My Continuation of: I'm Still Here

by Sulain

This is a continuation of the story I'm Still Here by Kathryn518. The pitch is: The war with Voldemort continued until he left that earth to another dimension, one where there is a female version of him, and he accidentally took Harry with him. He went back to Hogwarts and started working against Voldemort, with new allies, new responsibilities, and new and more dangerous enemies.

5. Chapter 5

I do not own Harry Potter

III

Chapter 5

Harry sidestepped an expelliarmus, then ducked a stupefy. He was visiting Regulus in the Chamber of Secrets the evening after their first meeting with James and Sirius, and he'd decided to have an impromptu training session with Regulus and Draco while he was down there. He was able to incorporate Regulus into it since he had gotten well enough after his stay in Azkaban to spar most days. Of course, Harry had required a loyalty oath like Draco's before he gave his wand to him.

Currently, Harry was just facing Draco, who was working on his accuracy. He and Harry were about five meters from each other, and Harry was waiting for Draco to get a hit on him. He was armed but wasn't firing. It was much more difficult for Draco to get a hit against Harry than against anyone else, since a side effect of him overusing magic, other than his potion resistance, was to make him feel when magic was about to hit him. Because of that, they had been going for a full minute without any connections by Draco. Harry was close to simply hitting him with a stupefy and having him practice against Regulus instead. Then Draco started another stunning spell, and Harry dodged out of instinct, realizing too late that he didn't feel the surge of magic that signalled an actual attack. As soon as he had committed to the dodge, Draco restarted the spell, using the tiny window of time while Harry was in a bad position to hit him with a stupefy dead center in the chest.

Harry woke up to see Draco smiling down at him. "Finally!" Draco said while he helped Harry up. "I've found your weakness!" Harry was truly happy to see Draco improving, and was almost as happy to see that he wasn't trying to rub it in that Harry had finally gotten bamboozled in one of their training sessions. The old Draco wouldn't have let it go for weeks.

"That was a great move Draco, did you come up with it just now, or have you been waiting to use it for a while?"

"Came up with it in the moment, I wanted to see if I could trick you, even with your unfair advantage."

"I'll have to remember that in the future. You were also way more accurate than usual too, you're getting way better. Hey, I'm going to go look at the spyholes here for when you meet Lucius." Draco beamed at the complements, and went to face Regulus, who was almost completely recovered from his stay in Azkaban, courtesy of a few vials of Nicholas Flamel's Elixir of Life. It didn't, as many people supposed, bring one eternal youth. Instead, it optimized a person's health. So it was that Regulus looked healthier after about a month and a half out of Azkaban than Sirius had looked after years out of the place.

They didn't know when Lucius was coming to see Draco, which made it important for Harry to find everywhere Harry could eavesdrop on their conversation soon. The Chamber of Secrets, as Harry had found out, possessed a lot of places where someone who spoke parseltongue could look out at various places in the school and both see and hear what was happening on the other side, with no chance of detection. The other sides of the Windows, as Harry called them, took the forms of small metal snakes high up and hard to see without knowing where to look, and people on that side weren't able to hear what was happening in the Chamber. Not only were people with knowledge of parseltongue able to hear and see what other people were doing almost anywhere in the castle, they were able to teleport between both sides at will. There were Windows almost everywhere except the Room of Requirement, even the headmaster's office. Harry had decided to go down to the Chamber when the Malfoy's met and spy on them, not because he didn't trust Draco, but mostly because he knew more and was more important than he was. He would also bring one of the aurors into it, if he could find them fast enough. He memorized the locations of as many rooms as then walked back to Regulus and Draco.

On his way, he realized something. If Hogwarts was ever attacked, there would be no better place to direct its defense than right in that room. Here, a person could direct and watch the entire defense of the castle, and could move troops through it instantly. After all, people didn't need to know more than a few words of parseltongue to be able to use the windows, and the old Ron had learned a few words of it purely from hearing Harry say it while he was sleeping, though he had needed a bit of coaching on how to properly pronounce stuff, not to mention what it actually meant. A few months before he died, Ron had even secretly learned enough to have a few conversations in it, just to make Hermione think that he and Harry were having incredible secret planning sessions when they were actually talking about the weather. The ruse had only lasted a few minutes, since both of them soon burst out laughing at Hermione's initial confusion, then misguided guess that they were discussing things so secret they couldn't even say them in English for fear that they might be watched. Hermione had responded to their completely overdone hand gestures to be quiet and stay low by starting to nod knowingly along with what they said. By that point, it was too much for Ron, and once he started laughed, Harry had joined in, forgetting the horrors he had seen for a few moments using any means available. It was one of the last times he had laughed.

Harry wiped away a tear and pulled out a piece of parchment that he wrote his to-do list on. Underneath the entries labeled 'Memorize rooms in preparation for Draco/lucius talk when visiting Regulus' and 'Try to figure out way to get Cedric trained with Flitwick', he wrote 'Make plans to defend Hogwarts in case of attack.' He didn't think Voldemort would be bold enough to attack Hogwarts for years, but Harry's track record predicting Voldemort's actions was disturbingly bad recently, and he wouldn't risk it. He'd have to make plans for how much the general Hogwarts population knew about him, how much they knew about and used the Chamber, how much foreknowledge of the attack they had... Harry didn't want to think about it more right then, so he crossed out the entry about memorizing the locations of rooms and put away his paper in his warded pouch. If anyone tried to open it without his consent, it would incinerate itself and the contents of the pouch, with a further intent based ward to hurt anyone who had the intent of harming Harry. The loss of the paper wouldn't even hurt him much, since every night he spent some time writing down and rearranging any new entries according to different factors that ranged from the time they were put in to the length of time Harry thought it would take them to finish them. It had grown quite long, and there were few entries as short as the one he'd just finished.

Harry decided to watch Draco and Regulus for a few minutes, then help Regulus with occlumency, then return with Draco to go eat dinner. Regulus had ample supplies down there, and he usually spent his days reading. Draco and Regulus were almost equal at combat, which made it possible for them to improve from fighting each other. Regulus would have been the better duelist, but he was far too out of practice and out of shape for that, and while he was getting back to his old level far more quickly than he would've been able to normally, Draco was keeping up with him because he was dueling more often. Harry gave what tips he could to both of them between rounds, but mostly left them on their own to build up accuracy and muscle memory.

After that, Harry taught Regulus occlumency for thirty minutes, trying to improve his awful legilimency shields. His ridiculously poor occlumency was actually the reason why he couldn't have even tried to argue his case back when he was tried for serving Voldemort. He'd been forced to kill someone who had used legilimency on him because he was so terrible at hiding his thoughts, and at his trial he wouldn't even meet anyone's eyes because he knew that if he did, and if that person had used legilimency on him, people would realize what Voldemort had done to keep himself alive, and he would've been killed almost immediately. Even if he had told anyone privately, it would've gotten back to Voldemort's supporters eventually, and he would've been killed.

Of course, none of that justified spending a dozen years in the worst place on earth. A dozen years! Harry didn't even know if he should be amused by the idiocy displayed everywhere in the wizarding world, but he found it hilarious. The fool had actually spent twelve years in Azkaban because he was too lazy as a kid to learn how to raise an occlumency shield. That was just what happened when a society with magic decided that things like logic, mathematics and science were things for lesser mortals.

By the end of the lesson, Regulus had made some great progress. He was definitely getting closer to not being absolutely garbage at occlumency, but he still had months to go before Harry trusted him to have his mind invaded by a decent legilimens without him giving up valuable information. In other news, Regulus was still mad at how dismissive Harry was about the wizarding world, and how many times Harry had called him an idiot, in as many ways as Harry had been able to think of. Harry knew that he would regret insulting him so much in the future, but in the present, he couldn't help it. He had spent so long getting hurt by others and being miserable that he didn't care about preserving the feelings of a professed blood supremacist, no matter if he had ended up on the right side of the conflict.

Eventually, Draco reminded him that it was almost dinner, and the two left, passing the baby basilisk they had discovered inside the Chamber, and Harry again reminded the thing to not attack any humans. It was starting to get that humans weren't food, and it hadn't killed Regulus despite having the ability to, which made Harry happy, but no amount of seeing the monster could make him forget that it was just a ten foot long version of the basilisk that Harry had killed. Once they went to Myrtle's bathroom they started going over what had happened, keeping their voices low and watching for people. "That went well, I think. You're getting better. I'll have to watch out for that fake out move next time."

"Thanks, now I just have to beat you more than once, and maybe one day I'll be able to train with Professor Flitwick like you and Fleur. Say, your session with Regulus went well too, he might know enough not to be an embarrassment someday. Honestly, not learning such a basic skill as a child. I know for a fact that his family tried to teach him."

"What are your thoughts on Regulus, as a person? You've probably spent more time with him than I."

Draco's answer was long in coming. "I don't know, Harry. He's intelligent enough, and he's certainly got more patience than I do, since he can put up with you insulting him as well as he does, but I still don't know as much about him as I'd want to. He has a completely different way of thinking about things than most people, I think. He is at least different from most death eaters in that he doesn't want power above all else. The only other death eater that I know of that wasn't in it completely for the power was Bellatrix, and Regulus isn't absolutely bonkers mad like she is."

"He tried to teach the baby basilisk how to understand English."

"And even you admitted that it wouldn't have been out of character for Sirius Black to do, if he was bored enough. But the point is that you know just as much as I do that Regulus isn't crazy like Bellatrix is. I think he did care about the power when he joined, but he still doesn't seem to want power just to have it."

"He certainly doesn't fit the normal mold for a death eater. I still have trouble seeing anything other than Sirius, then I hear him talk about halfbloods, magical creatures, and anyone that isn't a pureblood human, and I can't do anything other than hate him, because I see so much of Sirius in him, but so much of it is warped in the worst way possible." It felt strange complaining about someone's anti-muggleborn beliefs to Draco Malfoy, but he simply nodded and looked understanding.

"You want me to talk to him sometime, and figure out what makes him tick?"

"Thanks, that'll be great actually. I'll have to teach you enough Parseltongue to get you in and out of the Chamber yourself, and I'll have to ask Daphne to make you a Marauder's Map, but I'd feel far more comfortable here if I knew how his mind worked."

They started seeing other people close to them, so Harry cut the talk of sensitive information short. "Say, Malfoy, what happened to Crabbe and Goyle? They used to follow us everywhere, but I've hardly seen them the last two days."

Draco stifled some laughter and leaned close to Harry to speak quietly. "I finally realized how everyone else looked at them, and what everyone thought when they saw me needing to be watched over by two bodyguards. I told them that we'd have to start doing things the Slytherin way, with cunning, you know? Anyway, I told them to research some things for me in the library, I told Crabbe to research the Flamel house history and theories on the philosopher's stone, and I told Goyle to research the effects several dark lords had on the world."

"Good idea Draco, I'm sure they'll find lots of picture books to help them with that. I hear they write lots of those thick flipbooks with ten pages or so that deal with Flamel family history from centuries ago, and the one on Grindelwald was a particular favorite of mine as a two year old."

Draco laughed, but felt like he had to set the record straight on them. "Come on Flamel, how do you think they got as far as they did - here or there - if you don't think they're smart enough to be able to move both arms at the same time? They aren't the brightest stars in the sky, but they can do that much, and it will keep them out of our hair while not getting Lucius angry at me for not using them."

"Fair enough," Harry sighed. "Continue on. Try to get them to focus on stuff that will actually help us somehow." They were now at the Great Hall, and they sat down to have a large meal after the workout they'd had. Like every meal at Hogwarts, the food was incredible, but Harry's mood had faded into his normal state, equal parts depressed, quietly suspicious of everyone around him, and preoccupied with thoughts of Voldemort. He didn't talk to anyone during the meal, except to speak with a few mid year Slytherins inquiring about his fighting class, to which he replied that he was just meeting a few people to talk about it, and then he would have to talk to the professors get their approval.

He had a meeting set up for lunchtime the next day, and had arranged to talk to a few prefects of each house, Fleur Delacour and one person of her choice from Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum and one person of his choice from Durmstrang, all of the Quidditch captains that wanted to come, Tonks, and Fred and George Weasley. He probably shouldn't have invited the twins, but he did need to start getting to know them on this side, considering their skills. Plus, if he started working with them a lot, he might get introduced to the other Weasleys, including Ron. Ron had always hated all Slytherins on Harry's side, with generally good reasons. This one was the same, perhaps even more hateful than the other one. In the original world, Harry and Hermione had been much calmer and more relaxed than he had been, but in this world, Iris and Hermione were both in Ravenclaw, and he'd never seen the three of them together. The few times Harry had seen this Ron, he'd been as hostile to him as he was to Draco, and it hadn't seemed to change even after Harry had killed the dementors.

He was just about to stand up and go to talk to him, ignoring that Ares Flamel would have no interest in some random Gryffindor that seemed to hate him, but before he did, he saw Lucius Malfoy stride into the room, talking to Professor Snape. Harry let his gaze wander, then dealt a bit of extra dessert onto his plate and ate it, not looking at Lucius and trying to look like he wasn't up to anything. After he finished, he looked and saw that Daphne was in the same place she'd been at the start of the meal, which was around forty places down from him and sitting beside a gaggle of her friends. There was no way to alert her surreptitiously and then go talk to Lucius, unless... He nudged Draco and nodded toward his father. "Lucius is here. I've got to alert Daphne that she needs to get someone." He held up a bit of space parchment crumpled into a ball, and pointed at Daphne, who was almost indistinguishable from everyone else, considering that she was about forty feet away and was on the same side of the table he was on. "Wanna bet if I can make the shot from here?"

"You've got more of my family's money than I do, plus I know you're going to make it somehow, just throw it already."

"You're really no fun, Malfoy." Harry turned around to get more room, tossed the parchment into the air, and then hit it with a banishing charm. The charm was a very difficult one to get exactly right, since he had to get the direction and the power both exactly correct if he wanted to make the shot. He got it wrong however, and it went past her shoulder and onto the table. About half a dozen heads immediately turned to see who had thrown it. Harry nodded to Daphne, who mimicked his exaggerated nod. Everyone else kept looking at him in confusion, but he ignored them.

"Nice shot Flamel, for a banishing charm, even if it was probably the first time I've seen you fail at magic this year."

"Thanks Draco, and see, you would've gotten your own gold back after all."

"Okay, Lucius is coming over, please Ares, don't act like you are about to kill him."

"But I am."

Draco didn't seem to be entirely sure if that was a joke. "Just don't act like..." Draco paused, trying to think of a way to say that Harry shouldn't act like Harry Potter, but thankfully he was getting better at not saying extremely incriminating things, so he had stopped himself.

"I understand, and I'll try to be less overt than usual this time." Harry saw Daphne leaving the Great Hall, so he knew he couldn't spend much time meeting Lucius before he needed to go bring whichever auror was going down into the Chamber there. Harry was still currently not looking at Lucius, but he could tell that he was coming towards them. Snape had just left, going back to his customary place by the head table, sitting near Karkaroff, who Harry had decided to let live for the time being. His betrayal of Voldemort meant that he would rather join Dumbledore than to ever have anything to do under Voldemort ever again, and his fear of him might make him an effective servant, if he was convinced the right way. Still, that was a subject for another time. Harry met Lucius Malfoy's eyes, trying to conceal the hate he felt for the man as he nonchalantly looked at Draco and asked "Is this your father, Draco?" Harry was pretty sure that that wouldn't be suspicious, since Ares Flamel was supposed to have been a sheltered child, and he might not instantly recognize one of Britain's most infamous wizards.

"Yes, I am his father." Harry needed to hear Lucius' voice only once to remind him another reason to hate him. He spoke in the unbearable aristocratic drawl of the family, and it was worse than even Draco's had been. Lucius ignored his son almost completely, instead focusing on Harry. "And you must be the great Ares Flamel. I have to thank you many times over, I say, for your services to this school. Tell me, are you well, after your destruction of the dementors?"

The death eater's eyes flicked up, just for a tiny second, to Harry's forehead, right where Iris' scar was on her face, and where his scar was, though it was hidden by a focused glamour spell that Perenelle had shown him that just covered the scar. That was all the confirmation that Harry needed to tell him that his Voldemort, however he had manifested on this world, had made contact with his old death eaters, and had told them about Harry. Even with the scar hidden, Voldemort would not believe for a second that Harry was actually the son of Nicholas Flamel, not if he was willing to give a description of him to the death eaters. But hey, that would explain why someone who wasn't trying to be given something would spend time near Draco Malfoy of all people, and it would remove his responsibility to be polite to Lucius. He decided that he should take a risk exposing that he knew they knew about him in order to try to get more information, he just didn't know how to go about it yet.

"I am Ares Flamel, and yes, I am feeling completely well now. I understand you also went through a lot that day after my work destroying the dementors, was your work worth your service?"

Lucius flashed him a sickening smile that confirmed in Harry's mind that he had taken part in the disaster in Azkaban, then affected a confused look. "On the contrary, my dear lad, there was very little for me to go through on Saturday. I must say that I was in my estate, meeting long lost relations from a distant land. However, I hope to be there next time you go through something like that again, to help you along in your incredible journey."

Harry stepped closer to the taller man. "We can do that anytime you want, Lucius, just step out of line one more time, and I'll be the last thing you see." Harry met his eyes until he broke the eye contact, then let out a breath and realized that his face was red and his wand was in his hand. Harry put it back, slightly embarrassed at his loss of control in the face of his enemy. Looking around, quite a few people, including Snape, Professor Flitwick, and Dumbledore were looking at him, though his and Lucius' conversation was quiet enough that no one else heard it, though Lucius had seemed to be speaking so that Harry wouldn't be able to have a memory of Lucius admitting to something incriminating.

Lucius' perfect composure returned in a moment. "I must beg your leave now Mr. Flamel, as I must speak to my son in private. Come along Draco, we have business to attend to."

Harry turned to go the opposite way, feeling in his pocket for the Marauder's Map. He needed to get to the Chamber immediately, but at least he could flame there. Flaming was one of the abilities that he had unknowingly received when he had been through the magical stress of the extremely powerful magical poison of the Basilisk, Phoenix tears directly afterwards, and soul magic multiple times in his life. He left the hall and went until he found a secluded enough place to look at the Map, verifying that the way was clear, with no one but him and Sirius Black either near him or near Myrtle's bathroom.

He flamed, going to right beside Sirius, who had been looking at one of Daphne's Maps. He jumped when Harry flamed to him, but recovered quickly. "That was flaming? It's much showier than I remembered, it looks kind of scary really, and being able to go through anti apparition wards must make Voldemort really happy."

Harry started moving towards the entrance to the Chamber. "You saw me flame away from you all at the world cup after I fought off the death eaters, you saw what I can do."

"Yes, and all of us thought that you made a flash of light to confuse us, then walked out of the area. And you said that flaming is easier than apparating?"

"Unless I bring another person with me, it's nearly effortless, but its a huge pain to bring anyone else with me. I fell unconscious after bringing your brother here and I had to get woken up by Draco Malfoy and your demented house elf, but that required me to flame with him multiple times without rest. Do you want to see it?"

"Yes please, that looks like a drop and I wouldn't want to mess-." Harry grabbed his arm and flamed down to one of the side chambers of the Chamber of Secrets, one that would be far away from Regulus. He didn't want that set of problems to pop up quite yet. Sirius made a squeak of surprise that Harry found quite hilarious. "What was that for, you git? You did that on purpose, didn't you."

"That, that was for last year. Wait, actually, it would've been two years ago here."

"What did I do to you?"

Harry answered while he looked at the Map to see where the Malfoy's were going. "In my world, when you were trying to save me from Peter Pettigrew, you had me and my two best friends trapped, and you were being a major drama queen saying stuff like 'only one person will die tonight' instead of just saying you wanted to kill the rat."

"That wasn't me!"

"No, but I really wanted to mess with you, and that was the first excuse that came to mind. You were actually one of the only adults I really respected. Come on, I think I know where they're going."

Sirius followed him until they saw the dots of the Malfoys stop in a room, which Harry immediately started spying on as soon as he remembered the proper place. He arrived soon enough to see Lucius finish putting up wards against eavesdropping. They were extremely advanced ones, and there were even a few there that Harry hadn't known, courtesy of Malfoy family secrets. He immediately wrote them down in his notebook, and thanked Salizar Slytherin for being a creep and putting in spy holes in almost every room in the castle.

"Father, what is this? Why are you putting up so many wards?"

"Do you really have no clue what you are dealing with, fool child? Do you have any clue what 'Ares Flamel' would do to both of us if he could get away with it?"

Draco did his best at pretending that he didn't know what Lucius was talking about better than he did. "What are you talking about, father? I know that Ares is dangerous, I saw him fighting the dementors before you broke the prisoners from Azkaban, and I saw him fighting Barty Crouch's son. I know that he would hurt us if he knew that we serve the Dark Lord, but I'm tricking him and making him my friend."

"That wasn't half bad from the kid," said Sirius grudgingly. "He might someday make a good liar." He wasn't wrong, Draco was lying well enough to not yet raise any questions with Lucius, and seemed to be subtly gaining confidence in the conversation now that he hadn't immediately been found out. That was better than what Harry had been expecting. Draco had almost never lied after all. He had always been honest about how much of a pain he was.

"You have no idea what you are dealing with. He came from another world, one that he himself destroyed!" Lucius advanced toward his son, tapping him with his cane for effect and staring with almost crazed eyes.

Draco stumbled back. "What?"

In his perch looking down on them, Harry looked on with a heavy heart as he realized what exactly Voldemort had done. He had given his followers a better reason to fight than for riches. He had surely told them that Harry had started the war, knowing that it was a situation where he was guaranteed to not lose. Sure, many of the more skeptical death eaters would not believe it, probably including Lucius, but he already had their support with the promise of power. If he told the world that story, however, its believability aided by Harry's incredible powers and possibly a second Voldemort, he could bring in parts of the population that could never justify joining him beforehand.

To them, outright terrorizing the population with lunatics like Bellatrix for the promise of power would be abhorrent, not to mention dangerous. But if they could tell themselves and the rest of the world that they were freedom fighters trying to get a better future... Well, that work deserved pay, and sometimes it took associating with unsavory characters to save the world. Surely the history books would exonerate them. That is what those people would tell themselves, at least. Of course, a chance to kill Dolores Umbridge might be a welcome change. In Harry's old world, she had never been a death eater; she had died in Voldemort's first attack on the ministry, merely collateral damage in an all consuming war, yet now she may very well become one officially. The chance to exact vengeance on Umbridge, if she did become a death eater, was an enticing one, but every time Voldemort got more powerful hurt deeply.

Lucius filled Draco in on what he had learned. "It is true, every word of it, perhaps. The Dark Lord from that world told me himself that the man that bears the name Ares Flamel started a war at the head of his blood traitor and mudblood followers. They even summoned demons to their side, and forced our side to do the same, just to survive. What I am certain is true is that Ares Flamel's true name is Harry Potter, and that he is a magical Lord. The Lord Voldemort from that side says that he was the only person in the world that could go head to head with him, but when he was about to defeat Potter, Potter found a ritual to go to another world, this one. The Dark Lord followed him to this world, trusting in his servants there to defeat the last vestiges of the mudblood and blood traitor hordes and establish a perfect order, though Potter left a world that was almost dead. Even the muggles were greatly harmed by the war between their betters."

"So... the Dark Lord is back to destroy the Potter family and to save our world?"

"Yes, my son, that is what we must think." Lucius seemed to be attempting to be fatherly, and by the sound of it, it was for the very first time. "Not just that, but our old master was never killed by this world's Potters, and he is going to be reborn soon. He now knows of the magic that was used to kill him, and this time, he will not be stopped by any machinations of that thrice cursed family. "

"That, that's wonderful news father. Was the Dark Lord the one that led you into Azkaban?"

"He was the one that had us watching Azkaban almost always, he was the one that told us how to destroy the ministry's feeble prison, he was the one that called us together the day Potter killed the dementors, and he was the one that led us that day."

"But how did you get so many of us there so quickly?"

"Because the universe favored our cause, and made Harry Potter draw the dementors out while we were in a meeting, with Azkaban being watched, and the aurors that were at Azkaban were too focused on trying to fix everything themselves to call their compatriots until it was too late. The dark lord apparated just outside of the wards, out of sight of those watching, and broke the necessary ones, which were all weakened by the dementors leaving. That allowed us to get into multiple places in Azkaban before we were noticed. "

"But how did you get everyone out so quickly?"

"We only had around twenty minutes inside the prison, but there were few prisoners inside, only about a hundred fifty people, and we knew from the plans we were given where they were. We were hindered by the fact that all of the prisoners wands were gone for some reason that even the warden didn't seem to know, but that was a small problem, and one that we are fixing quickly."

"I see, father. What are you doing now?"

"I won't tell you, since you are so close to Potter. He would torture you for the information without a second thought, and then he would have information that would help him get closer to destroying the world again. Now, tell me everything you have seen of him, every word and action that could help us."

On the other side of the Window, Harry asked Sirius "Do you think he's lying about what happened in the Azkaban breakout?"

Sirius had to think for a bit, but ultimately was confident in his answer. "I think he was telling the truth, everything seems to match what we aurors saw and heard, including that the fools that were guarding the place decided to try and stop any escape attempts first and call for backup later, probably because they thought that if there were any escape attempts, reinforcements wouldn't get there soon enough, but they all died, so we don't know for certain. Amelia got really mad about that."

They listened in silence to Draco's semi-truthful version of events, but eventually Sirius got bored and asked "Is my brother in here?"

"Yes, he's in another part of the Chamber, but he must not have heard us enter, since flaming makes very little noise. Do you want to talk to him? The basilisk has specific orders to not kill or eat anything except what I bring it, so it won't be dangerous."

Sirius shook his head. "Not yet, but afterwards, yes. I want to listen to them until they are done, but then I will."

"What is it like, being about to meet him again?"

Sirius sat down against the rock wall of the side chamber they were in, and Harry mimicked him, sitting down on the other side of the Window. They both ignored it, tuning out Draco's lies about whether or not he'd told Harry anything about the Malfoy's involvement with death eaters. "I don't know, Harry. I've hated him for years, I thought that he was so proud that he'd become one of Voldemort's lackeys that he was willing to go to Azkaban for it, and it's hard to know what to think of him now. How should I treat him, especially since he still thinks of muggles as subhuman and muggleborns as mudbloods?"

"I wish I could help you out Sirius, but I can't. Are you sure you want to meet him today? We don't have to if you don't want to yet."

"No, I don't think I should do it, it feels too cowardly, but thank you." They sat there for a while with the only talking between them being when Harry needed to reopen the Window. After a while, Sirius started trying to learn the parseltongue word for 'open' and was even able to open the Window once. Nevertheless, both instantly forgot what they had been doing when Lucius, who'd asked all the questions he wanted, finally got around to wrapping it up.

"Draco, you did well telling me all of this. I shall start coming here more often to keep an eye on him. Continue as you have, and remember, if you mess up and are harmed doing so, I may not be able to protect you. But you are old enough now for this responsibility, and the Dark Lord expects you to succeed in it. In particular, find out if he has a way to defeat veritaserum, but use a grain of intelligence about it." Lucius continued with a few minutes of catching up with Draco, then left with the excuse that he had work to do.

After Lucius left, Draco went back to his room in Slytherin, and Harry and Sirius made some half hearted attempts to make small talk, but both had bigger distractions on their minds. Sirius was preoccupied with thoughts of Regulus, and Harry with brooding about Voldemort. Sirius was the first to give up the small talk, instead leaving to speak to his brother. He walked out with trepidation after getting a promise from Harry to bring him out in an hour or so. Harry stayed there to think.

Harry should have gotten ahead of Voldemort with his destruction of the dementors, and he probably had, but to Harry it felt like Voldemort had predicted his moves and countered them from the moment Harry had shown his skill against Barty Crouch and Bellatrix. That must have been when Voldemort realized that Harry had followed him to this world. Since then, Voldemort had set Iris up for the Tournament of Champions, gained back all of his followers, and came up with a story that would probably bring even more followers to him. Maybe they didn't happen because Harry had failed, but that didn't change the fact that he should have been better. Voldemort definitely seemed to be smarter on this side than on Harry's home world, and it seemed that his Voldemort had learned from his losses during the years of war and stopped making so many obvious mistakes like murdering his own supporters. He made a note to investigate that further, though that was functionally impossible unless he captured a death eater.

The thing he needed to do was to act so fast and so well that he won, and if that meant that he needed to go public with the truth, then that was acceptable. He thought for hours with no realizations while he waited for Sirius and Regulus, but couldn't figure out anything that Voldemort surely would not predict him doing, and his failures hurt. Even after he went to bed that night, he couldn't get the sound of Voldemort's laughter out of his head, and whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the corpses of his friends.

III

That's chapter five for y'all, sorry it's out late, this was the first chapter I've had to actually change a ton during the editing process. Among other changes I had to make, Lucius was initially a fanatic after he found out that there was a second Voldemort. Thankfully, I eventually realized that it was against his characterization, but I still needed to go back and change it, though I do want to explore that in the future sometime with other characters. Next chapter will be Harry meeting the large group for the fight club, and possibly Harry meeting Dumbledore. I will do my best to release it before Rhythms of War comes out later this month, but no promises. Also, if there is anywhere specific I can find a database to find the names and ages of Hogwarts students, I would love a link, since I want to be accurate with the names of the prefects and such, since some of them are actually named in the books. Also I'm uploading this chapter in a different format than usual, so I might have to reupload this later.