Chapter 5: Icarus Over Stairs
On the day before Harry's fifth birthday, Harry finally managed to complete one of the three challenges Mr. Lord had set him to do so he could learn flying.
He was standing on a stool, slowly rinsing the dirty dishes with water so it'd be easier for Aunt Petunia to wash them later, when he heard a thump behind him. He jumped a little and turned around, only to see that Vernon had face planted onto his plate of eggs.
Aunt Petunia let out a tiny noise before jumping up and hurrying over to Vernon's side. Harry just blinked wide eyed at the pair as his Aunt started shaking Vernon to wake him up.
'Let the spell go, Harry. Or he won't wake up.'
Harry jumped again as Mr. Lord's voice rang in his head, dropping the three spoons he'd been washing into the sink with a clang. Aunt Petunia sent him a dirty look, but was too busy trying to wake Vernon up. Harry quickly let out a long, noisy breath and Vernon finally stirred.
The man blinked blearily, pushing himself into a sitting position, and squinted at Aunt Petunia, "... Pet?"
"Oh, Vernon," Aunt Petunia fussed, dabbing at Vernon's face with a napkin and picking out bits of egg from his moustache, "I knew they were working you too hard. You must rest more. You need it."
Vernon opened his mouth and then closed it again, still squinting at Petunia and then looking down at his ruined plate. A frown furrowed his brows.
"You!" Aunt Petunia's shrill voice cried out, making Harry's gaze snap up to her, "What are you looking at, you lazy, good for nothing freak!"
"Uh…"
"If it weren't for another extra mouth to feed, Vernon wouldn't have to work so hard! Get back to work! And no breakfast for you." Aunt Petunia sniffed and went back to fussing over a still disoriented Vernon.
Harry swallowed and nodded, turning back to his work, grateful to turn his back to his aunt. Or he'd surely have been punished for the giddy smile that crept up his face. He did it, he did it, he did it!
'Yes, yes, congratulations Harry, you did it. Now stop acting suspicious in front of your relatives.'
The words might have sounded exasperated but Harry had gotten to know Mr. Lord well enough to tell that he was proud of him too, which just made him feel giddier.
"So, will you teach me flying now?" he asked under his breath, physically restraining himself from bouncing on his feet. He'd managed to levitate the washing machine several inches just a few months ago, and lower it down slowly enough that nothing got damaged.
'No. You've not done all three things yet,' came the quick reply.
Harry froze, "But I did! I healed those burns I'd gotten from the warming charm, and I levitated the washing machine!'
"Boy!" Aunt Petunia's shrill voice called out, making Harry flinch, "What are you mumbling about, you ungrateful thing? Can't you see you're disturbing others? Leave the sink. Go, shoo! Get out of the kitchen."
Harry gleefully hopped down from the stool after turning the tap off. His sleeves were soaked halfway to the elbow, along with the front of his shirt. But he didn't mind, he quickly skipped away and out of the kitchen, feeling her suspicious gaze tracking him.
He didn't go back to his room, rather slipped out the front door and headed towards the park.
Walking on the sidewalk, he kicked a little rounded pebble along the way.
"I did everything you asked," he said, whispering still.
'You've still got those burn scars. Proper healing shouldn't leave any scars at all unless magical. Or too old.' Mr. Lord sounded so calm and reasonable, making Harry pout.
"Then what do you want me to do?" Harry whined.
'I want you to heal something as complicated as a broken bone. Healing injuries you can't see is hard work and takes precision and fine control.'
Harry gave a particularly vicious kick to the pebble, lips twisted angrily as he turned and stomped into the playground, feet automatically taking him to the swing set. One of the swings had been broken already, and the second one creaked ominously whenever someone tried to use it.
Harry settles down on it, gripping at the chains and swinging listlessly, "But I don't have any bones I need to heal."
'I suppose you'll have to wait, then.' Mr. Lord said simply. That was easy for him to say, he already knew how to fly. And now he couldn't even use the swing to get the flying feeling because Harry was reasonably certain that it'd break with him on it, sending him to the ground with more scrapes and bruises than he could heal.
Harry froze.
'Absolutely not,' Mr. Lord said immediately.
"But then I could heal it and show you that I'm ready to learn flying!"
'And on the off chance that you're not able to do it, you'll be useless for several weeks. I doubt your Aunt or Uncle are going to provide you with any sort of rest or medical care.'
"But what if I could?" Harry still hadn't resumed swinging, clutching at the chains with a white knuckled grip, even as they blistered his hands. The July morning sun was already high in the sky, although it wasn't nearly noon yet. The unshaded regions of the park were heating up. Harry would have to head inside soon. If he wanted to break his bones, he'd need to do it quickly.
'And this is exactly why I don't want to teach you flying just yet. The absolute stupidity of breaking your own bones on the off chance that you might be able to heal them. If you lived in a magical household, at least an adult could have fixed it for you. What are you thinking?'
Harry blinked, taken aback a little. Wow, Mr. Lord sounded really passionate about this. So maybe going about breaking his own bones wasn't that great of an idea. But if he could just learn how to fly…
'I said no.'
"Guh," Harry threw his head back, dejected.
The boy was a stubborn little idiot.
Maybe he really did have the power to vanquish him, Voldemort mused as he watched Harry skulk. Power other than his mother's sacrifice and his own foolishness.
When he'd set Harry the three tasks as conditions for teaching him flying, Voldemort had expected him to take at least two to three years completing them, considering his age and lack of a wand. The fact that he'd managed it in less than a year, without a wand, it both irked him and made him feel proud.
Even Tom Riddle hadn't managed such big feats of magic at four, but then again, he'd had no one guiding him either.
Harry was in his room, scribbling at a lined piece of paper he'd torn off one of his cousins' notebooks. It had faint ink blotches, stained in from previous pages. The paper was a little waterlogged. Voldemort had no idea what he was drawing, except there was a lot of black, grey and blue in it. Harry laid on his front and elbow, legs swinging back and forth behind him, as he picked up a short stub of black crayon.
Voldemort supposed he should be grateful that he'd at least listened to him and not gone through with his hair brained scheme to injure himself in order to try to heal himself. His overconfidence would have been amusing if it didn't put him in danger.
'You understand why it's foolish, yes?'
Harry screwed up his face and said, nearly shouting, "No I don't! I dunno what's the problem if I can just heal it."
'If!' Voldemort said, wishing they were in the dreamscape so he could take the boy by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, 'If you could heal it. There's a big chance you won't!'
"But I can," Harry insisted, his lip wobbling a little as he aggressively picked up the sea green crayon and started colouring a smaller circle within a lighter grey circle with it.
'Well, I'm not dealing with your whining when you don't.'
"I wanna learn to fly," Harry said, throwing off his crayon to the side and pushing himself up to a sitting position.
'And you will. Just not yet. Now, tell me about what you're drawing,' he swiftly changed the subject, trying to distract Harry from his brooding.
"I wanna learn now though," Harry muttered sullenly, but obediently started smoothing out the crumpled edges of his drawing and explaining it to him, "Okay so, there is this huge, creepy cave," he said, pointing at the dark grey background of the drawing, slashing lines and uneven colouring. Voldemort felt a sense of foreboding wash over him.
"Oh!" Harry said, "I've seen this cave before in a dream. I told you about it, didn't I? With the rabbits and all?"
'Yes,' Voldemort said faintly. He knew travelling into the dreamscape was strengthening his connection to him, he knew it would result in some memories and emotions leaking through the other way too. It's just… it felt too soon. He liked living in the anonymity being just Mr. Lord provided. Sooner or later Harry will start asking incriminating questions, or see something that can't be ignored or pushed aside.
Harry continued, oblivious, "And this, there's this. Some green glowy thingy in the middle of the pond. And and and!" Harry bounced, looking way too excited for someone describing an inferi infested cave, "And there's also a goblin!"
Voldemort paused, "A what?"
Harry nodded vigorously, "Yeah! It's very ugly too!" He said, "Very small, and it's wearing very dirty clothes. Even worse than Dudley's hand me downs. And he's got really long ears. And warts." Harry wrinkled his nose at the end.
Ah. The elf. Kreacher, that was its name, he thought. Not a goblin. But… if Harry could remember Kreacher this time, who he hadn't mentioned at all the last time, it just meant he was starting to see more.
He didn't correct the boy, but he did say, perhaps a little foolishly, 'Is there something inside the water?'
"Oh yeah," Harry says absently. He's already picked up the black crayon. The picture is a gloomy little thing, with just one bright spot of colour in the middle. The pond, as he put it, is also coloured dark navy blue, with a dark grey colored over it in broad strokes to give it a feeling of depth and mystery. Harry's now scribbling indiscernible shapes in it. "I think they were really big, really weird fishes. They'd only move once or twice."
'Fishes,' Voldemort repeated, stifling the urge to laugh. It will only annoy the boy.
"Yeaaah," Harry said, pulling the syllable out as he ruined an already incomprehensible drawing, "I didn't see any though. So maybe it was mermaids. Or monsters."
Or monsters.
Why had he thought following the baby would be a good idea?
Harry stood at the top of the stairs.
Aunt Petunia had called him down to water the plants. Dudley wasn't at home yet from his friends'. And Uncle Vernon was still at work. If he finished the chore quickly enough, he was reasonably certain Aunt Petunia would let him eat something.
Harry lifted his leg to start stepping down the stairs, one hand at the bannister. He stared down, biting his lips–
'Harry—'
And then he was tumbling down a dozen stairs, yelping as he hit the steps and rolled. The breath was knocked out of him as he lay at the bottom, crumpled and stunned.
Harry stared at the ceiling, his whole body trembling and tingling. "Heh," he said, slightly hysterically. He coughed, "Oops?"
He startled a little at the sounds of vehement cursing from Mr. Lord. Then groaned as the small movement set his nerves on fire. He turned his head to the side and blinked as Aunt Petunia's heeled feet came into view.
"It was an accident!" he blurted out quickly, the words coming out a little warbled. Aunt Petunia's white face swam into view as she bent down, wrapping an arm around his bicep and making Harry hiss in pain.
'I am in your head, Harry.'
Harry grimaced. Right. Yes. Mr. Lord always knew whatever he was thinking. He didn't know why he kept forgetting. Maybe because Mr. Lord never made a huge deal out of it, letting him ramble on and on about stuff he already knew.
"What did you do?" Aunt Petunia snapped at him, dragging him up to a sitting position, ignoring his yelp as he was manhandled painfully.
"I–" Harry coughed, "I fell."
"Yes, I can see that," she sneered, patting him down with harsh hands, "Where does it hurt the most? I swear to god, if you've broken any bones–"
Harry groaned as he cradled his right arm against his chest, Aunt Petunia's voice getting drowned out in the haze of pain.
"... boy. Boy! Harry!" Aunt Petunia shook his shoulders, her mouth pressed in a thin line as his gaze settled back on her. He blinked back tears and stared at her. Her lip curled in disgust, "Can you stand?"
"Uh," he blinked again, and nodded. Then paused for a moment before shrugging.
Aunt Petunia stood up, and snapped her fingers at him, "Well then, get up."
Harry scrambled to his feet, almost buckling again as he put weight on his injured arm in his hurry up. He doubled over, clutching his arm to his stomach. Maybe this had been a bad idea. He couldn't even think straight, let alone concentrate enough to heal it.
And now he won't be able to water the plants. And probably won't get any food until tomorrow. He grimaced at the thought. He hadn't had any breakfast either. He'd been looking forward to something to eat.
And he knew he was in for a long lecture by Mr. Lord too.
"Go to your room." Aunt Petunia ordered, sour faced as she turned her back on him and stalked to the kitchen.
Harry nodded numbly after her retreating back before slowly making his way up the stairs, clutching at the bannister with his uninjured arm as he tried to keep his sobs at bay. He didn't even know where his arm had broken. Because it was definitely broken. Pain radiated from the tips of his fingers right up to his collarbone. He sniffled as he dragged himself into his room, collapsing on the rickety old cot that Uncle Vernon had pulled from the storage sometime after Christmas.
Mr. Lord was completely silent as Harry arranged himself into a semi comfortable position. His ankle was hurt too, but it didn't hurt as much as his arm.
It wasn't long before Aunt Petunia entered the room, sniffing at him as she thrust two cloth wrapped bundles at him. Harry flinched as his fingers touched the cold fabric. Ice packs.
"Ice the hurt areas, I'm not taking you to a hospital. Do you know how furious Vernon will be? Clumsy idiot," Aunt Petunia muttered as she left the room again with one last disdainful glance at Harry.
Harry shifted again, pressing one ice pack on his wrist and the other on his shoulder, hissing at the icy feeling. He let out a tiny sigh when the areas started going ever so slightly numb. And braced himself for whatever Mr. Lord had to say about it.
That complete, utter, absolute imbecile. The bloody idiot. Sweet fucking Salazar, that impulsive, reckless, Gryffidnor. The stupid fucking fool. Not a shred of self preservation, even less common sense. Empty, thick skulled lunatic.
No, he'd been wrong earlier. Someone this stupid could never be destined to vanquish him. Maybe he should've gone for the Longbottom boy. It would have saved him the indignity of watching his horcrux fling himself down a flight of stairs just so he could learn flying. On the off chance that he manages to break his bones and heal them. Without first breaking his neck and dying.
Voldemort knew it had been a spur of the moment idea, otherwise Voldemort would have tried to stop him earlier. He'd honestly thought the boy had forgotten about trying to hurt himself after their last conversation.
Then the stupid boy had. Hurled himself. Down. The. Thrice damned. Stairs. And had the audacity to tell him– him!– that it had been an accident.
'Why in the name of bloody Merlin would you do that?' he blurted out as soon as the boy stopped looking like he was about to keel over. Because Voldemort was considerate like that.
"Wanna fly," Harry mumbled, ducking his head as his cheeks flushed, a stark contrast to the ashen grey he'd been earlier.
Voldemort gave up control of his tongue and swore viciously for several minutes straight. Harry watched him with a pale face and bright eyes. Voldemort calmed himself down, counting backwards from twenty. In Elder Futhark.
Voldemort paused when Harry cleared his throat tentatively, "... sir?" His voice sounded a little strained, and Voldemort deflated.
Part of his soul or not, Voldemort sometimes forgot that Harry was still a child. Not even five yet. And raised by people who didn't particularly care if he died or not. Of course the boy didn't have any self preservation, he hadn't been taught any. And Voldemort wasn't so arrogant as to think that less than a year as a 'voice inside the head' could undo three years of physical, mental and emotional damage.
'Harry,' he said quietly, and observed Harry for a minute, 'How's the pain?'
Harry sniffled a little, then shrugged with his good shoulder, "Not too bad."
Voldemort sighed, 'You don't have to lie to me, Harry. I'm very asking if it's subdued enough for you to concentrate on healing it.'
Harry blinked owlishly, before lighting up, "Yes!"
'You'll have to remove the ice pack,' he instructed, 'Start with the wrist, leave your shoulder as it is.'
Harry had paused when Voldemort told him to remove the ice pack, and he stifled the urge to sigh again. This is exactly why this whole thing had been a bad idea. Children had abysmally low pain tolerances and Harry was no exception. 'Harry…' he said quietly, and watched as a determined glint took over Harry's eyes.
"I'll do it, I'll do it," he said vehemently, quickly flinging off the ice pack to the side. His wrist was wet from condensation and had already started swelling. Harry grimaced looking at it, and flexed his fingers a little, before blanching.
'Close your eyes, Harry,' Voldemort said, 'Remember how you've healed yourself before. Bones are tricky because you can not see them, but you'd seen that anatomy book in the library, yes?'
"I couldn't read it, though."
'No, but you know what unbroken bones look like, don't you?'
Harry hummed, his eyes closed, running a finger lightly over the swollen skin, wrinkling his nose a little at the deformity.
'Yes, it's not right, isn't it? That's not how your wrist is supposed to look, or feel.'
Harry nodded, and kept humming tunelessly, his face calm in his concentration. It had taken a long while to convince Harry to stop trying too hard. That one couldn't force magic. One couldn't make magic work, you had to work with magic. You don't control the current, you learn to flow with it.
Voldemort was grudgingly impressed, despite being in what had to be excruciating pain, Harry managed to hold onto his lessons.
Then Voldemort felt the now familiar rush of magic, gentle, soothing, powerful. Like an incoming tide. He relished in it, and saw as Harry's face relaxed further.
Harry opened his eyes and looked down at his wrist, the swelling had grown down considerably. He very slowly flexed his fingers again, and winced.
'A remarkable result for your first time,' Voldemort commented when Harry pouted. 'Try again.'
The sun had started setting by the time Harry could rotate his wrist fully without it hurting. It still twinged a little, and he would probably have to treat it gingerly for a while, but now it only felt like he'd slept on it wrong, rather than broken it.
His shoulder though, it was just as bad as it had been at the start. The ice had all melted already, and the pain was starting to become unbearable again. But it was dulled behind a sheen of exhaustion. Harry could barely move, his limbs felt heavy and his stomach growled hungrily. He licked his dry lips, mouth parched.
'Harry,' Mr. Lord said, jolting him to awareness, 'Your shoulder is dislocated. I don't think you can heal it yourself.'
Harry scowled; hadn't he proven himself?
'Harry,' he sounded exasperated now, 'You've already spent too much energy on just healing your wrist. And that was when you knew what a proper, unbroken bone looked like. Your shoulder isn't broken. It's out of place.'
Out of place. Harry shuddered, "Then how do I fix it?"
'You're too young and inexperienced for it,' Mr. Lord said, and Harry thought he sounded a little strange.
Harry's heart sank, "So… so I can't fix it? Aunt Petunia said she won't take me to the hospital, Uncle Vernon definitely won't. And… and, will it go back to place on it's own?" He shuddered again. Even if they didn't take him to the hospital, they would still punish him for not being able to do his chores.
'You can't fix it, no. And it won't go back to place by itself, it needs to be set into place.'
Harry let out a ragged breath, feeling even worse about his stunt than he had when he first fell. He should have listened to Mr. Lord. Mr. Lord hadn't ever been wrong about anything, not even once. Of course he'd been right about this being a stupid idea too.
"Then what do I do?" Harry said miserably.
'You can't fix it, but…' Mr. Lord paused, 'But I might.'
Harry perked up, scrambling into a sitting position before doubling over in pain when his arm lurched.
'Steady, Harry,' Mr. Lord said, a little distractedly.
Even the pain wasn't enough to cull Harry's excitement. He knew Mr. Lord could do magic, or used to, anyway. And that he knew a lot of stuff. But the most magical thing he knew about Mr. Lord was that he could visit him in his dreams. He'd never done magic like this.
'Sit still, and close your eyes.'
Harry did so, nearly bouncing on his bum, and froze at another hissed command to stay still. Then he felt a light brushing on his shoulder, like a cool summer breeze glancing on it. There was a loud popping noise, and sharp, cracking pain lanced through his shoulder, making him cry out and jolt forward.
He breathed heavily, seeing stars, "... Mr. Lord?" his voice cracked slightly. He hadn't expected it to hurt. His wrist hadn't hurt when he'd been healing it.
'My apologies,' Mr. Lord said after a moment, and he did sound a little sorry, 'Putting a dislocated shoulder back in place isn't healing it. It's literally popping it back into place. And that's usually as painful as when it's shifted out of place.'
"Mhmh," Harry said half gurgling. He really wanted that ice pack now. He looked mournfully at the soggy pack of ice and damp cloth.
'You can heal the lingering pain yourself, tomorrow, bring down the swelling.' Mr. Lord sounded even more distracted than before. Like he wasn't really paying attention to what was happening.
"How did you do that? I thought you couldn't do magic while you were in my head."
'Hm?'
"Magic!" Harry gestured widely with his good arm. Why wasn't Mr. Lord paying attention? It's not like he had anything better to do!
'Ah, well. Remember how I hadn't been able to visit your dreams the first time we started talking? I've been growing stronger over time, so I am able to retain some newer abilities.'
"That is so cool!" Harry gushed, and then froze when the door to the room opened.
Aunt Petunia walked in, her expression pinched. She had a tin of soup in one hand, and a tube of something in another.
However, when she got a closer look at his wrist, which he'd earlier been cradling because of severe pain, her face contorted in something between anger and fear. She quickly snatcthed that hand in a vice-like grip, eyes wild. Harry flinched in pain. It was still tender, and her snatch had pulled at his already hurting shoulder.
"What did you do?" she hissed at him giving his hand a shake.
Harry yelped, scrambling back a little. Aunt Petunia let go of his wrist and lunged forward to grasp his chin, manicured fingernails digging into skin and making him wince. "You will not tell Vernon about this, do you understand?"
He didn't. He didn't understand. But he nodded nonetheless. As best as he could with her hand gripping his jaw like that.
She shoved his face away, and straightened up. She gave a curt nod, lips twisting in a sneer, "See that you don't. Or I'll show you just how far my hospitality extends."
She sniffed once and then left, spinning on her heels and slamming the door shut behind her.
'That's an anti-inflammatory cream,' Mr. Lord commented ideally after Harry had been staring at the door for at least two full minutes.
"Anti– what?"
'It will help with the pain and swelling. So she does have a heart in there somewhere. Or maybe just pity. Or perhaps she's just worried you won't be able to do the chores.'
Harry blinked, and then snorted. He crawled off the bed and picked up the can of soup that had rolled away when Aunt Petunia had lunged at him. He grinned, this had gone better than he'd expected. He still won't go against Mr. Lord's wishes if he could help it, but he didn't regret jumping off the stairs anymore. He even got food!
"Oh," Harry said suddenly, already halfway through the cold soup, "What does hospitality mean?"
