Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
This chapter has no cliffhanger. (Aren't you excited?) It is still dark and painful. I'm sorry. Pretty much all the chapters until the very end of the book- that is, until Chapter 70- are. It's the fifth story that gets to be all incendiary and lighting wildfires to clear away the old pain.
On we go.
Chapter Sixty-Three: Of Hedges and Plains of Ice
Harry found himself standing in cold darkness. He shivered and squinted, expecting that at any moment he would grow warmer, or the light would lift and show him what sort of place Voldemort thought of his mind as.
Neither happened. Instead, Harry's eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness, and he realized that there were faint lights overhead—glaring arctic stars. He lowered his gaze slowly and moved his head from side to side.
He stood on a plain of ice, covered with snow, stretching off in every direction. Harry could see no hill or tree marking it, no place where the ground altered in any way. He edged his way forward, afraid that he would trip into a hole by the starlight, but though he stumbled, that came only from the slickness of the ice under the snow.
There was no sign of Voldemort's memories, or his weak points, or his defenses. Nothing but barren stillness wherever Harry looked, lying under a barely lit dark sky.
That was its defense, of course, Harry realized a moment later. In a place where nothing showed, nothing could be attacked. Any Legilimens who did manage to fight his way into the Dark Lord's mind would have frozen in bafflement, unable to conceive where he should search, and perhaps believing that his enemy had no emotions, no weak points, to attack.
Harry did not believe that. He had seen emotion on Voldemort's face, and even though it was covered over by Occlumency shields now, those shields had to be somewhere.
He lifted his head, but the arch of dark sky continued uninterrupted overhead, without a trace of a cloud that might have hidden anything vulnerable. There were the stars, of course, all isolated from each other. Harry contemplated calling up a wind and flying to them.
Hysterical urgency tried to pound in the back of his mind, telling him that he had to find the Dark Lord's weak points now now now, but Harry managed to dismiss it. Yes, the stars were a possibility, but he didn't know if they would work. It wouldn't be like Voldemort to use light to hide his innermost weaknesses. Harry knew he hated using Light magic. He would have harnessed his powers to the sun only in utmost extremity.
Harry's gaze lowered to the ice and snow beneath his feet again.
Yes, he thought, that's a much more useful possibility.
He knelt and scooped up a handful of powdery snow, then shivered when it stung his fingers. The sensations here were much keener than he'd felt when he was in Draco's mind, or Connor's, or Snape's. It probably had something to do with Voldemort's status as a master Legilimens.
Harry didn't think he would make much progress trying to scrabble through the frozen ground with his hand alone. Luckily, he had another option open to him, if he could call it to him here.
Harry closed his eyes and remembered the animal he had been during his visions: mid-sized, covered with thick, warm fur, his paws draped with feathery hair. Perfect for balancing on snow, those paws, and tipped with powerful claws. They could help him both with running in this strange place, should he have to, and digging.
The transformation surged over him, taking him by surprise. Harry grunted slightly as he shrank, and shook his head as warmth enveloped his body. It was only something imagined, here, but imagination was as powerful as reality in a situation like this. It only remained to keep convincing himself that he really was warm, and not dissipate the protection.
He opened his eyes, and saw a right paw and a foreshortened left leg on the ground before him. Harry grimaced. It seemed that the trauma Bellatrix had inflicted on him had affected him enough that he couldn't shed the remnants of it, even here.
Maybe that's a good thing, Harry thought. Teach me to live with it sooner. And there are a whole bunch of things I'll have to live with.
He began to dig.
Turn. Spin. Lift head. Seek. He was a in deep green place, crowded with rustlings that laughed at him.
He hated being laughed at.
He lifted his wand and fired off a curse. It hit something in the general deep green darkness of it all, but only one of the rustlings ceased; the rest kept on, quieter but as obstinate and stubborn as before.
He hated all things obstinate and stubborn, unless they were so in service to him. Then the world had his permission to be as stubborn as it liked.
Move forward. Sniff. No smell but leaves and turned earth. Wrinkle of mouth; of course the boy smelled that way, since he took care to keep himself so innocent and pure, like the magic he'd swallowed earlier. No, he would think a bit of mud or corruption the stink of Lord Voldemort.
He might show that Lord Voldemort had been here.
As his eyes adjusted to the bit of light falling through the trees, he found that he was not in a house surrounded by trees, as he had assumed—of course the boy would have a house as a mind, or maybe a replica of Hogwarts—but a strange construction, partially hedge maze and partially forest. As if the hedge maze had been allowed to grow wild, he thought, staring at something that might almost have been the wall of a lane, thick green leaves scattered with gold. He reached out and ripped off one of the leaves, and was satisfied to hear a small, sharp shriek.
He moved a few steps further forward, cursing aside one of the sturdier trees when it got in his way. It fell with a crash.
Dark green and rustle and smell of earth and feel of leaf-flesh beneath his feet and taste of dark green in his mouth. Contempt and hatred and scorn and laughter and no doubt, no doubt at all, because how could he doubt himself, Lord Voldemort, the mightiest Dark Lord and the mightiest wizard to walk the earth? Dumbledore was nothing to him, was nothing, had been nothing, would be nothing, will be nothing.
Somewhere, the hedge maze, the forest, would have a heart. Voldemort would find it and destroy it.
Move forward. Lift head. Curse aside a branch. Laugh at the foolishness of an enemy who truly thought that he could battle Lord Voldemort, master and accomplished Legilimens, on mental ground.
Begin.
Harry was aware of distant pain. Voldemort was no doubt adventuring around the inside of his head, finding things to disturb, and there was the wound on his shoulder, which he knew one of the Dark Lord's spells had reopened, and there was the sharp pain of his claws scrabbling on the ice in front of him.
But he kept digging. He lowered his head and used his teeth when he thought it would help, moving aside frozen soil and particles of ice that clung with irritating persistency in his mouth. When he spat, they should have either flown out or melted and run away, but all they did was cling to his jaws as cold water. Harry snarled and lashed his tail, and kept digging.
The rim of ice abruptly cracked, and Harry found a tunnel underneath. The tunnel was not filled with wetness, as he had thought it might be, but it was cool and dark, stone with a roof of earth. Harry gave a glad little growl and kept on tearing, scrabbling, ripping, widening, opening the tunnel more and more up. It might have taken a far longer time to open a hole for a human, but in his small new body, he had a suitable entrance in just a few minutes. He flattened himself to the ground and squirmed in and through.
He found himself in an intimately familiar place when he landed, his thick paws cushioning him from the fall, though he staggered off balance on his left foreleg for a moment. The tunnel was quiet and dark, lit only by a faint radiance like that from a Lumos spell, and filled with tiny bones and skulls when Harry shifted. When he sniffed, an overpowering stink of rottenness assaulted his nostrils. Harry hissed and spat again, but this time he could be happy.
Voldemort's mind resembled the tunnel that led to the Chamber of Secrets.
Harry knew where he was going now.
He trotted forward, his tail up and his paws picking their way carefully among the skulls. His going was somewhat awkward with a left forepaw missing, but three legs and determination could do wonders, and soon Harry halted before a door marked with emerald-eyed serpents.
Fear paralyzed him for a moment. Though the graveyard had probably surpassed it by now, the Chamber was still the scene of what he considered his worst memory, the one he had seen when Dementors approached him.
Harry pushed aside his memories. He was good at doing it when someone else needed him to, and this was one of those times. He lifted his head high, and hissed out the command for the door to open in Parseltongue.
The door folded back at once, and Harry stepped into a place darker than the Chamber had been, darker than the sky above the ice plains, though still lit with that faint, moving yellow radiance, which Harry finally realized was focused on him, and shone from his fur. Perhaps because Voldemort's mind really was dark, perhaps because he was convinced it would be, he had conjured up the light and drawn it along with him.
Objects lay everywhere: carved cups, scepters, thrones, crowns, jeweled lockets like the one with Slytherin's mark that Sirius had found and which had possessed him, wands of rare woods, old books, jeweled swords, rings set with enormous stones, statues of emerald serpents with silver eyes and silver serpents with emerald eyes, bronze sculptures marked with grotesque signs of suffering and death. Harry hissed, knowing a lot more than he had ever wanted to about what Voldemort valued, and worked his way towards the back of the room, where the statue of Salazar Slytherin had stood in the real Chamber.
He saw what he was looking for almost at once. Snape's voice flowed through his head, deep and resonant.
You'll find memories the most plentiful things in another wizard's mind. But don't be distracted by them if you ever get the chance to enter the mind of someone you truly want to hurt. You can look for the heart—the anchor of their sanity—or you can look for the center of memory. It's extremely hard to destroy, but if you can locate it, you can at least damage it. You'll recognize it as looking like a larger version of the memories, but there's only one of it, and it shines.
This did indeed shine, Harry found. It was a giant sword, plunged into the stone and held upright by a crack that gripped the tip of its blade, and covered with five jewels. One of the jewels was shaped like a cup, one like a book, one like a wand, one like a locket, one like a ring. Harry was not sure what the significance of that might be, but they did resemble some of the treasures scattered around the floor, and those treasures had to be Voldemort's memories.
Now, he only had to figure out how he would damage a giant sword made of what looked like to be hard steel.
Twitch of an ear. Lift of a head. Taste of the air ahead. He could do that, had adapted his tongue to do that, adapting his senses to be like the senses of poor dead Nagini.
The thought of her made him lash out, and another tree fell. He smiled, as the shriek of pain was louder this time. He intended to destroy the heart of Potter's mind, but that didn't mean he couldn't inflict many small wounds along the way.
Harry. Dear Harry. Dear dead Harry, who should have known not to challenge him on his own ground.
Deeper into the maze. Deeper. Around corners, pushing through walls of leaves, stepping past fallen logs overgrown with moss. Had to be a center of this, had to be a heart. Had to be something around here.
A dart of movement to the side! Lifting of the head, narrowing his eyes.
Something living. Something unaltered, something that might die. He would never die, no, of course not. Death was for lesser creatures, creatures who were still mortal.
He followed, moving through the leaves like a predator. The living thing ran, and he hunted. He was always a great hunter, was Lord Voldemort. In days before he grew too many for such things, had too many followers to have to do it himself, he had enjoyed hunting the victims he sacrificed for power and knowledge. There was a thrill in the blood, the hunt, that was like nothing else.
Dart. Anticipate. Turn. The creature was going this way, he would go this way, and he would catch it.
He stepped out into the middle of the lane of leaves, and waited. The living creature would have to come this way.
But it didn't. He stood in the midst of green darkness, touched with the faintest hint of gold, and waited, and listened, and still the living creature did not come at all. Child or rabbit or dragon, it didn't come out, and then the bit of light faded altogether.
He lifted his wand and conjured a light. Leaves shifted around him, and there was more of the impertinent rustling. He cast again and again, and the rustlings cried out and fell silent.
But they had done their work. When he could see again, he stood in a completely unfamiliar place, the maze, the forest, having reassembled itself into a new construction and hidden away the darting living creature that he was now sure was the heart of Potter's mind.
With a snarl—what right did a boy like this have to defy a master Legilimens? He should have rolled over to bare his belly at the mere chance of being near such greatness!—he forced his way forward, determined to find the path back to the living creature. He would catch it, and he would strangle it. Make Potter feel the pain and pay the price, as he had done for thirteen years of agony.
Harry walked around the sword several times, and still he could see no way of damaging it. He could not climb it; the edges were too sharp and too sleek, it really was nothing more than a great blade, and he would cut himself in doing so. Harry did not want to think about what would happen if he wounded himself in Voldemort's mind. The hilt was too far from the floor for him to jump to it and safely land on the crossguard, and scratching or tearing at the steel would have no result.
He sat down and lashed his tail, and then a thought came to him and made him feel very stupid.
I might have flown to the stars. What I imagine is real, here, and what I imagine right now is needing to be at the top of the hilt.
Harry thought determinedly about it, bending his mind in that direction, and ignoring all the "rational" thoughts that wanted to point out things like lynxes not being able to fly. He concentrated on the feeling of smooth metal rather than stone under his paws, and the floor being curved instead of straight, and how much he wanted to be able to do this and leave, instead of lingering here…
And it worked. The world jolted around him, and then he stood on the hilt, struggling awkwardly to balance on the immense curved guard that flanked the pommel. He snarled in triumph, and then lowered his head.
He had known, all along, if he could get to the hilt, that the easiest course would be to damage the sword by tugging out the jewels.
He locked his teeth on the yellow, cup-shaped stone, which might be a topaz, and began to tug. The stone barely projected from the metallic surface. His teeth were weary from biting through ice and the complicated, tangled root system that had underlain it. His body throbbed with exhaustion and pain and the longing to simply collapse and let something else happen that he had no part in. But he locked his hind paws and his right front one into place and kept on pulling, thinking of what price he had paid—and which other people had paid, too—to get him this far.
The stone trembled, at last, and began slowly to tip out from the socket where it had been placed. Harry went on prizing at it until he was sure that it would come out, and then released it and turned sideways to stand on the hilt.
Just in time. The jewel uttered a loud groan and slipped out of its place, tumbling to the floor of the Chamber of Secrets far below. It hit the flagstones and shattered, sending large pieces of itself rolling away to hide among the treasures of Voldemort's memories.
Harry felt the effect at once. The Chamber around him shuddered, and a good portion of the cups and jeweled statues on the floor grew tarnished. He snarled, let himself have a moment of gloating, and then turned to attack the locket-shaped stone.
Pain!
The pain took him off guard, and that made him furious. What right did the boy have to hurt him? Pain was for lesser mortals, living creatures who were going to die. He was Lord Voldemort, and he was never going to die. He had taken enough steps to prevent it.
He turned his head, blindly seeking, and the leaves behind him creaked. When he turned around again, they were pressing into his face, covering his mouth and his eyes. He snarled and pushed them away, but his hand slipped over their slick surfaces. They were weak, and fragile, and they had no right to oppose him, but they were doing it anyway, and they did not seem to care when he began firing curses into them, burning and blasting many of them away.
He fell back a step, only to recover his ground, and felt a dart of motion near his heels. This time, this time, he spun, and lashed out with one arm, catching the creature by its shoulder. It tripped and stumbled and fell, and then he had it, and it was staring up at him, the heart of Potter's mind.
It was a boy, about the same age as Potter, with blond hair and a pale face. Looked rather like Lucius, it did. He bared his teeth in a snarl. He had no idea why the heart of the boy's mind would be a Malfoy, but he had already paused to wonder too many times this evening. He should have killed Potter when he was tied to the rock.
He lifted his wand, prepared to cast the Killing Curse that would destroy the boy and the remains of Potter's sanity with it.
The locket-shaped stone smashed, and Harry lashed his tail. Then he paused, lifting his head, twitching his nose.
Something is wrong. Something in my mind is in danger.
Harry could only guess that Voldemort had somehow found the heart of his own mind, or perhaps the place where all his memories were stored. He had no time to lose, and he knew what to do, as though someone had whispered a plan in his ear. He imagined himself with lead weights fastened to his paws, and he leaped into the air and then came down again on the hilt of the sword.
The sword shook with the weight, and groaned, and then tilted slowly to one side. Harry bared his teeth and jumped again, though he came near to staggering and slipping off this time. He didn't know how much time he had left before Voldemort permanently damaged him, and he couldn't worry about it.
Focus my gaze on the path forward. That's what I have to do right now.
He jumped one more time.
The sword tilted and began to crash down.
Harry jumped. This time, he fastened his mind on a destination not part of the Chamber of treasures that surrounded him. He fixed it on his body, kneeling motionless on the grass of the graveyard, and built the image in his memory. Wand clutched in his hand, head twisted so that he faced towards Voldemort, legs folded beneath him, skin enfolding him…
I am here.
I am real.
I am home.
Harry gasped and opened his eyes, in time to see Voldemort begin spasming, as if the whole of his body were a single muscle that someone else had ordered him to contract.
He couldn't remember what he was about to do. There was a boy in front of him, but he couldn't remember who the boy was. He looked around, and stared at the leaves gathered near him, and wondered where they were. Had he come into the midst of a maze? The Forbidden Forest? Was he back in Albania, or perhaps in the untamed jungles of Africa?
The boy backed away from him, and then turned and ran. He stood where he was, not following. Other memories were shredding and diving around him, spiraling like stormclouds.
Where had he been? What was his name?
He had only one thing left to him as it seemed that all his memories might drain away forever: the fear of death, and the knowledge that, come what may, he could not die like this. Death was not for him.
He reached out, not in memory, but with an assured, guiding motion, the same way he would move his right hand. He touched a link that bound him to a secret place, a place that held one of the centers of his life. He tugged on the link, and it responded, the object it was bound to pulling him towards it.
He vanished, along the link, his mind folding into sleep, preserving the tatters of memory just as they were.
Harry stared as Voldemort's motionless body wavered, blurred, and then vanished. His blank red eyes closed in the moment before he faded. Harry knew this was no normal Apparition, and suspected that he had done something to prevent himself from losing the rest of his memory.
Of course he would, he thought bitterly, leaning on his left elbow and panting in and out with steady breaths. It would be too easy otherwise.
"Potter."
Harry turned swiftly, bringing his wand up in front of him. Rosier lifted his hands before his face, mock-cowering behind them. His laughter was deep, and assured, and amused.
"Good to see you that survived," he said. "I shudder to think of how boring my life would become if you hadn't."
"What game are you playing?" Harry whispered, turning his head from side to side to see about the rest of the Death Eaters. They were gone, and most of the motionless forms on the ground looked to be the dead that Dragonsbane had raised, fallen when his necromancy dissipated or their foes fled or their raiser died. Only one robed body lay still, the mask half-off; it was one of the male Death Eaters Harry didn't know by sight. Harry drew in a huffing breath, and wondered whether or not he should be glad that Bellatrix Lestrange wasn't dead.
"The game of life," said Rosier, with no irony in his voice. "The one I told you about, the one everyone plays. The one you could play yourself, Potter, if you were dedicated more to living than dying." He cocked his head and studied Harry's face. "Or perhaps you're awake to living now. I should be so glad if you were." He clapped his hands and smiled like a delighted child.
Fawkes circled down just then, his trilling song covering any reply that Harry might have wanted to make. He turned as the phoenix settled on his shoulder, and met his gaze. Fawkes stared at him with tears falling gently from his dark eyes. Harry studied them for a moment, and considered whether he should allow them to fall on him in the moment before they did.
He chose to let them. He would need some spiritual healing after—after. And he knew that he had to live now. He needed to get back to Hogwarts, reassure Draco and Snape and Connor that he was still alive, give everyone the information about Voldemort's return and about the actions he had commanded his Death Eaters to perform, and contact Hawthorn and Pansy about—
About.
Harry forced himself to turn and study Dragonsbane's body.
There could be no doubt that he was dead. Even necromancers weren't going to live with their chest cavities hollowed out and most of their major internal organs torn into small shreds. Harry felt a stir of magic in the air, and knew that his power was watching, half in and half out of his body, no more understanding that what it had done was wrong than a wild beast would.
Harry felt the edges of his grief soften and blur under Fawkes's tears. He bowed his head, and choked back the overwhelming bitterness of it.
Fawkes sang, and Harry saw the vision of what the phoenix wanted in his head. Fawkes wanted him to see that the ice on his tail feathers had turned to water mere moments after it formed, and that Harry had done him no lasting harm. He wanted Harry to cry out his grief, and then go back to Hogwarts and rest in the arms of people who loved him. He wanted Harry to sleep, and go somewhere where he would be safe, and learn to come to terms with what he had done, and lie down and rise up with peace in his soul.
"I'm sorry," said Harry, keeping his voice gentle. Fawkes meant well. Of course he did. A phoenix would not lie, though he might speak or sing in terms that would be misunderstood by any human not bonded to him. "I can't do that."
"Can't do what?" Rosier asked, sounding interested.
Harry lifted his head, and his magic snarled around him, remembering the way that Rosier had tested the bond on his left wrist for tightness. "Go away," said Harry. His voice was, perhaps, not so much gentle as weary, and Fawkes's song increased in distress. "I can't deal with you right now." He lifted his wand.
Rosier gave a little huff. "All right then. There's no need to be so dramatic about it." He cocked his head, and met Harry's gaze directly. Harry was a little startled to find himself skimming across the surface of the Death Eater's thoughts. It appeared that his Legilimency extended beyond his eyes right now, floating unbound in the air around him, much like the rest of his wandless magic. Or maybe the magic was simply venting itself through this skill because it provided something for it to do.
Either way, Harry could make out implications of entertainment and pleasurable excitement beyond Rosier's eyes. No matter what happened to him, his life would be a lot more interesting now. He thought the Dark Lord still alive, and Harry was alive in a very interesting way. He would have to run, with his former comrades after him. This was so fun.
Rosier broke their gaze and turned away, sounding slightly amused. "My Lord created a false truce-dance," he said casually. "He fooled the Light into thinking he had a right to the power the sun gives on the equinoxes and solstices. I did tell you to watch the sun. Now I tell you to watch the sky. The primeval forces of the Light will find out the truth soon, and they no more like being tricked than the Dark magic of Walpurgis Night likes being confined." He grinned over his shoulder at Harry. "They will snap back upon my Lord. Already, I think, a wind has been summoned, and it will stir other winds. We shall have a storm, perhaps more than one."
"Why are you telling me this?" Harry asked.
Rosier's face sprouted a wider grin. "I keep telling you and telling you, Potter," he said. "It is a shame you never listen to me. Everything is a game." He Disapparated with a sharp crack.
Only after he had gone did it occur to Harry that he probably should have killed him. Harry shook his head. He—did not feel up to causing more death right now. He was a murderer twice over this night, once by fact and once by omission.
He fixed his eyes on Dragonsbane, while Fawkes shed more tears. Harry did not use the clarity of mind those gave him the way the phoenix wanted him to. Instead, he used it to lay out all the facts before him and examine them, calmly, needing to know exactly what he was going to do when he left the graveyard.
One thing was clear. He bore the guilt of what had happened here. He should have been able to stop it, and he had not. He had failed his tests, and others had paid the price. Dragonsbane had sacrificed his life to bring him back to sanity, to recall Harry from being a Dark Lord—something he should have been able to do on his own.
How many failures?
Five.
Harry turned his head and looked at his left wrist. The physical failure.
He glanced at Dragonsbane. The emotional failure, and the magical one, and the moral one, that last shared with the half-devoured body of the poor boy next to Tom Riddle's gravestone.
And the mental failure, to let Voldemort inflict damage on his mind.
Harry shook his head, and closed his eyes. Two things were clear. He bore the guilt of what had happened here, and he meant to make sure this never happened again.
He would move forward from this point on. He would be strong. He would not fail another test. He would summon Hawthorn and Pansy at once, and tell them the truth of what had happened to Dragonsbane. He suspected that their alliance with him was ended now, that they would become among the deadliest of his enemies. That was as it should be. He accepted it. If it would not end his usefulness to other people, he would let them kill him. As it was, he would have to offer some other price, and resist only if they demanded his life.
He would return Dragonsbane's body to them. He whispered now, "Mobilicorpus," and cast a Disillusionment Charm on the body as it rose into the air. He did not want everyone gawking at Dragonsbane's wounds and wondering how he had received them when Harry Apparated back to Hogwarts. Voldemort's anti-Apparition wards had fallen when he vanished, so he could do that now.
Fawkes abruptly, frantically, grabbed Harry's chin in a talon and turned his face around. Harry blinked at him, wondering.
Fawkes sang again, and rubbed his plumes along Harry's cheeks. Harry could feel the temptation there, to fall into tears and what the phoenix considered healing.
"I'm sorry," Harry whispered. "I told you, I can't. I can't afford it." He closed his eyes, and returned to his mantra.
Three things were clear. He bore the guilt of what had happened here, and he meant to make sure this never happened again, and he had a much better idea of his own weaknesses now.
He knew he would have to go to Draco, and to Snape. He needed their comfort after what had happened here. He would have been a stronger person if he did not, but he also knew he would collapse if he tried to go without it. So he would go, and accept this weakness into his personal list of them, acknowledging it and knowing it was there in the future.
He tasted thick bitterness for a moment, but he forced it away. Bitterness wouldn't help. Bitterness would drag him backward, and stand a strong chance of pulling him again into madness. Madness didn't help, either. He would go forward. He would do what would help, and he would force himself to be rational about matters.
He would explain to them his magical failure—because his magic could endanger others, now, until he had a chance of getting it back under control—the emotional failure—because that was what made his magic dangerous—and the moral failure—because they deserved to know what he had done.
The physical and the mental failures…
Those are my own.
Harry knew he couldn't explain them, yet. He would need some time, himself, to assimilate and deal with them, and if he explained them to Draco and Snape, they would insist that he relax and heal in the way that Fawkes wanted him to. Harry couldn't. Part of that was the time factor, because there was a war on, now, and the war needed him, and he just didn't have the time to collapse and work himself into a frenzy and then work himself back out of the frenzy.
Part of it was just another weakness.
I can't. That's all. I can't stand to see their pity for those failures right now. The others, yes, because I'm more likely to endanger someone else with them, and they're more likely to condemn them. Accusation is easier to deal with than pity. I will tell them the truth, eventually. But not right now.
Harry glanced sideways at his left wrist and wondered. Bellatrix had said that all efforts to replace his hand would fail—probably an attempt to increase his suffering and mental anguish to parallel hers in the months since he had taken her hand—but she had not said that he could not conceal it.
"Dissimulo manus!" he murmured, and waved his wand at it. The glamour of a hand grew from just above the stump. Harry carefully fitted it to the way he remembered things, and, soon enough, he thought proudly, no one could have told the illusion from the real thing.
I will tell them, he repeated, to soothe Fawkes's furious, sorrowful crooning. Just not right now. Later, when I can deal with it. I can't afford the time to break down, but I can think about it, little by little, and when I'm ready I'll tell them.
He hesitated, considering for a moment whether he should bear the little boy's mutilated body with him as well, but he had no idea where the child had come from or who he belonged to. Dragonsbane's body he could at least be sure of delivering to his survivors. He might be carrying the boy further away from home, not towards it, if he took him to Hogwarts, especially if he had been a Muggle. In the end, Harry gently cast a glamour over the boy's corpse, to be sure it wouldn't be disturbed, and knew that would be one of the things he would include in the story of this night he sent to Scrimgeour.
The tale of his failures, he would tell to those he needed to know. The information that Voldemort was back, everyone who was important must know, as soon as possible. The loss of his hand and the damage to his mind would remain between him and Fawkes and the Death Eaters for now.
Harry shook his head, and took a deep breath, and gathered his strength. No trying to break the wards around Hogwarts so he could Apparate in, he knew. They were more important than ever, with the Death Eaters back and Voldemort moving. Harry didn't think he had damaged the Dark Lord's memory permanently, only enough to buy a little time.
"Ready?" he asked Fawkes.
Fawkes cried at him.
Harry shook his head slightly, and let his right arm rest on Dragonsbane's floating corpse, and Disapparated them all, Harry and body and phoenix, with a crack.