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Chapter Twenty-Two—Threads to Pull
This is ridiculous, Harry thought, as he climbed out of the bottom of the sludge-soaked pipe.
Who's making sure that Dumbledore can't touch your thoughts? Who's teaching you about the secrets of the school and giving you places to hide?
Harry grimaced as he used wind and water from the floor to scrape the gunk off his robes. It was true. Riddle had done that. He was forever showing Harry passages and corners and alcoves around the castle that Harry didn't think even the Weasley twins knew about. And he made quiet fun of stupid people in the back of Harry's head all the time, where Harry could hear it and laugh at it but not get in trouble or make people think he was mental by saying or laughing at any of that out loud.
Harry didn't have many friends or allies. And Riddle wasn't capable of speaking to other people now that the diary was buried, as far as Harry knew. Harry would keep the bargain that he'd made to get hold of the knowledge Riddle had.
Further down the tunnel, Riddle said now, his voice vibrating with excitement.
"As if I couldn't figure that out," Harry muttered, speaking aloud now that they were alone. He gingerly picked his way further down the tunnel, over small animal bones. He paused when he saw a shadow of skin up ahead.
Even if it's the basilisk, she won't eat you. Not a Parselmouth.
"She might kill or paralyze me before she knows what she's doing, though," Harry muttered, creating a hovering shield of thick air in front of his eyes.
She would not.
Riddle only sounded as though he was distracted, though, listening for someone outside Harry's hearing. Harry shook his head and kept walking further into the tunnel, dodging past the skin and studying it a little as he did. It felt smooth and cool beneath his hand, and so hard that he thought he could have torn at it with sharp rocks and not rent it.
Of course you could do that. Basilisk hide is one of the toughest and most magic-resistant substances there is.
Harry just shrugged and leaped over a small tumble of rock to get to the doors to the Chamber of Secrets Riddle insisted were there. "I don't know this stuff off the top of my head."
Stuff, Riddle scoffed. You should work to improve your vocabulary.
Harry made an immediate promise to himself not to do that. At least, not when he was talking to Riddle in his head. Riddle would just have to suffer it.
Harry was still grinning when he came around the corner and halted at the sight of the doors. They stretched all the way to the ceiling, and were covered with giant snakes that looked like they had emeralds for eyes. "Wow. Fancy."
Fancy, Riddle said scathingly.
Harry took a step back so that he could look up at the snakes, ignoring the way that Riddle was now muttering to himself. Their heads were so far above Harry's head that he wondered for a moment how they would "hear" the Parseltongue word Riddle had said he would have to speak to open them. But then he shook his head. Magic, of course.
"Open," he hissed. It felt odd to speak Parseltongue to carvings of snakes instead of to a living creature, but the doors segmented at once and allowed him into the Chamber.
It was a disappointment. The stone cavern was as long and wide as Riddle had promised, and the pillars were carved with the ornamental snakes he had described, but there were puddles everywhere, and only a few feeble torches flickering on the walls. Apparently those were lit with magic, but it didn't look like strong magic to Harry. And there were more scattered bones here. Harry wrinkled his nose at the musty smell.
How can you overlook the statue?
Harry stared doubtfully at the statue. It was technically impressive, but only because of its size. Salazar Slytherin was one ugly man, he thought at Riddle.
Riddle went off into a cascade of rage and spluttering. Harry looked around again, and picked his way through the puddles towards one of the far walls, to see if there were any interesting doors or entrances to other passages.
No. All he could see was smooth, featureless stone. Harry tried hissing it at a few times, but nothing happened.
You should face the statue and say "Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four," the way I told you. Riddle was apparently over his snit.
Why should I do that?
That is the dwelling place of the basilisk.
But I've told you why I don't particularly want to meet her right now.
You will do as I tell you! Riddle howled, and then his mind crashed into Harry's.
Harry had been half-expecting this, ever since he had woken to find that Riddle had escaped the diary. Of course he would want to be more than a memory in a diary, or a silent voice trapped in someone's head. He would want to possess a human body that he could use to manipulate people and accomplish whatever his goals were beyond setting the basilisk free.
Harry coiled himself up and pushed utter rejection at Riddle, the way he had pushed utter will into his elemental power and his ouroboros when he'd created the image for himself of the Imperius Curse. Riddle snarled and flailed around his head, and at one point grabbed something that seemed to unravel part of Harry's thoughts. Harry pushed back, and Riddle lost hold of whatever he'd grabbed.
What was that? Riddle gasped. Why could I not—
Harry slammed more rejection against him, so fierce and insistent that Riddle spat at him like an offended cobra and retreated to sulk in a corner of Harry's mind. Harry stood where he was, breathing in silence, and Riddle stared back at him from that distant corner of his mind.
I do not know what you are, Riddle finally whispered.
"Not your obedient servant," Harry said aloud, and glanced around the Chamber again. He would have asked Riddle once if there were any secret passages or things more interesting than the obvious down here, but he knew now he couldn't trust him. Maybe Harry would come down again later and explore.
But for now, no. And no sign of more secrets, either. Harry turned and marched out of the Chamber.
You promised that you would release the basilisk!
I didn't. I said that I would come down to the Chamber and look around. That was all. You were there for the wording of that promise, Harry taunted as he reached the tunnel and closed his eyes for a second, calling up his will. You should have paid attention to it and asked for something else if you didn't like it.
Riddle grumbled and snarled at him again, but fell silent as a long pull of wind lifted Harry from the stone and sent him skidding down the tunnel. Harry laughed aloud as he spread his arms and flew like a bird on the current, above the bones and muck on the floor, past the skin, and up the pipe that he'd ridden down.
How did you do that? Riddle asked, as Harry landed on the tile of the bathroom and knelt down to hiss the sink shut.
You were there when I practiced it, Harry muttered, and checked the hem of his robes for any sign of the gunk from the Chamber. He didn't find anything, and nodded to himself, satisfied.
You didn't do that!
No, but I was calling up the wind and watching it blow objects around to see how strong it would have to be to move heavy ones. What did you think I was doing?
Riddle was silent as Harry made the journey back to Gryffindor Tower, where Felix ambushed him and pulled Harry over to sit on the couch in front of the fireplace next to him. Felix was grinning, and it was easy for Harry to smile back and ignore Riddle's grumbles. "What is it, Flea?"
"Oh, Merlin, not you too," Felix said, but he only rolled his eyes as he pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket, so Harry knew he wasn't too upset. "You know I got that stupid non-answer from Mum and Dad when I wrote to them."
Harry nodded. He hadn't really thought Lily and James would tell Felix anything substantial. It had just been a bunch of platitudes and reassurances that Felix might not understand right now but they had done what they thought was best.
But then Felix had written to Sirius. And maybe because Sirius felt more guilty or because Felix had said Sirius hadn't grown up in the best way, either, he must have written something clearer back. Harry leaned over to read the letter.
Dear Felix,
You can't ever show your parents this letter. I already know that James would never forgive me for writing it, and I know that you might not think much of him right now, but he's the only friend I still have from school. I can't have him find out.
But I can't let your questions go unanswered, either.
There was a prophecy made not long before July 1980 that said a child would be born as the seventh month dies with the power to defeat You-Know-Who. For various reasons that they didn't even tell me, James and Lily had some reason to suspect their child was the one. They mourned him, but they also thought there was no way that a mere baby could kill a Dark Lord, and they knew that You-Know-Who already knew about the prophecy.
So they baited a trap and set it. Harry was the bait.
They—we—used a ritual that was mainly a series of runes set around the nursery. We thought that when You-Know-Who stepped into the runes, they would activate and grasp his life and Harry's and entwine them together. You-Know-Who would be fighting to escape and kill Harry at about the same level of passion. That's what Albus said, and he knew the bastard best. You-Know-Who used to be his student.
The trap would activate and kill You-Know-Who because he could only escape if he stopped trying to kill Harry, and Albus was convinced he never would. So we would at least win the destruction of You-Know-Who's body, if not all of him, and have enough time to plan our next move if his wraith or something was still out there.
We knew Peter was a traitor. We let him lead You-Know-Who into that room. Where an innocent baby was waiting.
We found Peter, dead. We found You-Know-Who's body a pile of ashes. We found both you and Harry still there, alive, instead of just one child, the way we…
The line trailed off into a long line of blots. Harry had to cock his head and turn it back and forth carefully to make out the words that Sirius had apparently scrawled there when he got tired of blotting up the paper and wrote normally again.
The way we expected.
There are no words for this, Felix. No words for how sorry I am. But James and Lily were—upset. They had planned for Harry to die, accepted it as best as they could, and here he was, still alive, and they didn't know how. Not to mention the Dark magic in the room, pulsing harder whenever you came closer together. And you almost immediately started having a seizure, Felix. Lily was sure you wouldn't survive the night.
It's not right, it's not fair, but yes, they did push Harry out of their hearts long before that night. They forced themselves not to care what happened to him, because they thought that protecting their child was less important than protecting the world from You-Know-Who.
It's not right, it's not fair, but that's the way they thought.
The Dursleys were a convenient place to put him, and a convenient way to protect Muggles who might have been targets for the Death Eaters under the protection of wards that wouldn't have worked if someone magical wasn't living with them. I don't think—
Another trail of ink blots. Harry scooted closer to Felix and tilted his head, while Felix obligingly tilted the parchment.
I don't think it would have bothered them too much if Harry had died from the abuse.
Harry closed his eyes and contained his rage. He couldn't burn down the common room. He couldn't send wind across all the miles between him and James and Lily and toss them out of the windows of the nice house they'd been living in while he suffered and starved in a cupboard. He couldn't free the basilisk and send it after them.
Why not? Riddle's voice whispered hungrily in the back of his head. Why couldn't you do that?
You want me to, Harry thought back at him. Enough reason to refuse.
He took a deep breath and looked at Felix. Felix was wearing a grim little smile, which Harry didn't understand. Harry blinked at him. "What about this makes you happy?" he asked, and waved his hand at the parchment. "It pretty much condemns Lily and James, but you grew up with them. They were your Mum and Dad—"
"And they taught me right from wrong," Felix said, leaning closer. "And this is wrong. But at least now we know something. We know there was a prophecy. That's a place to start."
"How is it a place to start?" Harry demanded, and then tried to calm himself down, because he probably sounded hysterical. "It could have said anything, it could have been given any time—"
"The Department of Mysteries has a room filled with all the prophecies that have ever been heard in wizarding Britain."
"What's the Department of Mysteries?"
Felix blinked at him for a long time. Then he said, "Merlin, Harry, you have to study some more of the basic history and context of the magical world."
Harry felt his cheeks heat up. He thought he probably shouldn't say to Felix that he didn't care since he would never work for the Ministry of Magic and Dragon-Keepers had no need for such things. He had already promised Theo that he would work harder on his marks and not just dream of being a Dragon-Keeper.
So he said only, "Okay. But what are they?"
Felix blinked again and managed not to shake his head at Harry. Sometimes he felt as if he was helplessly naïve and small beside Harry. He wasn't the one who had survived years of childhood abuse and still managed to act relatively normal around people. He wasn't the one who had made friends with Slytherins after growing up with almost no friends. He wasn't the one who had managed to accept his brother after hearing that his parents had discarded him in favor of that brother.
But then Harry would say something like this, and Felix would remember that he did know things Harry didn't, and he did have something to contribute.
So he rolled his shoulders and said quietly, "They're one of the bigger departments in the Ministry. They study the biggest questions and the most obscure magic in our world. And the Hall of Prophecies is one of their biggest rooms."
"But we couldn't just stroll in there and ask for a prophecy, could we?"
"No,' Felix admitted. "But now that we know that a prophecy like that exists, we have a place to start."
Harry was quiet for long moments, and Felix let him be. Then Harry looked up and asked, "Why aren't you more upset?'
"I told you—"
"No, not about Lily and James. I mean, why aren't you upset about the prophecy being about—me, apparently? I don't know why they thought it was me instead of you, but they did. That means—why aren't you more upset about losing your status as the Boy-Who-Lived?"
Felix sighed and sat back. That had been a question he'd hoped Harry wouldn't ask until later, because he wasn't sure he could answer it. But Harry was sitting in front of him, the brother betrayed by everyone else with the last name Potter, and Felix couldn't hold off on answering him until he felt better about it.
He said simply, "Because when I started doubting them, I had to start doubting everything they ever said. That included the part about me being destined to defeat Voldemort. And it being an okay decision to send you away. And—"
His voice broke. He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with one hand, ignoring the way that it made Harry get all blurry. He knew his brother was still right there, and that was the important thing.
He put up a Privacy Charm. Ron was on the other side of the room and casting him alarmed glances over the chess game he was playing against Dean. Felix couldn't have him stomping over here to interfere right now. He didn't know how soon he could tell Ron the truth, if ever.
"It was wrong," Felix said, softly, deeply.
"What do you mean?"
"What they did to you," Felix said. With his glasses back on, he could see Harry's eyebrows creeping up, and he knew he probably wasn't explaining himself well, but these were the words he had. "They always talked about how certain things were wrong and we needed to stop them. Well, this was wrong. And they didn't apologize for it and they didn't explain it and I never heard a word about the prophecy and I might still not have if I hadn't written to Sirius and they were wrong and they went on and on pretending they were right and—"
Felix stopped, panting. At the moment, he thought it would have been nice if he'd ever had an accidental magic outburst. It would have relieved some of the pressure building up in him.
But he couldn't, and at least Harry reached out and curled a hand around Felix's wrist and held him. Felix leaned a little closer to Harry and shut his eyes.
"The Boy-Who-Lived thing means nothing if it's being used for wrong things. They did something worse than half the things they ever told me about being wrong," he finally whispered. "And they kept on defending it. They would have sacrificed you. A baby. And then they sent you away because they just didn't care and it was a convenient excuse, like Sirius said. I can't—I don't—I can't forgive them for that."
How many times had Mum and Dad cautioned Felix against trusting anyone who had the Dark Mark, even if they had apologized and turned to the right side? They seemed to think that Snape was the only exception, and then only because Dumbledore had vouched for him. They didn't embrace forgiveness.
How could they think Felix would forgive them once he found out?
"We know, now."
Felix nodded and sniffled. He wiped his tears away again, taking off his glasses, and Harry took them gently from him and placed them back on his face. He was smiling, Felix saw as Harry's face swam back into view.
"We have the Department of Mysteries and the knowledge that a prophecy exists," Harry says simply. "That means we can start investigating. It's better than nothing."
"That doesn't explain the book I found," Felix murmured. Translating the book was still slow going. He could write down the words he had memorized and the Latin definitions and grammar he was learning, but that didn't mean that a sentence about the sun and moon made any more sense when it seemed to be a combination of magical theory and poetry. "Or the thing locked in the drawer that felt like it wanted to eat me."
"I know. But it's more than we had before."
That was true enough to make Felix relax. And if Harry could say that this was enough to begin the hunt, and live with it, then so could Felix.
Harry opened his eyes, and sighed. He was once again under a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, with the orange moon hanging overheard and the distant Parseltongue voice crying for help, and Tom Riddle pacing back and forth in front of him.
"What do you want?" Harry asked, and leaned back against the tree behind him. Solid and strong, and the air around him had the crisp bite of autumn and the chill of real night.
Help me, sang the voice in the forest. Help me, please.
"Do you think it is true that you are the one the Dark Lord wanted to defeat?" Riddle turned to him with burning eyes. His hands were clenched and his body trembling, as if he were an owl about to spring after a mouse.
"I assume my parents thought it was true," Harry said flatly. "And you know exactly how reliable their thought process is."
"But he thought it was true, as well."
"Yeah, but we've established that he's not the sanest person around."
Riddle said nothing, but just paced in a tight little circle. Then he turned around abruptly, sat down, and leaned forwards so that Harry was staring into his dark eyes from closer than they'd ever been before. Uneasy, Harry shifted back.
"I will give you whatever you want if you release the basilisk," Riddle said abruptly.
"Why do you want her released?"
"What does it matter? Your parents lied to you. They threw you away. Dumbledore did the same thing. You have your brother and your friends, and the basilisk won't harm them. Why should you care about what else she'll do once she's released?"
Harry was quiet, eyes fastened on Riddle. Riddle went on vibrating with anxiety and impatience. Harry didn't forget that Riddle had tried to possess him down in the Chamber, but he also didn't forget that he had managed to cooperate with Voldemort himself when he knew damn well that Voldemort had tried to kill Felix.
There could be more important things, more important concessions that you could wring out of an enemy.
But that just made Harry all the more determined to figure out what concession Riddle thought he would wring out of Harry. Why was freeing the basilisk so important? What did Riddle think would happen once she was free?
Based on what he'd said when Harry asked already, though, he would just deflect. So Harry decided that he'd have to approach the question some other way.
He leaned back against the tree and glanced around. Forest and orange moon and voice calling in the distance, he'd thought it had something to do with Riddle being in his head—
But he had had these dreams before Riddle escaped the diary, hadn't he? He'd had the first of them last year, in fact, although he'd just dismissed them as annoying nightmares at the time and they hadn't repeated so consistently.
Something occurred to Harry that was so simple he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before, and he laughed aloud. Riddle tensed some more, probably smart enough to realize that this laughter wasn't a good sign for him.
"Harry?" Riddle breathed.
Harry leaned towards Riddle. "That voice in the forest is in Parseltongue."
"Yes."
"It's probably a trapped serpent."
Riddle's shoulders tensed unmistakably. "Most likely," he said, eyes half-lidding. He wasn't committing himself, Harry noticed with a sensation of his own glee.
"Like the basilisk."
Riddle stared at him, and didn't respond.
"Why aren't you asking me to free that snake? What's so different about it from the basilisk? Why haven't you once encouraged me to go find it and set it free?"
The dream dissolved.
Harry sat up with a hard smile, panting. He didn't like it that Riddle was in his head, and he didn't like the attempted possession, and he didn't like Riddle's presence in his dreams, either, but at least now he had the beginning of something to reach out and clutch, the way he and Felix had the prophecy.
Something was off about the snake in the forest in a way that even Riddle didn't like. Harry was no more going to charge off to free it than he would charge off to free the basilisk. Something that gave Riddle pause could be even more dangerous.
But it was a thread that he could pull.
"Wow, Theo."
Harry's voice was low and admiring, and Theo had to admit that he reveled in the sound of it as he opened his eyes. He and Harry and Jilly were the only ones in the kitchen for this particular elemental magic lesson. All the others had classes—well, except for Blaise, but he had said darkly that "darling Draco" was due for a lesson, and Theo hadn't inquired.
Hovering in front of Theo was a small metal container of biscuits, lifted by nothing more than pure air. Theo moved it slowly back and forth, and watched Harry's head turn to keep the box clearly in sight. After a moment, panting, Theo had to set it down on the table, and lean back against his chair.
"It's really nothing more complicated than anyone could do with the Levitation Charm," Theo muttered. But he was pleased, and he knew that he had caused it with his will and the elements instead of his wand, and Harry's smile was like warm sunshine spilled over him.
"It's still awesome," Harry said, and swung his legs. He sat on one of the tables most of the time now, and Theo couldn't even remember when that had begun. It wasn't weird, anymore. It was just the way Harry was. "You'll be able to practice elemental magic on our own in no time."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Why should it?"
Harry's face was open and puzzled. Theo leaned his head back and decided that he might as well speak the truth. "A lot of people who couldn't cast wanded magic wouldn't want to share their elemental magic with other people, either. They would be worried about the ones who learned it—being more powerful than they are. Doing something they would want to be able to keep to themselves."
Harry snorted. "You said yourself that there had been other elemental wizards and witches, and I've read books about them. And people can learn it. It's not my magic, Theo. It's just magic."
He turned away to answer a question from Jilly, and left Theo smiling like a fool.
He was glad that he wouldn't be following his father into the Dark Lord's service. He would follow someone who was much kinder and couldn't even conceive of not sharing his magic and his power.
"Are you all right, Padfoot?"
Sirius flinched a little as James's hand landed on his back, rubbing soothingly. He'd been sitting up in the Potter Owlery, feeling the wind blow across his face and watching for the approach of Felix's Hedwig. Not that he thought she would come today in particular, not that she couldn't find him at his house, but still, it felt like something he needed to do.
"Fine," Sirius said hoarsely, and rubbed his face.
"Come on, Pads, I know better than to fall for that." James sat down next to him and nudged his shoulder into Sirius's. "Come on, tell me? You've felt more distant from us lately, me and Lils. Drifting away. Is it because Marlene turned you down for a date again?"
Sirius stared at him and wondered what the James of their fourth year would say if he could see his older self now. Hell, even their sixth year, when they'd still hexed Snape but James had also reacted violently when they'd found a bunch of Gryffindors tormenting a first-year Ravenclaw and had hurled all the bullies into the walls with the force of pure accidental magic.
But the years had passed, and they had changed, and they couldn't reverse them.
Sirius finally swallowed and said, "I don't—I've been thinking about Remus, James. About what he said to us before he went away."
James immediately folded his arms and drew into himself in a way Sirius knew and hated. It meant that James wouldn't want to listen to anything Sirius said and would only listen to Lily and Dumbledore. Sirius privately called it his Imperius mood, because James really did act like the people who had been under You-Know-Who's Imperius.
Or who claimed to have been.
"We made the best decisions we could. We had to think about more people than just our child, Sirius. It would have been selfish to only think about him. And it was Remus's choice not to live with that or accept it."
"I keep thinking of his last words to us," Sirius said, which was true enough, although not the reason that he was waiting irrationally up in the Owlery for Hedwig.
"Which set of them?" James asked, his arms dropping, his voice wavering with anger. "The set where he told us to go to hell for the decision we made about Harry and the prophecy, or the set where he told us he hated us and would rip our throats out?"
Sirius closed his eyes. "You know—you know why he said that last."
"It wasn't a justification."
Sirius said nothing. The memory of that night writhed back and forth between them. None of them had expected to come into the room and find Harry alive, that was true.
But none of them had expected, still more, to meet Remus outside the house, and find out that he had arrived and attempted to interfere in the trap to save Harry's life, and see—what had been done to their old friend when the trap came to life.
Sirius opened his eyes in time to see James casting a nervous glance back into the house. It could have just been a glance in the direction of the library where they'd left Lily. James wouldn't want Lily to come up and find them having this conversation. She didn't like talking about it.
But because Sirius had been there that night and participated in the decisions that damned his soul, he knew exactly where James was really looking. Towards the locked drawer in the bedroom that contained the living, hungry thing.
The thing that they had bound to help them that night. The thing that wanted its payment.
The thing that had partially eaten Remus.
James turned around, shaking his head. "What's done is done, Sirius," he said, the same thing Sirius had told himself so many times down the years. "We can't go back and we can't undo it. Would you really want to?"
The years of peace, James probably meant. They hadn't destroyed You-Know-Who forever, but they had discovered a means to neutralize them, and brought themselves time for Felix to grow up.
He wouldn't be thinking, as Sirius was, of Harry's destroyed childhood.
"Yeah," Sirius finally sighed. "I reckon you're right."
James clapped his shoulder and stood up. "Remus knows where to find us if he really wants to make things right again," he said. "If he wants to come back and apologize and take up where we left off, that's his choice."
Sirius smiled weakly, and James smiled back and left.
And Sirius turned around to see Hedwig winging towards him, in truth, and he knew without asking that it was truly him she was here for and not Lily or James. His hands shaking, he opened the letter when Hedwig landed on the windowsill in front of him.
Padfoot,
Thanks for writing. I know that you think we probably shouldn't know this, but now that we do, Harry and I can do something about it. And we'll keep it safe and secret and not tell anyone you told us. Promise.
Sincerely,
Felix.
Sirius swallowed and closed the parchment in his fist, crumpling it into a ball. Then he lit it on fire and stood staring at the ashes.
He had told Harry and Felix about the prophecy and Harry being the bait in the trap, and that had at least broken part of the silence he had increasingly hated to live in. He had told Felix about Remus over the summer.
But what he hadn't told writhed within him. The thing they had bound. The payment they had promised, and stolen, from the thing. What had happened to Remus as a result of the thing.
What had happened in the days leading up to the trap. What they had seen when they came into the room where Peter's body and Voldemort's ashes lay.
I am trying to make a compromise with betraying my godson by betraying my friends, Sirius thought, and laid a hand over his heart, wondering if he would one day find the courage to stop being such a coward.