Dumbledore walked through the cursed fire and entered the last room of the third-floor corridor, on the right-hand side.
Harry stared at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore stared at Harry.
Harry did something he hadn't done before.
He actually focused his broken, empty mind, if only for a moment.
Just as his Circle could draw on his strength, he could draw on theirs.
In this case, he coiled Hermione's emerald chain around his mind. He took care to wall off most of the… unpleasant… Things inside him so that they didn't have a repeat of the whole sorting hat fiasco. He didn't want to drive his Curator any deeper down the rabbit hole. Yet.
He felt her panic for a moment before she understood. She quickly got over her shock and threw herself into the challenge, reining in his manic thoughts until they became controlled.
Together, they forced his empty mind to sharpen.
Dumbledore tried to read his mind.
Hermione built a perfect mind on the surface for Albus to read, while Harry used the connection to slip through the ancient headmaster's own defenses to read his thoughts in return.
It required mental dexterity that Harry alone did not possess.
But he was not alone, not when he had his Circle. Not when he had his Curator.
While the headmaster was focused on reading Hermione's false mind, Harry could see what the old man thought and what he expected to find.
Albus was suspicious that something was amiss, but the situation was certainly salvageable. He was prepared to believe the best of Harry.
They just needed to show him the right things.
Harry relayed his findings to Hermione while he delved deeper, taking advantage of the headmaster's distraction.
He could feel Hermione weaving a lovely tale for Albus based on his own expectations; finding hints about the stone throughout the year, Harry's scar hurting when Quirrell was near, realizing that Dumbledore was away today and deciding to save the day by stopping Voldemort themselves.
In the Headmaster's mind, things were much more interesting.
A prophecy? Albus was playing games.
Dumbledore had hoped that his trap with the stone would confirm Tom's survival.
He got that confirmation from Hermione, which led him down a different path.
Horcruxes. Dumbledore suspected that Voldemort had fragmented his soul but did not know how many times.
He suspected that Harry may have a fragment within his own soul.
Harry also suspected the same. Hmmmmmm.
That may make Dumbledore more suspicious of him in the future. And possibly make the headmaster want to kill him.
Inconvenient.
Albus also hoped that some remnant of Harry's mother's sacrificial blood magic would remain.
Huh. Dumbledore was the one who put Harry in the cupboard, in the dark. Now he had an actual reason to hate the old man. Lovely.
Harry fed the information back to Hermione as she staged the confrontation with Voldemort, having Quirrell's body fall apart as he attempted to kill Harry until Voldemort finally decided to run away, killing his own puppet in the process.
All that was left was the stone. Harry could feel his Curator's exasperation at his antics.
There was no explanation that they could think of, so they didn't bother. Harry didn't look in the mirror. He didn't have the stone; he never had the stone. Didn't even know the stone was in the mirror.
If the stone wasn't in the mirror anymore, it would have nothing to do with Harry.
All of this happened in less than a second, at the speed of thought. Harry allowed Hermione's consciousness to return to her own head. He couldn't get away with doing that very often, or his Curator would end up empty and that would kind of defeat her purpose.
"Professor Dumbledore! Voldemort was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone, but… Quirrell just kind of… fell apart when he touched me, and he… he… died, when Voldemort flew away. I don't know if he got the stone before I got here or not…"
Dumbledore smiled warmly at him. Internally, Harry's smile was quite a bit colder.
…
"It hasn't… reappeared… yet?
"Nope! Isn't that fun?"
…
His Dragon seemed happy about something.
Harry was busy seeing how many dinner rolls he could balance on top of each other before they fell over. His current record was seven.
The stone hadn't shown back up, and as far as Harry could tell with his magic it was lodged somewhere just behind his sternum.
Which was hilarious. Dumbledore must be losing his mind. And even if the headmaster came looking, there was nothing to find.
Harry did wonder if there was any benefit to being 99% meat vehicle and 1% Philosopher's Stone.
He also wondered if he could cut the stone out of his own chest without dying. Probably not. It would be fun to find out though. Such lovely music.
Maybe he could ask Daphne to do it?
It still hurt when he stabbed himself, so that clearly wasn't it. It made him happy happy. Super healing would take away from the drip drip drip of his melody.
Oh right. He had been wondering why Draco was happy. It was good to notice that his Circle existed, occasionally. They needed the positive reinforcement.
And he had decided that he did, in fact, like them. No peeling.
"What's got you so excited, Draco?"
His dragon glanced at him with raised eyebrows.
"We won the house cup! Dumbledore just gave you 60 points!"
Ugh. Ridiculous. Stupid old man. Harry couldn't decide if his hatred for the headmaster outweighed his joy at getting points for stealing the stone.
He decided not to think about it.
At least winning didn't make everyone happy. He could feel Hermione's conflicted emotions from across the hall.
Daphne didn't care. Good little Blade.
It was going to be weird weird, going back to Wool's. Back to the orphanage in all but name, where he had first overcome the ones who hurt hurt hurt him. Wool's was his, now.
He had all summer to do whatever he wanted. As long as the old man didn't poke poke around.
He could return to making beautiful music in the muggle world, where they couldn't find him.
Harry licked his lips, and his smile grew.
He would miss his Circle, but he was excited to be singular and free again.
No eyes to stop his wonderful symphonies.
…
Well.
This was odd.
What a strange cave. Why had the eyes brought him here?
He appreciated the interior decoration. Lakes full of dead bodies were exactly his cup of metaphorical tea.
He doubted that Albus would let him install one in the Slytherin common room.
Maybe if he asked extra nicely. He was the prophecy child, after all.
With a Horcrux in his head.
Or maybe he was the Horcrux?
Uncertain.
Empty empty empty.
Blood red eyes lined the walls.
They offered no answers. Irritating.
This potion looks delicious.
It was delicious.
Was that supposed to hurt hurt hurt?
The voices were a welcome change of pace from the usual ones that rattled about in his empty soul.
Locket?
But it doesn't have eyes.
Why doesn't it have eyes, Tom?
R.A.B… Interesting.
No idea what an R.A.B. is. He would send Hermione after it.
Someone else had his pretty pretty necklace. Unacceptable.
Tom's necklace.
My necklace?
Whatever.
…
Harry stared at the letter from his little Dragon.
Draco had caught his house elf stealing his mail and beheaded him. Well done, little dragon. Making his own music.
Lucius had apparently gotten into a fight in a bookshop. Which was strange behavior, even for Lucius. Harry wasn't aware of the political benefit of physically assaulting your opponent.
Killing them, yes. Torturing them for fun, certainly. Breaking their tiny little minds so that they spend the rest of their lives in St Mungo's and wrack up extensive medical debt while their Wizengamot seats go unfilled and unvoted because they aren't technically dead, absolutely.
But superficial brawling in public? Unproductive.
Games games games.
Also, pretty pretty Lockhart was teaching at Hogwarts.
He would make such beautiful music.
…
Harry pondered the ring with the eyes.
The other shard of Tom.
He wanted to do another ritual, to further fill his empty cup, but he didn't want to waste it.
There were others, to bind to him.
He could feel it.
He would have to work on his Circle some more, this year.
Surely others had things they wanted.
…
Harry flopped down with a splash in the ever-growing pool of fresh crimson ichor, drip drip dripping from the Things hanging above.
He loved summer vacation.
…
Harry paused as he was about to get into the carriage to ride up to the castle.
He liked the skeletal horses. Very nice aesthetic.
Something felt… important.
Hmmmmmm
Across the train platform he saw a tiny blonde girl bouncing along behind the giant groundskeeper.
She had lovely silver eyes…
…
The sorting was just as boring this year.
He enjoyed having his Circle back though. Even if there was no food yet.
Empty empty em-
The blonde girl with the silver eyes was walking up to the hat. He should have been listening when the cat lady announced her name.
Pretty pretty pretty.
The hat had been on her head for a long time.
Harry grinned at his memory of the hat's screams.
Lovely music.
It was still on her head.
RAVENCLAW!
Neat.
…
Harry idly chewed… whatever it was he was eating.
He couldn't get his empty empty mind off of the girl with the silver eyes.
Why why why?
He couldn't help himself.
He glanced over at her and found her staring back at him with a weird, morbid fascination.
Her face was delicate and unusual in a way he hadn't seen before.
He briefly fell into the silver ocean in her eyes.
There was something very wrong with her.
Or very right.
Harry couldn't resist. He carefully opened his eyes and slipped into her mind.
She was perfectly normal. Boring.
Wait a moment.
This was a fake mind.
Fake fake fake.
Just like…
Just like his.
Harry smiled.
The girl with the silver eyes smiled back.
This was going to be fun.
…