and allowed himself to feel something like triumph. He would be out beyond the doors in a few moments, and from there he could make his way to the Whomping Willow. He knew from seeing Sirius do it earlier in the year how to open the tunnel that led to the Shack.
"Impedimenta."
Harry let out an involuntary cry as his feet went out from under him, and then the Disillusionment Charm boiled away like so much steam. He turned his head, and saw Snape climbing the stairs from the dungeons, his wand out and a gleam in his eyes like some maddened hippogriff.
"You are not going anywhere," Snape whispered, as he stalked closer. Harry shivered. The lower Snape's voice went, the angrier he was, and this time it was so soft as to sound like rat's paws on stone. "You are staying right here, and if I must bind you and knock you unconscious to keep you from risking your life, then I will. I am tired of this, Harry. You have given me no chance to act like a true guardian. I will protect you from the consequences of your own Gryffindor-like stupidity, if I must."
"You don't understand," Harry whispered, struggling to stand. The jinx still wouldn't let him go, and the knock he'd taken on the head when he fell, as well as the pain in his gut, was distracting him from his efforts to break the spell. "Connor and Sirius are at risk. They'll probably die if I don't get to them—"
"I don't care!"
"Peter says that he'll sacrifice Sirius to insure the Dark Lord's return," Harry hissed, as he found Snape standing right over him, and his anger came back. The stones beneath him froze. "Do you really want that? Voldemort, risen again and running around?" He glanced pointedly at Snape's left arm.
Snape's eyes flickered briefly, and then he said, "Dumbledore has more than enough power to face Voldemort, and more than enough reason to hunt Pettigrew, if his golden boys are captured. Tell me where they are, and I will alert him. After placing you in the hospital wing, of course."
"No," Harry said, even as the parchment rattled. He twisted his head to look at it, sprawled on the floor beside him, and saw new words appearing.
Where are you, Harry? Delayed? Oh, dear, I don't think I like that. And I don't think that your brother really needs two arms, does he?
Harry shrieked, but the voice in his head spoke quickly, before he could build up a true head of panic. Let me. Harry felt it drift away from him as it had once before.
The next moment, Snape staggered and clutched his head. He tried to focus his eyes, and Harry suspected he was using Occlumency, or Legilimency, or a combination of both, to try and throw the voice off. It wasn't working, obviously. Harry couldn't help a brief, twisted smile. I did try to tell him that that voice doesn't speak through any connection in his mind.
Snape abruptly slipped to the floor, eyes blank. The voice slid back into Harry's head and snorted. He'll be out until he manages to wake up from the memories that I gave him.
You remember who you are now? Harry stood, and found that, yes, he could manage it. His legs wobbled, but he still stood straight. And he was not going to think about Peter cutting Connor's arm off, because he wasn't.
Not really, said the voice. Only that I was once in a great deal of pain. I gave him some of the pain, not as much as I gave you. That ought to keep him busy for a while. It sounded smug.
Harry shook his head, and hoped Snape would understand when he came back and woke him up and explained everything.
If he came back and woke him up and explained everything.
Harry let out a long, hissing breath and turned towards the doors out into the grounds. So he might die. He had accepted that from the time he was four. He shouldn't be shaking in his shoes now at the thought of it.
And he wasn't, he realized with some startlement, as he staggered out the doors and into the cool brightness of a spring evening. He was more upset at the thought of never being able to explain to Snape and Draco and Hermione why it had been necessary to hurt them, or ignore them, or insist they stay behind.
My priorities really are strange, he thought, as he maneuvered carefully across the grass towards the Whomping Willow. I had my brother first for so long, and then things changed, and I don't even know what I think of as most important any more.
I could root around in your mind and find out for you, the voice offered, but Harry shook his head.
"We really don't have time," he whispered, as he shot wary glances off to the side, looking for anyone who might spot him and call out, or for some sign of Hagrid. The grass was empty, though, save for the grasping fingers of sunlight, and Hagrid was nowhere in sight. Harry relaxed marginally, but kept his caution up.
The Whomping Willow sprang into motion as Harry neared, the branches cutting through the air and slamming into the ground. Harry shook his head and reached out, carefully thickening the air near the knot on the willow's trunk. When he thought it was thick enough, he shot it forward, and the knot pushed home. The willow's branches froze, and Harry ducked beneath them and towards the tunnel that he could see between the roots.
He knew the moment he pushed into the tunnel and began to creep forward that this was going to be hell.
The pain in his stomach grew worse the longer it was pressed against the ground. The pain in his brow blazed harder and faster and fiercer as he kept his head bowed so that he could scramble beneath the overhangs. Every muscle in his body ached and screamed with tension as he contorted himself into odd positions to get past the bumps and the jerks in the trail. Add the worry about Connor and Sirius, and by the time he arrived at the entrance to the Shrieking Shack, Harry was worried that he wouldn't be able to stand up and fight Peter properly.
He could feel strong magic humming beyond the door, waiting. If this wasn't a ritual to resurrect Voldemort, then it was something else damn close. Harry closed his eyes and wailed to himself.
I can't do this! I can barely stand upright.
Of course, the answer that came back was always the same, mingled with echoes of his mother's voice and his own.
You must do it because there is no one else. You must do it because you're the strongest, and it's the responsibility of the strongest to carry the burdens that no one else can. You must do it because it's necessary.
Harry began, gently, to breathe in a pattern that Lily had taught him. This, granted, was when she had been teaching him what to do if he was ever tortured, and the last time he had used it was when Quirrell's Crucio had hit him in first year. But it was still valuable, and it worked, letting him rise above the pain that plagued him in stomach and head. Even when his scar abruptly blazed with agony, he could look past it and see what had to be done, stretching like a path before him.
That's impressive, the voice said, in subdued tones. Where did you learn it? A rooting, shuffling sensation, and then the voice said, Oh. Harry had the sensation of it backing carefully out of a certain corner of his memories.
Harry smiled. He knew it was probably a grim smile, but no one was here to be frightened. "From my mother," he murmured, and stood. His legs did not shake. His resolve and his magic were one, now, and his magic was no longer trickling out of him, spent, the moment he sent it into his muscles. He only had to strengthen his will, and it did what he wanted, instead of the other way around. "I am still what she made me, even now."
Irony teased him for a moment, and then was gone. Harry called on his rage instead, and watched, detached, as the tunnel around him swelled with frost.
He was doing what had to be done, because there was no one else.
Connor and Sirius were waiting.
Harry reached out and pushed the door open.