Chapter 8: How well do you swim with sharks circling?

AN: New chapter. Hope this lives up to expectations.

After James had explained the school to him, it didn't seem like such a bad deal. All he had to do was convince the Ministry's lackeys that he wasn't a Dark Wizard—which wouldn't be hard seeing as how he wasn't. He was worried, however, about spending time surrounded by supposed Death Eaters—if he was who everyone said he was, then he was one of the Dark Lord's servants (who hadn't shown up for meetings all summer). Harry knew this could be seen as defecting from the ranks of Death Eaters, and he wasn't anxious to have loyal Death Eaters try to get revenge on him because he had 'betrayed' the Dark Lord.

The other thing that bothered him was that he knew few people he could trust to get him out of sticky situations. Dumbledore didn't hold him in high regards, and Harry was sure that if his parents hadn't been good friends of Dumbledore's, he would have been shipped off to Azkaban by now.

Or did Azkaban even exist in this world? Maybe Voldie had taken control years ago. He sighed, thinking of who else in this world he trusted.

He'd tried to contact Hermione, but so far he hadn't heard a response. He had sent out at least four letters the past week—and he knew Hermione was getting them because the owl would return empty handed—er, empty-clawed. He had yet to talk to Ron as well, for Mr. Weasley hadn't taken to well to being stunned in the fire. It had a nasty reaction—his body had tried to get up and walk around while he was stunned, and this gave the rest of the family the impression that he was a zombie of some sort. It had taken over five hours to sort out the problem (the Aurors were puzzled, and no medi-witches were available at the time), and needless to say, Harry or James weren't about to fire call the Weasley's anytime soon.

At the moment, Harry was sitting on the piano bench, weary of actually touching the instrument. He was so frustrated of no knowing what was going on. Did the prophesy exist in this world? Why had his parents lived? Why were this world and his world so different—what set them off in different directions? Also, he would randomly receive 'visions' or memories of the other Harry's life from the piano, and they weren't fitting together. He still had no idea why he was here, or how he'd even gotten here (with the exception that he knew ole Voldie had something to do about it)—and another troubling fact was that Hermione and Ron had come with him.

If he, Ron and Hermione were here, did that mean that their counterparts were in his world? What if there was a dark Harry with the Dark Mark running around in his world? Or Hermione, who suddenly went into a coma? Or even Ron, who would probably raise suspicion with his family when they realized he wasn't the same Ron—Harry tried not to think about his world because he was scared to see what he would go back to.

That is, if he ever got back.

Hermione sighed, and tried to explain to her mother again that she was fine and that walking around the hospital wouldn't kill her. Though she couldn't blame her mum for being over protective (Hermione had just come out of a coma), it was starting to annoy her. Her mum wasn't allowing any contact with the outside world after she'd caught Harry's owl inside the hospital room, claiming it was highly unsanitary and could make Hermione ill because her immune system was weak.

So she spent the time reading up on the world they were now living in. There was no sense in just wasting time, after all. After reading several confusing books, she had drawn some conclusions about this 'alternate world' and didn't like what she had found out.

Few of the history books she'd found/borrowed told her anything useful. They were either Ministry sponsored books, so they told of the glory of the Death Eaters, or they were horribly written and she couldn't tell if they were fiction or non-fiction. She assumed that the Ministry was now, for the most part, under the control of the Death Eaters and Voldemort. She also assumed that this meant that Dumbledore had lost most of his power in the Ministry. This did NOT bode well for anybody on the light side, but especially not Harry.

Harry was in big trouble. The light side thought him dark, and the dark side thought him dark. The only problem was that her Harry wasn't dark, and didn't have the dark mark. As soon as Voldemort saw Harry, he'd know something was wrong. Harry, bless his soul, couldn't lie very well, and as far as she knew, he didn't have Occulmency mastered yet. This was not good.

He'd been sending her letters, but because of her mother's worrying, she had no way of sending them back. Ironically, while she was thinking that she passed by a window to see an owl waiting by it. She quickly opened the window to allow the owl access, and grabbed the letter. After reading it, she felt sick.

Harry was going to a summer program for 'reforming' Death Eaters. Run by the Ministry, who was run by Voldemort. However, the letter implied that the school was Dumbledore's idea. She frowned, wondering who was fooling whom, and rushed to her room. She was sick of her mother's caution, and she was going to write Harry back. Then, she was going to demand to be let go.

After all, her friend needed her help.

Cannon World

Albus Dumbledore was one of the greatest wizards in the world. He'd defeated a dark lord back in his day, and was still the only wizard Voldemort feared. He knew a great deal about a great deal, and this is why he was so frustrated. He'd just finished reading a letter from Molly Weasley, saying that something was wrong with Ron, something more than just teenage moodiness.

Hermione Granger was in a coma. Ronald Weasley was acting strange.

Dumbledore was worried. Not only for the two individuals in question, but for what it meant for a third individual.

Harry Potter.

Arabella had been reporting that everything looked normal, but he would feel much better if he saw for himself that Harry was fine. The boy had been through enough, and if his best friends had been attacked magically (which was the only conclusion Albus could come up with at the time), the logical conclusion was that either this was done to hurt Harry, or that Harry was next.

Neither boded well.

AU World

Albus Dumbledore was one of the greatest wizards in the world. He defeated a dark lord back in his day, and was still the only wizard Voldemort feared. There were very few wizards or witches that Albus feared.

One of them was almost sixteen years old.

Harry Potter was a mystery to Albus. His family was everything that one wished for in a family. He hadn't grown up neglected or abused. He had childhood friends to play with. Somehow, the boy had still turned dark.

That was not what scared Albus about the boy.

The thing that scared Albus was how many people were willing to follow the boy.

The Slytherins looked up to him and his best friend, Draco Malfoy, even the older ones. Ravenclaws were seen working with him on projects and homework. Even Gryffindors tried desperately to pull him back to the light side.

Now, his family was supporting the boy. One of the most powerful families that supported the light side was caught in the boy's trap.

Nothing about the boy hinted that he was malicious, though, and that was what stopped Albus from sending him to Azkaban. Something just didn't add up about the boy, and Albus didn't like that. Knowing his enemies motives had kept him alive for many years.

Maybe it was time to pay the boy a visit.

Harry frantically searched through a history book. A couple of the books he'd found sounded like a Death Eater had written it, because it praised Voldemort and scorned all light wizards. He didn't know why his family would have these books, but that didn't stop him from searching through them, trying to find anything that would tell him whether or not the prophesy existed in this world. He didn't know why he had this burning urge to know about the prophesy. Something was driving him to know.

The book he was currently searching was called A Brief History of Magic, and if it was brief than he was Tom Riddle. The thing was at least a thousand pages long, and touched on some (actually many) boring things. He was looking for anything that mentioned divination when something else caught his eye.

'People understand very little of the hierarchy of magic. Despite what people generally believe, the amount of power one has is only a small part of what makes a wizard or witch more powerful or less powerful than another. Magic takes into account the ability to be powerful, and the will of the person wielding it. Magic does not have a numerical value. It baffles those who try to study it, for it is not something easily put into words or numbers. The witch or wizard must remember one very important thing about magic—it isn't everything, and yet at the same time, it is.

Equality is something not understood by many wielders of magic. The common assumption is that to be equal, things need to be the same numerically. This, as with most other things, is not the case with magic. It is usually the opposite. An equal is something that balances another out; not cancels, but balances.'

Harry's eye had caught the 'equal' part of the passage. The rest of the page went on in further detail exactly what made magic equal, a very hard thing to find. The prophesy flittered through his mind, resting on the words 'mark' and 'equal'. He knew this passage had to mean something, but couldn't draw any immediate conclusions.

Merlin, he needed Ron and Hermione's help.

Cannon World

"I'm fine, leave me alone!" Ron half screamed, half growled. He was sick of his parents and siblings bothering him. He wasn't the crazy one. They were.

"Honestly Ronald, you are obviously not fine. You can't remember key events in your life, you act like the world is out to get you—and you didn't even know Harry was your best friend!"

Ron was about to scream back at his mother when Ginny ran down the stairs in tears.

"Hermione is in a coma! They don't know what happened—she was perfectly fine the night before, and---" Ginny took a deep breath, and wiped away her tears, trying to calm herself. Ron looked at her suspiciously.

"Hermione? Er, muggle-born student, Gryffindor, big bushy hair? She's been in a coma for two years now. Stupid bastard tortured her for hours."

Ron was met with "Ronald! Watch your language!" and "What stupid bastard? What are you talking about?"

He chose to ignore the first, and answer the second. "Why, Potter of course. I told you that he wasn't my best friend. Tried to torture me this summer, but I got away, of course. Right cold bastard, that one is."

He was met by a hard smack that he was sure would leave a handprint for days.

"Ronald Weasley, I don't care if you are my brother. You say one more thing like that about Harry and I'll—"

"Oh, it's Harry now, is it? After all he's done? Why are you even defending him, Gin?"

Their argument was abruptly cut off by the arrival of Arthur Weasley. He failed to notice (or ignored) the tense atmosphere, and made an announcement.

"We're going to Diagon Alley tomorrow to get school things. I've decided to take the day off. How was everyone's day? Mine was great."

Still cannon world

The next day, Ron was scared. He could tell something was not right. His family was happily roaming Diagon Alley, as if there were no chance that You-Know-Who would turn up. And it wasn't just his family! Other people had their tiny children outside! It was madness!

He started taking in the scene, noticing more and more things that didn't add up. His family would still mention Harry bloody Potter when they thought he couldn't hear them, and a few people would say hi to him that Ron would swear he'd never seen before.

His thoughts were interrupted with Ginny's squeal. "Harry!"

His eyes shot to emerald green eyes, and he knew that his family had been wrong. He knew Harry Potter was evil, and the hatred in his eyes confirmed it.

AU World

Harry was screwed. He was dead. Drowned. Beaten with a stick. Eaten by sharks, or one of Hagrid's many pets.

Whatever words you used, it didn't look good.

He had come to this realization about an hour ago. An hour ago, he had arrived at Earlem College, the new 'school' to reform Death Eaters. An hour ago, he'd greeted his 'best friend', Draco Malfoy.

An hour ago, his scar had burned.

Now, it was a throbbing pain, but it was very easy to ignore because he was worried about much bigger things. Like how to lie to fifty Slytherins, masters of the art, and survive. He'd told his family he'd be fine, that he could handle being a cold bastard for a couple of weeks. They believed him, so he couldn't be that bad of a liar.

Currently, Malfoy (Draco, his mind corrected), was dragging him down the hallways. They had been assigned rooms, given schedules, and listened to a long speech about how this was a great opportunity, just a different one than expected.

The story the Ministry told the 'students' was that this was a place to get extra training, provided for only the elite few. That was the story to get them here. The story they were told later was, well, a different story. Good behavior and positive 'light' attitudes was their ticket out of here. Most Slytherins didn't seem that outraged, which the Ministry lackey took as a sign that they were willing to change. Harry was disinclined to agree. Dumbledore had appeared hours ago, and, Harry assumed, had looked over the wards, so he assumed that everything was safe for now.

"Harry, where have you been!" Malfoy whispered furiously. "Our lord is very disappointed in you. I fed him the stories you told me, but they only satisfied him for a little while. You had better have something better than what you told me."

'Treat him like Ron,' Harry's brain was telling him. 'Only a much more observant Ron.'

"Listen Draco, I've had problems with my family. They were keeping tabs on me this summer, much closer than they have in the past. I even noticed a couple of tracking charms they placed on me, and I couldn't risk missing one and leading them straight to our meetings," Harry said, using the lie that he and James had created.

Draco eyed him critically. "Okay, that will work, I supposed." Harry frowned at the odd choice of words, but Draco moved on.

"Anyways, did you find out what He wanted to know? You'll have to have something for him, after being away for so long. Were you able to find anything pertaining to it in your family's library?"

Harry was screwed. Incredibly screwed. His scar burned in agreement.

Sitting in his cluttered office, Albus Dumbledore sighed. He'd done the best he could for James Potter, and now he had to focus on other, very important tasks. Albus had appeared to look over the wards, while silently casting some of his own. Little, insignificant spells tended to be ignored in favor of some of the larger ones. One of these spells was keyed to the arrival of one special person: Tom Riddle.

One had to know the person's full, real name to cast the spell, because it was person specific, and not magic specific. The genius of the spell was that when Tom arrived, his presence would cancel the spell, alerting no one save Albus. Tom would never know about it, and yet Albus would know if he arrived. The spell took a lot to cast and maintain, and unfortunately couldn't be spread over more than one contained area.

Albus knew the Ministry was no longer as 'light' as they pretended to be, and he had a horrible feeling that despite his best efforts, this outreach program was just another way for all the Death Eaters to meet. He'd tried his best to get Order members in charge of the 'training', but he didn't know how many of them had been approved.

One could only hope for the best in cases such as these. For not the first time in his life, Albus wished that he were not so deeply involved in the war. His musings were interrupted by the arrival of Severus Snape, one of Albus's deepest laid spies. The look on Severus's face didn't bode well, and it was all Albus could do not to sigh.

"What can I do for you, Severus?" he asked, indicating with a wave of his hand that Severus should take a seat. His spy just ignored the chair, as usual, and proceeded to get straight to the point.

"Albus, you know that this 'reform school' is the Dark Lord's idea, don't you?" he asked, almost rhetorically. "He's using this as an opportunity to train his junior Death Eaters into competent servants. You just gave him the opportunity to brainwash all of my Slytherins!"

Albus looked seriously at the pale-skinned man before replying.

"I could not have stopped it from happening, Severus, and I was able to get in a few Order members who might be of some use. Do not lose faith so easily, Severus, all though I will admit it is a long shot."

Severus looked at him skeptically, but nodded and swept from the room. Albus watched him go, knowing that Severus was right and there wasn't anything he could do about it. His thoughts turned to a certain black haired, green eyed boy as his gaze found a simple glass ball sitting innocently on his shelf.

The first week had been okay, considering what Harry had been expecting. He'd managed to fool all of his 'friends' with his story, most of them giving him sympathetic looks for, Harry assumed, having to spend that much time with his 'horrible' family.

The lessons, loathe as he was to admit it, were relatively interesting, and even somewhat useful. Yes, they were leaning more towards the dark side of things, but mostly the lessons seemed relatively normal. It didn't hurt that Harry's magic seemed to have grown.

He'd noticed it the second time he'd tried a nonverbal spell, Wingardium Leviosa. The first time he hadn't aimed at anything, so nothing had happened. When he'd tried the second time, the feather had shot up right away. Harry had been shocked, and slightly bewildered. He'd heard that nonverbal spells were hard, certainly harder than that had been. He'd tried the same thing with other basic spells, all to have them work marvelously.

He didn't have much time to focus on this right now, because he'd finally found out what Voldemort had asked him to research. The prophesy. He'd dragged it out of Draco without making Draco too suspicious. Was this THE prophesy? Or was it a different one?

He'd also found out from eavesdropping that Azkaban was no longer much of a threat. The Ministry sent all dark wizards there, but failed to mention that once they arrived it was only a matter of time before Voldemort would get them out. Apparently the Ministry was walking a thin line between trying to appease light wizards and dark wizards alike. Harry assumed the Voldemort didn't want people to know that he had control of the Ministry, so he threw them a couple of bones while his followers climbed higher and higher in the Ministry.

Harry, while always wary, wasn't having a hard time talking to the other students. They all respected him, and so didn't ask a lot of questions, and many seemed to follow his and Malfoy's example. Harry knew that part of that was because he was so magically strong (which he still had yet to figure out). He'd thought about owling Hermione, but until he could do so safely, he wasn't going to put her in any more danger. He was careful not to perform spells in class that seemed 'light' with any eagerness, because some students looked on suspiciously when he did.

His thoughts drifting back to the prophesy, he tried to gather what information he knew about Halloween of 81. He knew Voldemort had come looking for his family, and the Longbottoms as well, but they had both gone into hiding. Harry assumed that Voldemort had some reason to come after his family, so he must have known part of the prophesy. Now, how could Harry change it slightly without telling Voldemort too much?

His scar burned, and he gulped. He was running out of time.

Draco Malfoy frowned as he tried the Patronus Charm for what seemed like the millionth time. Honestly, if the Dark Lord controlled the horrid beasts known as Dementors, why on earth should they be learning this charm? The woman in charge of the lesson frowned as see saw the class's progress. Draco could have sworn the woman was familiar somehow, but he brushed it off.

"Think of your happiest memory! Just because the Dark Lord controls the Dementors does not make them friendly beasts to be around," she said, giving Draco the impression that she was a Death Eater. He refrained from sighing, because Malfoys do not sigh, and went back to work. He glanced over at his best friend, who was currently mumbling something and getting no results as well.

Feeling slightly cheered that his best friend couldn't accomplish the spell either, he watched as the 'professor' came over to them.

"Let's see it Mr. Malfoy," she said, a bit harshly. Draco produced hardly more than a wisp of smoke, but it was more than anyone else had done. He looked up proudly only to catch what he thought was the end of an eye-roll from the woman.

"Hmm…yes, well, needs improvement doesn't it?" she said, moving onto his best friend.

"And you Mr. Potter?"

Harry mumbled something under his breath and gave his wand a wave. Nothing came out, not even smoke. Draco shot his best friend a sympathetic look, knowing how he hated not to be able to do a spell.

"You need to annunciate, Mr. Potter. Try again," she said, and Draco saw Harry give her a glare before straightening his shoulders.

"Expecto Patronum!" he said, flicking his wand to emit a silver stag.

To say Draco was shocked was an understatement, and though he tried to hide his shock others were not so careful. The professor looked suspiciously at Harry as the rest of the students gaped.

"A corporeal Patronus? On your second try?" she asked.

Harry snapped at her. "What shocks you more professor? That I did it on my second try or that I have a happy memory to fuel it?"

She frowned at him. "Most grown adults have trouble with that spell, Mr. Potter. I myself struggled with it for months before I picked it up, and I was twenty at the time."

Harry shrugged, and replied, "I do happen to pick up a book every once in a while."

Draco smirked at the implied statement, 'unlike you', missing at the end of the sentence.

And so things continued as normal, everyone chalking Harry's success up to the fact that he was Harry. Draco Malfoy, however, knew differently. He and Harry had tried that spell with little success before. He wondered what had changed.