Chapter 6: The Truth About Harry


They spent the rest of the day in front of the fireplace, staring into that crystal cauldron, scouring the World Floo Library for information on how to track down magical artifacts.

"Ooo, check this out!", blurted Hermione, pointing out the article she had just found. "Given one item a person has hidden, this potion can be used to find other items that the same person has also hidden." Ron's eyes widened. "Hey, that's exactly what we need; we already have the ring." All eyes turned to the ring, which was again on Ginny's finger. Making a fist, Ginny held high the emerald ring, her eyes narrow, her teeth bared, and growled out the proclamation: "Voldemort..Shall..Die!"

Unfortunately, the potion turned out to be quite a difficult one to make. Their first attempt created instead a green goo, which promptly evaporated, leaving the cauldron empty. And their second attempt created (to everyone's mouth-watering dismay) chicken soup.

As the five of them sat at the table, enjoying a dinner of chicken soup, Ron had an idea: "I bet we'd have better luck if we had Harry's potions book, the one Snape wrote all his notes in."

Hermione cringed at the suggestion. She had never been too fond of that book. But she knew Ron was right. "Ok", began Hermione, "We'll need a plan if we're going to go and get it. It's not like we can just apparate right in." "Brooms?", suggested Harry. Ron shook his head. "Nah, thats a long way to fly on brooms." A smile crept across Ginny's face. She had a plan. "The Shrieking Shack! We can apparate into the shack, and then follow the tunnel back to campus. Ron nodded. "Good idea, sis. How about it, Harry?"

But Harry seemed not to be paying attention. "Huh? Oh, yeah, the shrieking... What about the Whomping Willow? It's gonna clobber us." Ginny smiled knowingly. "Already thought of that. One petrificus totalus and it won't lay a twig on us." "Ok...", Ron continued. "We apparate to the shack, tunnel to campus, sneak into the Room of Requirement, grab the book, and retrace our steps back here. Sound about right?" Hermione, yawning, noted what time it was. "Sounds like a plan. But we'd better get some shuteye if we're gonna pull it off..."

And with that, they all flopped over, closed their bleary eyes, and drifted off to sleep.


And for once, Harry slept an easy, peaceful sleep. No nightmares, no visions of evil, no Dark Lord calling to him or chasing after him. The one dream he did have was of Ginny, standing atop a hill, looking down the other side, the side Harry could not see, and he stood wondering what it was she was seeing. And when he woke the next morning, he sat wondering what it meant.

"Hey Harry, are you ready yet?", a voice called out to the not-quite-awake Harry Potter. "Wha? Yeah, the tunnel, where's my wand? Who has the inviso-thing?". Hermione eyed him suspiciously. "Are you ok, Harry? You seem not quite yourself lately." Fawkes, finishing off the last of his breakfast of sunflower seeds, clarified things. "Actually, 'Mione, for the first time since his infancy, he is himself. Just himself, without the influence of the Dark Lord."

A/N: I keep wanting to say that Fawkes "smiled". But he can't, since birds don't have lips, they have beaks!


Wands in their robe pockets and the invisibility cloak over Ron's shoulder, they all joined hands (and wings), and with a loud multiple "crack", appeared inside the Shrieking Shack. "Lumos!" Into the tunnel they went, with Hermione leading the way. And after a long, cramped hike through the muddy, cobwebby passageway, they could see daylight. And squirming roots. They were beneath the Whomping Willow. "petrificus totalus", whispered Ginny, touching her wand to one of the roots. And huddled together under the invisibility cloak, they all made their way up to the castle.

Harry touched his wand to the locked outside door. "Aloharama", he whispered. Nothing happened. Hermione gave it a try and it opened. They found the hallway where the Room of Requirement was, and chanted "We need Snape's potions book". And they were in. Harry quickly found the book, which was right where he had left it.

"Look at all this cool junk!", gawked Harry, picking up a green lampshade. "As long as we're here, let's have a look at some of it." Ginny's eyes went wide with the panicked look of someone whose owl was about to fly straight into a plate-glass window. "Harry, that thing might be cursed!", she warned. Harry, once again, seemed lost in a fog. "Why would anyone want to curse a lampshade?", he asked nonchalantly, placing it on his head like a hat. "Stop it, you didn't even use Finite Incantium; put it back!", hissed Ginny with a severity that would have put Professor MacGonagal to shame. That got his attention. Harry placed the lampshade exactly as he had found it, and, book in hand, headed for the door.

On the way out, Harry wondered why his lock-picking spell hadn't worked. That was a bit worrisome. Worse yet, when they reentered the tunnel, with Harry leading the way, he realized that his wand ("Lumos!") would not even cast light. So Hermione lead the way again, and Ginny brought up the rear, removing the petrificus totalus from the willow before moving on down the tunnel.


Back at the Burrow, Hermione began to read Snape's voluminous notes for hints on making their tracking potion work, while the others tried to figure out why Harry's wand didn't seem to be working. "Doesn't look cracked or anything...", observed Ron, examining the wand with a magifying glass.

Hermione examined the wand also, and performed upon it every diagnostic spell she could think of, which was quite a few. "I don't think there's anything wrong with the wand. Harry, I haven't actually seen you do any magic since Fawkes removed your bit of Voldemort." "Have you tried flying?", suggested Ginny, with a growing look of concern. "That doesn't even use a wand."

Harry walked straight over to his broom, held out his hand, and with his usual quidditch confidence, commanded the broom: "Up!".

Nothing happened.

Harry sank down onto the floor, suddenly realizing what this meant. His magic, his powers, they were never his at all. They were Voldemort's. The only magical powers Harry had were those the Dark Lord had accidentally given him. And when Fawkes removed that bit of Voldemort's soul, his magic went with it. For a time, he just sat there in silence, his face blanched white, staring into space in complete and utter shock, wearing the look of a doomed, defeated man. And for a time, no one said a word. No one knew what to say. They had never seen Harry like this. He had in the past shown anguish, rage, and sadness; but never surrender. He looked as though he was ready to simply give up. on everything.

Finally, hesitatingly, he opened his mouth to speak.

"I... I'm a squib!"


"Fawkes! What happened!" Bellowed a suddenly-angry Ginny. "You took out his magic, now he's a squib!"

"He needn't remain as such.", squawked Fawkes in a tone so remeniscent of Dumbledore that Ginny immediately stopped looking as though she wanted to kill him. "Harry, the choice is your own. You can be yourself, the boy you were born to be, without the emotional horrors of the dark lord, but a squib. Or, you can be the boy-who-lived, the marked man, the one who can kill he-who-must-not-be-named; the only Harry we've ever known."

Harry looked blankly at Fawkes for a moment. But once he realized what the phoenix was telling him, he had no doubt of his decision. "Yeah, I think I was better off with it. Even with the evil parts. Without it, everything I've learned is pointless. Sock it to me, Fawkes; make me a horcrux again." Fawkes perched once more on Harry's shoulder, and with a gentle bite to the ear and a grayish mist, transferred back into Harry the fragment of Voldemort's soul he had taken out the previous day.

"Ok mate, how do you feel now?", asked Ron. Harry looked around at his friends, who were all staring expectantly at him, and he paused for a moment, wondering how long to draw out their wait.

"Hmhmhmhuhuhuhahahaaa Haaaaaa!", he cackled evilly.

Everyone took a step back, their eyes wide with fear, their wands at the ready. "I'm kidding, I'm just kidding!", reassured Harry. "I feel like myself again; just the way I'm used to feeling." Zing, Pow, Bzroompft! "Aaaaack!" Harry tumbled over backwards as three jinxes were hurled at him; one turned his hair purple, another gave him elf ears, and the third one missed. "Don't scare us like that!", admonished Ginny, wagging her index finger at him. But she was laughing. "You're gonna wear those ears until morning, elfie."


Later that night, the five of them sat gabbing in the living room. Ron had opened a bag of chocolate snitches, which was quite a fun snack. Basically, you just release them into the room, where they fly around and you catch them with your mouth as they go by. "You know what?", said Harry, returning from the thought he had seemed lost in, "I think it did me good to have my horcrux removed for a day." "How's that?", squawked Fawkes from near the ceiling, divebombing after a chocolate snitch. "Now I know.", Harry explained. "Having been without the horcrux for a full day, I know which parts are from me, and which parts are from Voldemort. And if he starts sending me thoughts or anything, I'll know it; I won't mistake his thoughts or feelings for my own."

Fawkes landed on the arm of the sofa. "Gained a bit of wisdom, you did.", he squawked muffledly, munching on a snitch. "I suppose that would tend to be a rather life-changing experience." "Indeed", agreed Harry, smiling like a Buddha. It had been a long day, and he was near sleep. But he had one last comment to make before drifting off. "Far Out."


In Chapter 7, they track down another horcrux (only 2 left, and then Lord V himself). And Fawkes meets the hen of his dreams! Oh, and ch7 is going to take awhile, it needs major emotional factor, and I don't have any time right now.


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