A/N: As bad as the last chapter was, in a way this one is just devastating. I did not enjoy writing it at all, and view it as something that had to happen to continue the story. It is one of the most powerfully formative events in Harry's life, though you won't see how until much later. But most readers will see just how Voldemort's hatred has been shaped by the nature of this AU.

Chapter Fifteen: Shattered Illusions

Charity held his hand and smiled down at him with a slightly empty look in her grey-rimmed eyes. He could not feel her magic from her hand—she was a Squib, after all—but the human warmth of the contact gave him some small hope. He didn't understand everything, but somehow he knew something was deeply, terribly wrong. He just could not think of any way to escape it.

Quirrell led them into the cottage. Through the door they entered a homey, lived in room with a sofa and several heavy wood-framed chairs lined with upholstery that had seen better days. The kitchen was exactly like what Professor Hooch showed them in Wizarding life—devoid of any modern appliances and yet still fully functional thanks to a variety of charmed items. The icebox was split just like a modern equivalent, but was in actually simply two boxes carved from granite, which held the runes better than wood. The doors were wooden, though, making it look just like the cabinets around the room.

Through the kitchen they stepped into the back garden, where trees suddenly came into brilliant focus—yews and chestnuts, mostly. In the centre of the garden was a circle of grey stone ringed with in tiny, intricate runes. Quirrell moved to the centre of the circle and lay down.

"Come, Harry," Quirrell said calmly. "Come cure me, and we can be a family at last."

Desperate, Harry looked up at Charity, who merely nodded to Quirrell. "Go on, Harry," she said. "You can trust him, just like you trust me. You can see our bond, and you know from class that bond mates cannot harm each other."

All true, and yet Harry felt a deep sense of dread. "Okay," he said weakly before he let go of her hand and walked onto the circle.

He could see a deep, cold magic in the stone, blue and wet like Slytherin magic, and oddly enough like the poltergeist that somehow infected Professor Quirrell. "Don't be afraid, Harry," Quirrell assured him. "You're doing a brave thing—the right thing. Professor Dumbledore is so proud of you for agreeing to help—you'll see soon."

Nodding, Harry knelt down beside the prone professor. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Strike my chest like you struck Seamus Finnigan," Quirrell said.

Hesitantly, Harry gave the Professor's chest a tap with his hand; nothing happened of course.

"No, Harry, not just with your first. Do you remember what you were feeling when you struck him?"

"I was mad," Harry confessed.

"Just mad?"

"Really, really mad. I…I wanted to hurt him, like he hurt me."

"I need you to feel that way to me, Harry," Quirrell said. "I need you to want to hurt me."

"But I don't, sir."

He sat up, grinning. "Really, Harry? Would you like to see something really scary?"

"No," Harry whispered, too terrified already to speak aloud.

"Too late."

The cottage disappeared in a flash of black-rimmed red fire, and suddenly Harry was looking at his Mum, like she was in the picture of the book. "Oh Harry," she said to him in a dead-sounding voice, "I hoped so much for you. You're breaking my heart, Harry. Why couldn't you be better?"

Harry scrambled back to the edge of the circle, but a solid-seeming barrier kept him from leaving it entirely. "Mum?"

"I gave my life for you, Harry, why can't you do better? Is destroying people all you can do?"

Suddenly Petunia Dursley appeared beside her sister with a gun in her hand. Harry screamed at his Mum to watch out, but Lily Potter simply stood there while Petunia put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger, blowing the opposite side of the woman's head out.

Harry's stomach rebelled as he lost his last meal over the stone. "You're going to be next, you stupid freak," Petunia snarled. "If you can't find another family, we'll kill you when you come back!"

"Noooo," Harry groaned.

"Harry," a familiar voice said.

He turned and whimpered when he saw Charity Burbage on her knees, blood running form her mouth. "Harry, you have to do what he says. He'll kill me if you don't. I'm sorry, Harry, please forgive me. You can save me, Harry. You have to kill the evil inside Quirinus. If you can kill the evil part, we can be a family. Please…"

She screamed—a shockingly loud sound—and fell to her side writhing in agony. Harry spun about and saw Quirrell sitting up with his wand pointed at her. "You said you couldn't hurt her!" Harry said.

"Quirrell can't," the man with Quirrell's voice said. "I am not Quirrell. I'm the poltergeist controlling him. And I can do anything to her I want. Do you want to see me strip her clothes and fuck her in the ass? I'll leave her ripped and bleeding. Do you want me to make her stab herself in the eye until she dies? I can do anything to her I want—she is under my control. And I will, Harry, unless you stop me." He leaned forward, and the horrid blue magic of the ghost gleamed out at him from behind black eyes. "And there is only one way to stop me."

Terror fought with anger that this man—this monster—was hurting his Charity Burbage. He looked down at his hand and saw his magic playing about his palm in a way other people's magic did not. Like the healer, he knew his magic projected out of his body in an unusual way, and that he could control that magic in ways others couldn't. He just wasn't sure he knew how.

Charity screamed again as Quirinus flicked his wrist. "I enjoy hurting her, Harry," the ghost in him continued. "I enjoy the sounds of her screams. I think I shall conjure rusty saws and cut off her feet, and then her hands. What does a squib need with hands or feet, after all? She's just an animal. And to think you believed she loved you, you stupid freak. No one could ever love anyone like you, not ever…."

"Harry," Burbage said weakly. "Don't believe him, please. I do love you. I do…"

Quirrell flicked his wand yet again, causing her to writhe in agony. Harry could see a terrible red light squeezing her core, and shards of red lighting running through her whole body. This was Quirrell's doing. Rage spiked in his chest, overpowering all the terror. With a guttural roar, Harry reached up and slammed his fist against Quirrell's chest, releasing with it his intent to destroy.

Suddenly the ghost separated completely from the man's body and the black bled away, leaving the weak brown light of Quirrell's own body. "You foolish boy," he whispered. "You've done exactly what he wanted. You've killed me! And now he'll have my body!"

Harry jumped to his feet, but then slipped on his own vomit and fell. However, he realized quickly when he did that he landed outside of the rune circle. Somehow, he was free. Desperately he ran to Professor Burbage and grabbed her hand, while around the back garden of the cottage flickered and began to fade. By the time he had the sobbing woman to her feet, they were no longer in a country cottage, but a large, torch-lit cavern lined in statues of snakes.

Dominating one side of the chamber was a massive skeleton of a fearsome creature—a snake easily sixty feet long with a head large enough to take two men in a single gulp. "The bond's been broken," Charity whispered as she clung to Harry. "Quirinus is dead. Run, Harry, run!"

Harry tried to go faster, but Professor Burbage's legs were not working well and he had to fight with all his strength to keep her upright. He risked a glance behind him and saw the blue poltergeist hovering over Quirrell's mouth, slowly sinking in. Even as Harry watched the brown magic of Quirinus Quirrell fade out of his body, it was replaced by the cold, powerful blue of the ghost.

They were approaching the wide circular door of the entrance when the metal slammed shut. Harry and Charity turned around to see Quirrell rise up to his feet from his prone position like a vampire from a bad movie. He made a show of looking at his hands and robes, then touching his face.

"Yes," he said, "this will do nicely."

He stepped off the stone circle and approached Harry and Charity with a cold, wry smile on his face. "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. It has been some time since I've seen you with my own eyes. Let's see…just over ten years, in fact. I'm sure you've heard that you have your mother's eyes, but that's truly irrelevant. What is important is that you have your mother's power."

"I don't understand…"

"Finnigan was a test, of course," Quirrell said. "To see if I could goad you into a demonstration. You Gryffindors are always so predictable. But then Dumbledore played right into my hands by letting his great-great granddaughter form a relationship with you. It is quite tragic, really, that Charity here could never truly be your guardian."

"I would have taken better care of him than his relatives," Charity said in a reedy, strained voice.

"Oh, to be sure. But then again, the Dursleys truly are the lowest rung, aren't they, so it would not be much competition, if your memories are any indication." With a sudden grimace of rage, the new Quirrell slashed his wand violently.

Harry cried out as Charity was ripped from his arms and thrown bodily against the metal door. With a second violent slash, her dress vanished away leaving her nude. Only then did Harry see the bruises covering her legs and torso.

"Look at her, Harry," Quirrell said. "This is a woman. Even if she were a true witch, I would be as strong as any ten of her. I daresay even you would be stronger when you grow up. And yet, wasn't it Burbage herself who tricked you at the first of the year, forcing you to come on your hands and knees begging for help? What was it she said, Harry? Do you remember?"

Harry looked away from his favourite teacher and shook his head stubbornly.

Suddenly cold red light struck him like lightning, and for a split second Harry felt the worst pain he could have ever imagined, as if every part of his body caught on fire all at once. When it ended, he was on his side, rolled up in a foetal ball.

"You'll learn not to resist, boy," Quirrell spat. "Tell me, what was it she said?"

Fighting back mucus, Harry gasped, "That wizards can't succeed without the help of a witch."

"Without the help of a witch," Quirrell sneered. "I was taught the same thing as a boy, Harry. That no wizard could succeed without a horde of women to control him. The Muggle world wasn't like that—in my youth Muggle women knew their place and men ran the world. But magic was different. It was those bloody Saxons that did it, you see. When you get older, perhaps you'll study the true history of wands. Over time, the shape of the wands changed, but the end result didn't. The tides were turned, and we…became…their…slaves!"

He spat the last word at Burbage, cold black eyes blazing with hatred. "They poach us when we are young, forcing magic-draining bonds on us to keep us controlled. If we're too powerful, they force their bonds on us, raping us. The bonds were originally supposed to make wizards stronger, but without focusing the bond through a staff, they have the opposite effect. Wizards were reduced from titans to slaves for women." He took a step toward Burbage and jabbed his and Harry saw the red lightning strike, and shivered as Burbage screamed under the agony of the torture curse. "Stop it!" he screamed. "Leave her alone!"

Quirrell stopped and turned to Harry, smiling darkly. "You don't even know who I am, do you, boy?"

"I don't care," Harry said, once again thrumming with an anger that temporarily suppressed his terror. "Just leave her alone."

"Brave little Gryffindor," Quirrell said, stepping closer as he spoke. "Just like your father. He fought me harder than any wizard had since Gideon Prewitt, standing over the body of his dead twin sister. For a brief time, I feared James Potter might actually win. He was a powerful wizard, your father. But in the end he just didn't have the killing instinct, and died because of it."

Harry backed up a step as Quirrell moved ever closer.

"But your mother, she was truly remarkable. I was going to let her live, you know. All she had to do was grant me one boon—do me one favour—and I would have let her live. I told her as much—walk free and alive, if she just used that remarkable, unique power to give me my final accomplishment. But she refused me. Instead, she twisted her magic against me. She broke her own soul while breaking mine, killing herself in the process." His smile faded as a memory of pain appeared. "The stories say I killed her, but I did not, Harry. She killed herself to hurt me. She left you alone to face me boy."

Harry backed up another step. "Voldemort?"

"Ah, yes, finally you see," the spirit in Quirrell's body said. "I turned my wand on you, but my core and my very soul were so damaged that my killing curse rebounded on me. You are not the boy who lived, Harry. You're simply a target I missed."

"Harry, run!" Burbage screamed.

Voldemort spun and jabbed his wand at where she was stuck spread-eagled against the metal door, before spinning a moment later and capturing the fleeing Harry in an invisible, vice-like grip. "I'm not quite done with you, lad. Come here."

Harry grunted at the force that pulled him off his feet only to drop him almost right in front of Burbage. Strong hands grabbed his shoulders while magic wrapped around him and held him taut.

"You have a remarkable power, Harry," Voldemort whispered into his ear. "Like your mother before you. A tactile/visual aether wizard has not been born in centuries, and your mother was the first witch to have such a combination in a century. I could make use of one of your talents and strength. There is a way to bond one wizard to another—a way that strengthens, not weakens. Take my mark, Harry, and you will be most favoured of my circle. You could be among the most powerful wizards in England. Women would bow to you, rather than you bowing to them. Look at her. Look at HER!"

He grabbed Harry's chin painfully and forced him to look at Burbage. "Look at her body, Harry. I know you think about it already—all boys do. Look at her breasts, Harry. Are they not inviting? Look at her vagina, boy. Look! When you are older, you are going to plough those fields, boy, and like it. Women will use that blasted, filthy hole to try and trick you into becoming their slaves, but if you are the master you can take what you want, rather than having to accept only what is offered. Isn't that what you want, Harry? Don't you want her? Don't you love her?"

Harry fought back tears not of pain, or of fright, but of shame at having to see a woman he loved and respected held up for display like a placard. "Yes," he whispered, in his mind only answering the last of those terrible questions.

Burbage closed her own eyes.

"If you want her, Harry, all you have to do is take her! Point your wand at her, and say 'Imperius'. It is an intent-driven spell, the wand motion is irrelevant. If you want her to be yours, and you have the power, you can make her do whatever it is you wish. Do you understand, Harry? Don't accept what paltry lies of love they offer. Take what you want! Do this, and you will be my most favoured. You will be a prince."

Harry raised a shaking wand at Burbage's naked form.

"Say it, Harry, and mean it."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, opened his mouth, and shouted, "Finite!"

Magic rushed through his wand and washed away the simple bindings that held Burbage captive against the door. She collapsed to the floor with a sob, but a moment later charged.

"Foolish boy," Voldemort said, raising his wand to the charging witch.

Desperate, Harry grabbed the wand hand and bit Voldemort's wrist while pushing it away from Charity with all his might. He stumbled as a powerful hand struck the back of his head just below his right ear, but it was enough to give Charity time to tackle the man to the floor.

Voldemort's wand went tumbling to the ground as Charity struck him, only for Voldemort to easily flip her off and roll backward to his feet. He spun on one heel while bringing his foot up and around, catching the squib in the head and sending her sprawling toward the head of the dead basilisk. "It is a foolish wizard who does not know how to fight without a wand," he said coldly.

Harry pointed his wand and shouted, "Petrificus Totalus!"

Voldemort moved like lightning, ducking to the side of Harry's First Year jinx and diving toward Harry in a roll, white hands flashing. Harry backed away, knowing instinctively that if those hands reached him, he would die. He kept casting what jinxes he knew, which Voldemort easily side-stepped or ignored entirely, until with a satisfied smile he reached the spot where his wand fell.

"Well, I'd say this has gone on long enough," Voldemort said. "My first bondmate always did say I talked too much, up until I had her killed, of course. While it's true that you cannot directly cause harm to a bondmate, there are ways around that. Vampires, for instance. So, Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, it is time for you to die. Avada Kedavra!"

Harry never even saw Burbage as she dove toward Voldemort, or even what she had in her hand—all he heard was a man's roar in pain; all he saw were two bodies hitting the wet, moss-covered floor of the chamber.

Suddenly the ghost from before—a mass of blue magical lines condensed in a vaguely humanoid shape—shot up into the air. "Damn you!" the ghost screeched before it shot upward through the roof of the cavern.

After a minute, Harry stumbled toward Burbage's dirty, naked form as she lay motionless over the equally still form of Professor Quirrell's body. Her hand was still clutching what looked like a large animal's fang, which she had driven deep into his chest right where his magical core would have been centred. He glanced up at the massive skeleton across the room and saw one of its fangs missing.

"Professor Burbage?" he asked. He could not see any magic in her, and her eyes were wide, staring, and empty. "Charity?" he asked again, more softly. He sank to his knees beside the bodies, reached out, and touched her soiled cheek.

Her skin was already cooling. "Charity."

He did not cry. Rather, he stared dumbly at the bodies before him, as if unable truly comprehend what it was that he was looking at. He held up his hand, surprised to see his own wand in it, and pointed it at her cheek, casting a First Year cleansing spell to remove the muck from her face.

"There, that's better," he said. His voice echoed in the chamber, oddly loud. He pushed himself to his feet and took off his outer school robe, which he draped over her as best he could. "It's cold down here," he said.

He walked to the door, and saw that without the glamour of a cottage, that it was lined in steel snakes. "Open," he hissed, unconsciously echoing Quirrell earlier.

The door opened obligingly, and he found himself once more in the filthy cavern. He retraced their earlier steps, casting a Lumos with his wand to light the way, until he found the spiral stairs. He started up, saying "Open" again to the snakes at the top of the stairs. Before his eyes the stone ceiling above seemed to melt away, exposing more spiral steps and dim light.

He emerged onto the floor of the third floor girl's bathroom to a ring of staring, stunned Ravenclaw upper years that he did not recognize. "What in Morgana's name are you doing here?" one asked.

Harry stared at her dumbly for a moment before he said, "I need help for Professor Burbage. Voldemort hurt her real bad."

At the name, the girls gasped and almost as one backed up a step. "That's not funny," the first girl who spoke said.

"She wasn't moving," Harry said. "She was just staring. Will you get help, please?"

Before the girls could even move the door burst open. Professors McGonagall, Snape and Dumbledore rushed into the room to the shock of the girls. All three pulled up at the sight of the filthy, bruised boy standing at the lip of a stairwell that occupied a spot that should have held a communal sink.

"Harry?" Dumbledore asked, moving closer. "Harry, where is Professor Burbage?"

"He said she was your great, great, granddaughter," Harry said.

"Who, Harry?" the Headmaster asked. "Who said that?"

"Voldemort did. He…I think he killed her, Professor. He made me kill Professor Quirrell's magic, and then he took over the body. He was a ghost. I told Professor McGonagall there was a ghost in him, but she thought I was drunk on butterbeer. But it was Voldemort, and he hurt her real bad and was going to kill me, but she saved me, but she wasn't moving. I tried to cover her with my robe, you see, but…"

He trailed off at the sight of tears in Dumbledore's eyes. The sight of the old man's grief was too much, and Harry collapsed to his knees, sobbing. "She's dead. Professor, she's dead. He promised she could be my new mum and I would be happy, but he was lying, and he took her away and I couldn't…I couldn't…."

He never saw Snape herding the stunned Ravenclaws out of the bathroom; he did not hear McGonagall's sob as she covered her face with her hands in despair. All he saw was the venerable, powerful old wizard sharing his grief. Pale, paper-dry hands took his shoulders with a shock of magic that reverberated through his young body, and pulled him into a hug.

"She was my great, great granddaughter, Harry," the old headmaster said. "And she was the last child alive to descend from me. She was all I had left."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and clung to the old wizard, sobbing so hard he could hardly breathe. "She was all I ever had," he cried into the wizard's shoulders.

~~Firebird~~

~~Firebird~~

"He said Voldemort killed Professor Burbage!" Lisa Turnbull said to her friend Margaret Dinsdale.

"He had to have been lying!" Margaret said.

"Professor Dumbledore believed him," Lisa insisted. "And how else did he just appear in the middle of the bathroom? And now Professors Quirrell and Burbage are both dead!"

So the rumours went, flying through first the Ravenclaw, and then the Hufflepuff and Slytherin common rooms, before finally reaching the Gryffindors. Harry Potter claimed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had returned as a ghost to kill the squib Muggle Studies Professor. Soon, owls were flying home and wild, terrified articles began to appear in the Daily Prophet, and Aurors in bright red robes like Kingsley Shacklebolt's arrived to take statements, which Harry repeated in a dull, dead-sounding voice, while Professor McGonagall look on with red-rimmed eyes.

After four days, all the students in the school, including First Years, gathered in the Great Hall. Professor Dumbledore stood at the centre of the staff table, draped not in his normal flamboyant purple robes, but in robes of pure black.

"I've called you here to confirm the rumours that two of our professors have lost their lives," the ancient wizard said in a booming voice. "Professor Quirinus Quirrell, a former Auror and Defence teacher, and Charity Burbage, our Muggle Studies Professor, were both found dead in a previously unknown chamber below the school. From eye-witness accounts, it appears that Professor Quirrell was possessed by a dark spirit and attempted to kill a student. Professor Burbage nobly saved this student's life, but at the cost of her own. Though she was never able to attend Hogwarts, she demonstrated the courage of a true Gryffindor and the loyalty of a Hufflepuff. She was the very best of everything this school could hope to offer, and she will be sorely missed."

Eyes from all over the hall turned and stared silently at Harry Potter, but Harry simply sat staring off into space, as if completely divorced from everything happening around him.

"There has been some speculation as to the nature of the possession," Dumbledore continued. "It appears to have been a demonic entity. Accordingly, we are activating wards this school has not seen since its earliest days to ensure this being never returns."

When the whispering ended, he continued: "We have suffered a terrible loss. Because of this, and after communication with the Governors and your parents, it has been decided that school will close early. Those who are taking their G.C.S.E. exams, O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s will stay for the remainder of the week for your exams. All other students will be leaving tomorrow. All end of year exams have been cancelled and final grades will be determined by overall performance. Thank you, and may Magic keep you all. Dismissed."

Harry said nothing as he drifted out, flanked by his roommates. He simply looked down at his feet, his face blank and his eyes empty. It seemed to all those who remembered the bright-eyed boy who first arrived that the magic had left him completely.

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Author's Note: Very special thanks as always to Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading.