(Disclaimer: see first chapter)

Beta: RedButterfly33. Thank you! :D

mandancie, thank you for the lone review... you and Red keep me going! ; )

4.

April 16th, 1998

Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, lost in thought, when Fawkes appeared in a red flame. He was just returning from his daily visit with the Great Stranger. If Dumbledore didn't know he was above such emotions, he would have realized that he was jealous of Fawkes's mysterious informant, since he had Fawkes to himself for such a long time each day. After all, Fawkes was Dumbledore's familiar! Surely he could expect, then, that Fawkes spent more time with him than with some stranger whose identity Fawkes was loath to reveal even after one and a half years.

"Well, found your way home, did you?" he greeted the bird stroppily.

"I have no time for your childishness just now, Albus! You have to come with me, it's a matter of life and death!"

Dumbledore was up and moving at once. "Who? Where?"

Fawkes hesitated for a moment and looked indecisively at his familiar. "This concerns my informant... You now have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet him, for he has just started convulsing and I cannot get a single word out of him. If he dies, you will not get any further information from him... also, I might join him in death."

"WHAT?!" The only thing that could kill a phoenix was the deepest emotional distress, of the kind usually not even felt at the death of their familiars. WHO was this stranger?

"Take me to him!"

Fawkes extended a wing, Dumbledore took hold of it and they vanished in a fiery flash.

Dumbledore's eyes widened when he took in his location. "Your contact works in Azkaban?"

Fawkes did not answer, wordlessly dragging him instead to the little boat that would carry them over to the prison. "Hurry, or he might die!"

Dumbledore was extremely surprised, but he obediently boarded the bark and whipped it into a frenzied pace akin to a power boat with his magic.

He passed the Dementors guarding the entrance unhindered; as the Chief Warlock, he was free to enter any public institutions as he pleased. He followed Fawkes along one endless, dark hallway after the other, down to the high-security wing. It was a cold, dismal environment that caused Dumbledore extreme unease every single time, never failing to remind him of the days he had spent in Grindelwald's dungeon before he managed to free himself and defeat the black sorcerer in a last, epic duel.

Just like Harry Potter should have defeated Voldemort. Where did it all go wrong?

Why was he thinking of the boy just now?

Of course, he must also be somewhere down here. Brrr... to think he was only sixteen years old... Wait. Convulsions? High-security wing? Secret information that only Voldemort himself should be privy to?

Dumbledore was anything but stupid, and yet it was only now he realized what he had long suspected, but simply refused to accept.

"Fawkes? Who are you taking me to?"

"We are nearly there," the phoenix evaded the question. Phoenixes could not lie, but whoever said they could not withhold information if they so desired?

Dumbledore kept running after his familiar. Now he could hear a soft sound which rose in volume with every step he took, swelling to an ear-shattering roar. It carried such pain as no human should ever be subjected to.

Then the wild hunt ended. Fawkes was hovering before a cell in which a presumably once-human being was twisting and thrashing about on the floor, screaming as though it was being drawn and quartered. Fawkes spared his familiar a quick glance before apparating inside the bars. He flew right above the prisoner and tried to hover in place there. Then he started crying, and singing a song of hope and love.

Dumbledore stood frozen in front of the cell. Never in all their time together had Fawkes shown such intense emotion. Hot phoenix tears fell upon the man on the ground, moistening his face, his hands, his hair. But the man did not notice. The strongest antidote the world knew had absolutely no effect on the poison that had befallen this man.

And then Dumbledore understood.

With lightning speed, he drew his wand, vanishing two of the bars and stepping through. He knelt down next to convulsing figure, drew back his arm - and backhanded the man with all his might.

Harry came to with a feeble wail of pain. Foggily he tried to remember what had happened. He had... he'd done it. For the first time, he had attacked Voldemort's mind! But the retaliation had been terrible.

How had he escaped? Voldemort had taken a firm hold of his consciousness and inflicted an unending series of mental Crucios upon him. He could never have freed himself from that.

"Fawkes?" he croaked hoarsely. Oh, looks like I've been screaming again. "Fawkes, mate, 're you there?" He opened one swollen eye and blinked.

"Shite, glasses are broken. For good this time, I s'pose. Doesn't fucking matter, 's not like there's anything to see around here anyway..." Harry mumbled while he squinted, trying to recognize his friend. For who else would have pulled him back?

A propos... He had to tell Fawkes of his discovery right away!

Harry did not notice that he was lying on something soft, or that he was not alone with Fawkes. The phoenix was just touching down and came to stand on the cold stone floor right in front of Harry. "Oh, there you are, silly chicken," Harry teased, still hoarse as a barker.

"Are you playing the hero again?" Fawkes shot back.

Dumbledore watched with his eyes opened wide in disbelief as the young man grinned at the bird as though he'd understood his comeback. "You know me," was his answer, "That Gryffindor idiocy is a part of me like the skin on my back, and you don't easily shake that off... though it very much felt like it, just now." He squinted again, this time in pain. "Fucking Cruciatus."

"A Cruciatus? Here?"

Harry paused a moment in his struggle to sit up to throw a disapproving glance at the phoenix. "Obviously not, you stupid ball of fluff! ...Sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just in a seriously bad mood. Hell, this stings!" He absent-mindedly rubbed at his forehead. "No, here, of course! The scar! – Would you believe it, I actually did it! For the first time ever! I struck back!"

Dumbledore did not understand a single word. He had helped Harry to sit up without the completely disoriented young wizard even noticing. Now he was sitting behind the boy, peering at his dishevelled mop of hair, which was energetically wobbling to and fro despite the obvious headache, while a trembling hand was raised to his lips to wipe off spittle and a fleck of vomit.

Dumbledore listened with great astonishment as Fawkes shed some light on the convicted murderer's words. "Are you trying to tell me you successfully attacked Voldemort's mind? You finally managed not only to listen in, but to interfere?"

"Yes, isn't it great?"

"How did you do it?"

Harry was radiating energy and self-confidence, despite the fact that he hadn't yet been fed that day and had just been subjected to a mental Crucio for close to a half-hour.

These young people..., Dumbledore thought, thoroughly rattled.

"I believe it is impossible to attack without anger. Until now, I only wanted to stop him, but, stupid though it may sound, amicably. It was only when I was ready to do serious damage to him - as he is always doing to others - that I could influence his thoughts. I have distracted him long enough that he - Oh my God!"

Harry broke off and blanched up to his hair roots.

Fawkes did not appear to notice, he had been looking at Dumbledore, trying to gauge his reaction. "What triggered your anger? You are not usually a violent person," he said, his eyes still on Dumbledore.

Harry suddenly grabbed Fawkes's leg and pulled him very close. Fawkes gave a startled squawk, but then grew still upon seeing Harry's intense look and the pale face.

"Harry?"

"You need to go to Dumbledore at once! Tell him he has to go to the Burrow! Molly is in danger!"

"Excuse me?!"

Harry jumped in surprise and let go of Fawkes before connecting painfully with the stone floor. He rubbed gingerly at his chin, as always completely ignorant of the fact that his hand was getting smeared with blood in the process, and stared at the man who had appeared behind him seemingly out of nowhere.

"Dumbledore? Professor? – How long have you been here?" He frantically turned around without waiting for an answer. "Fawkes! You promised not to betray me! How could you?!"

"HEY! I thought you were DYING!"

"Nonsense. If I was that easy to kill, I would not have survived my first year at school. No, wait, I wouldn't even have made it to school... Fuck it all, the only thing that matters is that you tell Dumbledore that - ah, no, he is here, after all - well - and... - FAWKES, why did you bring him here? Now he isn't going to believe you any more!" Desperately unhappy, he looked at the phoenix, completely ignoring the other wizard at his side.

"Yes he will, Harry. Have a little more faith in me, will you?" Fawkes whistled irritably.

"Faith?" Harry snapped. "How could I? To this day, every single time I had faith in another person, I lived to regret it. Admittedly, I had begun to hope that with you, it would be different; after all, you are a bird, I like that about you, and you never lied to me. But that you brought HIM" - he pointed to Dumbledore - "here, just now, I will never forgive you!"

And in front of Dumbledore's shocked eyes, the black-haired wizard broke down and cried with great, racking sobs.

"Harry," Dumbledore addressed him, "what did you mean to tell me about Molly?"

Harry raised his head, a tiny spark of hope glittering in his reddened eyes. "Sir, are you even going to believe me?"

"I do not know," Dumbledore said earnestly, "but you lose nothing in trying."

Harry threw a despairing glance at Fawkes before nodding sharply. "True.

"Alright. Listen well, Dumbledore. Voldemort is at the Burrow. Mister Weasley is on his way home, when he arrives, he will be in danger as well. Ron and Gin are at school, the twins... At any rate, Mrs. Weasley is currently home alone. Malfoy has stunned her and begun to torture her. Voldemort was just about to speak the Avada himself when I finally brought down the barrier and attacked him. With any luck, he will be weakened now. But, whatever the case, you HAVE to save Mrs. Weasley. PLEASE!"

Dumbledore looked into the pleading eyes of the young man in front of him. "Harry, didn't you say you couldn't stand the Weasleys?"

The look from the green eyes turned to stone. "There was no Veritaserum in that phial, old man. It was Arsendictum!"

Dumbledore looked at the boy, speechless. If this were true...!

"Fawkes, we need to go! Molly is in danger! Gather the Order!" He stepped out of the cell, hastily making the bars reappear and once more turning to Harry. "I will make sure your case is reopened, Harry, you will hear from me tomorrow, and -"

"Just GO! Dammit, we don't have time for this!"

Dumbledore fell silent, nodded once, then turned around and ran.

A/N: Red pointed out that Harry has some extreme mood swings in this chapter. True, he does. To me, that seemed a fairly natural reaction when thrown into such a totally unexpected situation right after having been mentally Crucioed by Voldemort for nearly half an hour, and all this on top of his generally bad Azkabanian health. If you disagree, please let me know! :P