Author's Note: To all who complained about the length of the last chapter: It was 13 pages long. I do not intend to make the chapters longer than that. In fact, I think I have been wonderful about updating (four chapters in a week comes to mind) and will ignore any comments about the length of any future chapters. (grumble grumble) For those who asked about school: It's going well, though I barely passed my Linguistics test. If a lawyer is reading this, could you tell me if I'm going to use linguistics in my future career? Please!
On to the story:
Harry came awake in stages. First was his sense of hearing as a fire crackled near him. He heard birdsong somewhere nearby and he heard his own breathing. The second sense was the sense of touch. He realized that he was very comfortable. He felt like he was lying on a pillow and made a mental note to tell Paul about it. Warm, thick, heavy blankets covered him and his head rested on a fluffy white pillow. He felt like the bed was huge compared to his own body. His nose twitched as he smelled something cooking. What was that? His teenager mind kicked him in the stomach, demanding food at all costs to his other comforts, as well as his daily morning trip to the bathroom. Harry forced his body into a sitting position as he kicked the blankets away. He sat up and started to stand, but he never made it to his feet. He hadn't noticed that his feet couldn't touch the floor from the bed. He fell in a heap at the side of the bed. The cold stone floor was a rude awakening to his sleep muzzled body.
"Oh, you're awake then?" A voice said as Harry heard a chair move and footsteps come near him. "Do you make it habit to fall out of bed?" Strong arms lifted Harry bodily from the floor and placed him back on the bed. Harry made a vow then and there that he would gain some more height and at least another stone. He was tired of being carted about as though his height made no difference! He was not a first year! Harry opened his eyes when he felt someone staring at him. He jerked in surprise as he did not see anyone familiar to him. "Good morning, Master Potter." The man said as he slid Harry's glasses into his hands. Strange. Harry could have sworn that they were broken sometime in the recent past.
"Who are you?" Harry asked. The man gave Harry an amused smirk.
"You truly do not remember that last dream you had?" He asked Harry as he moved towards the fireplace and started dishing something out from…was that a cauldron? Harry cast his thoughts back to his dream. Mask. Dumbledore. Voldemort. Chains. Something behind his eyes. Freedom. Forest. HIM. Harry's face must have shown his returned memories, for the man gave a secretive smile as he returned to Harry with a wooden bowl and a cup of something.
"You haven't answered my questions." Harry told the man when he had offered Harry the bowl and cup he carried. Harry did not take the offered food. The man placed the bowl and cup down on a small table somehow wedged between the bed and nearby wall, sat down in a chair that ran up to meet him, and considered Harry with hooded eyes.
"Who do you think I am?" He asked Harry as he propped his legs up on the bed. Harry scooted aside to make room for his legs.
"If I knew, I wouldn't have asked. I don't typically ask useless questions." Harry told him, trying to figure a way out of this crazy…cottage. The man seemed greatly amused by Harry's comment. He nodded and looked around.
"It seems like I have made the correct choice." He stood and the chair moved back into position. "Eat and then we'll get you some different clothes. I daresay that those you arrived in are too big for you now." Harry blinked as he considered what the man had said. Too big for him? He had been in his St. Jude's pajamas that actually fit him quite well. He stopped and looked down at his hands, only to freeze in shock. What…was…this? "Don't panic. I told you."
"What?" Harry squeaked. "Told me what?" He stared at his ridiculously small hands in horror. This man would be feeling some serious pain if Harry had to grow up again. He had just gotten used to his body! He wanted to be sixteen again. He was surprised to feel tears creep into his eyes. Oh, no! He could allow it with Paul, and even Aunt Petunia, but not this man! He started to fight them back, only to be surprised when the man appeared in front of his bed and gave him a light smack to the cheek. It didn't hurt, but it was enough to shock him.
"You will not suppress any emotions while you are here. You have been sabotaging yourself all these years, Master Potter. I won't have it." Harry stared after him while the man moved away. "I de-aged you, if you will accept that term?" He paused, as though searching for Harry's approval. Harry nodded and he continued. "I de-aged you so that you would not have all those blocks and barriers you had from learning magic only with a wand." The man paused, as though waiting for something. "You will stay here until you have learned all that I have to teach you."
Harry digested this information. Alright, he had another psycho man wanting to be his teacher and he was being held hostage by said man. Why couldn't his life be normal? "Who are you?" He asked as he took a deep breath to calm himself.
"You still haven't figured it out?" The man asked in astonishment as he got his own bowl of food from the cauldron. "I would have thought that you had pieced the clues together by now."
Harry stared at the man as the stranger sat down and started his own meal without further comment to Harry. What clues? What was Harry supposed to know already? Something he had heard earlier clicked in his mind. He froze and looked up at the man. "Master Bleys?"
Severus Snape pondered his bad luck as he opened the doors to the already too familiar Muggle hospital wing he had seen one too many times tonight. "What is wrong with Potter?" He demanded as he walked in. The Muggle doctor only stared at him for a brief second before turning back to his patient, his eyes on a heart monitor as though it would tell him the answer to life's most important question.
"You that specialist?" Dr. Lansky asked of Snape as he noted down Harry's heartbeat on a chart. Snape glanced at Paul with an unreadable expression before tapping the bag he carried with his wand.
"I am. What happened?" He asked as he removed his outer robe and handed it to Paul as he stepped up to the bed. If Potter was playacting, so help him…
"He stopped breathing." Snape blinked. Never mind. No playacting here. Potter wouldn't pull something like this. "I'm not sure how or why. He just stopped. Once we realized this, actually, it was Mr. Lupin over there," the doctor tossed a vague hand out from his clipboard, gesturing towards where Remus was standing, "who noticed Harry here stopped breathing." Snape nodded. "They called me and I found Paul doing CPR." Snape cringed. He wondered if Potter would ever know. "We worked on him almost a full two minutes before he started breathing on his own. He'll be lucky if he doesn't have brain damage when he wakes up. Once he started breathing again, we hooked up the oxygen and the heart monitor, just in case. His vital signs are strong but he hasn't woken up yet. Or moved. Or anything normal at all." Snape nodded. That sounded pretty normal where Potter was concerned.
"You've done well, Dr. Lansky. Go take a breather. I think we would all benefit from some coffee, if you'd be willing. I'm going to start my examination." A slight flick of the wand convinced the doctor that coffee would be the best thing for all considered, though he had no idea why the other doctor wanted rid of him. He wandered away as the other doctor relieved him of the patient's medical record. "Such an intelligent man, too." Snape said in a disappointed voice. "Oh well." He read through the reports in Potter's file, listening to the heart monitor the entire time. What had he missed? He shook his head and waved his wand at Harry. He frowned when he saw the results of the diagnostics spells. "Lupin, go contact his relatives." He told the werewolf. Remus paled, but moved off to do as he was told. Snape turned to Paul.
"Has Potter sustained any injuries lately? Especially to his head?" Paul appeared to think for a moment.
"Not that I know of." Paul said as he rubbed his eyes. "Sensei would know." Snape motioned for Paul to get a hold of the man as he turned back to Harry. He pulled out another vial of the smelling salts and started preparations. "We've already tried that." Paul told him from the corner of the room where the telephone rested.
"It won't hurt to try it again. I have found that sometimes he needs more than one treatment to respond." Snape told him.
"Sensei will be here as soon as he can, but he said that he didn't know of any injuries that Harry may have had." Snape snorted.
"That doesn't say much about Potter." Snape told the therapist. "He can keep many things to himself when he feels like it." Snape pointed his wand at Harry. "Enerverate." Potter didn't respond. Lupin returned at that moment, looking as though he had run a marathon. Petunia and Vernon Dursley trailed behind him, Petunia looking frightened and Vernon looking dazed. "Tell me you didn't take them both at once?" He demanded of Lupin. Remus sank into a chair and shook his head.
"One right after the other. Mrs. Dursley insisted." Remus said as he closed his eyes. Snape took pity on the wolf and cast a small sleeping charm on him. Remus was not awake long.
"What's wrong with Harry?" Petunia demanded as she came up next to bed. "He was fine earlier." She explained.
"We're not sure what is wrong with him, exactly." Paul told her. Snape frowned at something another spell told him. If this was what he thought it was, Potter would not be able to stay in the Muggle world. He would need treatment at Mungo's for this, if not a specialist. What had the boy gotten into this time? He turned to ask Remus for something when he realized that he had put the werewolf to sleep.
"Of all the times…" He muttered after looking at the gently snoring Remus. "Just when I need another wizard."
Draco shuddered into view beside him. "What do you need, Severus?" Vernon Dursley jumped and told his wife that he was just going to sit down on the other side of the room. Snape looked down at Draco with an unreadable expression. How had he followed him? He had used the passage…oh, Draco was not going to be happy when Snape told him.
"All of his magical belongings from his room." He told his charge. "Will you assist?" He asked of Paul. Paul only nodded and started for the hallway. "We will be speaking of this when you return, Mister Malfoy." He told the boy. Draco gave him a cheeky grin and followed Paul from the room. Snape noticed then that Petunia was giving him a look very like Molly Weasley's look when he had threatened to fail Fred and George Weasley due to their lack of application in his class. She had known he was keeping something from her (mainly that her sons were brilliant potions students, or they would have been, had they applied themselves at all). Petunia Dursley wore that look now.
"Professor Snape, I do not know how you came to be here since you left this afternoon and Harry told me that he would continue to be safe here. What is obvious is that you know something about why my s-, nephew is like this, and I would like to know why!" Vernon Dursley made an abstract noise that sounded like he was agreeing with her, but Snape couldn't be sure. Muggles had strange methods of communication between husband and wife.
"I do not wish to commit myself to an explanation before I have all the facts, Mrs. Dursley. Once I examine a few of his things, I will be able to give you a firm decision as well as how he can be best helped." He told her. His words did not have a soothing effect of any kind, not that he had intended to do so. Sympathy could only hurt in the long run. The truth was best. She pulled a chair up next to Harry's bed and took the boy's hand in her own. She whispered something to the boy and ignored Snape's presence.
"I told you I could carry it, Drake." Paul's voice said as he wrestled a large box in through the doorway. The ghostly Slytherin walked behind him, pouting the slightest bit. It looked like Draco and Paul had made friends sometime in the last five minutes. "Here are the things you requested." He told Severus. Snape dropped to a knee and hunted through the box. Lying on top was a Mini-Messenger. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at Draco. Draco pretended ignorance at the small object. He had taught the boy well. Let him feign ignorance. He would be able to surprise Draco later with his own knowledge of the object. He searched through the schoolbooks, Potter's wand, and a few boxes of wizarding sweets (his teeth would rot out eventually). Something towards the bottom of the box made him draw his wand. What was that and why did it have so many spells on it? He levitated the object, only to find that it was a book. A very old, very magical, and potentially dangerous book. He lowered it to the ground and spoke up to the others.
"Does anyone know what this is?" He demanded of the gathered group.
Paul looked it over and nodded. "That is the book Harry is studying this week. Something about wandless magic or along those lines." Snape stared at the man in shock. Wandless magic? Without a master's supervision? At sixteen? Potter truly had a death wish!
"Where did he get it?" He asked of Paul.
"Remus bought it for him." Paul said, gesturing towards the sleeping werewolf. "He said it was about the history of wandless magic. He thought it might help Harry master his skill somehow." Snape raised an eyebrow again.
"What skill?" He sneered as he lowered the book towards the ground. If Potter was lucky, then any skill he had displayed was due to the influence of the book and nothing else. If not…he hesitated to think what wandless magic could mean to Harry Potter, and those who sought to use him.
He waved his wand towards Potter and grunted to himself as his suspicions were confirmed. The boy and the book were linked. He could do nothing for Potter until either the book or Potter gave up in the fight for control. This newest development confirmed the idea Snape had had when he first examined Potter's mind and found it to be empty of any personality. Something or someone was in there with Potter, and Potter was being hidden from his own consciousness. Wonderful. "It's a repeat of his second year." Snape muttered as he stood and placed the book on the table next to the boy's bed.
"What do you mean?" Petunia asked.
Snape considered her for a minute. She was a very brave Muggle. "Your nephew, Mrs. Dursley, is currently possessed by that book. They are linked." Draco jumped. He had confessed to Snape that possession was the one thing he feared when it came to the Dark Lord. He had felt the Imperious Curse one too many times to feel secure about his own abilities. Snape glared at him before turning back to Petunia. Draco needed to get over that fear. Oh, the Muggle was still waiting. "There are many protection spells on the book at the moment. The most powerful one is Harry himself. If we try to destroy this book, we may destroy him as well." Snape explained in a quiet voice.
"So what do we do?" Petunia asked as she tried to keep calm.
"We wait." Snape told her. "He'll wake up eventually." Snape did not have to say what the other option was. Everyone seemed to know it already without needing him to articulate it.
Petunia stared down at her nephew with a worried expression. Harry would wake up, right? She glanced at Snape and the man seemed to know her question. He only shrugged. Some comfort there.
The doors banged open to reveal Sensei. "What is wrong with deshi?" he demanded. Snape motioned for Paul to explain, as it seemed that everyone in the room knew about Potter's secret. He froze when he heard the sensei's next word. "Hadrian?" He started to turn when he noticed that Potter was crying.
"I knew you were smart." Bleys said as he gave Harry a smirk worthy of Snape. "You figured it out. Now, you need to eat and then we can talk. Nothing until you eat." Harry stared at the man.
"How do I know I can trust you?" Harry demanded as he fought his way down from the ridiculously high bed. Really, couldn't he re-gain his normal size? This small thing was getting annoying.
"You don't. Not really. We are in your mind, after all. Figure it out." Bleys settled down at a desk and proceeded to ignore Harry. Harry stared after the man in shock. First, he has nightmares, and now one of his nightmares comes true! Someone owed him big! His stomach kicked him again. Well, there was food and Bleys was not suffering any ill effects from his own cooking. Harry tried it and found it quite good, whatever it was. He figured it was a stew of some type. Fish? No, it wasn't possible. It tasted too good. Bleys waved a hand after Harry had finished and the bowl and cup disappeared. "I suppose you would like to get cleaned up now?" He asked Harry as a door appeared. "There we are." He motioned Harry to enter the room.
Harry peeped in and found a modern looking bathroom prepared for him. He gave a mental cheer for his subconscious. He could have a hot bath. "I'll leave you to it. Clothes will be waiting for you when you are finished." Bleys started to close the door, but paused and smiled at Harry. "Try not to think too much." He told the boy. "It'll confuse you. Allow me some time to explain." Harry nodded and motioned for Bleys to close the door. Harry took care of some urgent business, climbed into the bath immediately after removing his now ridiculously large clothing, and cleared his mind. He had questions, yes, but they could wait. It didn't look like he was going anywhere anytime soon. Bleys had de-aged him to teach him wandless magic. That much, he understood. But, how old was he, exactly?
Bleys carted him around like Harry weighed nothing. He had lifted him effortlessly before. Harry tried to remember when his hands had last looked this small. Eight? Nine? He had no idea. He sank beneath the water to wet his hair and started washing it. He wondered if he could somehow find hair gel to tame it until he figured out how to get out of his own mind. It felt different, though he couldn't decide how it was different. He ducked under the water to rinse his hair and shook the water out of his eyes. He was surprised to find bubbles now in his bathtub. The water must have been charmed hot, for he lingered a long while before deciding that he should get out. The water was still just as warm as when he started.
The clothes Bleys had promised were sitting on a low stool, though he was not sure when they had appeared. Everything looked like the robes Bleys wore. There was a pair of soft linen pants that stayed on through the method of drawstring, a loose shirt (he tucked it into the pants because loose clothing made him feel sloppy) and a heavy outer robe. Soft leather boots completed the look, though the boots were as comfortable as trainers. Harry decided that his hair was a lost cause. He left the bathroom and reentered the one room cottage. "Ah. Much better." Bleys said as he stood up to greet Harry. "Now, we can talk. What questions do you have for me?"
Harry climbed into a chair and faced Bleys. This wizard better have some really good explanations, because Harry was fed up with everyone else trying to run his life. If he missed the Halloween dance because of this, he was going to show everyone around him what it meant to be a moody teenager. If he missed the play, well, Bleys might not survive. "I understand that you are Bleys and that you're here to teach me something." Bleys nodded in a sage way and smiled. What was with all the smiles? "What I don't understand is how you are here. You died, well, a very long time ago. You should be dust." Bleys let out a loud bark of laughter at Harry's statement.
"You're right, Master Potter. I should be dust. I am dust, in a sense." Bleys told him as he poured boiling water into cups. "I believe that you had an adventure concerning a book with a mind of its own." Harry nodded. He had done something of the sort in his second year. "I am a memory left behind in a book. This is a little complicated, so try not to interrupt until I finish explaining." Harry motioned for him to continue.
"It was right after my third student, Zendal, when I noticed that I was getting old. My students were off making accomplishments of their own. No one needed a sorcerer anymore, not since Merlin popularized the use of wands and staffs. I used Sight to find those who would need my art eventually. It took a long while. I found you, and a few others, far ahead into the future. There was no way I could bring you to me, and no way could I travel to you. I created my book and sealed a piece of my soul into it, so that you, and various others throughout your history, would be able to learn wandless magic with a guide." Bleys stopped his narrative and gestured for Harry to ask his question.
"There are others?" Harry asked. "Others who can do wandless magic?" Harry hoped to hear about others who had his uncontrollable talents.
"None as powerful as you." Well, darn. Harry Potter couldn't be normal even among the abnormal. He wanted to cry again, but turned his attention back to Bleys. "They can do a few parlor tricks. Light a candle, float a feather. You, however, are different." Bleys told him with a large smile. "You are an enigma."
"Story of my life." Harry muttered to himself. He hated his life. Except when he was acting. Or drawing. Or working with Sensei. Or watching Star Wars. Okay, so maybe it wasn't entirely bad, but it was not perfect, or normal in any sense of the word. He felt the need for mint chocolate chip ice cream with Sensei. And cake. It must be a kid thing, because he had a craving for anything sweet.
"Yes. An enigma. You are not even fully mature and already such a handle of magic. You have instinct, and that is sometimes more important than anything else." Bleys stood and handed Harry a cup of hot water. Oh, it was tea. Better than nothing, Harry supposed. He took a sip and sighed. It was mint tea.
"I don't want to be different." Harry told him. Harry's mentality was telling him that different was the worst thing he could be. "If you could just restore me to consciousness and leave me alone, I'd be grateful. I'm sure Paul is worried about me." Harry told the eccentric wizard. Harry stopped at that point. Paul went frantic over a spaghetti shortage. He hated to think what the man was doing now.
"You should accept what you are. You'll be much happier that way." Bleys said as he fed the owl he kept in the corner. Harry rolled his eyes and dropped to his feet. He hated being short.
"Yes, well. That's a nice sentiment, but I'm ready to return to my own mind, thank you." Harry told Bleys in a tone that would not allow argument. He did not receive an argument. He received an ultimatum.
Bleys turned to Harry with an odd look. "The boy truly doesn't understand." He whispered to himself. Harry gave him an odd look. "You do not understand why I am here."
"No." Harry told him. "I don't." Bleys looked him over with a concerned look.
"Wandless magic cannot be performed by just anyone, Master Potter." Bleys's voice dropped to a menacing whisper as he edged closer to Harry. "It is not like other magic. This magic can destroy you." Oh, dear. "It can be slow, leeching out your life force, or it can be as quick as lightning." Bleys snapped his fingers to illustrate his point. "You do not realize how volatile this magic is, or how close you came to being ruined."
Harry was not sure if it was the words themselves, or the way Bleys said them, but he found that he was shaking the slightest bit. "You have no choice now, Master Potter. You need me far more than you can know, just to ensure your survival. The doors you have opened will continue to drain you until nothing is left." Harry stared at Bleys, unwilling to listen further, but unable to stop. "You can no longer afford to pretend that everything will work out without taking some kind of steps to guarantee your survival. Without those steps, you sacrifice yourself…and those who care about you." The faces of his friends swam up before Harry. He grabbed onto the chair and held onto it as an anchor. "You need my training more than anything else right now. I've taken away every obstacle towards wandless magic. Your body, at five years old, is young enough to adapt to any physical changes that may happen. Your mind is flexible enough inside itself. The only obstacle left…is you. The Boy Who Lived." Bleys dropped to a knee in front of Harry so that he could meet the boy's eyes. "I will tear your mask apart, only to rebuild you, and not the mask, to such vitality that it will be palpable in the air around you." Bleys took hold of Harry's shoulders and held him at arms' length. "You will be powerful, more so than you could ever hope to imagine. Voldemort himself will fear you." Harry shook harder at the words. He didn't want it. He didn't want any of it.
Bleys must have known how much his words had scared Harry, for he gathered the boy in his arms and held him. Harry did not protest. He would have preferred Paul, or Aunt Petunia, since he had broken down in her arms, but this was better than nothing. "That is why you are here. Your power would have come upon you eventually, at full strength, and most likely during a time of great distress." Harry's fogged mind flashed back to the odd moments in Paul's office where he could see his own breath. Was that was Bleys meant? "It could have destroyed you, my child. I am here to help you." Why did Bleys seem so familiar? It felt like Paul was holding him. Bleys moved a hand in small circles on Harry's back, relaxing the boy to his tears. "It will be alright, child."
Harry shook his head in a determined fashion. "I don't want it." He whispered through his tears. "I don't want to be powerful." He told Bleys angrily. "I just want to be normal." Bleys settled on a couch-like object that would have made Aunt Petunia cringe. Bleys seemed to prefer function over fashion. He held Harry close to him and Harry felt calming waves surround him. That was…nice. He didn't want it to stop.
"I know. I know it's frightening." Bleys whispered to him in a soothing voice. "Merlin was the same way, you know." He told Harry with a conspiratorial air.
Harry took a deep breath to calm his tears (where had they come from, anyway?) and looked up at Bleys in a way that only five year olds can manage. "Really?" He asked.
Bleys reminded himself that wizards in Harry's day and age practically worshipped his former student. This could work. He nodded and gave a smile. "Oh, yes. I found him at a very young age, a little younger than you are now. He was a good student, attentive and inquisitive, and was like a son to me. His first display of wandless magic so frightened him that he refused to leave the house. He hid under that bed," he gestured towards the bed in which Harry had woken, "and refused to come out, even for meals. He begged me to just take it all away, to make him normal, just Merlin." Bleys paused for a moment. "If I had the power, I would have. Unfortunately, that is one of the few things denied to me." He told the boy who had settled on his lap.
"Just Merlin?" Harry asked as he wrapped his robe around himself.
"Just Merlin." Bleys agreed. "You and he are a lot alike." Bleys wrapped an arm around Harry and brought the young body to rest against him. Harry did not protest and relaxed against him. "You look the same. You're both adorable when you're young." Harry scowled. Bleys pretended not to notice. "You both want to be normal, only to have something great thrust upon you without a by your leave." Bleys smiled and Harry noticed that the skin around his eyes wrinkled just the slightest bit. "Are you feeling better now, Master Potter?" He asked.
"Please, just call me Harry." Harry told Bleys as he toyed with the edge of his robe. Bleys smiled crinkled his eyes again.
"If you will call me Bleys." Harry nodded as Bleys patted his back. Harry realized then that he was still sitting on the man's lap and that Bleys was treating him as a child of the age to which he had been regressed, but he found that he couldn't care. It felt good, this camaraderie he felt with someone who understood his powers and accepted them. For the first time since discovering these powers, he was unafraid of what they would bring. He had help now.
Author's Note: Okay guys. There it is. I'm off to work on homework. Good news! I got a 94 on my German test!