PART FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: VERITASERUM
"Wormtail, what did you do?" shrieked a cold, piercing voice. It was screeching in Harry's head like nails on a blackboard.
"Master, I'm sorry! Crouch wanted to kill the other one. He… He wasted time. This was all I could get," was the small and pleading reply of Wormtail who was clutching his bleeding arm with a look of horror on his face.
"Fool! You brought the wrong blood. I told you the boy was everything! Look at me now!"
And then, through his mind's eyes, Harry saw him. It was as though Voldemort's body was only half formed. His arms were unusually thin and short compared to the rest of his body. The fingers on his hands were slim like ten small snakes. It didn't seem like his legs could support his weight because he was bent down, standing on his knees. His head was shinning and white like a skull. His face was devoid of any human expression or traits. His eyes, nose and mouth were nothing more than small slits. He was neither man nor snake.
"Hand me back my wand, Wormtail," said Voldemort through clenched teeth. His voice was hissing like a serpent's tongue.
"Master, I'm sorry," Pettigrew kept weeping, but he knew, as Harry did, that he could not escape Voldemort's wrath. Punishment was inevitable.
"Harry, breathe," said another, soft, familiar voice in Harry's ears, like an echo.
But Voldemort's words were ringing again in Harry's head, louder and angrier: "You brought the wrong blood, Wormtail. You have been deceived."
"Please, breathe. Please…" It was the same distant call, a woman's voice. Harry knew her.
"Master, it was the Longbottom boy's blood. It was him. I saw his scar!" cried Wormtail, falling on his knees.
There was pain in Harry's lungs now. Someone was pressing hard on his ribs. Lights were passing in front of his eyes like tiny stars. The woman was calling his name. But he couldn't wake up just yet: he had to know first why it had not worked with Neville's blood.
"Yes, Wormtail. It was a cheap trick. I know. But the thing is: you lost me my servant."
"HARRY, BREATHE!"
He couldn't take it anymore. His lungs were on fire. The moment where he thought this, his eyes snapped open and he was sputtering and grasping for air. Someone pulled him onto his side and he coughed up more water onto the wooden platform. He felt a warm blanket being laid on his back. He was cold and shivering, hardly aware of where he was. His scar was still throbbing. "Something has gone wrong, terribly wrong," he thought dreadfully. "Voldemort is not pleased."
"It's OK now, sweetheart. Take it easy. You almost drowned."
"It didn't work…" said Harry, trying to sit up. He was face to face with his mother. The words had come out in one breath. He had spoken his thoughts out loud without realising it.
"What didn't work?" his mother said with concern, putting another blanket around his shoulders and robbing his back feverishly.
Even if he told her, there was no way that she could understand. No one could understand what had just happened. No one, except…
"Dumbledore," he said between two intakes of air. "I need to speak to Dumbledore."
As he said this, this forehead burst with pain for the second time. He bent over, burying his face with his hands, gritting his teeth to avoid screaming. Wormtail was being punished, he knew it. He could feel the outline of the lightning scar on his forehead even though he knew that it wasn't there. It was burning like a hot poker pressed unto his skin.
"Harry, what's wrong? Are you hurt? Talk to me," said his mother in distress.
"It wasn't Neville's blood he needed," he said quietly, robbing his forehead as though trying to erase the pain.
Then, looking up, he saw an expression that he did not expect: there was understanding in his mother's face. They were staring at each other. Her eyes were wide and apprehensive. "She knows what I'm talking about," thought Harry with wonder.
"Harry, who was it? Who needed Nev's blood?" she murmured so that only he could hear.
"Voldemort," said Harry at once.
"It wasn't Neville's blood he needed," she repeated, but her tone was different. It was an assertion, as though she was stating an unspeakable truth. There was fear in her eyes as she said it, but her tone was nevertheless resolute.
Dumbledore's voice caught Harry's ears. He was announcing that Viktor Krum had been awarded the first place. Bu it was not important to Harry anymore. All he wanted now was to hear the truth from his mother.
"You're right," she said decisively. "We have to speak to Dumbledore. We should have done that a long time ago."
About half an hour later, Harry was sitting comfortably on a comfy chair in Dumbledore's office. Fawkes the Phoenix was snoozing gently on his right. His mother had dried Harry's clothes with her wand, but still she was insisting that he kept a blanket over his shoulders. She was pacing up and down the office now, waiting for Dumbledore to arrive. She looked so worried.
"How did you find me?" asked Harry, breaking the silence.
"When we saw that James and Frank were not coming back after five minutes, Sirius and I went after them on our broomsticks. Then James asked if you were OK, and why we hadn't brought a Healer along. That's when we realised that you had never made it to the platform. I jumped on my broomstick and flew as fast as I could over the lake. I found James' broom floating all by itself, but no trace of you, so you had to have fallen into the water. I went back to the platform and told Dumbledore you were in the lake and not under the sleeping spell anymore. Dumbledore asked for the Merpeople's help to find you. It only took a minute, but you had already been under water a long time. It… it didn't look as if you were alive."
She took a deep breath before continuing, steadying herself.
"You weren't breathing, and you were so cold, but you had a pulse." She shook her head and pressed her lips together. "I did the only thing that came through my mind. It's not exactly a wizard-approved technique, but it worked."
She came to sit on the chair in front of him and kissed his head as she did. Harry could see that her eyes were red with tears now.
"Was it C.P.R.?" he inquired curiously, remembering the pressure he had felt on his rib cage.
She looked taken aback.
"How do you know about C.P.R.?" she said disbelievingly. "You don't take Muggle Studies."
Harry realised with a shock that in this changed reality he had been raised by a family of wizards, not Muggles. He shouldn't know about C.P.R., just like Ron didn't know about telephones.
"Err… I might have heard about it… somewhere…" he said hurriedly.
At that moment, the office door burst open to reveal James and Sirius closely followed by Dumbledore. Harry let out a sigh of relief. The conversation was dwelling towards a topic that he wanted to avoid for now.
"How's Nev?" asked Lily at once.
"He's going to be OK," said James, coming up to her and pulling her into a hug. "Frank and Alice are with him now," he added.
Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Sirius.
"What I want to know," his godfather began to say, "is who put Barty Crouch Junior in that Body-Bind Curse because it was rightly done." Sirius was beaming proudly at Harry.
"What I want to know," cut in Harry's dad, "is how my son could recognise Crouch's son so accurately."
A tense silence fell in Dumbledore's office. The tone used by Harry's father was not reassuring; it was accusing. But what could he answer? They were all staring at him now. He felt his stomach tighten. He didn't have any reply, and they were all waiting for him to say something.
"How about some hot chocolate, Harry," Dumbledore said suddenly, rising from his seat.
"Thank you, Professor," Harry said quietly as the Headmaster swept over to one of the many cabinets in his office. A few seconds later, he handed a large cup of fuming hot chocolate to Harry and swept back behind his desk.
"And the man who stabbed Nev, who was it, Harry?" said his father more loudly. His tone was condemning now, but Harry remained silent. He gulped his hot chocolate all at once instead. His mind was racing with the possible answers he might give, but he didn't know if any reply that he could come up with would be believable.
"James," said Lily. She sounded on the verge of tears. "How can you possibly accuse Harry like that?"
"Who was the other man, Harry?" asked James again, this time with force, and totally ignoring his wife.
"Peter Pettigrew. You used to call him Wormtail," said Harry right away.
The words had come out of his mouth unexpectedly, without his even thinking about them. He stared at his father in shock, than at the empty cup in his hands.
"Who are you?" said his father darkly. "You're not my son."
"I am!" replied Harry, again without delay. "I'm Harry Potter. I'm your son!"
Neither of his parents spoke. He glanced at Sirius, but his godfather was avoiding eye contact.
"Well, that much is settled, James," said Dumbledore evenly. "But perhaps you should let me do the questioning from now on, if you don't mind."
Harry saw his dad nod in Dumbledore's direction.
"You gave me Veritaserum," said Harry, now looking straight at Dumbledore.
"Indeed, I did, Harry," the Headmaster answered in the same even tone.
"But why?" asked Lily Potter, her voice shaking. Harry's dad was holding her firmly by the shoulders.
"For some time now," Dumbledore started to explain, "your father, Harry, has been suspicious that you might be under the influence of the Imperius Curse."
"Why didn't you tell me this?" cut in Harry's mother, pulling away from her husband's grasp.
"Because Harry talks to you, not to me," his father answered back, looking imploringly at his wife as though he would rather suffer a Dementor's kiss than betray her trust again. "I thought he might open up to you."
She showed no sign that she was forgiving him yet. She turned to Dumbledore instead, awaiting the next question with her arms folded on her chest.
"Do you know what the Imperius Curse is, Harry?" asked Dumbledore, bringing back the conversation to the topic at hand.
"Yes," replied Harry at once and despite of himself. "Professor Moody taught us the three Unforgivable Curses in class last year. But it wasn't really Moody; it was Crouch's son in disguise. He used Polyjuice Potion." He gasped as he realised with dread what he had just said, but he had been unable to stop himself.
"Can he lie under Veritaserum?" enquired James Potter, visibly at a lost.
"No, he cannot," said Dumbledore quietly. "Which class was that, Harry?"
"Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Harry, burying his face in his hands. "That's it," he thought bitterly. "It's all over now. I can't avoid telling them the whole story."
"It's not possible, Dumbledore!" burst in Harry's dad. "I've been teaching this class for four years."
"Harry," said Dumbledore gravely, "have you been to Hogwarts these last four years?"
"Yes," replied Harry. He realised that he was shaking.
"Have you known me for the last four years?" inquired Dumbledore again.
"Yes."
"Who am I?"
"Albus Dumbledore."
"When did you meet Sirius Black?"
"In my third year," said Harry weakly, the image of the shabbier, darker Sirius Black burst into his mind. "I thought that he was trying to kill me, but he was really after Wormtail."
Harry's dad made a sign to protest but Dumbledore stopped him with a glance.
"And your parents, when did you see them for the first time in flesh and blood?"
"At the Quidditch World Cup, before the start of the school" said Harry, aware that his voice was trembling.
He couldn't look at them. It was too hard. He was afraid that they would disappear. He couldn't bare the idea of loosing them once more. They were his parents. He had wanted to see them, to be with them, more than anything else in the world. Was that so bad?
"I see," said Dumbledore. He had visibly grasped something the others hadn't. "What exactly did you mean to change, Harry?" he asked at last.
"I wanted to stop Voldemort's return," replied Harry quickly. "I wanted to stop Wormtail from murdering Cedric Diggory. It was my fault… I told Cedric that we should take the cup together." The words were coming out fast, as though they were spilling out of his mind without a moment's delay. "I didn't want my name to come out of the Goblet of Fire. I wanted things to be different," he went on. "I wanted a family. I wanted to see my parents again. I wanted Sirius to be happy and free."
He had to stop to breathe. He felt a tear slide down his right cheek but wiped it quickly with his sleeve.
"What does this mean, Dumbledore?" said Sirius, seeing how speechless Harry's parents were.
"Time is a powerful thing," said Dumbledore calmly, his blue eyes staring directly at Harry. "When meddled with, it can be dangerous."
"I'm sorry, Professor!" Harry interrupted him. "I knew that. Hermione told me. I just… I wanted so much to change things."
"I do not think that you are to blame in this case, Harry," said Dumbledore elusively, rising from his seat. "And the damage might not be as irreversible as you think."
"He changed time?" said James, looking mortified. "But the consequences…"
"Did you say 'You-Know-Who's returns'?" joined in his mother, appalled.
"Yes," Harry whispered.
Dumbledore did not reply to Harry's parents. He swept over to a cabinet, and, pulling opened the wooden doors, revealed the stone basin that Harry recognised as the Pensive.
"First, Harry, I will need to know exactly how you did it," he said, stirring the content of the Pensive with the tip of his wand so that silver shadows started to move across it like wisps of smoke.
"It was a book," said Harry, furious with himself. "It was a stupid book. I don't know who sent it. I only remember parts of what I read in it. The cover said 'Turn back time. Live one year exactly as you wish it', or something like that."
Dumbledore was silent for a while. He seemed to think.
"Yes, of course," he said at last, more to himself than to the others in the room. He paused, and then said: "What we need to do now is to piece together your story to find out where the path that you were on was split in two."
"I don't understand," said Harry truthfully.
"Me neither, Dumbledore," added James Potter irritably. "Can we put things back the way they should be?"
"What happens to us in the past? What changed?" asked Lily to Dumbledore.
Harry was glad that the question had not been directed at him because, under the influence of Veritaserum as he was, he would have had to answer. He wasn't prepared to tell his parents that they were supposed to be dead. They had probably already guessed, but to say it out loud would make it final, unchangeable.
"That is what we are going to find out, my dear," said Dumbledore calmly. "Harry, if you don't mind, can you please think back about the night when you were attacked as a baby?"
Harry stood up and walked slowly towards the stone basin where Dumbledore was waiting patiently. He felt his parents and Sirius watching him. He could not look at them. He could only imagine the horror on his mother and father's faces, but to see it was more than he could bear.
"This will not hurt," said the Headmaster as he pulled out a silvery strand of smoke from the side of Harry's head and guided it towards the content of the Pensive. Harry closed his eyes as the memories were drifted towards the magical pool.
"I don't remember much," said Harry peering into the Pensive. The content was now filled with green light.
"What are you looking for?" asked Sirius, stepping closer to Dumbledore and leaning the Pensive as well.
"The missing link," replied Dumbledore simply.
He motioned Sirius and Harry to step away from the Pensive. Then, without any words spoken, the Headmaster began to stare at the content of the stone basin. It lasted several minutes during which the others remained silent.
At last, Dumbledore straightened up, facing Harry's parents.
"Lily, if you don't mind, I would need the memory of the night Voldemort attacked your house as well."
A little reluctantly, she stepped in closer to the Pensive. Dumbledore pressed the tip of his wand against the right side of her face and pulled out the same sort of strand of smoke which he dropped into the whirling pool.
"I do think that everything is set now," he said finally. "If you would all step closer to the Pensive, please."
And they did. James joined Lily and took her hand lovingly. She did not protest but she seemed rather apprehensive staring into the Pensive. Sirius walked up to Harry's side, but remained distant. Harry felt Dumbledore's hand pressed on his shoulder.
"We are about to go into your mother's memory," said Dumbledore quietly to him. "It will be disorienting."
"It's OK," said Harry, no longer surprised that the words were coming out of his mouth so rapidly. "I've been into the Pensive before. I saw Crouch's son being sent to Azkaban there."
"Sent to Azkaban?" asked Sirius innocently. "They never had a case against him. What did they accuse him of?"
"He tortured Neville's parents into insanity with the Cruciatus Curse," said Harry blankly.
"Good Lord," Sirius let out. "Frank and Alice, are they still…?"
But before Sirius could finish his question, Harry was being pulled down into the Pensive. The whirl of smoke made him dizzy. When the street lights and houses came into focus, he realised where he was, and the very idea of seeing this scene again filled him with dread.
