CHAPTER 93: LITTLE CHILDREN GROW UP, PT 2

Sunday afternoon, not that the day mattered much here.

After almost a week in Azkaban, Hermione's life had fallen into a certain routine.

She slept during the night, guarded by the Aurors' Patronuses, as they had still not stopped protecting her. She never again woke up under the Dementors' influence, although one time the Patronus had left briefly in the afternoon.

When she woke up in the morning, she would find the night meal in her cell. Typically bread, which would keep for a bit, so she saved that for lunch. She would then do some exercises in the confined area of her cell to wake up properly, and practice spells until the bracelet told her someone was coming. Then she would put everything away and climb under her blanket.

It was usually Auror Li who brought her breakfast. He was kind, and sometimes he sat with her for a few minutes, talking about his children. Understanding how boring life in Azkaban must be, he had also slipped her a book on Thursday morning. Tales of Beedle the Bard. It was a children's fairy tale book, but she didn't know the stories yet, and she'd soon read it through twice. It was a pleasant relief; her anonymous benefactor had given her a lot of books, but had apparently not thought to put any light entertainment in her pouch.

She was afraid to take her wand out again until Li had gone back to the Aurors' Headquarters (since the door to her cell block was too close to the stairs to notice in time when someone came from downstairs), so she would spend the time until he had returned doing the exercises from the Occlumency book that had been in her pouch. Not that she was getting very far with that. All this mentally pretending to be someone different was really, really hard. All she felt she'd really learned after several such practice sessions was that this wasn't really the sort of thing twelve-year-old children were supposed to be able to do.

Then she would continue practicing spells until it was time for lunch, and after that spend about two hours working on partial transfiguration. This was really hard, but she was starting to make some progress; yesterday she had successfully transfigured a square millimeter of wall into glass. Once magical exhaustion started to set in, she would move on to the non-magical books, either reading or doing exercises.

In the evening, another Auror would bring her a warm meal – healthy and nutritious like all meals here, even though it was utterly bland because no one would bother to add sugar or salt to food for prisoners who would hardly even taste it. She had wondered whether the good food was because of some ancient pre-Dementor regulation about treating the inmates well, or just to keep the prisoners healthy and suffering for as long as possible. She would then do some more Occlumency, followed by a bit more magical practice, finish off with some reading, and go to sleep.

Right now, she was doing exercises from the mathematical analysis book. And she was, surprisingly, bored.

It was amazing, she thought, how you could willingly spend hours and hours doing something, but not enjoy it when you had nothing else to do. The analysis book was hard. The first chapter started by defining what a natural number was, and then moved on to defining limits, and finally real numbers. She wasn't even halfway through the exercises, and they were interesting and challenging. If she'd been at Hogwarts, she would gladly have spent weeks in the library working through this book. She might even have considered going to a Muggle university for some time after her Hogwarts education, just to learn more about mathematics and physics, because it was so intriguing.

Hermione grumpily checked her proof attempt for errors again, and spotted a subscript she had mislaid. Perhaps she could complete it with this change?

Eventually she sighed, and closed the book. It was going nowhere. She just didn't feel like working, not on mathematics, nor on history or physics or Occlumency either. She wanted to go outside, take a stroll, maybe even (she shuddered at the thought) fly on a broomstick. As long as she could get out of this blasted cell.

Most of all, she wanted to talk to someone. Those two minutes with Li in the morning just weren't enough, and there was no one else to talk to. She was feeling lonely.

Today was Easter. Her parents would have been told, by now, that their daughter wouldn't come home for the holidays because she was in jail. Or would Professor McGonagall simply have lied, and claimed that she was dead? It might be kinder to them than knowing their daughter to be in Azkaban, but they were Muggles and so didn't know what the wizard prison was like.

Would they be allowed to visit her?

She desperately wanted to see them, even if it meant them seeing her sunk so deeply. She wanted to talk to them, at least over the phone. But she had no way to do that.

Well, actually...

She looked at the blazing humanoid, which stood next to the badger and lit up the room. Patronuses could be used to send messages, couldn't they? She and Harry had talked about it, before finding out that neither of them could do the charm, and theorized that the trick was probably just done by desiring someone else to know your happy thought. And she had a corporeal Patronus now, she could try it.

But what could she tell them?

And if they didn't know what happened yet, wouldn't this cause Professor McGonagall to find out, and then get in trouble for not reporting the huge breach of the law that someone had given her a wand? (Because she was quite sure that Professor McGonagall wouldn't report her, no matter what.)

Was the risk too great to be worth it? She really did want to talk to her parents... But what if they weren't alone?

A distant yell broke her out of her thinking. Very occasionally, she would hear them, the prisoners of the next block. They'd have to be yelling very loudly to be audible all the way over here. A nightmare, probably. She swallowed back the lump in her throat. Every once in a while, there was this reminder that she really had nothing to complain about. When all around you, people are cold and miserable, having nightmares in their sleep and reliving their worst memories in their minds while awake, a little loneliness just didn't compare.

... maybe there was something she could do.

It wasn't time for the evening meal yet, not by far. She should be safe for hours. It would be risky, but if the other prisoners didn't see her, they couldn't betray her. At most they could say that someone had been casting a Patronus, but why would anyone suspect the 12-year-old fellow prisoner in the next cell? And supposedly the Dementors also couldn't see you, if...

"Cloak," she whispered to her pouch, and the silvery cloak jumped into her hand. She threw the cloak over her back, and saw herself disappear, as the soft song lightly touched her mind.

"Alohomora." The grate to her cell clicked open. She sneaked outside, leaving the grate open because she might have to run back on a moment's notice if an Auror decided to come down for whatever reason.

"Alohomora." The metal door followed, as she swayed just a little from the magical effort of casting the spell twice in short succession.

And there she was, in the corridor filled with flickering gas lamps, where Li had walked her to her cell. She tiptoed towards the next cell block. Being closer, she could hear the sound of sobbing, but it stopped as she (and the Patronus) came closer.

"Stay!" someone inside yelled.

She stood still for a minute, replenishing her magical energy, then whispered "Alohomora."

Carefully, she opened the door. The smell assaulted her first. Urine, vomit... Hadn't the Auror cleaned this up when he got here a few hours ago, or was it fresh? She always tried to time her bathroom visits to avoid stinking up the cell, but these prisoners probably didn't have as much control over themselves...

In the first cell she saw, a man with horrible sunken eyes stared out of the bars. He looked so tired, so pained, that she almost lost control over the Patronus. But she pushed down on that emotion, and forced herself to look away and not think about what she was seeing too much. You're going to help them, she told herself.

There was movement in the two cells left of that one, she saw. But the two cells to the right, closest to her own cell block, were still empty.

Can you go into the fourth cell without showing yourself to them? she thought to the humanoid. If she left the Patronus outside the door, the Aurors might see its shine from the stairway before she felt them coming, but inside the cell block it would be safe (as long as the prisoners wouldn't be so stupid as to tell their guards about it). The Patronus just nodded, and shifted sideways somehow, and then it stood in the cell next to the man with the haunted eyes.

Stay, she mentally instructed, and then she closed the door, whispered Colloportus and went back to her cell like a good little prisoner.

Professor Michael Verres-Evans was reading the newspaper with a frown as Harry entered the apartment on Monday morning. All post arriving in their Oxford house was automatically delivered here to Hogwarts, so it was a Muggle newspaper, but the news seemed to be on very similar lines to the Daily Prophet. Harry winced as he saw the headlines.

Father looked up when he saw Harry come in. "It appears," he said in a low voice, "that zombies have attacked the town of Easingwold last Saturday. Some people have videotaped it. There are also pictures of zombies walking the highways. I would normally disregard this sort of thing as sensationalist nonsense or an elaborate hoax, but..." he helplessly waved an arm, indicating his surroundings, "I realize that perhaps I should be more open to the supernatural. Is this something your people know more about?"

Harry sank down in the deep, soft sofa opposite his father. Mother, he saw, was peeking out from the bedroom door.

"I guess this is where I tell you about You-Know-Who."

"No, I don't know who."

"Lord..." Harry took a deep breath. "Voldemort," he whispered. It sent shivers down his spine, saying the name himself.

"Lord Voldemort?" Professor Verres repeated at a normal tone.

"Don't say the name!" Harry exclaimed. "Please. It's bad enough that Dumbledore and McGonagall keep using it. It just feels like... I can't even explain. We call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who usually."

The Muggle man raised his eyebrows. "That seems a bit extreme."

"That was him, wasn't it?" Petunia Evans-Verres had come in and sat down on the sofa next to her son. "He's the one who killed Lily. And James."

"He is," Harry nodded. "He was apparently this kind of dark wizard who tried to take over the country by terror. People fought him, of course, but it's a lot easier to break things down than to protect them. Thousands of people died, not just magical folk, but of course Muggles thought that it was just accidents."

His father nodded. "That's roughly what Petunia told me after you went to school. And then he killed Lily and James, and he tried to kill you but some accident happened and he died, right?"

"That's the story, yes. Except that, one, he's not actually dead. Two, there was this prophecy about him and me, apparently we're destined enemies and one of us is going to have to kill the other. And three, it turns out he's actually an evil genius, and I have no idea how I'm going to fight him, or even what he's really trying to do."

The cup of tea mother had been holding fell to the floor and broke in pieces with a clatter. Father stared at him.

"I think your imagination is getting the better of you, son."

"No, dad." He took out his wand, pointed it at the carpet, and muttered "scourgify, everto". The tea stain and the broken pieces disappeared. "I am deadly serious. I didn't really believe it either, at first, but I was wrong. He really did survive, and I'm going to have to fight him someday. Sooner rather than later, probably, because people are dying. We're fairly sure he's behind the zombie attack. And he was definitely the one who framed who Hermione."

"We?" Professor Verres repeated. "Who's 'we'? Some friends of yours?"

"The Headmaster of the school, who's also the de facto leader of the light side of the war. Two other professors, and Moody, that's an Au- a policeman, although he's retired."

The Professor stood up, looking very angry indeed. "What the hell is going on in this school? Are your teachers actually telling an eleven-year old child to fight a terrorist? Are they mad? I'm taking you home right this second."

Petunia shot her son a questioning look, which he answered with a slight shake of the head. Her voice was thin when she spoke. "They won't let us, Michael."

"They have no legal right to stop us –"

"Right? You're Muggles," Harry bit. "You have as much standing in the magical British legal system as, I don't know, gorillas. It's not acceptable to torture or kill you, but you don't count as people either. No wizard is going to bother listening to any of your arguments." He shrugged. "And while I don't agree with that in most cases, I think this time it's for the best."

"What?"

"Dad, please, forget about me being only eleven for once. This dark wizard terrorist is real. He's killed off half a village full of Muggles just two days ago. How hard do you think it would be to do the same in Oxford? He knows where we live! I'm not sure how safe it is here in the school, but I'm not going home, and I don't think you should either!"

The Professor was breathing heavily. "All right. We can talk about this. Are you sure he's trying to hurt you?"

"I'm not sure of anything," Harry admitted. "Least of all what he's trying to do. But he knows me. And he absolutely, definitely, takes an interest in me. Besides, he is mass-murdering people, dad!"

"Which is not your responsibility! You're a child, Harry!" He paced the room, agitated, something he very rarely did. "Prophecy or not, you are too young to be involved in a war." He paused, and visibly forced himself to restore his calm. "Don't you dare do anything to put yourself into harm's way. I will be talking with your teachers about what they're putting into children's heads."

"I'm not really a child anymore, dad." The boy sighed, and stood up from the sofa. "But I guess I'll always be one to you no matter what happens. And maybe that's okay." He went to the door. "I must go now, I'm meeting someone at eleven. But I'm sure Professor McGonagall won't mind talking to you. I'll be back for lunch."

The meeting with Lesath Lestrange wasn't very successful.

Lesath had worked his way through the books on Harry's reading list, spending every waking hour on them. Today he'd asked his "master" for explanations of some of the harder concepts.

But he still couldn't cast the True Patronus Charm.

He tried, over and over. His wandwork was perfect. And yet he couldn't produce a Patronus. Harry thought he could sense it, the point where the boy failed. The little hesitation in his voice. Lesath was too afraid. Try as he might, he could never believe to his core that he had it in him to turn on death, Dementors and other evils, and win.

When the boy finally lowered his wand, there were tears in his eyes.

"I am sorry, my Lord. I have failed you."

"You haven't," Harry reassured him, even though he had to make an effort not to show his disappointment. "It was a gamble from the start. Only one wizard in ten can learn to cast the normal Patronus Charm, and I think this one is a lot harder and doesn't have the mist-form. In time, you might still learn it. It requires a pretty large change in your mind, to take to this spell. That costs time."

The boy nodded. But it was clear he didn't believe it.

"Besides," the Boy-Who-Lived added. "I don't think you need to be able to cast the spell to pass it on. If something should happen to me, you will be able to make sure that this spell is not forgotten."

The fifth-year boy's eyes widened in shock. "But surely nothing could hurt you?"

I wish, Harry thought, but instead he just said: "I lead a dangerous life, Lestrange."

There was silence, for a while.

"If I should die," the Boy-Who-Lived spoke at last, "Then find other people to teach the spell to. Only those who cannot cast the normal Patronus Charm, even though they have tried, and their gestures are perfect. People who don't seem dark or unhappy. Definitely not those who believe that blood purity makes you a superior person, or who have similar ridiculous biases against other people. They must not be willing to sacrifice other people for some greater good. And ideally, choose people who can shield their mind with Occlumency."

Lesath shifted on his feet. "Those are a lot of requirements, my Lord."

"Yes," Harry agreed. "But you will have time. I hope this will not be necessary, but if something does go wrong, it will be your task to make sure that the knowledge of this spell does not die with me."

"Yes, my Lord."

"I finished my review," father said when Harry came into the apartment for lunch. "I've just given it to your Deputy-Headmistress to post, when she came to see how we were doing. We have an appointment with her later this afternoon."

Harry nodded. "Anything you want to do before?"

The professor beamed brightly. "I would definitely like to see that library of yours."

Hundreds of thousands of books.

Bookcases reaching up to the distant ceiling, meters high, with ladders to reach the higher shelves.

Silence, except that sometimes the books seemed to rustle, even though there was no wind. There was a lone student sitting at a desk somewhere in a distant corner, but he wasn't making any sounds.

The air, saturated with the smell of old books.

"Son," Professor Verres-Evans said with a hint of awe in his voice. "I think I'm going to cry."

It was almost two hours later when Petunia – who had been quietly bored until Harry found her a book of fairy tales, which might be all about magic but that was only normal, for fairy tales – pointed out that she could really use a cup of tea before their appointment with Professor McGonagall.

As they walked back to the apartment and passed a corridor, Harry thought he heard a sharp intake of breath. It cut off immediately, and when Harry looked around, he just saw a hint of a black robes disappearing in the shadows.

It was only after he had delivered his parents to McGonagall's office half an hour later, and started trudging back to his common room, that a figure appeared before him.

"Come with me," Severus Snape said softly.

The two of them were sitting in the office of the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts. The middle-aged dark-haired woman in front of them looked well-organized, firm, reliable, but none of that would ever stop Petunia from remembering that she could kill the two of them in a second if she so wished. She might not have much reason to do that, of course, but the woman was also quite capable of removing their memories of everything magic-related in their lives, something which Lily had said happened quite regularly. And as that not only included the existence of her sister, but also their son, it would be just as bad as killing them.

Michael took up the conversation. He always did the talking for the both of them.

"My son seems to be under the impression that he is destined to fight this evil genius, who killed his birth-parents, faked his own death, framed a fellow student, and is now setting zombies onto normal people." He spoke calmly, but there was an edge to his voice. You'd have to know him well to understand that he was angry.

The woman raised her eyebrows. "Did Harry say that?"

"Yes. Did his imagination run away with him?"

"No, that is pretty much accurate," the older woman said. "But I shall have to ask him about the 'faking death' part. As far as I know, Lord Voldemort survived the death of his body merely because he is immortal, not because he planned on it."

Michael opened and shut his mouth a few times, seeming lost for words, but then apparently decided not to pursue this track of conversation.

"My son is also under the impression," and his tone turned more sharp, "that this is somehow his problem. That he will have to fight this dark wizard, and I quote, sooner rather than later. That he has to worry about how he's going to do that. This it is his responsibility to get his friend out of jail. And yesterday, he seemed remarkably depressed, like he was thinking that this zombie attack was somehow his fault."

A sad look crossed the witch's face. "I suppose that was to be expected."

Michael's eye spasmed a little, and Petunia carefully laid a hand on his leg. She had explained to him, earlier this morning, what the magical response to Muggles getting uppity was. That he couldn't throw up too much of a storm, demand his rights, threaten with legal action or notify the government. He hadn't liked it much, but she had got through to him, and she hoped he would remember.

"Why," he bit, when he had control over his voice again, "have you even been telling him any of these things? Does the concept of a child not mean anything to you? He is eleven years old. He should be playing and reading science fiction books. Not thinking about how he's going to kill some dark terrorist!"

"We never planned to tell him," the woman said. "Not until he was fifteen at least. But he guessed at the truth early on, and I... didn't quite manage to hide my shock, which led him to figure out that something was going on. From there on, it has been a series of uncanny derivations, nagging and even blackmail from his side. We always knew that his childhood could not be long, but I assure you we did try to shield him from too much knowledge, danger and politics for as long as we could. Unfortunately, he would have none of it."

Petunia exchanged a look with her husband. He looked as resigned as she felt. That did sound like Harry indeed.

"We only invited him into our council last week, after Miss Granger was arrested," the Scottish witch continued. "He demanded to be involved, as the fate of his two best friends was at stake; and even if he hadn't, it would have been foolish not to consult him, as he knows more about both children than any of us. As it was, he made several valuable contributions, and almost managed to save Miss Granger from Azkaban." Her face took on a sad look. "Unfortunately the price was still too high."

"Five million pounds," Petunia whispered. "It would have been higher without Harry?"

The woman shook her head. "The only reason we could pay for her freedom at all is because of Harry. He found a... legal trick, to gain some leverage over Lord Malfoy. Anyway, after that, he demanded full information, and with his friends already being targeted for his sake, we could not withhold the words of the prophecy from him any longer. Within an hour, he solved a problem we've had for years, and then... Well, in hindsight we should have consulted him much earlier. Without his input, we would still not know that Voldemort was hiding right under our noses."

What? Beside her, Michael blinked.

"Ah," Professor McGonagall said. "I see he hasn't quite told you the finer points of the situation."

They looked at each other again.

"He gave us the two-minute version," Michael spoke. "I don't suppose you would care to fill us in on the rest?"

"Of course," Professor McGonagall sighed. "With the current situation it's not like secrecy is still an option anyway." She rung a small golden bell, and with a *pop* a creature appeared on her desk. Petunia almost jumped back in shock at the ugly little thing with its leathery skin, bat-like ears on an over-sized head and bulging green eyes.

"Lakey," the Deputy Headmistress said. "Will you fetch us some tea and coffee please? I suspect we will be here for a while."

The office of the Head of House Slytherin was a lot like the Potions dungeons. Cold, drafty-looking stones, shelves with all kinds of things drifting in jars on them, books that somehow managed to look nasty despite having plain coverings and closed bottles with mysterious substances. A fire lit in the fireplace as the assassin stalked in ahead, which somehow made the room look even eerier rather than more comfortable.

And then Severus Snape sank into his chair and suddenly turned into someone else. His face showed the strange sad look that Harry had seen only once before, in a hallway several months ago. "Please, sit down."

Harry sat down in the other chair, as the Potions Master incanted a series of privacy spells.

When the Professor was done, he spoke again, with a strange tone to his voice. "Your aunt looks well. She has... changed, since I last saw her."

Harry nodded silently, still wondering what this was about.

"I never knew that Lily made peace with her sister," the Potion's Master whispered. For a few moments, it was as though he had forgotten Harry's presence. But then he shook himself.

"I do not know how best to broach this topic, Mr. Potter, so I will simply say it... before the Dementor, you recovered your memory of the night your parents died?"

Harry silently nodded.

"If... I know it must not be a pleasant memory, but... if you could tell me what happened...?"

"Why?" Harry said. His voice was solemn, definitely not mocking the pleading look that Harry had never expected to see from that person. "I wouldn't think that would be a pleasant thing for you to hear either, Professor –"

The Potions Master's voice was almost a whisper. "I have imagined it every night these last ten years."

"I –" Harry hesitated, but took a decision. It was not a request that Harry could really bring himself to deny. But he could get something out of it. It was not likely that he would have many opportunities to speak to the Potions teacher alone, and he might speak more openly without the Headmaster's presence.

"Will you tell me exactly how you came to learn about the Prophecy? I'm sorry to make this a trade, I will tell you afterward, only, it could be really important –"

"There is little to say. I had come to be interviewed by the Deputy Headmistress for the position of Potions Master, and so I was waiting outside her office while the applicant before me, Sybill Trelawney, ended her interview for the position of Professor of Divination. Minerva had already opened the door to send her away when the prophecy came. As soon as Trelawney finished speaking her words, I fled, forsaking my chance at Hogwarts's Mastery, and went to the Dark Lord." The Potions Master's face was drawn and tight. "I did not even pause to consider why that riddle might have come to me, before I sold it to another."

"A job interview?" Harry said. "Where you and Professor Trelawney both happened to be applying, Professor McGonagall was interviewing, and the door just happened to be open at the right time? That seems... like rather a large coincidence..."

"Seers are the pawns of time, Mr. Potter. Coincidence is beneath them, and they are above it. I was the one meant to hear that prophecy and become its fool. Minerva's presence made no final difference to how it came about. There was no Memory Charm as you supposed. The voice of a seer has a quality, an enigma which even Legilimency cannot share. How could that be imbued in a false memory? Do you think the Dark Lord would believe my mere words? He seized my mind and saw the mystification there, even if he could not seize the mystery, and so he knew the prophecy had been true. The Dark Lord could have killed me then, having taken what he wanted – I was a fool indeed to go to him – but he saw something in me I do not know, and took me into the Death Eaters, though on his terms rather than mine. That is how I brought it about, brought it all about, from beginning to end, always my own doing."

Severus's voice had gone rather hoarse, and his face was filled with naked pain. Harry filed the information away for future analysis – there were some very suspicious parts in this explanation, but he would have to go to the library to get a clearer idea of how prophecies worked. And he couldn't keep Professor Snape waiting while he thought.

Harry swallowed twice, and began recounting the memory.

Wednesday afternoon, in the Deputy Headmistress' office.

"Harry..." she was almost pleading. "I had to spend quite some time assuring your parents yesterday that we were not deliberately involving you in a war." She had had good explanations, of course, because in this case they were quite innocent. But she had still felt monstrously guilty explaining to the Professor and his silent but obviously perceptive wife why their bright young child had turned into a grave adult over the course of the school year.

The boy raised his eyebrows. "I do hope you're not letting them talk you into treating me like a child again. You are better than that, Professor. People are dying and you need me. If even a single life is lost or ruined because you withheld information for me, would that be worth it?"

It hit her. Harry always had that way of pushing her triggers. "No eleven-year-old should even think about such things!"

"I can agree to that," the Boy-Who-Lived answered reasonably. "But that is not the world we live in, Professor McGonagall. I am already thinking about such things. Is it better to work from old data and consider a lot of possibilities which are irrelevant, or to focus on what is actually happening? And something is happening, I can see it in the way you look and act."

How had the boy become so perceptive?

"There's been another attack." Albus had told her a few days ago that she should give the boy any information he asked for. He had looked sad, when he said that, but she hadn't pressed for his reasons. "A primary school in southern Wales."

A look of dismay passed over the boy's face, and then left, as the face settled into that too-hard look again. "Any survivors?"

"Nobody died," she answered. "But the children and teachers were all unconscious when they were found, and their right legs had been cursed off. St. Mungo healers are trying whether magical healing can regrow the limbs, but Professor Dumbledore says there isn't much hope."

"Ah." The boy seemed to consider this information. "Did they go back in time to..."

"Yes," she immediately confirmed. It hadn't been foremost in her mind when she heard, she was too shocked to learn about the roughly hundred and fifty children who would be maimed for life, but Albus and Amelia had a different way of thinking. "Director Bones went back in time the instant she was informed, but it was already too late; the victims were unconscious and the perpetrator was gone. We learned about it only long after the event, you see. There were no Muggleborns, Squibs or anyone familiar with our world in that village, to warn us before the Muggle authorities got there."

"Ah," the boy said again. "That's going to be hard to cover up."

She nodded. Albus had spoken heavily of the Ministry's and international concerns about that. One obviously magical attack in a week was quite a disaster already, but two might be enough to endanger the International Statute of Secrecy. The eyes of the magical world were upon them, now. He had added, with a grim note to his voice, that he had barely managed to stop the Minister of Magic from having all the children killed, as their deaths at the hand of some crazed killer would be far easier to explain than their survival in this way.

"Thank you," the boy said quietly. "I will think about this."

"Harry, you can't do anything here. And you don't need to. Why don't you leave this to Albus? He knows how to fight a war."

The boy smirked bitterly as he stood up.

"Because I don't trust his judgment."

Harry trudged back to his dormitory, frustrated.

People were dying, or getting hurt for life, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even if he wasn't stuck in this school, he couldn't anticipate where the enemy would strike next, and so he couldn't stop it from happening. Nor did he have the power to do anything about the consequences. He couldn't cast a charm that would give a schoolful of cursed children back a semblance of their legs. He couldn't trace down remaining Inferi, or cast protective charms over every single Muggle dwelling in the country, And if there were political aspects to this mess, Dumbledore wasn't telling him about them.

So he stayed put, like a good little child. He spent time with his parents. He also spent a lot of time in the library, looking up spells that he could cast which might come in useful. He had nagged Professor McGonagall to sign a permission slip so he could look up information about prophecies and possession in the restricted section, but got almost nothing out of it: the books on prophecies had done little but confirm tentatively what Dumbledore and Snape had told him, whereas the books on possession were too limited and often contradictory. Quietly, in the secrecy of his trunk, he practiced speed-casting the True Patronus Charm – if it came to a confrontation, it might play into Quirrell's hands to be seen to block the Killing Curse, but it would, on the whole, still be preferable over not doing so. He had tried talking to Draco, but the boy seemed to be avoiding him. He still hadn't figured out a way to conclusively prove Hermione's innocence – using a Pensieve to reproduce his conversation with Quirrell might help a little, but it would lead to all kinds of questions about his history with Quirrell, including the Azkaban breakout. Even if that was not an issue, Pensieve-memories could be changed, so it wasn't likely to be enough.

He practiced dueling with Neville every day, even though he didn't expect those skills to be of any use: it would be years before he'd have the sheer magical power to even be able to disarm a Death Eater. As for landing any spell on Lord Voldemort, a.k.a. Quirrell, well, having gone over the possibilities it didn't seem like a wise thing to try. Never mind the chance that it would kill both of them – if their magic resonated out of control again, it might well cause a magical explosion with massive casualties. Quirrell might be able to stop that, as he had done before, but in this case he had very little incentive to be the surrendering party. It would be like a game of chicken, with incredibly high stakes.

And besides all that, of course, he had done a lot of thinking.

Grindelwald was my dark mirror. He was what I could have so easily become, if I had given in to the temptation of believing that I was always right.

Dumbledore had told him that, months ago, when the world still seemed innocent. Like Grindelwald had been his foe, he believed that Voldemort was Harry's, and therefore Harry should understand him better than anyone else. And in a way, Harry could see that now. Despite everything, he still felt a bond with the man he had known as Quirinius Quirrell.

Had it all been an act? Or had some of his real self shown through? Harry suspected the latter. He could see how someone who, roughly, thought as Professor Quirrell had seemed to, would be willing to kill innocents to achieve some dark purpose of his own. What kindness and humanity he had shown had been a lie – and in hindsight, that was never very much to begin with – but his dry humor, cynical outlook and moments of depression might not have been.

Why would someone deliberately become a monster? Why do evil for the sake of evil? Why Voldemort?

He still didn't have an answer to that question. The entity who had used Bellatrix Back, Memory-Charmed Hermione Granger, nailed Yermy Wibble's family's skins to a wall and now handicapped a schoolful of innocent Muggle children was empty inside, that was certain. He felt no warmth for other people at all, and did not get affected by their suffering. And it seemed plausible, although it was painful to imagine, that Professor Quirrell could be like that –

– but not without good reason. That was the thing, really. Harry found it incredibly hard to believe that the person he thought he had known would take pleasure in the suffering of others. He might not care about it, but if he merely did not care, he would not go out of his way to inflict pain on innocents without an ulterior motive.

What does he want?

Harry had asked Professor Quirrell that question before. And he'd gotten a pretty clear answer.

I want Britain to grow strong under a strong leader.

Plan iss for you to rule country.

The answer fit what he had been doing. In the guise of Professor Quirrell, he had helped Harry grow stronger. He had taught him to control his temper. Had set him up as an army General and forced him to fight against impossible odds. Had helped him sow fear in the hearts of his schoolmates, when he had protected Hermione and the other heroines. He had painted him in a light that was both good and evil, light and darkness, so that Gryffindor and Slytherin would both be willing to follow him. And he had tried to get Harry to publicly defeat the Dark Lord again, with a large international audience.

Why do evil for the sake of evil?

If Harry had guessed correctly, the initial goal had been to set up an evil puppet for Monroe to fight. The greater the evil you defeat, the greater the hero. Yet this plan had failed, and so Monroe had disappeared, but Voldemort had gone on. He might have conquered the country easily, but he could not hope to also win the hearts of the people. There were too many who would never willingly follow a wizard who gained power by force, and thus Britain would stay divided, and not grow strong like he wanted. And so he hadn't conquered the country. He had prolonged the war, become known as the most terrible dark wizard in history. The scenario was perfectly set up to make a new hero arise.

Harry Potter.



Was the prophecy a fake? Severus Snape certainly didn't seem to consider it possible, but that didn't mean it wasn't. It just meant that Voldemort would have needed to know something that Snape and the others didn't.

A one-year-old child, with a prophecy about having power the Dark Lord knows not, who defeated the greatest dark wizard who ever lived. Harry had read some of the books about himself, and the theories as to why it had happened were wild. There were enough of them to allow everyone to believe whatever they wanted. And if that child went on to defeat that same dark wizard again, doing the impossible deliberately, and not as some strange kind of magical accident... such a hero might be able to unite the country.

Why exactly would the person behind Voldemort / Quirrell / Monroe want Harry to rule the country? Because he thought Harry might end up doing exactly what he wanted done? Because he believed that he could manipulate him?

Because he fully expected to be able to control him?

There was something special about the Boy-Who-Lived. He had a dark side which gave him extreme deductive power, and felt a mysterious feeling of doom around his destined foe. Dumbledore had guessed that Voldemort had tried a form of mind-control that had – unintentionally – grown into him. But if it had not been intended, then why would he still want Harry to rule? Why continue the same charade and play the part of Voldemort sowing terror?

Harry had initially refused to participate in the plan to pretend-defeat Lord Voldemort, which would perfectly set him up to take a leadership role should the need arise. But his co-operation might not be required. If Voldemort officially returned, then Harry could hardly step aside. It might not happen at the International Confederation of Wizards – Dumbledore was making sure he was there every moment of the day (taking excursions back to Britain only when Time-Turned) and Moody covered the place when he was asleep – but there would undoubtedly be other opportunities. And he had the feeling this week's attacks were simply a stepping stone to his ulterior plan.

Thursday evening.

The two of them were standing on top of Ravenclaw Tower together.

Earlier that day, Harry had been surprised to see Parvati and Padma at lunch. He had plopped himself down next to Padma (he was going to have lunch with his parents, but he could be five minutes late) and given her a querying look.

It had turned out that she and her sister had been sent back to the comparative safety of Hogwarts, as their parents lived in a primarily Muggle town, and had been scared by the dual attacks. And so it begins, Harry had wryly thought.

There was one advantage. Padma had also told him that she'd finished reading the books he'd given her. And before leaving, Harry had urged her to spend the rest of the day thinking about a world without death.

And now here they were. Twilight had fallen, with the stars just starting to become visible overhead.

"Why did you ask me to imagine a world without death?" she asked.

"Did you?" he asked in return.

She nodded. "I would have called it silly last week. If you can't die, you'll just grow indefinitely older and get sick and if you get cursed you're screwed forever. But I guess what you really meant was a world where you don't have to die, right? Like in your books, people don't age, and diseases are curable, so you have eternal life and eternal youth."

"Yes. That is what I meant."

She nodded again. "That would be rather nice. I guess overpopulation would become a problem, but then, we could solve that, right? If we can go to other planets..." She hesitated. "Muggles haven't actually done that, have they?"

"They have gone to the moon," Harry answered quietly, looking up at the half-full moon above the castle. "And some other planets in our solar system. Not any further yet, but they will. They're figuring out the underlying rules of the universe, and even without magic I think they'll find a way to at least get to Alpha Centauri within the next century. There were only two generations between the first airplane and the first moon landing, and computers are still getting twice as good every one and half year. Add magic into the mix, and I imagine we could do wonders."

"We'd have to get around the International Statute of Secrecy, though," Padma pointed out. "Because even if wizards started doing science, there wouldn't be enough of us to make that kind of progress."

"Would that be bad thing?"

"No," she said with a smile. "I guess not."

"Do you believe in it?" He kept his tone wistful, definitely not pushing. "Do you think we could do it? Unite the magical and Muggle worlds, get rid of old age and diseases, make everyone immortal, travel to other stars... Can you believe in that?"

She looked up to the stars in silence for a while.

"I don't know," she said eventually. "But I'd like to try."

"Do you have any guess why I asked you to imagine such a world?"

"Because you want to built it?" she guessed.

"That is one of the reasons, yes."

"But Dementors don't really fit in that picture," she hazarded.

"No, for multiple reasons," he said with a smile. It was time, he decided. "They represent death."

The girl beside him turned her head sharply. "What?"

"The fear is just a side effect," he explained, keeping his voice calm as though he were telling her something perfectly normal. "The Patronus Charm works best for those who are not afraid of death, and can think of happy stuff instead even when a shadow of Death is standing right in front of them."

"Ah," she said. Then, after a pause, "I can see why that wouldn't work."

Harry nodded. "But there is another way. I do not fear death either. Why fear what I fully intend to defeat? And nor should you."

There was silence, for a while.

"You're quite ambitious," she said eventually.

"I know," Harry responded.

After another minute of silence, she took out her wand, and looked at it thoughtfully. It was hard to see her face, now, as darkness had fallen while they talked.

"Do I just think of that world you had me imagine, with eternal youth, and going to the stars?"

"Don't just think about it," Harry breathed. "Intend it. It is the world we will make together, you and I and Hermione, and everyone else who will join us."

She nodded, and set her feet into the pose Mr. Lupin had taught them.

"Expecto Patronum!"

And there was light.