Harry went to bed before anyone else in his dormitory that night. This was partly because he didn't think he could possibly stand Fred and George singing "His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad", one more time, and partly because he wanted to examine Riddle's diary once more, and knew that Hermione and Ron both thought that he was wasting his time.
Harry sat on his four-poster bed and quickly flicked through the pages, searching them for ink that not one of them had a single trace of. He then pulled out a new bottle of ink, dipped a quill into it, and dropped a blot on the first page of the diary.
The ink shone brightly on the page for a second and then, as though it was being sucked into the page, vanished. Excited, Harry loaded up the quill a second time and wrote, "My name is Harry Potter."
The words shone momentarily on the page and they too sank without trace. Then, at last, something happened.
Oozing back out of the page, in his very own ink, came words Harry had never written.
"Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my Diary?"
Harry quickly responded. "Someone tried to flush it down a toilet. I found it in a bathroom."
The words soon disappeared, and new words Harry had not written were oozing back out of the page. "Flush it down a toilet? How … undignified. Lucky for me that I recorded my memories in more than just ink."
The soul in the diary was furious, far angrier than his words hinted, but he knew to keep that fury concealed. "I knew that this Diary, this record, would be opposed. People who wanted the past to remain buried. Ink is not any protection at all."
"What do you mean," Harry wrote.
The Diary quickly responded. "Ink alone is not a protection of any kind, but sufficient magic can be. This Diary holds frightful memories, events that happened at Hogwarts School. I recorded them here."
Harry was writing almost the instant the diary stopped. "That's where I am now. Hogwarts. Terrible stuff has been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Harry's heart hammered and his breath quickened as he wrote. Thankfully, Riddle's reply came very quickly, his writing becoming untidier as though hurrying.
"They told us it did not exist. They were quite wrong. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and a monster attacked several students. A little girl died. I caught the monster's keeper and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, forbade me to speak up. The school gave me a trophy and warned me to keep my mouth shut."
Though Harry did not know it, all of these words were carefully chosen.
Harry nearly upset his ink bottle in a hurry to write back. "It's happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?" He was writing as fast as he could.
"I can show you", came Riddle's reply. "I can take you into my memory."
Harry hesitated now. He had no idea how this would work. Of course, he had no idea how this conversation was working either. Still, he hesitated just enough.
He saw fresh words forming.
"Let me show you."
Harry paused for just a second more, and then wrote his acceptance.
The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through May. Harry saw that the little square for May the thirteenth seemed to have turned into a television screen.
His hands trembling, he raised the book to press his eye against, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forwards; the window was widening, and he was pitched head first through the opening in the page.
He felt his feet hit solid ground, and stood, shaking, as blurred shapes around him suddenly sharpened.
But then something important happened without Harry's knowledge. The piece of soul in the Diary sensed an invasive fragment of soul asleep within the boy's own soul. That fragment matched the signature of the Diary.
Stunned, the Diary could not immediately act on this realization. Then, as it showed Harry the memory, it began to plot and to plan.
=/0\=
For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it. Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the Basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book.
The soul fragment that had been the Diary knew instantly that the Diary was lost, that it was damaged beyond repair, and that it itself would be lost if it did not act. In an instant, it was back in the Diary, forever cutting off its link to Ginny Weasley for the plan to work, and as ink flowed from the Diary in torrents, the fragment of soul flowed through that ink over Harry's hand and arm. Slowly, then not slowly, the soul-binding ink flowed up Harry's right arm, over his shoulder, up his neck and his face. Then it touched his scar.
For an instant, there was pain beyond anything Harry had ever imagined, beyond even the pain caused by the venom of the Basilisk. It was pain beyond endurance.
Harry's sight blinked out and he collapsed unconscious.
He awoke to what seemed a warm surface, a warm floor … not exactly a floor though. It didn't seem quite real, and neither did he.
He was surrounded by what looked like light and mist, or vapors, or a thick fog. It wasn't a fog, but images were forming out of the not-fog. He could not touch the images, but because he could see them and recognize them, he thought the images were real.
And now the floor came sharply into focus. But the only things to learn about it were that it was clean and white.
He stood, or tried to stand, still not a hundred percent sure that he was real, but feeling more so.
He seemed to be alone, in this space that didn't seem to be a space at all. But where was he then? Surely this was not the Chamber of Secrets. This was certainly not that filthy place.
There was only the white not-a-floor, the thick sort-of fog, and the images that he was unable to touch.
For the first time here, it came to his attention that he was naked. That was final proof that he was no longer in the Chamber of Secrets.
Noise then reached him for the first time. It was a ghastly noise – twisted, ugly, foul. Tainted.
He could see the source. The thing making the awful noise had the shape of a human child ... but Harry had never seen anything that looked less like a child. It was hairless, its skin rubbed raw, red and black like dried blood. It lay on its back, evidently unable to move – one leg was missing. One arm too. He looked closer. One ear was missing. One eye.
It was repellant. It was attractive. He was sickened ... who would or could have done this to a child? ... but he could scarcely look away.
Now he wished he were clothed.
"My child," came a sudden voice. A voice he had never heard in all his memories. A woman's voice.
He whipped around when he heard that voice. It was someone of whom he had no memories at all. Barely had he seen her before he was flinging himself into her embrace.
"My child," she almost whispered. "My miracle," her voice trailed over and past him as he simply closed his eyes and clung.
He didn't know how long they stood there, but he ached for it again the moment she let him go, even just to watch him.
"Have I died?" he asked, suspecting it to be the case.
She did not immediately answer, turning her head around to look at the vast emptiness. Finally after what seemed ages and ages she faced him again.
"I think not," her voice still nearly a whisper.
This did not make sense to him. "Not?"
"Not," she repeated.
"But how?" Harry wondered, perplexed. Surely he must be dead if he was seeing her, unless this was some great illusion. "And why?"
She didn't answer.
Ironically this let him deduce the answer almost immediately. "You did this. You're why I survived."
She flinched badly.
"What did you do?" he pressed.
"What only I could," she demurred, not answering his question at all."
For a while they were silent. As his mother looked around, she eventually asked him, "What does it look like here?"
Harry stared at her, somewhat puzzled. "You don't see what I see?"
His mother shook her head. "I very much doubt it."
As she spoke, the vast emptiness became exactly like Kings Cross, to his eyes. There were now distinctly what could only be called train platforms.
"I see Kings Cross," he said. "The train station," he added unnecessarily.
If he wanted to, he realized he could board a train.
"Where would a train take me?" he voiced aloud, in his head thinking he already knew.
"On," she again nearly whispered.
For another little while they did not speak. Finally she broke the silence. "I wanted so much more for you," she began. "I wanted you to grow up happy, not desperate. But you've become such an amazing boy, I don't think I could be more proud." And she looked deliberately over his head, at what he had turned away from.
The indecent thing was still struggling to breathe. He could hear it.
"You cannot help," she almost spat, her voice carrying a certainty that might have been harder than diamond. It was a far different sound.
"What is it?" The words formed in his mouth almost against his will.
"Evil," she hissed, with the same force. "Evil from the first to the last."
He considered his words. Reconsidered them. Finally he found what the thought was the right question.
"What can I do?"
His mother closed her eyes, but smiled. "I think you can make a choice. But the choice has to be yours."
And as she uttered those words, he knew suddenly without a doubt what his choices were.
"What will happen to you, when I choose?" he pressed.
She flinched again, and he found he really didn't like that. "I will board a train of my own."
"Will I ever see you again?" he wondered, looking at her and sure she was about to tell him no.
But she said nothing.
Eventually it was clear to him that she was waiting on him.
"What happens if I deal with the problem?"
She held him tightly, but in a far different voice she breathed, "Forever after his destiny shall dominate yours."
He considered these words. They meant little.
"What happens if I go back?"
She relaxed her hold, but only slightly. "He is still out there. Still searching for his own way back. He will find it. If you go back, you will face him again one day, he will arrange it so that you meet."
He considered these words too. And found them not surprising at all. But there was one last choice to ask about, the one that had to his mind the most obvious answer.
"And if I go on?"
And now she held him even tighter than she had before. "Then you shall cease to be everything that you are."
Confirmation.
Some instinct told him she had no more time.
"I want to live," he stated plainly.
"Then go," she commanded, and to his horror he saw her begin to fade away. "May the gods protect you."
Not wanting to see her disappear, he turned away and started walking towards the horrible, tortured thing.
From far away, he heard her voice breaking, and he could not distinguish or understand her words.
And he knew she was gone. The platform remained. He was alone. Alone but for the ruination that lay on the floor.
He stood over it. Looking down. Watching.
He could think only that its death should be quick. He looked around for some weapon, but there were none. Neither Muggle weapons nor his wand.
He realized he had to be the weapon.
The thing was struggling to breathe.
And he acted with sudden violence, crushing its throat underfoot.
Suddenly he was really alone, the thing lying dead on the floor.
For the eternity of that instant, he felt lighter than the swiftest winds.
=/0\=
Harry awoke to the grimy, filthy floor of the underground cavern, his mind feeling full of clouds. Cautiously, he sat up inch by inch, eventually making it to a sitting position, and then to his feet.
Once standing, the haze over his mind disappeared all at once. He shook himself, then picked up his wand from the floor near the ruined book. As he picked it up, it released one paltry hint of a spark, and then he was sure he felt it die in his hands. Horrified, he returned it to his pocket, immediately thinking the worst.
He quickly gathered the diary and the Sorting Hat from the floor. Neither could be left here. The diary was too much evidence, and the Sorting Hat was too much a part of Hogwarts. Though this Chamber, too, was part of Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin had built it …
Harry's gaze landed on the corpse of the Basilisk, and as it did so he realized two things. One, that he should keep the fang that had pierced his flesh, and hide it away. Dangerous as it was to have, it was probably more dangerous to leave behind. Two, if his wand was dead … well, he had killed this beast, and he was in the right to take its power for himself if he could..He pocketed the fang that had pierced his flesh, then drew out the other of the major fangs and pocketed it as well. Finally, carefully, he drew out the glittering sword.
As the sword came free he heard a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. He watched her eyes travel over the huge form of the dead Basilisk, over himself and his appearance – his blood-stained robes, his ink-stained and grimy arms, the muck all over him – he saw her catch the glittering sword he held in one hand, and finally, the diary he held in his other hand.
She drew a shuddering breath and tears began to pour down her face.
"Harry … I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't … it was me, Harry," and she raised her hands over her face. "R-Riddle made me, he took me over … and how did you kill that, that thing? W-where's Riddle?"
"You're safe," Harry evaded. "Riddle's finished. Look!" he gestured at the hole the great fang had made all the way through the diary. "Him and the Basilisk! C'mon Ginny, let's get out of here!"
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny sobbed into her hands. "I'd looked forward to coming to Hogwarts for y-years and now I'll have to leave …"
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber entrance. Harry urged Ginny forward. After several minutes' progress, the sound of shifting rock reached them.
"Ron!" Harry yelled, as loud as he could, speeding up immediately. "Ginny's okay!"
He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see him staring through the gap he had made in the rock fall.
"Ginny!" Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through. "You're alive! I don't believe it! What happened? And – what – where did that bird come from?"
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
"He's Dumbledore's," Harry noted as he squeezed through.
"How did you get a sword?" goggled Ron, gaping at the glittering weapon.
"I'll explain when we get out of here," Harry evaded again, with a sideways glance at Ginny, who was crying harder than ever.
Following the softly glowing, hovering Fawkes, they made their way back to the very mouth of the Chamber. There Harry learned that Lockhart had lost all of his memory when the Memory Charm backfired. It was far more than he had ever taken from any of the people he'd cheated. There was something about that fact which struck Harry as being rather like justice.
Fawkes lifted the whole group up the great pipe-shaft. After a brief meeting with Myrtle, they all made their way towards Professor McGonagall's office, Harry and Ron both thinking independently that Dumbledore's office would still be empty. Fawkes' soft glow illuminated their path through the pitch-black hallways.
Unbidden, the words "strange likenesses" crossed Harry's mind as he pushed open the door.
=/0\=
The reunion and the explanation drained Harry almost completely, and eventually Dumbledore had dismissed everyone else. He and Harry remained in the office.
"Please sit down, Harry," began the headmaster.
"First of all, Harry, I need to thank you." Harry saw that he was smiling. "You must have shown real loyalty to me, deep in the Chamber of Secrets. Only that would call Fawkes to you." Dumbledore's expression turned somewhat curious. He stroked the scarlet feathers of the phoenix, who had just flown onto his knee.
"And so you met Tom Riddle," the man continued thoughtfully. "Yes … I have to imagine he was quite keen to speak with you."
There were any number of ways Harry could have responded to that, but one was more pressing than any other. "Professor, there's a problem. I think something happened to my wand, it doesn't seem to work any longer."
An expression that almost looked alarmed stole over Dumbledore's face, but it was gone so quickly that Harry was left unsure he had seen what he thought he had seen.
"Indeed? Wandlore is not my field, Harry, but may I see?"
Nodding, Harry drew the wand from his pocket. It still felt dead to his touch. Grimacing, he passed it over.
Dumbledore stared at the wand for a long minute. He swished it, flicked it, jabbed it forward, and rapped it once upon the desk at which they sat. No sparks issued from it for him either. Finally, he even held it up to his ear as if he were listening to it.
The headmaster shook his head, now wearing an almost mournful expression as he passed the wand back to Harry. "That is perplexing, and no doubt very distressful to you. I shall take you to see Ollivander in the morning, Harry."
Having taken the wand back, Harry nodded. His feelings about the incident in the Chamber returned in full.
"Professor, Riddle said I'm like him," Harry spoke miserably, wanting some kind of absolution from this. "He said there were strange likenesses."
The professor's eyebrows rose at that statement. "Did he, now? And what do you think about that?"
"I don't think I'm like him at all!" Harry exclaimed. "I don't want to be like him … I'm in Gryffindor," but at the name of his house he stopped short. The Sorting Hat had not initially wanted to place him there, had told him more than a year later it still felt the same way …
The headmaster was not speaking, was seemingly considering him in silence. That silence grew until Harry decided he had to make these feelings go away.
"Professor," he began again, "the Sorting Hat told me … it told me I would have done well in Slytherin." His breath hitched a bit. "Nearly the whole school suspected me of being the one opening the Chamber, of being Slytherin's Heir, because I can speak Parseltongue."
"You can speak Parseltongue," Dumbledore cut him off, "because Lord Voldemort, or Tom Riddle as he properly should be called, can speak Parseltongue. It is my suspicion, Harry, that on the Halloween night when Tom failed to kill you, that he transferred some of his powers to you instead."
"Voldemort put some of himself in me?" Harry yelped, horrified.
'That certainly seems to be the case," the headmaster replied gravely.
"So I should be in Slytherin, then" Harry said dejectedly, now feeling defeat. "The Sorting Hat saw that in me, and it" but he was interrupted before he finished.
"Put you in Gryffindor regardless," the headmaster intoned. "I think you are likely to know why that is."
Still feeling only defeat, Harry almost whispered, "It only put me in Gryffindor because I didn't want to go to Slytherin," he finished.
But these words made Dumbledore beam. "And that may have been all the Sorting Hat needed to hear, or see, or however its senses work." The man's smile was serene. "Listen to me, Harry. You happen to possess qualities that I believe Salazar Slytherin would have respected: your resourcefulness; your determination; your, shall we say, disregard for inconvenient rules." The professor's mustache and beard twitched. "But the Sorting Hat took quite a while to place you, whereas Tom Riddle was Sorted into Slytherin very nearly as quickly as your schoolboy rival Draco Malfoy."
These words took Harry aback. "Malfoy was Sorted more quickly than Voldemort?"
The professor's beard and mustache twitched again. "Yes, although I think that says nothing particularly revealing about either boy, as they were at eleven. Draco Malfoy grew up hearing about Slytherin House. Tom Riddle did not." The professor paused. "Tom Riddle, I believe, merely wanted to make something of himself – terrible as that has been – and the Sorting Hat obliged him in the only way it could."
For a brief while Harry did not speak. It was eventually Dumbledore who broke the silence.
"It is our choices, Harry, that ultimately define who we truly are, far more than any mere abilities. Tom Riddle chose to make a terrible monster of himself; and he is still out there, doubtlessly committed to continuing that terrible choice. But you," the professor stopped, and beamed, "you have chosen nothing of the sort, you throw yourself directly into opposition with him. That you reject him so thoroughly gives me hope." He stroked Fawkes' feathers, and Fawkes trilled a long musical note akin to the song he made in the Chamber.
"If you still hold any doubt, Harry, that you belong in Gryffindor, I suggest you take a closer look at this." And then he passed Harry the glittering sword.
Turning it over, Harry saw the single name engraved upon it: Godric Gryffindor.
"Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that sword – the genuine sword, not a fake – from the Sorting Hat … from Gryffindor's hat." Dumbledore's smile was perfectly serene.
Later that night, after freeing Dobby from servitude to the Malfoy family, after a feast in the Great Hall, which the Basilisk's victims had woken up for and attended, after Hagrid had turned up hours in, Harry found himself thinking about the entire conversation with Dumbledore.
He wondered if he should have brought up the diary's ink spilling over him.
Dumbledore had said Harry's choices gave him hope.
The ink had touched Harry's scar … and Harry had already apparently had something of Voldemort in him, according to Dumbledore.
But there seemed a good chance that it was now gone.
His mother had told him, "May the gods protect you."
Harry remembered the song Fawkes had sung in the Chamber, the song which had made his heart feel as though it were swelling in his chest and had given him renewed courage.
Dumbledore had once spoken of music as being a magic beyond all that was done at Hogwarts …
Unbidden, the words "strange likenesses" crossed Harry's mind again.
Which should be believed?
=/0\=
The wandmaker's shop looked no different to Harry than it had almost two years before, on his eleventh birthday. It remained the last shop in the row, and also the thinnest. The tinkling bell had still signaled his entrance. A single wand remained on the same faded purple cushion in the still-dusty window. Thousands of wands were still stacked up to the ceiling. The stillness and the silence made the very air seem rich with the secrets of the family to whom the shop had always belonged.
Harry turned when he heard footsteps, and he saw Ollivander's moon-bright eyes shining from the gloom in the rear of the shop.
"Harry Potter," began the old man, by way of greeting. "Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple. What brings you here today?"
Harry looked straight at those eyes, this time not the least bit afraid. "The wand you sold me has stopped working. I'm sure I need it replaced," he replied neutrally.
The old man stopped short at this information. "That is awful news. A very good wand, that one; among the best I have made. Well, let us learn if anything can be done for it."
Harry handed the wand over. The old man took it, and beckoned him to the back of the shop.
Having only been in the shop once before, Harry had never seen the backroom. There were shelves here too, but there was no dust. There were shelves with lengths of raw cut wood; Harry knew that wood needed work before it could be made into a wand. There were also shelves of the cores, and shelves of finished wood. In the center of the room was a solid oak workbench and a spindly chair. A second spindly chair sat in a corner of the room. Ollivander motioned Harry towards that chair; Harry pulled it closer to the great workbench.
Ollivander sat at the workbench, pulled his chair very close to Harry, and turned his concentration on the wand. Harry watched as the man turned it in his hands several times. A few times he waved it experimentally, but it did not issue sparks for him either.
"It is as you surmised," began the wandmaker. "This wand shall never work again." Ollivander stared at Harry. "How long has it been since the wand functioned?"
He had been right. "Hours," he replied blankly. Yet now having heard the wandmaker's words, he felt vindicated.
Ollivander reached out with a long white finger and touched Harry's scar. "Curious." He paused. "I think that this is not a coincidence."
Harry kept his eyes trained on that piercing stare. "I thought … I thought I should bring this along." He unraveled the cloth bundle he held and let the fang drop to the floor.
Ollivander looked at it. "Mr Potter, what is that?" His voice had dropped to nearly a whisper.
"A fang from Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk. I found it and killed it."
Ollivander stared at Harry again. "A momentous story behind that, no doubt, but not for now or here." The eyes lingered what seemed like ages before finally moving away.
The wandmaker took the fang off the floor. "I have never gotten to work with any piece of a Basilisk, most especially one with such an origin. You have given me a tremendous privilege."
From a pocket Ollivander produced the silver tape measure that Harry remembered. "I believe this should be checked … " Like two years before, he measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. Ollivander moved back and let the tape measure finish by finding the distance between Harry's nostrils. It then fell to the floor. "Yes … thirteen inches now. Curious indeed."
Ollivander soon moved to the shelves with the lengths of finished wood. He took many samples down and moved them to the workbench. With his wand in hand he murmured almost too softly for Harry to hear.
Ollivander looked up again, straight at Harry. "One further thing, Mr Potter. Before I can begin making the new wand, the old one must be destroyed."
Harry had not considered that possibility, and so without a response, Ollivander merely elaborated, "It is the law. The charms on it have not inactivated, even useless as it now is. And you are underage, on top of that. Only certain Ministry employees, the Aurors and the Hit-wizards, are ever given the privilege of owning a secondary or further wands. Thus, we must use force."
Harry nodded, knowing he had to let it go. "Have at it, then," he said, wondering whether it sounded more like an invitation or a command.
Ollivander nodded. He gripped the wand between both hands and swiftly broke it. "You see, Mr Potter, that the phoenix feather too has split?"
That was in plain sight, but Harry said nothing.
"A wand with the wood and core fully split apart cannot be repaired." Ollivander muttered a spell, and the pieces of the broken wand began to burn. When it had burned away, Ollivander waved his wand again and the ashes vanished, leaving no trace.
"And now I shall make you a new wand." Ollivander went to the shelves of finished lengths of wood and began to pull down sample after sample. Eventually the table was piled high with dozens of pieces. Harry watched as Ollivander tested the fang with each of the pieces, the man muttering to himself all the time in a strange language.
Eventually he seemed satisfied with just one of the pieces, having returned all the others to the shelves.
"I believe I have found the right wood to match this fang, Mr Potter," the wandmaker began in a clear voice, holding up a rich light brown length of wood that was more than a foot long. "And yet, having found it, I have a dilemma on my hands. The energy of the fang and the wood together tell me that this wand would be extremely suited to your magic … possibly uniquely suited." He paused for a second to look at Harry. "But it is also telling me that the wand would be best directed towards the magics of malice, spite, anger, and cruelty … towards the dark arts, in other words."
He paused again, for longer. "And that is my dilemma. The Ollivander family have one cause: we supply wands. We do not care where those wands go or what they do. Or we try not to, at least. But I do not wish to sell or supply you of all people with a wand so disinclined towards, I think, anything welcome or good."
Harry was sure he needed to protest. He did not want another wand – he could not have the wand he wanted, it was gone, and since he could not have it he wanted this.
He was sure that Ollivander often said the wand chose the wizard. He was just as sure Ollivander would say the wand could learn from the wizard just as the wizard could learn from the wand.
If this wand would be inclined to the dark arts … Harry would just have to make it learn another way.
"I think I have to insist, Mr Ollivander," Harry demanded, but he thought his voice sounded powerless.
Ollivander paused anyhow. "And if I should insist for myself?" he asked.
But Harry found he had never been more certain of anything.
"I won't take anything else." Now he heard in his voice the force he wanted to hear.
Ollivander stared at him for a long minute. "More and more curious, Mr Potter." He turned back to the bench, apparently conceding the point.
Harry decided to count that as victory.
It took some time for the wand to be made. And yet, the finished wand in his hands felt so wonderful he knew it was his. Through this wand his magic felt electric and sharp, hot and quick. He flicked it again and again, shooting out a stream of biting sparks … burning pinpricks of light.
But Mr Ollivander was speaking again. "Banyan and Basilisk fang, Mr Potter, Thirteen inches precisely. The upside-down tree, so called 'the strangler fig' … and a fang from the great serpent you yourself killed. Yes … one way or the other I shall count this as a privilege."
He bowed Harry from the shop soon after, accepting no payment.
Late that night, long after he'd returned to Hogwarts, Harry found himself thinking again about the words the Sorting Hat had told him on his first night at the school. They lingered in his mind without wanting to leave: "You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that …"
=/0\=
At that same time, Dumbledore was still awake in his office. He had too much to do before bed. Too many tasks he considered really of no importance.
He was examining an object he'd enchanted. It hadn't been his invention to start, instead being merely a silver teapot he'd purchased in the Muggle world … and not even a fancy teapot at that, as it had no decorations at all. And now it no longer even had the dignity of being used for what it was made. Albus supposed he could still serve tea in it, but did not. Instead he had enchanted it heavily … although in a touch of irony it did still issue steam, as it might have if he were serving boiling tea.
The teapot usually emitted steam that would twist itself into two serpents, wrapped around each other and then opposing each other with bared fangs. Now it simply emitted formless steam as if it were a completely ordinary teapot.
Albus was puzzled by this response. It didn't fit his current understanding. Yet perhaps that qualifier "current" was more than trivial.
This … this was probably why the holly and phoenix feather wand had died. It was … no longer relevant.
Garrick had told him the wand was gone, ashes he had Vanished.
Had its purpose been taken from it?
Garrick had not told Albus anything about whatever new wand he had sold to Harry. And Harry had not volunteered it either.
The Sorting Hat had told Harry he would have done well in Slytherin …
Yet the Sorting Hat had actually pronounced Harry a Gryffindor. Harry had drawn Godric's own sword from it.
Surely that proved he belonged there?
Albus realized with resignation that this would not be answered tonight. And there was a much more pressing matter to consider.
That diary had been a Horcrux.
He wished with some urgency now that he had not allowed Harry to give it back to Lucius Malfoy, though there was probably little more the ruined book could tell him.
Still … it was very likely … it seemed a certainty … that the Diary had been intended as a weapon at least as much as a safeguard.
And he had allowed Harry to give it back to Lucius.
That had probably been too hasty. It certainly seemed now to be a bit arrogant.
Still, some good had come of it. It had allowed Harry to get that elf free from the Malfoys, which would probably have some consequence or reward later.
But that sort of answer would definitely not come tonight.
He wished it were possible to guess what would.
It would be a year before he would begin to suspect how dependent he had become upon the mercy of time.
Hours past critical events and critical knowledge, Albus watched a scene inside his Pensieve …
He knocked on the door to Remus's office. He knew that Harry was inside, talking to one of his parents' last living school-friends. The previous night, Sirius Black had come to him with a story that had explained much from his group's school days. But Sirius had now left, and Remus too was about to leave.
Harry opened the door. Remus was clearly ready, not at all hesitant to go.
"Your carriage is at the gates, Remus," The headmaster of the memory spoke softly.
Remus gave his thanks, then picked up his battered suitcase and the empty grindylow tank. "Well – goodbye, Harry. It has been a pleasure – an honor – to teach you. I feel sure that we'll see each other again."
The memory Albus, and Albus now, were quite certain by the look on Harry's face that Harry realized Remus wanted to leave as quickly as possible.
In barely more than a minute, the man was gone.
Harry sat down in the man's vacated chair, staring at the floor wearing an empty face.
The memory Albus had found words much more quickly than Albus could ever have imagined.
"You did a good thing, Harry," he said. "An amazing thing."
Albus now heard those words and thought them terribly forced.
"It didn't make any real difference," Harry in the Pensieve said, his voice full of biting, obvious bitterness. "Sirius isn't free."
Albus marveled at how deeply Harry could immerse himself in his own darkness even without the use of dark magic weighing on him.
Well … "marveled" was not likely the right word. Or maybe it was. From a certain point of view.
"Not any real difference?" he echoed, appalled. "You helped to uncover truth … you saved an innocent man from a terrible fate."
And helped condemn a guilty man, the true traitor, to that same fate, the memory Albus had not said.
The memory Harry did not seem at all salved by Albus's words. "But Sirius can't show himself in public."
The memory Albus nodded. "That is true. But Harry, you should think on this … the people Sirius will want to know the truth, now know it. His old friend Remus Lupin … and, of what I suspect is much greater concern to Sirius, you yourself. The burden of guilt he carried, should be greatly lessened. That should do him great good."
All of it was true and sounded true to Albus's own ears. And yet it felt so terribly like a lie.
In any case it didn't seem to make a jot of difference on Harry in the memory. "Pettigrew got away with it all."
The memory Albus had been horrified, and Albus still now was. Pettigrew had gotten away with nothing.
Then again, from a certain point of view, perhaps he had. For he had taken no blame.
For he had been wearing Sirius Black's appearance when he received the Dementor's Kiss.
And Harry had made sure it would happen.
Albus in the Pensieve stared at Harry in abject disbelief. He wanted any convenient way to change the subject, and soon he had what he wanted.
"Remus told me, Harry, of how you worked to learn the Patronus Charm this year. I would be happy to assess your progress on it, if you are willing?"
For a long moment the memory Albus thought he had not been heard. But then the memory Harry had drawn his wand, concentrated, and cast.
What emerged was a sight to behold.
The Patronus was silver as all were. It was fully defined, with a clear shape. It was a true Patronus.
The serpent looked smooth, powerful, and flexible. It was long enough to wrap itself around an automobile. It lay on the floor, circling around them to enclose them both.
Never having been an expert on snakes, Albus believed the Patronus had the form of a boa constrictor. It certainly looked strong enough to crush whatever prey it wanted.
The memory Harry seemed comforted by its presence.
The memory Albus had been almost beyond the reach of words. Almost.
"A marvelous accomplishment for a thirteen year old wizard, Harry," the memory Albus had made himself say. "A marvelous accomplishment, indeed, for any wizard or witch at all."
And it was. For all that it made Albus want to be on his guard.
When had Albus first thought about the mercy of time?
Time … had no mercy for anyone.
[oo]
POST-SCRIPT: There is no spoon. There is one spoon. It is my spoon. Now it is your spoon.