AN. Everything Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling and Warner Brothers Studios. Just throwing sand in the playpen.
Again, I'm also doing this without a beta, so if the flow feels odd, let me know. REVIEWS ARE GOLD! Shout out to theyellowflower who read this chapter and gave feedback and new ideas during the beginning stages!
Excerpts taken from OOTF in bold in future chapters.
Chapter Two
Again
Everything was grey. Harry felt wind on his face, if he could call it that; his mind told him there was a sensation of touch on the area that should be where his face is, but he seemed insubstantial, as if there wasn't enough of him to consider the conception of "touch." But bits of the grey were flitting about in front of him, he noticed, somewhat surprised he could see them at all. Flecks of ash and stray sparks danced in a whirl, blown by the semblance of wind in wherever Harry had found himself. He turned what he surmised was his head to try and take stock of his surroundings, but the grey haze seemed endless; no perception could be made of distance or horizon, just a curtain of grey haze like smog blocking his vision.
With a start, Harry realized that this sensation seemed familiar, almost with the cold smack of deja vu- the feeling of being incorporeal, of endlessness, was eerily reminiscent of his time on "The Platform," as he called it, meeting with Dumbledore after being cursed in the Forbidden Forest. Mentally wracking his brain for whatever he had done to give his body form in that place seemed to do the trick; with an audible snap he was whole again, though nude as before. Muttering to himself about his rotten luck again, he willed his typical clothes into existence around his form- his ratty button up shirt sluggishly formed around his torso, his denim jeans sliding up his legs, and the well-worn leather boots molding themselves around his feet. Anxiously he quickly reached around to the small of his back, letting out his first solid sigh of relief in weeks in feeling the cool leather of his holster there complete with the etched metal of his pistol inside.
He carefully moved his extremities around, checking for any damage or deformity; the cut that had troubled him was gone, as well as the broken arm from his aborted bout of simple stair-climbing. He gave a couple hops just to be sure everything felt connected and in good repair, then moved cautiously forward into the haze. Bits of ash caught in his hair and his eyelashes as he moved, turning his hair and rough beard a snowy, slushy shade of granite grey as he trudged forward.
Harry didn't know how long he had walked, but with no defining features in perspective or light, distance seemed to be a moot point. Time seemed irrelevant as well, as Harry felt he could've been walking for seconds, or days. Eventually he gave traveling up as a bad job and ground to a halt, stopping near what seemed a lighter, or at least less dense, bit of smog. Wondering just how much like The Platform this place really was, he closed his eyes and pushed his will towards communication; originally, the after image or "presence" of Albus Dumbledore had shown itself, so maybe with a concentrated push Harry could conjure up something approximating answers in the barren landscape. He closed his eyes and forced what little Occlumency skill he had accumulated into drawing forth something resembling a 'guide' for this inhospitable place. Images of his past friends, acquaintances, and even enemies flipped through his minds eye in the misguided attempt to force the landscape to draw the familiar faces forward into existence.
In what felt like hours of mental begging, pleading, and forcing, he begrudgingly opened his eyes in frustration to find no new development- he angrily turned around to try and head back to the direction he had came from when he froze in shock. The fluttering bits of ash and refuse seemed to brush past a spot in front of him, tapping against the rough outline of an invisible, featureless head and torso, almost as someone outside in winter gathering snow on their person. Harry stood dumb, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, words suddenly lost to him; the dual realization that there something else in this wasteland besides him, as well as the larger fact that before he had found himself there he hadn't seen anyone (whether mundane or magical) or any magic at all for more than a few years. The sheer magical aspect of whomever this visitor was left him speechless- compared to what little magic he'd been exposed to over the past few years, the natural aura of the being seemed almost overwhelming.
The "person" shifted under Harry's dumbfounded gaze, almost as if embarrassed under the scrutiny. It gestured with its hand as if to say 'are you going to speak or should I?'
"I….uh…who..." Harry stammered, his brain still short-circuiting under the aura.
The creature, taking the reins, began talking in earnest but it came out as a jumbled mess to Harry; too many voices tried saying to many things at once creating a cacophony of sound, until the being caught its blunder. It lightly tilted its head to the side as if planning its next move, and finally settled on a voice that it felt would receive the best response from its guest.
The being certainly didn't disappoint. Harry completely missed what the being was saying, as memories, unbidden, came crashing though his brain like a hurricane blowing down the walls of his Occlumency like so much wet paper. The voice was one he had worked years to dampen, ignore, and forget, finally achieving that feat when he found he could no longer remember much of anything outside of his current struggle for survival; however, hearing it again ripped them almost painfully to the forefront.
"Hello, Harry James," the voice spoke. It was Hermione's voice, its musical contralto ringing with bittersweet happiness. "You look absolutely terrible, you know that?"
Harry chuckled at the pure absurdity of his life, his laughs quickly growing into full-belly guffaws, laced with tears. "Hey," he said dumbly, still chuckling to himself.
"Feeling better?" Hermione replied, a smirk evident in her voice.
"I can't tell you how much. Not much conversation nowadays to be had," Harry replied, feeling something akin to contentment for the first time in ages. "And sorry about the look, not much time for a good shower and shave when surviving is important."
"You're not surviving anymore," she said simply.
"Good point. I guess being dead gives some perspective. Where the hell are we, anyway?" Harry asked quizzically, looking around once more to try and find some measure of perspective. "It feels familiar, like I've been here, but that's about it."
"Yes, you have visited this place once before. I would imagine it appeared much different then than now," Hermoine stated. "At least, I think so. This is my first time taking form in this place, and likely last."
Harry nodded along in agreement as he mused, but froze mid-nod when he caught the implication of what the being had said offhand. Rolling the statement over in his head, he was hit with a bombardment of questions and not a little suspicion, a habit formed long ago while on the run.
"How do you know I've been here before if you've never 'taken form?' And know what it was like the last time?" He slowly asked, instinctually crouching and a hand reaching for his gun. "You're not really her, are you?"
"Peace, Harry James," the being said soothingly, Not-Hermione's voice projecting calm. "No, I am not; I chose her voice because I imagined it would be a comfort to you."
"Then who the hell are you?" Harry demanded, not coming up from his crouch. "Why am I talking to you instead of her, if this is the Platform like before?" His eyes darted back and forth, looking for possible escape routes, his hand still firmly grasping the handle of his pistol.
"Again, peace. This place is much changed from your last visit," the being reasoned. "It is likely that she cannot be called here as she's moved on, and your rationality is paramount to the tasks before us; if Hermione Jean was able to commune with you, would you still react coherently with a third party interfering in the reunion? Would she be able to give you any answers not having spent any time in this place herself?"
Harry begrudgingly forced himself to calm down, once again wrangling his flaring Occlumency into place. No, he admitted, I probably wouldn't take to someone else butting in; she'd force some answers out if this….thing, though. Hell, purely for the information alone, he smiled in remembrance.
"Ok, I'll bite. Who are you? This place looked like King's Cross before, why not now?" Harry asked clinically.
"The latter will be easier to address than the former," it said solemnly. "This crossroads cannot hold forms any longer- it doesn't possess the power to sustain the arithmantic matrices of what you sensorially constitute as a "location," thus the lack of depth of perception; the only reason you are corporeal within this place is due to your innate magic knowing your physical structure."
"But…but that's not possible," Harry stated, confused. "I was infected during the war like everyone else. I don't have any magic left to use."
The being chuckled, "gesturing" towards Harry's body. "That is not so. Your body isn't just multiple pieces and faculties working in tandem; by being magical, magic itself by nature fuses with your very being, if you'll forgive the play on words. Despite the loss of the physical functions that allow you to utilize that magic outwardly, it is still very much inherent in your physiology. The runes on your firearm still glow, do they not? This is due to the ever-constant output of your aura."
Harry rocked back, stunned. The entire realization that what his people considered as 'fact' was completely wrong left him feeling rudderless. This would've changed the entire path of the war, if wizards knew that they still possessed some inherent magic, he thought furiously. Maybe not the outcome, but it sure as hell would've given us a reason to fight. Maybe even work harder towards a cure. After the much-vaunted defeat of Voldemort, the wizarding world did what it did best; celebrated, decried the dissipating group known as "Death Eaters," grew fat and complacent in their happiness, and went about their lives. While that was to be somewhat expected, what actually happened was the lack of any quantifiable change to it's more systemic problems at large- the populace was content to live their lives in normalcy, reticent to address the disease in their society that allowed the aforementioned Dark Lord and his followers from gaining purchase in the first place for fear of upsetting their newfound "peace." This of course meant that without the proper protections in place in policy or legislation, the issue was almost guaranteed to rise again as the number of Dark Lords in Britain seemed to almost follow a cyclical pattern, as it did in the form of a Dark Lady not a mere decade after.
A member of a spurned minor Pureblood house, she had spent years and the majority of her modest fortune bribing, wheedling, cajoling, and outright threatening the still-corrupt (and still primarily Pureblood) Wizengamot until she controlled the major power bloc; she then used the system to her advantage, unlike Voldemort, pushing restricting legislation through on groups less fortunate, yet more abundant, on a platform of "since the Muggle sciences have progressed far further than we can adequately handle in promoting the Statute Of Secrecy, and the muggleborn population continuing to leave the wizarding world due to whatever reasons 'they believe ail them,' we run the risk of rising numbers of muggleborn families knowing the secret of our society. Thus raising the chances of exposure to our world, this must be curbed before we lose all control."
The first shots were fired when legislation was bruteforced through the Wizengamot to remove muggleborn children from their parents and obliviating them of their existence, much like Salazar Slytherin had preached about millennia before. When the hit wizards under the command from the Wizengamot, and the Dark cabal that controlled it, were sent in to crush resistance "by any means necessary," the populace finally found their spine and fought back in earnest. Most fights were deemed little more than skirmishes, but larger "battles" took place where muggleborn parents, having been made aware of the world their children were born into via online communities, parent/school associations, and gatherings (the Pureblood faction hadn't been off the mark about exposure) banded together and fought back, usually with firearms; this, of course led to Scotland Yard being called in as firearms were outlawed in Britain, CCTV cameras checked, and the official rupture of the Statute of Secrecy had begun.
The Ministry of Magic and the Muggle government at Downing Street had initially tried to remain civil and come to an accord, but when a member of the new consolidated Wizengamot directorate, officially an arm of the Wizarding government calling themselves the "Tacere Domini" Imperioused the Minister of Defense then killed him, the war had started in earnest. Automatic firing weapons clashed with area of effect spells, ballistic missiles had met with ritual sacrifice that robbed whole towns of their lives, until muggle biochemists nailed down the one thing wizards couldn't guard against- their genetics. Biological weapons were designed to target both genetic differences in the wizard's makeup, as well as rot away the root of their power: attacking their bone marrow and nervous systems, which helped circulate and ground their internal magic and their external access to it.
Needless to say, it had been a rout. Wizards died by the millions, as Britain's remaining government had been in close communications with other major world powers at the point of war, sharing this secret to help these countries combat their own insurgencies. Wizards were affected in numerous ways, but there seemed to be three major groupings of people debilitated by the pathogen- the first succumbed to the poison immediately, either being of such advanced age for their bodies to rely on their magic to sustain them or young enough to not have the magical fortitude to push through the initial exposure; some wizards had their bone marrow and nervous system viciously attacked leaving them alive but permanently "scarred" with no access to their magic (almost like a direct attack on their immune system and motor skills- like HIV had somehow been intertwined with MS). The latter small percentage, however, reacted in the worst possible fashion: the pathogen utilized the magic in their genetics as a catalyst and energy source for mutation, warping the genetic strands beyond recognition. What resulted from this was gruesome perversions of men; eldritch horrors with too many legs, too many eyes, and too many teeth immediately began praying upon whoever was closest, whether they be friend or foe. Bullets and fire seemed to have little to no effect, as they were sustained by their "meals" and ambient magic alone, so killing them was immediately and mistakenly put on the back burner in order to finish the "wizard problem," much to everyone's dire misfortune. Nuclear warfare finally raised it's head when conventional weaponry was inefficient for both the remaining magical and the "horrors," and then everything went silent.
"But to answer your question fully, not enough magic exists in this place to draw meaningful form or perception from it, despite your innate magical output. Your cells and nervous system, wounded and scarred from the virus the non-magical race created, left you without the access to extraneous magic; in the present, however, this is irrelevant to our problem at hand. The Burning damaged this place irreparably, and the fallout is absolute." The being stated unaffectedly.
Burning? Harry puzzled, taking in his surroundings again. I thought this was ash before… Suddenly a long forgotten memory pierced Harry's brain, images of Hogwart's wards destroyed by Voldemort and the Death Eaters. The wards looked very much like falling ash when they failed.
"This is magic." Harry stated quietly. "The magic of this place fractured and literally burnt itself up."
"Put simply, yes." The being said. "NOt just the magic forming this place, but all magic. Of the total, I am all that remains."
Harry sighed. "We really bollocksed it up, didn't we?"
"Quite." It bluntly commented. "Through the actions of the war, pestilence, and mass extinction of flora and fauna, the world shuddered under its might. Magic seeked an equilibrium as it never had had to do before, as with other extinction events the environment typically does so naturally. However, due to the strain to 'clean up efforts' as it were, magic crippled itself. Much like a wounded animal, it shrank into itself to repair the damage and 'lick its wounds'- this is more than likely why an equivalence was not reached to balance out the pathogen that swept the wizard race. However, magic shriveled further and further in until regrowth was impossible. It imploded here, in the Crossroads, and now fades away into oblivion. The fact that I can stand before you here is a most curious feat in and of itself, to answer your first question."
Harry gulped at the implications, and the strangeness that he was, for once, on the right track with his reasoning. Magic had wounded itself irreparably, and had hid itself away to die- the enormity of this fact, and of the timing of it, made Harry furious. So that was the reason that the virus had spread like wildfire; witches and wizards relied on inner reserves of magic to utilize it through traditional means, but refilling those reserves took a connection to ambient magic in the surrounding environment. If that ambient magic was removed from the equation, then a constant stream of internal magic to combat the effects of the pathogen would be nonexistent. Magic squirreling itself away had meant the deaths of untold millions, probably billions of people, both from the five-year war and the twenty plus years of death and struggle after.
"Then why are you talking to me now?!" he spat. "Your shitty timing 'pulling yourself away' when we needed you most is probably the main reason why we lost our magic, why there are bloody monsters lurking about and killing everyone. More worthy people have probably come through this place with questions, why the hell am I always the one in the middle of the goddamn problem?!"
"Because you're a catalyst, Harry James." The being thundered. "Possibly not the Catalyst, but one nonetheless. The prophecy that guided your life aside, you ignored the heritage and prestige of your family, when after your defeat of the Dark Lord catalyst you could have levied the start of change in your government. You allowed yourself to be manipulated by the Dumbledore catalyst since your birth. You allowed blind loyalty to cloud your judgement towards the people who you thought 'friend,' but did you harm for their own selfish gain. You allowed your own mulish recklessness to force your way through the tasks laid before you, often at the expense of common reasoning, and the people you surrounded yourself by due to your own desire to self-sacrifice; when not brashly charging into danger, your reticence as a catalyst inspired reticence in those that followed you. My sins are innumerable Harry James, but do not play the victim at the expense of your own atonement."
Harry reeled again at the verbal onslaught. Having his faults beat him into submission with such vigor was something Harry hadn't experienced, even with his upbringing being as it was. It finally hit him fully that this…thing wasn't in fact the Hermione that he knew; even at her most bloody-minded moments, she would never reach such cold methodical detachment in her defense.
Harry hang his head in contrition."Yes," the said quietly. "You're right. As soon as I was finished with that bloody prophecy, I hid from people as much as I could. I led others into danger. I got the people I cared about killed. I'm not backing down from what I said, but I'm fully aware of my failings. Probably close in number to yours, anyway."
"Do not fret, child," the being said soothingly, trying to clear the air. "I say this not to attack, but to inform. While your faults were carried further by your actions, you were not what caused them to take root. This is why you are a catalyst, and why you are here at this moment. It is also why you are a Coordinate."
"Should I even ask what that means, or just accept another title and go with it?" Harry chuckled mirthlessly.
"At least it's not hyphenated," the being replied dryly.
"A beautiful thing, that." Harry shot back, a smile on his lips. After all he had fought for, all that he had lost, he considered his options and decided there was very little, if anything, left to lose. "Alright. What's a Coordinate and what should I do with it?"
"Yes, you should be made aware as my time grows nigh and you've some choices to make." The being intoned. "You, being here and now near my end, are a 'conjunction' for lack of a better term. Your choice from the last time you were here still remains; you can go on to the next plane and enjoy the company of your loved ones, though I'm not sure of the longevity of the visit. 'Boarding a train' is also no longer an option, in case you were wondering for levity's sake."
Harry almost shattered. To see everyone again, his friends and colleagues, Sirius, his parents…
"However, something to consider is that there is another option- a 'roll of the dice' as it were. This junction is not just a meeting of roads, but of innumerable options, like the center of a web. Have you in your travels done any study in necromancy?"
"Regrettably, yeah," Harry stated soberly. With no magic users to be readily found and utilized (and apparently no ambient magic to power them either), wards on even the most protected and sacred of places had fallen. Whether as a search for solutions or merely to pass the time, he had made it a mission to gather, explore, and study as much about magic as he could in all forms; even in Dumbledore's hay day, Harry believed he had a vastly wider grasp on the eccentricities of magic and its uses than he had ever possessed simply due to the volume of information at Harry's disposal. Hermione would throw a fit, he snickered internally. Everyone's gone, the world's burning, and that's when I decide to actually apply myself to my studies.
"Then you must be aware of the Death Throe?" The being carefully inquired.
"Partially- that's a Black Magic Haitian ritual, isn't it? Vodun?"
"Yes, though African in origin based on their dealings with the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia. The ritual consists of theft of a person's magic and history, often at their last moments, preferably with the thief landing the mortal wound. Hence the name." The being lectured.
"You want me to...kill you...to steal your power? And your history? With not even Dark, but Black Magic? And I'm supposed to agree to this?" Harry sputtered, aghast at such a suggestion. "Supposedly, Black Magic fractures the soul and causes indentured servitude to the Old Gods to work off the debt; granted we're pretty desperate here, I'd imagine, but that sounds beyond extreme."
"The guiding force behind magic is intent, is it not?" The being chided. "Your own mother used a Grey variation of this own ritual when you were born that ripped the Dark Lord catalyst from his body when he attacked you as a babe. Do you think her essence is now suffering an eternity of torment and slavery to the Old God she petitioned for the ritual, or that her sacrifice was deemed appropriate?"
Harry dug through his memories, finally finding the emergence of his mother's spirit through Voldemort's wand in the graveyard. She looked harried, worried, and terrified for him, but determined; seeing Harry survive and succeed was her driving force even in death. With a shaky breath, Harry steeled his resolve.
"Fine, I'm in. What's the catch?" Harry brusquely asked.
"Perceptive. Yes, there are things to be accounted for," the being mentioned, nodding appraisingly. "Chiefly, there's no guarantee what it will do to you physically, and what will happen after the ritual has ended. Do not mistake the gravity of the situation: the ritual ending my life by its own nature will end your own- however, where you will end up from the backlash of this ritual is unknown. You could appear in an alternate timeline, your past, again to your present, or you could simply cease to be; with the last vestiges of me leaving this place, who knows if you'll even have enough time to complete the ritual before it collapses around you. Of course this is all ignoring what the toll on your body will be if the act itself is a success."
"Well this is certainly a cheery prospect," Harry muttered forlornly.
"I just wish to enlighten you to the risks involved. Sacrificial magic is, by its very nature, sacrificial." The being obtusely stated.
Harry once again steeled himself. "Ok, lets do this."
"I am glad you're taking the option," the being solemnly nodded. "Once I begin, you will only have moments to seal and accept the sacrifice. The time is nigh: do you have any questions before we start?"
"Yes, uh…" Harry shuffled his feet. "My uh… My 'sins' that you mentioned before… If I end up in a position to change them, should I? It's not going to cause the world to come to a grinding halt or anything, will it?"
"To speak frankly, this is unknowable." The being answered clinically. "This reality will no longer exist, so logically choices in your recent past, if applicable, should not adversely affect what will come as it will have 'never happened.' However, as a catalyst you do hold more power than you realize- the manipulations of your headmaster catalyst, the mental bridge between the Dark Lord catalyst, the potions fed to you from your usurper 'friends,' and the weight of your legacy must be addressed or events will become cyclical on a time scale you cannot affect. This is your mighty bestowal. Do not waste it."
Harry nodded resolutely, squaring himself for possibly the last time. "Understood. What's the incantation to accept the sacrifice?"
Bits of ash and dust that had collected on the still transparent form started to fall, and blow through the partially corporeal space that the being occupied as it lost its substance. "Your innate magic is what's giving you form; tap into that." The being instructed, its voice growing hollow. "Feel the root of it infusing your being. Draw it to you. Let your form go and simply... exist."
Harry closed his eyes, and breathed. With each breath he searched his body, feeling out the slight thrumming of magic that had been with him since his arrival. He followed it throughout his person, picking and choosing parts of him to release the pent up energy. Little by little, he grew hazy, losing his opaqueness, until what felt as if his very being disappeared. He looked down, seeing-but-not-seeing, to find his body visibly gone. Where the shape of his outline was, bits of ash and dust started to gather.
"Excellent," the voice whispered, the outline of it's 'body' gone to the prevailing wind and refuse. "The incantation is Aksepte Ak Ba…" the being whipsered, until it's voice as well was lost to the wind.
Harry strained his hearing as much as possible, but whether due to the lack of breath from the voice, the gale suddenly picking up, or his sheer terrible luck, the last phrase completely disappeared before he could hear it. The wind grew until it was whistling in his ears, then something shifted; the ash, dust, sparks, and debris suddenly changed its random course and flew directly towards him, gathering on this form hungrily. A soundless concussive blast rocked him to the core, and the thrumming of the magic keeping him anchored raised violently. Whatever the being had done, its self-sacrifice had created a vacuum that seemed to be leaching away at his very being, begging for sustenance.
Wracking his brain, Harry quickly drew up the memory of his discovery of the Death Throe ritual deep from the recesses of his mind; the shaking of his body and the greedy sucking away of his essence threatened to destroy his concentration, but the briefest of glimpses in his mind's eye finally gave him the last word of the incantation. However, another bit of the old manuscript flashed unbidden in his head, and Harry smiled with his trademark abandon. If I'm probably going to die, then I don't see what the harm is in making a little change…
Revising the incantation, Harry gathered what remained of himself and through the chaos and cataclysm of the death of Magic, forced out the incantation. On his last syllable, the dust gathering around him folded into his person, engulfing him, and then Harry knew no more.
With a blinding flash Harry's head jerked up with a violent start, sputtering and coughing out dust, the students around him leaning back in alarm. Whipping his head back and forth, he instinctually took in his surroundings; the stone walls led from the desk he was sitting at down to a raised dias on which a large head table sat. He followed the wall up to the enchanted ceiling overhead, the image of a grey, chilly sky greeting him. Quickly looking down at his clothes, an arm reaching behind him to feel for the comforting form of his pistol, he froze at the sight of his old Gryffindor robes tightly hugging his frame. Slowly raising his head and looking back towards the head table, he saw a large chalkboard perched on its edge, "History Of Magic Written OWL Examination" scrawled across its surface. I'm back, he thought, awestruck.
The prior experience with this particular OWL sped trough his head like a train. The faces of people he had personally seen die, either from the Wizarding War, the World War, and the harsh years after flooded his vision- Dean Thomas had been ripped apart by a Horror near the beginning of their existence, Lavender Brown raped, murdered, and flayed by the Tacere Domini when fighting with a resistance group to protect muggleborns, amongst many others. I'm back in the past, or at least a version of it. According to the being my future never happened, so… Let's shake some things up this time. Get it right for once. Seeing people he had helped, hurt, and even killed himself there him on to the double-edge sword of hope; if this was anything like his original timeline, Harry would work himself to the grave to make sure that these people actually got the chance they deserve.
Spying a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, rage flashed through him like a thunderbolt at the thought of Ron Weasley- something would have to be done about that, and soon. As Harry had aged, and with not very much to look forward to in the daily grind to survive, his memories (at least the less-painful ones) had become his refuge and his pastime, reviewing them through his Occlumency like a remote video player. However, when reviewing the memories of his childhood years at Hogwarts, things never seems to balance out as they should've- his exclusion from the larger student body and even members of his own house, his lack of any solid relationships outside of the 'Golden Trio' despite his closeness to Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, amongst others, the wild mood swings of his peers from deification to revulsion, all seemed answers to an equation in which the majority of workable variables were missing. In his self-study into magic, he chanced across a thick potions textbook and begrudgingly gave it a look through, only to rear back with revulsion and not a small amount of disgust. The ginger bastard had apparently been dosing him with potions from the very beginning it seemed; loyalty potions to keep him in the loop, revulsion potions to drive others away, aversion potions keyed to him and Hermione, Luna, and any other members of the female sex so Harry was isolated, and even Malaclaw venom in specific doses to raise the chances of his luck turning sour. He thought there might've even been slight dosing of love, or at least lust, potions keyed to Ginny as well, as any memories of her tended to have the hazy emotion of desire laced with confusion firmly anchored within it. Ron's crimes after Hogwarts had been even more atrocious, but Harry would cross that bridge when he came to it; hopefully his tackling the early stages of the problem now would cut out that particular cancer before it grew to malignancy.
Then it struck him; turning slowly, he finally saw the one person he was most anxious to see, disapproval etched on her face: Hermione. There in the flesh, not three feet from him. He choked back a sob and smiled brightly at her, which only worried her more.
"Harry, what's happened? Did you nod off?" She chided. Hearing her here and now, Harry fleetingly thought that the being's use of her voice had been a massively pale imitation to the real thing; her warm contralto filled him and soothed him, memories of their time together in "the Past" healing him little by little.
Harry nodded and quickly wiped the budding tears from his eyes, still grinning like an idiot. She was simply dressed, her Hogwarts robe freshly pressed, a hair tie holding back her bushy mane out of her eyes. She was beautiful, Harry thought, and he greedily drunk her in. The years after the defeat of Voldemort hadn't been kind to the Golden Trio; Ron and Harry had never gone back to finish their NEWT year of Hogwarts, though Hermione had. Harry had crawled back into his shell once the press finally caught wind of his victory, and had remained reclusive though allowing visits from trusted friends. Ron had moved into Hogsmeade to be close to Hermione to continue their relationship, wasting time working in Zonko's joke shop before it was bought out by his brother George and WWW; George had angrily let him go after Ron refused to pull his weight in the blossoming, booming shop. As Hermione finished school, she naturally looked towards university, but Ron had convinced her that there was "more to life than just school;" through a series of unsteady compromises, they continued to stay together despite vicious arguments, Ron's inability to keep a job, and their growing estrangement. When Ron finally struck Hermione in a fit of rage after a firewhiskey too many, she had cursed him. He responded in turn by beating her in a blind rage, though Hermione finally got away due to her better wand work and ran straight to Harry. Harry had shown up at their place and had cursed Ron into St. Mungo's, beating him with his fists when it seemed magic didn't seem to sate his desire to make his friend pay retribution; in assisting Hermione help herself to heal, they had grown closer as friends and confidants, and had eventually, and finally, Harry thought with chagrin, became a couple. They had stayed that way until her death at the wand-point of an enraged Ron Weasley a decade and a half later in a raid for supplies. Harry vindictively thought he wouldn't exactly mind killing him again.
"I'm fine, just spooked myself," Harry soothed. Looking at the large clock hanging above the head table, he asked, "About how much time do we have left in the exam?"
Hermione looked at him quizzically. "About an hour and a half, I believe." Concern started to line her face. "Are you positive you're fine? Should you talk to the adjudicator?" She froze, her face paling. "Was it a vision?"
Running the timeline in his head, visions of Umbridge, Fudge, Voldemort, and the other horrible circumstances of his fifth year flitted through his mind's eye, until Harry felt the tell-tale tingle start to grow in his scar.
Knowing what was coming next, Harry quickly raised his Occlumency barriers and elevated their usual passive level to the "pain" setting. This time, there'd be hell to pay. Despite his preparations, the vision hit like a sledgehammer. Muted images flashed through his head- a pale hand holding a paler wand, answers demanded in the dim light given from hazy prophecy globes, and the faux-Sirius writhing on the floor in agony. In a blind rage, fueled by the forty plus years of bone-wracking grief borne from watching loved ones, and the world around him, die, Harry dropped all pretense of defense and mentally grabbed onto the mental probe with a vice-like grip.
"No more, Tom," he hissed through the link. "You don't need to convince me come to you. Tonight you're mine." His mental hands still gripping the probe, he ripped into it from the root shredding it like a thresher, perversely reveling in the scream he mentally heard from the other end as he yanked the probe from his mind. The visions were lulled along with the probe as if sucked from a tube, leaving his mental landscape black and charred, but blissfully clear
Coming back to awareness, Harry sucked in a breath greedily while being met with the familiar pounding headache and cold sweat he came to equate with Voldemort's unbidden (or in this case, purposeful) visions. His hand reached up for the first time in years to touch his tender, enflamed scar, noting blood on his hand as he drew it away. Looking to his right, he took stock of the face of Hermione Granger, the real Hermione Granger, looking at him with eyes filled with wrought and not a little fear.
Harry gritted his teeth in a snarl. "It certainly was that time," he ground out. Hermione paled further.
"Goddamn it." He muttered to himself.