There was water all over the floors. It seeped through Harry's shoes, and instantly he was aware only of the wetness of his socks.
He stared down. Harry had never noticed how uneven the floors were before, paths worn in the stone from centuries of children rushing to class.
Luna gasped, her wooden clipboard clattering to the ground. Their splashing footsteps stopped. Harry looked at her.
She seemed fine, though her eyes were open very wide. Turning to follow her line of sight, Harry understood her surprise.
The letters on the wall in what looked suspiciously like fresh blood: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.
They drew closer, pulled in as if horror had its own magnetism.
"Oh no," Luna crooned, reaching out. Harry watched her dislodge Filch's ugly cat from where it had been jammed against a wall sconce. It was the embodiment of the phrase stiff as a board.
Harry could hear blood rushing in his ears—
—except that it wasn't the sound of his blood. He realised too late, as the cacophony of students was already roaring up the corridor and then—
Everything stopped moving.
"Harry?" Flitwick said, something thick in his voice. He moved through the crowd like oil in water. "What have you done," he whispered once he was close enough, removing the cat from Luna's unresisting hands. "What have you done?"
Dumbledore came then, tall and stern. McGonagall added her own brand of disapproval. Lockhart was even more insufferable than usual.
The sheer weight of Filch's grief felt like it was cleaving Harry in two. Harry had hated the cat on principle and from experience.
He'd forgotten that it was loved.
Far too many professors shepherded Luna and Harry into the Defense professor's office. Luna clutched her damp clipboard to her chest like it would offer some comfort. Harry let her do the talking, far too familiar with being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, then getting the blame ladled out to him until he choked on it.
He wished she'd stop crying. Everything was so loud, so full, so—
Belatedly, Harry realised he was rocking in place. He'd thought, he'd hoped—he was supposed to be over this. Harry wished he could go home, except he knew Privet Drive couldn't be home anymore, his mam's house had long been demolished, and Potter Cottage didn't have a roof.
There was nowhere he could go.
"—arry, Harry?"
He flinched away from Flitwick's touch.
"Come on, Harry, let's get you to bed," Flitwick said. Harry hadn't even noticed when everyone else left. Even with their voices gone, it was still terribly noisy on the inside of his skull, like when Dudley had invited their whole class to his tenth birthday party.
"Where's Luna?" Flitwick was her head of house, she had been crying before, and she was only eleven.
It was horrifying to picture her having to bring herself to bed after a day like this one.
"She's right behind you, Harry."
He turned, almost falling over. There she was, limp hair and red-rimmed eyes. "Good."
Flitwick tucked them both into bed, side by side in the hospital wing. They were given a sleeping draught each, and that was that.
xoxox
"I was really worried about you," Hermione said instead of good morning.
Harry admittedly deserved it. "I'm sorry. I had a truly horrible day."
His friend huffed, settling onto the the end of his bed. "I brought your potions essay, you never finished it. I changed Ratty's water, also."
Gratitude welled up inside him, so much that he felt he might cry. Blinking, Harry looked over to his bedside table. The essay was important, but breakfast mattered more. "Hermione, this is Luna. She's experimenting with ghosts."
Predictably, that gave him a bit of peace while Hermione studied Luna and Luna studied...the air beside Hermione's left ear? "It's nice to meet you," Hermione said, her words measured but stutter-free. "I wasn't sure the magical world knew about the scientific method."
"Oh, it's not a scientific experiment," Luna said, causing Hermione's face to fall. "It's a metaphysical experiment."
"Wait," Harry jumped in, "what does that mean?"
"It means I'm using the unscientific method."
Ah. Yes. Naturally. He made a mental note to look it up, or ask Professor Sinista.
"But how will you get any results?" Hermione asked.
"Magic, of course."
It was not a conversation for eight in the morning when he had an essay due at nine. Harry threw a muffling charm around himself and set up his parchment and ink on the breakfast tray.
xoxox
"None of this makes sense," Hermione claimed as they made their way to class. "I've never heard of Nargles, and I couldn't see any of the Humdingers she was talking about. And there's no such thing as the unscientific method, that's why the scientific method was invented in the first place."
It was the longest thing Harry had ever heard her say. For a moment a tendril of wonder crawled through him, marvel at how much she'd changed and grown in the past year.
Then Snape began his class, and all emotion Harry had available to him was replaced by stubborn concentration.
As they trundled to lunch together, Hermione tried to draw Neville into the subject.
"If you're so curious, why don't you just join the experiment?" the boy said calmly as he spooned peas onto his plate.
"Why would you want to do more work?" Ronald said, getting gravy on his shirt.
"I think it's a good idea." Harry had been pondering it at the back of his mind, and there was something there, like a prodding at a scabbed-over wound with a blunt stick. It didn't hurt, not really, but the sum of it was beginning to reach a part of him he'd have prefered to have left in the dark.
How much could ghosts change? Were they truly able to form new memories?
If they couldn't, that would say a lot about the nature of ghosts. And if they could, that would mean astonishing things about the nature of wizarding memory.
Muggle memory was a chemical thing, grounded in biology. The first five years of Harry's life had been anchored to physicality.
But this was meta. Logically, that meant it was so, so much more.
xoxox
Flitwick gave him the most crushing Stern Look that Thursday. It made Harry feel very small, but not like he'd done something wrong. Wrongdoing was just someone else's opinion. The situation reminded him of Not-McGonagall sitting before him, peering over her glasses and speaking of how Choices led to Consequences.
"Mister Hagrid told me you said some very hurtful things to him."
Flitwick left the statement to sit in the air between them, sinking into Harry until the shame of it hummed in his bones.
"I didn't mean to." The words made him feel like such a child—the situation made him feel like such a child. "I'm sorry."
And he was sorry. He'd been so angry, but that had been a terrible way to let it out.
He felt small. His voice whispered, as if the words were clinging to the insides of his throat. "How can everyone celebrate the day they died like their deaths meant nothing?" He thought of how the Dark Lord had faced down Lily, only to crumble to dust.
He thought of the monster grasping him by the throat, thought of how the man had fallen to the ground, dead.
James and Lily's deaths had meant everything, and now here he was, not even properly their son. When he peered inwards at the darkest, boiling pitch in his stomach, he knew the truth was right there, pressing on the boundaries of what he wanted to look at, and the fact he never wanted to see.
YOU CAN GO BACK, IF YOU WANT.
"What if they died for no reason?" His voice choked, trying to swallow down things he didn't ever want to feel. "What if it meant nothing at all?"
"You're alive, Harry," Flitwick tried to sooth, but they weren't the right words at all.
"Harry died," he spat back. Inside him, a blade twisted into parts of him so deep he hadn't known they were there. "I'm nothing but an echo. Nature-versus-nurture."
How much Harry could he really be, with all his memories and experiences squashed into the broken mind of a child? Nature-versus-nurture wasn't an experiment, it was his sick reality wherein he was neither himself nor not himself, and everything that had meaning was entirely out of reach.
It didn't matter that Flitwick was confused. Perhaps, the truth was that nothing mattered.
YOU CAN GO BACK, YOU KNOW.
IF YOU WANT.
The words taunted him, standing out starkly against the whirlwind of feelings and images and formless noise that was echoing again and again in his head.
"I want to go," he realised, jumping up to his feet.
"Harry, I really don't think—"
"Please, I need to go," he said, and then he was running, running, running. Down the corridor, down four flights and up one set of stairs, out into the entrance hall, over the tiles black-and-white-and-black-and-white.
Through the door. Past the lake, its water reflecting the dull grey sky.
The Forbidden Forest greeted him with open boughs and tumultuous quiet. He tore over the beaten path, trees surrounding him like ancient pillars. The mossy ground muffled his footsteps.
He realised he wasn't running anymore.
"You shouldn't be here," said a voice from behind him, neither stern nor insistent.
A centaur, tanned skin and shining coat, stood in the twilight. "I am Willow," she said.
"I don't know who I am," he answered.
"Child, this is not the place for someone like you."
Of course not, it was the Forbidden Forest. But he didn't know where else to go. "Tell me where I belong, then."
She looked up, at the clouds shifting above them like boiling tagliatelle. "The world is in flux."
How supremely unhelpful. So much for centaurs, 'beings beyond time'. He had hoped, so desperately, for answers. "Won't you divine it for me, please?" What else was there for him? "What should I do?"
"It does not do to dwell on fates and forget to live," Willow said, her hair glowing like burnished copper. Then her eyes turned again to the sky and her voice became solemn. It rang out, like there was a choir in her mouth all speaking in sync.
"As an equal, each holds a power the other knows not.
The three will contend until one masters three
and either must die at the hand of the other
for neither can live while the other survives."
Harry had no space left for thoughts.
An actual prophecy—holy fuck.
Willow cleared her throat once, looked back at him. "Excuse me." She cleared her throat again. "It is time you returned to the castle," she said.
He nodded back, rubbed at the scar that the Dark Lord had marked on this body.
She led the way, allowing for his slow, ponderous pace. "You are where you need to be now, Harry Potter," Willow divined, reaching out to cup his cheek. "It is time for you to be who you need to be."
Suddenly he could hear what she had, too, the reason they had stopped in the middle of this leaf-littered path. Hagrid's strides were unmistakable in their lumbering.
"Your life is a gift. Use it well."
He turned to thank her but she was already gone.
"Harry!" Hagrid cried, lantern swinging as he engulfed the lost boy in a crushing hug. "Here yeh are." Then the half-giant straightened, brushing dirt off his knee and holding the light up to study his face. "Err, I mean, I'm glad I found you 'fore somethin' else in this forest got to yer first."
Boy and half-giant walked back to the castle in silence then, likely equally preoccupied with their own thoughts.
"I'm sorry, Hagrid, for the things I said," Harry spoke once the oaken doors were in view. "I shouldn't have said them. It was…wrong."
"Ye'r alright, Harry," the half-man said, his comforting hand almost pushing Harry over. "Tha's all tha' matters."
Something burst inside Harry. He felt lighter—he felt like crying. In fact, there were already tears rolling down his cheeks, but they were good tears.
Sometimes things were terribly complicated, but sometimes they were terribly, hauntingly simple.
He was alive.
He should be living.
In his pocket, the Hallows hummed their approval.
xoxox
After everyone was done telling Harry off —he'd been so irresponsible and acted terribly unsafe —things simply went back to the way they had been before. The sun rose in the east and set in west. His transfiguration assignment was still due in a week. Flitwick continued to see him on Thursdays and Pomfrey renewed his Cheering Charm every other day.
Hermione forgave and forgot. Neville let things be with a kind smile and a careful shoulder-squeeze. Ronald, bless his soul, seemed not to have noticed anything changing at all.
Yet, everything was different. Sirius circled the sky every night, looming. The November rain turned to sleet, promising snow. The Cheering Charms started to make him feel dull and stupid, reminding him of his earlier wish to be rid of that weakness.
There was a sense of anticipation in the air, of preparation, though he didn't know for what. Harry felt like a butterfly migrating south, like a squirrel planting oaks for its first winter.
He wasn't just a boy, just a man, just a freak of magic and nature.
No, he had been chosen by fate for a purpose. He was the subject of prophecy.
xoxox
This is all I have so far. I wrote this over November last year and while I love telling Peter's story, I found the lack of traction discouraging.
I've marked this as complete because it feels to me like the end of Arc 1 has been reached. I don't know exactly when I'll pick this back up, bookmark if you're interested in Arc 2.
Thank you Eider_Down and ex-livreira for your help, and thank you, my reader, for sticking with me until this point.