Edited 11/22/22
Silver
One
Within and Without
It was like apparating, but the discomfort was hundredfold. He could not breathe. Blackness. Pressure from all sides, and...
"I have lived long enough, Harry."
"No longer than you should have, Professor."
Harry wet his cracked, flaking lips as they scraped along the dim tunnel, sweeping the debris from their path with the toe of his shoe. There were dead things in this barrow, things that had been dead for centuries and had turned into ivory twigs and grave dust in the murk below Scotland.
Harry tried to offer his mentor a smile in the dark, but his mouth could only twist into a pained grimace. His stomach was hollow and thrumming. His legs quaked with each step. His spine was noose-tight behind his heart where he bent to support the headmaster. He found himself pining for the days when he'd thought the Dursley grapefruit ration plan of '94 had been starvation. In fact, he almost missed Dudley.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep.
Harry had been awake for close to three days.
Three days of combat. Of foraging for scraps of food. Single blink naps. Patrolling the ramparts and all the secret parts of Hogwarts castle. For three days they'd just been trying to survive. Now he was slumping through the shadowy tunnels of an ancient mound half-carrying a trembling Albus Dumbledore to his death. It was too much. Harry was tired. He was just so tired.
"Strength," murmured Professor Dumbledore. "Just a little farther." The old man pulled in a rattling breath and tried to stand without Harry's support. He managed only a few steps, using the wall to support himself before he fell against it.
Harry cried out, his voice bouncing off the surrounding rock, and rushed to help Professor Dumbledore up again. The man struggled to stand, even with all his weight against his protégé's shoulder. Harry stood a moment, allowing him to calm his ragged breathing, then started forward again.
"No." Professor Dumbledore's voice was no louder than wind rustling through long grass. "Here again, Harry. As luck would have it." He jerked the sleeve of his tattered paisley robes to reveal his twisted forearm. The skin was scarred and mottled: pale white, and smoky grey, with flecks of green that made the limb look like a cut of rotting meat. The blackened husk of the Headmaster's infected hand balled into a fist. The metal band of a ring glinted on his finger. The sight of it filled Harry with sickness.
"Are you sure?" He frowned and looked at Dumbledore, doing his best to remain steady. "I can do it. This has to be the last one."
"It's been mine all the way, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore softly. "It has to be mine again now."
Harry opened his mouth to argue, but the pleading in the professor's dim eyes shut him up. Harry swallowed, and inclined his head. He pulled his wand from his pocket and drew it in a line down the Headmaster's arm. Blood welled from the cut.
Professor Dumbledore ground his teeth and pulled away. He smeared his blood into the wall of the tunnel until it was wet and black, mumbling quiet words as he did it. When he was done, Harry sealed the wound with a gentle wave of his wand. Dumbledore leaned against him again, shaking.
They continued through the dark.
The tunnel narrowed.
Harry supported Professor Dumbledore when they reached the stone slab that served as the door to this last chamber. The Headmaster nudged it open with unsettling ease and motioned Harry onward.
The room was circular, illuminated by a single floating orb of fire. It painted the curving walls burnt orange and threw the carvings that covered them into focus. They were runes, or numbers, or something in the language of ancient magic spells. Harry didn't know what they said. There wasn't time enough to learn.
He helped Professor Dumbledore across the floor to the orb of flame. Dumbledore reached out and pressed the palm of his healthy hand into the fire. The old man swayed once, threatening to topple over, but Harry steadied him and circled to stand before the flame. This close, the light made the professor's face skeletal. His skin was a glowing wax mask lathered over bone and looked ready to crack. The wisps of his white beard blew gently, like cobwebs in a crypt. He was close to death; Harry was sure of it. His empty gut roiled.
"How much longer?" he asked.
"I fear, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore grimly, "that if I shut my eyes, I might not open them again."
"So not very long, then," said Harry, patting his queasy stomach.
"Not very long," confirmed Professor Dumbledore.
The flame of the orb grew brighter, driving heat into Harry's skin. He felt the first drops of sweat bead on his upper lip and neck. Dumbledore moved his focus from the orb to Harry. "Any final requests, Harry?"
"I'm hungry, Professor."
"Alas." Despite his condition, Dumbledore's teeth were still white, and his smile was still warm. "One of the many things that I cannot provide you." Harry couldn't bring himself to return the smile.
"Is something troubling you?" asked Professor Dumbledore.
"What isn't troubling me, Professor?" It came out a little harsher than he had intended it. Harry knew that the Headmaster was close to death, and he knew the sacrifice that they were about to make was for the greater good, but how could Professor Dumbledore expect him to be fine with it? How could he expect him to succeed?
Through his hunger and fatigue, Harry felt the balloon of pain and loss that he had so diligently suppressed swell, buoy, and finally burst in his chest. He resisted the urge to just fall onto the ground and lay there in defeat. Everyone that Harry had cared about was either dead or dying. He met Professor Dumbledore's eyes and strove to keep tears from his own. "We lost. This is it. And if it doesn't work, we lose again."
"Harry," said Professor Dumbledore, reaching out with his cursed hand. He settled it onto his shoulder. "I have never been able to express, in proper terms, how remarkable you are. You know that I am not always a good man, but you have shown me, time and again, how powerful the force of compassion is. You find success in places where I could never dream of it." Harry felt his cheeks burn at the compliment, and started to reply, but the Headmaster cut him off.
"And yes... I have meddled from start to finish, and your assistance only makes this last the most terrible, but I only do this because I know that you will succeed."
"This!" Harry burst out. "This is the most terrible? It's mercy for him, Professor. His life for yours."
"A fair trade, Harry. My inaction created this Lord Voldemort. I failed to keep him as just Tom Riddle," whispered Professor Dumbledore. He squeezed Harry's shoulder. "They are always saying that Albus Dumbledore is the man who drives fear into the abyssal hearts of Dark Lords and evil men. Twaddle. I have only ever created them."
"What about me?" said Harry quietly.
"You," said Professor Dumbledore, bowing his head. "You have fought me nearly the whole way, Harry. You are truly great."
"Sure." Harry snorted but brushed the tears from his eyes. "Are you going to start it, then?"
"Dear boy," said Professor Dumbledore lifting his gaze, "it's already begun."
"What?"
And frost dug into Harry's shoulder where Dumbledore touched it. It rolled down his arm with virulent speed, and spread across his aching body, and encased his heart. He could no longer feel the heat from the fiery orb mere inches from his face. Harry sucked a breath in through his teeth. The cold bit him a second time, violently. Harry gasped, a rasping sound, like the final rattle of a dying man. The fire went out.
Then there was the sound of something rumbling in the dark, a sound like a rhinoceros charging through the deep tunnels.
"This is will be your most tumultuous foray, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore. His voice was hoarse, as though he had aged another hundred years in the time it took for the fire to blink out and the rumbling to begin. But the grip of Dumbledore's withered hand in the dark was iron.
Harry tried to respond, to say that he knew this, but his lips would not move. In fact, he couldn't feel the pain in his muscles. Everything was numbness. He could not turn his head towards the Headmaster, or the rumbling that was steadily growing higher in pitch. He was frozen.
Professor Dumbledore spoke once more.
"This is a journey into time, and the very heart of a vicious creature."
There was a sound of thunder.
...then: Harry Potter's legs buckled beneath him.
He collapsed and something inflexible caught him and drove the wind from his lungs. Grass flashed before his eyes; the scent of damp earth pressed into his face. Harry tumbled forward, down a hummock, gasping for breath. He had enough sense about him to keep his arms close to his sides, but not much more to do anything else. So he rolled and did not rise right away when at last he thudded to a stop.
"Eurgh."
His insides felt as though they had been soaked, washed, and then wrung tightly to squeeze the water out. But then, his landings were never pleasant.
Harry just let the world spin above him for a bit and breathed heavily through his nostrils as his stomach settled itself. The air smelled clean, at least. Dirt, and grass, and the subtle perfume of wildflowers. Not ash. No smoke—or terrible fiendfyre scent. It must have worked then. Harry sat up, rubbing at a new ache in his side, and tried to confirm it.
Everything was bleary.
"Bollocks," he said to himself. His glasses had fallen off. Had they come with him? He felt about the foggy sea of grass for the wire frames, soaking his fingers with dew and gathering dirt under his nails. "Ah, got you."
The field slid into focus. Fat droplets pearled the green that surrounded him and glimmered orangey in the light of a rising sun. Harry sat in a swale between two long mounds that were shaggy with long-bladed grass and tiny yellow flowers. The mounds rolled out and over until the lawn was met with a swathe of land that had been plowed and turned black with fresh soil. The brown shadow of a single-story home rose in the distance, and further out Harry saw the wispy outline of Hogsmeade village. He plucked the wet grass from his shirt and cast an eye at his watch. The dirty thing's face was scratched so badly that Harry figured he might be the only one that could read it.
"Half six?" he muttered as he stood. His legs trembled and his stomach roared. Harry sat down on the grass again. He was starving, but it was too early for breakfast at Hogwarts. Harry pulled his wand from the pocket of his trousers. With a grunt, he turned on his bottom and disapparated.
The cobbles outside of the Hog's Head Inn were harder than Hogsmeade's grassy knolls. Harry rose, rubbing his tailbone, and surveyed the street. It seemed rather the same as the street he had once known, whole and intact, not destroyed by Death Eaters and giants. Peering down the row of residential houses, Harry saw the wood-tiled roofs of the shops of Hogsmeade's high street rise above the meager thatched ones near the corner. He glanced up at the tavern's sign hanging above the door. It, too, was the same, albeit newer and cleaner, but still kitsch and oddly comforting—a severed boar's head leaking bright red blood onto a white field. Harry took a breath, then, legs shaking, entered the pub.
"All right there," called a cheery voice as the door clattered shut behind him.
"All right," replied Harry, waving a hand. He made his way across the room, skirting the tables. The interior of the tiny pub was far tidier than he remembered it. The furnishings seemed new. The tables were shiny and free of cracks or gouges in the varnish. Wooden chairs, many of them still atop the tables, had all of their legs and spindles. Clean gas lamps lit the space, and Harry could see the hint of his reflection in the polished planks of the floor. Not a twig of straw or a dreg of sawdust in sight.
"Tea?" said the woman behind the bar. "Or coffee?" She looked to be some sort of middle-aged—though with wizards Harry always had difficulty discerning—and had only a streak or two of silver in her auburn hair. She was thin, noticeably so, despite the volume of her simple brown robes, and she was tall. Harry reckoned she might have come close to his forehead if she didn't outright match his height. Her face was modest, and lined, and scrubbed so clean that her cheeks were rosy.
"Erm. Tea please," Harry answered, pulling a chair from a table and dropping into it. He worked very hard to sit up straight and not collapse onto the tabletop. Apparently, it was noticeable, for the barmaid stopped fiddling with the kettle to stare at him.
"Blimey, you look half dead," she said. "You all right, lad? You might need something a touch stronger than tea."
"Oh no, please, I'm fine. I've just had a rough morning, Missus, er..."
"Arabella," said the barmaid slowly, eyebrows raised. "Just Arabella." She turned back to the kettle. "I don't think I've seen you around here before, come to think, and I've seen most of the Hogwarts crowd at one time or another."
"Yeah," said Harry. He hadn't expected to need a cover story so quickly. A part of him had hoped that Aberforth was the proprietor of the pub by now, and Aberforth Dumbledore generally did away with speaking to customers on principle. Hoping against hope that the other pub was still around, he said, "First time. I usually stop in at the, er, the Three Broomsticks."
"Do you?" said Arabella. She brought the tea over in a little silver pot with a cup and a saucer and clinked them down onto Harry's table with a little more force than he thought was necessary. "I should be grateful for your patronage, do you think? Could've had a cuppa at the Three Broomsticks, couldn't you have?"
"No," said Harry. The barmaid still had her fingers wrapped tight around the handle of the teapot. They, too, were scrubbed very clean. Her fingernails were plain and trimmed. He was reminded strongly of Professor McGonagall. "Yes. No. I don't mean that you should be grateful. I'm just...I've had a rough evening, and just wanted to sit down. And maybe get something to eat."
"Something to eat?" said Arabella. And suddenly her cheerfulness was back in full force. "Why didn't you say earlier? I'll get to fixing something for you." She hurried off behind the bar again and bent to tinker with something on the stove.
"Thank you," Harry called after her, wrapping his fingers around the warm teacup. "I'll take anything you've got, really."
"I've got it all!" called the barmaid. "Eggs! Plenty of eggs! And tomatoes, and bacon. Sausage. Bit of bread. And some haggis, if you're partial."
The woman—Arabella, seemed unreasonably glad that Harry had asked to be fed, and he realized that some things likely never change. Harry had never willingly come for a meal at the Hog's Head, and he knew few people, aside from Mundungus Fletcher (who was banned from the establishment) that could stomach Aberforth's cooking.
"Er, sure," said Harry. "Whatever you've got."
"You'll be wanting a room, then?" asked Arabella, standing from her crouch. She had a clean black cast iron skillet in one hand and a shining steel pan in the other. "Just finished Hogwarts, have you?"
"I don't know that I can afford—"
"Nonsense," said Arabella cutting him off. She dashed the skillet onto the stove and set it alight with a jab of her wand. "My rooms are reasonably priced, yes... a special! For graduates!" She flicked her wand, summoning eggs from underneath the bar. "Don't you worry," she said, seeing Harry's startled look. "Cold box is under there. Now about the room... the special for new graduates of Hogwarts school. Perhaps... seven sickles a night."
Harry stared at the woman. He did not know if he had enough money in his purse to cover his meal much less the (very reasonable) cost of a room here. But now that she had him, it didn't look like she would let go for fear of him heading to the Three Broomsticks. "All right then," he managed after a moment.
"Marvelous," said Arabella, beaming. "Come, come. Over here. Sit at the bar."
Harry had only just gotten settled and relaxed, but the woman seemed earnest, so he stood and wobbled over to the bar with his tea service.
"Thank you," he said again.
"We don't keep a lot of graduates these days," said Arabella, bustling about from stove to fireplace and back again. She sliced some haggis with a swish of her wand and tossed it into the skillet to heat. "Interested in exploring the world, I think—not that it's an incredibly safe place to explore, in my opinion. In fact—"
"Sorry, Miss Arabella," Harry interjected before the woman could share her opinion of the world. "I'm sorry to go back on what I'd said, but I don't know if I'll have the money for a room. I'd just wanted a quick meal and to use your Floo. I've got some, er, business at the castle."
"You do?" said Arabella, visibly deflating. She set a plate before him. "Here. Eggs."
They didn't have enough salt, but Harry cleared the eggs in two heaping forkfuls. Arabella watched him out of the corner of her eye, fiddling with the tomatoes and the haggis. She mumbled something too softly for Harry to make out, then faced him. She replaced his plate with another full of eggs and sausage and haggis. "What's knocked you up, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Travel," said Harry, tearing into the food. He was starting to feel a little better. "Come a long way too quickly. Haven't had a chance to sleep in a while." He glanced up at the barmaid and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a sleeve. "Could I trouble you for today's newspaper?"
"Of course," said Arabella. She made a tutting sound and stepped away from the bar. Harry applied himself to clearing his plate again, looking around as he did. Behind the bar, there was a small wood-burning cooker stove, a few barrels of water, and another barrel with ale. There was a crate with a few dozen bottles of butterbeer. The shelves beside the stove and over the shallow counter held an assortment of clean, polished bottles of wizarding alcohol. Harry spied a bottle of Ogden's Best, among others, high on the top shelf. And below that, Arabella had put up a small square picture frame. It had an old black and white photograph; Arabella was in it, noticeably younger, but still the tallest, and beside her was a young boy with a long crooked nose and freckles. On the boy's other side was a girl who looked older than Arabella, and had a similar face, but had a stern expression and rigid posture. She was wearing small, round spectacles.
"Is that your family?" asked Harry, when the barmaid returned with a folded copy of the Daily Prophet.
"Yes," said Arabella simply, taking his empty plate. "My brother, and my sister."
"You're very similar," said Harry, who'd never had a sibling to compare looks with.
"We aren't," said Arabella stiffly. "But that's family." She handed him the newspaper.
It took every ounce of willpower Harry had left not to tear it open and hunt for the date. He waited until Arabella had turned her back to check on more eggs, before casually unfolding the parchment. He skimmed past the moving photograph that took up most of the front page and, slowly, looked at the date.
It was August. The twenty-ninth of August, 1943.
"Bloody hell, it worked," Harry said aloud. A surge of relief went through him. Then it was followed by a similar rush, but this time of dread. It had worked. Professor Dumbledore had given the very blood in his veins to get Harry here. Everyone that he had left behind had placed all of their trust in him to do this. It was 1943. Tom Riddle was going to open the Chamber of Secrets. And Harry was going to stop him.
"What worked?" asked Arabella, setting another plate of eggs before him.
"Er, nothing," said Harry, rubbing at his neck.
"Nothing worked?" The woman gave him a hard look. "I think you should have a rest before you get about any business at the castle. It'll still be there in the afternoon."
Harry fished in his pockets for his coin purse and emptied it atop the bar. He had one galleon, a handful of sickles, and two little bronze knuts. It was all the money he had left in the world.
"That'll do," said Arabella. She scooped up the coins before Harry could protest, and slapped a small brass key onto the bar. "First room at the top of the stairs. Floo works, too."
"All right," said Harry, watching the coins disappear into Arabella's polished wooden till.
"Name for the room?" asked Arabella, reeling out a bit of parchment.
"Er, Harry."
"Surname?" asked Arabella, raising an eyebrow.
"Potter," Harry answered without thinking. He slapped a hand to his forehead. Should he have given his real name? The headmaster hadn't mentioned anything about coming up with an alias; their plans had been so rushed.
"What's the matter?" said Arabella. Now her look was beyond curious, uncomfortably so. She had written his name in neat cursive script on the reel of parchment, torn it off, and placed it in a tray beside a few other brass keys.
"Nothing," said Harry.
"Nothing worked and nothing's the matter," said Arabella, splaying her hands on the bar. Her wand was trapped between her thumb and forefinger, readily available for cursing. "If you didn't look so utterly bedraggled, I would think you were up to no good."
Harry sighed. "Would it help if I said that my business is my own?"
"If you'd had more gold, maybe," said Arabella. "As it stands, I'll have none of Grindelwald's nonsense under this roof. Are you one of them?"
"No," said Harry, his brow wrinkling. Of course. It was 1943. Professor Dumbledore hadn't defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald yet. His followers were still at large, sowing discord into the magical community, stirring up hatred for muggles. "I've got nothing to do with Grindelwald. I've just got a job to do at the castle." Harry looked down at his plate, smeared with tomato and grease. "It's nothing evil." He met Arabella's eyes. "I can't say any more than that. And I'll have my money back if that isn't acceptable."
"One of hers, then," said Arabella, shaking her head. "All right then, Harry Potter, finish up your breakfast. I won't pry."
"Thank you," said Harry. "Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair by tomorrow."
Arabella chuckled, removing the skillet from the stove. "That's what they all say."
