Birth of a Phoenix
Ch.7- Vessel for a Shattered Soul
A/N: Okay, Chapter 7 is a big(-ish) chapter, and some important stuff happens. I know this chapter took a while, and I'm sorry, but writer's block does that to you. I'm back on track now though, so without further ado, Chapter 7…
Harry slowly blinked awake, feeling more alive and energized than he had ever felt, especially given the recent battle he had fought in. He unconsciously squeezed the warmth in his arms closer to him and something in his chest purred in delight when Ginny squirmed closer into him. She yawned deeply, and her gorgeous brown eyes gazed up at him.
With her fiery hair all disheveled from sleep, she looked absolutely adorable. Not that Harry would ever allow himself to act on those thoughts. He stared at her pensively for a moment before he was interrupted by a pointed cough. Instantly, he and Ginny were apart and on opposite sides of the bed, trying to look innocent as the Twins stood by their bed, grinning evilly.
"Well, well, well…," One began.
"Would you looky here…," The other continued.
"Two little lovebirds…," Harry and Ginny blushed deeply and the Twins cackled.
"Just be glad…,"
"It wasn't Mum that caught you…,"
"Just little old us…,"
"But you never know when little old us…,"
"Might need something in exchange…,"
"For keeping this all hush-hush," They finished together, and Ginny moved back and buried her face in Harry's chest, knowing she would never live this down. Harry, however, came to her rescue.
"Let's just all remember who you'd be starting this with if you didn't choose to… forget… that this ever happened," Harry smirked and the Twins paled.
"Of course sir, Yes sir, sorry sir," They sketched short bows and beat a hasty retreat. Ginny looked up at Harry in shock.
"How did you do that?"
"I just know how to speak their language, that's all," Harry said, still smirking. Ginny shrugged and wedged herself back into Harry's arms and promptly fell back asleep. Harry's mind, however, was now elsewhere.
He lay there staring at the girl in his arms and remembered what her body had looked like, beaten and broken. Then, unbidden, 14 other bodies joined hers, all dead by Harry's wand. He was a murderer.
He quietly slipped away from Ginny's warm body, dressed, and left the Hospital Wing in a rush, heading anywhere but there. Fawkes leapt from his perch on the curtain-rod and followed him.
"Harry! Harry, wait! What's the matter with you? You've got the girl of your dreams asleep in your arms and you just up and leave?" Fawkes' voice cut into Harry's consciousness.
"I'm a murderer, Fawkes, I killed fourteen people. Fourteen lives, all snuffed out," Harry hung his head miserably and slumped against a wall, "Even if she did feel that way, she deserves better than a murderer," Fawkes fluttered down and alighted on his shoulder.
"Harry, those men, they were all marked Death Eaters, all fifteen of them. You know what a Death Eater must do to receive the Mark, right?" Harry had indeed heard the stories of horrible atrocities committed by Death Eater initiates,
"And you know what they were there to do? They wanted to rape Ginny and Hermione, probably Mrs. Weasley too. Then they wanted to torture them all before they killed them, burned the Burrow and sent up his Mark."
"Once they'd finished, then it would be time for them to move onto the next family, rinse, repeat. Now they can't, because they're dead. Those men sold their souls when they decided they wanted that Mark, you're just collecting what's due," Fawkes trilled a few reassuring notes and Harry had perked up a little. He picked himself up and stroked Fawkes plumage for a moment.
"Thank you, Fawkes, you always know what to say," Harry gave his companion a small smile, trying to mask the pain in his heart.
"Glad you're feeling better, because you're late for a date with Grindlewald," Fawkes chuckled and Harry grabbed his tail. In a ball of flame, they reappeared in the stone prison that held Harry's tutor, who was standing in wait.
"So I hear you've finally fought your first battle, and you managed to incapacitate yourself for almost a week. Not the most impressive showing, even if your enemies fared much worse," Grindlewald looked at his pupil for a moment, his eyes cold and calculating,
"Place your memory into the Pensieve, let's see what exactly you did wrong," He led Harry to the stone bowl and drew out the silver strand of memory.
Ginny awoke again and tried to find Harry's warmth in the sheets, burrowing down into the last of Harry's heat in the mattress. He was gone, she realized. She sat up and looked around, not seeing him anywhere.
He had left without a word, but she knew she had been foolish to expect more from Harry Potter, who would never see her, even when she slept in his arms. Unwelcome tears began to rise in her eyes as she remembered how wonderful it had felt to wake up encircled by his arms and to look up and see those emerald eyes. At least, she decided, she had been allowed to experience it once in her life.
She flopped onto her back and tried to force back the tears, but she could not. So that was how Madam Pomfrey found her twenty minutes later, quietly crying over Harry bloody Potter.
To Madam Pomfrey, the source of her pain was easy to diagnose for someone with her years of experience, even if the cause was not strictly medical. Lovesickness was a common enough ailment at Hogwarts.
"Don't cry dear, he didn't mean anything by it. That day was rough for him and he hasn't had time to process it all yet. I imagine he's falling back into his training routine as a coping mechanism," She patted Ginny's shoulder comfortingly, but Ginny just scoffed through her tears.
"He had a rough day? He didn't almost die! He can't go saying he had a rough go of it!" She felt her temper beginning to boil.
"Almost die, no, he didn't. He did kill though. Fourteen Death Eaters and a Mountain Troll," Madam Pomfrey tried to state it as matter-of-factly as she could, but still stuttered a little bit. Ginny's rising anger hit a wall and deflated.
"Oh," Was all she could say, "Why? Why did he have to kill people?" What could drive Harry to commit such an act? She had always seen him as the irreproachable pinnacle of 'right', everything he did was the right thing to do.
"You don't remember anything that happened, do you?" Poppy asked her, she shook her head 'no', "Well, somehow a group of fifteen Death Eaters breached the Burrow's wards while you were out flying. Bill noticed and tried to get everyone inside and seal the house, but Harry had seen you when your broom got hit with a Killing Curse and you fell."
"He ran out into the middle of the Death Eaters, throwing curses like mad, and stood over your body, completely exposed, and went completely berserk, just tore them all apart. Bill got one, but Harry dealt with the rest while Fawkes got your family out."
"Then the Mountain Troll showed up, Fawkes brought you here, and Harry snapped its neck with a Reductor before passing out from exhaustion upon his arrival. When he woke up, he found this, which is how he ended up laying on you," She handed Ginny the black letter, and Ginny's blood ran cold when she recognized Tom's handwriting.
"What was this?" Ginny held up the metal rod lying in its wrapping.
"That was originally transfigured into a hand from the Weasley Family Clock, specifically, yours," Ginny's eyes went wide and she began to tear up again, this time for Harry instead of because of him.
"He saved my life again," Ginny said, half to herself, as she stared at the letter in her hands. Madam Pomfrey left her alone to think.
"So, looking at this, we have a fine example of what not to do in a combat situation," Grindlewald launched into his lecture as they withdrew from the memory,
"You exposed yourself, you broke cover, you took unnecessary risks, you overpowered all your spells, you focused too much on one enemy and lost your situational awareness, you forgot the rule of acceptable losses, and, most importantly, you just dueled poorly.
This was not a demonstration of who was better, it was a demonstration of who was less bad, and thank Merlin it was you," Grindlewald growled out, but Harry's eyes were already sparking.
"Ginny. Is. Not. An. Acceptable. Loss," Harry spit at his instructor.
"And why not? Is she an exceptional fighter?" Grindlewald barked in response, "Is she a brilliant Healer or Spy? Is she a political figure? What is her value?" Harry growled and drew his wand.
"She is a person! She has value! She's my friend and I care about her!" He flung a curse.
"So? This is war! People die, friends die, people you care about die! You have to accept it," Grindlewald returned fire, but Harry only picked up the pace.
"I will not let her die! I will protect her! I'll protect all my friends, but I'll especially protect her!" Harry's wand was a blur as it spurted streaks of colored light, sending them battering against Grindlewald's shield.
"Why? What makes her so special? Why should death not take her of everyone?" Grindlewald reinforced his faltering shield.
"Because… Because she keeps my secrets, because she always knows what to say, because," Words and images swirled through Harry's mind as he desperately tried to come up with words for what he felt for Ginny. Finally, he found them, and a little bit of him was scared by them, but it was stamped out by the rest of him which was very, very mad at Grindlewald for even suggesting that Ginny might die,
"Because I love her, that's why!" He shouted and Grindlewald smiled as he deflected Harry's last curse before swiping his legs out from under him and blasting him with a short second of the Crutacious.
"Very good, see how much more powerful it made you? The raw strength of love and the desire to protect it? Now all you need to do is maintain your focus while you're feeling it, and Tom Riddle will never have a chance," He hauled Harry off the floor and placed his wand in his hand,
"I think that's enough for today, now go back and talk to her, tell her how you feel, she deserves to know," He patted Harry on the back and watched as Fawkes flamed him away, considering how different things could have been if he had followed his heart so many years ago.
Harry was running through the castle, trying to find Ginny and tell her how he felt before he could talk himself out of it. He burst into the Hospital Wing and almost knocked over Madam Pomfrey, but Ginny's bed was empty. She quickly translated his forlorn look.
"She left not twenty minutes ago, dear, her mother took her home. She claimed that the girl would recover faster at home, the nerve of that woman," She descended into mumbling about how no one understood proper healthcare procedures, but Harry wasn't listening. He stared at the empty bed for a moment before turning and trudging out of the door.
That night, Harry's bed felt cold and empty and he struggled to sleep, tossing and turning, and far away, a red-headed girl lay in her bed feeling much the same way, as if a piece of her was missing.
The next morning signified Harry's return to his training schedule, which he took to with a renewed fervor, one fueled by two things; Harry's dismal performance in his first real battle, and a need to quell the feeling he was having about Ginny. He settled back into his routine with Grindlewald, learning and practicing.
Grindlewald had decided that Harry needed to return to the basics, since they obviously hadn't taken the first time, so Harry was once again learning the basic rules of dueling according to Grindlewald.
"One," Grindlewald lectured him, "You must always maintain your situational awareness. You will not just be dueling one wizard at a time, one curse at a time, you'll be fighting many opponents all hurling curses as fast as they can," He waved his wand, creating several mannequins, all capable of casting short Crutacious bursts. Another wave, and Harry's wand was in his hand and Harry was blindfolded. Then, with no warning, the mannequins attacked.
Harry ducked, spun, dodged and twisted away from the curses as best he could, trying to sense the magic as it rushed towards him. He would occasionally get hit, but he would quickly shake it off and get back to his feet. The exercise went on for hours until Harry finally collapsed and couldn't rise. Grindlewald vanished the dummies and blindfold and returned Harry's wand.
"Better, but still not good enough, you should never get hit by someone at that level, especially by something as slow as a Crutacious," Grindlewald barked, "Come on, sit," He gestured to one of the chairs next to his Pensieve. Harry sat and they both dunked their heads into the bowl.
This memory was an expertly cut together montage of Grindlewald, Dumbledore, and several other wizards all dispatching large groups of opponents with ease. Even in combat gear, Harry could distinguish the different wizards.
Grindlewald's style was brutal, utilitarian, and borderline Dark. He struck fast and hard with an unrelenting offense and was highly mobile. Dumbledore, on the other hand, dueled in a more traditional style, using Transfiguration and Animation heavily and often casting complex spells followed by a flurry of everyday charms. Both were highly effective.
Harry resurfaced from the memory a little while later, just long enough to feel refreshed. It was a good thing to, because he was immediately attacked by Grindlewald and had to scramble to return fire.
For 40 minutes, the two wizards hammered away at each other, each one trying to demolish the other. Harry, as usual, was losing, and Grindlewald repeatedly smashed holes in his defenses. Finally, the brutality was over and Harry collapsed, panting.
"Again, you're improving, but you're trying to make up for skill with power. That doesn't work; you must learn finesse and technique. Until you do that, you will lose," Grindlewald told Harry with his typical harshness as he dismissed Harry for the day.
As the days of summer wound down, Harry continued to train, now driven by a new determination to succeed. The new work ethic showed.
Harry was deemed 'acceptable' at Occlumency by Snape, which he considered a glowing commendation from the man, and had reached a basic comprehension of the more academic subjects he had been studying.
This left most of Harry's day to one thing, and that was dueling. Harry continued to work with the three Aurors and Lupin, but he was also now regularly taking on Professors Flitwick, Snape, and McGonagall as well as Sirius.
It said something remarkable that the 15 year old boy could give as well as he got against the professionals, and won just as much as he lost. He also visited Grindlewald less, and rarely dueled with him. Their time became reserved for discussing tactics and strategy.
Harry also continued work with various physical weapons. From swords to throwing knives to the bow and arrows, Harry was reasonably proficient with them all, though not what one would call exceptional.
With more free time than ever, Harry pitched himself into research, specifically anything about how Voldemort could have become immortal, with an intensity that would have made Hermione proud.
His search was fruitless for a very long time, even as he pledged into the depths of the Restricted Section. He had found several magics which would connect two people like Harry and Voldemort had been, and several ways to achieve 'immortality', but none of them seemed logical, and he hadn't found one that did both. The Hogwarts Library was far from extinguished, however.
Ginny Weasley lay awake in her bed, staring at her ceiling in the dark of her room. It was actually only eight-thirty at night, but her mother's overprotectiveness had reached a new all-time high, and it was focused on Ginny, mostly because she was the only daughter, but also because of her recent injuries and – as much as Ginny hated to admit it – most likely the Chamber fiasco as well.
It had started off pretty tame: Ginny was only allowed to fly with supervision and was only allowed outside during the day, but it got worse; first she wasn't allowed to fly at all, then she wasn't allowed outside and then, eventually, she wasn't even allowed near windows to the point that now she was only allowed in the kitchen or her room, and Molly had even found a way to remove the window from her room.
She was locked in her room promptly at 7 pm and not released until 8 am, when she was allowed downstairs. In addition, her mother was screening her mail and burning most of it. The only letters she was really receiving were from Harry, delivered straight to her room via Fawkes, and she had made sure to hide her predicament from him, knowing he would blame himself.
Her brothers, on the other hand, were well aware of the situation; for her birthday Fred and George had gotten her an orange jumpsuit (which clashed horribly with her hair) with 'Prisoner Ginny' and some arbitrary number written across the back in black stencil letters.
With a final irritable sigh, Ginny rolled over to try to sleep in the cold, desolate room, and wished with all of her might that September 1st would come faster.
As the first day of the new school year approached, now only being 2 weeks out, the new DADA Professor arrived. Harry was sitting perched on a statue in the Entrance Hall with Fawkes when she banged open the giant Entrance Hall doors.
In comparison to the grand doorway, the short, squat woman cut quite the un-imposing figure, but Harry felt Fawkes' mental tremor of disgust.
"What's the matter Fawkes?" Harry asked his trusted companion.
"Look at her Harry, look at her aura," The magical bird retorted, and Harry focused one of the abilities he had gained in their bonding.
All Phoenixes were hyper-sensitive to auras and magical traces, and Harry had found that he could utilize this sixth sense as well, only with considerably more effort.
As he watched her with this sense, the source of Fawkes' disgust became apparent. The woman radiated evil. Not sadistic, dark evil like Voldemort or his Death Eaters, but a prejudiced, hateful evil. Nevertheless, evil was evil and Harry was repulsed by it.
"I see what you mean; I wonder why Dumbledore even hired her?" Harry wondered.
"I'm not sure, either she's an exceptional liar or she was the only option," Fawkes replied. The squat woman stepped into the light of one of the torches and Harry was stunned by her disturbing resemblance to a toad.
"Ugh, why do I get the feeling she's going to be a horrible teacher," Harry moaned mentally.
"I dunno, maybe because it looks like she gets out of breath getting out of bed every morning, much less combating Dark Magic," Fawkes muttered back.
"Seriously though, I bet she's never taught anything in her life, I could probably do better," Harry disillusioned himself and dropped off of the statue, landing silently and stalking out of the Hall in a huff to go find someplace that wasn't being tainted by her presence.
As he slipped by her, he couldn't help but notice the Ministry badge she was wearing labeled 'Dolores Umbridge'.
"You probably could; it's certainly something to think about if she's as terrible as she looks. And what is Dumbledore doing allowing the Ministry into Hogwarts anyways?" Fawkes tucked himself back into Harry's robes to remain concealed.
"He's probably got no choice; the smear campaign against the both of us has been pretty terrible, and he's going to have to make concessions to save face," Harry was understandably upset by Rita Skeeter's constant barrage of slanderous articles that labeled Dumbledore as senile and Harry as a mentally diseased pathological liar, but there wasn't much he could do.
He figured that Voldemort would show up and make himself known eventually, and then Fudge would get his just desserts, but until then, there was nothing Harry could do. That didn't mean he had to like it though.
Harry made his way up to his quarters, still fuming about the new Defence Professor, only to find Dumbledore standing outside of them.
Harry's anger at the Ministry, at Voldemort, and at the Wizarding Public in general boiled over when he saw the man.
"Albus," The wizened wizard turned to face him, "What the hell is going on! We're in the middle of a war with a thrice-damned Dark Lord, and you're hiring bumbling Ministry stooges to teach our students to survive?" Harry spat at him, his blood boiling.
"I take it you've met Ms. Umbridge, then?" Dumbledore tried to sound flippant, but even in his anger; Harry could hear the edge to the Headmaster's voice,
"I'm afraid that the Ministry has seen fit to install their own person into Hogwarts; they seem to believe that I am building some kind of an army out of the students," His tone was resigned.
"But what about Hogwarts by-laws? They allow you to supersede the Ministry in Hogwarts matters," Harry called up something from his History course with Sirius.
"Yes, I suppose I could, but you know the saying 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'?" Harry nodded, "Well Umbridge is dead set on destroying all of Britain's magical allies in the name of blood superiority, and at the Ministry she is in a position to do so."
"Here at Hogwarts, however, I believe she will be kept significantly busy discovering the joys of being an educator," Dumbledore gave Harry a mischievous smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Albus, what else is the matter?" Harry asked, placing a gentle hand on the Headmaster's shoulder and taking in his suddenly unusually grave face.
"Harry, my boy, I hate to break it to you like this, but I'm afraid that your cousin Dudley was kissed by a Dementor on Privet Drive yesterday," Dumbledore's voice sounded hollow.
"It looks like the Dementor was sent to lure you into performing underage magic by the Ministry," Harry's eyes narrowed,
"Since you no longer reside there, they took the next best thing," Dumbledore placed a hand on Harry's shoulder and Harry sighed heavily.
Much to Harry's surprise, the news hit him fairly hard. Despite the way his cousin had treated him for his whole life, he was still family and Harry didn't want to see him dead, or soul-sucked either. Dumbledore gave Harry a reassuring pat on the shoulder and left Harry to his own devices.
Harry immediately went to do what he always did now when he felt upset, confused, or unsure about something like this; he wrote to Ginny. He effectively poured his feelings about his only remaining blood family out to her in his letter and then handed it off to Fawkes, who disappeared in a small flash of fire.
Once the letter had been sent, Harry dropped back onto his bed and fell asleep. That night, his dreams were plagued by visions of his childhood with his relatives, but when he awoke, he only felt worse about Dudley's fate.
The Dursley's had been claiming that Harry and his freakiness would destroy their family, and they had finally been proven right. And if they had been right about that, what else had they been right about?
Harry's breakthrough in his research finally came when he stumbled across a small, unassuming book - one with no title, no author, and very few legible pages – buried deep within the Restricted Section which, in one section, made reference to an artifact known as a 'Horcrux'.
The Horcrux, which is considered the vilest of all the magicks, is an item imbued with its creator's life essence, tying them to this plane of existence. It requires a shattered soul to create, and once it has been created, the caster becomes irredeemable…
Harry read the passage several times, making sure that it said what he thought it said, before taking off at a dead sprint towards the Headmaster's office.
Harry burst through the Headmaster's door, shouting Albus' name at the top of his lungs with the book clutched in his hand, but the Albus was not in.
Sitting on Albus' desk, however, was an open book and a single sheet of parchment. Sitting atop the book was a Phoenix-feather quill; a signal that Harry and Dumbledore used.
Harry immediately dropped down into the Headmaster's chair and began to read. Surprisingly, the passage that the book was open to also described the Horcrux.
Hidden under the parchment, which was covered in notes written in Dumbledore's loopy script, was another small, leather-bound book; this one with a huge burnt hole in its center and the faint initials 'T.M. Riddle' on its cover.
Realization struck Harry like a bludger, the Diary was a Horcrux. But it had been destroyed before Voldemort had been resurrected, and that could only mean one thing.
Voldemort had done the impossible, he had made multiple Horcruxes. Harry gasped quietly at the thought, and then he noticed something written on the parchment's reverse side.
… Gaunt's Ring, TMR inherited at young age. Little Hangleton, site of TMR, Sr.'s death. Horcrux site…
The last segment was circled hurriedly. Harry spun to look at the portraits surrounding the walls of the office.
"When did Albus leave? How long ago?" Harry asked demandingly of Phineas Black, who was the only portrait present and awake.
"Oh, only an hour, hour and a half. He seemed in quite the hurry, too," The portrait replied nonchalantly.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit," Harry cursed under his breath. He remembered how violently the Diary had defended itself, and how well it had defended it had been, what with the Basilisk and all.
And Dumbledore had gone after another one, alone.
"Fawkes! Dumbledore needs our help, take us to him!" Harry barked mentally, and Fawkes materialized in a ball of fire.
"Harry, you know I can't just take you to a person. I need a place, a location that you can picture," Fawkes reminded Harry, but Harry just gritted his teeth.
"I can give you a location; you just get us there, okay?" Harry snapped, and then drew up the painful memories of the night of the Third Task, isolation the memory image of the decrepit manor house that had loomed on a hill over the graveyard.
In a ball of flames and a rush of magic, Man and bird were standing on the winding path leading up from the Manor gates. Several meters away, Albus Dumbledore spun and pointed his wand at them with a speed that belied his age.
When he recognized them, he lowered his wand. "Ah, Harry, my boy, I see you've figured it out as well! Excellent!" His eyes twinkled mischievously as his new, shorter hair and beard were tossed about by the stormy wind.
"Albus, what possessed you to try and get this thing by yourself? You live in a whole castle full of experts in their respective fields, you should have brought at least Snape with you, and probably Moody too," Harry shouted back over the howling wind.
"You are quite right, Harry, but I'm afraid that I have acted quite rashly, as I have been known to do in the past. I believe you understand the sentiment," Dumbledore chuckled as Harry walked up to him.
Harry at least had the sense to look a little bit sheepish, thinking about his various adventures.
The two stood side by side when they reached the building's decaying veranda and, with a nod to each other, they raised their wands.
At the Burrow, the final days of summer were winding down dreadfully slowly, in Ginny's mind anyways. The family had taken its usual trip to Diagon Alley and Ginny had, of course, been forced to stay behind by her mother who had cited 'safety reasons'.
Now they were packed and ready to go, and Molly Weasley was giving her children her famous 'First Day of School, Remember to Mind Your Manners and Study Hard' spiel, which this year was amended with a new 'Don't Let Ginny Date Anyone' section which essentially put the remaining Weasley boys at Hogwarts on boyfriend watch for Ginny, giving them strict orders to owl their Mum if Ginny started seeing any boys.
While Ginny knew the Twins would cut her some slack unless they needed to take some heat off themselves, she also knew that Ron would take the task to heart and try to become her personal minder. He had also been advised to try to include Harry in the plan, but Ginny knew Harry would be on her side.
On the topic of Harry Potter, Ginny was unbelievably thankful for his correspondence over the course of the summer. Without his letters, she would have slipped into insanity long ago. Additionally, through the letters which often touched an intimate emotional level the likes of which Ginny had never experienced before, she knew that she was falling – no, she had already fallen – hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Harry.
And if the things he shared with her that he had never shared with anyone else were any indication, he might just be noticing her. But Ginny didn't dare hope.
Instead, she leaned back to daydream about what Harry was currently doing. Her conjured fantasies of him flying and laughing in the warm sun were probably about as far away as could be from the darkness that swirled around a graveyard in Little Hangleton.
A/N: Another chapter and Horcruxes revealed! That's the biggie; also Umbitch is introduced in all of her bitchy glory. Some other stuff happens too, which will build up to later events. All in all, thank you so much for the tremendous response this story has gotten and thank you for your continued support. I got so many reviews on the last chapter that I can't possibly respond to them all, but if you did review – and you know who you are – thank you an infinite number of times! Till next time, you guys are the best!