Harry Potter and the Mind Mage

By James Milamber

A/N: I hope you've all been good little boys and girls, this is what, twelve hours after my last update? Damn I'm good…lol

His scar throbbed painfully. Harry closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again he found himself on a featureless white plane. It was just…empty. He looked around curiously, stamping his foot experimentally on the nothing he was standing on. It was a peculiar experience, to know he was standing on something even though there was nothing there but white.

He spun quickly as a voice hissed behind him. 'Finally.'

Lord Voldemort stood not ten feet from Harry, his sweeping black robes contrasting starkly against all the white. His serpentine eyes glowed red, and his snakelike nostrils flared as he breathed heavily. Harry reached instinctively for his wand and was startled to find it absent.

'You wouldn't be able to use it anyway,' Voldemort said almost conversationally, seating himself on a replica of his own huge basalt throne that had suddenly appeared. Harry gaped at his worst enemy, totally confused.

'Erm…huh?' he managed.

Voldemort shook his head. 'Pathetic,' he muttered. 'This is a dream world, Mister Potter. It exists solely in our minds, linked as they are.' His eyes glowed brighter as he spoke.

'Why? What?' Harry was, if anything, even more confused.

Voldemort sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was such a normal thing to do that Harry found himself quickly re-assessing several of his preconceptions.

'I have created this plane in order to speak with you. I am going to be reasonable, because I know that threats and intimidation will have absolutely no effect on the vaunted Gryffindor courage,' he sneered.

'What makes you think I'll listen?' Harry shot back.

'You'll listen,' Voldemort said calmly, 'because I come to you with an offer.'

'An…an offer?'

Voldemort nodded. 'Yes, Mister Potter, an offer.'

'Well?' Harry asked, crossing his arms.

'I recognise potential when I see it, Mister Potter. Within you I see a lot of myself. You are powerful, no doubts there. You have done an incredible amount in your short life. I wish to capitalise on that.'

'What do you mean?' Harry asked warily.

'I am offering you a place at my side, Mister Potter.' Voldemort's slitted eyes glowed even brighter, until Harry needed to shield his own eyes. 'I offer you unlimited power, wealth, whatever you desire at your fingertips. With you as my Prince and heir, we could take over the world!'

Unbidden, images floated across Harry's vision. He saw himself living in a palace with innumerable slaves doing his bidding, responding to his every whim. Gold piled everywhere, and scantily dressed women fawned over him.

'No!' Harry pushed the images away. 'I don't want any of that!'

'Oh, but you do, Mister Potter.' Voldemort watched him carefully from his throne. 'It is a part of human nature to want these things. Power, wealth, women…all could be yours. The price is small, when you consider the gains.'

'No! You listen here,' Harry said coldly. 'It will be a cold day in Hell when I join a monster like you of my own free will!'

Voldemort smirked. 'I could arrange that.'

More images appeared. In one, Hermione and Ron were working in a slave gang while men with cruel whips watched from horseback. In another, Neville was strung up by his ankles, being repeatedly subjected to the Cruciatus curse while men and women in Death Eater robes watched and laughed. Another contained Ginny. His mind shuddered back from what was happening to her, from what she was being subjected too. As he watched, helpless, she was repeatedly raped, all the while sobbing her misery. It tore at his heart, and he fell to his knees in agony.

'I seem to have hit a nerve,' Voldemort said cruelly, and the images intensified. Harry turned away and closed his eyes, trying to escape the awful images, but they seemed to be burned onto his very eyeballs. 'I can make it stop any time, Mister Potter. If you don't join me for yourself, join me for them. You could stop this from ever occurring.'

A choked sob escaped him as his mind filled with a new wave of sensations, images, smells: the feel of Ginny's skin against his own when they touched, the smell of her hair, an image of her laughing the first time she rode her new broom. He clung to his memories desperately, and Voldemort's images began to loose their intensity, like a television picture going out of focus. Finally they disappeared altogether.

Voldemort was watching him curiously. 'How in Slytherin's name did you do that?' he asked, his voice missing its usual scorn.

Harry opened his eyes and struggled to his feet. He was breathing heavily, and he was shaking violently. 'You can't win, Tom,' he said, deliberately using Voldemort's real name to vex him. 'None of this is real, you and I both know that.'

'Oh, isn't it?' Voldemort smiled thinly. 'I see how you did it now, I see the truth staring at me from your worthless mind. The lovely Miss Weasley.' Harry gaped at him. 'Oh yes, I know all about Miss Weasley. After all, I did possess her some years back.'

'How did you know?' Harry blurted.

'Do you really think I had no link to my diary? Really Mister Potter, I had thought you intelligent.'

'If you touch her…' Harry said threateningly.

'You'll what? Kill me?' Voldemort laughed, a mirthless sound that chilled Harry to the bone. 'Possibly. But the opposite is also possible, is it not?' He stared at Harry for a long while, and finally sighed. 'I see that I am wasting my time. You are far too stubborn to join me. Oh well, I shall enjoy destroying everything you love while you watch. Starting, I think, with Miss Weasley.'

'Leave her alone!' Harry shouted.

'Why, Mister Potter? Why should I leave her alone? Do you…love her?'

'I…' Harry trailed off, his mind going into overdrive. Did he? Did her really love her? Maybe. He wasn't really sure. But in any case, he wasn't about to let Voldemort have her. 'I will stop you.'

'Oh, I don't doubt you'll try,' Voldemort smiled cruelly. 'But how many of your precious friends will die in our little battle? Will you yourself die? Time will tell, I suppose. In the mean time, I will leave you to ponder on my words. My offer remains open.'

He stood, and the throne vanished. 'Farewell, Mister Potter. We shall meet again,' Voldemort smirked and performed a mocking half bow in Harry's direction. Quite suddenly he vanished.

'Thought he'd never bloody leave,' a very familiar voice grumbled. Harry spun quickly. The empty whiteness vanished as he did so, and he found himself standing in the Gryffindor common room. It wasn't quite how he remembered it though. The couches in front of the fire were different, seeming…older. In fact, everything appeared to be from several decades ago.

Standing in front of Harry, looking the same as he had at Harry's parent's wedding, was Sirius Black.

'Sirius!' Harry cried, launching himself at his Godfather. Sirius laughed, tears streaming down his cheeks as he hugged Harry fiercely.

'Hi kiddo,' he said finally, disengaging Harry's arms from around his neck. 'Long time no see.'

'Sirius…' Harry began, uncertain on how to proceed.

Sirius sighed, running one hand through his black hair absently. 'Why don't we sit?' he suggested, indicating the couches in front of the fire.

'Okay,' Harry agreed, and they sat. There was an awkward silence until Harry said, 'How?'

Sirius quirked a half smile. 'Long story,' he said, leaning back on the couch. 'It's all very complicated. Because I never actually died, as such, all the rules are a little hazy. I don't have a body anymore, that disintegrated when I fell through the veil, but my consciousness still exists. Well, obviously, because I'm here now.'

'Thank God,' Harry leaned his head on Sirius' shoulder. His Godfather smiled.

'Yes,' he said finally. 'Thank God indeed. But there's more to it than that. Although I had a consciousness, there was nothing I could do with it. I mean, you'd think there would be something to do after you died, but there's just nothing. I tried to talk to you in your dreams a few times, but your mind was too strong and kept repelling me.'

'Sorry,' Harry said quickly.

'Not your fault,' Sirius assured him. 'If you can repel me, then you can repel most others as well. In any case, when Lord Moldimort created this dream plane, it was almost perfect. I just had to wait for him to leave, otherwise he could have banished me.'

'Oh,' Harry considered Sirius' words. 'So you're not really dead?'

'Physically, I'm dead,' Sirius corrected. 'And there's not really much I can do this way, although I'm working on that.'

'What do you mean?' Harry asked curiously.

'I'm negotiating with the Higher Powers. There's a chance they may let me reincarnate.'

'You could come back?' Harry sat up straight again.

'Not quite,' Sirius chuckled. 'Sometimes, if a wizard dies and they have something very important left undone in their life, and they have very strong ties to a particular person, they can reincarnate, but not into human form.' Harry's face fell. 'I could only come back as an animal.'

Harry thought he knew what Sirius meant. 'Like, say, a dog?'

'Exactly,' Sirius confirmed. 'So that's what I'm trying to do right now. It's taking a while, though. Time really doesn't mean anything on the Higher Planes.'

'That's alright,' Harry rested his head on Sirius' shoulder again. 'It'll be great to have you back, even as a dog.'

'Now don't get your hopes up,' Sirius warned. 'They could still say no.'

'They won't,' Harry said confidently.

'Maybe,' Sirius sighed. They were silent for a long moment.

'I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with Voldemort,' Sirius said finally.

Harry snorted. 'He's an idiot if he thinks I'd ever join him!'

'Peter did,' Sirius said quietly, and Harry felt a hot flush of anger flow through him as the betrayer's name. 'But that's not what I'm taking about. Was he right?'

'What?' Harry asked, confused.

'He asked you about Ginny. Was he right?' There was an intensity to Sirius' face that Harry found a little disturbing.

'I don't know. I don't know!' Harry burst out, standing quickly and beginning to pace.

'Did I ever tell you about Amanda?' Sirius asked.

Harry stopped his pacing briefly, considering. 'No, I don't think so.'

'She was my fiancée,' Sirius said quietly, and Harry's blood chilled. 'We got engaged a few weeks before you were born.' He smiled, although it was a painful smile. 'She was Kissed by Dementors for consorting with "Death Eaters". No trial, no proof, just Kissed.' Sirius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Harry felt his heart constricting in his chest. Unbidden, an image rose of Ginny being held down by two Aurors as a Dementor pulled back it's hood…

'I loved her to distraction,' Sirius said finally. 'I had done since our sixth year, I just couldn't admit it. I wasn't brave enough.' He opened his eyes and gazed at Harry. 'By the time I finally got the courage to ask her, it was far too late. All that time we could have been together, and I wasted it all by being too chicken to do anything about my feelings for her.'

Suddenly the scene around them changed. They were in the Hospital wing. Harry could see himself laying in a bed at the far end of the ward, and hovering anxiously over him was Ginny. For some odd reason his scar was glowing bright red.

'You've been unconscious for five days,' Sirius said quietly, placing one hand on Harry's shoulder. 'In all that time, she hasn't left your side. Not to eat, not to go to classes. She screamed at Dumbledore when he tried to get her to leave. She sleeps on the bed next to you, when she sleeps at all. She thinks only of you, doesn't spare a thought for herself. Ron and Hermione have to force her to eat anything, and if they didn't she wouldn't even notice she was hungry. If that isn't love, I don't know what is.' He looked at Harry directly. 'I want you to be happy, Harry. Don't wait too long.'

'I…' Harry tried to speak, but his throat constricted. He couldn't breathe suddenly, and the room was spinning.

'The planar spell's wearing off,' Sirius said, his voice sounding very far away. 'Remember what I said. Remember…'

Suddenly Harry was rushing towards his body. He was spinning, revolving on the spot as he was catapulted forwards, landing with a thump in his body…

A/N: And you all know what happens next.

Next Chapter: You'll just have to wait and find out, won't you?