Chapter 9: Compromise
As Harry expected, bonding his monster book of monsters didn't really do anything to reduce his need for thralls. But it certainly was a fascinating experience. The monster book's mind was much weaker than a human's was so Harry had to consciously choose for it to exercise its own free will, otherwise it acted as an extension of Harry's own body. Having a completely new set of limbs to move in the form of the monster book's covers took Harry by surprise with just how seamless it all was. Harry hardly had any trouble adjusting to using the book to go looking for him, or have it retrieve something for him, or having to hold itself open to read what was inside the book.
It was, however, very disturbing to discover how much Harry enjoyed having the book under his control and how much effort it took to convince himself he needed to let it go. Oddly the book seemed no worse for wear after Harry had controlled it. If anything, it seemed to want Harry to take it back over. Harry blamed this on the book wanting to be owned and did his best to ignore it.
Controlling his monster book had taught him a great deal. The bond could be quickly formed and broken with a willing mind. Small adjustments could be made with the image of his mind once it was formed and the bond would still work, so long as Harry didn't remove the parts that mirrored his own thoughts or those that focused his powers. This led Harry to believe that perhaps he could perhaps make the bond safe to use by altering the image of his mind that he would place in his target's head. However, Harry would need a human mind to practice on if he was going to get this right.
He briefly considered trying to snag Crabbe or Goyle to experiment on. They were probably too thick to realize what was happening to them, hardly anyone would notice them gone, and they were almost unpleasant enough that Harry didn't think it would be so bad mind controlling them. But that wasn't really true. Harry wouldn't wish the fate of being a prisoner in their own bodies on anyone, even people like the Slytherins. Plus, the bond had to be accepted by the target and the two of them would never allow Harry to do that.
Harry pondered this all until the date for the next Hogsmead weekend came and almost caused an argument between Ron and Hermione. Hermione thought it was too dangerous for Harry to go to Hogsmead with Black still on the loose and daring enough to break into the castle twice to go after him. Ron thought Harry would be perfectly safe hidden amongst all the other Hogwarts students and that Black couldn't be crazy enough to attack a village under the guard of a dozen aurors.
Harry had all but forgotten that the visit was coming up with his obsessions over making the bond safe to use. He found that he didn't really want to go to Hogsmead. As nice as it might be to relax for a bit, what he really wanted was a chance to really work at the problem. So, he agreed with Hermione, urged the two of them to go together and bring him some souvenirs, and claimed he wanted to stay to keep Neville Longbottom company.
Neville had gotten into a lot of trouble over his password list falling into Sirius Black's hands. He was forbidden from going to Hogsmead and wasn't allowed to know the passwords to get into his own dorm. Harry thought this was a little unfair. Neville wasn't working with Black; he didn't track the man down and hand over the passwords, it wasn't really his fault. So, Harry had been keeping an eye out for the sign of Neville's mind trying to get into the common room and always went to fetch him to bring him in.
Ron and Hermione accepted this. Though they did glare at each other a little bit at the thought of going to Hogsmead together. Hermione also reminded him that Buckbeak's hearing would be on the same day, and they should wish Hagrid good luck that morning.
On that day the three of them rushed down to Hagrid's Hut even before breakfast to see him off. He thanked them for coming and listened intently as Hermione ran through the whole defense she had prepared for him. He looked very nervous and the suit he was wearing looked very bad and particularly uncomfortable. Harry had a thought, which his first impulse was to ignore. But maybe if Hagrid let him? His opportunity came when Ron and Hermione had a brief flare up over whether it was better to be polite or defiant to the committee.
"Hagrid, could I have a quick private word?" Harry asked.
"Go ahead Harry." Hagrid answered leaning in towards him.
"You look very nervous." Harry said emphasizing the word look and Hagrid nodded in agreement and understanding. "I might be able to do something about that. If you let me, I could try and just push it all out of you."
"Would ya do that fur me, Harry?" Hagrid said excitedly. "I would really appreciate that."
Harry smiled warmly back at his friend. Hagrid trusted Harry even to the point of letting him touch his mind itself. Harry worked at it longer than he needed to, making sure it was done perfectly. Empathy to touch Hagrid's emotions, telepathy to sever the mass of anxiety he was feeling from his head, and then some telekinesis to pull it all away from him. Nothing that would impair Hagrid's ability to feel worried in the future, nothing that really removed his worry over Buckbeak and the meeting. But Harry had uncluttered Hagrid's mind allowing him to take control of himself and master his own emotions.
Hagrid looked much better once Harry was done. He stood up straighter, talked more clearly, and had no trouble repeating Hermione's advice back to her. When Hagrid set off, he moved with confidence and surety.
"Do you think he will do alright?" Ron asked.
"I think he's ready to do the best he can." Hermione answered.
"The real question I fear is: how much money has Mr. Malfoy thrown around before this hearing?" Harry noted. And there wasn't anything they could say back to him about that.
Spending the day with Neville turned out to not be so bad. They started off working on their homework in the library. Neville mumbled to himself as he worked, which might have been annoying since Harry, like Hermione, tended to work in silence focusing all his attention on his thoughts as he reasoned out his work. But Harry was used to working with Ron who powered his work with spite and kept up a running commentary on the injustice of the world and their teachers to assign so much homework when there were far more interesting things to do.
The librarian found it annoying, so Harry suggested they move to an abandoned classroom and took Neville to the same room Lupin had given him dementor training in. Once they resumed, Harry took a moment to study Neville's brain and noticed that his thinking did seem to clear up when he talked through a problem. He encouraged Neville to actually speak out loud as he worked. It was like the jumble of ideas in Neville's mind became better organized as he forced them to line up to be spoken out loud. He found information more quickly, wrote faster and could catch himself whenever he said something wrong, like hearing the wrong thing come out of his mind alerted him to what was wrong in his thinking. It was fascinating to watch. Little wonder Neville had a hard time in most subjects. Even Professor Flitwick was likely to call down a student for talking out of turn, but Professor Sprout encouraged her students to talk to their plants as they worked. Could that be why Neville did so much better in Herbology?
"I can never remember the steps for brewing a shrinking draft." Neville complained as they worked on potions homework. "I always get them confused with the reducing potion."
"Have you tried reciting them to yourself?" Harry absently suggested.
"No, do you think that could help?"
"It couldn't hurt."
After a bit of silence Neville seemed to work himself up to something and spoke again. "Harry…. I want to say-"
"If you're going to apologize over the passwords, don't." Harry cut in. "Neville, unless you've been sneaking off to Hogsmead or gallivanting about the Forbidden Forest at night the only way Black could've gotten that list of passwords was if he already was breaking into Hogwarts regularly. If he has a way that is so consistent to get in, then he was going to get into the dorms sooner or later. Or I was going to just stumble into him in the halls. It's only bad luck that he happened to find your list and instead of overhearing the prefects talking about it. It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you; Ron doesn't blame you. I'm pretty sure McGonagall doesn't blame you; she was just so angry that night that she had to blame someone. Don't worry about it."
"I should've known better." Neville moaned. "Or I should've warned a teacher as soon as that list went missing. I knew Black was looking for a way in, so I should've paid more attention."
"It was just a mistake Neville." Harry insisted, "We make mistakes. I knew you had lost that list, and I didn't think anything of it, and I'm the one Black is after."
"I know." Neville admitted. "But I still feel bad. My dad was an auror you know. And my gran has always wanted me to grow up to be like him. When I got accepted into Gryffindor, I thought I was on my way to doing just that. But sometimes I wonder if maybe the sorting hat made a mistake. It really considered sending me to Hufflepuff instead. I asked to be sent to Gryffindor."
"I did too." Harry revealed. "At first it thought I might do well on Slytherin. But I asked for Gryffindor."
"Yeah, but you deserve to be in Gryffindor." Neville shot back. "You saved the philosopher's stone, fought off you know who, and found the chamber of secrets. I've never done anything like that. I don't think I could do anything like that. If I knew Sirius Black was after me, I might die of fright. And I'm no good at any of the more exciting classes like defense or charms. Just Herbology, what good could I do with just Herbology?"
"When I did all those dangerous things," Harry said after a short time considering his words. "I barely knew what was going on. I didn't have a plan or anything. I never had a moment when I could choose to be brave. I just got caught up in everything and desperately scrambled about doing anything I thought might work or help. It's never turns out how you think it's going to go; it's never how you imagine it when you're playing pretend or dreaming of being a hero. So, I don't think anyone ever really knows how they're going to respond to really bad and desperate situations. But I think you were put in Gryffindor for a reason. I think that if the world ever makes you dig down inside, you're going to find a core of hard iron in yourself Neville."
"That's really kind of you to say, Harry." And Neville meant it, he did feel much better after hearing Harry speak. "But I'm still pants at casting most spells, so I can't see what good I could really do in a fight."
"We'll let's find out." Harry said as he stood up and began to clear the desks aside with his wand and telekinesis. "You know some jinxes and the shield charm, right?"
"Well yeah." Neville responded very hesitantly; he had his wand out to his credit but he looked like he was about to bolt. Felt like he was too. Harry took the liberty of clearing a little of his fear away, just enough for Neville to get a grip on his own mind. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Shouldn't we have a teacher here for something like this."
"Ron, Hermione and I have been practicing magic with each other this way for most of the year." Harry said with a shrug. "I don't see the problem."
With exaggerated motions Harry twisted his wand through the air as Neville's eyes widened in near panic. "Fulmitten!" Harry shouted at almost the same time Neville desperately yelled "Protego!" Lightning flashed and cracked against Neville's shield. The bolt was weak, Harry wanted to build Neville's confidence after all, and the shield held firmly.
"There you go." Harry said triumphantly. "If you can block a lightning bolt you can block almost anything else."
"That is not how magic works!" Neville shouted back.
"You might be right. Let's experiment." Harry decided. For almost the next hour Harry fired off spell after spell at Neville, and to the other boy's credit he rose beautifully to the challenge. Neville had a very good shield spell, knew a good number of counter curses and jinxes and was quite fast on his feet.
It took some effort for Harry to get Neville to fire back at him, but eventually Harry got to see Neville's offensive repertoire. It wasn't much, but Neville handled it well. He stuck more or less to the same few jinxes fired off one after another and just when Harry had about fallen into a pattern of countering them, he would pull out something a little more unexpected.
After each exchange Harry took time to teach Neville another new jinx or hex. Harry didn't use any of the spells he had picked up from the restricted section other than fulmitten. He made Neville repeat back each spell and its instructions before he started practicing them and this worked very well. Neville was quite the fast learner when he knew he was going to be under fire with those very same spells in a few minutes. When both boys had finally tired themselves out Harry gave out some general praises.
"You've got some very fast reflexes." Harry complimented Neville. "And you can be quite sneaky when you're fighting. I think that's a good thing. Neville Longbottom, I think we can make a hero out of you yet."
"You're a psycho Harry." Neville said good naturedly. "But that was actually a lot of fun. Maybe I should join the dueling club next year? I don't think I've had that much fun this year since Professor Lupin let me finish off that boggart. I think I'm gonna head back to the dorm room and freshen up a bit. Coming Harry?"
"Yeah, yeah." Harry said suddenly dumbstruck. "I'll be there in a minute. I'm just gonna put the class back together."
The boggart! How could he have forgotten the boggart! It was exactly what he needed.
What are you talking about, Harry? Esharry asked.
"The boggart will change into whatever form we tell it will scare us." Harry said out loud as he stared at the cabinet. "Even human ones. We could practice bonding it while it's in a human shape."
Ahh yes, I see. Esharry responded, his mind racing with the possibilities. But that form would likely have to be of a person that would be willing to accept the bond.
"I know at least one that shouldn't give us any problems." Harry said. With a flick of his wand, he threw the cupboard door open and out stepped a perfect copy of himself.
The boggart Harry looked around the room in a dazed and confused kind of way. It knew that this form shouldn't be able to scare anyone. It looked over at Harry and Harry saw lines of psychic energy reach out for Harry in much the same way his own mind did. The boggart Harry gave him a once over with these powers and then nodded in understanding.
"Yes, I can see what your problem is." The boggart Harry said.
"Will you help me?" Harry asked back.
"I can." The boggart Harry responded. "But only if you promise to send me to the deep darkness when you're done with me."
"The deep darkness?" Harry asked, confused. "I've never heard of that place."
"We boggarts hear about it from each other." The boggart Harry explained. "It's a secret place deep underground with such lovely and delicious darkness and mildew to eat. Full of wonderful tight and cramped drawers, cupboards and closets. You can only end up there if a wizard bursts you though. So, I need your help. I hate it in the castle. People are always bothering me, making me leave my nice cupboard so I can't just eat the darkness in peace, forcing me to become those horrid dementor things and eat happiness instead. Happiness tastes awful and yon can never get the aftertaste out of your mouth."
"Okay, okay I get it." Harry assured him. "Help me figure out this bond thing, and I'll be sure to burst you and send you to the ministry's boggart containment cave."
"Thanks." The boggart Harry said. Harry made an image of his mind and pushed it into the boggart's head. The boggart accepted the bond and Harry tied it back to his own. The bond immediately snapped, and the psychic backlash threw them both back against the wall.
He's got an Ulitharid brain while in your form. Esharry realized.
"So?" Harry asked. "You said Illithids can be bound by the Elder Brain; it should still work."
Illithids can be bound. Esharry explained. Ulitharids are future Elder Brains, we can't be bound by anything, not even a fully realized Elder Brain.
"I think he's right." Boggart Harry noted, since he was quite psychic it seemed he could also hear Esharry speaking with Harry since Esharry wasn't taking any precautions to hide himself like he had in the Illithid colony. "Let me try out a different human form."
With a crack the boggart Harry changed into a boggart Snape just as it had for Neville. "Oh, this form really hates you." The boggart Snape said. "And your father too. But that doesn't matter. I can still make this form accept the bond."
"This form? Isn't that just you?" Harry asked.
"No, I'm just a bundle of light and thought." The boggart explained. "The forms I can take are conjured up, borrowed from some place. I don't know where."
"And you can tell what that form thinks if it's a copy of someone?" Harry asked, very curious now. Snape was one of the few people that Harry couldn't read the mind of. He must've studied the art of occlumency to protect his mind from being read with the legilimens spell, but it worked to keep Harry out just as well.
"Of course." The boggart Snape said with a perfect Snape trademark sneer. "How else would I know what to say in order to properly frighten whoever is scared of this shape? He hates you because you remind him of your father."
"I knew that." Harry said simply. "Apparently my father saved his life once and was never forgiven for it."
"That's true." The boggart said slowly. "Though he remembers it more like your father almost got him killed and then changed his mind and saved him at the last moment. It seems there was a werewolf involved? And quite a lot of bullying."
"That's hardly important." Harry dismissed. He didn't need to hear a detailed list of all the reasons Snape hated his father. From his experience they were no doubt petty and vapid, hardly the sort of thing anyone else would consider even rudeness let alone bullying or whatever. "We need to get on with testing out the bond."
The bond did work on the boggart Snape. The boggart resisted the binding at first but not for long, and once the bond was in place it was quite easy to remove and replace. Well, it was easy to get it removed. Harry couldn't bring himself to release the bond on his own once it was formed. It just felt so right, so meaningful and significant. It made him feel complete, safe and in control of his life like he never had before. With a thrall like this so deeply and perfectly under his control Harry would never be helpless or powerless again. With his thrall there wasn't anything Harry couldn't do.
Luckily Harry could snap the bond by having the boggart shift forms to something without a mind, or at least without a human mind. It hurt to lose that connection, to suddenly be without and incomplete. But Harry could work through the pain, and he quickly concluded that the solution to his problem would be to alter the bond before he placed it.
The boggart Snape wasn't as effortless to control as the monster book had been. He couldn't use the boggart as an extension of himself without concentrating on him to the exclusion of his own body. But Harry still controlled the boggart without meaning too far too easily. It was just as Esharry had suggested, any thought that strayed across his mind that happened to be about Snape became an order in Snape's mind he couldn't refuse.
It was funny the first time he made the boggart Snape embarrass itself with a stupid dance or saying something humiliating. But it quickly got very disturbing. Even worse was the fact that even after Harry released the boggart it wasn't angry about Harry had made it do. The boggart was slowly but steadily starting to believe that Harry was a superior being to it, that he deserved to control it, and that nothing it was commanded to do was ever wrong.
But Harry persisted in his work. He was only able to work with the boggart that first day, long enough to confirm he could bond the boggart Snape and then release him. But he came back regularly to continue his practice whenever he had the time, which wasn't often as the days progressed. He did gradually make progress though and by the end of April Harry thought he saw a way to manage it.
In the meantime, Harry had plenty of things to occupy his mind. Ron and Hermione returned from Hogsmead, that first day working with the boggart, actually talking to each other. They eventually explained that when they had gone to have another look at the Shrieking Shack they had run into Draco Malfoy and his shadows Crabbe and Goyle.
"Hermione punched Draco in the face!" Ron exclaimed as soon as Hermione admitted running into the other trio. "Just walked up to the three of them and knocked him right in the jaw. I couldn't believe it, and the git went down like stone dropped from a broomstick."
"Well-" Hermione tried to explain herself. "He was saying such awful things about Hagrid and Buckbeak. I had to do something."
"Oh, this is great." Harry exclaimed, wrapping Hermione up in a hug. "What did Crabbe and Goyle do? Did you have to knock them out too?"
"Ron dueled them both." Hermione said with ferocious pride. "He had them both jumping about with a string of stinging jinxes and then he hexed them both. We left Goyle dancing so hard he couldn't stand up straight, and Crabbe was trying hide away a face covered in boils. Draco grabbed them both with a levitation spell and ran off with them. It was incredible."
"I had to do it." Ron said defensively. "Goyle was winding up for something really nasty, I think. I couldn't just let them get away with that. Anyway, it wasn't even that hard. Those two are so thick they can barely think through making even one attack at a time. Much less plan out how to defend themselves and attack at the same time."
Harry was so proud of both of them. It was clear the last barrier between them was gone and their old friendship was completely restored. Ron was happy to have shown off for Hermione and appreciated how she praised him for his skill and bravery. And Hermione was basking in Ron's approval of stepping out of her shell. It was proof that Ron liked her for being more than just a homework cheat sheet.
Their celebration was short lived though. That afternoon Hermione got a letter from Hagrid revealing that he had lost the hearing. Buckbeak the hippogriff was going to be executed. Despite Hagrid's desire to be left to himself all three of them rushed out to see him the next day.
"I tried me best." Hagrid explained. "I was nervous, yeah, but I could control it. I remembered everything that Hermione had taught me and went through my case as carefully as I could. But that Lucius Malfoy just stood up and said: 'My son's arm was wounded for three months. I expect something to be done about that.' and that's all it took. The committee only deliberated for a few minutes before they announced the execution."
"That's awful!" Ron shouted.
"How can they allow such blatant corruption to be carried out?" Hermione demanded to know indignantly.
"Is there anything else we can do Hagrid?" Harry asked.
"Well, there will be an appeal on the sixth of June." Hagrid explained. "But that will mostly be a formality. Once they've gone through the motions of justice, Buckbeak will be executed."
It was heartbreaking. Harry couldn't see what to do about it though. Lucius had clearly either bribed the committee or scared them into compliance. Harry had a good bit of money that he had inherited from his parents. But he didn't think it was enough to try and out bribe the Malfoys, especially since he could only access limited amounts of it for his schoolwork. It all made Harry incredibly frustrated. The Malfoys didn't care that this was tearing Hagrid up inside, the committee didn't care that Buckbeak was just an animal that didn't understand what was going on or that it had done anything wrong. They all had shut their minds to the reality that others lived with. They either didn't or wouldn't empathize with the people they were hurting and so didn't care what the consequences were.
Lucius just saw a chance to throw his weight around and remind everyone that his family was off limits to anyone that couldn't match his power. The committee just saw a chance to get some good kickbacks from Lucius, to earn a political favor with an influential man, or perhaps to vent their sadism against wild animals as Hagrid had once accused them. And all Draco saw was a way to hurt someone he didn't like because of what he was, with no concern for who he was. By the time they had their next care of magical creatures class, Harry was furious and was completely unwilling to put up with any of Malfoy's nonsense.
"Have you ever seen anything so pathetic?" Draco asked loudly as Hagrid dragged himself back to his cabin after a very boring and miserable lesson about Squonks, creatures so hideous that they are always weeping over their own looks. "And to think he calls himself a teacher the blubbering old fool."
Ron had to hold Hermione back from giving Draco another good drubbing. But there was no one to hold Harry back. He was so angry over everything his first friend had ever gone through that in that moment he wanted Draco to suffer and suffer in the same way he had made others suffer.
Easily done. Esharry said and showed the way. Harry did as he suggested. He grabbed at Hagrid's sadness the same way he had when he pulled out his anxiety for the hearing. Only this time instead of allowing the bundle of emotions to dissipate, he tied it up into a psychic balloon, hung it over Draco and then bound it to his mind so that it would slowly drip sadness into Draco's minds about what was happening to Buckbeak over the course of the next week.
Harry was briefly mortified by what he had done, how casually he had interfered with another person's mind. But on the other hand: Draco Malfoy was a massive git who certainly deserved it. Besides, it wasn't like Harry was forcing him to do anything. Really any person should be able to see what Hagrid was going through and be able to compare it to something they had experienced. Harry was just helping Draco be more human. He was still kind of angry with Esharry for enabling him though.
I am an extension of yourself. Esharry said. Here to help you do what you want to do. And you wanted to show Draco the truth. Why shouldn't I help with that? Esharry didn't help Harry ensnare Ron and Hermione's mind, he helped hold him back then.
Well, you didn't really want to ensnare either of them. Esharry noted. It would've destroyed yourself to have bound them and then realized just how completely you could control them. But this doesn't hurt you and it doesn't hurt Draco. It might even make him a slightly better person.
It kind of did. Draco still used how Hagrid was suffering as a weapon against Harry, but it increasingly seemed his heart wasn't in it. And by the end of March Draco was no longer deliberately interrupting or derailing the care of magical creatures classes. So, Harry kept it up, he would give Draco a break from time to time, but he didn't let him go more than a full week without a dose of Hagrid's sadness until almost halfway through April. By then Harry was seeing Draco's mind light up with sympathetic sadness whenever he saw Hagrid. And the man actually looked guilty about what was happening.
Draco Malfoy was feeling bad about something he had done. It was astonishing. And it wasn't the only astonishing thing to happen in those weeks either.
Harry had been experimenting with adding runes to his crystal ball when Professor Trelawney wasn't watching. He always made sure to use the same crystal ball at every class, it was one of the new ones, so Harry didn't have to change any existing runes. He had decided to use Futhark as a series of spaced-out runes, so that they wouldn't activate in sequence and instead would only add their own names to the power. He used the Thurs, Tiwaz and Ingwaz runes to invoke the gods along with gebo gift rune, the algiz protective rune and the fehu rune for wealth. Hopefully that combination would invoke divine protection, gifts and guidance. To make sure of it he wrote commands for knowledge and foresight in-between them in the Illithid script of Qualith.
It was working very well. Harry was getting closer and closer to seeing actual scenes from the near future rather than cryptic visions and metaphors. The previous week he had seen Professor McGonagall hand out a pop quiz in her next class and that had turned out to be true. Then during another class he started catching fleeting images of animals. One of which he was increasingly certain was Hermione's cat Crookshanks. But the other looked a lot like a large black dog. The lesson suddenly got very interesting when Professor Trelawney happened by and saw what Harry was studying.
"My dear!" She cried. "What is that I see in your crystal ball?! Could it be? The Grimm?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Hermione shouted, finally fed up with this class. Harry's insistence that there were actual runes written in the crystal balls had held Hermione's attention in the class only for a few extra weeks. As far as she was concerned the runes were badly written and nonsensical, without meaning and likely only added to give the whole fraudulent practice an air of credibility it didn't deserve. "Every class you do this. Every single class you come up with yet some additional reason why Harry is going to die from something. Well, he's not. He's going to live a long and happy life. And I don't see why I should keep going to this class just to hear the same nonsense over and over again."
"Miss Granger!" Professor Trelawney exclaimed. "In all my years I have never heard such disrespect. It has been clear from the beginning that you simply don't have the temperament or the patience for the most noble art of divination. I think you should leave."
"Yes." Hermione agreed as she started packing up her books. "I think you're right. I don't know why I ever wasted my time with this class when I could be doing something much more constructive like arithmancy."
Then she left and dropped the class. It was astonishing. And it might have started a walk out since quite a few students had come to the conclusion that Trelawney might be a fraud with only half an idea what she was talking about, including Ron. Harry already knew she had no idea what she was talking about. But Lavender Brown pointed out that Trelawney had predicted someone would quit the class before the end of the year, so most stayed to not make her a total liar.
Harry regretted that decision. The next week they started studying palmistry, the art of palm reading. It was complete rubbish, nothing even remotely psychic was going on during it. Harry tried to see if there was anything even remotely reliable about its predictions, but his testing failed him. He sought out the school's portraits of people who had lived real lives and compared what he could see in their palms to what had actually happened in their recorded lives. Nothing matched up even remotely. The subject was a complete waste of time. He joined Ron in his efforts to just make up things that he thought Trelawney wanted to hear and spent his actual time trying to design a better crystal ball. It would make a good project he could work on over the summer.
March gave way to April, and the last big quidditch match was fast approaching. Hufflepuff put up a valiant effort against Slytherin but got stomped in the end. They managed an early lead, but then Draco had lured Cedric Diggory into chasing him in a false dive that led him right into the path of a bludger. The hit knocked Cedric off his broom, and he fell thirty feet to the ground, dislocating his shoulder in the rough landing that no one had time to slow. That forced him from the game and without his leadership and oversight the Hufflepuffs fell apart.
This meant that Gryffindor was far down in points for the series compared to Slytherin. They would need to win big, by more than two hundred points to secure the cup. The Slytherins knew this and so opted for a dirty strategy to try and secure victory.
Their goal was to stretch out the game by having Draco hound Harry and prevent him from getting the snitch. Then they would risk losing the lead by intentionally fouling Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson to get them out on injuries. If they could manage that they would have an easy time keeping Gryffindor from getting the lead they needed to win the league. But they underestimated the Weasley twins who kept the bludgers corralled and aimed at the Slytherins. Without those heavy balls actually injuring either of their targets was difficult and giving Angelina a penalty was almost the same as giving her a free goal. So, the Gryffindor lead steadily grew. Meanwhile Draco did his best to get on Harry's nerves.
"Aren't you worried that the dementors might show up again Harry?" Draco asked and they shot up and down the field neck and neck. Draco was trying to stay glued to Harry while Harry was trying to put Draco through his paces and wear him down. "Don't worry if you pass out again, I'll be sure to catch you. But not until after I've caught the snitch, mind."
"Dementors are easy to deal with Draco." Harry shot back. He was still rather annoyed with Draco over Buckbeak despite the fact that he was starting to show some real remorse on the subject. So, since Harry had had plenty of chances to study Draco's mind over the past two months, Harry decided to put that knowledge to good use and put Draco in his place. "I just had to spend a few weeks learning an O.W.L. level spell to counter them. It was easy."
"As if you could manage something like that." Draco dismissed.
"I hit you and your lot with it during the Ravenclaw match, remember?" Harry said, rubbing in how easily he had dispatched the three of them. "A full corporeal patronus charm. I doubt your dad could even manage that. It was easy for me. I'm a Gryffindor after all, we meet our problems head on and solve them."
"Just like you've solved the problem of Sirius Black?" Draco shot back his mind growing more frustrated. "Or have you already avenged your parents? I might have missed the article in the prophet."
"Sadly, I gave Hermione my word I wouldn't go after him before I knew he had betrayed my father." Harry admitted, then cheerfully added. "If I'm lucky he'll still come after me. I've got a flesh vanishing curse I want to try on him."
Draco foundered in his flight at those words. He gave Harry a look like he had never seen him before. Harry wasn't surprised that Draco knew a curse like that existed, nor was he surprised by the little seed of fear that formed in Draco's mind. Harry decided to press that.
"Does that surprise you Draco? A goody two shoes like me learning magic that dark?" Harry said simply. "Has it never occurred to you that maybe good people that are pressed too hard might be willing to do some really dark things to get justice? It mustn't have since you still have the courage to come to this school."
"What do you mean?" Draco asked hesitantly.
"Your father tried to kill an eleven-year-old girl last year just to get a leg up on one of his political rivals." Harry pointed out. "And the twins can get anywhere they want. Have you ever thought how easy it would be for the two of them to get the drop on you in-between two classes when you're by yourself? They could be on top of you and driving a pen knife into your kidneys before you could get your wand out. Then all they would have to do is drag you into an abandoned classroom or one of the secret passages they seem to know about, and it might be days before Filch finds your body. It really could be that easy."
"They-" Draco stammered.
"Wouldn't?" Harry finished for him. "No, probably not, unlike your friends they're decent people. But we both know Voldemort is going to come back one day. And given how even Black has managed to dance circles around Dumbledore he might get the better of him this time and that should really worry you."
"Worry me? You're the one who would be worried then Potter." Draco tried to rally.
"Voldemort has tried to kill me three times and failed." Harry said simply. "The odds are on my side. But if Voldemort beats Dumbledore, and the ministry falls then my side won't be able to lock your side up in Azkaban anymore. Which means that in order to fight you all and stay true to our principles, which we will, we'll have to start killing your side. Tell me Draco, seeing as you never managed to beat me, never managed to outscore Hermione, and never managed to outthink or out sneak the twins, do you really want to be on the side we'll be aiming at when the lethal spells start flying?"
Before Draco could respond, Harry spotted the snitch. And since Gryffindor was up by eighty points, he dove for it. Draco tried to keep up, but he had been taken by surprise and his Nimbus two thousand and one really was outmatched by Harry's Firebolt. So, Harry caught the snitch easily and won not just the game, but the cup as well.
With the Gryffindor victory April slipped into May and with it the end of the spring term was fast approaching. Which meant exams were fast approaching and so the teachers began to cram their lessons with as much as they could as they both taught new lessons and reviewed the past year. As homework mounted, Harry had little spare time to himself which he mostly spent making sure that Hermione didn't work herself to death or Ron descend into a spiral of failing confidence and despair. This meant he had little time to keep working on the bond. But Harry was fairly certain he had that question finally figured out, so he cast riddikulus on the boggart until it finally burst.
To make the bond safe for use Harry realized he had to wrap the image of his mind in a film of telepathic energy. On that film he could make little psychic Qualith runes that he could use the make that film into a kind of filter. The runes would absorb whatever intentions the bound person already had in their subconscious. Their desires, their impulses, their morals, and everything else that could influence what they would or would not want to do. This way any stray thoughts of Harry's that tried to leak out of the image of his mind into his friend's heads which contradicted what they wanted or were willing to do would be filtered out. Which meant that Harry couldn't accidentally command them to do something they didn't want to do. He wouldn't be able to accidentally control them.
He would still be able to force his desires into their heads and make them do as he wanted. But Harry was fairly certain he could keep himself from ever doing that. He would rather die than overrule his friends' free will after all. This bond should be safe to use.
But Harry couldn't bring himself to use it. Offering the bond would mean explaining where the bond came from, and how he had suddenly gained all these telepathic powers. And since any lie he told would be instantly revealed once they were bound to him and could read his mind as well, he would have to tell them the truth about the Illithids. That scared Harry.
It would mean admitting to his friends that he had kept a big secret from them for most of the year. It would mean explaining to them that the world was in danger, and they might be the only ones that could do anything about it. It would mean admitting that he was no longer human. Suddenly all the thousands of ways this could go wrong slammed into Harry. Suddenly Harry realized that when he asked Ron and Hermione to let him bond them, he would be risking everything, because he wasn't certain how he could go on if they refused him or decided that he was a monster.
Harry hesitated. And his instincts did not like that. The part of himself that had been urging him to form the bond had let up on him while he tried to work out how to make the bond safe for others. Now it slammed back down on him. Anxieties warred in his head. He couldn't live without the bond with them. And he would die if he had to ask them to let him bond them. It was tearing him up.
He briefly considered trying to trick them into accepting the bond and then explaining everything to them after it was in place. Esharry shut that train of thought down hard. And Harry was truly grateful to him for that.
They deserve to know the truth. Esharry told him in a book no nonsense tone of voice. They've always deserved to know the truth. But up until now there was nothing they could've done with the truth so we were right to wait. Now there is something they can do. And I'm not just talking about the bond.
We've got at most another year before Ceremorphosis kicks in. Esharry pronounced and Harry was certain he was right. He could feel it in his magic. He had held off the transformation for a long time because his human shape was the right one for himself. That was changing. Soon being an Illithid would be his normal shape and his magic would accept the change. The only way to guarantee our mind survives that process and we don't become someone completely new is to accomplish it ourselves. The animagus spell is the key, it will allow us to have a human and an Illithid form, satisfying the need for ceremorphosis without actually having to go through it. But that is a really complicated ritual. We will need their help to accomplish it. So, you have to tell them.
Harry knew this was true. But he was still scared. Esharry reassured him. I know it's a big risk. But they are your friends. They didn't turn their backs on you when the whole school did in your first year, and they were there for you when there was a basilisk to fight. They'll be there for you through this.
Yet Harry still hesitated. Always telling himself he could do it the next day. That he was still too busy with school. That Hermione would probably explode if he dropped this bombshell on her while she was already so overworked.
Well, you have to do it soon. Esharry insisted. After exams comes summer break. If you don't have the bond in place before then, how do you plan to survive for two and a half months without them? Harry wanted to cry when he realized that Esharry was right about that.
May gave way to June much sooner than Harry would've liked, and with it their end of year exams were upon them. Most classes had a written exam, usually on the history, meaning and technical details of the spells they had learned and practical exam where they demonstrated their magical skill. The written exams posed little difficulty for Harry with how well he had thrown himself into his work this past year, and the practical exams went pretty well as well.
For transfigurations they had to turn a teapot into a tortoise. Since there wasn't a direct teapot to tortoise transformation spell they had to use the property of similarities to gradually morph the teapot into a selection of similar things until they got close enough to make the jump to tortoise. Harry managed it in four steps, going from teapot to a steamship toy boat, which preserved the steam and water elements while getting him an ocean going factor. Next he changed the toy boat from an ocean liner to a battleship, which added the hard shell he needed. From there he made it into a tiny sea turtle and then finally a tortoise. He probably could have done it in three but going turtle first gave him two chances to get the colors right and so he managed to avoid a pitfall that got most of his peers and left them with daisy patterned tortoise shells.
Charms he lucked out with. The spells for their practical include the hover charm, levitation charm for general movement and the three major mood charms: cheering, calming and saddening. Those all played to Harry's strengths of telekinesis and telepathy. He would be very surprised to not get an O for outstanding this year.
History of Magic he almost messed up. That class only had a written test of course but the big essay questions that came on that written test meant it took just as long as the combined tests for any other class. The problem for Harry is that all of the essay questions touched on subjects that Harry suspected the book had whitewashed and glossed over. It started with witch burnings which had Harry ranting on his paper about how dangerous a muggle mob could be when it was good and angry. Then it moved on to wizards during the crusades which Harry knew the book was lying about when it said that most wizards just apparated to the Middle East to see what all the fuss was and then went home. There were quite a lot of wizard knights in those days after all. Next it asked about how the English Civil war had been influenced by the wizengamot. It wasn't, in short, Cromwell forced the wizards of Britain to form some kind of elected office in the image of parliament to stamp out royalist loyalty amongst wizards leading to the formation of the Wizard Council, which preceded the Ministry of Magic, and the Wizengamot.
Harry spent far too much time on those questions. Only to discover that the last few questions were on the goblin rebellions which Harry also strongly suspected they had been misinformed about. It was a frustrating exam and Harry didn't think he did very well on it. It did convince him he needed to acquire a book about the goblin rebellions that had been written by an actual goblin though.
The potions exam was nearly a complete disaster. Snape declared that McGonagall had given them the wrong time for the exam and so they had already lost almost an hour of their time before they even showed up. This meant that they would have to take their practical exam at the same time as their written exam. Luckily the potion they were brewing had periods where it needed to be left to just simmer so it was more a question of managing their time rather than trying to rush the brewing or their writing. But this also means that if they made any mistakes while brewing, and they didn't catch those mistakes immediately, they wouldn't have time to restart and the whole thing might be irrevocably botched.
Harry was furious at Snape. This was obviously him getting revenge on the class that had walked out on him the one time he subbed in for Professor Lupin. The man meant to fail the entire class for defying him. Well Harry wasn't going to have it. If Snape was going to bend the rules against them then Harry would bend them right back.
Harry snatched Hermiones memory of how to brew the potion they needed and copied it with his empathy and telepathy. He compared it to his own and when he was certain that it was correct, not that he really doubted that Hermione would know the correct answer, and then placed a copy of that memory deep into the subconscious of everyone in that room. He didn't replace their own memories with it or push it to the forefront of their minds. Deep down in their subconscious it would only nudge their own memories in the right direction, making things easy to recall, mistakes easier to notice and their own focus easier to maintain. After that Harry split his attention between doing his own work and draining any anxiety, nervousness or self-doubt that any of his classmates felt out of their heads.
Luckily that was their last exam for that day, and everyone was free to spend most of the evening complaining bitterly about the unfairness of it all. In fact, they complained so bitterly that Fred and George, despite being very busy with their own Ordinary Wizarding Level exams, which were much harder and more important than what any third year was going through, took mercy on them and sought vengeance.
The next morning at breakfast when Professor Snape sat down to eat, he got a most unexpected surprise. Rather than his food appearing right in front of him like it did for all the other staff members, his breakfast appeared in his lap. And then it exploded up into his face, leaving him covered in hot oatmeal, soaked in milk and cereal and swamped in syrupy pancakes. Everyone in the hall exploded in laughter. Snape growled out the Weasley's names under his breath and stomped out of the room to find them. Seeing as the Gyrffindor house points total didn't drop that day, Harry guessed he never found them.
Professor Lupin had them that morning for a defense against the dark arts practical exam. He had set up an obstacle course in which they had to outwit a Kappa, out swim a Grindylow, fight off a pack of Red Caps, make their way through a swamp while a Hinkypunk tried to trick them off their path and finally walk into a closet to confront a Boggart.
Harry did quite well, except for the Red Caps. He had spent so much time learning to fight a single opponent this year as he prepared for another Black attack, he was taken off guard when swarmed by the angry little gnomes. But the boggart was easy to deal with. He allowed it to turn into a dementor since that was what Professor Lupin would expect, then held it at bay with a patronus charm before dispatching it with a riddikulus.
Harry was a bit disappointed with the results though. He hadn't been able to conjure a corporeal patronus against it. Supposedly he had done so at the Ravenclaw game against Malfoy and his cronies and yet still even in the face of a boggart dementor he couldn't call out a full corporeal patronus. This time Harry had even used his psychic power to amplify his patronus. He hadn't let the dementor touch his mind and he had funneled a pure feeling of happiness telepathically into his spell. Did this mean the patronus wasn't just powered by happiness but by a happy memory specifically? It seemed strange to Harry that this would be so. Everything he had learned about curses and blessings led him to believe that it was the raw emotion that powered those spells and that calling up specific memories or desires to go with those emotions was just a concentrating trick.
Perhaps it's that memory or desire combines emotion with purpose or will. Esharry suggested. Harry thought he might be right. It seemed he still needed to practice the patronus, he hadn't mastered it as fully as he would have wished.
The care of magical creatures exam was quite clever. It didn't have a writing component, instead Hagrid had prepared a number of different pens full of all the different animals they had studied this past year. Each animal came with a challenge, something they had to make the animal do or something they had to get from it. For instance, they might have to retrieve a feather from a hippogriff, or get a salamander to leave their big fire and come to a fire they had made, or even just get a kneazle to sit on their lap. All they needed was a single success to pass the exam, but each additional challenge they could complete would bump their grade up from poor all the way to outstanding.
Luckily there were plenty of creatures to choose from, so Harry still managed five successes despite the fact he couldn't get a kneazle to come within five feet of him. He even took one of the hippogriffs up for a ride since he had extra time. The most impressive thing he saw during the exam though was that Malfoy managed to bow politely to a hippogriff and brush its wings until he found a loose feather that he could take. When Hagrid went up to congratulate him, Harry saw Malfoy's brain light up with the signals that meant he had quietly apologized to Hagrid over Buckbeak. Harry couldn't believe it. He had to read Hagrid's mind to see his memories and there it was plain as day.
"I'm sorry about the hippogriff professor." Draco had spoken softly while looking down cast and shaken. "I didn't think my father would take things so far. I just wanted to embarrass you, that's all. I never meant for anything to get killed."
"Ah lad." Hagrid recalled saying in return. "Don't let it eat ya up. None of us can ever see how far our actions will go. I don't blame ya fur this. I don't even blame ya dad, he's probably just trying to protect ya is all. But do remember this. And think about this the next time ya think ya need to take revenge on something. Revenge is like a fire; ya can never tell how much it will eat up if ya let out."
Draco couldn't have responded to that if he was given a thousand years to prepare for it. Harry could still see it in his mind. He had expected Hagrid to be cruel, to be angry and vengeful. He hasn't been prepared for surprising words of wisdom and forgiveness. And Harry also saw in Draco's memories that he had written to his father and asked him to call the execution off. His father had refused, claiming he had to make a show of force to remind everyone not to cross the Malfoy family.
Was this the result of Harry sharing Hagrid's sadness and pain with Draco? Was all it took to make one of the biggest prats in the school humble himself a bit of empathy? Had he helped Draco change for the better?
I'm not sure. Esharry said. His mind is still young and growing. Perhaps this is simply the year he grew some compassion and started to change into the better man he's meant to be. We would need more data before we could conclusively say that we had played any part in this change.
Harry agreed, and suddenly knew that he had another project to work on over the summer. He would have to keep an eye on Draco for now, to see if he improved in any other ways.
That evening they had their astronomy practical exam followed by its written exam in the morning. Then the last exam that Harry and Ron would have to take would be their divination exam, while Hermione took her ancient runes exam. The prospect of almost being done with tests filled them with joy until just before lunch. That was when they ran into the Minister of Magic who was there with a member of the dangerous creatures disposal committee and the ministry's executioner Walden Macnair. Minister Fudge confirmed he was there to oversee Buckbeak's final appeal and then witness his execution. This impending doom cast a dark shadow over Harry and his friends for the rest of the day.
The Divination exam went fairly well. Professor Trelawney didn't believe in tests, likely because as a fraud she didn't want people testing her prophecies too closely. But she had to give them an end of year exam, so she just called them up to her room one by one, asked them to do a little crystal gazing and then evaluated their results. Everyone who came out of her exam said they thought they had done well and looked more than a bit puzzled. Supposedly they weren't allowed to talk about it, but that didn't stop Ron who was the last to go before Harry.
"I actually saw something in it this time." He said genuinely shocked. "I was all set to tell her a whopper of a big lie about something horrible happening to me over the summer. I thought she might like that. Instead, I saw a man-sized rat in the ball clear as day. It took me so much by surprise that I actually missed part of the vision. Next thing I knew I saw the big rat run off to a graveyard and hide behind someone I couldn't see. I've got no idea what it means though."
"What did Trelawney make of it?" Harry asked, very curious. Ron had never seen anything in his crystal ball other than a reflection of whoever was sitting across from him.
"Don't know." Ron answered. "I decided to tell her my fake vision instead, since I had already worked out what that one would mean."
"She couldn't tell you had seen something else?" Harry was surprised.
"That old fraud?" Ron joked. "She was so busy staring off into space trying to look mystic and wise she wouldn't have noticed if some naked woman had shown up in my crystal."
Before Harry could question him further, he was called up into the room. Harry immediately realized what had been happening. The crystal ball Professor Trelawney had been using for the exam was the one that Harry had secretly altered with his first draft of prophetic runes. As a result, it was perhaps the only ball in the school that actually, almost worked. Seeing an actual vision, even if Harry still wasn't so certain about how accurate they were would've surprised everyone in class, who by now were all used to either making things up like Ron did or having to stretch whatever hazy thing they did see into a proper vision. Harry was quite pleased by all this.
"For your exam just take your time and look into the ball." Trelawney instructed him. "Let your inner eye open, let your energies synchronize with the power in this tower and let the future become clear to you. Tell me what you see?"
"I see…." Harry said as he aligned his psychic energy with the runes in the ball and empowered it to its full extent. "I see a hippogriff, yes it's definitely a hippogriff."
"Excellent, perhaps you are foreseeing the results of that terrible hearing that is happening today." Trelawney said excitedly. "How does the hippogriff look? Has it been beheaded? Do you see any blood."
"No." Harry said irritably. "No, I see it flying, but it's going towards the castle. Up and up to the highest tower, and then someone is climbing on to it and now it's flying away."
Professor Trelawney seemed disappointed to hear all that. But Harry had stopped listening to her. He had started feeding his crystal ball with psychic power channeled through his mind. With telekinesis he could shift the view it provided. Turning it this way and that around the school, he suspected he was seeing the present though not the future. With his empathy he could see the minds of others, the thoughts of everyone rising around him like a great cloud of smoke from a raging fire. With his telepathy he knew he could send out his own thoughts to everyone else. A word whispered to this ball would thunder in the minds of everyone for miles around.
But when he touched it with his ESP something started happening. The ball went black as night and the runes began to suck energy in from him like a sponge. He could feel the power it drew slip back into himself. The ball touched his soul with his own mind, and he briefly saw himself in his crystal ball. He saw himself in the crystal ball holding a crystal ball which contained another Harry with another crystal ball and another Harry within that. And within those infinite depths, he saw true doom.
In a graveyard a cloaked figure rose from a roiling cauldron. He was shadowed in evil and armed with hate. Harry stood against him, the shining figure of his father at his side and he swore defiance, death and eternal enmity with the raging figure and the army that swelled behind him.
Harry saw the students of the school along with the teachers, their parents, and the officials of the ministry all bowed before him. All looking at him with adoration and hope. He raised his wand into the sky and called for death and love in equal measures.
And he saw an Elder Brain, hovering over a brine pool in the highest room of the tallest tower of Hogwarts Castle. And he felt its power radiate out over all the United Kingdom. And he knew that its power over the earth would never be shaken.
When Harry tore his hands from the crystal ball and ended the terrible visions that he had seen, it was almost a relief to hear Professor Trelawney prophecy the return of Lord Voldemort in eerie and unshakable conviction. It would be a welcome distraction from perhaps the far darker fate that Harry now feared faced the world. Voldemort would almost certainly kill Harry if he ever came to power, but at least he wouldn't enslave all the minds of humanity for the rest of time. An Elder Brain would.