He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment.

—J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit


II.
Atlas Has Green Eyes

On a gray day early in the month of July, a black-haired teenage boy waited, breathless, on the wrong side of the front door. His fingers were closed around the cool metal of the doorknob, and his eyes, behind round-framed glasses, were shut as he listened. No one stirred inside the house. He waited a few more seconds, and then peeped in through the crack. Inside, the furniture loomed like massive, sagging beasts, the bellies of the sofas scraping against the carpeted floor (weighted down from years of bearing the burden of Dursley the youngest), and the chairs slumped and wilting in the murky atmosphere. When nothing moved, he allowed himself to breathe and closed the heavy front door, careful to be as quiet as possible.

Harry lingered for a moment, waiting for Aunt Petunia to come out screeching or for Uncle Vernon to throw open the door and start walloping him with whatever was closest at hand (an umbrella, most likely, since the stand was right inside the doorway). When no punishment seemed immediately forthcoming, he jolted away from the house in an explosion of movement, jogging down the silent, sleepy street. His battered shoulder bag bounced against his thigh. The Gryffindor seal above the clasp had been covered up with the cheapest patch he could find at the local dollar store in Little Whinging, a green kokopelli figure holding a bong instead of a flute. Aunt Petunia had had a fit when she saw it, which only made the experience all the more enjoyable for Harry. The Dursleys were now convinced that he was not only a freak, but a pothead.

It was uncommonly cool for this time of year. The nascent sun was blotted from the sky by a menacing bank of clouds, the blue-black color of a new bruise. He slowed his pace as he turned onto Magnolia Crescent, and thought he saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. About ten seconds later, a low growl of thunder whispered through Little Whinging, promising a stormy day. Harry shrugged his threadbare sweatshirt higher and stuffed his hands into his pockets, continuing on his way to the park.

After two weeks of Privet Drive, Harry found even this inclement weather more welcoming than anything within the Dursleys' house. There he found nothing but cold glares and even colder shoulders—at least out here he was free from his stuffy room. Uncle Vernon had nailed the window permanently shut while Harry was away at school.

Far from being turned back by the coming storm, he found himself savoring that tingling sensation that danced delicately—almost imperceptibly—over his exposed skin, a foreboding of lightning. Anyway, the sky above his head was still a clear, pale blue; he still had a good hour of study time before he would have to seek shelter. Bearing this in mind, Harry picked up his pace, striding quickly down Magnolia Crescent towards the park.

Little Whinging was still asleep. The only person that Harry saw on his short trek was a mailman, who looked startled to see a teenage boy out so early. No, not startled—suspicious. Of course. Little Whinging was a small town, and everybody knew about the delinquent who lived with the Dursleys, that boy who went to St. Whatsit's Penitentiary, or whatever it was called.

As they approached one another, moving from opposite ends of a short side street off Magnolia Crescent, Harry dropped his gaze, consciously evening out his breath and concentrating. The black lower edge of his glasses cut a dark, curved swath across his vision, separating the clear and the indistinct. He slipped his wand out of his pocket and up into his sleeve, and discreetly pointed it towards the mailman, muttering something under his breath.

Discordantly foreign images and sensations jostled in beside his own, and his mind rebelled for a moment before succumbing to the strange new phenomenon. Legilimency was as bizarre for the caster as the victim, Harry had learned in the last week. He still wasn't used to it, having given up on trying to read Aunt Petunia's thoughts after being thoroughly disgusted by her lascivious feelings towards Mrs. Next-Door's brother-in-law, who was staying for the summer. Dudley thought of nothing but boxing, food, boxing, girls, boxing, maintaining his reputation, and boxing, so Harry had quickly dropped him as a possibility, and he didn't even want to attempt Legilimency on Uncle Vernon. Merlin only knew what sort of rubbish he'd find in that head.

He pushed these reflections away and concentrated on the thoughts in his head that were not his own. ...Looks like he's going to school. Doesn't he know it's July? Probably got cherry bombs or something in his bag. Or drugs. Wouldn't be surprised. Doubtless going to meet another one of his ilk...

With a derisive, half-offended snort, Harry dropped the spell just as he and the mailman drew abreast of one another. He looked up and met the middle-aged man's curious glare with an even stare of his own. He'd been practicing that look—after all, if McGonagall and Dumbledore (Merlin rest him) could use Looks to such an effect as they did (had), Harry could, as well. It would probably be a useful skill. So he'd started cultivating a Look of his own in front of the tiny, battered mirror in his room, arranging his face muscle by muscle into the coldest, most disdainfully disinterested expression he could manage.

The mailman responded just as Harry wished, shuddering involuntarily and looking away, his footsteps moving faster as he continued past the teenage boy. Harry waited a few moments and then grinned. Well, my Legilimency's improving. I only wish I had someone to practice Occlumency with.

Abruptly, the cold blank air fell about him again. Even something as innocuous as Occlumency brought to mind the Traitor, as he referred to Snape. The feeling of that man's name in his mind, on his tongue, was poison, so he refrained from using it at all now, even mentally. That hooked, pallid face haunted his dreams, a sneer set beneath the beaklike nose, the black brows drawn down together over eyes like chips of flint, cold and opaque.

And always, as he stood before the Traitor in those dreams, frozen with hatred, Harry could feel a presence behind him, and smell something sweet and tart—like sherbet lemons.

His throat felt thick with emotion. He shook his head violently, as though the action could fling all memories of the Traitor (and what he had done) out of his mind. As it was, his glasses very nearly flew off his face, and he had to lift a hand to straighten them and brush the hair out of his eyes. It was longer than it ever had been before, thick and shaggy; he knew it only added to his felonious appearance, but didn't bother to trim it. In fact, he realized as he scratched his bristly cheek, he had forgotten to shave the last few days. He must look like some sort of homeless vagrant.

The fact of the matter was time had finally had its effect on Harry. When he looked into the mirror, he no longer saw a boy hiding his fear behind a brave, scarred façade. He saw a young man, determined and unwavering in his goals—or, more accurately, goal. His face was more angular than he remembered it being, having lost any of the roundness that his indigent childhood had offered; his shoulders were stronger and broader, developed by long Quidditch practices and longer hours spent doing chores around Number Four, Privet Drive. There was a sort of grim resolve about his mouth, a look reminiscent of reserved anguish. Despite this gravity, he wasn't unattractive. In fact, Harry was rather pleased with how he'd turned out. He certainly resembled James Potter, and now in more than just a vague, familial resemblance sort of way. One day last week he'd held a photograph of his father up beside his own reflection, and the similitude had startled him. No wonder he was always being told how very like James he looked!

His mother had left her mark on him, as well, and it became clearer every day. All reports declared Lily Potter to be one of the most brilliant witches of her day, a rival to the legendary Hermione Granger, whose name had become a Hogwarts byword (and synonym for 'swot'). As he sought refuge in his books, he found himself recalling more, being able to focus with increased ease, and it seemed that every day he uncovered a new and untapped reserve of intellect or power. Using books and his own intuition, he had taught himself the tricks behind Legilimency, which was deceptively similar to its foil, Occlumency. It had been several days before he could actually apply the spell, but now he was progressing in leaps and bounds, as wayward and uncoordinated as they were. He knew everything about Horcruxes that the first two texts contained; if he had wanted to, he could've made one himself with little difficulty.

His steps quickened as he crossed from pavement to dew-silvered grass, aimed at a low-slung ash. The lightning-struck tree served as his library and study here in Little Whinging. His skin was alive with electricity, and his mind churning with unease.

He could make one himself with little difficulty. And he had considered it more than once during the early summer nights, those long stretches of darkness that made the last two weeks feel more like two months. After all, if he was completely honest with himself, what were the chances of a sixteen-year-old wizard defeating the man (if he could be called that) who had struck fear into the hearts of hundreds of thousands over so many decades? Even the story of David and Goliath was no consolation to the heartsick young man: in the real world, giants didn't fall so easily.

He was jaded, that was his problem. Too many years of unimaginable stress, too many years spent looking over his shoulder, too many years of grieving and griping and procrastinating—

Too many years of being selfish.

That selfishness prompted a comfortable, intoxicating sense of invincibility in him. Surely he couldn't die, if he didn't want to. It just couldn't happen.

It could. Sirius hadn't wanted to die. Neither had Dumbledore. And try as he might, Harry could not dispel from his mind the fleeting look of surprise on Cedric Diggory's face as a bolt of light, as green as Harry's own eyes, struck him full in the chest.

But recognition is the first step towards change, or so he'd read at some point in the hazy past. He would fight the selfishness of youth as hard as he could from now on. He realized now, after so many nights spent studying and trying not to listen to Dumbledore's voice as it whispered in his ear, that his purpose in life wasn't to be as normal as possible, or to hide from the public or try to avoid his fate. He wouldn't run from the phantasm of his prophesied future anymore. He would accept his role in this terrible game.

This resolution made him bold. He had barely been in Surrey for ten minutes when he sat down and wrote a letter to Mundungus Fletcher, the Order's resident felon (a felon, despite his many gaffes, who was devoted to the memories of Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore, and most of all to the Boy Who Lived), asking him to find as many books on Very Dark Magic, especially in regard to artifacts and souls, as possible. Since then, he had begun to regularly request items from the crooked wizard—from texts on Legilimency, Occlumency, and wandless magic to such mundane items as Chocolate Frogs and Owl Treats for Hedwig. Now, with this special dispensation from the Ministry, Harry was wallowing in magic of varying shades of white and gray—and even studying (though never practicing) the Dark Arts. It couldn't hurt to know what the enemy would throw at him. The Dursleys avoided him like the plague, even going so far as telling him not to cook or clean for them anymore (though he reckoned that was because Aunt Petunia was afraid he'd poison them or hex something). He'd been so busy that he hadn't even looked at his owl post in over a week.

For the first time in his life, Harry Potter took himself seriously—and because of this, so did others.

McGonagall, in her spare letters, expressed pleasure at Harry's professed diligence and tenacity. Lupin stopped trying to make him feel better, and seemed to appreciate that the boy had finally grasped the fact that life was not fair, and probably never would be—especially for Harry. He hadn't read any of Hermione or Ron's letters—he'd received a veritable flood of them in this last week and a half—figuring that they were probably full of either each other or their plans for next year, all of which could be tackled when Harry joined them after his seventeenth birthday.

He didn't know how they'd react to the changes that were so evident even to himself. Hermione would be pleased by his increased bookishness, but how she would respond to his newfound, steady confidence—which, he had to admit, occasionally took even Harry by surprise—was beyond him. And what of Ron? Harry hadn't turned into an old man over night, but he couldn't see himself being quite as amused by some of their past pursuits as he had been before.

Ron would stick by him, though—Harry knew this as an established truth, just as he knew that he would sell his life dearly to Tom Riddle. But it hurt him to admit that he wasn't as certain of Hermione. She had always been more independent than them, and though she had suffered during their numerous arguments, had fared better on her own than either Ron or Harry would have. She would always support him and their cause, of course; his question was, would she support Harry, or the Boy Who Lived?

And he couldn't help but wonder what Ginny would make of his transformation from the Boy Who Lived to the Man Who Intended to Keep Living. Would she hate him? How could she not hate someone who had come to understand the appeal of a Horcrux, even if the purpose behind such an action on his part would be to preserve himself so he could protect others?

Certainly, Harry was no longer the boy he'd been a bare two weeks ago. Every day he grew a little more jaded, a little more cynical, a little less inclined to believe that everything would turn out all right. There was no such certainty in the world after youth—there was no master plan written to his exact desires. It was on his shoulders.

As he pondered his responsibilities, he settled down beneath the lightning-struck tree and opened one textbook. Another, last year's History of Magic book, served as an improvised writing desk while balanced on his lap. A few leafs of parchment and that day's copy of the Daily Prophet sat nearby, weighted down by Blackest Magicke.

Luck, however, was not with him today. No sooner had he wrenched himself from his inner world and become entranced by the old language and even older magic than something wet fell against his cheek, splattering up to mar his clean lenses. Blinking in surprise, Harry lifted his head. Outside of the ash's protective embrace, the rain had begun in earnest, pattering percussively against the grass and cement.

"Bloody hell," he muttered grimly, glowering in general at the rain-spattered park.

He stretched to grab his shoulder bag, and unceremoniously stuffed his papers into it before they were completely ruined, jammed the books down on top of them, and staggered to his feet, slipping on the wet grass. When he regained his balance, he set off at a run for the pavilion in the center of the park, cobbled paths radiating out from it like rays from a stylized sun to meet the sidewalk that marked the park's perimeter.

Lightning flickered too close, momentarily blinding him. The thunder that followed was not a rumble, not a growl—it was a shock, a harsh blow to his ears and head. He winced, his trainers sliding on the slick cobbles as he reached the pavilion. He tripped up the last few steps and landed on the pavilion floor on his hands and knees, soaked and panting. The rough wood floor scraped the skin off the heels of his hands. Sucking his breath in painfully, he slid the bag off his shoulder and turned so that he was sitting on the top stair, just within the overhang's protection.

He fingered the raw flesh. It was surprising that, after all the agony he'd been through in his life—Cruciatus Curses, Quidditch mishaps, fights, falls, and that bloody scar—something as insignificant as a skinned hand could hurt so strongly. He smiled at the irony of the concept and held his right hand over the left. His wandless magic was still very weak, and he could only perform small charms with his wand hand. Nevertheless, it was growing.

Wandless magic was more complex because it required the user to consider not the conduit, but the magic itself. To do this, the user had to be aware of his very blood, of the way the life surged within his body, of the instinctual way in which the mind tapped this supply. He chewed his lip for a moment, waiting to feel a certain indescribable twist of his consciousness, and then whispered, "Percuro."

There was a flash of pain as brief and intense as the lightning flickering around the park, transforming the verdant trees into stark silhouettes for fractions of a heartbeat, and then new, soft, pink skin formed over the tender area before his very eyes. He smiled, satisfied. He discreetly performed the same charm over his right hand using his wand, now tucked into the left sleeve of his red, bedraggled sweatshirt.

He didn't hear the footsteps—the cacophony of thunder and hard rain pelting against the pavilion roof (the storm had really set in now) was too loud to allow that. But he felt the running steps reverberating through the wood beneath him, and rose quickly to his feet, turning to meet this unforeseen intruder with caution and alarm.

She didn't seem to notice him, but leaned against one of the plain, cylindrical pillars, her head tipped back against the wood. She was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed with exertion, and her black hair clung to the pale, rosy skin of her face and neck in stark curls. Her glasses were spattered with raindrops, and she cursed quietly as she attempted in vain to dry them off on her waterlogged, long-sleeved shirt, which bore the name of Stonewall High's drama association. "Damn."

Harry observed her unnoticed for another brief minute. She was short and of an average weight. In fact, each and every one of her visible characteristics seemed to be the epitome of average.

At least, so it seemed until she turned her eyes towards Harry, alerted to his presence by some small sound. They were a pale, pale blue, circumscribed by a ring so dark it almost matched the black, angular frames of her glasses.

"Oh," she said, as surprised by his sudden appearance as he was by hers. "Wotcher."

"Hello," he said as she went back to attempting to dry her glasses. Moving slowly—everything felt so sluggish with the heavy drumming of rain on the roof above them and the echoing thunder that rolled around Little Whinging, encasing it in a sphere of sound—he went over to join her. "That's not going to do much good. Mind if I...?" he asked, holding one hand out.

Smiling gratefully, she passed him the glasses. He dried them on the hem of his shirt, which had been partially protected by his sweatshirt and was, at the very least, not as soaked as her dark gray top, and passed them back. She replaced them, blinking briefly as her eyes readjusted to the world's clarity, and grinned at him. "Thanks."

"No problem."

They stood in silence for a few more awkward moments, neither knowing quite what to say. At one point, she drew in her breath as though preparing to speak, but seemed to think better of what she'd been about to say. She kept her peace—at least for another few seconds.

"You're Harry, right?" she asked. "Harry Potter?"

He nodded slightly, frowning and peering at her. She smiled; the expression was delightfully crooked and touched every feature. Her pale eyes narrowed and crinkled up in the corners, and he abruptly remembered something. A small boy in baggy clothing and broken glasses was running away from a posse of larger boys when a hand shot out and dragged him around a corner. His savior, a short girl in his form, pressed one finger to her lips, and motioned towards the entrance to the back hallway. Still panting from the effort of the chase, the malnourished boy obediently hid behind the opened door just before his tormentors arrived. For a few moments, there came the sound of conversation as the boys interrogated the black-haired girl. Her answers were vague and blithe, given with a smile. When they left, her head appeared around the side of the door. You can come out now, kid.

"Ev—" he started, then blinked and squinted, satisfied to find the lines of the child's face echoed and refined in the countenance of the girl before him. "Evangeline."

She nodded brightly, pleased at being recognized without prompting. "Angie MacTavish. You remembered!"

"You saved me a beating," he said with a smile, genuinely glad to see her. "Of course I remembered!"

Her smile was just as warm now as it had been then. "So, kid. Where've you been?"

His own cheery expression faded a little with the on-set of more self-pity. Willfully, he choked it down and made himself deliver the answer that his aunt and uncle had provided him with and obliged him to. "St. Brutus'."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and Piers Polkiss is the next Mr. Universe. St. Brutus' Center for Incurably Criminal Boys." She snorted. "First of all, no one in their right mind would name an actual institution something as inane as that. Second, you're no more a criminal mastermind than I am a ballroom dancer."

He brightened under her blunt appraisal, but she just eyed him up and down.

"The brawn behind the brain, perhaps," she amended her judgment. "You're a little twiggy, but you look rather fit. Oh! Not that you look stupid or anything. Bother. It was a joke," she said, flushing at his startled expression. "Sorry."

He laughed. "It's all right. I was just—surprised. You reminded me of someone else I know." The monster in his chest keened, sounding to Harry's mental ear rather like a lonely wolf howling at the moon.

"Ah, someone from this mystery school of yours. C'mon, now, Potter. Where is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Oh?"

"No."

"I bet I could get it out of you. I'd give you—oh, maybe three days, given constant inveiglement. You're the type that seems to be rather resistant to wheedling."

He smiled, amused by her amiable chatter. "What type is that?"

"Tall, dark, and handsome," she quipped, though he could only be considered tall in relation to her own dearth of height. "Bet you've got a girlfriend for every day of the week at your mystery school, don't you, kid?" she asked with an affable smirk. This was the sort of teasing that the Weasleys participated in, this affectionate ribbing, and it was an entirely new (and very enjoyable) experience for Harry, even if the subject was somewhat painful.

"Every day of the week?" he scoffed, playing along gleefully. "I have a girlfriend for every meal of every day of the week."

"Tsk, kid. No one ever told you cannibalism was a bad thing?"

He laughed out loud at that. She grinned, but then flinched, jumping at a particularly violent growl of thunder.

"Bloody hell, this storm's a beast."

Harry nodded in companionable acquiescence to the comment, but was really contemplating whether or not to ask Angie if she wanted to meet again. He could definitely use a friend while he was trapped in the Muggle world—but could he risk discovery? And—

His train of thought was interrupted as Angie's eyes drifted downward, attracted by movement. She darted to the side and caught the newspaper that blew by, ripped from Harry's half-open bag by the howling, rain-laden wind, and made as if to hand it to him. Her eyes fell to the front page halfway through the motion, and she stopped, staring.

Harry's blood ran cold. A groan was wrenched from the very depths of his gut as he saw her eyes widen—

"The pictures are moving!"