Let the River in, Dotan
The coldest night came in the spring
The final frost was laid again
We draft the roof, froze the shoots, killed the flowers
And stole the colour from the sun
Oh, let the river in, burst the dams, and start again
Oh, let the river in, the will of man can't hold it in
Oh, let the river in, as the blood beneath my skin
Let the river in, nature plays, and nature wins
You held on to my hands like a vice
You turn the screw, turn them right
But there's a point, there's a limit where we break
The current finds the quickest way
I hear the breaking of bricks and walls
I feel the rhythm of the water
"I know what you are known as," said Dumbledore, eyes narrowed. "But to me, I'm afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am afraid that they never quite forget their charges' youthful beginnings."
Harry had come to the now Headmaster of Hogwarts, seeking the Defence Against the Dark Arts position. And while it was true that he had already done unforgivable things, there was still a part of him that longed for the castle. For how he had felt, so briefly.
"The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could, Tom… I wish I could..." Dumbledore told him, face calm but wand raised as he forced Harry out of the room.
The scene shifted, but he was still in the headmaster's office. In his fifth year, when Dumbledore refused to meet his eye, and refused to speak to him, leading ultimately to Harry seeking the prophecy himself.
"Look. At. Me!" Harry shouted, and the old man spun, looking at the Boy Who Lived for a bare second with disgust.
Harry was used to these dreams. Used to, but not comfortable with. He'd noticed that they appeared to be drawing parallels, telling a story, trying to get a point across. The Boy Who Lived wasn't comfortable with the point, either. He was no closer to retrieving the memory from Slughorn, and the date set for Harry's fourth 'lesson' with Dumbledore was two days away.
The Potions Professor hadn't allowed him back to brew Calming Draughts, opting to pretend he wasn't in the classroom or his office, though Harry knew he was. And so, he'd lost access both to the ingredients and Hogsmeade. He'd thought about going to Madam Pomfrey for the draughts, but she would most assuredly alert the headmaster about the Boy Who Lived burning through the entirety of her stock.
It had been four weeks. He could no longer summon the will necessary to worry about the lack of Calming Draughts. About Slughorn, the Headmaster, Ginny, the prophecy, or Malfoy. He could feel, based on how frantic the hunger was, that he had one, at best two weeks before a choice would be made for him. He'd noticed that Liquida Tenebris was more efficient at feeding the ache than the Unforgivables were. It had bought him slightly more time. Regardless, two extra weeks would be incredible luck. He rolled out of bed, not bothering to check the time but noting it was still dark.
He had taken to silencing his bed all night, but as time wore on, his magic refused to cooperate, and he'd been unable to hold the charm through to the morning. So, Ron had asked him if the Dreams were getting worse. So had Neville.
"Don't tell Hermione. I'm fine. Really." Harry had spat this at them through gritted teeth.
The Great Hall was decorated for the Slytherin versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match, and the students at breakfast were building hype. The Gryffindor table was solemn, though, having lost the last round. Ginny and Ron seemed particularly upset, and the pair had opted not to watch the match. So had Harry. Although Harry had been released from his detentions with Snape, he was still not allowed to play Quidditch. He'd decided over the food he wasn't eating that morning that he wouldn't want to fly, even if he could.
"Harry you really look awful," Hermione told him, bringing Ron and Ginny's attention with her comment.
"He doesn't look that bad Hermione," Ron said, but both his and his sister's face told the Chosen One they didn't believe what Ron was saying.
"Do you need to go to the Hospital Wing? I'm sure Dumbledore will see you too, if you need," The bushy-haired girl pressed.
"I'm fine," He ground out, for what felt like the millionth time. She raised her eyebrows, unconvinced.
She was right to be unconvinced. He wasn't fine. The familiar fiery ache had resumed invading every waking minute. Filling every sleeping moment with memories. He knew he was sporadically sweating. That his eyes were bugging, that his skin felt and looked too tight. His brow was perpetually furrowed in pain, and he was vanishing behind locked doors without rhyme or reason to scream at the top of his lungs.
He couldn't bring himself to cast that spell again. The thought filled him with both dread and a desire, twins in their intensity. He was still sure that if he could somehow survive it, wait it out, he would return to normal.
The conversation with Luna had scared him. If she could truly see whatever it was that he was feeding, then it was growing. He was nourishing it. A theory he'd guessed at, but never wanted to be confirmed. If he could feed it, then he could starve it.
But waiting it out meant that he would be, very obviously, in agony within some number of days. In agony, and dangerous.
Harry brought himself to the headmaster's office two days later with an incredible amount of reluctance. He almost dreaded the Pensieve as much as he dreaded his bed. Dumbledore himself had now added to the distaste he felt as he ascended the stairs, mingling with the adrenaline that constantly washed through him.
"Harry, my boy, you look quite peaky," Dumbledore said when he entered.
"Yeah. I'm fine really. The prophecy's been keeping me awake," he lied, eyes locked on the hourglass on the headmaster's desk.
"I see. No luck with Horace yet, I take it?"
Harry resisted the powerful urge to glare at the man and instead shook his head.
"Well, we'd best not keep you long then," Dumbledore said, standing. Harry did the same and followed him to the Pensieve.
The first memory showed Tom Riddle and an old woman named Hepzibah Smith, who resembled an overly frosted cake. The Dark Lord had shown particular interest in a cup and a locket in her possession.
In the second, he was shown Dumbledore's perspective of Voldemort seeking the Defence position, but Harry noted that there were several differences. The headmaster had been kinder in his rejection, with no hint of distaste on his face. Dumbledore had not drawn his wand, instead, it had been Riddle with his wand raised as he backed out of the room, vowing that Dumbledore would regret his decision.
Dumbledore had told a barely responsive Harry afterwards that Hepzibah had been murdered days after the memory they'd viewed took place, and that since the day he'd shunned the Dark Lord, the Defence Against the Dark Arts position had been cursed.
Harry felt that he should have taken the differences as evidence that the memories he was being shown in his sleep were fabricated, but there was a bubble of doubt in his stomach as he left the headmaster's office.
He'd been in the Common Room nearly a week later, doing his homework quietly with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, while he struggled to keep his thoughts on Slughorn and off what he wanted to be doing instead.
If he could get that memory, he could get some indication of authenticity. Maybe he'd find answers. If he could focus.
'Felix… Felicis…' A whisper in his head, far away, barely there. He stared down at the scroll of parchment he'd been not writing on, blinking. Trying to stop his hands from shaking.
In truth, he'd nearly forgotten about the potion. He gnawed his lip and looked up at his friends. Hermione had started directing Ron on his homework. Ginny had stopped working, staring into the fire. It was still early, early enough to drink the potion and talk to the Potions Master. If he wanted to take the voice's advice.
"I have an idea," he said out loud, ignoring the nervousness that came when he understood the voice wanted him to get Slughorn's version of events. He told his friends what he was going to do and got up slowly, retrieving the potion from its pocket in his truck and drinking it in one go, before he could change his mind.
"Dobby!" He called, an idea striking him. A warmth was spreading through his limbs, and he felt as though he couldn't make a wrong move. The elf appeared with a crack.
"Harry Potter! Dobby has no news on the young Malfoy. He is being too careful for Dobby," Dobby rambled before Harry shushed him.
"I need the best bottle of honeyed wine you can find in the kitchens. Like right now, please."
He checked the map while he waited for him to return and confirmed that Slughorn was in his office. When Dobby reappeared with the bottle, he'd thanked the elf and dismissed him, then threw his cloak over his head, bottle in hand. He descended the stairs and left the Common Room, not saying goodbye to his friends. He was sure they would have seen the portrait hole open for no one. He made his way to the Dungeons with a one-track mind.
He didn't knock, he simply walked in, the door unlocked.
"Harry!" Slughorn shouted at Harry's floating head.
"Professor!" He shouted back, removing his cloak and revealing the bottle. "I thought it would be pointless to knock since you've been avoiding me. I came to apologize," he offered the wine and took a step forward.
"Oh, no need, no need. What's this, Harry?"
"Honeyed wine, Sir." He told him, taking a seat as Slughorn took the bottle.
"Oh, I do love honeyed wine. How did you guess?" The professor put two glasses on the table and poured them.
"Intuition," Harry said, and Slughorn froze, briefly, before he passed the Chosen One a drink.
Harry was careful to avoid the topic of the memory until the Potions Master was properly sloshed. He needled at the man's resolve after he'd told Harry the story of the fish his mother, Lily, had summoned for Slughorn as a gift, how he had known she was gone the morning he'd come downstairs to find the bowl empty.
Harry had insisted that his mother would have wanted the professor to be brave, that he needed the memory to understand and possibly defeat Voldemort. That no one would see it, apart from him and the headmaster, that his secret would be safe with Harry.
He said all the right words, and through tears, the professor produced and bottled the memory, asking Harry not to think any less of him once he'd seen it.
He'd thanked the man and left him crying at his desk, heading straight for the headmaster's office, under his cloak, with the memory held tight in his hand.
He was aware that it was late in the night, and that was confirmed when a very tired-looking Dumbledore met him in his office in robe-like pyjamas. Harry wasn't sure how long he could avoid looking the man in the eyes before it aroused suspicion, but he hoped the potion would prevent that disaster.
"I have the memory, Sir. Slughorn's," Harry said, looking at the Pensieve instead of the man.
"Oh, at last, Harry. Now we shall see. Quickly," Dumbledore took the memory and poured it into the waiting bowl. Neither of them wasted a moment.
"-It's called, as I understand it, Professor, a Horcrux," Tom Riddle said, feigning disinterest. Slughorn had turned to look at the teen as though he'd just eaten a spider.
"Now why would you be looking into something like that?" The Potions Master asked. Harry felt nauseous.
"It just got me wondering. I thought about asking my Head of House, but I thought you might understand," The Dark Lord smiled, "Because you're different."
The memory played out exactly as he remembered it. He searched it desperately for a single difference, however slight, and could find none. The headmaster had once again wanted to discuss what they'd seen, but Harry told the man that he was about to decorate his carpet and that he might be better off in bed. Dumbledore had suggested the Hospital Wing, and Harry had nodded, promising to return as soon as he was able, and descended the stairs in a daze.
He threw his cloak over his head and jogged not to the Hospital Wing or his dormitory but to the empty room near the Astronomy Tower.
He had the strength to silence it, but little else. His magic was disobedient, as though it, too, had a one-track mind. He didn't want to think anymore. Certainly, didn't want to feel. His head and chest bursting with pain, confusion, and fear, he raised his shaking wand higher.
"Liquida Tenebris."
He was immediately swept into it, an explosion of hurricane-force magic, roaring around his ears, dense enough to hold his weight as he fell back. Despite the intensity, Harry floated, effortless, untouched by the ferocity, his eyes closing as he was finally, blissfully free. The voice whispered to him. He knew it was the voice, now. It sounded as comfortable as he felt, but the meaning of its words slid right off his brain.
Harry didn't recall returning himself to bed that night, but he awoke there, being shaken by Ron.
"Blimey, Harry, it's nearly time to go!" Ron told him, tossing the Boy Who Lived's robes at him.
Harry was shocked to find that it was indeed light in the dormitory, that he had slept in for the first time in almost a year. He pushed down the thought of what he had learned the night prior, -that his version of the memory had been correct, making it suddenly more likely that the dreams he'd been having were true- and found that it was easy. The warmth that still vibrated in his arms and legs, an aftereffect of the spell, made it simple to push it all away.
He quickly got changed and followed Ron into the Common Room, where Hermione waited, looking flustered.
"There you two are! We're going to be late." She said, leaving the Common Room.
Harry and Ron followed her out, the Boy Who Lived fighting a grin. They headed to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, Hermione nearly running, although they probably weren't actually going to be late. They passed Luna as they went, and she stopped in her tracks.
"Hello, Harry. You look stunning today." She looked him up and down for a second longer before she smiled at the three of them and continued down the corridor in the opposite direction.
"Did- Did Luna just… Flirt with you?" Hermione asked, pausing in the walkway.
"I- no? I mean, no. I don't think so." Harry said, walking again, dragging the two of them with him.
As soon as they had taken their seats, Snape entered. When the man started drawling, Harry found his thoughts returning to the night prior. Not to Dumbledore, Slughorn, or the memory, but to the way Liquida Tenebris made him feel. He was less disgusted, he realised.
'Pay attention,' the words rang clearly in his head, as though said by someone sitting right next to his ear. He flinched, startled, but found that he was still not perturbed.
Harry glanced at Snape.
"Now... you are, I believe, complete novices in the use of nonverbal spells. What is the advantage of a nonverbal spell? Very well — Miss Granger?"
"Your adversary has no warning about what kind of magic you're about to perform which gives you a split-second advantage," Hermione said.
"An answer copied almost word for word from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six, but correct in essentials," Snape responded, summoning an apple.
A thought struck Harry then, and he found himself unable to contain it, 'Can you… Hear me?' He directed the thought at the thing in his head deliberately.
'Yes.' Without hesitation.
Harry sucked in a breath. He'd suspected as much. He felt he should be more alarmed.
Another thought came to him. The night Dumbledore had used Legilimency. When the thing in his head had dampened his emotions.
'Are you- making me feel less?'
A long pause followed as Snape showed an example of wordless magic, levitating the apple.
'Yes,'
'Stop it.' Harry warned, frowning.
The emotions he should have been feeling, disgust, concern, fear, all flooded back, although squashed by the afterglow of the spell.
'You're too… Reactive.' The voice said.
'Shut up.' Harry told it.
His classmates had already begun practising, looking constipated as they struggled to levitate their conjured fruits.
"Do you find yourself above nonverbal casting, Potter?" Snape was suddenly in front of him, and Harry avoided his eyes.
"No, Sir," he said through gritted teeth. Snape dropped an apple on his desk with a thud, earning a few sniggers and guffaws from the Slytherin house. Snape gestured at the fruit and Harry pulled out his wand.
As he did so, he felt the thing in his head, shifting and pulling his attention to his magic. He could physically feel the thread from his mind to his hand.
'Here.' It said, and Harry flicked his wand. The apple responded, lifting easily into the air above the Defence Professor's greasy hair.
(A/N: I don't remember when they do nonverbal spell training. For my convenience, it's now. I won't apologize xx.)