Harry Potter and the Memories of a Sociopath, Ch 18: Recklessness, pt. 1

Author's note: It's probably obvious that I've been having difficulty getting motivated to write recently, so I'm putting this story onto a steep glide path for the ending. I may come back and add in scenes or details or clean it up later, but for now, I'm sure everyone would prefer a story with an ending to yet another abandoned story, forever partially finished.

Here's how it is:

During his second year at Hogwarts, Harry is still concerned about the fate of the world and, though Hermione has obtained a phoenix and destroyed Azkaban's dementors, work on the Philosopher's Stone based hospital at Hogwarts has stalled due to ward incompatibilities and the temporary hospital in Azkaban tower has been shut down after being compromised by Bellatrix. Many aurors were killed or fatally injured and are in transfiguration-based stasis awaiting treatment.

Moody detected evidence of horcrux possession on Hermione and probably on Sprout. Draco and other students demonstrated unusual behavior and were later found to have been memory charmed. Harry thought of potential countermeasures Voldemort could have used against parseltongue and obliviation and suspects that Voldemort survived, that his plan had been to pretend to lose while preparing a powerful and immortal host for himself who Harry would trust implicitly (and explicitly, given the unbreakable vow). Unfortunately, that same vow prevented Harry from sharing his suspicions, until Moody revealed that he'd been thinking similar things. Thus far, efforts to locate a horcrux at Hogwarts have been unsuccessful.

Luna demonstrates uncanny knowledge even though she's obviously not a real seer. Moody has hypothesized that Defense professor Gilderoy Lockhart is incompetent and relying on liquid luck for his accomplishments. And obviously plotting something.

Harry has a relatively long list of things he intends to investigate, including big picture items like Merlin's Interdict, prophecy, time-turner paradoxes, magic-technology interactions, and rescuing Dumbledore, as well as smaller scale things like looking into Ravenclaw's Diadem or whether the potion liquid luck is a real thing or a cover story. Magical interferences with technology are proving more difficult to pin down than he had hoped, so he has focused more strongly on learning arithmancy, which involves putting spells together to achieve novel functions.

A girl skipped through the hallways, barefoot, wearing robes several sizes too large, and apparently also oblivious to the rest of her surroundings.

"Lovegood! Wow, did you pick the wrong hallway. Do you have any idea how many of our families you've slandered with that disgusting thing you call a newspaper? Do you have any idea what we're going to do to you?"

A brief moment of eye contact before her eyes unfocused again. "You're going to give me ice cream I assume. Why else would I bring you here?"

A confused pause. "Only if 'ice cream' is what 'pain' is called in that bag of retarded cats you use for a brain."

"No, thank you; that would be unpleasant. Ooh- a ride on a winged horse would be more pleasant than ice cream. That's what you should do before you disappear."

"We're not going anywhere, Loony. We're going to give you a brief introduction to reality."

She laughed, "Reality! This is a dream, silly. I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but when I wake up in a few hours, you'll cease to exist. Unless my subconscious decides you deserve to get resurrected, I guess. But so far, you're wasting your existence. If I know my dreams, Professor Lockhart and Headmaster Dumbledore are about to show up, wearing orange and pink robes, and they'll turn you guys into winged horses so we can fly around until breakfast time."

There was a longer pause. Then they raised their wands-

Only to quickly hide them as Lockhart stepped out of an intersecting hallway, wearing orange robes with pink horses on them. "Hello, Luna. I love winged horses. How are you tonight?"

Luna smiled. The others slowly backed away.

Then startled as Dumbledore walked up behind them, wearing pink robes with orange horses on them and added, "I also think there are far too few winged horses here today. What do you think, Luna?"

The others ran past her before she could answer. Lockhart and Dumbledore just shook their heads, turned and walked away.

The girl's skin stretched and twisted for a few seconds, transforming into Tonks. "Okay, Harry, NOW will you explain this? And WHY can't I just blast them with something unpleasant? And how did you get Professor Lockhart to play along?"

Harry pulled back his invisibility cloak. "Luna's great, but seriously, who would believe she was secretly a battle magic prodigy? It's much more believable that she'd be able to accidental-magic the entire universe into something weirder any time it started to make too much sense. You could probably convince a lot of people that that has already happened; imagine how many Quibbler headlines it would explain."

Dumbledore and Lockhart returned. They turned to each other and simultaneously cast, "Polyfluis reverso."

Fred and George smiled and turned toward Harry. George said, "That was awesome."

Fred added, "What other pranks do you have planned?"

Harry replied, "Nothing at the moment. But don't worry, I'll let you know."

"And before we forget again, our dad wants to talk to you about muggle stuff."

"He was going to send you an owl."

"Yeah, I got it the other day. It's on my list."

The Auror had fallen to the ground, one knee and one hand supporting himself as the other hand gestured frantically and his mouth shouted desperate words, the few incantations that Harry recognized were all shield spells, as a flock of shadows spun around the Auror like a whirlwind of razors.

And Harry saw Professor Quirrell's Polyjuiced form deliberately point his wand at where the Auror kneeled and fought the last moments of his battle.

"Surrender," said the gravelly voice.

The Auror spat something unspeakable.

In that case," said the voice, Avada -"

Time seemed to move very slowly, like there was time to hear the individual syllables, Ke, and Da, and Vra, time to watch the Auror starting to throw himself desperately aside; and even though it was all happening so slowly, somehow there wasn't time to do anything, no time for Harry to open his lips and scream NO, no time to move, maybe even not any time to think.

Then there was pain.

Harry groaned and picked up his watch. He sighed and put it back. Another dream about Voldemort, with Dementors and Death nearby. His compulsion to provide healing with the Philosopher's Stone and inability to act on it would naturally monopolize his subconscious. He decided he would have to begin studying warding so he could help rework Hogwarts' wards himself. He then felt around the bed for his wand, pointed it at himself and whispered, 'somnium'.

"There are still physical anchors for your immortality," Harry said aloud. "It resembles the old horcrux spell by that much, which is another reason you still call them horcruxes. If I'm wrong, you can always deny it in Parseltongue."

Professor Quirrell was smiling evilly. "Your guesss iss right, boy, for all the good it doess you."

"One horcux dropped into an active volcano, weighted so it would sink into the Earth's mantle. One horcrux buried kilometers down, in an anonymous cubic meter of the Earth's crust. One horcrux you dropped into the Mariana Trench. One horcrux floating high in the stratosphere, transparent. Even you don't know where they are, because you Obliviated the exact details from your memory. And the last horcrux is the Pioneer 11 plaque that you snuck into NASA and modified. It's where you get your image of the stars, when you cast the spell of starlight. Fire, earth, water, air, void." Something of a riddle, the Defense Professor had called it, and therefore Harry had remembered it. Something of a Riddle. "Tell me, teacher," Harry hissed, "would desstroying thosse five anchors sslay you? "

"Your ssusspicion iss right, boy. Desstroying thosse five would not render me mortal."

Harry's throat felt a bit dry again. If the spell had no disastrous cost associated with it... "How many anchorss did you make? "

"Would not ordinarily ssay, but iss clear you have already guesssed." The Defense Professor's smile widened. "Ansswer iss that I do not know. Sstopped counting ssomewhere around one hundred and sseven. Ssimply made a habit of it each time I murdered ssomeone in private."

Harry groaned and looked at his watch. Finally, it was breakfast time.

"Excellent technique, Mr. Zabini", Lockhart complimented over the scattered applause. "You should think about trying to get onto a dueling team in a few years. Next, let's have Ms. Bulstrode and...", he glanced at a parchment while quietly commenting, "who hasn't participated in a while... Mr. Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes, "Really?" He glanced toward Milicent, "No offense." He looked back at Lockhart, "Seriously, how hard would it be to start an Elo rating system for this?"

"And who would you prefer to duel?"

"I don't know... Although... we haven't seen you actually do anything this year. That could be illuminating."

Lockhart smiled, "I suppose stunning you would be the fastest way to stop you from disrupting class." He waved Harry to the front right of the class walked to the left.

After they were ready, Harry raised his wand and fired the first shot.

Lockhart spun to his right, the light of the expelliarmus narrowly grazing his robe. As he turned, he pointed his wand backwards and fired a stupify blindly. He smoothly finished the turn facing Harry with his wand raised.

Harry watched the red light fly off to his right, at least 30 degrees off target, smirked, and prepared to fire again. Meanwhile, the spell ricocheted off Lockhart's desk and hit Harry in the side of the head. He dropped.

Lockhart suppressed a grin, "Okay, class, first of all, don't use trick shots like that (unless you become a professional and really want to make a point). In a real fight, it's a good way to get killed. And more importantly, don't make his mistake: never underestimate an opponent."

Hanna raised her hand and asked, "What rule number is that one?"

Lockhart frowned, "I never needed to number that rule; I assumed it was obvious."

Moody grunted approvingly, "It's about time we moved against Lockhart. What's the plan? And what did you catch him doing?"

Harry froze, "I... don't have a good answer for that. It just kind of happened."

Moody scowled, "You attacked a dark wizard with no plan? Now he probably knows we're onto him. It will be that much harder to catch him doing whatever he's doing. Are you getting dumber?"

Harry sighed, "I've had a lot on my mind. And relative to last year, there's also that mind-altering spell I'm under."

Moody retorted, "Are you telling me the world would've ended if you hadn't challenged Lockhart?"

Harry looked down and shook his head.

Moody scoffed and shook his head. McGonagall interjected, "So obviously you must serve detention. Luckily, Professor Lockhart doesn't want to supervise your detention; he said he doesn't have time to deal with you this evening. So I'll let you choose between helping with Potions, History of Magic, or Arithmancy."

Professor Vector shrugged, "I don't get many students serving detention here. A few students come in regularly for extra help with class. I guess do what you can for them. Otherwise, I don't know, organize the closet or study quietly."

Harry nodded in understanding and Vector went into the adjoining office.

Some time later, Percy Weasley entered the classroom.

Harry frowned, "Aren't you doing really well in this class?"

"Yes, and now you know why. So why are you here?"

Harry shrugged, "Detention slash reading an introduction to warding theory. I'm supposed to help students with Arithmancy if I can. Do you want to learn about preparing a site for a basic warding spell?"

"Not really. I remember that you know more advanced things about flying spells. Let's talk about that."

Harry shrugged again, "Okay, I could use a break from this stuff anyway."

"Also, my father is really interested in talking to you about muggle technology and how you've used it along with magic. I think he sent you an owl."

"He did. We scheduled an appointment."

"Tom Riddle!"

Harry froze then drew his wand slowly. He didn't recognize the voices and couldn't see anyone in the hallway. Apparently everyone in this hallway was invisible.

"Tom Harry Potter-Riddle-Evans-Verres!" Simultaneously, a balled-up parchment hit Harry in the back. He dodged and crouched against a wall, pointing his wand in the direction the object had originated. Another small object hit him in the back. Someone could evidently track him despite his invisibility cloak, while he lacked a similar-

Never mind, he'd handled that before. "Luminos maximus", he called, holding up his wand and shutting his eyes while running a short distance down the hall. "Glisseo." He then blindly fired stunners at the sounds of squeaking shoes and hands hitting the floor.

He walked over to the sleeping bodies. "You idiots. Enervate. Enervate. YOU IDIOTS!" Fred and George looked up at him blankly. "You're lucky to be alive. What are you thinking, attacking people in hallways at night while Vo... What are you idiots thinking?"

"We knew you were walking alone at night wearing an invisibility cloak", Fred began as they slowly stood up.

"So it must be safe for us to walk around together and invisible, despite whatever."

"You're still really lucky. I mean, if I'd been someone bad, I could've killed you", Harry replied.

"To be fair, we thought we were in a strong enough position to handle whatever you'd do."

"Especially after we were reminded that you really still can lose a duel."

"This prank looked foolproof on parchment."

"So what's the deal with the Tom Riddle thing?"

"How were you following me? And where... oh. I take it you guys found the map again. So I guess my question is how were you reading it while you were invisible?"

"What map?"

"Wait, what do you mean 'again'?"

"Yeah, you had it last year, then Voldemort took it and obliviated you. How did you get it back anyway?"

George answered, "We found it", while Fred simultaneously exclaimed, "We made it."

Harry scoffed, "You didn't make it. It's part of the Hogwarts security system. Students couldn't make anything like that."

Fred held out the map so Harry could read it, "Yeah, because the Hogwarts founders used the code names 'Mooney', 'Padfoot', 'Prongs', and 'Wormtail'."

George added, "And of course they'd use the password, 'I solemnly swear I'm up to no good', for their security." The map fell open as he finished.

Fred continued, "And don't think you can distract us that easily. What did you do with the real Harry Potter?"

"I...", Harry paused for a moment, then gasped, spun around, and sprinted down the hallway.

"I'll give him 9/10 for foiling the prank..."

"But his exit strategy needs work."

"If he'd used that bright light to cover his escape, it would've been a 10/10."

"Maybe we should go after him?"

"He did seem to think it's unsafe alone out here."

"It's for his own safety, really."

They jogged down the hallway.

Harry had nearly reached the gargoyles when he intercepted McGonagall returning to her office.

"Headmistress McGonagall, do you know who the 'Marauders' are?"

She frowned, then smiled at him, "In retrospect, I'm surprised it's taken you this long to ask."

Harry frowned, "You knew and you didn't bring it up before?"

"I prefer to think about happier times, rather than the endless series of detentions I had to supervise once I figured out who they were."

"Thinking happy thoughts? Over what could be the key to the future of the world!?"

"Wait, what?"

"That there are apparently one or more charms prodigies out there with experience hacking into Hogwarts' wards?"

"Oh. I thought you were asking about your father. Wait, they accessed the wards?"

"There's a map of Hogwarts that Voldemort had last year. It's either powerful enough to track everyone on the grounds or it's linked to the security wards. It's extremely unlikely that students would have been able to produce something with that kind of reach and have it last this long, so I'm betting on the latter. And what did you say about my father?"

"James Potter was one of the Marauders. He went by 'Prongs', named for his stag animagus form. The others were Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black."

Harry frowned, "It seems overly improbable that I've heard about all these people before."

McGonagall shrugged, "As children, they were talented and motivated to learn magic, though they often used what they knew in ways that got them in trouble. So naturally, as adults, they were knowledgeable and capable and not predisposed to keeping their heads down when things got bad."

Harry nodded, "Fair enough."

McGonagall suddenly spun to her left, wand raised, and cast, "Homenum Revelio."

Fred and George glanced at each other. George observed, "We're zero for two at this."

Fred continued, "We should probably stop until we learn the real disillusionment spell rather than the beginner version."

George nodded then turned to Harry, "So you're a junior marauder..."

Fred continued, "Yeah, that explains so much."

McGonagall began to nod, then stopped herself. Then she waved her wand and the map flew out of Fred's robes and into her hand. She added dryly, "If the two of you have nowhere else to be, I'm sure I can make the time to discuss where you obtained this and go over all of the jobs around this school that could benefit from your talents." They retreated quickly.

McGonagall frowned after casting a series of charms on the map, "Are you sure this does anything?"

Harry took that map and pronounced, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good". The map opened and Harry handed it back to McGonagall. "Anyway, we should give Remus Lupin whatever amount of money it takes for him to consult with the warding specialists. He apparently has a few years head start on them, so he may be able to speed up progress on the hospital project."

"I'll contact him first thing tomorrow." She was distracted by movement on the map, "What is going on in the Forbidden Forrest? There must be forty people out there."

"That's odd. We should check it out."

"You go to bed. I'll check."

There was a scream. McGonagall started jogging. From the last time she checked the map, she estimated that she was relatively close to the group. Possibly not too late to help whoever was in trouble.

Thirty seconds later, she could see occasional red flashes through the trees. A few seconds later she could hear voices. She couldn't understand the words, but heard occasional laughter.

Then there was another scream. Then whole area lit up with red light.

"... more observant. I cannot overstate the importance of situational awareness." She recognized the voice as Lockhart. He continued, "Now you'll have to excuse me for a moment." He emerged from the crowd, walking toward McGonagall. "Good evening, Headmistress. What seems to be the problem?"

"What... is going on here?"

"Well, you asked me to deal with the acromantula infestation. It turned out that there were quite a lot of them. So I did the obvious thing."

"You asked a lot of people to help out?"

"Oh, no. I put up some advertisements, 'Dark Creature Defense Seminar with Gilderoy Lockhart (with book signing to follow)'. And I set the price lower than I'd have preferred to make sure the turnout was high. So I've been teaching everyone how to track and stun acromantulas and some useful tips about the other animals out here."

"This doesn't seem safe at all."

Lockhart flashed a smile, "One moment please." He turned and fired a stupify, hitting an acromantula in midair. After firing the stunner, he cast a hover charm and pulled a woman aside just before it landed where she'd been standing. She screamed. Dozens of stunning charms hit the already unconscious spider as the others turned and saw it.

Lockhart called out, "Acromantulas also sometimes ambush prey rather than waiting for it to become trapped in their webs. They often drop from tree branches onto their prey, so it's important to stay aware of what's above you." He turned back to McGonagall, "They're obviously not the best at this, but I've got everything under control. Also, I negotiated with the Ministry of Travel for bulk rate portkeys. I'm getting a 90% discount for travel between midnight and four AM with a minimum purchase of 20 portkeys. So I'll have the spiders on their way to Brazil in a few hours... I assume Hogwarts will be reimbursing the other 10%. It is a facility maintenance expense, after all."

McGonagall sighed, "I'm too tired to deal with this. We'll talk about it tomorrow."