A/N Err... *meekly* sorry?! I know it's been a (long long) while. Suddenly there was just too much going on in my life for me to be dealing with. I had a particularly rough time for the whole of last year. But I'm (mostly) over it so... hmm, as an apology I'm uploading two chapters at once, I've already started with 16 and I've got some pretty good ideas to work with. Sorry to be rambling on, but I've just spent the last half hour catching up on any reviews I haven't read. Hopefully I'll be addressing some concerns raised in a chapter or few. Thank you for your continuing support, it really means a lot!
Disclaimer Unfortunately, I have yet to acquire ownership of the Harry Potter franchise. So yeah, the bits your recognize don't belong to me.
'Mind speak'
~Parseltongue~
14. Bad News
'Sirius Black is your godfather.'
Harry sighed when he felt the dark lord's presence in his head again, 'What of it?'
'Sirius Black loves you.'
He very nearly outwardly reacted to that, which would have drawn a strange look from the seventh year Ravenclaw sitting opposite him. Breakfast was well underway, the hall was packed and there had been nowhere else for the girl to sit.
Harry didn't reply to that thought, tempting the dark lord to elaborate with the silence. Voldemort remained silent too, they were both playing the game.
Harry had returned to fretting about meeting with Draco when the next thought drifted into his head, 'I have to admit, I'm slightly irritated that you were the one to have finally made him see the error in his ways.'
Now Harry didn't gasp, Draco's mannerisms had rubbed off on him a little too much for that, but he took his breath slightly faster than usual. The girl opposite him didn't notice a thing, engrossed in what looked like a muggle romance novel. Harry's brain still took the time to be disgusted by a brilliant mind reading such useless pages.
Voldemort had just – he had just admitted that Harry had done something that he couldn't personally do himself.
'Feeling inadequate?' he chirped back, before he could really stop himself.
'I never did understand his attachment to that Potter brat. The werewolf, yes – dark magic calls to dark blood after all, but James Potter? That had always been a mystery.' His tone was thoughtful rather than irritated.
Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat, the Dark Lord was apparently feeling conversational - at least he was saying a lot more than he usually did.
'Power calls to purebloods?' Harry slipped in, a little petulant.
The Dark Lord's amusement echoed through to Harry, 'Quite, little Evans, quite. Now, there are some things that I need attend to, if you'll excuse me.'
To this Harry did snort aloud, he waved a quick apology for startling the ravenclaw, who had finally noticed him, when he thought of how much the Dark Lord didn't need his permission to do anything.
"Harry?"
Luna was standing by his left shoulder, he looked her in the eye after banishing all emotion from his face, "Luna, what is it?"
Luna moved to sit down beside Harry so they could talk more privately, "It's probably nothing, but –"
Harry nearly rolled his eyes, but remembered that Luna was barely ever this serious and instead focused on her. He knew Luna well enough, or he liked to think he did, to notice her slight anxiety, there was paranoia rolling off her in waves, "What's wrong?"
"Draco hasn't come to breakfast," she said simply, looking at him like she couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed.
Harry hummed, truthfully, he had noticed. He just wasn't that worried. It's not as if Draco hasn't been known to skip the occasional meal.
"That's not it," he said, holding her gaze, "What else?"
Here, she looked around subtly – using her mask of an airhead to achieve this purpose without seeming anything more than her ordinary self. Harry smiled in a way that exuded a patient type of irritation at her antics.
"Dumbledore looks far too smug, don't you think?"
That was something that Harry hadn't noticed, too cautious to look directly at a mind reader, Dumbledore especially, whilst thinking on what he had learned about Draco.
He risked a quick glance. Dumbledore always had looked smug sitting in his headmaster's chair, but Luna was correct; he carried himself with an ounce more self-satisfaction than he used to. Harry took a moment to be in awe that the man could be even more conceited than he had been before. The Dumbledore caught his gaze and raised his glass slightly in Harry's direction.
This did not bode well for Harry.
He constructed a confused frown and turned to face Luna again, "What could he have done now?"
There was a flurry of beating wings, Harry looked up with surprise, post wasn't due for another five minutes or so. He was even more surprised when he identified the lone owl as Hedwig.
She landed directly in front of Harry's plate, scrutinised it and then turned around to help herself to a plateful of bacon in the centre of the table. Harry would have laughed at her actions, had he been expecting her at all. A couple of the other ravenclaws tried to shoo her off the bacon, but gave up with a small curse when she nipped their fingers, she ate her fill before hopping over to Harry and thrusting her leg out at him. Harry couldn't help but feel that she was pissed off.
He didn't take the letter straight away, taking the time to glare at it, look over to Luna and then back at the letter. Hedwig didn't move a muscle, she wasn't looking at Harry either.
Before the scene became too suspicious, Harry took the envelope attached to Hedwig's leg. As soon as she was free of her burden, Hedwig took flight, not giving Harry enough time to even say goodbye. He sat there, frowning at the window she had flown out from.
A small cough from Luna reminded him to behave normally, he tilted his head her way in gratitude but didn't say anything, unable to decide what to do with the letter.
Fortunately for Harry, the other owls started descending into the great hall. The rather large space above the house tables became a chaotic sort of air highway, some owls putting on rather miraculous displays of acrobatics in order not to collide with others of their kin, the odd pair that did collide tore apart with irate hoots and a few warning scratches. Many of them were post owls, as was the one that landed in front of Harry, who took the paper and fed it some of his bacon to send it on its way.
Shocked gasps, sighs of relief and excited squeals began filling the hall once the number of owls had begun to diminish. Harry frowned, the students of Hogwarts did not tend to find the news appealing enough to read past the first page headline usually. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Luna freezing, as if shocked, for a second before returning to her usual projection.
When Harry looked at the paper he could understand why. Not that he was thinking of anything other than the words in front of him at the time.
Sirius Black Taken into Custody
by Dempster Wiggleswade
Late last night, a raid carried out by the ministry instigated by an anonymous tip off, has resulted in the capture of notorious criminal Sirius Black. Black escaped the formidable and previously thought inescapable prison Azkaban just before Christmas last year, possible motives include rejoining You-Know-Who's supporters in order to start a third wizarding war and 'finishing off the job' whilst exacting revenge on his master's behalf by killing the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry James Potter.
Sources have told me that he would have been given the Dementor's kiss on-site if it hadn't been for the thoughtful actions of one Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Order of Merlin, First Class; Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Grand Sorcerer, who insisted that Black should instead be questioned about his escape and actions over the past year.
Black's exact whereabouts in Azkaban is currently being kept under wraps so that his death eater allies will be unable to help him escape from the hands of the law once again.
As covered by articles in the past, Black was once the trusted friend of –
Harry tried to remain calm, both he and Luna leaned in together so they could think on the news whilst pretending to whisper. Only, for the first few moments, Harry couldn't think. His mind was numbingly blank.
Sirius may not have been the prime example of a pureblooded wizard of an old and powerful family, nor had he led the perfect life and been a good role model or godfather. He was, however, the closest Harry had ever come to having family. The man was strong, surviving Azkaban without going completely insane for such a period of time was testament to that, Harry had learnt that he was unerringly loyal – to both his father, and now to Harry himself – he had a quick wit, a bit of a temper and the uncanny ability to make Harry feel a little more at ease. Harry would even go as far as to say that Sirius had saved him from the unseemly life he would have led at the Dursleys.
The man had only just purged all traces of Azkaban from his psyche!
And now he was back.
Harry's face darkened and his magic snarled with him in his discontent.
'This will not do,' he whispered to himself, his magic repeated the message silently but tenfold, causing the light chatter in the room to turn to mumbling and grumbles, even if the speaker didn't quite understand why. Harry continued to let his magic tweak the emotions of the weaker minded as he mechanically put down the Prophet and picked up the letter that Hedwig had been so loathe to deliver.
He used a small cutting hex to open the envelope and pulled out the heavy cream coloured writing paper. On it were two small words.
Got you.
Harry could tell that Luna was slightly distressed now, or rather, his magic could feel it. It could feel her magic whirling anxiously within her body.
Harry looked at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was stroking a feather when their eyes met.
Hedwig's feather.
Harry would have liked nothing more than to just cut him down there and then to satisfy the almost overwhelming need to see the man's lifeless corpse at his feet. This also warred with the urge to tear him to pieces, both literally and mentally. Dumbledore's gaze faltered.
Fortunately, for Dumbledore at least, Harry wasn't a Gryffindor.
Which meant that the headmaster would live, for a little longer anyway. Harry forced himself to retract his magic and keep himself seated for another five minutes, almost immune to the world around him. Everything was numb, muted. At least Luna understood, she carried on as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation and Harry felt a jolt of admiration and gratitude for her presence, face animated and eyes sparkling.
She must have gone off on a topic about some kind of weird and possibly imaginary magical creature because, soon enough, she was pulling Harry along after her whilst spouting off some nonsense about going 'fluttermouse watching'.
She didn't stop her nattering until the door of the room of requirement was firmly shut behind them.
She dropped his hand and turned around to look at his still form.
"Harry-"
"I want to kill him," he said softly, but with enough force to stop her talking, he looked her hard in the eye, "I want to see him dead, at my feet. Right now."
Luna didn't interrupt, sensing that there was something more.
"But," he paused, "I want to hear him scream."
There was a small, barely audible 'click' as the door shut again. Luna's eyes widened momentarily and Harry turned around.
Draco looked a mess.
His breathing reminded Harry of how Rasp sounded when he scolded him, his left eye had a painful looking bruise around it. His robes, whilst pristine, had a rumpled look to them, as if Draco just couldn't bring himself to primp himself up as much as he usually did. He walked with a limp and Harry noticed the way he tried not to move anything unless it was absolutely necessary.
If Harry hadn't known Draco and his movements so well, then, aside from the black eye, he would have said that the Malfoy heir looked normal.
Harry's and Draco's eyes met and suddenly all the anger within Harry smouldered away and gave way to concern.
The both of them were hesitant, their previous argument still felt like a barrier between them. Nothing happened until Draco wordlessly collapsed on the floor.
That caused Harry to snap to his senses, he wished for a comfortable bed whilst rushing over to Draco and running a painfully basic diagnostic spell over him. He mentally noted to read more about medical spells to his ever growing to-do list.
The results that were returned to him gave Harry cause for concern, though none of the injuries were life-threatening. Four cracked ribs, seven others were bruised, some pretty severe bruises too. But that didn't explain the limp, and Harry suspected that much more had befallen the blonde. Harry didn't know what to do, he felt so completely out of his depth.
"Move over," Luna said with such assurance that Harry would do as she said that he did so without conscious thought.
Harry could only watch, slightly shell-shocked, as Luna cast a much more advanced diagnostic spell over the other blonde, catching the tightening of Luna's lips as she got back the results. She glanced nervously in Harry's direction, Harry watched as her lips moved whilst her wand shot off spell after spell on Draco's limp form. What had happened to him? What had Luna discovered that made her worry so much? Draco's present injuries were painful, but his life was in no way endangered.
"Harry, HARRY!"
Harry shifted his eyes back from Draco to Luna, realising with a small jolt that she had been performing all her spells wordlessly, instead using her voice to try and give him instructions.
"Yes, sorry – what do you need?" he said rather hurriedly.
Had it been any other situation, Luna would have fixed him with a stern glare and chided him slightly, as it was, relief flooded her face, "Blood replenisher, dreamless sleep and Murtlap essence."
"Right," he said quickly, casting one final look at Draco on the bed before rushing out of the room and towards the dungeons.
Harry didn't notice the few people he passed, didn't care when he felt the spine chillingly cold that accompanied passing through a ghost and ignored the look of surprise professor Snape gave him as he swept open the doors to the potions classroom.
"Murtlap and valerian root, it's urgent," said Harry in his most urgent no-nonsense voice.
Snape, infuriatingly, just sat there and looked at him with what Harry thought was a look of slight increduality, which wasn't helping his sudden urge to punch the man.
"Potter, if you really think that I'll just be handing out potions supplies to you then you are sorely mistaken."
"Draco's hurt," said Harry impatiently.
That caused Snape to pause and look at Harry intently. Noticing this, Harry let his wand slip into his hand and stroked it familiarly, "Dumbledore doesn't need to be notified."
Snape flinched and shifted his left arm slightly. Here, Harry narrowed his eyes. Snape recovered quickly then drew and flicked his wand in one swift motion that had Harry feeling slightly envious.
"Notified of what?"
Two stoppered vials floated into the air just in front of Harry. Emerald eyes watched them greedily and deft hands snatched them out of the air. He carefully sniffed each one and checked the colour, causing a pair of eyebrows to raise in surprise.
Satisfied, Harry turned around and hurried back to the seventh floor. He didn't see Snape slump into a chair and pinch the bridge of his nose.
x ~ x ~ x
Draco was doing much better. It had been several hours since he had appeared before the both of them and collapsed. The early evening light filtered in through the massive window that Hogwarts had thought to provide. Harry had to admit that the oranges and red of the sunset were comforting. The atmosphere of the room would have been peaceful. Draco was lying asleep in the bed.
But Draco was not peaceful. Draco didn't have the same sense of peace a normal sleeping person had, his eyes were moving rapidly behind their lids, every now and then his lips parted in a silent scream, whine, gasp or whisper. Luna had said that it was too dangerous to administer anymore dreamless sleep.
Draco had to come to terms with whatever horrors had happened to him. Harry knew it was something to do with Voldemort, Snape had subconsciously made to touch his dark mark and he hadn't seemed surprised in the least. He had looked almost guilty. Harry couldn't fathom the reason why though. The man he had talked to didn't seem the type to randomly torture the children of his followers. Not that Harry didn't doubt that Voldemort was dangerous, he was a dark lord after all.
Luna had refused to leave Draco's side, but sent Harry off on small errands; to collect a book or two from the library, or a potions ingredient from his supplies. Harry knew perfectly well that the Room would have provided a copy of any book in the library, and Luna hadn't brewed any potions. She looked worried, more so than Harry's own diagnostic spell warranted. She was keeping something from him, but there was a time and a place, and Harry also knew that here and now wasn't it.
"He'll be waking up soon," said Luna softly.
Harry snapped shut a book on advanced healing, that Luna had bade him fetch, that he was pretending to read and walked over and stood by the bed, opposite Luna.
Draco gave one final shudder before his eyes flickered open. He glanced at Harry, flinched, looked at Luna, and turned back to Harry without emotion.
Nothing was said for a moment, none of them quite sure how to start the inevitable conversation. Harry supposed he had an unfair advantage and that he should speak first, "Voldemort."
Luna glanced at him, slightly surprised. Draco looked down at his hands, which were in his lap, and nodded slowly.
There was another pregnant pause, "What did he want with you?" Luna's voice was soft and the words floated gently around the room.
Draco slumped slightly against the headboard, he looked exhausted.
"He wanted to know more about Ha-Potter," he said this without looking up. Harry felt his heart sink a little when he heard Draco correct himself. Luna glanced disapprovingly at him for a second before returning her attention to the blonde headed boy.
"He was about to dismiss me when, suddenly, he became angry," steel grey eyes looked down again, "he just… completely lost it. I don't know why. Maybe everything he had said to me before was some sort of test, and I'd failed it. Or perhaps I'd made him angry, I didn't know what to do." Draco took a breath, "After a bit, he told me to get out. Father and Professor Snape did their best for me considering the time they had available, but I had to return here. Otherwise those ministry loons would realise I wasn't in school."
Harry nodded his head, understanding now just how much Snape must have been worrying for Draco, glad that the potions master had been thoughtful enough to make up the potions.
"He's not – I mean, he's different to what I was expecting," here Draco looked up, with the look of a man who thought the world would declare him insane for what he was about to say, but would say it anyway, "charming, almost kind. Rational."
Luna's eyes widened slightly, "I know," said Harry quickly, before Luna could question Draco's rationale.
"You know?" both of them asked at the same time, with equal amounts of disbelief. It was almost unnerving.
"I –" Just then Harry realised two very important things; the first, he trusted these two people a great deal more than he had previously thought, and second was that he was very very happy that he was so close to the both of them, "I haven't been completely honest with the two of you."
Harry decided to disregard all the advice that Rasp had been whispering in his ear for the better part of the past five years. Friendship wasn't a weakness, it was a chance to fight for something, it would make him stronger. Harry would stop pretending, he wasn't entirely sure if he had been completely pretending recently anyway, and become real friends with the two blondes.
"The third task. When Voldemort came back," he took a deep breath, "I made a deal with him."
Harry told them everything.
x ~ x ~ x
"What happened?" Harry said angrily.
"I could ask you the same," retorted the Dark Lord sharply.
"What did Draco do wrong?" snarled Harry.
Voldemort fixed him with a glare, "You said you were a good occlumens," he said in a menacing tone, "I fail to see the truth in that when you project your own feelings across the country like you did."
The scenery changed. They were now standing at the top of a high cliff looking out to sea.
Harry felt a spark of anger, "That has nothing to do with this!" he shouted out.
"And there it is again," Voldemort said softly, as if to himself, and looked out over the water, "it seems that we can share more than just our thoughts.
Harry felt himself calming down rapidly, understanding flashed through his mind and he released his anger instantly, "More than a normal link, we can't completely separate our minds."
The Dark Lord nodded to this, "I'm curious as to what would cause such a thing. It is certainly unheard of."
Harry had stopped listening though, a painful truth had just made itself known, "Draco was hurt because of me?"
Here the older man seemed to hesitate, "A little, but not really."
There was a slight twinge in the Dark Lord's voice that made Harry look up, he was slightly surprised to find the other man frowning at a point past Harry's shoulder. The scenery shifted again to a calm meadow, sunlight filtered gently through the leaves of the lone oak standing proud in the middle of the soft grass and wildflowers, Voldemort was seated on a branch so low it almost touched the ground.
Harry was taken aback, a place so beautiful certainly didn't belong to him, he looked at the Dark Lord again.
"Explain," he said, though he wasn't really sure what he wanted explaining more, Draco or the meadow.
Voldemort looked out over the field and his face seemed to lose years, he closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of all the mingling flowers. Curious as he was, Harry echoed him and clamped down on the pleased smile he realised he was wearing.
The scenery shifted again, this time to Harry's will, to the shrieking shack.
"Explain," Harry said again, this time more firmly. At this point in time, his emotions were running too high for him to care about the considerable danger he was placing himself in.
Voldemort still had his eyes closed, but they snapped open and Harry caught himself from taking a step back when they fixed him with an intense red glare. Harry's palms were suddenly clammy, but he refused to back down.
They stayed like this for a while.
"Please?" asked Harry, finally cracking under that red stare, "Draco is important to me."
Voldemort remained silent for a while longer and didn't once avert his eyes or blink at Harry, "This link of ours fed me your emotions, and though I was caught unprepared, I was the one who acted upon them."
Strangely enough, this admittance didn't make Harry feel better in the slightest. He looked down and away and the scenery shifted again, without conscious thought, to the backyard of Harry's orphanage. Harry didn't like this place and gritted his teeth when he caught sight of the familiar concrete. But he had no strength of will to change it again.
"What I did to Draco was reminiscent of my… younger days."
"What, exactly, is that meant to mean?" Harry felt some of his anger wearing off now.
The Dark Lord smiled, as one would placate an irate child.
Harry felt a different sort of anger at the gesture, "As you will," he said heatedly, before summoning the willpower to bring himself to wakefulness.
He woke to his bed, he felt chilled, as if the brazier in the centre of the dorm wasn't lit at all. It was the middle of the night, the moon was dark so the only source of light was the unreliable flickering of the stars. Harry couldn't see any of that though, his curtains were drawn tight around his bed, as always.
He thought of Draco, suffering the aftereffects of the type of torture that had earned the Voldemort the title of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The thought of his blonde year-mate subjected to the cruciatus curse was enough for Harry to turn away his head as if to banish the picture from his mind.
To him, it seemed as if pain followed in his wake like a late shadow, attaching itself to the people around him rather than himself.
Tomorrow would be Samhain and Harry knew for sure that something would definitely go wrong.
But for the present moment he was tired of feeling angry. Indeed, it seemed as if the anger had washed right through him and taken any semblance of warmth and good from him. Drained, he thought of Chiana and her endearing innocence, thought of the way she would appraise him as if he were a rat she was unsure if she wanted to eat or not, the way she would shake her head in puzzlement before finding something more worthy of her attention.
He thought of Chiana and slept with a smile upon his face.
x ~ x ~ x
He woke an hour before dawn, whilst uncommon, it was not particularly unusual and so Harry got up with little fuss. He had dreamt of Chiana, not of her death as one would have thought, but as if she were still living. In his dreams, he had confided his current problems and grumbled affectionately at Chiana's flippant manner towards them.
Needless to say, he awoke in a much better mood than he had felt in a while. 'Chiana!' he called out unthinkingly, reaching out for her consciousness at the same time.
At first he was confused by the strange sense of emptiness that greeted him, after a moment he remembered all that had transpired the previous year. The grin on his face quickly disappeared, he looked quickly around for Rasp and grew more despondent when he wasn't anywhere to be seen.
'Merlin, have I ever met a more depressing soul?' The tone was light, but there was a hint of irritation under it.
Harry made the decision to ignore it, but his mind was already replying, 'Would you have noticed if you had?'
Amusement.
Nothing else was said until Harry was well on his roundabout route to the Room of Requirement to see Draco. He had walked around half of the castle already in a slight daze, wanting to escape the current world for a while longer.
'Probably not,' it was so sudden that it nearly made Harry misstep.
All the same, it took Harry a moment to understand what was being said, 'Something you never noticed? Or didn't care to notice?'
The answer was unabashed, 'Both.'
"Harry?!" it came out as a startled yelp from Cedric lips.
Harry winced at the sudden loud noise but soon after he was wearing his customary smile, though it was a little sharper than usual to account for his fouler mood.
"What are you doing up so early?" Cedric's grin didn't nearly cover his unease.
Harry would have narrowed his eyes, but his character wouldn't allow for it, instead he grinned even wider and answered with a small shrug, "I woke up early, so I decided to walk around a bit." Half truths were easier to say than complete lies.
Something passed through Cedric's eyes, and Harry thought it was relief, followed by guilt which then settled on nervousness.
Harry took note of where he was in the castle, Cedric was certainly headed towards the Hufflepuff quarters which did beg the question, "Where have you been?"
Cedric froze for a moment, his mind working to create a story with such clarity that Harry almost pitied him. As such, he knew the next thing that came out of Cedric's mouth would be a lie. The thought of Cedric deliberately lying to him hurt more than Harry would ever care to admit.
"Same as you, for a walk," he said, but it was completely overacted and awfully weak. Harry inwardly cringed.
Harry couldn't think of a quicker way to resolve this mystery short of legilimancy, so he quickly leant forwards and grabbed Cedric's head, pulling him in for a chaste kiss. Lemons, sugar and a hint of something bitter.
"Well, it must be either fate or good fortune that we found each other then," he said with a sly grin he didn't really feel. Dumbledore, he just took early morning tea with Dumbledore.
Cedric visibly relaxed, and Harry wanted to scream at him. 'What did you tell him, you bumbling buffoon?' he wanted to shout. Suddenly fearful of all the things he had told Cedric in the months beforehand. A small, meek part of his mind wanted to believe that Cedric would have taken Harry's side over Dumbledore and been smart enough not to mention any misgivings Harry had shared with him about their headmaster. The rest of him knew that Cedric was simply too weak minded, born and bred Hufflepuff.
This knowledge was strengthened when the Hufflepuff hesitated and acted warily whereas before he had been carefree.
Harry acted with a carefree attitude now, he didn't realise what he was doing as he led the Hufflepuff slowly away from his dorm rooms and towards the secret passageway that led to Honeydukes.
"Come on, I'll show you a secret," he said delightedly, a slight sing song to his voice.
He led Cedric by the hand through the small cramped tunnel, and when Cedric finally showed signs of reluctance, begging Harry to turn around and come back, Harry cast an Imperius charm at him, having felt Hogwart's wards reluctantly let him go a while ago.
Harry continued to coo at Cedric, urging him on as if he didn't have full control over the other's body.
He unlocked the trapdoor in Honeydukes' cellar and led Cedric up. Harry abruptly stopped with his small act, he was still mostly a shell, with the better portion of his mind still running rings around itself in anger, spite and hurt.
"Legilimens," he said curtly.
He slipped into Cedric's mind with no more effort than it took to lift a feather. Harry saw his influence with the unforgivable as a great cage with Cedric's form within.
"Everything he said was true." There was an accusation in that.
I cocked an eyebrow at that, "Come now, everything? It's quite obvious that we have a certain amount of distaste for each other. Do you really think he is above embellishment, especially when trying to court you to his side?"
Cedric frowned a little here, Harry was appalled to find that he hadn't even considered the notion before. He soon became disgusted by it.
"You are in your final year of Hogwarts, on the verge of taking your NEWTs and entering the adult world and you can't even entertain the notion that someone might do something, not because it is right or true, but because it would benefit them?"
Now Cedric looked offended, and then self-righteous, "You're saying you're different? Its pretty clear that you've been lying to me this whole time! I can't believe I fell for it, fell for you!" he breathed deeply here, "You're just as bad as any Slytherin."
The last was obviously meant to insult, Harry gave out a short, brittle laugh, "You think the worst of me. Oh, how much simpler my life would be if I only saw in terms of black and white as you do," he levelled him with a hard stare, "the badger may be two tone, but the rest of the world is not. I pity you, for you will never be able to appreciate the marvellously beautiful game that greater men play. And I envy you, for you are lacking enough that you will never realise that you might be a part of it."
Harry's words had the desired effect, Cedric stiffened and the strength of his anger shook his mindscape they both stood in, straining the cage that the older boy was trapped in, but not breaking it.
"Hufflepuff is different from the rest of the other houses, it is noble and kind, powerful and unprejudiced. I would probably even say it was better."
Harry looked at Cedric as one might look at a small child, "You consistently do the worst out of all four houses in both OWLs and NEWTs, you very rarely win at Quidditch and it takes about as much pressure to squash a beetle as it does to hold you here. And you were considered one of the brightest."
Harry sighed tiredly and called up Cedric's meeting with Dumbledore that morning. Sure enough, Cedric accepted both the lemon drop and the offer of tea, with two sugars, and the two of them fell into easy conversation until Harry was brought up.
Harry stuck around long enough to watch the end of the memory, but left as soon as Dumbledore's office door had closed. He released Cedric from the Imperius curse as well.
All it had taken for Cedric to turn against him was Dumbledore's suggestion that he might be in league with death eaters due to his friendship with Draco. Cedric hadn't even tried to defend him, instead agreeing with the headmaster, looking a bit sick when he confessed that he had almost believed Harry when he had been talking about Dumbledore. Dumbledore had impressed 'Harry Potter is dangerous' and 'Harry Potter is evil' subtly into Cedric's mind and Cedric had left with the intent to bring Harry Potter to heel.
So Harry wasn't particularly surprised when he heard Cedric incant 'stupefy'. He stepped deftly aside without even looking whilst casting his own stunner silently to where he knew Cedric was standing. The hufflepuff crumpled bonelessly to the ground.
Harry obliviated the whole of Cedric's morning, cast a levitating charm on his body, walked back and tucked him into his own bed under a strong disillusionment charm.
After doing that, Harry escaped back to his own bed, determined not to emerge for at least three more hours.
A/N The formatting seems to have changed since last time I posted.. anyway, I hope its still readable (as much as an unbeta'd story can be) ... so... on to the next one :)
apisci