Chapter 4: Smoke and Mirrors
It is nine fifty-five a.m. I said my farewell to Albus over an hour ago. The clouds are already gathering over the empty village. It'll start to rain soon. Perhaps this place will seem less abandoned then; the raindrops will wash the grime from the empty windowpanes, and bring sound to the silent cobblestones of the high street.
I suppose it's as good a place and time as any for me to die.
I wonder if I'll see the rain?
Nine fifty-six.
I haven't checked the time, but ever since I Apparated to Hogsmeade, an internal clock began to tick, inescapable as the pulse pounding inside my skull and in my left arm, measuring every last wasted second: a countdown to the end.
I know exactly what I have to do. If Dumbledore's Chosen One fails, I must finish what he began. Or die trying, most likely. I'm not as delusional as Potter, to think that I'll stand any chance of killing the Dark Lord, but I'll attempt it anyway. Why not? One way or the other, I'm dead.
Even if Potter's famous luck at surviving the odds doesn't run out today and he does somehow succeed in Dumbledore's insane mission, it will truly be over: for me, as for so many others. Even if the 'Light' wins, I won't survive: not with my Mark chaining me to the Dark Lord, like all the rest of the Death Eaters. I'm aware of the Mark as seldom before - throbbing under my skin, in my bones, coiling in my blood - and for a moment I picture it as it truly is: only one among hundreds of intricate spell links stretching across our world, like lifelines about to be cut.
Nine fifty-eight.
"Have you found a way?" I asked Dumbledore this morning. Any way, any solution, any means to improve his last extravagant plan in a manner that won't require my death whatever the outcome of the battle.
I didn't even have to finish the sentence before he told me the usual, the inevitable. "I'm truly sorry, my boy. Believe me. Now, if you are prepared . . ."
My reverie is shattered as I clutch at my burning Mark; I almost double over at the stab of agony from the summons I am overdue to answer. How can anyone prepare for this?
Ten o'clock.
I am not ready. How could I ever be? I am not prepared to lose Lucius. I am not prepared to die, with Lucius or without him. Yet if Potter succeeds, the Dark Lord will drag us all down with him into death; and if Potter fails, the results will be too terrible to imagine. I've worked toward this moment for more than half my life, and in all that time I have had no choice. I knew that in the end it would come to this: to personally betraying the only one I hold dear.
I'm so sorry, Luce; I planned your murder in sound mind and carried it out with steady hand, starting from the very first moment I agreed to Dumbledore's terms, all those years ago.
Five after ten.
I find Lucius by the last house on the high street. It's perched near the edge of the town, and only the remains of wards keep its shattered walls from falling apart completely. Lucius stands tall in its jagged shadow. Fine silver strands stray from underneath his mask and fly on the breeze. A silver clasp with two entwined serpents shines on his shoulder against his black velvet cloak. He gazes out onto the road leading to Hogwarts, undoubtedly planning his next conquest. In the narrow slits of the featureless mask, his grey eyes burn with the conqueror's ancient passion to take and to own, to stand on the tallest tower of the castle and look down upon the world proclaiming his victory.
What can I say to someone who will most likely be dead before the day ends; who will die because of my own actions? Words would never be enough, not if I had forever to say them. I take a step closer, then another, and join him in the shadow. There's no escape for us, my friend. Forgive me, Luce. Proschai ee prosti. ". . .Lucius."
"They've been at it since you arrived," he replies without turning; standing with his back to me, his attention fixed on the distant clearing where the road curves and disappears behind a low hill. "If it were my choice, I'd crush the brat beneath an army. But the Dark Lord is determined to kill him personally."
"Any sign of . . ." – Damage? Defeat? Unexpected resolution? Any sign of hope? – ". . . change?"
"No, but he should start screaming for mercy any moment now. Arrogant pest," Lucius declares with the relentless conviction of someone who always chooses the winning side. The possibility of our Lord doing the screaming has never crossed his mind.
At last, with an impatient sigh, he turns away from his vigil. "Did you know that Narcissa went to Gringotts? She's taking the gold, fleeing the country," he says with a low, mocking laugh. "She doesn't understand. But you do, Severus. We can't just walk away from this. We never could."
Just like the Lucius I remember: so sure of himself, of his victories. My gaze drifts down the empty high street, past blank window frames and open doors and the apple tree, still standing, still white with blossom fragile as old lace, amid the destruction. On the side of the road by the Hog's Head lies the corpse of an old man who aimed his wand at the Dark Lord when we first invaded. The Lestranges got him before he fired his first hex.
"Have you even considered the possibility that we might be dead before tonight?" I ask him.
Lucius raises his white mask revealing an equally pale, aristocratic face. His thin lips curl up faintly in a smile, enigmatic and confident, as if Lucius knows a sure way to win the game, no matter what cards life deals him. "Tsk. Severus. It seems not so long ago that you said you'd follow me until the end of the world. And now you are ready to give up?"
Give up? I've given up my fruitless attempts to sway Lucius off his chosen path long ago. "It is the end of the world. It's over."
"Have you been listening to Dumbledore's ravings for so long that they have clouded your judgement?" he scoffs. "Trust me in this. You have nothing to fear."
"I'm not afraid to die." It's not me that I am worried about. My fate was decided long ago. I've been living on borrowed time ever since Dumbledore allowed me to descend unharmed into the Hogwarts dungeons from his office.
"Nonsense," Lucius chides, "We are winning!" His voice rings with his usual infectious confidence. "Today will be our greatest victory."
Why have you always had to win and claim and conquer, Luce, ever since we were children? "You aren't listening to me!"
"You're the one who's not listening," he declares, belief burning like molten silver in his eyes. "You're going to live, my friend. Would I have ever inducted you into our Order otherwise? Have more faith in me than this."
"Shouldn't we back him up, sir?" someone calls from inside a nearby building.
"Silence! The Dark Lord requires his victory, on his terms." Lucius shouts back. "Our orders were clear: We are to wait here as Our Lord commanded."
How is it, Luce, that with all your will and ambition, all your passion for conquest and dominion, you never realised that the Dark Lord defeated you years ago? He will not defeat me as well.
"For what it's worth," I tell him softly, "I'm glad that I'm here, with you." I cannot think of anyone else I'd rather be with on this last day.
Lucius' gaze trails over the dark figures waiting inside the buildings and along the tumbled walls, pauses on the clearing in the distance, before coming to rest on my own masked face. For a long time he is quiet, until at last he speaks into the silence between us. "As am I."
Then he reaches out, his hand slipping under the edge of my hood, and slowly, carefully pulls my mask off. "There, Severus, much better."
"What are you doing?" I ask, stunned, my gaze flicking from my mask in his hand, to his slumped posture which lowers his face to the same level as mine, to his wide-open eyes and his thin mouth and refined features.
"This."
A flash, green as grass and lightning-bright, flares from the direction of the clearing and Lucius whirls to stare in that direction. When he glances back, his eyes are alarmed and furious. His elegant fingers claw at his shoulder, finally tearing the serpent clasp free. "Here."
I can barely hear the word over the thunder-rumble of an explosion in the distance. "Luce?" What is it?
"Get Ciss and Draco! Go!" he cries and shoves me away, his cloak all askew and my mask still in his hand.
Lucius' face has lost his usual composed expression. He's livid and vulnerable, so full of passion and so close to fury, as his fingers, ice-cold, press his silver clasp into my palm.
Then at ten twenty-nine the activated portkey rips me away from Hogsmeade in a whirl of endless white and a confusing rush of images and sensations.
Proschai ee prosti (Rus.) – Forgive and farewell.
Across from Borgin and Burkes, I look around frantically, more thankful with each passing moment that Lucius took my mask. These days, even at Knockturn, famous for its Dark Arts shops, a masked Death Eater wouldn't survive any longer than an Auror in full uniform would, if they'd ever dared to walk these streets. It would take mere seconds for some disgruntled soul to aim a wand and mutter a single curse from behind this display of shrunken heads or that cage of spiders in a store window.
Blue patches of sky shine above the tall, uneven roofs, reflecting in the store fronts and the small, dimmed windows of the upper floors. Unlike in Hogsmeade, there'll be no rain here today.
Where is Lucius? What was he thinking, sending me away from the battle like this? Why? Is he thinking at all? Normally I have at least some idea of his plans.
My first impulse is to Apparate back to Hogsmeade.
Then a bomb goes off.
Proximity means the blast hits me with a full-body impact as well as an earth-shaking roar. And then the world is piercingly, painfully silent. Didn't I warn Avery and Goyle not to use so much gunpowder in their experiments? There had to be enough in that single blast to obliterate the entire street!
I am dizzy, disoriented; everything else seems to happen in flashes: much like Legilimency visions, fragmented and random, which I have to put together into a greater whole, and hope that whatever message those pieces carry is not deciphered too late.
It is only when I reach Diagon Alley that I ache with the sudden sense that everything has gone hideously wrong.
Why didn't Luce go after his wife and son himself? I'll never forgive him if he simply realised that yet another tactical move of his troops might affect Narcissa's well-being and sent me to nursemaid her.
I hurry past the Diagon store fronts and the milling, shaken crowds.
With an icepick-sharp stab of pain, pressure pops in my inner ears and my hearing begins to return. I catch the screams of the crowd and the faint murmur of the Wizarding Wirelesses blaring from each store front. For the past month the store owners all over Diagon have been leaving their radios by the open doors, to attract the passers-by with the most recent war bulletin.
The clamour all around me grows louder by the second. This might be more serious than I thought at first, judging from the shocked faces in the crowd.
I draw my wand and break into a run.
Distant screams grow stronger as I get closer to Gringotts. This couldn't have been the Death Eaters' doing. Even Goyle isn't foolish enough to target the bank with all its security wards.
The radio signal from the nearest store front amplifies suddenly and then turns to static noise. It's not only this one, I realise. One after the other all the way down the street, all of the Wizarding Wirelesses suddenly start transmitting rising waves of static that slowly drown out everything else.
But that ceases to concern me in seconds. I notice something much more disturbing ahead.
Gringotts is gone.
I run closer to that shocking patch of space where the building once stood, breathing in a rising cloud of grit that veils the entire block. Dimly through the dust I see a giant pit covered with rubble, an angry mouth with jagged edges, in place of the imposing fortress. It's as if the ground itself rose up and swallowed the entire building whole. Clouds of dust and smoke boil up from the pit.
It couldn't have been a bomb. No mere bomb could shatter the strongest wards in Diagon Alley.
Narcissa.
Merlin, I hope she's already at the Manor. Luce will never forgive himself if something's happened to her.
"God save us," I distinguish from the screams and the noise. "No one could've survived it. Not even a warning to Apparate out."
"Help me," a woman shrieks and grabs my elbow. "I can't levitate this alone!" I step away from her and push and shove my way against the gathering crowds into the nearest store entrance.
One of the walls had collapsed and I distinguish a figure underneath all the rubble and hear a faint attempt at Leviosa. Fortunately the fireplace is on the opposite wall, relatively unharmed. I grab a handful of powder from the jar on the mantel and toss it into the flames. They remain orange. I try another handful. The same.
"Get a better batch of floo powder if you hope to continue your business here," I snarl at the hapless owner, and, after taking a second look, levitate the largest chunk of rubble away from him. He drops his wand and starts pushing his way out manually, giving me an incredulous stare. I do not linger inside to see if he gets out.
What is happening? Is this the Dark Lord's doing? Why didn't I hear anything beforehand? I'm missing something. Something important. A cold wave of fear crashes down, hammering my chest and twisting in my gut.
Wait. Think!
Something is missing. The realisation stops me dead in my tracks. I clutch at my arm.
There's no pain.
My Mark felt like it was on fire this morning. The pain of the summons stopped just before I found Lucius, but the faint itch of it, the slight irritation has always been there. Should always be there. And now it's gone.
Carefully, I turn against the wall to shield myself from the curious eyes and roll up my left sleeve.
Instead of the usual inflamed black brand on my arm it's paled to a faint green silhouette, like an old tattoo. Faded. Harmless. I concentrate fiercely, searching my mind for the ever-present link to the Dark Lord.
Nothing.
How long has it been this way? I don't remember it hurting since this morning.
Since Hogsmeade.
LUCIUS!
I have to get back.
In the midst of ever-growing pandemonium of Diagon Alley, cries for help and horrified screams, I raise my hand. I still have Lucius' silver clasp clutched in it along with my wand, digging into my palm with its sharp edges.
Apparate.
This isn't the same place that I left less than half-hour ago. Horrified, I look around.
The houses are gone. I recognise the high street only by the contours of scattered cobblestones under piles of debris. It's silent, and that silence is a cry in my mind, ten times worse than the pain of the explosion and the screams at Diagon.
There are ashes. So many ashes that they cover the ground like snow, like the petals from the apple tree by the Hog's Head. There's smoke everywhere, but I don't see any flames.
The rain quickens. The wind picks up, breathing air – too warm for this weather – in my face. Thin, sparkling threads of rain fall at an angle, like Lucius' fine silver mane. Dwindling billows of smoke cling to the ground, blocking my view of the wreckage. The air reeks of wet char and burned flesh.
Impossible! He had time to escape. He must have.
For mere seconds, the sun flashes amid the storm clouds, casting gleams of light upon the ruins. Water drops, clean and cool, cling to my skin and soak into my clothing, mixing with the layer of white dust and ash.
In the bitterness of smoke, I smell the faint scent of wet soil and apple blossom.
Luce. Where are you?
All this smoke isn't really coming from Hogsmeade after all, I notice. The wind is blowing it from the clearing on the road to Hogwarts.
Does this mean that it's over? I imagine a conversation with Albus about my faded mark: "I think it's safe to say that the Dark Lord is gone." "But have you checked, my boy? Have you looked to be sure?"
Well, I don't care if Potter blasted the Dark Lord and himself to pieces! It won't bring my Lucius back.
I'll never find him in all this ash. Chances are, I wouldn't recognise his body even if I saw it.
I clench my fists, hard enough to bend the metal of Lucius' serpent portkey as it bites into my skin. There's probably blood, but it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters.
A vision of Lucius' elegant fingers struggling with the clasp on his shoulder and finally tearing it off, flashes in my mind.
Lucius! You bastard! You knew this. You planned it.
You had a chance to escape. Why didn't you take it? You should've left me here. I should've grabbed your arm before you shoved me away and brought you with me.
WHY?
"You're going to live," I hear his voice in my mind and see silver eyes shining with conviction. "Live!" It's an order, one more of those he always loved to give me, crisp as his sarcastic laughter and bracing as the slap of his gloved hand against my cheek.
I'll never accept that, Lucius. Not from you. You aren't the self-sacrificing hero sort. You never performed a selfless act in your entire life unless it somehow worked to your advantage. My past's been wasted in following you - into Slytherin, into the Death Eaters - years of chasing a dream, closer and closer, and never quite capturing you. Must I also spend my future life following your orders, even though now they send me further away from you?
You knew all along what would happen if the Dark Lord was defeated. And you severed my link to him before it did. Did you know that I took the Mark because of you? I would have never traded my freedom for your life and you had to shove it in my face in the end, just like that.
I never wanted freedom. Not now. Not at such a cost. What good would it do?
Damn you! You didn't have to die. I've spent my life searching, calling out and hearing a faint echo of an answer, just enough to regain hope, just enough to go on, to keep reaching, for you. Always you, Lucius. But it's too late for me to carry on the quest, much too late for us. After so many years of striving, I couldn't bear to find you only now: you, or whatever war and ruin would have left me of your body.
I take a final look at the desolate landscape before I Apparate home. Of all the buildings in Hogsmeade, only the Shrieking Shack still stands. The silver strands of rain lash my face, a whip of wet ice wielded by a brutal wind.
Then I speak the incantation and everything goes dark.
Where am I?
I remember Diagon and Hogsmeade. I Apparated back home but I don't remember ever getting in. Where is Albus? Where is the rest of the Order?
Instead I remember darkness and then the rough stones of a wall and deep blue sky and slicing agony in my lung. I remember collapsing, my body wet with blood. I remember screaming; agony and a word: Apparate! And nothing happened. I crawled somewhere. Away from sight. Here.
I'm lying on the pavement, hard and cracked and uneven. A narrow strip of a path between the two stone walls covered with graffiti and scratches. The air smells of rubbish bins and dirty river. Above me, the mill chimney looms, casting shadow over the entire stretch of the alley, a monument to Muggle worship of commerce and expediency.
I know this place.
It's a dirty and desolate passage in Weston-Super-Mare, just by Spinner's End, the one I always walked by but never went into.
The hard surface beneath me starts to rock gently. And then it's not the hard pavement of the street at all, but the bottom of a boat. The boat slides gently into the lake's waters and leaves the shore. The night sky is full of stars. Fireflies dance at the lake's surface, and the sky is spinning so fast that for most part I cannot tell which bright spark is which. The dark mass of the forest spreads behind me against the purple sky, and the distant lights of Hogwarts' towers glimmer ahead, just like the first time I saw them when I was eleven years old. Before everything, before Hogwarts became a dungeon and then a prison, back when the castle seemed truly magical, appearing like this, over the water, under the starlight.
The wounds on my chest and shoulder feel numb, almost healed and barely there, like an old scar.
There's a warm touch on my jaw, fingers brushing against the wet skin, so gentle they're barely touching at all. My face is warm; warm and wet.
It must be the rain. It's still raining at Hogsmeade.
"Lucius." It can't be my voice, this low, croaking sound. It sounds hoarse, like someone who's screamed his throat raw. "Luce?"
"No," the voice above me answers. "I'm Harry."
'Who?' I mean to ask, but the sound doesn't come out.
"It's four a.m.," the voice continues. "You've still got time till morning. Just heard you and wanted to make sure you're all right."
"Where is . . . ?"
"Shh." So soft, that voice. Soothing. "Sleep."
And so I sleep.
I do not dream of Luce. I dream of the explosion instead, spreading lightning-fast across the ley-lines of earth-magic and the tangled mesh of wizard-made spells, echoes racing around the globe in moments, destroying thousands of spell links and networks: Floo, Wizarding Wireless, Gringotts wards. It severs our biological connections to the magic in the Earth itself and treacherously unfolds ever wider, unnoticed and unseen.
Like an uncoiling serpent, it holds so much destructive power within. It strikes so fast that it might even go unnoticed by the naked eye, but within a day, its deadly venom would do its job.
I blink at the clock. Nine! Nine o'clock, and I should've woken hours ago. I haven't slept this late in ages.
Daylight from the kitchen window streams through the open door behind my back. In my bathroom, I run the water cold, splash it over my face and wet down my hair.
I look into the shining depths of the mirror and recall another morning after a nightmare, when I first faced an ill-mannered ghost in my hallway.
I've wondered several times how he managed to appear here at all. Old superstitions claim that mirrors trap ghosts and therefore should be covered with dark cloth for three days after someone's death. I do not know enough about ghosts' ability to travel through space, but I think that Harry used this mirror, the only mirror in my flat, as a convenient gateway to come through from wherever he was before. I stare at the surface spattered with water and wonder what other surprises this sheet of silvered glass might hold.
"What do you see?" the familiar voice sounds from the door. There's no reflection to indicate Harry's presence, but he is unmistakeably there.
"Where?" I ask, without turning around.
"In the mirror. You've stared at it for ages."
Only myself as usual. But I wonder what Harry sees when he looks into one. Would he see the way he looked before he died, out of sheer force of habit; or has he grown used to seeing an empty space instead of his own reflection?
"Where are you from?" Harry asks out of the blue.
What? My reflection blinks. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious," he shrugs, floating in the doorway. "You've taught me for seven years and I don't know a single thing about you."
There was a time when he wouldn't have had the nerve or the motive to ask. "A town in Avon." I suppose there's no harm in saying it now.
"Oh," he responds, as eloquent as always, and looks as if he expected me to arise forth from the ground somewhere closer to hell and nowhere near such a trivial place as the last house on Spinner's End. "Is it close to where the Order kept me? Your house that you said was the new headquarters?"
"It was that place. The last house on a street called Spinner's End in Weston-Super-Mare." I suppose I can reveal it to him now. He deserves to know and the house is long gone. Even if I walked on that street today, the wards would never recognise me or let me in.
Harry seems disappointed to hear my words. "Weston-Super-Mare! And here I thought it was France or Switzerland, the way you all kept talking about hiding me away in some secret place."
"It wouldn't have been a very good hideout if even you could guess its location on the first try," I state the obvious.
"Oi!" he exclaims. "I'm good at guessing things."
"So was Trelawney," I scoff.
"Aha, you're mocking me, so you aren't angry," he declares with a grin. "You'd never mock me if you were."
Angry? "Should I be?"
"Er. Maybe," he hesitates. "I don't know. I saw your dream."
"I guessed that." Faint and unclear, I still remember the vision in the end: the lake and the boat, myself, trying to ask a question and failing, and an obscure sense of comfort, reassurance - company - that I had not expected to feel. "How much of it did you see?"
"Well, sort of…" He falters into uncertainty. "The whole thing. I didn't mean to, but you kept talking in your sleep. …And I thought it was the tunnel," he adds hurriedly afterwards.
I do not ask why he decided to keep watching once he made sure that I wasn't being hunted by the werewolf. "How much did you understand?" I ask him instead.
"Most of it," he says, and tenses up, as if I'm teaching him Occlumency again and he's just a wayward pupil caught with his head in my pensieve. Come to think, he has good reason to be nervous.
Perhaps it'll do him some good to see what happened after he died, to view the events with someone else's eyes for a change. He probably never did get a chance to know the details.
"There was this one thing," he says, unsure of how to proceed. "You didn't expect to live through that day in the dream, but you did. Why?"
I feared he'd ask at least one of these questions, but he managed to ask both in one go. "Why what?" With his persistence, I doubt it will delay the dreaded explanation by much.
"Why did you think you'd die, and why didn't you?" he clarifies, in far less time than it would have taken me to talk him out of asking. Too late to try, now.
I pause to gather my thoughts. "There was more to Dumbledore's plan than you think," I tell him. "You weren't meant to kill just the Dark Lord. The shock of his death would have resonated through the Dark Marks just as his summons did; strong enough to eliminate all of his followers."
I notice his wary glance at my left elbow and meet his eyes. "Yes, unfortunately this perfect plan had one flaw. Dumbledore couldn't save me."
Angry disbelief kindles in him. "But he did. He must've!"
"No," I shake my head and add softly. "Lucius did."
"Lucius MALFOY?" he cries, as if even the mere thought of Lucius saving someone is some sort of abomination.
He might as well hear the whole truth. "Lucius was the one who inducted me into the Death Eater ranks," I tell him. "It was through his Mark that mine was linked to the Dark Lord."
"But, he sent you away in the dream. How could he do anything?" Harry argues in his usual stubborn manner.
Lucius did the only thing he could do, the only possible way that it could have been done. "The fact that I survived that day means that Lucius died before the final cataclysm reached Hogsmeade." My voice is as flat and final as a judge's passing a death sentence. After all these years, it still hurts to think on it. Oh, Luce.
Harry doesn't reply. This must be the first time in ages that I've managed to render him speechless. There's a long, heavy pause as we stand there in the narrow space of my bathroom, caught in an endless instant of stillness, like a Muggle photograph. I'm next to the sink and he is halfway out the door and the silence surrounds us like air and weighs us down like water. And I'm glad of it; even this suspense is easier than speech.
"Ron died saving me." Harry hurls words like stones into the pooled silence between us; they fly sharp as anger and hard as grief. "He wasn't meant to die, I was."
"It should've been Lucius haunting me," I admit softly, to myself and perhaps even to him. It should have been Lucius in my dreams 'till the end of the world'. "It should never have been you."
He scowls at me.
Anger that had been focused on the past, on fate, is turned abruptly my way, and his gaze grows brittle and sharp enough to slice. He was floating, but now he descends to the ground, his feet firmly plant themselves on the floor. His form is just as transparent in the daylight, but his fury empowers him, makes him seem solid, more real. "You know what?" he cries. "You think you own the bloody world, Snape! Well, bollocks! What gives you the RIGHT to decide?"
And so we are back to yelling at each other. "Potter!"
"NO!" he glares at me, furious. "Who are you to tell me I shouldn't bloody EXIST!"
Oh, but he should have existed! He should have been allowed to live and enjoy life and do all those unwise and irresponsible things that young men often do. He should never have been trapped in this place with only me for company. Infuriating creature! I want to snarl that in his livid face and watch his oh so righteous fury fade away. I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, if only it were possible. "It shouldn't have been you, you reckless fool; you should have survived!"
"Oh." He must have been trying to say something else but he fails. His shoulders sag, as if all the air has been punched out of him.
It's exasperating to have to attempt, yet again, to decipher the meaning behind his monosyllables. "What do you mean, 'oh'?"
"Well, I, er… Just that, maybe I was wrong."
"Were you?" I almost sneer. Such a pity, all that shouting was for nothing.
"Good morning?" he offers, tentatively, and I cannot find it within me to berate him any further.
"Good morning," I reply instead.
We called him a grouchy git at school, and he is one, that's for sure. Only there's more to him than the sneer and the insults. I've watched him long enough to know that. You look at someone for days and you learn a lot about them.
He buys groceries every Friday, normal things like milk and bread and a new pack of candles. Then on Saturday he cooks stew. He slices potatoes and carrots and greens with a razor-thin knife into the pieces of the same length, like ingredients for one of his nasty potions. Then he looms over the stove and stirs it all in a pot not a second after the water starts boiling. When he finishes adding all the stuff, he turns down the flame and sprinkles salt over it. When it's ready, he ladles out some of the stew into a bowl and eats quietly, crumbling bread into pieces and dipping the pieces in. For three days afterwards, he has nothing but stew for dinner.
He never loses anything. It's like he measured the entire flat in steps because he knows exactly where everything is. He never trips over things in the dark and he never draws the curtains in his room to let the light in. His room is always neat if not clean, except for candles. Those are everywhere, on the edges of the table, on the arm of the chair, on the floor, and even on the book shelves.
He reads an awful lot of books. Some of them I've seen before and some are really strange, written in letters I can't even recognise much less read. Sometimes he leaves a book on the floor and if I try really hard I can open it and turn the pages myself.
He knows a lot of things, but he never tells what he knows. It's a riddle after a riddle if you ask him a question. I have to keep guessing the meaning of every word he says.
It's not so bad to ask him questions now. He doesn't look too frightening without his great big cloak flapping behind him. In ordinary clothes he even looks normal, only starved half to death and very, very tired, especially with his elbows and knees and bony fingers always bent at sharp angles and his head down. His hair is always in his face and it hides everything, except for his long, hooked nose.
He hides a lot, and not just behind his hair. He hates going outside during the day when there're people out on the streets. And he ignores everyone except for one neighbour. He doesn't like company much. He doesn't even like it when I follow him around during the day. When I need to tell him something I usually do that in the morning or the evening, cause it's the best time to catch him in a better mood.
When I do catch him off-guard, his eyebrows rise up, he loses his heavy-lidded stare and glares unhappily instead. He's good at glaring, with his black eyes and white face and big, beaky nose. He looks very gloomy and harsh then, like the grumpiest and grouchiest old owl in the Owlery, just woken up with its feathers all ruffled and in the worst mood ever; the kind of owl that's only ever asked to deliver howlers. When he looks like that, it means that it's all right to ask a question.
How can anyone spend all day frowning? He rarely smiles. And he never opens his mouth when he does. Sometimes he even covers it with his hand, as if he's ashamed to show it.
But I got used to that after awhile. And I got used to his flat.
It seemed just as dark and gloomy as Snape on the first day, but now I sort of like it. It's always quiet. Peaceful. It's not so cold here now. Sometimes I can feel the warmth through the walls or from the other end of the room so I don't have to try and sneak closer to him as much as I did before.
Everything will be all right.
I have to tell myself that over and over again just so it'll sink in. Everything will be all right now. Look at how Ginny turned out. Her baby has magic. And there must be more children like that all over the place. They'll grow up and they'll come back to the Wizarding World. There'll be people on the streets of Diagon Alley, just like before. They'll rebuild everywhere they've abandoned, like Hogsmeade and the Burrow. They'll live there again.
And there'll be students returning to Hogwarts. I know there will be! All those kids've got to learn somehow. They'll need the library and the spell books and even the nasty jars with bugs and spiders from Snape's stores.
Soon they'll come back and there'll be magic taught at Hogwarts again.
I always knew I'd end up there. Maybe one day I can go back to Hogwarts with Snape. He could teach again. We'll need someone to teach the new kids, and he can still do that, even if he can't do spells anymore. He'll carry on his usual intimidating routine of scaring his students and I'll help with what I can. It's not much but I'll do my best. Hogwarts will need all the help it can get.
I really hope that Snape will come to Hogwarts with me one day. It would be brilliant to have the school back just like before.
We're reading.
There're two candles burning in the room, one next to me, another in the corner where Harry is curled up.
I'm hiding in the depths of my leather chair and Harry rustles the pages of the book that I left on the floor. I set down a couple of volumes for him a few days ago, in the hope that boredom would awaken some dormant academic streak even in someone as hopeless as him.
He took no notice of the classics, but the book of fairytales was able to hold his attention for a good hour and a half. I suppose it's a beginning.
He's lying down, or rather hovering a few inches above the floor with his chin propped up on his folded hands and his legs dangling in the air, crossed at the ankles. The book rests against the newspaper stack and occasionally Harry gives it a particularly determined stare and without moving from his position turns another page.
I finish my own book and set it aside on the arm of my chair.
He looks at me and waits a few seconds, as if to make sure that I don't pick it back up and start again. Then he tilts his head and adjusts the glasses on his nose nervously before asking: "What would you do if you came back to Wizarding world?"
I give him a sceptical glare. There's no use in wondering about what ifs. He should know that.
"I sort of thought maybe you'd want to teach Potions again." He takes one look at my face and adds hastily, "Or Defence."
I blink at him as if he'd suddenly grown a beard and acquired a phoenix.
"Not now of course," he shakes his head. "Maybe in a few years. When people'll start going back."
What delusions have invaded his head now? He's built an entire dream world out of impossibilities again, all because he saw one spark of hope. "'Going back?' Use your head, Potter! It'll never happen in my lifetime, if it will happen at all."
"You can't mean that!" he exclaims. "Your lifetime? What about Ginny's lifetime, or Mrs. Weasley's, or any other wizard or witch who survived? It's their home; they'll need to go back."
I spit out one word to put an end to his senseless ranting. "Impossible."
"Even if you hated teaching then, things are different now," he persists. "And there's no one else who knows things as well as you do."
I groan. Foolish ghost! "It's not a question of aptitude. What you're suggesting is physically impossible."
"But," he stammers. "Magic is back. Give it a few years and there'll be children able to cast spells. They'll need to learn somewhere, won't they?"
What kind of outrageous suggestion is this? "Are you saying that a handful of surviving squibs should reopen the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Even if they ever get through the wards without getting Obliviated or killed – which, by the way, is impossible to achieve – how do you propose they should go about gathering and keeping in line a horde of young students waving their wands and casting spells all over the place?"
"That's right," Harry grins, answering my first question and blithely ignoring all the rest. "And it's possible. Wanna bet?"
As if a betting on it would turn the odds any! "This is the most ridiculous idea I've heard in my life."
"Fine," he sneers. "Just remember that when we're both at Hogwarts during the next Sorting! I promise; you'll never hear the end of it."
When he gets an idea stuck in his head like this, it's never good. Perhaps it's just as well that stubborn head of his holds so few ideas. "Potter, I know it's hard for you to accept, but it's high time you started to try. There will never be another Sorting."
He just shakes his head and grins blissfully. "You're too cynical and it can't be good for you. Things are finally turning 'round!"
"And you're a fool, if you think that this would change anything."
"All right," he nods. "Forget about the 'impossible' part for awhile. You can't be happy in London. D'you really want to spend the rest of your life like this?"
I look around my flat, dark and quiet in the flickering lights of the candles, at Harry, curled up next to one of them with the book propped against the newspapers, and the answer comes without thought. "I don't mind." I'm surprised to find that, for the first time I can remember, I'm actually satisfied with my life. Just because I might have responded differently a couple of weeks ago doesn't make my current answer any less true.
I think of what it might mean, with Harry's enthusiastic voice still ringing in my ears: "Magic is back! Don't you see it's the best thing that could've happened to us?"
I don't see it. I don't see that at all. But I keep my misgivings to myself.
When I stretch out in bed that night, I think in detail of what will happen, as magic returns to the next generation. I still can't see the hope Harry sees. Even if it does happen as he thinks, and someone does eventually pass through the wards, even if they survive and rebuild the abandoned ruins, this cannot end well. People will always find a way to wreck their own lives.
Years down the line I see Diagon Alley. A long queue waits for the attentions of a child with a family wand, while the child's squib parent works the crowd shamelessly. 'Magic! Ten sickles a spell!' I see parents desperate to regain magic through their children's hands. I see children so desperate for knowledge they'll swallow any mishmash of rumours and lies. I see them struggling against the unrealistic expectations thrust on their small shoulders. Of all people, Harry should know how that feels. How long would a child's untrained magic last, if it's a bargaining chip to be schemed and fought for by those who don't have it any more? I see children taught to cast the darkest curses without fully realising their damage. I see them used for war and politics by power-hungry adults, controlled and made to control others. This isn't hope. This isn't anything good. It's the beginning of a disaster. Magic always comes with a price, and we should be so lucky if the price of magic only turns out to be a handful of coins per spell.
I don't think we'll ever be able to restore Hogwarts, but some of what Harry said to me does make sense. The next generation of wizards and witches would need our knowledge. Perhaps we were too quick to leave, fleeing the ruins of our world like rats, trading the future of our people for a corner where we could lick our wounds in private. Perhaps we should have held on and waited it out, or at least brought more with us than our useless wands and a household item or two. Perhaps after all these years we can still do something, gather the remaining resources, gather the survivors, and discuss our options.
Whether I like it or not, there is a note in my coat pocket with the address of the best person for the job.
Harry doesn't realise what he is getting into. As drowsiness starts to slow my churning mind, I don't think I even realise the full extent of the situation, but I'm willing to try this. At least one of us should be aware of the consequences before we proceed any further in this outrageous affair.
I'm standing on the empty high street of Hogsmeade. It's raining.
The heavy drops strike an almost playful beat on the tin roofs: dancing over the surface of the puddles and making them ripple and spit bubbles like a particularly lively potion.
Nearby, Harry dances to that beat, stomping right into the shallow puddles and splattering mud everywhere. He doesn't even notice where he's going. Instead he's catching raindrops on his tongue with his face turned up and mouth wide open like a baby bird. "Isn't it brilliant!" he laughs. "Rain!"
Rain. Of course, that justifies everything. I make a face that shows exactly what I think of such ridiculous behaviour.
He notices and stops, shoulders drooping down, his hair slicked away from his face by all the water.
"What?" I bark. By all means, don't stop on my account.
"You don't like the rain?" He gives me a curious glance over his shiny glasses all covered with raindrops.
"What could've possibly given you that idea?" I drawl and narrow my eyes as the rain starts pouring even harder.
"You look like a soggy vulture," he chuckles. "Isn't that enough?"
I am not interested in this game. "Stop it, Potter."
"What?" he shrugs but doesn't have the decency to look the least bit sorry. "It's the truth."
Cold water drips from my nose and chin, plasters my hair to my face and slides down the back of my neck, inside the collar. My clothes stick to my body, wet and heavy, limiting my movements. I've had enough of rain, especially rain in Hogsmeade. Enough of the lashing winds and smoke amid the ruins; enough of these reminders of Lucius' death in my dreams. Why does Potter have to be difficult? "Not the talking, stop the rain."
"It's not my place to stop it," he says with the same determination I showed him during our argument over the chess game. I don't think he even realises that he's mimicking my frown. "Just go inside if you don't like it that much." He shrugs. "That's what people usually do."
I should've never offered to play chess with him that day! With a final glare directed at Potter I march to the nearest door, which turns out to be the entrance to Three Broomsticks.
The dark space of the tavern is warm and silent. Only the dust motes stir in the murky air. No one is sitting at the narrow tables and booths in the corner. No one is reflected in the wide mirror over the bar, only my own figure, dark and slightly distorted by the distance.
"Go on." Harry says behind me. "Sit down."
My clothes dry out and my hair is no longer wet.
The second time I glance in the mirror, it has his reflection as well as mine.
The small table in the corner now has two bottles that I could've sworn weren't there before. By habit I choose the seat next to the wall, the one facing the door.
Harry flops down on the chair opposite of mine and enthusiastically grabs one of the bottles. I leave mine where it is.
He gulps down a third of his drink in one go as if he was dying of thirst all this time then gives the second bottle a curious glance. "Should've known. I s'pose you don't like butterbeer either?"
I've never drunk the brew when I was young and certainly have no plans to try it now.
"Fine." He gives me an exasperated sigh and waves toward the bar. "Look."
I do. There's nothing there, but when I look back, the second bottle is gone and a cup of coffee sits on its place. An ordinary cup with a spoon and a faint ribbon of steam rising from the hot liquid.
I give it a distrustful glare.
"It's not a prank," he claims. "Just easier to switch things around when you're not staring at them."
I lift the cup and sniff carefully. It smells like coffee and nothing else.
"Don't worry." Harry smirks. "You've had one just like it every morning for the past week, followed by the second cup right at noon and more in the evening. So another won't kill you, I s'pose."
The nerve! "Would you care to elaborate?" I narrow my eyes in warning in case he decides to do just that.
He simply consumes another third of his drink with a blissful look on his face. "M'not saying anything. Go on."
I take a cautious sip. It's coffee, with just enough sugar and milk to emphasise the bitter flavour and not enough to cover it up.
Harry watches me for a while and then raises a questioning eyebrow. "What?"
I frown.
"I only had coffee once or twice," he says with an apologetic glance at his creation. "Wasn't that good."
"It's passable," I set the cup down on the table.
"Difficult git! Would it kill you to say something pleasant once in awhile?" He chuckles and kicks back in his seat, bottle in hand.
He, of all people, has the cheek to call me difficult! Outrageous. I give him a displeased glare. "You aren't a piece of cake yourself, Potter."
He doesn't bat an eyelid, just raises his bottle at me in a mock toast.
The next time I take a drink out of my cup, it's not coffee at all, despite its dirty brown colour. It's tea.
I barely stop myself from spitting hot liquid all over myself and the table. "Potter, what is this?"
"Nothing," he grins with just a hint of mischief showing in the corners of his eyes. "Nothing at all. Try it now."
I leave the cup alone for a good minute, in hopes that whatever he did to it will disappear by then.
When I take the next sip, the coffee, though slightly cooler, regains its normal taste. But on the second try, it becomes pumpkin juice and Potter grins proudly as if he invented the ghastly stuff.
I give him a cross look.
He keeps smiling, the irksome creature. "Don't look so offended! It's just a joke."
On the third try, when the drink turns into red currant rum, I raise my hand to my mouth, set my cup aside and look down at it.
Then I simply examine his confident grin as it quickly melts off his face.
"What is it? Did I mess it up?" he asks hesitantly and draws his eyebrows together, puzzled at my expression.
"I couldn't've. It won't . . ." I wait and watch him grow more and more alarmed. "Are you all right? Say something!" He stands up, not certain how to proceed, glasses askew and hair all ruffled.
Then I lower my hand and with great satisfaction reveal the smirk that I've been hiding for the last few seconds. Got you!
His face flushes red and he looks like is about to choke on air.
"Bloody hell! You, you bastard!"
"Surely you of all people wouldn't be so bothered by a simple prank," I purr.
"I thought I poisoned you!" he cries.
Poisoned. Ha! The fool wouldn't know poison from the butterbeer that he's consumed all along. "Was I in any danger of that?"
Harry considers the question, "You shouldn't have been," and shakes his head. "No."
"So?"
"Look," he argues. "What else was I supposed to think? You looked like you were about to keel over. I wasn't sure."
How gullible. Maybe he should think about that instead. "Then may I suggest being 'sure' before playing one of your tricks," I drawl, most satisfied with the outcome of my performance.
Harry looks like he's ready to explode for a second, but then simply laughs and waves his hand. "Fine, you win. Have your drink back."
"Would it be the first one or all four at once?" I peer narrowly at the cup.
He smirks and regains his mischievous look. "M'afraid you'll just have to find out for yourself."
I stare at the cup and consider my options. "I might not mind so much if it starts tasting like coffee with more sugar added to it."
"Stubborn git," he says. "Should've asked for it to begin with. Then I wouldn't've had to spend all this time guessing."
Of course, but that wouldn't have been half so entertaining.
My drink retains the expected flavour this time. Harry is almost finished with his. His face is thoughtful and he's quiet. I'm almost tempted to ask for tea just to break the silence when he asks: "How does it feel to lose your magic?"
Why does he keep coming up with questions that cannot possibly be answered? I can't explain something like this in a few simple sentences, the kind of answer he certainly wishes to hear. "How does it feel to walk through walls?"
He tilts his head considering his answer and then gives it a fair try. "Sometimes they don't feel like anything, like an illusion. Other times it's like water. Not like walking through it, but like water going through your body, skin and bones and all. It's different. I can't explain it."
"See," I smirk at his efforts.
"But I can show it," he grins triumphantly and reaches over the table. "Give me your hand."
"What are you going to do?" I glance at him suspiciously.
"Nothing. To your hand at least. Relax," he chuckles and traps my left hand on the table surface with his hand over my wrist.
Far from relaxed, I watch him take his almost empty bottle, cover the top of it with his thumb, and whirl the remains of his drink around and around until the liquid turns clear and fills the bottle almost to the neck.
"See, just water," he smiles, slides his finger out of the way, and takes a drink.
I nod wordlessly.
With the intense concentration of a magician about to perform something spectacular, he lifts my hand from the table and turns it palm up. His thumb presses into my wrist, and it feels warm, a bit coarse, and very solid. As if he isn't a ghost at all, but a living, breathing human being. It's curious how dreams are capable of such a deception.
"Watch this," he says, and tilts the bottle very slightly over my palm.
The water drips slowly, and each drop lands with the strangest tingling sensation, not at all like water should feel against my hand.
Harry grins and keeps the bottle steady, angled just enough to keep the slow drops falling. "Feel it?"
The water isn't falling on my hand, I realise. Instead it's going right through it. Seeping through the skin and bones and all, as Harry aptly put it. I feel each drop inside my flesh, in my skin and underneath it. My entire arm tingles at this invasion, concentrated at each tiny point of collision with the impossible.
"Yes," I nod at Harry's questioning face. I certainly feel it.
He smirks and then he turns the entire bottle upside down.
Oh!
It takes all my concentration not to break the contact and leave my hand underneath the burst of water exploding through my flesh at the intense speed. Harry senses that somehow and his fingers dig into my wrist even deeper, keeping my hand in place.
When it ends and Harry sets the harmless looking, empty bottle aside, I bend my fingers cautiously, just to make sure that I still can. My hand is completely dry and there is no water on the table.
"Course, it's all much slower," he speaks excitedly. "But I reckon that's how it'd feel if I was thrown through a wall."
I stare at him, not even bothering to hide my fascination behind a dissatisfied frown. "How long have you been practicing for this little trick?"
"Never," he shrugs. "Just tried it now."
Ah, of course not. It's very much like him to do that. "So if I ended up with a hole in my palm, what would you have done then?"
He smirks and glances pointedly at my hand: still there, isn't it? "I can't do anything to you in your dreams."
Of course, nothing. Except for invading them from time to time.
"Are you worried?" Harry raises his eyebrow. "Your pulse got faster."
I pull my hand back quicker than it takes him to let go, and slide it underneath the table.
"M'sorry," he mumbles, looking at his own hand as if he's unsure what it's capable of.
He doesn't look sorry enough. "What for?"
"Dunno. For not thinking it through and almost putting a hole through your hand after almost poisoning you, I s'pose."
I clear my throat. "Did you still want to know how it feels to lose magic?" I ask him.
The offer takes him by surprise and he nods. "Yes."
I remember the mask being lowered from my face and can almost feel the thin, silver strands of rain, like hair, against my forehead and my jaw. "There's a part of you that's been there since the beginning and you think it'll be there till the end of the world," I tell him. Yes, until the end, indestructible, unending, everlasting, like old loyalties and like magic itself. "You know it like the back of your hand," I do. I know it so well, that remarkable mixture of tenderness and cruelty, dominance and elegance that's entirely his, entirely Lucius. "You rely on it and you treasure it deeply. It energises you, motivates you to be a better person, and impels you to learn and wonder and question yourself." He made me question my purpose, my loyalties, and my very existence; he had a talent for turning my life inside out and backwards, with a smile, a look, a word. "It may not give you the life you wanted, but it makes you live."
Lucius ordered me to live, and as much as I'd like to hate him for it, I can't.
It's quiet and peaceful in the darkened tavern, but it feels as though if I stepped outside I'd taste the bitterness of ash all over again, see the smoke blowing over the wreckage, and feel the bite of the silver clasp inside my fist. I didn't realise the purpose of that blasted portkey as it was pressed into my palm until the unthinkable happened and it was too late to do anything, and even then I didn't sense the loss in all that panic. How did it feel to lose magic? It was very much like losing Luce. "And when it's gone, in all the commotion around you, you won't even feel the moment it was taken away or recognise its absence. Until it's too late and you're left wondering how simple it was to lose everything that had ever mattered."
Harry sits across from me, glasses shining in the low light from the windows and hands folded over the table's surface and around the empty bottle, fingers tapping against the glass. "You didn't lose everything, y'know," he says softly at last. "You still have this."
"What?" What's left afterwards? Only the sheer stubborn will to go on despite the odds; it's the only thing that's brought me this far.
He tilts his head and bites his lip thoughtfully. "Life, I s'pose. And you've got a future too. It could've been worse."
Hearing those words spoken by a ghost just emphasises how true they are. Yes, it could've been so much worse. I'm still alive. I have things to live for.
A pang of shame at my own self-pity goads me to my feet, sends me striding toward the entrance. My distaste at my own weakness is almost enough to make me forget what's out there: the rain striking a beat on the empty cobblestones of the high street, each one a reminder of the ruins that I'd like to forget. Stepping on each stone of Hogsmeade streets is like treading upon an unmarked grave, and the rainwater reeks of smoke and charred flesh. It's been years, but the downpour will still feel like the water from Harry's bottle, invading under my skin in a billion of pinprick explosions. At the door, I pause and turn. "Is it still raining outside?" I ask him.
He gives me an impish grin. "Maybe, maybe not. You won't know till you try."
I stare at the door knob. "It won't matter if I do try." What is he playing at?
The trouble is, I already know what he's doing: one by one, Harry is replacing my old nightmares with his new dreams.
"Go on," he nods.
When I open the door, I step into brilliant sunlight and a wash of warm breeze. There are no rain clouds in sight.
I still can't get used to the fact that anything is possible inside Harry's dreamscapes. If he is capable of putting a cupboard door into my nightmare or spilling water through my palm, I really shouldn't be surprised when I step out of the Three Broomsticks straight onto Hogwarts grounds, just outside Greenhouse Three.
A narrow trail twists around the greenhouse and runs all the way down to the lake across a field of clover. I follow the trail to the corner of the building with its dusty windows and overgrown ivy. On the way I see an old bicycle propped up against the wall, rusting away peacefully with dandelions poking their yellow heads through its wheel spokes, branches and dry leaves stuck inside the metal basket, all corroded from years of rain.
I brush the leaves off the torn leather seat and pull at the ivy climbing up the handle bars.
"It's Filch's," Harry says behind me. "He never rode it when I was around, just pointed at it from the distance and kept talking how he and Mrs. Norris used to take it to Hogsmeade and back."
I bend down to examine the pedals at the front wheel. They appear to be undamaged.
Harry leans down, watching my every move over my shoulder, clearly fascinated by my actions. "D'you know how to ride a bike?" he asks, sounding rather surprised.
"Of course."
"But you're a Wizard!" he splutters. "How?"
He seems to think I was raised in the Stone Age: somewhere without trains or buses, omnioculars or Wizarding Wireless. "My mother didn't let me have a broomstick, so I rode a bicycle instead."
"Oh," he mutters his universal answer for everything. "I never had a bike as a kid, and afterwards I s'pose I just never had the time."
It's always the lack of time that prevents us from doing something. We all seem to suffer from the same predicament. Whether it's not enough time to say good bye to someone, not enough time to live or even learn how to ride a bicycle.
I untangle the bicycle from its green prison and notice that the rust on the frame is fading away slowly: Harry's doing, no doubt. While I clean out the leaves from the basket attached to the handle bars and pluck the dandelions stuck in between the wheels, Harry gets rid of the rust completely and repairs the seat cover.
I pull the bicycle upright and push it onto the path to the clover field. The old iron wheels squeal shrilly at first but with each step they become easier to turn, as if they've been oiled by an invisible hand.
"Thank you," I nod at him and start pushing the bicycle up the hill.
"No problem," he grins, squinting at the sun, walking alongside the bicycle on the narrow path. I breathe in the scent of clover and summer grass, look at the blue sky and the shining lake surface ahead and start walking faster.
"Hey, wait up," Harry yells. "I thought you didn't like to be outside. You're always in the dungeons," he says, breathless, by the time that we reach the top of the hill.
Dungeons? Of course I was; where else would I be? "It's called making a living," I tell him just to see him frown. "You're lucky not to have had that particular experience."
"So I gather." He nods at the bicycle, "Are you ever going to ride it, or are you just going to push it all the way to the lake?"
I shake my head and turn the handle bars over to him. "No, it's for you."
He stares at them, flabbergasted. "You're joking!"
"Not at all," I assure him. "You will learn how to ride a bike."
Wide-eyed and wary, he looks at the bike, then at me. "Now? Aren't we a bit too old for this?" he chuckles.
"You're barely old enough," I murmur. "Take it."
"Hey, you're not so old yourself, y'know," he grumbles taking over the handle bars. "I bet you just started making sour faces and talking in boring, clever sentences when you were three, and never grew out of it."
Startled, I almost let go of the handle bars, one foot skidding on the gravel of the trail. Harry grabs the seat from his side and keeps the bike upright until I regain my footing.
Not old? He couldn't possibly have said that. I mustn't have heard him right. I look at him and see the widest grin spreading on his face.
I lead the bicycle off the trail and into the short grass speckled with white clover. "Come here," I tell him. He steps off the path and approaches slowly.
"Get on."
He gives me a wary look, but swings one leg over and mounts it cautiously, holding onto the frame instead of the handle bars, as if mounting a badly adjusted broom that's hovering too high up above the ground. Filch's bike was certainly not intended for someone of Harry's height, but his feet can still reach the pedals, so it should be all right.
Standing in front of the bicycle, I grasp the handle bars tighter to steady them. "I'm going to move away," I give him a fair warning.
"Wait!" he gasps. "Hang on, I can't balance it alone. Look, it falls over every time I take my feet off the ground." His hands are still wrapped around the bar in front of him, as if he's trying to steer a broomstick. Only the tips of his toes reach the grass. He has to stand on one foot or the other in order to keep the old and bulky bicycle upright.
"Potter," I sigh. "Put your feet on the pedals and keep your hands on the handle bars. You have to be moving in order to balance it."
"You try it," he grumbles, managing to get his feet off the ground at last and almost sending the bike toppling over. "Don't you let go!"
Exasperating brat! "I already know how. The point is to teach you."
"M'not so sure I want to learn," he argues. "Why do I need it anyway?"
"Because." There are already too many missed opportunities in this world. And he deserves another chance at this, even now. "I'm telling you to."
"Bossy bugger," he pouts, but doesn't protest any more than that.
I raise my eyebrow in response and narrow my eyes. "Get your hands off the frame. It's not a broomstick."
"I know!" he exclaims. "M'not trying to steer it, m'just trying to hold on."
"I'm surprised you ever managed to stay on a broom, with the way you're trying to ride a bicycle." I smirk, watching him grow more frustrated with each passing second.
"Yeah, well," he huffs. "Broomsticks follow instructions. And have cushioning charms, which is more than I can say for this old thing."
"They both work on the same principle," I inform him with great satisfaction. "Mobility gives them balance."
"No." He tries to jump off but can't quite manage to swing his leg back over. "Ow!" He trips as he finishes clambering off, and I have to tighten my hold on the handle bars to keep the bicycle from falling on top of Harry. "All it has is a seat that pokes you as you try to get off it and a bar that can bloody maim you!" He hauls at his cloak where it's all tangled around his legs, finally tearing it off his shoulders and throwing it in the grass.
I glare down my nose at him, with his hair ruffled even more than usual by his haste, and his glasses resting crooked on the tip of his nose. "Coward. Get back on."
It works. His eyes narrow. He dusts off his garish Gryffindor shirt and adjusts his glasses. Then he grabs the handle bars, swings his leg over, and raises his feet to the pedals in one movement.
When the bicycle starts moving, it almost knocks me over. I jump out of the way and watch as it accelerates down the hill, heading toward the lake.
"Whoa, it's working," I hear Harry's surprised yell. "BRILLIANT!"
A nervous "How do I stop it?" follows right after the cheerful yelp.
I shake my head and consider letting him crash headfirst into the lake. "Pull the lever next to the handle bars," I yell back.
Apparently he does just that. There is a loud, cheerful 'ding' and the bicycle keeps racing on. Harry's feet are off the pedals and dangling to each side of the front wheel.
"Not that one!" I shout, unsure whether to inform him at once what I think of his common sense or just start laughing uncontrollably at the entire situation.
". . . doesn't move!" he echoes back from the distance.
The bicycle makes a dramatic splash as its front wheel reaches the waterline. I wince and hope that Harry has enough sense to steer.
He doesn't.
But instead of going deeper under the water, the bicycle does exactly what a broomstick would do. It sweeps along the shoreline at a sharp angle and soars high up above the lake.
Then it turns in a lazy arc and flies back to the shore.
When it hovers upside down, suspended five feet above me in the air, I notice that Harry, holding onto the frame like a broomstick, is grinning from ear to ear. His impish face is just begging me to throw a jinx, or at least a rock at it.
"I went through all the trouble of teaching you, when you can control it?" I squint crossly at his profile against the sun.
"Uh-huh," he nods, and starts laughing. "It was brilliant! Did you see that splash?"
"I changed my mind," I tell him as I bend down. "You aren't too old to learn how to ride it, merely too juvenile."
He yelps, ducking the flung pebble. "Oi! Says who?"
The second pebble bounces off his shoulder.
While he gawps, halfway between laughter and outrage, his glasses slide down his forehead and he has to take a quick dive in order to keep them on his face.
It is not until long after this dream - bright and hot with sunshine and intoxicating with its scent of clover and summer grass - finally comes to an end that I realise that I had no preceding nightmare to be rescued from. Harry had created it all on a whim, simply because he could, and maybe even because he wanted to.
In the morning, I remain in front of the bathroom mirror longer than usual.
Albus once told me that a person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time. I didn't understand what he meant at first. I never considered myself young to begin with. That's why, I suppose, I reacted with such startlement to Harry's words.
I'm hardly young. I can't be.
But I turned forty-five – only forty-five – last January. It seems difficult to believe that now. At Hogwarts I taught alongside people who were twice if not three times older than me for so long that I came to think of them as my peers. And after Hogwarts I've seen too much in my life, have lost too much, had enough to age a person beyond his years.
You haven't seen life until you've turned eighty, McGonagall used to say, to which Dumbledore would always mumble: "And you'll spend another eighty years deciding what to do with it." I turned eighty a long time ago, in my mind at least. Perhaps, as Harry said, I've been that since I was three years old and never grew out of it.
I've never had the opportunity to be anything younger than eighty in my mind. Perhaps it's not too late for me, as well as Harry, to have a second chance.
In the kitchen, I stumble past the table and grab a fork from the counter in one hand while pouring the already brewed coffee into a cup with the other. Still holding the coffee cup, I reach in the oven and poke the nearest slice of toast. I leave the toast on the fork as I add milk and sugar to the cup and take a careful sip, not waiting for the sugar to dissolve.
Toast isn't so bad with coffee, I decide after taking the first bite.
"Morning!" Harry beams at me, as he materialises at his usual spot by the window.
I squint at him, bright amid the morning rays. Too bright by half. "Stop being so damned chirpy at me, Potter! I'm not your best friend; I'm a grouchy bastard twice your age."
"Why shouldn't I?" he grins teasingly. "Got loads of reasons to be friendly. After all, I'm only following your orders."
I raise an eyebrow at him. Bloody insufferable morning people. If I could touch him, I'd strangle him. At least it'd shut him up.
"You're the one who said we'll have to learn to coexist, remember? So we might as well make the best of it."
I find myself unable to argue with my own reasoning. How galling. "Any other reasons?"
"Er. One."
"Well?" I take a leisurely sip of coffee and wait him out.
"S'not so cold here any more," he finally says with a slight, secretive smile.
Cold? "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing," The sense that he's hiding something only intensifies. "I just like it better this way."
"Care to elaborate?" I prompt him, but he doesn't reply. Only when he floats over to the oven with a blissful expression on his face do I realise that he's stopped paying attention to the conversation altogether.
"What is it?" As I ask him, his grin spreads even wider.
"Mmm, toast!"
At the same moment, the first scent of burning bread reaches me and I hastily set my cup aside. I left the oven on and didn't even notice it, what with my nose in my coffee cup, and Potter. This is yet another reason one shouldn't get acquainted with ghosts. It's too distracting. Hastily I turn the knob and open the oven door, releasing a waft of smoke. Only then do I comprehend Harry's reaction.
"You can smell it?" My outburst is pure surprise; of course I should never have bothered to ask. It's obvious from the way he's hovering right next to the stove, right in the cloud of smoke.
"Course I can," he nods happily. "It's the best."
I scowl, annoyed at my own forgetfulness, as memories of my Defence lessons return. Ghosts are perfectly capable of detecting aromas, and are as attracted to the scent of burned or otherwise inedible food as a living man is to the taste of food itself. Since the beginning of time people have burned their offerings to the spirits.
The coffee has had time to drive away the fog of morning from my mood, or perhaps I'm still caught up in the peacefulness of last night's dream and its growing sense of excitement and sunlight. Whatever the reason, Harry's happiness is infectious, and I find a small smile creeping its way onto my face as I watch him spiralling, exuberant as a pinwheel, wrapped in tendrils of smoke. I used to think that dreams were nothing but lies. Smoke and mirrors. And yet the only thing that mirrors can do is reflect back the truth, if only we care to look for it inside.
Over the years I've learned to hoard away and savour the bits of happiness that life offers, but Harry isn't me. He is spontaneous and haphazard and he takes life in waves crashing one after another: grief and joy, anger and contentment all at once, all in a single explosion of sensations. He finds happiness in the most simple, mundane things. He seeks it out in the darkest places. He can build it out of nothing but smoke. He has this uncanny gift of turning smoke and mirrors into something genuine and something good. He doesn't need to become like me. He should never become like me. I watch him surrounded by the smoke coming from my oven with a blissful grin on his face for another few seconds, and then, driven by an impulse, I march into the hallway and dig through the pockets of my coat until I find the scrap of paper.
And then I return into the kitchen and show him the note.
Notes
The "mirror" scenes were inspired by I am a Mirror, Freudiana:
Suppose I were to tell you that the meaning of dreams
Is not all that it seems
And the ultimate truth is a lie?
Lucius scenes and the subsequent dream were inspired by Who Wants to Live Forever?, Highlander.
There's no chance for us, it's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.
Albus is quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes about his age.
A person is always startled when he hears himself called old for the first time.