I got the new spells in this chapter from lordwar's:

Harry Potter And The Summer Of Change

Direct quotes from this point on will be minimal and not noted in any fashion.


Chapter 5


Harry opened his eyes and blinked several times as his drowsiness vanished. He stared up uncomprehendingly at the ceiling of his four-poster canopy for a moment, then he lept out of bed with a strangled cry.

Where was the dragon?

He wasn't dead. Again.

'Wait… again?'

Harry scrunched up his face in confusion as he examined the odd nature of that thought.

'Dumbledore wiped my memory!' Harry realized with horror. 'He ripped into my mind, took what he wanted and then wiped my memory of it!'

That hadn't been a nightmare. There was no way that could have been a nightmare.

He could remember not remembering.

Dreams didn't do that. You either remembered or you didn't.

He fumbled for his wand on the bedside table and gripped it tightly, as though holding it would make him feel safer from… from… well, everything.

It didn't.

"Tempus." He whispered fearfully, flicking the tip. The faintly glowing numbers of the current time appeared over the tip of his wand. It was three in the morning again. He struggled to remember the long version of the spell.

"Tempus Die Mense Anno." Harry cast after a moment of thought.

3:04, 31 October, 1994 the glowing numbers read, laughingly. Harry sat down heavily.

'3:05 now', Harry thought dimly as the numbers changed just before vanishing.

'What is going on?' Harry thought as the world seemed to spin around him. He mentally latched onto what he knew, trying to make sense of what was happening.

"When you can't figure out the answer," Hermione had said several times in the past (future?) month, "make sure you check your reference materials and get your facts straight before you try to solve the problem."

'I can do that.' Said Harry's analytical side, while his emotional side gibbered in the corner. 'What are our reference materials?'

He appeared to be in the past, so there weren't any records of anything that had happened or would happen except his- …his memories.

What did he remember, exactly?

He remembered going through the Triwizard tournament, all three tasks.

He remembered being kidnapped by portkey and being forced to participate in a dark ritual.

He remembered Voldemort getting a body and he remembered dying at his hand. He could remember that horrible series of events with crystal clarity… now, at least.

Harry shuddered. Wasn't THAT a scary thought?

He hadn't ever thought about it, but the ability to selectively wipe someone's memory was far scarier and more dangerous than anything else he could think of. Anybody could do ANYTHING to you and you wouldn't know, wouldn't remember, just a few minutes later. What if he had been memory wiped? What if they had done something to him?!

Harry's growing sense of panic and paranoia ground to a halt as he remembered that he DID remember, despite the fact that it had apparently been memory-wiped.

He needed to stay calm. Panicking wouldn't help anything, and his memory was probably intact.

Harry shivered again at the uncertain nature of that thought. That was certainly new; he hadn't ever had to deal with distrusting his own mind before. Harry shook his head.

'Focus Harry, focus.' He thought to himself. 'Despite what my feelings are saying, the fact that Dumbledore is going crazy and apparently likes to wipe peoples' memories isn't my biggest problem at the moment. I can deal with that problem after I figure out what is going on.'

He remembered Cedric dying because he was too slow to save him.

He remembered waking up seven months earlier and trying to tell Dumbledore.

He remembered Dumbledore going crazy and destroying and rebuilding his mind, and then wiping his memories of it.

He remembered cracking down on schoolwork and filling in a few holes in his education he didn't even know he had.

He remembered facing the dragon again, that time without a plan, where he died again.

He then somehow ended up back where he started with the previously wiped memories intact, which was the present.

Harry put two and two together: He had time traveled. Repeatedly. That was the only explanation.

Visions of the future wouldn't account for having three sets of memories of waking up at three in the morning on the same day, nor for facing the dragon twice (one of which was unsuccessful), and Harry didn't think he was crazy enough to dream up something like this, so this must be some sort of time travel thing.

It couldn't be normal time travel like the time-turners (if such a thing as 'normal time travel' actually existed) since future (past?) events appeared to change based on what he did. It felt like he was in that film Dudley had gotten before last summer that Harry had noticed when he was dusting the little whale's room- Groundhog day.

The character in it had to repeat the same day over and over without any equipment, where the only things that changed were what he changed, while everything else went on the same.

But even if Harry really was in a time loop, he didn't know how long it was or what his 'perfect day' that would let him out of the loop would consist of. Killing Voldemort for good sounded nice, but Harry wouldn't even know where to start on that, given that the man was capable of surviving a rebounding killing curse to the face. Sure he ended up as a wraith but it was still quite the achievement.

Harry made his way down to the common room to think things through.


So Harry had determined that he had five things he needed to do desperately.

One, he needed to find out more about this time-travel thing. Was it over? Would it reset again? Could he stop it? How did he stop it?

Two, he needed to survive the tournament. Harry figured that wouldn't be too hard since he knew what was coming.

Three, he needed to stop Voldemort. Harry didn't know if he'd be able to stop the resurrection or not, but he needed a plan to stop him regardless.

Four, he needed to avoid Dumbledores' office. Dumbledore had mentioned that he noticed something when Harry had entered the office that had set him off. On that note, he needed to figure out what a core binding and a 'horcrux' actually were so that he see about faking them to keep from rocking the old mans' (apparently leaky) boat.

Five, he needed to avoid Dumbledore himself. Dumbledore was apparently a bit more crazy than anyone had ever thought, and reading/wiping minds was more than a bit extreme.

The only 'Tom's Harry knew off the top of his head were old Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Voldemort, and Tom the owner of the Leaky Cauldron. The only one of those that Harry would believe Dumbledore might deliberately shatter the mind of (although he was getting suspicious about that) was Voldemort, and if Dumbles couldn't tell him apart from Voldy, he was further gone than Harry had ever dreamed.

Hermioine would be able to help him with this… in the morning…


"What are you doing here Harry?" Hermione said in a reprimanding tone, giving Harry a nudge that caused his eyes to spring open. "Did you sleep out here?"

"Mmaah." Harry answered, his lips breaking apart where they were stuck together. He licked them and tried again.

"Yeah." Harry said more clearly, "I found some things during the night and I need your help to do research on them."

"What is it?" Hermione responded, sounding a bit happy at his confession that he needed her.

"I need to figure out what a core binding is and what a horcrux is." Harry said quickly, "I know that your core is what controls and produces your magic and that hurting it is bad, but besides that I don't know much about them. I can't think of a reason to 'bind' a core, but that's the term I h-found. I don't even know where to start for whatever a horcrux is."

"Honestly Harry, how can you not remember what a core binding is?" She shook her head, "It was one of the first things we learned about the magical world."

She cleared her throat and recited, "A core binding is a magical shackle that is sometimes applied to children between ages three and five to prevent them from showing accidental magic. Only exceptionally strong babies warrant core bindings, and they which should be removed before starting classes at a wizarding school."

"Our Hogwarts acceptance letters had a sheet in them explaining that, and explaining about how some of the muggleborns who were getting letters might have their cores bound. Apparently it was popular during the last war to bind the cores of the muggleborns instead of killing them to 'put them back in their place'. Binding the core seals the magic inside, it makes it harder to access."

"The sheet warned that some Death Eaters weren't ever captured and advised that we get checked by the Hogwarts medi-witch to make sure they weren't still doing it." Hermione frowned, thinking, "You might not have gotten that sheet since you weren't technically muggleborn, but rather muggle-raised. You probably don't have one, but if anyone should get their core checked for one, you should. I'm sure the Death Eaters still out there would love for your magic to be bound."

"And while I don't know what a horcrux is, I've never even heard of them," She looked pained at this admission, "we can start searching the library right after breakfast. Go get dressed and we'll walk down to breakfast together."

Harry stood, his body moving automatically to go get dressed as Hermiones' words echoed in his mind alongside Dumbledores'.

'…is a magical shackle… between ages three and five…seals the magic inside, makes it harder to access… the Death Eaters would love for your magic to be bound… my binding on his core was missing…'

'That's why I felt so wonderful and light', Harry noted with shock, 'I felt so good because my magic was finally free of a core binding.'

'No, not just A core binding, but Dumbledores' core binding.' Harry realized with dawning horror, 'No one else could have done it.'

His parents couldn't have done it since they were dead, nobody knew where he was but Dumbledore, and the Dursleys didn't have magic… Dumbledore was quite literally the only one who could have done it. The man had practically admitted it!

"…MY binding…" he had said. "…MY binding on his core was missing…"

Harry's opinion of Dumbledore, which had been taking a steep downturn after he discovered that the professor was seemingly a little more unhinged than expected, abruptly took a nose-dive and hit the afterburners.

The man wasn't just unhinged… no, he was unhinged and actively malicious.

Harrys' paled as he had a sudden thought.

'If he did that to me, what else did he do? What else did he hide with those memory-wipes?'

He could remember his childhood very well because it was a break in the monotony of the cupboard, and he hadn't ever seen Dumbledore before his sorting ceremony in first year. If he couldn't remember getting bound by Dumbledore, didn't that mean he had been memory-wiped of the experience? Why could he remember the contents of this memory-wipe but not that one? Was it some sort of time travel thing? But he should focus on the more pressing questions.

Harry now knew why his magic was stronger and faster, but why was his mind sharper? Why didn't he have his usual headaches? Was this horcrux thing related to that? Did Dumbledore deliberately keep him slow and stupid? What about his anger?! Was Dumbledore manipulating his emotions too?!

Harry took a shaky breath as he picked out a shirt.

'No,' He decided grimly, 'I can't stay away from Dumbledore, I need to figure out what else he did to me.'

Harry paused, his shirt half-on. He couldn't just go up and demand answers. The man was protected.

He was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin(first class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Grand Sorcerer.

Even if Harry had proof of something wrong (which he didn't), the man could probably pardon himself and nobody would bat an eyelash. He ruled over the diplomatic relationships between countries as head of the ICW, he made the rulings in court and introduced whatever laws he wanted as Chief Warlock, and he had indoctrinated the majority of the last fifty years of students to go through Hogwarts to view him as Leader of the Light.

The man was literally untouchable legally without serious bribes, power shifts, and massive blows to his reputation.

No, Harry couldn't face him head on. He needed to get answers and he needed to do it quietly, preferably wiping Dumbledores' memory of the whole thing afterwards.

Harry would have to stun the man and tie him up to ask the questions he needed to. Of course, Dumbledore wasn't going to answer easily, so he'd have to get to Snape first and steal some veritaserum to dose him.

If his name came out of the Goblet again he should use the remainder of it to start going down the faculty list to see if they knew who put his name in and who set up (or rather, would set up) the portkey on the cup. Dumbledore certainly didn't bother to either time.

He'd have to be careful with all of this, since he still didn't know if it would repeat again, but he could do it. He'd ask Hermione for help learning how to protect his mind from Dumbledore; that mental rape had been the single worst thing he had ever experienced, bar none (which is mighty impressive when you consider that he had been under Voldy's Cruciatus, nearly kissed by a hundred dementors, been bitten by a basilisk, and actually died twice). Until then he would stay away from the old man in the hopes that he wouldn't notice anything.

Yes, Harry concluded, he was going to tread very carefully around Hogwarts for a while.


"Harry Potter."

Harry stood calmly, ignoring the whispers now filling the hall. He made his way to the back room to meet the other champions and hear the rules.

He entered the room and ignored Fleurs' question, mind still spinning with his preliminary plans.

Harry was jolted from his thoughts when he looked up to see Dumbledore sweeping into the room, flanked by Mr. Crouch, the other headmasters, Snape, and Professor McGonagall.

His pupils constricted to pinpoints in instant terror and his heart clamped itself around his throat and threatened to strangle him. This was one of the worst things that could have happened and he totally forgot about it actually occurring!

Granted, he was a little distracted the first two times, what with being entered into the tournament against his will and all, and it didn't have quite the same impact when he didn't know the man was insane, but that wasn't a good reason to forget that the malfeasant, memory-wiping madman was going to be in the same room as him this soon!

He felt horribly naked as Dumbledore approached.

"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry?"

"No." Harry said with as much sincerity as he could muster, trying to imprint the truth into his voice, "I didn't ask anyone to put it in either."

Dumbledore looked at him for a long moment.

As Harry looked at Dumbledore, he felt a sudden mental poke and barely managed to keep himself from swatting it away. He froze for a long instant that seemed to last forever, trying his best to clamp down on his rudimentary mental defenses as he desperately watched Dumbledore for any sign that he saw something.

Dumbledore turned away as the argument about his participation began.

Harry released a long, shuddering breath.

'That was a close one.' He thought as Dumbledore finally sent Cedric and himself on their way.

Forget about treading lightly, Harry was going to do his best to be bloody invisible.


Harry listened to the crowd roar as Krum started the first task.

It had been a productive month.

Hermione's research into protecting his mind (from Dumbledore, but she didn't know that) had turned up the defensive counter to Legilimency, Occlumency, which had seemed to be the perfect solution. Then Harry read something that derailed his nascent plan to learn Occlumency.

"People who have experienced long-term low-grade mental attacks before they begin Occlumency training sometimes become highly sensitive to Legilimency probes. Their minds are scraped raw by the attacks, becoming tender, sensitive; capable of detecting both 'passive' surface scans and active attacks with total accuracy.

It is rare for someone to become sufficiently damaged, as the victims of these low-grade attacks usually complain of constant headaches, deadened senses, and feeling 'overall horrible' while the attacks are taking place. The victims usually escape from the area or discover and remove the effect before enough damage can be done.

The people who do not escape from their torment become mentally scarred and unable to learn the art of Occlumency. They can only train their mind to deflect and redirect Legilimency attempts rather than being able to block or weather them as normal Occlumens can. This is typically instinctive and it can only be trained by taking numerous Legilimency attacks of increasing severity and learning to deflect them."

That certainly explained some more of his observations perfectly. His headache (that he hadn't noticed for years) was gone, his senses were clear, and his body felt wonderful. That certainly sounded like the opposite of what a 'low-grade mental attack' was supposed to feel like. It also explained why Dumbledore was so put off when he couldn't read Harry's mind- he thought Harry was still under the effect of whatever had been attacking him and thus unable to notice the attacker, when in fact the attacker was gone and Harry was just instinctively defending since his mind had been damaged.

Harry was starting to wonder how he had survived the situations he had gotten himself into over previous three years (nearly four if you counted the first tournament) with all these handicaps.

Besides Hermiones' research, he had continued his studious habits from the previous month, continuing his work on remedial Runes and Arithmancy and searching the library for good spells to learn, all while keeping his eyes open for references to horcruxes and practicing the spells he did know in his off time.

The 'horcrux' search hadn't gone well, as he couldn't seem to find references to it anywhere and he didn't have a pass to the restricted section. Harry had a feeling that 'horcrux' had something to do with the mental attacks on him, but without references it was just a suspicion. He didn't want to arouse suspicion by asking McGonagall for a pass to the restricted section like he had for the second task, since he wasn't supposed to know what the first task was about. He could go under the Invisibility Cloak, but he couldn't believe that Dumbledore didn't have some way to know when someone entered that section of the library, so the restricted section and any possible references within had been off-limits for the time being.

Fortunately he hadn't actually needed to enter the restricted section to move his primary plan regarding Dumbledore forward, as he had found the memory spell, Obliviate, with instructions on how to cast it in the same book that he had found the bone spell series in Practical spells for Practical people by Caesar Belli.

Harry was convinced that the book had been somehow miss-shelved from the restricted section considering the borderline dark spells he found in it. The fact that it read like a guide on how to commit murder without being caught cemented his opinion, but he wasn't complaining; it was very useful.

He had picked up a few more spells from the book; Evanesco: the vanishing charm, purely for the convenience of being able to make a mess disappear, as well as Ossis Disffringo and Ossis Praemium: the bone-shattering and bone-exploding curses respectively, both nasty curses with the tendency to go through shield spells.

Of course, his successes in one area seemed to be inversely proportional to his problems in another.

He had found that doing Runes and Arithmancy, and researching various things for his own benefit, was downright restful compared to his regular homework. You would think that after going through the same classes twice you would be able to breeze through the homework with no problems. However, while it was true that he knew the answers beforehand, he had a terrible time making his answers just wrong enough to get grades that wouldn't stand out from his usual ones.

It had been easy to do back when he knew only partial answers to the questions as he would just run through the assignment without opening the book and get approximately the grade he wanted. That was how he had lowered his grades to Dudley's level to avoid angering Vernon back in primary school. He wasn't an amazing grade manipulator, he just didn't read the material before doing the assignments. It had been a habit he stuck with out of apathy after coming to Hogwarts, but now it was coming back to bite him with a vengeance.

Now that he knew the material backwards and forwards from his dual experiences in writing the essays and his workaholic binge the previous month, he found it difficult to actually get things wrong.

It just wasn't in his nature to do less than his best, which was precisely why he had taken the passive route instead of actively manipulating his grade to match Dudley's in the first place. If he had tried to manipulate his grade, he would have found himself fretting over which problems to get wrong. Of course he could have just copy his old work except for one problem… he couldn't remember what he had written the first two times.

It was embarrassing yes, but how many times does somebody need to reproduce the same piece of faulty work with the same mistakes from memory? He usually just wrote the assignment and was done; ignoring it except for a cursory look-over when it came back because he knew his grade didn't have any relation to his actual mastery of the topic.

Now though, he had been forced to agonize over each line, trying to determine how each professor would grade it and trying to match the quality of his work to his usual standard. It had been exhausting, but he had slogged through it.

This time he was making sure to memorize them so if time repeated again, he could just reproduce the assignment.

Not that he expected or was planning on time repeating again. Twice was more than enough, and he still wasn't sure he really was in a time loop. It was better to act as though this was the true, final repeat, just in case it was.

The crowd roared as Krum finished his task and Harry walked out, ready with the plan from the first time.

"Accio Firebolt!"

He had prepared wisely this time, making sure to practice a bit on the broom to shake the rust from his skills in addition to making sure his summoning spell was up-to-snuff. He was as ready as he could be.

Harry mounted the broom and took off, ignoring the roar of the crowd as he circled up until the Horntail seemed to be the size of a large dog.

He dived and the dragon's head tracked him. At the last moment he pulled up, avoiding the jet of flame the dragon released with a zig to the left.

"C'mon." Harry murmured as he circled above the creature. It's evil yellow eyes tracked him from the end of its long, serpentine neck.

He dove just as it opened its mouth to breath fire again, dodging the beamlike flame and dodging under the spikes of the tail that came to greet him, circling around the dragon and towards the eggs and theywererightthere and he grabbed it only to look up and see a front foreleg sweep him off the broom and into the ground with enough force to…

Harry's vision faded to black.