Chapter five: The mysterious meeting.
"We're going to do a ritual to, well, defeat Voldemort," said Sirius. "It's… technical, and we can't get it wrong, so it'll be a little while before we can do it."
"A little while?" asked Harry.
"Some months," said Professor Dumbledore.
"Uhuh," said Harry.
"Now, it will use all the information currently written on your back," said Professor Dumbledore, "so there is no need to, for example… form a study group to do the ritual yourself."
Harry nodded, "Hermione looked up about rituals years ago, … and they seem very dangerous, which is why Hogwarts doesn't teach them any more."
"Yes," said Professor Dumbledore very quickly.
Sirius Black stared at Harry for a moment and shook his head. "Harry, um. I need to tell you." he said hesitantly.
"Tell me, what?" asked Harry. He wondered if… Sirius had done some weird pureblood thing, and he was now betrothed to Daphne Greengrass? His heart started to hammer in his chest and his hands got sweaty. He imagined Daphne Greengrass in a wedding dress. She'd look pretty, he thought. But he hadn't, um really talked to her yet. It seemed… a little, no, a lot awkward. She wouldn't like that, and that… Harry fought the urge to rub the scar on his forearm.
"Harry!" said Sirius sharply.
"What?" asked Harry, looking at Sirius again.
"You got a little … you were staring at the bookshelf," said Sirius.
"Oh," said Harry. He smiled nervously.
Sirius took a deep breath, "When your father and I were at Hogwarts together," started Sirius, sounding quite… serious.
Harry suddenly started trying to guess what Sirius going to say. Had they got cool tattoos as well as becoming animagus?
Had dad had other girlfriends?
"We, that is me, and Prongs and Moony and Wormy, we um…" said Sirius, staring at the floor.
Harry's back went cold with sweat, and his heart slowed. 'This,' thought Harry, sounded bad.
Was… Sirius going to say 'we played sticky biscuit?' or something equally awful?
"We did two rituals," said Sirius. "One to become animagus."
Harry relaxed. Oh… this was, wait… Sirius was telling him about rituals he'd done at school. It felt awkwardly like wizarding parenting. He wondered for a second, if his mum had even liked the other 'Marauders?' It seemed… like something Sirius should already have told him. Or even Mr Lupin should have told him, for that matter.
"The second one we did, um… it was sacrificial magic to um… to try to get your mum to date Prongs… date James." said Sirius, and he looked up at Harry, and he had a stricken look on his face. "It went wrong Harry. Horribly, horribly wrong. And before you think about your mum, it did nothing to her; it just… well it made your dad a bit less irresponsible."
Harry blinked (somewhat hypocritically) at Sirius. (Those things could have happened to anyone with a total reckless disregard for their own personal safety.)
"We thought," said Sirius carefully "That the several thousand galleons worth of emeralds we set fire to, were the sacrifice."
"And?" asked Harry, wondering how 'wizarding parenting' became Sirius awkwardly explaining something really stupid that Harry would himself, never have done.
Sirius shook his head "And I um… I promised to always put them first, Wormy that it was Marauders forever, and Remus to um… always look out for James's one-day children. And… "
Harry started to feel a little dizzy, and sat down hurriedly. He swallowed with difficulty.
"So," Harry croaked. Because it sounded a lot like all the things that had gone wrong in Harry's life dated from… this other ritual. Not the Voldemort trying to kill him bit, fortunately.
"That's why I left you with Hagrid and went after Peter. Part of why he betrayed us, why Remus didn't check up on you…. We um… we cursed ourselves to … to… " Sirius stopped talking, looking really … serious.
"What you have to remember Harry, is that ritual magic is very fickle, tricky stuff indeed," said Professor Dumbledore.
"And it didn't do anything to mum?" asked Harry. Because if… if his dad had… done that… he didn't know what he was going to do. Throw up felt likely. As it was, he suspected he'd never feel the same again.
"No, James was the one doing the ritual. It changed him, well made him a bit more like Remus. His mum, your grandmother actually appreciated James starting to take school more seriously. She had um, had words with him about his marks by then, and well, I was staying there," said Sirius.
Harry's stomach settled back down, and he tried taking slow calming breaths.
"What we felt you needed to know was that… ritual magic is full of traps for the unwary," said Professor Dumbledore, "I myself have never done a ritual, which has made Sirius such a valuable resource, having done two. We used a Pensive to review his memories of the, erm, group ritual to try to find errors… and instead found the unintentional sacrifices."
Harry had no idea what a Pensive was, and didn't think it was that important. He did sort of get the idea that Sirius and Professor Dumbledore were worried he'd do rituals. And then get himself cursed. More cursed. Cursed-er
"The … the other me?" said Harry. "He did a ritual to put the um, scars on me, didn't he?"
"And a, and do not be alarmed… another curse," said Professor Dumbledore. Harry wondered what, if he'd been feeling well read would be sort of a 'what fresh hell was this.'
"Could… we get that curse broken?" asked Harry. That sounded awful… by Harry's standards. (And given that the only person whose standards were lower, that wasn't a prisoner (or escaped prisoner) in Azkaban, there was only Mad-Eye Moody, that was quite awful.)
"Given that other you were an adult, and good at rituals, and had defeated Voldemort," said Sirius "I suspect it's rather hard to break."
Harry was glad he was sitting down, as he felt little light-headed.
"Severus has… suspicions as to why they sent the curses to this reality," said Professor Dumbledore, "I personally disagree with his interpretation of the runic cipher."
Harry licked his lips "Could you… perhaps tell me what he thinks it really says?" asked Harry.
Professor Dumbledore sighed.
"Look, Snape's always hated your dad," said Sirius.
Professor Dumbledore waved his wand at a slip of parchment and sent it over to Harry with a swish and a flick. But he did it wordlessly. Harry read the slip of parchment, in what was definitely Snape's handwriting. Only, the whole thing was mostly question marks: 'sorrydg?hadto?ecursetoyourworldl?panddg.'
Harry sighed. "So they moved a curse." said Harry.
"The end is clearly, love hp and dg" said Professor Dumbledore. "Severus thinks the curse is… an older curse."
"They're sorry?" asked Harry. 'Why would they be sorry?' he wondered.
"They had to move the curse," said Professor Dumbledore. "Which I fear may… increase your… natural inclination to … to… "
"Snog the girl," said Sirius. "And the way it starts with Sorry, well, it's clear that the other Daphne Greengrass was gay. I actually agree with Snape on this."
Harry felt his cheeks heating up. That was… very embarrassing. And… what if Daphne Greengrass was gay? She had his name on her wrist! And her name was on his! Surely if she was gay, that presented some pretty major problems!
"How," Harry croaked, "Would that curse get on me? Other me, that is?"
"Oh it's on both of you," said Sirius blandly, "Madam Pomfrey doesn't mess around. You're both cursed."
Harry gripped the chair to stay upright, and felt a deep longing for the good old days, when Professor Dumbledore didn't tell him things. It was less worrying.
Sirius sighed "look, the only way people get curses like that is from cursed marriage contracts."
Harry felt dizzy again.
"Which is why we retrieved it, Harry," said Professor Dumbledore. "Miss Greengrass's family will lock it in their Gringotts vault, and it will never be touched by blood or ink."
"If she's my one true love though," said Harry, "Surely we'll be needing that later. When we get married?" he said, intending to be sarcastic.
Sirius snorted. "You've got to date her first, Harry," said Sirius.
"I was being sarcastic," said Harry rather snippily. He had to, or he'd fall into worrying about the whole having to marry her thing, and start spiralling, worrying about how she felt about it.
"Oh. That's… Lily would say something like that," said Sirius thoughtfully.
"Mum was sarcastic?"
"Cheeky. Quick," said Sirius, "the number of creative ways she called me inbred… I kept the best ones to use on my family." Harry had never really considered the idea that mum might have said … things at Hogwarts. He was filled with the most pitiful longing to live in a world where his mother was firstly, not dead, and secondly, scored him out of ten for creative sarcasm. He was now entirely sure his mother had been the most amazing persons to ever life. Which actually had him wondering about his dad, really, but, again, magical rituals. And the faint suspicion that in that kinder, nicer universe where mum scored him for snark, he would have had to explain about Daphne Greengrass to mum, and… that bothered him.
Professor Dumbledore smiled genially at Harry. "So really, Harry, what we're saying is, don't worry about the whole… defeating Voldemort problem, because we're working from your friend's notes. And while Ritual Magic is involved, don't go looking at Ritual Magic."
Harry nodded. He knew how to nod when adults claimed that be doing things.
"Not least because the Ministry don't like the way underage wizards can do rituals and cause permanent effects," said Sirius. "We, Prongs and me, we could have permanently damaged ourselves learning to be animagi."
"For example, making them reckless, and thoughtless," said Professor Dumbledore airly.
"Mrs Potter did that speech, Professor, you don't have to repeat it," said Sirius.
Harry did something impulsive and possibly selfish. "What was my grandmother like?" he asked.
"I found her a fascinating person," said Professor Dumbledore. "She had a unique perspective on Magical Britain."
"Your gran was American, from a really long line of witches. They made my family look like muggleborns." said Sirius. "My mother hated her, not least because she was such a fashion trend-setter. And of course Monty just looked up at her and smiled."
"Up?:"
"Your gran was tall and your um… grandfather wasn't," said Sirius. "He met her, as he'd tell anyone that asked, ever, any time at all, in America, when he was over there breaking into the American market with Sleekeezrys. Given that your gran had a massive bottle of it in their bathroom, I assume she used loads of the stuff. Ironically, she spent ages making her hair look like the sort of hair we have in our family, all wavy and ringlets. Prongs said he suspected that his mum had straight hair but he'd never seen it. And of course, what little hair Monty still had was like Prong's. Well, and yours."
"Fashonable?" asked Harry, as that sounded odd for someone's gran.
"Oh the Prophet loved her. They'd have a photo of her latest outfit in the paper and Mama would set fire to it. Just when everyone thought stripes were going to be in, Mrs Potter would be photographed with the latest in, well something different from Paris." Sirius sighed "My cousin Narcissa always loved fashion and she'd drive aunty up the wall asking for a new, more fashionable outfit." Sirius scoffed. "Used to say she'd have to marry an extremely wealthy man."
"But she did" said Harry.
"Well, she turned sixteen she started bleaching her hair, and pouting at Lucy Malfoy." said Sirius. "Who was, if you were wondering, just as big an arsehole then as now," he added.
"Abraxas Malfoy was a spoilt twit as well," said Professor Dumbledore. "I regret that it is a natural consequence of being so very wealthy, and an only child. Now, Harry, I believe it's time you went off to bed."
Harry went off to bed, absolutely not planning to irresponsibly do magical rituals. He'd maturely, responsibly lie, and wait a bit, then look it up with his mates. Because it was magic, dammit, and Voldemort was better at everything than everyone, so Harry felt he needed some sort of edge… in addition to whatever cheat-sheet older Harry had someone write on his own back. Which got him thinking about Daphne Greengrass. He was fairly sure, as it was quite late that she'd be in bed, sleeping. Safe, warm, and importantly, not getting injured. The thought of her sleeping was slightly uncomfortable, as the reckless, stupid, wrong and confusing idea of perhaps popping a small kiss on her sleeping cheek kept coming to mind. He was going to bed, for once doing what an adult asked without being yelled at.
Harry's hopes apropos Daphne Greengrass were, sadly, not to be. Daphne was not asleep, she was reading Teen Witch Weekly in her bed, with the bed-curtains drawn, by wandlight. She had just got to a quiz called 'Find your ideal scent' and Daphne was filling in the answers with a self-inking quill, which necessitated sitting bent over the magazine. Hence the closed curtains, to hold some heat in, well and that it was past curfew.
The questions were all quite abstract and Daphne was puzzling through 'On a scale of one to seven, how much do you like the smell of civets?'
Daphne hadn't smelt a civet, but suspected it was a bit like a ferret, which she had only smelt once, when her Great-Aunt had piercing hexed one outside the chicken coop. One, perhaps.
She answered four more questions, and then had to do arithmetic to get an answer, that gave her a number that indexed into a table of scents. Apparently 'Floral medley by Cornettus.' Happily, there was a scratch and sniff panel next to the name. She gave it a scrape with her index finger and sniffed. It smelt… like a warm day on the meadows behind her house, but specifically leaving out the smell of the tide, or horse doings. So mostly wild-flowers, but – she sniffed again, a hint of something else more reminiscent of someone's greenhouse hothouse flowers. She drew a big tick next to it, and turned the page to discover what new revelation Teen Witch Weekly had.
It was another quiz, this time called 'Is your boyfriend too clingy?' Daphne immediately felt her cheeks warming up. Potter wasn't her boyfriend… he was her one true love, and it was late and she felt a little cold.
It occurred to her that Harry Potter hadn't exactly taken her on a date yet. Or talked to her, apart from… giving her Sleekeazys. Well, and the quite decent slippers… that were a nice fit, and clearly had both warming, drying and sizing charms on them. He was, she realised, with a sudden surge of adoration… quite caring. Though at this point, she could do with a non-embarassing bed jacket. Sadly, having a Great-Aunt who was incredibly old, she had an embarrassingly frilly, pink, girly bed-jacket that she'd never taken out of her trunk. Harry would, of course, be asleep by now. He tousled hair settled on the pillow, his glasses…
What did he do with his glasses, she wondered? Did he hang them by one ear hook from the bed, or put them on the beside table? And of course, he'd be asleep, and his face would be relaxed. He always looked nervous or at least worried. Though, that was probably leftover from his tragic family circumstances.
And she had the idea that if she could see Harry Potter sleeping in his bed, she would… quite like to sit and just watch him for a little while, then go to sleep. And she felt a sort of imaginary contentment, that was a lot like being with her pets.
And he wasn't anywhere around, which left her feeling irritated and fidgety, so she went back to reading Teen Witch Weekly. She concluded two paragraphs later that firstly, the writer had no idea about circumstances like hers, and that Potter didn't feel clingy to her.