: speech : is Parseltongue
/ speech / is mental speak
:speech/ is mental Parseltongue
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"Wake up, Harry!" A too-cheerful voice chirped by Harry's bedside. Voldemort got control of his arm first and grabbed for the wand before Harry woke up enough to abort the movement.
"Wha..?"
"It's time for lunch." Jeff said, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
Harry completed the movement Voldemort had started, grabbed his wand and cast a quick Tempus. "Is it the weekend or something?" He asked muzzily.
"No, we just don't have History of Magic this week."
"Why… oh." Because he had exorcised the teacher, of course. Why didn't this sort of thing ever happen to anyone else? Fate obviously enjoyed making Harry's life miserable.
"We have to eat quickly so we can go look after our Horklumps." Jeff continued. "I've been looking after yours this week, but now I can show you how to do it yourself. They only need food at lunch, so we're pretty lucky. I do miss the Puffskeins, though. Do you think Tom will let us take them home for the summer?"
"Er…"
"You're probably right. He's sort of a push-over when I come ask for something with you with me. We'll go together." Jeff continued to rattle on as Harry went through the motions of getting dressed. Harry contemplated actually conversing with the other boy, but it seemed that Jeff was well used to making a conversation with a non-responsive person, so all Harry had to do was look in the boy's general direction every so often and grunt and Jeff was happy.
Harry noted while brushing his teeth that he looked like he'd had a stroke as his left eye was bright red and scowling and his right was bright green and looking tired. Harry closed his eyes, spit out the toothpaste and looked again at his unremarkable hazel eyes. He sighed.
Severus followed the two of them as they left he common room. Harry normally wouldn't have thought anything of the older boy skulking behind them, as his older version did it habitually, but Voldemort kept trying to pull Harry's head around to look back at him. /Stop that!/ Harry demanded, shoving at the basilisk to get him deeper in his subconscious and out of partial control. It was beginning to worry him. At first the partial take-overs could have been ascribed to the other soul's time in the body alone. But now? The effects were lasting a disturbing amount of time.
: He's up to something. I've never seen Severus so disturbed./
/He's just cranky like he always is./ Harry huffed, though he got curious enough to cast a look back at the slinking form. Severus stiffened when he saw Harry looking at him and got even more pale than he usually was. Harry narrowed his eyes and Snape seemed to almost falter in his walking.
"Jeff."
"Harry!" Jeff stopped his train of one-sided conversation and smiled down at Harry.
"Can you grab me something? I'll meet you at Hagrid's hut. But I need to ask Snape something."
"Snape? Oh, you mean Severus? Sure." Jeff said, looking like a puppy that had just been given a big shiny ball. "I'll get you a nice big turkey sandwich with extra chips and relish!" Jeff called over his shoulder as he raced off.
Harry stopped in the corridor, waiting for Snape to catch up. He was momentarily confused both as to why Jeff was going to get him such a peculiar sandwich and why it sounded so delicious.
Severus stopped behind Harry, who ignored him for a while contemplating the sandwich until the taller boy cleared his throat.
Harry turned around, blinking. Severus twitched a few times when he saw the red swirl lazily around in the green before they settled back to hazel. "Snape." Harry greeted. "Something is bothering you." He pinned the much taller wizard with his gaze.
"Are you going to make me tell you what it is?" Snape said warily, having to work hard not to back up a step.
"No." Harry said, looking confused and lost. "At least, I hope not." He looked up into the hooded black eyes of the young man in front of him and felt terribly sad that the warmth he had seen there before was now shuttered off from him. "Will you curse me if I do?" Harry asked wistfully. Severus looked panicked at the mention, though, so Harry continued. "I'd want you to. Maybe even a good solid punch to the face? I don't realize I'm doing it, sometimes. I've had enough of people messing with my mind, I never thought I would be doing it to others." Harry scowled, looking off down the corridor.
"If that is your wish, I shall endeavor to fulfill it." Severus said finally.
Harry turned back to look at the taller wizard and was, to Severus at least, disproportionately happy at the statement. "Thanks! It's really great to know I can count on you."
And with that, Harry took off at a walk that was probably a bit too fast to be free of magical enhancement, leaving behind a thoroughly puzzled Professor's assistant.
OOoOOoOOOooooO
:Do you even know how to fly under your own power?/ Voldemort panted (if a voice in your head, which by definition could not have lungs, could be said to pant) when Harry finally stopped his series of half-Wronski feints interspersed with barrel rolls.
/Sure. Get broom. Get on broom. Fly./
: No! Brooms are entirely too unreliable. How they let children get on these wretched pieces of driftwood without knowing basic self-levitation…/
/Is that concern for others I hear?/ Harry asked, half teasing and hald incredulous.
:No./ Voldemort said, the basilisk looking very much like it was pouting. :If we fall off you need to give me control. I can fly without these foolish props./
/We're not going to fall off. And I most certainly won't be giving you control./ Although Harry was almost intrigued enough at the prospect of learning how to do the creepy bat-impression he'd seen both Voldemort and Snape do in his timeline to consider it. /Besides, you can't go nearly as fast./ Harry concluded, whipping down to the ground at ridiculous speeds before pulling up at the last second and ditching his broom to head off to Healing and Blood Magic. Voldemort twitched and coiled around his chest but Harry ignored him and the twinge of sympathetic pain. It wasn't as though the snake actually had a body and could have a real heart attack, even as much as the other soul was practically gibbering in fear of just such a thing.
Harry sat in the back of the classroom, trying to look small and inconspicuous (which was depressingly easy considering the fact that he really was small and inconspicuous) but despite his best efforts of leaving the rest of the students staring at the twigs of his broom and hiding in dark corners Marfic Black still thought it would be a good idea to harass him. And due to Harry's partially successful efforts, Jeff wasn't around to pitch a fit for him.
"Hey, retard. Finally back in classes are you. Done with those stupid hissing seizures and getting hugged by mummy?"
Harry ignored him but the boy was persistent. Apparently Sirius' tendencies towards picking on others was inherited. Harry was just glad that the other boy had left the dorm room before he had woken up that morning.
"Probably don't even have to make up any work, do you? Riddle's favorite. What do you have to do to get him to like you so much?" Harry glared at the Slytherin, but if anything that made the boy bolder. "You sit in his lap? Wriggle for him? He like his bed warmers to be stupid as well as ugly?" A spike of anger shot though Harry, coming from Voldemort. Probably. But the red haze was dissipated somewhat when he tried to picture both Tom Riddles doing various dirty things to each other. Harry's lip quirked upwards as his mental images got more and more intense. Not because he was particularly enjoying them, but because of the extreme reactions he was getting from Voldemort. Too bad Harry had heard most of the death threats before. However, some of the curses were quite ingenious and Harry was fairly certain at least some of them were actual spells. "Are you even listening to me you thick pervert?"
Marfic was yelling practically nose to nose in Harry's face. Harry pushed him back and then flipped the other boy the bird, using his hand to indicate what he should do about the gesture.
"Why you little!" Marfic growled, leaning forward gain from where he had been pushed back, looking like he was going to try to strangle the smaller Harry.
Harry drew his wand lazily, smiling as the young Black backed away, then firmed and held his ground.
"What are you going to do, Harry?" Marfic drew out the name and twisted it into an insult. "Can't exorcise me!"
Harry waved his wand in the motion for the Killing Curse, careful to put absolutely no magic or intent into it. "Abra Kedabra!"
Marfic squeaked and tumbled over the desk behind him landing in a heap on the floor on step down. Several Muggle- and half-bloods laughed at the disgruntled Pureblood. Most of them both did not know the Killing Curse and caught the Muggle reference.
"That's quite enough, then!" Comes the sudden voice of Professor Hengle. "Order, order. Yes… there must be order." She trailed off, but the students got into their seats regardless. Marfic sent a nasty look over his shoulder before settling in the row in front of Harry, while Jeff scooted into the seat next to Harry. "Well. Yes. Today we are going to enact some basic runes for your field trip tomorrow. Who remembers which ones?"
"Ones for locating us, and ones for making sure we return to the school at the right time."
"Excellent. Five points to Slytherin. Did everyone bring their rats?" Harry was startled by the seeming change in topic, but the rest of the class proudly held up their spy-rats and Harry's poked her brindle head out from his sleeve, startling him. He had completely missed her presence. He looked at her with a suspicious frown, but the rat merely twitched her whiskers at him innocently.
Harry looked up but everyone seemed to be busy getting supplies and poking their rats. He had obviously missed the explanation. Jeff plopped down next to Harry, his arms full of various implements. "Hey, Harry! I know you weren't in class yesterday, but I can tell you how to do everything." A shadow of doubt flickered over his face. "Probably, anyway…"
Fortunately it seemed that the class was only to strengthen the runes already on place on the spying baby-sitter rats. Something which both Harry and Voldemort had been studying at least somewhat. They were able to stumble through the various steps without too much relying on Jeff, and managed to alter the instructions slightly as they went. The goal had been to link an Emergency Portkey function in the rats to a specific time the next day, as well as to the mental state of the students, in case they got lost or afraid. Harry, with a bit of help from the basilisk peanut gallery, managed to link it to mental commands instead.
/Thanks./ Harry waved at his co-inhabitor, letting his gratitude slide along the basilisk's sleek form. Harry was too excited looking down at the nondescript rat to notice Voldemort's discomfort.
:You're welcome./ The other soul muttered.
OOoooOOOOoo
The next morning was crisp and cool. Excited students piled into the thestral-drawn carriages, chattering at each other happily. Though some of the older students were grumpy at having to wake up so early on a Saturday, the general feeling was one of a holiday.
Harry patted the thestrals of his carriages on the head fondly, rubbing them under the chin. He got strange looks from those who couldn't see the beasts, as it appeared that he was scratching empty air, but even stranger looks from those who could see them.
Harry settled onto the bench beside Jeff. He was mildly surprised when Snape sat at his other side. Both because the benches had never sat three before, and because the other Slytherin had been avoiding him since the previous morning. Harry contemplated if they had made the carriages bigger or if he and Jeff were small enough that Snape's bony butt fit without needing to expand anything. A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his reverie.
"On good terms with the thestrals?" Snape asked, the emotions flitting over his face so fast and so subtly Harry doubted Snape could even catalogue them all.
"Your mom?" Harry replied. When Severus stiffened and pulled back his hand as if it burned instead of looking confused Harry had his answer. "They like the attention." Harry shrugged. Snape was looking at Harry like he wished he had kept avoiding the small boy/28-year old man. "It's not their fault, the reason we can see them." Harry finished quietly, staring ahead. "Change what you associate them with and they aren't nearly as creepy."
The rest of the ride was filled up with Jeff's chatter as he and the three students from their Care of Magical Creatures class talked about various things and speculated on what the chances were for their various Quidditch teams. Harry wanted to look out the window, but he was stuck between the two others. He was already leaning away from Jeff, who was gesturing broadly to emphasize his points, so he tried to peer out of the window by Snape, who was practically quivering with the tension. Harry looked up at him questioningly, but kept craning to see out the window. The landscape was rushing by in a suspiciously familiar way. Harry was half in Snape's lap before he could see the awesome view and appreciate just how high up they were.
"Won't the Muggles see us?" Harry asked Snape in a low voice so as to not interrupt the other kids.
"These carriages are protected from Muggles with an extension both of the Hogwarts' Muggle repelling wards and the thestral's natural invisibility." Snape replied.
"Oh." Harry looked out the window, at once entranced and wishing they could have all flown on broom instead.
"If you are going to sit in my lap the whole time you should have taken the window seat." Snape drawled.
Harry looked down and realized to his chagrin that he was no longer merely leaning over Snape, but completely on top of him and kneeling on his lap. He quirked a half grin at Snape and shrugged somewhat apologetically. "It's a cool view."
"Indeed." Snape said, sighing. But instead of dumping Harry on the seat and moving over like he was expecting Snape sat forward, shifting Harry so that they could look out the window together. "Do you recognize the landscape?"
Harry nodded, wondering why this didn't feel more awkward. He mused that while semi-unconscious all those years he seemed to have had a penchant for people's laps and being carried places. It almost disturbed him as to how not disturbed he was at the thought of being treated like a lapdog. "What's at the Ministry?" Harry asked, turning to Snape.
"I suppose you ignored the announcement." He sighed. "We are going to the Department of Education, looking at their displays on recent history." Harry was quiet then, watching the world pass by underneath of them, looking at the tiny houses and the light glinting off of the rivers.
"Do you know of a way of flying without a broom?" Harry asked suddenly, wondering if this Snape had learned it yet, or if he ever would.
"Not unless you mean by carriage or other magical creature. Which is if anything more dangerous than those flimsy sticks." Snape's face was sour. Apparently his opinion of brooms was no better in this world than in the other.
"Can Tom fly without a broom?"
"No one can fly without a broom, you foolish brat. No human can." Snape was clearly getting irritated by the questions and forgetting to be petrified of Harry, which suited the young dimension hopper perfectly. Well, at least the non-Dark Lord half of the occupants, anyway.
For the rest of the ride Harry allowed himself to basically cuddle with the gaunt professor's assistant, despite the looks he was getting from the other students. It was somewhat marvelous that they didn't look too put out about the situation. Harry was tempted to milk his seemingly eight year old body for all the cuddles he could get, but probably he wouldn't be able to get Snape to carry him around the ministry. And in all likelihood it wouldn't be too terribly comfortable anyway, considering the fact that Harry's legs were starting to go numb from sitting on Snape's bony lap.
:Did you catch these ridiculous warm and fuzzy impulses from your visit with your family in the afterlife?/ Voldemort's question caught Harry by surprise. He was a bit confused at the suddenness and the anger coming off the other soul.
/Not at all. If anything they pissed me off./ Harry replied, puzzled and unable to probe out the reasons behind Voldemort's anger.
:Good./ Voldemort replied maliciously, using his one word response like a mental dagger.
Harry was surprised at how shocked he was at Voldemort's reaction. Apparently at some point he had started to need a reason for the Dark Lord being pissy. /Does somebody want a hug?/ Harry teased, leaning back against Severus and basking in the other's warmth.
/No./ The reply was almost… petulant. Harry sent a wave of warmth at Voldemort anyway, something he had known how to do since third year as a defense against the mental intrusions, although he hadn't weaponized it until later. This time, though, being so intimately linked, Harry got a bit of the backlash. The sensation was absolutely bizarre, though given the thrashing the basilisk was doing Harry would have thought he had cast the cruciatus instead of sending a mental hug.
/What happened to that cheerful Dark Lord I was greeted with upon my return? And here I thought you were happy to see me./ Harry didn't get a verbal response to his taunt, although he did learn that basilisks were pretty good at growling.
The carriage set down with a small bump and Harry shrugged, hopping off of his living chair and out the door, almost falling when the pins and needles hit.
"Harry, you should know better by now than to sit on Sev that long. His legs are like a primitive torture device unless you pad his lap with something." Jeff laughed as he passed the Harry standing gingerly on the ground with a pained expression on his face.
Snape breezed by the two of them in a glide almost as elegant as Harry's original universe's had perfected, ignoring both Harry and the sniggers from the three other students who were sitting with them. Harry wished he could be so stoic, but there was something devious about pins-and-needles that turned him into a complete wimp, even more so than torture curses.
: You deserve it./
/Oh shut up./
The group entered the Ministry through a much larger and prominent entrance than the phone booth- a good thing seeing as how the entire population of Hogwarts had come. The fifth through seventh years were taken to go on tours and shadow particular departments, while the younger years were herded into a large group around the fountain. Harry noted with disgust that it was the same one featuring the vacant and adoring non-humans and the wizard it had in his time. If anything it was more offensive now, seeing it after Harry himself had blown it up in a fight with Voldemort. He had said afterwards he was aiming for some highly placed Death Eaters, but really he had just really wanted to see it explode. He had already put up with ten minutes of monologuing from Voldemort and that was enough to turn any reasonable being violent.
:I do not 'monologue.'/ Voldemort huffed indignantly. Harry ignored him. Partly because that sort of blind denial warranted no response and partly because at that moment a large section of the wall exploded.
A large group of scruffy looking wizards leapt through the rubble, quickly stunning most of the shocked Hogwarts staff and Ministry officials. Students started to disappear as their Emergency Portkeys activated before one of the raiders made an expansive gesture that Harry recognized as a crude magical transport blocking charm. Anyone with enough power could blaze through the holes it left in coverage, but the rats did not qualify as nearly enough.
Harry narrowed his eyes and surveyed the men as they shouted and bullied the terrified children into a tight clump next to the desks on the side of the room. For now he went along with their instructions. This situation was very odd. Wasn't there no Voldemort in this world? And something was off about the wizards.
:Werewolves./ Voldemort corrected, somewhat petulantly.
/How can you tell that?/ Harry asked, trying to see if the men were giving off some sort of aura or vibe or something.
:Through my highly trained sense of smell./
Harry bought it for a second. /Wait a minute…/
: They were in my army you fool. Don't you recognize Fenrir?/ Once Voldemort pointed it out Harry realized he did recognize the werewolf that infected Remus and mauled Bill Weasley. He didn't look better, per se, but more younger. He was still filthy and wolf-like.
/What in the world are they doing blowing up the Ministry?/ Harry wondered. A teeny tiny part of him almost wanted to ask if he could join them. Light side or not, blowing up the Ministry was a satisfying and soul-soothing experience, for both Harry and Voldemort.
:We could help them destroy it just shy of total ruin, so that they would rebuild and we could come back and blow it up again./ Voldemort offered hopefully, sensing that deep longing.
/Did you never totally destroy the place on purpose?/ Harry asked, suspicious but amused.
:Did you ever blow it up on purpose when 'aiming' at my followers?/ Voldemort retorted.
/Touche./ Harry smirked.
A resounding crack! noise brought Harry's attention back to the center of the room. Several house elves and a small herd of centaur were now by the fountain. The house elves disappeared, only to return again with a dragon and a small horde of goblins. Harry's eyes widened.
One of the centaurs, an impressively large male of gleaming black, reared up on his hind legs, kicking his front hooves in a way that made the feathering on his legs stream in a way that would have been pretty on any other being, but he made look like the snap of a battle standard. "Get this wretched thing from my sight!" He roared in a cross between a man's shout and a stallion's scream. The dragon opened it's large mouth, the air in front of its teeth shimmering in heat haze as it gathered fire and spit it in a large ball dripping red hot lava at the offending statue. The fountain exploded in a shower of molten stone and metal and there was a gush of hissing steam that raced out from the conflagration. There were high-pitched screams of terror from the children.
Harry couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.
"Something funny, boy?" Fenrir said, suddenly right in front of him. Harry snorted a couple times trying to settle his chuckles but couldn't manage. Fenrir grabbed him by the neck and brought Harry's face up close to his own. The stench rolling off of the werewolf made Harry gag and finally stop laughing. "I think I've found my next meal." The grin revealed pointed teeth and even worse breath.
"Ah…" Harry said out loud. Inside… /Crap!/
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A/N: Behold- action! Whahahaha! (Thank you reviewers for being grumpy and pointing out that I needed some… or any, I suppose…)
Though the action means that now the plot a) is resurrected and/or alive for the first time and b) likely to take longer than I the previously projected 12 chapters. I think I'll be able to wrap this puppy up by 15 though. Hopefully… crosses fingers