Defending the Light

Summary: Harry makes up his mind to do anything to destroy Voldemort, with no idea it'll include werewolves, elves, the Veil, the Chamber of Secrets, Azkaban, exotic new powers, and… a secret identity? Will he be able to keep his secrets without losing everything else?

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Why I didn't update sooner in two simple words: Band Camp.

And to make matters worse, the last thing he heard before he passed out was a whisper from Aberforth:

"I'm afraid she's right. Very afraid. And this world will spin as it never has before. No matter which side of The Prophesy is fulfilled."

Chapter 12: St. Mungo's Maladies

Harry couldn't help but think that he absolutely, positively hated hospitals. He hated the white walls and the sterile smell. He hated the overly healthy food and the restrictions. The first thing that occurred to him when he woke up was that he was, indeed, in a hospital. The second thing that occurred to him was that he could not remember for the life of him how he had gotten there.

Then he remembered. It all came back to him slowly. The Veil. His parents. Voldemort. Sirius…

Harry gave a strangled yelp and sat up so quickly he saw stars, "Sirius!"

"It's OK, Harry," he heard a calm voice from across the room say, "I'm right here."

Harry made a grab for his glasses and looked around wildly. His head spun at the change in position and when stars stopped interfering with his vision, he studied his surroundings. Aberforth was there, dressed in a hospital gown and looking as kooky as ever, in the bed right across from his. Lupin was there as well, and although there were four beds in the room and only two of those were beds occupied, he was standing by an old cot that he'd seemingly been assigned to. And at the door, flanked by Tonks and Kingsley who were looking a bit uncomfortable, was Sirius. He was pale, handcuffed, and looked rather shaken.

Fudge, who was standing right next to Dumbledore, snorted, "Alright Black, you've seen it with your own eyes: Potter. Is. Fine. Now back to Azkaban."

"No!" Harry yelled before he could stop himself, "You can't do that!"

"I can, and I will," was the Minister's only reply.

"Can't he at least be looked at by a healer first?" Lupin spoke up, quietly at first, but with more conviction as he went on, "He'll catch his death in Azkaban! Sirius is already hurt, badly."

A young Auror standing next to Fudge huffed, as if not agreeing with the Minister's every word was a crime deserving of the Dementor's Kiss. He looked as if he were about to say something particularly nasty about werewolves when a pale-faced Sirius interrupted.

"It's alright Remus. I'll be fine…"

"No you won't!" Harry cut in, "I'm not going to let them take you back there. And I'm not going to let Professor Lupin sleep on a bloody cot when there's an unoccupied bed less than two meters away from him. It's my fault Sirius fell through that veil in the first place…"

"Harry!" Sirius looked decidedly startled, "I fell through the Veil because of my own doing…"

"This is not a good time to be maudlin." Lupin looked like he was about to past out, "Both of you quit impugning yourselves for things beyond your control."

Sirius shook his head, "Hypocrite." He glared at the werewolf, "Why is it that even on the brink of unconsciousness, you still manage to confuse people with your vocabulary?"

Harry shook his head as well, racking his brain for something that might help Sirius. The Book of Wizarding Law he had read must have had something remotely useful for this situation. In order to memorize the book for Lupin's trial, Harry had put a charm on himself that would give him the ability to remember every detail of that book. Unfortunately the charm had long worn off. Now that he thought about it, he really shouldn't have rambled off the exact page and paragraph the certain statements he needed were on. He was actually surprised no one had guessed what he'd done.

Then, it clicked. He supposed having all the information about wizarding laws inside his head from having read and charmed the book must have left some imprint after all.

"I, Harry James Potter, put Sirius Orion Black under my immediate protection in accordance with the law and ancient magic of the Wizarding Protection Oath created in," he forgot the date and had to refrain from saying '13-something or the other', "the 1300s." Everyone just stared at him. "I think. Um… so Sirius is now my complete and total responsibility until his trial. I get the death penalty if he is unable to appear in court, but until then, his fate is in my hands… or something like that. Yeah, so… I say he is not going back to Azkaban before his trial."

At first, Harry was unsure about whether he'd done it right or not. But when the whole room started to glow bright purple and fill with ancient magic, he was pretty sure he'd done something correctly.

The Healer that was just walking into the room fainted dead away.

"Bravo!" Dumbledore exclaimed bouncing a bit and clicking his heels together in midair.

"Did he just do wandless magic?"

Harry turned to see Hermione and the Weasley clan standing in the doorway.

"Not exactly," the Headmaster beamed, "But a wizard protection oath is very powerful in itself if the right words are said and the right heart is in the right place."

"But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not!" Aberforth quoted the Prophesy in a prodigiously cheerful voice.

Thankfully, Fudge was too angry to pay attention to Dumbledore's brother and didn't hear that particular statement.

"Fine," he snapped, "But he must remain handcuffed. Tonks, Shacklebolt, your new assignment is to guard Black twenty-four-seven. Come Gordon," he motioned for the third Auror to follow him before storming out in a huff.

As soon as he left, Harry collapsed back upon the bed with a relieved sigh. Sitting up had exhausted him.

"How are you feeling Harry?" everyone seemed to ask at once in various forms.

"Fine," he replied, "just fine." Everyone looked at him skeptically, "Okay, okay, so I'm not exactly up to par on the 'Madam-Pomfrey-Thinks-You're-Well-Enough-to-Play-Quidditch' Scale. But when has that ever stopped me?"

Ginny grinned, "He's fine alright." But she still gave him a look that told him that even if she knew he'd be fine physically, she was still worried about his emotional state.

"He is not fine!" Mrs. Weasley almost growled, "He needs rest. Everybody out! We'll visit in the morning."

This particular command was met with much complaint. But in five minutes all red-heads were heading out the door with a disgruntled Hermione in tow. Harry thought he overheard Mrs. Weasley mutter something about hospital food and getting a decent head start on a good, nutritional breakfast.

"But Mrs. Weasley," Harry reproached with bewilderment, "It's almost midnight!"

But she had already left.

"Drink this," a woman whose nametag proclaimed 'Healer Joanne' ordered.

"Not until Sirius and Professor Lupin are treated just as fairly as Aberforth and I are being treated," Harry responded stubbornly.

Healer Joanne's eyes widened, "Sirius Black and R… Remus Lupin?"

Before Harry could even roll his eyes in exasperation a loud clinking sound was heard.

"Whoops!" said Tonks in an extremely fake voice, "I seem to have dropped the keys to my handcuffs on the floor. Clumsy me."

Taking a cue from Tonks, Kinsley added, "And I seem to have let go of Black, dear me."

Sirius just stood there, handcuffed, and raised an eyebrow.

"I wonder what these do…" Harry picked the key up off of the floor, "Oops!" Harry fake gasped, "I seem to have accidently unlocked the handcuffs of a potentially dangerous criminal."

"And I seem to have accidentally put silencing and tracking charms on the door so the Ministry won't suspect a thing!" Lupin managed to say through suppressed laughter.

"Mwhahaha," Sirius did a fake evil laugh that made the healer jump nonetheless, "I shall now wreak havoc on this bed."

With that said Sirius flopped down on the bed and hugged the nearest pillow fiercely. Harry was having difficulty suppressing his laughter, which was really hurting his ribcage, head, and stomach.

"The poor bed," Tonks grinned before turning to Shacklebolt, "So Kingsley, our prisoner has just escaped, what should we should do about it?"

"We will track him down!" Kingsley declared, "After our break."

Kingsley and Tonks exited leaving Harry alone in the room with Sirius, Lupin, the Dumbledore brothers, and Healer Joanne (who looked very confused). But to her credit, she immediately called in some backup healers and started to check out Sirius and Remus (Remus looked about to say something along the lines of 'don't bother with me' but was silenced when a turquoise-colored potion was shoved into his face).

Somewhere, a clock struck midnight.

"And thus, the contract is broken."

Harry looked at Dumbledore, and realized they were both in one of those dark-blue transparent domes again, like the one they'd used at the Order meeting.

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"Harry James Potter, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, and company shall henceforth be admitted entrance to the Department of Mysteries as of the 21st of June, 1997." Dumbledore recited, "I was never admitted into that particular department."

"But you went into it to get the Death Eaters and…"

"Did you see me enter the Department of Mysteries?"

"No. But then how did you…?"

"Highly advanced summoning charm."

"Oh," Harry's eyes widened, "So we have control over Fudge's life now?"

"Exactly."

"Are you going to kill him?" Harry asked.

"Do you want Dolores Umbridge to become Minister of Magic?" was the very effective response.

Harry cringed, "Bloody hell, no! So we just pretend the contract is still working around Fudge and use it to our advantage later on?"

"That is exactly what we are going to do. Just thought you should know," Dumbledore said as he lifted the dome. "Well, I'd better get going. And Aberforth, please try to inform me what the voices in your head are saying before you start to do what they say. You gave me a bit of a scare back there."

Aberforth's grin was twisted, "I'll try… I'll try. I don't mean to worry you, but sometimes a quick action is best. If you're going to walk on thin ice, you might as well do a little jig while you're there."

For some reason Harry couldn't quite explain, his mind grasped on to that advice firmly. It sounded a little like what he was doing, walking on thin ice. But he was being ever so careful that ice didn't crack. He was going against authority, yet still obeying it, practicing potions but not making anything incredibly dangerous like he wanted, and practicing wandless magic and physical exercise, but not too much in order to look unsuspicious. He didn't even have a proper teacher or instructions.

And then it hit him. Aberforth was not what he seemed at all. He was a Seer, most definitely, Harry thought, but he was so much more than that. He remembered the outfit Aberforth had worn that supposedly fit his personality. If he remembered correctly from divination, owls were a symbol of wisdom, the eyes meant he saw things others didn't, and the gold and jewels… Aberforth was important, Harry concluded. He could be a powerful ally to have.

Harry shook his head. Why was he thinking about allies? He wasn't the leader of anything. He was going to have his stay in St. Mungos then it was straight back to the Dursley's for him. And somewhere, out of his reach, the world would spin as it never had before.

Harry had a fervent urge to throw something.

"Harry?"

Harry turned to look at Lupin and Sirius.

"Are you OK?" Sirius asked, a worried edge to his voice.

Harry opened his mouth to reply but Lupin interrupted, "Tell us the truth Harry, the whole truth. And don't leave anything out."

"Alright then," He was too tired to argue anyway, "I'm not OK. And I doubt I ever will be again. It's not just one thing, but a whole bunch of things. When you, Sirius, went through the Veil, I almost jumped in after you. The only reason the 'almost' isn't a 'did' is because Professor Lupin held me back."

Harry hadn't thought it was possible for Sirius to get any paler, but he had apparently been wrong.

"You tried to jump in after me!" His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

"Yeah," Harry said, "yeah, I did. Then I went after Lestrange myself. I tried to put the Cruciatus on her but it wasn't strong enough and all I did was knock her down and the bloody woman kept taunting me. And now she'll make me pay. I don't doubt her. Anyway, The Prophesy was destroyed. She yelled at me, I yelled at her. She really started to freak out. Then Voldemort came. And he shot the killing curse straight at me. And I just stood there, because a part of me really wanted it all to be over. That part is still there, except I know now that I have no choice but to keep going on. Ever since Dumbledore told me The Prophesy, I know. And I'm never going to give up, never." Harry started laughing, it was a desperate laugh, even he could tell, "I'm not even making sense to myself now! I love life, but I absolutely hate it, I want revenge I don't feel I deserve, and my obligation to this world is something I despise, yet I'd do it whether it was an obligation or not. Even though I don't want to, but I do."

And Harry laughed harder. Which really hurt his aching body, but he didn't care.

"I… I'm sorry," he apologized to Remus and Sirius, "it's just hard to go through most of your life pretending you're just fine when really, you're not. I suppose I was bound to crack sometime or the other."

"The thing with pretending," Lupin began, "is that if you do it often enough…"

"You start to believe yourself," Harry finished.

Lupin shook his head, "No. You just get really good at pretending."

"That is the smartest thing I've heard anybody say today."

They all turned around to see Elaina Lafina striding through the door being tailed by a very tall, muscular man in dark glasses armed with a wand and what looked suspiciously like a magically enhanced gun.

Lafina turned to him with a glare, "Are you really going to follow me in here, or do you have a death wish?"

She then went on yelling at him in French. Sirius turned to Remus and raised an eyebrow.

"What is she yelling about?" the convict inquired.

"She wants him to stop stalking her." Remus scratched his head as the man backed away slowly, "Bodyguard?" he asked Elaina.

Lafina practically growled, "I can't stand Grandmère! She promised me no more bodyguards! But the second she finds out I'm getting on the bad side of, not even the Minister, but the Senior Undersecretary and am openly opposing You-Know-Who she becomes completely unreasonable!"

"Who exactly is your Grandmère?" Sirius asked her with interest.

"Carina Delmare Destan Lafina the Unreasonable."

Lupin grinned, "Because caring about you enough to worry about your safety is dreadfully irrational."

"I'm thirty-two," was the grumbled response. "I'm not being too mature about all this, am I?"

Remus laughed and shook his head, "No, you are not. But it happens to the best of us."

"It's very hard to imagine you ever being immature." Elaina replied.

"I refuse to throw away the teddy bear I've had since I was four."

"Yeah, but Mr. Fuzzy-Winkles is more of a sentimental thing."

Sirius, who had been watching Elaina and Lupin converse intently, gave a little start, "She knows about that old bear of yours?" Lupin nodded, "Well, since she's not running away in fear of a dangerous criminal she must know about me. How much does she know?"

"Quite a bit actually," Elaina responded.

Sirius's confused look ended up bringing about the whole story of the trial. This, in turn, brought about the story of how they had rescued him from the Veil.

Harry didn't pay much attention to the conversation. He was too busy thinking, about his parents mostly. They had seemed to actually love him, even though it was because of him they were dead. He was the one would should have been left behind in the Veil, not them. He'd wished his entire life that he could see his parents and he had, but for such a short time. And Sirius didn't seem to care that Harry had caused his almost-death. Was everyone around him going insane? Lately, Uncle Vernon tended to backhand him for burning bacon; he didn't even want to contemplate what would happen if he managed to almost kill his uncle.

Harry hadn't realized the Healer was even there until a large dose of potion was being shoved down his throat and he was informed that he wouldn't be able to sleep until it had done all it could. The potion tasted awful, but he was feeling much better. The excruciating pain in his head had diminished to a dull ache.

Harry looked over to see Sirius with his head in his hands. Remus had a comforting hand on his shoulder and Elaina was saying something with a sad look in her eyes.

"I know how hard it is to lose someone so important to you," she said.

"Who did you lose?" Remus asked quietly.

Elaina closed her eyes and got a look on her face as if enduring a truly horrible memory.

"Parents," Sirius choked out. "I forgot you wouldn't know that Rem. It was the summer just before our fifth year. You never did get the Prophet over the summer."

Remus's mouth took on a sad smile, "Our landlord always hated any form of wildlife."

"So did my Grandmère," Elaina admitted, "She had gone that afternoon, left the Château de Lafina for Spain or something. She was the Death Eaters' main target. She had managed to rally the whole of Free-France against Grindelwald during World War II, and they weren't looking forward to letting her do the same for You-Know-Who.

"All the wards and alarms went crazy. I was ten, and very afraid. My parents left to go fight, but not before locking me in a closet with my Grandpère's old invisibility cloak. There was one point that night when a Death Eater opened the door to my closet and I was afraid he'd look right through the cloak and see me. But he didn't. And when I finally stepped out of the closet and went downstairs…" Elaina started to shake, "Everyone was dead. Everyone. I never even got to say good-bye. My maman left me a note though, I found it right next to her body; in it she told me never to judge anyone based on anything other than what I know is true about who they are, not what they are. Because that's how the war started in the first place."

Harry felt awful for her. No wonder she was shipped off to the States when she was eleven.

Harry managed a small smile, "That explains the avidness against werewolf prejudice."

Elaina smiled back at him, "That, and the fact my temper could rival that of a raging hippogriff. But really, Remus here did change my view of werewolves."

"Vicious beasts…" Remus muttered sullenly.

"I'm not talking about the werewolves who follow Fenrir Greyback…" Elaina scowled at him.

"Who the hell is he?" Harry couldn't help but blurt out.

Sirius snorted, "An idiotic rat-bastard werewolf who takes morbid pleasure in biting innocent little children…"

"Sirius please, there's an underage wizard in the room…"

"Oh for the love of…" Sirius sat bolt upright and pointed his finger in Remus's chest, "You should be cursing up a storm about Greyback. He's the one that went and bloody bit you in the first place!"

There was an intake of breath from Elaina and Lupin's shoulders slumped.

"I just don't want to talk about it right now," Lupin rubbed his temples, "So, Elaina, if you weren't under the impression that werewolves are vicious beasts, what impression did you have?"

Elaina shrugged, "That they were lost souls, not really sure who they are and where they're going in life. Bent and broken from a horrible existence. I went on a mission once; a lycanthrope was trying to commit suicide by jumping off a Muggle bridge. He looked so trapped, so desperate to escape something terrible. I was able to stop him before he killed himself on that bridge, but later on I found out he'd died a week later. He refused to eat or drink and starved himself to death. But you're so different!" she smiled at Remus, "You refuse to give up when the going gets tough, you have something to fight for, even if some people scorn your existence. You face any problem head-on with logic and so many people care about you. Plus, wherever you go, your very presence demands respect."

Harry couldn't help but give a small laugh at the lycanthrope's shocked expression, "Don't you feel loved now, Professor Lupin?"

"Just call me Remus, OK?" Lupin smiled down at him, "I'm not your professor anymore and you're old enough to do away with that particular formality."

"Um... OK Profess… I mean… er…"

Harry felt a bit awkward at this. But he was happy as well, at least Lupin… Remus, he corrected, was accepting him as more than just a kid.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, "You do realize Remus isn't going to bite right?"

"Did I say you could do away with formality Padfoot?" Remus grinned at his friend.

"Er…"

"From now on, you will address me as either Mr. Lupin or sir," Remus continued in a tone that was anything but serious. "And while you're at it, you might as well bow down to my greatness and grovel at my feet."

Sirius snickered, "Dictator."

"Benevolent dictator," Remus corrected.

At this point, Sirius proclaimed an uprising in the form of a pillow fight. Being so weak and injured, however, led to all three of them to wear out rather quickly. Sirius groaned and fell back on his bed.

"And I thought swimming, malnourished, for miles through freezing water made your body ache," Sirius grumbled. "Obviously I'd never been trapped in a portal for weeks on end while my body completely shuts down."

"Beats the cruciatus curse, though." Harry yawned, "I hope this potion hurries up and works, I really want to get some sleep."

Elaina looked as if she were trying to get the mental image of a fifteen-year-old under the cruciatus out of her head, "I'll leave you guys to rest then. Mind if I use your bathroom first? I have a meeting in Brazil in a few hours and it may take a while to get there thanks to increasing security measures in South America. There was an attack on a wizarding town near Porto Velho a couple days ago, so everything's a mess," she concluded, disappearing through the lavatory door.

Remus sighed and pulled out a kind of chocolate drink called a Yoo-hoo! out of his cloak, Sirius smirked at him.

"Now I know you like her."

"That's exactly what I said outside of her office." Harry grinned in spite of everything depressing that had been discussed that night.

"Shut up," Remus replied as he took a swig of the light brown liquid. "It doesn't matter anyway."

Sirius gave Remus a pointed look that told Harry this was probably an ongoing argument, "So you're just going to forsake your own feelings and be all noble about it, are you? Look, she obviously doesn't care that you're a werewolf. Just ask her out or something…"

"Sirius, have you gone completely mental? Ask her out?" Lupin snorted, "You know that every wizarding restaurant I'm let into, they throw away almost everything I touch after I'm gone. And nearly everyone who's ever known what I am has ever shared so much as a writing utensil with me. At the werewolf registry, they'll say: 'sign this' and if I don't have a quill and they are forced to lend me one, they don't want it back."

"Remus… I…" Sirius began.

"No, don't bother," the lycanthrope replied. "It's just really humiliating, OK?"

He put down his almost empty drink and looked at Harry reticently as if afraid he would back away. Harry attempted to give what was, he hoped, an encouraging smile. It must have worked because Remus gave him a small smile in return. Elaina entered the room once again, pulling her hair up into a ponytail.

"Well it was nice talking to you guys… hey is that a Yoo-hoo? I haven't had one of those things since that Auror mission in Kentucky when this absolutely insane American Ministry official kept staring at my chest and I threw the thing at his face."

"Um… yeah. I'll just throw it away in the morning. I'm too tired to get up right now," Lupin responded with a yawn.

"Aw… but there's still a bit left."

"Mostly backwash."

Elaina shrugged and drained the can; "I'll throw it away for you on my way out."

Remus blinked, apparently unsure of what he'd just witnessed. Sirius was trying very had not to laugh as he shot a 'told-you-so' look at his friend.

"You're walking right past the rubbish bin," the animagus told Lafina, still trying not to laugh.

"Oh, right. Thanks um… Mr. Black."

"Call me Sirius, luv!" was the last thing Harry's godfather shouted out before the door closed and he burst into peels of laughter. "R… Remus! The look on your face is so priceless!"

"I. Can't. Believe. She. Just. Did. That."

Harry scooted a little closer to the button used to call a Healer in case Lupin started to have a heart attack. Then he realized something odd.

"Hey, Remus, Sirius, where did Aberforth go?"

As if fate had come to answer his question itself, Aberforth popped onto Harry's bed out of nowhere.

"Hello again Harry!" He grinned insanely, "Had a nice chat with the Lafina girl, eh? She'll get herself into trouble one of these days if she doesn't stop running. I had to go by my place to feed the pets. Penelope was getting hungry."

Sirius, unused to Aberforth's odd ways, asked something Harry could have surely lived without knowing, "Who's Penelope?"

"He's my platypus, of course!" The gray-bearded man responded with glee, "Now Harry, I suggest you learn to stop hitting yourself in the head with doors. You may end up as crazy as me someday! Good night."

"He's hitting himself with doors?" Sirius scowled at Aberforth who was paying no heed at all to anything around him and entering a kind of meditative state on his bed, "You're the one who blew that thing clear open with that darn Muggle weapon of yours!"

That was when Harry realized that Aberforth was probably right. He had hit himself in the head with the door, because he had blown the door up. He remembered the blood on his hand and the door exploding. But he hadn't done anything. He hadn't said an incantation or even thought one. It just happened like the time he saw through the wall or the time he made his wand go from his knapsack to his pocket. Or that time he'd turned his teacher's hair blue in primary school. Harry felt his stomach sink, was it possible he was losing control over his magical abilities? Was the wandless magic doing something that made him lose control?

"Well I'm going to sleep." Remus yawned, "My potion must have finished working. See you in the morning."

He started walking over to the cot, probably out of habit. Sirius rolled his eyes and steered his barely conscious friend to a bed before coming back to his own and collapsing on it.

"Damn him," Harry heard his godfather's muffled voice say into the pillows, "Why can't my potion work that fast."

"Mine hasn't finished working either." Harry said, "And it's making me hungry for some reason."

Sirius lifted his head a bit, "I think that means your magical capabilities took a beating, mine sure did. What were you doing down there to damage them so badly anyway?"

"Um… I think resisting the Impious curse kind of did most of it." Harry responded quickly.

Sirius shook his head, "I still can't believe you're capable of resisting one of Voldemort's Impious curses. So how about we go get a hold of some grub?"

"Covered!"

Both Harry and Sirius gave a little jump as none other than Luna Lovegood entered the room with an enormous bag of sweets.

"Hospital food is cursed by the ancient wizard Mongols of the thirteenth century. So I brought you these." She nodded to the sweets.

"Luna?" Harry laughed, "What are you doing here? It's nice to see you again."

"My Dad slipped off one of the mountain slopes while looking for Snorkacks," Luna told him. "Now I'm volunteering at Mungo's."

"I saw one of them in the portal I went to while rescuing Sirius from the Veil. Um… it tried to kill me."

Luna looked ecstatic, "You'll have to tell me all about it later on! Hello Stubby!"

Sirius gave a confused look, "Who is Stubby?"

"You are!" she told him with glee. "But I can call you whatever you want me to call you, Harry's Godfather."

Sirius gave a bark of a laugh, "You can call me whatever you please, but I prefer 'Sirius' myself. So you're one of Harry's friends are you? You do look familiar…"

"She was with me when I went in to the Department of Mysteries a couple weeks back." Harry explained, a terrible sick feeling filling his stomach at the memory.

"Really?" Sirius looked concerned, "Are you alright?"

"Of course! I couldn't allow myself to be left out if something was happening to you. You are the Great Pumpkin after all."

"She's fine," Harry told Sirius, who looked a tad disturbed, "This Great Pumpkin theory wouldn't be proposed by that guy who claims I'm the Easter Bunny would it?"

Luna just gave a dreamy sort of smile as Harry and Sirius's stomachs both growled in hunger, "Do you want the candy or not? Because if you don't eat it, the Uma Bugs sure will."

Luna didn't stay long afterwards. She claimed she had other things to do. So Harry and Sirius magicked their beds closer together and lay there eating candy. For a little while, Harry could pretend that Sirius had no reason to be mad at him and Voldemort had never existed. But when he thought about what Lupin had said about pretending, Harry just gave a bit of a sigh, and knew the ex-professor was right.

Sirius, mistaking Harry's sigh for boredom, quickly started up a topic non-candy related, "So, about our friends' love lives…"

"What about them?"

"I don't know. Would you prefer we discuss yours?"

Harry cringed, "Merlin, no!"

Oh, come on! It can't be that bad." Sirius laughed.

"Yes it is," Harry told him. "I had a huge fight with my girlfriend and now she hates me. But that probably wouldn't have worked out anyway because I had to watch her last boyfriend get murdered and she was always crying and stuff. Plus, her friend is a complete bitch and got me busted by Umbridge."

"You watched her last boyfriend get murdered?"

Obviously, Sirius had never had relationship problems of this proportion.

Harry nodded, "You know Cedric Diggory? She and him used to be an item. I still like her though; she was a nice girl and everything. But… she… she said she couldn't deal with me when I had all my crap going on. So I've just stopped thinking about getting into romantic relationships with anyone."

"I have no idea what that Prophesy says," Sirius began, "but it's messing with your head. You're as bad as Moony!"

"She cried during our first kiss, Sirius! I think I should just face the music, I'm really bad with girls and completely clueless!"

"How clueless are you exactly?" Sirius suddenly looked nervous.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… er… I don't have to give you The Talk or anything do I?"

"What talk?"

Sirius looked like he was about to break out into cold sweat, "You know… about the birds and the bees and…"

Harry's eyes widened, "Oh God Sirius, please just shut up about that now. I know plenty about… that. From school and stuff. So er…"

Sirius looked relieved, "Okay… yeah. Thank Merlin!" He glanced around the room and caught sight of Lupin, "Ha!" He barked another laugh, "I can't believe it! He's hugging that empty can of chocolate drink in his sleep! He must have summoned it before he drifted off."

Harry looked at Sirius and Sirius looked at Harry. Then they both broke out into raucous laughter about the whole situation. Sirius yawned and blinked.

"I think my potion's almost done," Sirius started swaying back and forth, "but I'll stay up with you until yours is… is…"

"I'm tired too," Harry lied in hopes Sirius wouldn't worry about him anymore.

"Thank Merlin…" Sirius yawned again, "Yeah… thank Merlin." He now seemed to be going into some kind of half-conscious stupor, "Turn off the lava lamp James, you'll wake up the gnomes…"

If Harry had not been in so much pain, he would have allowed himself to actually laugh.

Time wore on and Harry found himself unable to sleep. He could only lay there and think. And his thinking was slowly beginning to border on mental torture. Damn it, his parents had seemed so wonderful, despite what his Dad had done at fifteen and they were dead because of a stupid prophesy, not about them, but about him. And Profess… Remus was such a great person, and Harry couldn't help but think that he'd let him down. He'd almost lost all of his best friends because of his stupidity and very existence. Sirius should be bashing him in the head with something by now, in Harry's opinion. And even Professor Dumbledore, regardless of his apparent obliviousness concerning his situation at the Dursley's, had reason to despise him. He was causing more trouble than he was worth lately.

Finally, around three in the morning, Harry's potion finished its job, and he could sleep. Sleep and forget everything for a little while.

He should have known that wouldn't last long.

--------------------

Remus was not himself. Or perhaps he was, the wolf was apart of him after all, and it was hungry for blood. He surveyed his surroundings, a forest. The one he'd been bitten in. There was fresh blood nearby; he could smell it. Women's blood. He was running fast, chasing something ahead of him. Wind blew through his fur, and the thrill of the hunt was close to maddening. His prey tripped over a branch. He was getting closer, closer.

Feral, animalistic eyes met frightened brown ones. Elaina: the person who had listened to his opinion as if he mattered; someone who had cared enough to stand up for him even though he'd been a stranger to her. The wolf didn't pay heed to any of it. With a brutal growl, he dived at the women's throat and ripped it out. Tasting the blood on his fangs, hearing her screams…

Remus Lupin awoke from the vivid nightmare covered in cold sweat. It took him a moment to realize where he was. The hospital. He was there. The bed had thrown him a bit, he was barely ever allowed in St. Mungo's, and when he was, he was never allowed on the beds.

Suddenly, Remus registered that someone actually was screaming. His heart stopped, and for a moment; he was back in the forest, killing. But it wasn't a women's scream, it was… Harry. Lupin turned his head wildly to find the fifteen-year-old thrashing and screaming in bed as if he was possessed by something purely evil…

Lupin cursed under his breath and pushed the button for the healer.

"Get Albus Dumbledore up to this room NOW!" He yelled into the device, "And tell him to bring Severus Snape."

Sirius was awake now too, and he made his way to join his old friend by Harry's bedside, trying with all his might to wake him from whatever it was, was happening.

"He will not come back quite yet." Aberforth opened an eye.

"What do you mean?" Sirius sounded just as frantic as Remus felt, and that was saying something, "What do you know? Tell me, TELL ME NOW!"

Aberforth opened both eyes this time and looked out the window, "He will not return, and should not return, until he has seen what needs to be seen. Mars is bright tonight. Nargles everywhere will suffer."

Sirius let out a growl of frustration that could rival any werewolf's, and turned his attention back to Harry.

"Hang in there, kid," Remus heard him whisper.

Yes, Remus thought, for the sake of all things good in the world, "Please, please hang in there."

--------------

Harry had been having a dream about goats, the Weasley family, Cho Chang, and chocolate drinks in Brazil, when it had been brusquely interrupted by the harsh reality of why he should have listened to Snape all along when it came to Occlumency. He had just been sliding down an enormous rainbow chasing a giant platypus, when everything suddenly got dark and he landed somewhere entirely different than where he had been supposed to land. His subconscious told him he was supposed to end up at Cho's house in and enormous burrito, but now that he thought of it, that sounded incredibly stupid. Nothing abnormal ever sounded stupid in dreams. Harry flinched, he felt much better than he had, but his head was aching worse than before. And there were Death Eaters in front of him.

His mind immediately went into panic mode. Had he been captured? Had they gotten hold of Sirius and Remus? What about Ron and Hermione? Was anyone safe?

"Have you any new information?" He heard himself say.

Except it was not his voice saying it, it was a voice he recognized all too well.

"N… not much, my Lord," Harry watched in annoyed agitation as one of the Death Eaters responded. Not his annoyance, Voldemort's, he was more horrified, and curious, "W… we have made some progress however. All we knew was that he is his brother and works at the Hogshead as bartender. We know now that he owns the place as well, is considered at bit of a loon, a… and has been accused of the following: trespassing on privet property, public nudity, showing magic to a Muggle child, allegedly taking a house elf by the name of 'Hokey' out of prison (no one to this day is sure where the thing has disappeared to), and practicing inappropriate charms on goats. All in all, it sounds as though this man could not possibly have…"

"And who else do you suppose could have pulled something like that?" He snapped, or more so, Voldemort snapped, "A werewolf? A weakened ex-convict of Azkaban? Black and Lupin can put up a fight, but they aren't incredibly powerful at all, merely a couple of lowly maggots to be disposed of. Or are you thinking of someone else? Are you thinking that Potter can actually create something so extraordinary as to collapse even an inch of that portal? Do you think a fifteen-year-old can undo one of my most complicated locking charms, one that Albus Dumbledore could not get open?"

The Death Eater started to shake.

Voldemort then rounded on another, "And you, you claimed that the chain that held the key would not break. It seems to me it has broken. Now the most important element to our current endeavor is gone."

"B… but my Lord," the Death Eater in charge of this 'key' stuttered, "I had everything set up perfectly, "Only an tremendously strong killing curse, one set off to weaken, not kill, nonetheless, could have broken that chain. No… no one could have figured that out."

"I'm not saying someone did," Voldemort sneered, "Obviously something else went wrong with your protection spells." Harry felt a flash of fear from the Dark Lord. Was he afraid that Aberforth had figured it out and had this thing he needed so badly? "In other words," Voldemort continued, "you have failed. I do not like failure. I do not like it, nor will I accept it."

Harry looked at the Death Eater who had failed his master. He seemed so sure his plan had worked, so positive of it. He needed to know what he was thinking. Suddenly, Harry found himself in the mind of the fearful Death Eater. He was thinking of something, a complicated combination of spells over a chain like the one that had held the rock around Voldemort's neck yesterday morning, trying desperately to figure out where he'd gone wrong. But mostly, the Death Eaters' mind held pure terror and a raw desire to bolt. Nevertheless, he could not, for a pair of burning red eyes glued his feet solidly to the floor.

As Harry stared straight at his archenemy through someone else's eyes, he felt nothing but disgust. Voldemort raised his wand in the air. He had a job to do, and Harry's connection to him told him that the Dark Lord felt not even the slightest ounce of guilt.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Harry attempted to leave the body of the Death Eater, but the killing curse shot forward was hypnotic, and he couldn't force himself to abscond in time. The pain Harry felt was more than anything he had ever experienced before. Then again, perhaps he had, the torrent of hurt and suffering brought back memories of confusion and despair…

The killing curse was so much stronger than the Cruciatus. It felt something akin to being struck by lightening, being stabbed all at once by thousands of white hot knives, bleeding to death, burning slowly in a fire, and being crushed all at the same time. The Death Eater he was inside of felt nothing but a sudden darkness overtake him, and he envied the man with all that he was worth. Harry wanted nothing more than to die, to feel nothing. With a final push of desperation, Harry managed to break free of the other man's body, still hurting, even as a spirit, a shadow of himself.

It was just his luck he ended up in a Death Eater Voldemort had turned to torture. The Cruciatus after the killing curse was just rubbing salt on the wounds, his wounds. He started to make another attempt at escape, desperately wanting to return to his own body. But then, Voldemort started to talk again, and Harry's hunger for information overpowered his thirst for an escape from the pain.

"Back to the subject of Aberforth Dumbledore," Voldemort sneered. "Just because someone appears insane, doesn't mean they are. I believe we have a ploy on our hands; it would not be the first time. Many of you may recall Albus saying odd things such as 'nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak.' Crazy, you may think, but it turns out 'nitwitoddment' is actually a spell in the… elfish language I believe. A spell with the means of protecting the students of Hogwarts with ancient magic."

"But… but elves don't really exist. House elves surely, but…"

"Silence, Avery!" The Dark Lord snapped, casting another Cruciatus, "The times are changing, things that happened so long ago they are considered myth and legend today, will soon be revealed. I can feel it, taste it. Another dark age will set upon this world for all who dare stand against me." He lifted the torturous curse from those he'd cast it on in a single wave of his wand, "You are all dismissed. I expect more information on the younger of the Dumbledore brothers in twelve hours; you have until then to make a futile attempt at impressing me. Stand up Avery! Peterson, take care of that body. As for you, Raulie, I want a full-scale search of that Veil for my key. Get moving, I have an appointment with a certain rat who made an incredibly imprudent slip-up this afternoon."

Harry's mind was whirling, and his subconscious was screaming from the prolonged pain of the night's events. A final wave of nausea washing over him, Harry's whole being collapsed into darkness, before his eyes snapped open again to reveal blurry shapes and way too much light.

"Voldemort found his way out of the Veil," he choked before a surge of dizziness overtook him once again.

I meant to write a lot more in this chapter. But I just started to get really long and I'm all like, "What the heck? Screw the original plan; I'll just update this now, 20 pages are long enough for a chapter. I'd take forever to get the rest of it down with Band Camp going on anyway."

In the Next Chapter, The Chosen One, Harry finds out exactly what the papers do when they finally get the right information, gets yelled at by Snape, meets up with some friends, has the long-awaited TALK ABOUT HIS PAST with Remus and Sirius, and gets to read his own biography (I meant to put it in chapter 12 but it didn't fit).

Plus: Sirius's trial, will it go well?

Some hints for you: Almost everything I write, no matter how stupid it sounds, has a purpose to it. Especially things concerning Aberforth Dumbledore, he's not just here for comic relief. Elaina's Grandmother's name is supposed to mean something as well (sort of). On the other hand, Harry dreaming that Cho's house is a giant burrito is merely an example of the randomness of dreams (and my inability to stay serious).

Yes, yes I am using a few things from Half-Blood Prince. If you notice one certain thing I used from there, you may find something quite interesting.

My Review Response policy is the same as stated in the last chapter.

This would have been updated sooner if not for major technical difficulties.