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Part Three

Harry takes a slow, deep breath, and stretches his hands out in front of him. He's kneeling on a cushion the way that the goblin kids do when they do this kind of recitation, and it seems his scalp and his hair and everything else is alight with excitement.

His magic coils in front of him, a rattlesnake at the moment. It shakes its rattle whenever he makes an error.

At least, it does most of the time. Harry is hoping that it won't interrupt him when he's getting ready to do the recitation unless he makes a really bad mistake.

Smoke is rising from the ritual triangle in the center of the room. Apparently goblins use ritual triangles the way magic people use ritual circles. Harry can smell the smoke, and the herbs it's scented with, nightshade and something else. Miss Miranda put a spell on him to protect him from inhaling what might be deadly fumes.

There's really no use in putting it off further. It's time.

"Eshainarenk ackagaran."

No rattle from his magic. The smoke goes on steadily puffing from the triangle. Harry takes a little breath and reaches out further, until his arms strain. He doesn't open his eyes.

"Helinthizen. Helinthizen. Helinthizen."

The word drones out of him and drums into the corners of the ritual room. Starfire told him that it really is kind of like a drum, beating and calling the attention of goblin ancestors who have walked the Dark Path before them. Harry is calling to them, asking for their favor and their help like a young goblin.

He isn't exactly like a young goblin, but then, he isn't like anything either Miss Miranda or the goblins have ever seen. So he knew he would have to make some changes.

The word pulses around him and drags at the center of him, the place inside his chest that Miss Miranda says she feels her own magic coming from. But it's not the place where magic comes from for Harry, so he's a bit confused.

He still goes on chanting, his mouth shaping the word without him even having to do anything.

"Helinthizen, helinthizen, helinthizen…"

And then, then, at the right time, which Harry knows because it feels like a spark burning his fingers, he holds out his hand, and he speaks a different word.

"Etzumi!"

He opens his eyes, because something about the room has changed. And he whoops, because a ball of light like the Lumos Charm Miss Miranda can cast is hovering over his fingers, between his hand and the open jaws of his magic.

He just cast his first spell! In tandem with his magic, but without it being stuck inside his body!

Harry falls on his back and laughs and laughs. His magic transforms into a wolf and bounds around his cushion, higher and higher into the air, yelping and nudging him.

He did it. He called light.

He can do magic after all. He's a magical person with magic outside his body and who needs to cast in Gobbledegook instead of Latin, but that doesn't matter. Not when he can do magic, and the Dursleys were wrong about him being a freak, and his parents and the Ministry were wrong about him being a Squib.

His magic lands on him. Harry rolls over and lies beneath its weight, staring up into the face that right now looks like a black wolf's face with bright, gleaming golden eyes. It doesn't speak, but Harry hugs it anyway.

"We did it," he whispers. "We did it!"

His magic licks his face.

David closes his eyes when he sees the thing in the Forbidden Forest drinking the blood of unicorns. He keeps his eyes closed all the time he rides on Firenze's back, too, and has to fight the temptation to do it when he's telling Hermione and Ron in a whisper what he saw.

Hermione and Ron exchange grim looks when he's done. Neville had to go the infirmary to take a Calming Draught, or he would be here, too.

As it is, David will have to tell him later, and he's not looking forward to it.

"Then it worked, didn't it?" Hermione whispers. They're huddled around the fire in the common room, keeping their voices down. "The Headmaster managed to lure him to Hogwarts. And whoever he's possessing is out there drinking unicorn blood."

Her voice is filled with disgust. David nods. The Headmaster's trap worked.

It worked too well. As far as David knows, neither his parents nor the Headmaster have any idea who Voldemort's spirit is possessing, and David doesn't know, either. He would think it was Snape, but Snape hasn't really changed his behavior suddenly, or at all since David came to Hogwarts.

And if it was one of the professors, wouldn't they know how to get past the traps that protect the Stone already?

"How can we stop him?"

David takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. Ron's jaw is set, and his eyes are burning. David knows that he can't just warn his friends off the path this time. Honestly, that didn't work with trying to get rid of Hagrid's egg on his own, and it won't work now that he needs to fight the Darkest Lord of modern times.

Maybe it would if David had any idea what he did to get rid of Voldemort the first time around. But he doesn't, and that means he needs his friends.

Voldemort must be stopped.

"We'll have to talk with Professor Dumbledore, and Mum and Dad, and see if they have any ideas about who it is," he says firmly. "But I think we can do that. I think we can take him down and stop him."

Hermione beams at him. Ron is drumming his fingers on his leg, but David knows that means he's excited. Neville will probably feel the same way when he gets out of the hospital wing, even if he's also nervous.

With my friends by my side, I can do anything.

The words fall into what seems to be an empty hole in the center of David, and echo there, not as strongly as David could have wished they would. Few echoes come back.

Harry opens his eyes slowly. He has the impression something happened, but he's not sure what.

Then he tries to sit up, and can't because of the giant weight of his magic lying on top of him.

"Hey," Harry protests, but his voice is weak. He pushes at his magic, and receives the impression of cold scales in return. Harry frowns. Most of the time, his magic is insubstantial now, the better to dance in and out of his body.

"Lie still, Harry."

That's Miss Miranda's voice, but closer to a growl than Harry has heard it in a long time. He turns his head, blinking.

He's on his bed, he realizes slowly, and all the globes of white light are flooding the room with radiance. His magic drapes over him in the form of a snake, and Miss Miranda is standing next to the door with her arms folded and air of displeasure so strong around her that Harry is kind of surprised that he can't feel it against his skin like cold.

"What—happened?" he croaks. The last thing he remembers is being on his way back to his room from the dining hall.

"Patrick thought it would be funny to pounce on you."

Harry runs the words through his head several times before it makes sense. Patrick, right. He's a werewolf kid a year younger than Harry, but really still learning to control his wolf form and strength. He was bitten later than most of the kids here, and he was a Muggle before that, too, which makes it worse.

"Er. What happened?" he still has to ask. Patrick thinking it would be funny to pounce on him doesn't explain the way he feels.

Miss Miranda exhales slowly. "You know that some of the werewolves can manage a full transformation or a partial transformation without the moon."

Harry nods, and then tries, in concern, to look at his arms. He doesn't mind werewolves, doesn't have the prejudice against them that most wizards and witches seem to, but it would make it even harder to control his magic if he got bitten.

"He didn't bite or claw you," Miss Miranda says. "He didn't have the choice."

Harry starts to see what she means, then. He frowns at his magic. "What did you do?" he asks chidingly.

His magic drapes itself harder over him, as if it wants to crush Harry flat to swallow him more easily. Harry gasps a little and rolls to the side so that he can ease some of the weight. Miss Miranda shakes her head.

"It flung Patrick into the wall and broke all the bones in his legs and arms. He'll heal faster than a wizard with the same injuries, but it was very visible. Patrick made the decision to pounce on you in view of the others, probably to make it look impressive. And because Patrick does not feel you belong here."

Harry sighs. He knew that, even though he's tried to be friendly to Patrick whenever they've talked. He just isn't as close to the werewolf kids as the goblin ones. They think it's stranger that Harry's magic outside his body than the goblin children do. And although Patrick was a Muggle and shouldn't really have picked up the prejudices against Squibs, he imitates what the other werewolves do.

"So is Patrick going to be upset?"

"Oh, yes."

Harry winces. His magic growls, an un-snake-like sound.

Miss Miranda gives the snake a blank look and then returns to looking at Harry. "But you do not have to be upset."

"Why not? If I made an enemy—"

"It just goes to show what happens when you attack a predator bigger than yourself. Patrick should have known better." Miss Miranda makes a brushing motion with her fingers, as if getting rid of blood from an undercooked venison haunch. "I can tie it nicely into a few of the lessons I am giving the children Patrick's age."

"So he'll leave me alone?"

"Oh, yes."

"Why—why do I feel as if my magic dragged me along a stone floor and then put me to bed?"

"Because that is what happened. This is the first time in hours that I've been able to get even this close to you. Your magic has kept you isolated, probably because it felt no one else could be trusted with your safety."

Harry frowns at his magic. Sometimes he doesn't understand it. It got him in trouble plenty of times at the Dursleys, and it never interfered when he got chased and bullied by Dudley and Piers.

But with the anxious way that his magic is peering at him, something shining far down in the golden eyes it has as a snake, Harry thinks he does understand. He and his magic work together now. Just as he understands it better, it understands him better.

Maybe it never really knew, before they came to the sanctuary, that it was tethered to Harry and he was tethered to it. Maybe it has grown just as he has.

Maybe it has become kinder, just as Harry has.

Harry lifts an uneasy hand to touch his magic on the head. It's the place where he would usually scratch if it was in the form of a lion or bear, but right now it doesn't have the fur and the ears—

The magic melts into the form of a cat and cuddles close to him, purring frantically, rubbing gentle whiskers against his cheek.

Harry swallows. Before, his magic only turned into a cat to scratch him with sharp claws. Most of the time, it's been in the form of a snake or a lion when he spoke to it and did spells with it, sometimes a bird.

"I will tell Patrick and the rest to leave you alone," Miss Miranda says, as if continuing a conversation that Harry really doesn't remember having begun, and closes the door gently behind her as Harry lies there with the wonder of his magic rolling on its back and waving its paws in the air.

David glances at Ron and Hermione, who stare back at him with their faces full of determination. He swallows and nods.

"All right. You lot ready?"

"Yes."

"Yes," squeaks Neville from the very back.

David takes a deep breath and turns around to face the door with the three-headed dog behind it. Thanks to the Weasley twins, he knows that it can be opened with a simple Alohomora. He wondered why, the first time he heard that, but now he knows.

It's not to keep the professors out. It's to let David in, to see if he can survive a second battle with Voldemort.

David did go and tell his parents and Dumbledore about the creature in the woods who was drinking unicorn blood. They were grave and serious, and discussed what to do for a long time. Mum wanted David to come home for the rest of the term, but David pointed out that wouldn't keep his friends who were still at school safe from Voldemort.

They were still debating what to do, that day in Dumbledore's office, when Dumbledore cleared his throat softly.

"I am afraid that we have no choice but to force a confrontation between David and Voldemort."

"What?" Dad demanded, and Mum moved in front of David as if to shield him from the Headmaster. David gaped at her back when she did that. She's never shown any sign of distrust towards Dumbledore like that before.

"We must know what happened that night," Dumbledore said, and his voice was soft but firm. He looked at David, and David ducked his head. Dumbledore always made him feel inadequate when he did that.

And resentful, too. He defeated one Dark Lord who was rampaging all over Europe. Why can't he just defeat this one?

"I do not know what kind of attack or magic could render Voldemort bodiless and your twin brother a Squib." Dumbledore was speaking directly to David then, which he doesn't always do. David shivered. "I think we must replicate some of the circumstances and check. Don't worry," he added, as Mum began to make a noise remarkably like a growl low in her throat. "I have imprisoned the Stone in a powerful magical artifact, one that none of the other professors who helped me set the traps has seen. Voldemort will be unable to reach the Stone, and in the extremity of events, the Mirror of Erised will act to protect David as well as itself and the Stone."

"The Mirror of Erised? Are you out of your mind, Albus?"

But he wasn't, and the more he argued, the more David understood, for all that his skin crawled and crawled and crawled, and crawls now as he casts the charm to create music and soothe the three-headed dog.

The world needs a miracle, but the people who are behind that miracle need to know how it was performed. The Mirror will stand in for David's grandparents this time. And Voldemort is already bodiless, so it's possible that—

That his wraith will be destroyed by being caught between David and the Mirror.

As the door unlocks and the dog snarls a little before dropping straight to the floor, unconscious, David swallows and steps across the threshold.

If they can destroy Voldemort forever, isn't it worth it? No matter what?

However, David and Dumbledore and Mum and Dad are the only ones who know the real purpose of their going down to confront the professor (David started thinking of the professors once Dumbledore said even they didn't know anything about the Mirror) who's probably possessed by Voldemort. Voldemort can't know that it's a trap. It has to be perfect.

And because David can't exhaust himself fighting the traps before he gets to the Mirror, his friends have to go with him and help, and they can't know, either.

As they fall through the trapdoor towards what David knows will be a Devil's Snare, he realizes with a start that he's already thinking of how Neville can help him subdue the plant, and how that will make Neville feel trusted and useful.

It's the kind of way Dumbledore would think.

It makes David feel sick, as well as afraid.

"You are doing well in Gobbledegook, Harry Potter."

"Thanks, Starfire."

Starfire stares at him, then tilts her head back and forth, silver earrings clashing and ringing. Harry sits on the floor in front of her. His magic is a lion right now and lies with its chin on Harry's knee, purring the gigantic rumbling purr that makes Harry's whole body vibrate. He absently strokes its head.

"Do you know why your brother is famous?" Starfire asks suddenly.

"I know why some people were staring at me in Diagon Alley," Harry says simply. He knows that he looks a lot like his twin brother and that his brother defeated a Dark Lord, somehow. He didn't care to learn much more than that, except that it was that attack his family thought made him a Squib.

It's kind of interesting, but it's also annoying. The Ministry couldn't let him live in a magical home while they tested him? His family thought he had to go live in the Muggle world because—what, he might be upset about not going to Hogwarts or something?

But at bottom, Harry is honestly grateful that things worked out the way they did. He wouldn't have met Starfire or Miss Miranda or the others if he had stayed with the Potters. He might have met Hagrid, but Hagrid wouldn't have been allowed to teach Harry to make nice with his magic.

He doesn't think his family would have understood that his magic really is a wild thing that needs to be soothed like a wild thing.

"I think it will come soon."

Harry blinks and brings himself back to the room with Starfire, their usual classroom, but which is empty right now except for Starfire and Harry. There's a goblin ritual or holiday of some sort that goblins under a certain age have to celebrate, so they're not having class today. "What?"

"I think it will come soon. The collision of forces. The return of the Dark Lord that your brother defeated."

"Oh." Harry frowns. That doesn't sound good. Miss Miranda told him that the Dark Lord tried to recruit werewolves, including her, and that might be another reason that some wizards and witches are prejudiced against werewolves, because they think all of them are going to join this Dark Lord. Harry hates to think of his friends being pressured to fight.

"Are you not worried?"

"Would he try to kill me for being a Squib?"

"For being David Potter's twin brother, more like." Starfire's voice is low, and she is leaning forwards, as if she thinks Harry is going to bolt away in fear and she has to catch him.

"Oh."

Harry has to sit with that thought and think about it, stroking his magic's back absently. The magic snarls and spits, and then turns into a tiger and wraps its paws around Harry. Its teeth are pretty close to his face, but Harry no longer has to worry about that.

It seems like other people might, though. Harry likes the idea of the Dark Lord worrying about it.

"I'll just stay in the sanctuary," Harry says at last. "Of course, if he attacks me, I'll fight to defend myself, but I'm not going to go seek him out or anything. Didn't you say David is the one who has to fight him?"

"Yes. But I thought you might feel some loyalty to your family."

Harry narrows his eyes. "Helithpel jenuked."

"Jenudithked," Starfire corrects him.

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, but it is important that you get it right."

Harry nods, reluctantly impressed by her argument, especially when his magic gives a little snarl at him. "Yes, I know. But you understand what I mean."

"Yes. Even my people are loyal to the clan, not the family, and some parents are not the best for some children. But you are still human, you claim that title even if not the title of wizard, and I was not sure that you would see it the same way at all."

Harry shrugs and pulls gently on his magic. It flows into his chest, and Harry whispers, "Erluormi," and conjures a ball of darkness that floats above his hand. He has found that when he casts spells that would have a certain effect in English—in this case, ending the Lumos Charm—they create an effect instead of stopping one. If Harry wants to stop casting his own version of Lumos, he just has to tell his magic to leave his chest.

Harry looks up at Starfire, who is still watching him. "I am human, but my magic isn't like any human's. And I don't feel any loyalty to a family that threw me away."

Starfire relaxes abruptly. "You might have involved us in a nasty political battle."

"Oh. You thought you might have to fight to defend me if I was going up against Voldemort?"

"If you stood with the Potters, yes."

Harry laughs. "I'm a little curious about them, but certainly not enough to make their fight my own."

"David!"

Hermione's cry behind him when David took the right potion and pressed forwards through the fire was desolate. David did his best to ignore it, and now—

Now he's in the room with the Mirror, and the figure turning away from it, the figure with a second face on the back of his head—

David screams in sheer terror, and casts the spell that Professor Dumbledore carefully taught him to perform, the one that will activate the latent protections around the Mirror. The light expands in bolts and flashes like white-blazing runes, sketched on the air, and Voldemort hisses a long, low sound that David resists understanding.

It's Quirrell, of all people, but David has no time to think about that.

The runes spread around the perimeter of the room like a tame fire, holding Voldemort inside and hopefully trapping the wraith. And David, too. Trapping David. He can't forget about that.

But now that he's face-to-face with his great enemy for the first time since that long-ago Halloween, David finds that he isn't that frightened. He raises his head and smiles grimly at Voldemort. "Hello, you Dark Prat."

Voldemort howls at him, a long sound that somehow comes out from between the teeth he's grown in the back of Quirrell's head. Then he begins to speak in almost a chant. "Use the boy, use the boy, use the boy…"

Quirrell whirls around and grabs David, shoving him towards the Mirror.

David thinks that Voldemort thinks they can somehow use him to get the Stone out. He goes, but mostly because he's pretty damn sure he can't in fact get the Stone out.

The Mirror, which Dumbledore said shows people their heart's desire, shimmers for a long moment, as though it doesn't know what to do with two—or three—people standing in front of it. Then it shows a dark room with a fireplace.

David blinks, because his own reflection is sitting in a chair near the fireplace, reading a book. There's a small, relaxed smile on his face, and he glances up at David, nodding. When he turns his hand, David can see runes carved into the back of it.

David's breath quickens. He knows those runes, although only because he read about them when he was studying Defensive magic a few years ago. They're nothing he could create, because he doesn't have the training or the power yet.

But those runes make a ward so strong that a hundred Dark wizards couldn't batter it down, although it also takes a hundred wizards to raise. If David was behind a ward like that, then he wouldn't ever have to be afraid again.

Safety, peace, happiness, being able to sit and read a book without a care in the world. Yes, that's his heart's desire.

"What do you see?" Quirrell snarls close to his ear.

David only barely manages to tear his eyes away from the Mirror. He'll do no one any good if he just stands there and stares at his image like a prat. "Myself," he says. "And I'm reading a book—"

"Get away!"

Quirrell pushes him to the side and storms towards the Mirror. David sprawls on the floor with a pained gasp, but he manages to bring himself up on one elbow, and watches in some satisfaction as Quirrell spreads his hands across the surface of the Mirror, trying to find a way in.

Dumbledore told him someone that who wanted the Stone but didn't want to use it for themselves would be able to get it out of the Mirror. But David has no desire to get it out, either. It's going to stay there, and so are the blazing runes around them, until Dumbledore is able to come get them and trap Voldemort's spirit for good.

Suddenly the runes waver and part, and Dumbledore steps through them, his face thunderous and his wand uplifted. "Tom!" he barks.

The duel that follows is fragmented in David's memory, and honestly, he doesn't try too hard to hold onto that memory. He knows that it ends with Voldemort's spirit fleeing, though, and David shuddering on the floor with the pain in his scar. Dumbledore whispers an apology as he gathers David in his arms and sprints towards the hospital wing.

It appears that the runes were supposed to trap Voldemort's spirit if he was using some kind of specific Dark magic to stay alive. Dumbledore was sure he was, but apparently he wasn't.

David drifts in and out of consciousness for a while, aware of Ron and Hermione and Neville standing near him with anxious faces, aware of Hagrid visiting him and bursting into tears, aware of Mum and Dad whispering with Dumbledore and Uncle Sirius near the end of the bed. Then finally he seems to float to the surface of whatever sleeping potion Madam Pomfrey gave him, and he hears a snatch of words from Mum.

"…what Hagrid said."

"We always knew Harry was a Squib, though, Lily. We knew—"

"Supposedly he has some kind of magic after all. It's just not inside his body."

"Do you know how insane that sounds, Lils?"

"We still have to investigate, James. No eleven-year-old—"

But that's all David hears before the potion pulls him under again.