AN: Lots of things have happened in the last few months. I've been kind of out of it, so this chapter was difficult to write (say hello to the brain child of countless sleepless nights). I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again, though I'll try.

The main concern I see from the comments is that I'm spending too much time on Hogwarts. But this story will be incredibly long (it's going to cover all eras of Middle Earth, after all), and if there's anything I've learned over the last few years, it's that you need a solid foundation to build your characters on. If you are too impatient, you're welcome to wait until the Part I is over, though I wouldn't recommend it.

Yes, let's put a bunch of soul-sucking monsters into a school filled with angsty, magical teenagers. What could possibly happen?

Unedited.

[x]

A child suckles at a dying woman's breast, feeding off her proximity of death with all of the fervor of young, insatiable life. "His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle," she says, and dies before her milk runs dry.

(Seven months after Hermione's failed ritual, Harry begins to have dreams.)

[x]

Part I-iii
Nemesis

I will have vengeance

[x]

He is a quiet child. In an orphanage of fifty children, housed in a dingy brick building that could hold a maximum of twenty, he is not paid much attention. Even as a baby, he rarely cried. This is why his oddness is not discovered until much later.

There are many idiosyncrasies unique to his person. They are not shared by any of his fellow orphans. For one, he despises summer. While other children are off to beg adults for money to get ice lollies or sweets, he lurks in the shade, sweating through his clothes. It is always hard to breathe because the air is so wet; he feels like he is submerged underwater, drowning in it. Winter is far more preferable. He walks barefoot in his threadbare t-shirt and even if his skin turns blue and icicles form on his eyelashes, he feels no cold. He cups his hands together and blows; crystals of ice rain down, frost licking up his skin until he wears glimmering lace that melts at the kiss of the sun.

In the beginning, the Matrons teasingly named him "Jack Frost." After a few years, they only called him "freak," or "boy."

[x]

One day, it starts raining and never really stops.

There is a crack in Harry's window where the water comes in. Dudley had thrown his baseball at it the other day, and while it did not shatter completely, it was left with the concentrically expanding cobweb of cracking glass. Underneath, the paint is peeling, exposing a dun-coloured underbelly. Thick sheets of summer rain thrash against the willow tree in the Dursleys' front yard, its thick, knotted branches slapping wetly against the windowpanes. The roar of the storm is intermittently broken by the blaring telly downstairs, or the sound of Dudley's Playstation from the next room, the carnal sounds of dying men punctuated by bursts of graphic gunfire.

Harry does not need a gun to kill. That is the difference between them.

Aunt Petunia is baking cookies in the kitchen. Uncle Vernon is talking on the phone.

"—yes, Marge—of course you're welcome to—"

"—latest on the escaped convict, we have Kiera Manning on the scene."

Bam-bam-bam. The staccato of metallic fire. "AW YEAH! HEADSHOT!"

"—I suppose...yes, that is true... alright, I guess I will..."

Uncle Vernon hangs up the telephone and comes up the stairs, each step shaking the ground. "Boy," he says roughly. "Marge is comin' up for a few weeks. I don't want to see any of your funny business around here, you understand?"

Harry rolls over on the bed and stares at him with slightly glowing eyes, his room lit only by the intermittent flashes of lightning. The naked lightbulb, still dangling from its fixture, burned out two weeks ago.

"When have we been anything but the image of civility to each other?"

"Look here," says Uncle Vernon, his moustache bristling. "We've fed you, clothed you, put a roof over your head. Least you could do is show some gratitude. But instead, you repay us with your freakishness."

"This freakishness is all that is keeping you alive right now."

"I don't need your hocus pocus around my family!"

Slowly, Harry swings his feet onto the ground and sits up, arms braced at his side as he leans forward. His toes curl on the cold floor.

"Do you really think a few blood wards could stop a dark lord?" he whispers menacingly. Light from the open corridor reflects in slanted angles along his face, disappearing into the shadows of his hair, his eyes. "There is a protection detail around this house right now, stopping his psychotic followers from gutting you like the pigs you are." (they are the only things stopping me, and I am the one you should fear)

Uncle Vernon slams the door shut. He storms downstairs. Dudley yells in anger when his character dies. Not turning around, he walks to the window, reaches out with the other hand and strokes Hedwig's feathers through the cage, coaxing wayward feathers to lie flat. The windowsill is wet beneath his fingertips, and a small puddle pools around his toes. Above the heavens, the storm god rages.

There is someone standing across the street. When the lightning flashes again, they are gone, leaving him to wonder if they were even there in the first place.

[x]

Morning does not bring sunlight. The rain stopped in the middle of the night, but the clouds remain, thick and ominous. In this weather, Aunt Marge pulls into the driveway in a cherry red sedan, windows rolled down, Ripper's drooling maw jutting out of the backseat. From his window, Harry watches Aunt Petunia bustle out to greet her, still dressed in her crisply starched white blouse, tied over with a flower-printed apron with one corner soaked in flour. Uncle Vernon opens the door. They exchange an embrace. Ripper leaps out of the car.

Aunt Marge looks up, meets Harry's eyes. He flicks the blinds shut.

[x]

He has hated the water for as long as he could remember. To be specific, it is not the water he fears so much as it is the drowning. When he was six, a group of boys decided to throw him into the lake for fun and he swallowed several lungfuls of water before he was rescued. They all found themselves in mysterious accidents later on, but it is an experience he would remember forever.

The worst thing about drowning is the inevitability. Try as you might, struggle as you will, eventually you will tire and be dragged into the abyss. It is only when water fills your lungs and pulls you under are you given a swift, merciful end.

Years later, he will extrapolate his fear of drowning into his fear of death.

[x]

Aunt Marge resembles the dogs she favours. Little beady eyes set deep into her skull, at least two chins, and the shrewd ability to pinpoint weakness in the same way a bloodhound traces a scent. Like her dogs, she enjoys ripping people apart. Harry is her favourite target. When he was young, he was unable to repel her piercing, bitter words, unable to protect himself. He is no longer young (no longer weak).

She also knows it is easiest to hurt him through his parents. That is something that has not changed.

"Nothing against your family, Tuney dear, but your sister was a bad egg. It only takes one drop of bad blood to muck up the whole thing. Getting knocked up with some vagrant and...well, that's what you—"

Her wine glass bursts, showering her with shards and droplets of red liquid. Aunt Petunia shrieks, one hand clasped over her chest.

"Boy!"

"No, no, Pet," says Aunt Marge, once she has calmed down. "It's only my grip. Too tight, the doc says. All his fancy eating habits didn't stop him from kicking the bucket. Well—" she pours herself another glass. "—good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. And you." She points to Harry with one meaty finger. She shakes it like she is reprimanding a dog. "You should learn to respect your betters."

(A dream he does not remember: drink the blood of your brothers and live.)

His fingers curl into the table. He feels jittery, adrenaline running through his blood, making his heart beat too fast, muscles twitching when they cramp from over-tenseness, pupils blown black.

"My betters?" he hisses in a voice he does not recognize.

"Your parents abandoned you because you were just like them. If it wasn't for the goodwill of Vern and Pet…"

All of a sudden the scene changes. Aunt Marge's oversized frame warps into a skin-and-bones one, the chin dissolving into neck and sharp angles. The hair, oily and stringy, twisted back in a stern knot. But the expression is the same—the callous superiority (I am better than you, a part of him breathes. I can make you hurt with a word alone, and you look down at me like scum.), the haughty disgust. The finger, accusational. His head hurts like he is Zeus and Athena is bursting out of his skull, like there is a monster of his own creation being born from the elucidation of his mind.

He can't explain the sudden rage that overtakes him—can't recreate the sudden, thick, potent anger that claws up his throat, stifling his words, choking him with its intensity. He has never lost control like this before; yes, he has emotions and sometimes they get the better of him, but he has always felt them like they affected him through a veil, or perhaps a great distance. This is raw and full of hatred, overflowing by blistering, inhuman wrath. His vision blurs, his head spins (break her make her pay).

He does not realize he leapt to his feet until the back of the chair hits the floor with a solid clatter. He raises one hand in her direction and snarls, "Engorgio."

Aunt Marge bristles. "What are you goin' on about—"

Caught in her indignation, her chest swells with righteous fury...except it never stops. Buttons pop off her ironed white blouse with metallic pings, drilling little holes in the walls like bullets. Pants tear like a banana bursting out of its peel. Her scream of alarm abruptly changes pitch. Uncle Vernon bellows, "What—have you done! Fix her! Fix her!" amidst Aunt Marge's choked gasps and Aunt Petunia's horrified shrieking.

"She is fixed," says Harry cruelly. His lips are peeled back from his teeth and he breathes loudly through his mouth (and he thinks he should feel vindictive pleasure, viciously satisfied, but amidst the adrenaline he only feels old and weary.)

In the chaos he grabs his trunk and escapes on the Knight Bus. The last thing he hears, as the front door of Number Four slams shut, is ripping cloth and the roof bursting open. Then the purple double-decker bus blurs out of sight.

He spends the night in Diagon Alley.

That night, he dreams of the sound that knives make when they slice through flesh and grit and bone. He sees monsters cloaked in human skin, smiles that reek of falsity and malice, Longbottom's dead empty eyes (I should have fought harder), the endless scream that sounds in his ears, on and on and on, louder and louder and—

He wakes up with rust in his mouth, drowning in sweat, panting as though he had run a thousand miles in a heartbeat. He lies there for several minutes, breathing heavily, choking on words that don't make it past his teeth, and when his face begins to hurt he realizes his expression is locked in a glasgow grin. He thinks of dead empty eyes, everyone around you is dying in slow increments, and laughs until tears blur his eyes because he will never be weak again.

[x]

Around noon, there is a knock on his door, pulling him out of the tome he was reading. An unfamiliar male voice calls from the other side, "Harry Potter?"

"That would depend who's asking."

"Cornelius Fudge, my boy."

Harry opens the door slightly and peers out with narrowed eyes. There is a portly man in a pinstripe suit standing there, robes draped over rounded shoulders and a bowler hat propped on his round head.

"Minister. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You gave us quite a scare last night when you ran away from your Uncle's house, Harry," he admonishes. "Not to fear, your Aunt is perfectly safe. A little accidental magic is easily fixed."

"I am… glad to hear it. I don't mean to sound rude, but is there a reason why you are here?"

"Just making sure everything is well. Not to worry, your safety is well looked after by the Aurors."

"My safety?"

"Well, yes." Fudge checks his pocketwatch. "I have a meeting in an hour. Do take care."

Harry watches him go with perplexity. Why the sudden concern in his welfare?

He gets his answer next day when he goes into the Alley and finds Wanted posters glued to the pillars. BELLATRIX LESTRANGE, the caption reads, with a black-and-white photo of a woman with wild black hair and even wilder black eyes. AZKABAN. DEAD OR ALIVE.

[x]

He's only had a pet once. A baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. He smuggled it scraps he saved from dinner; bits of dried, stale crust, a few scattered green peas, a smushed, overripe apricot. It was mistrustful at first, but soon he trained it to bump against his fingers in search of food and love. It would sit still in his hands as he gently probed its head, its wings, the little adult feathers it sprouted along its underbelly, warbling, content chirps echoing from its beak.

He stares into its trusting eyes and wraps his fingers around its delicate little neck. He feels the crunch of broken bones more than he hears it, and he lets the sad, dead little ball of decomposing flesh drop beneath a bush. A few days later he would return and watch with fascinated eyes as maggots burrowed in and out of the breast tissue, revealing gleaming bone. After a few days it was gone, save for a few scattered feathers. Food for some animal or another. He does not care, and that is the end of that.

[x]

"Are you alright, Harry?"

He stands up and takes her trunk wordlessly. She murmurs a quiet thanks. From the window of the Hogwarts Express, parents are tearfully bidding goodbye to their children.

"I should be the one asking you that."

"The healers of St. Mungo's are very skilled. They fixed everything well." She looks at him, deflates a little. Harry meets her eyes, studies her pale face, the dark smudges beneath her jawline, like a bruise that had yet to go away. "You didn't visit me."

"The Dursleys locked me up."

(You could have escaped if you truly wanted to, the voice whispers insidiously. You were afraid to look upon your failure...your lies…)

"I don't like the way they treat you…"

"They know not to do anything too drastic. It's fine. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, well… a little shaky sometimes, I guess, but I will be alright. Thank you for…"

An undercurrent of anger runs through his voice, a live wire. "You shouldn't be thanking me. If I had seen it sooner, you wouldn't have—"

"Harry, no—"

"I was almost too late—"

She rests one hand on the crook of his arm. "I trust you," she says in a low voice. "God help me, I do."

His anger leaves him and he deflates like a punctured balloon.

"Then you are a fool," he says tiredly.

Just then, Longbottom stumbles into the compartment like he is pushed, but before Harry can go to him it slams shut again, hitting the tail end of his trunk. Faint laughter emanates from the hallway.

"Neville?"

Longbottom's head snaps up, startled. There is a barely suppressed terror in his eyes (dead empty too late). His face is whitened and lips waxy, like a corpse. He reminds Harry of a hunted animal.

"Harry… Hermione…?"

"What happened to you?"

His laugh is nervous, eyes darting to the door. "N-Nothing. Just tired. I might sleep the whole way."

"Go ahead, I guess…" Granger looks to Harry, but he can offer no explanations. "If you want to talk…"

"I know. Thanks."

Longbottom rests his cheek against the wall of the compartment and lets out a tired sigh. His eyes flutter shut.

Not soon after that, the compartment door slides open again. A girl with curly black hair and chocolate brown eyes steps in. She wears the plain black robes of the First Years and looks uncertainly between them. Though Harry was sure they had never met before, he almost feels like there is something familiar about her, like he saw her in a dream of some sort.

A high, soft voice says, "Do you mind if I sit here?"

"Of course!" says Granger with a bright smile, and pats the seat next to her. After a moment's hesitation, the girl gingerly sits down on the edge, looking a bit like she wanted to crawl out of her skin. "I'm Hermione Granger. This is Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. What's your name?"

Her eyes flickers lightning-fast to Harry's, then darts away. She licks her lips nervously. "M-Mira. Just Mira."

"Are you a Muggleborn? Don't worry, I'm one too. We're all Third Years, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask."

Mira's face suddenly twists into a foreign expression, something bordering contempt. "No," she spits out in a surprisingly hostile voice, edging away from Granger. Harry's eyebrows draw together in disdain. "I'm not a Mud–Muggleborn."

Granger's shoulders stiffen. She is hurt by the outburst, even if she tries not to show it. The back of his neck prickles in warning.

"I...see."

The train lurches and begins to chug. Soon, grey smokestack buildings are replaced by wet green trees. Finally, Harry breaks the silence.

"Mira, was it?"

"Yes. You're Harry?"

"I am. Do you know what House you want to be in?"

"Not really. I guess...wherever the Hat will put me."

"Wise choice." Harry regards her with inscrutable eyes. "Do you have any siblings or friends at Hogwarts?"

"Um, no, it's just me."

"Of course." Harry draws his wand and points it between her eyes. Granger barks, "Harry!" in a sharp, surprised voice, and Mira gasps a little in alarm (but there is not the appropriate amount of panic). Pleasantly, he says, "Of course, you're not who you say you are, so I'm going to give you two options. Either you tell me your real name, or we're going to see how creative I can be."

"Harry, put that wand away right now!"

"Granger. Open the door."

Although she seems skeptical, she trusts him enough to reach out for the handle, but flinches back with a sharp hiss of pain, cradling her hand to her chest. "Augh! It burned me."

Before their eyes, Mira's lips slowly peel back into a maddening smirk.

"Are you sure you want to know my name?" she says in a voice that vibrates with glee. "Can you handle it, little Potty?"

Harry's grip tightens. "Speak."

"Mm. Perhaps you will recognize me better as this!"

And in that instant, several things happen at once.

First, Mira's shoulder length hair dissolves into a frizzy mess of tangles and curls. Her eyes darken to pitch black. Her body lengthens and thins, teeth yellowing as she bares them in a savage grin. He recognizes her now—that smirk. He has seen it all over Diagon Alley, seen the fear in people's eyes. He has seen adults twice or thrice his senior looking to him for salvation, and finally he understands why.

Second, a low hum goes up around the compartment, signifying wards that had gone up. There is no escape.

After that, Harry has no more time to observe his surroundings.

He ducks under the first spell, a sickly yellow light that splashes off the wall and burns a hole in the wallpaper. He cannot dodge the next one because Longbottom, who had just woken up, was behind him. He summons protego to his fingertips, but the spell punches through the glowing white shield easily and slams into his chest. He is thrown against the seats. Granger screams when Bellatrix Lestrange sidesteps the scattered trunks on the ground and hauls Harry up by his collar, shoving him into the wall. With one long, yellowed finger, she gouges her nail into his scar.

Master have I not served you faithfully why did you leave me in Azkaban master why did you not come for your most loyal servant

Longbottom throws his shoe at her head and shouts, "Leave h-him alone, you… you monster!"

He does not realize he's screaming until abruptly she lets go of him and he crumples into the seat, wheezing for breath and trying to clear the grey fuzz from the corner of his vision.

Her smile contains sharp, dead things. "Ahh—" she cooed in a sickening, baby voice. "A Longbottom. I shall have fun finishing what I started." She crouches down and digs the tip of her wand against his chin. "Crucio!"

When Longbottom begins to wail, his limbs jerking as though they are no longer out of his control, like he is in unbearable pain, Harry tries to force himself to his feet, but he falls back with a sharp gasp. Granger gives an angry shout and tackles the woman, latching her legs around her waist and hands around her neck, trying to throttle her.

"Leave him alone!"

"Another one," she growls in irritation. Easily, she twists her shoulder and bats Granger loose, throwing her against the trunk case in a sharp motion. The impact sends the remaining trunks, balanced precariously on its edge, tumbling down onto her. Longbottom's eyes are glassy (dead-empty-gone), drool starting to slip down one side of his mouth. The scent of urine permeates the air. Harry lurches to a standing position, forcing down bile. Shakily, he raises his wand and points it at her, but she only seems faintly amused.

"Do you know how to use that thing, baby cousin? Mm? Auntie Bella will teach you! Cru—"

A far off scream, a sudden cold.

"You played with the realm of gods…"

Frost creeps up the windows. A rattle—several sounds mixed as one. The agonized scream of a mother cradling her dead child in her arms. The roar of a wounded predator. The final, rattling breath of a man on his deathbed.

"...and now you shall pay the price."

Bellatrix hears it too, because she almost drops her wand, her eyes wild.

"They're here," she breathes. "No, no…"

The train lurches to a stop. She curls onto the floor, all bloodlust and madness locked behind her eyes again. "My lord—my lord, have mercy, please—"

Harry's legs fold and he collapses against the wall. He presses his hands against his temples, hard enough to see stars, teeth clenched in pain. His wand clatters to the floor.

A whine sounds in his ears, rapidly growing louder.

"—not Harry, please, not Harry. Not my baby. Take me instead—"

"Step aside, foolish girl."

"No, you can't—"

"It is your own hubris that led you to this downfall…step aside. This is your last warning."

Green light, burning into the white. The woman's voice is cut off. In the fog it is hard to see. Red eyes and deathly pale skin, a single finger sliding out of a black cloak, pressing against his forehead—a fanged smile that cannot possibly be human—

Warm hands cup his face. Harry jolts back into himself, clawed hands scrabbling feebly for purchase in smooth tiles, back arched off the ground, gasping for breath. Gradually, he becomes aware that someone is talking to him, someone unfamiliar.

"You're safe now," says a hoarse voice, soothing and low. "The Dementor is gone. You are safe."

Dementor…

He tries to move his neck, but a flash of pain stops him. He hisses through his teeth. "Lestrange…"

A large hole had been blasted into the compartment wall. The wards are gone, fizzled out. The door is ajar, swinging on broken hinges.

"Escaped." The sound of a match striking. A grim, soot-smeared face is reflected. Something is pressed into his hand. "Here. Chocolate. It helps with the aftereffects."

With difficulty, he peels back the tin wrapper and breaks off a small chunk. "Did I...faint?"

"It is only to be expected."

"I heard my mother…"

His vision is blurry, but he thinks the man's jaw tightens. "I'm sorry." Somehow, the apology seems to be for something else, heavy and laden with unspoken sorrows.

"Neville and Hermione… are they…"

"They will be fine."

"Who are you?"

A pause. "I guess I never introduced myself. Remus Lupin. I am teaching Defence this year."

"Anyone… would be better than… Lockhart."

A long, cold rod is pressed into his hand. His wand. He almost drops it again but curls his fingers stubbornly over the wood, feeling it pulse beneath his touch. With a quiet, shaky exhale, he lets his head fall back against the wall.

A hand on his shoulder, warm and strong. "Won't be long now. We're almost at Hogwarts."

Harry closes his eyes and tries not to think. (There is someone screaming inside of his head like they are being burnt alive, torn from existence to be replaced by ash and the endless expanse of fading memories. He does not know whose voice it is.)

The sick, twisted glee on Bellatrix's face—the way Longbottom screamed and screamed, eyes glazed and showing nothing—crucio. And a second voice whispers, avada kedavra.

[x]

They are released from the infirmary in the morning. All three look paler than usual, but Granger is animatedly talking about catching up on the classes she missed last year, all the new electives they could take, and Longbottom doesn't look like he's one second away from keeling over anymore, even if he is a bit shaky. Conversations die down when they enter, but soon start back up again, covering them with a soothing blanket of white noise.

"How do you manage to take so many classes?" Harry squints down at Granger's timetable, then frowns. "Muggle Studies and Transfiguration are at the same time. You have four electives. And why are you even taking Muggle Studies?"

Granger snatches her paper back. "There's no mistake. I've been given...special accommodation to attend all of my classes."

He is picking halfheartedly at his toast and mashing his eggs with his fork when there is a loud, angry thump, and suddenly his own face is staring back at him from the plate. Granger picks out a piece of celery that has flown from his plate into her bushy hair with irritation. He picks up the Daily Prophet, wiping off grease and bacon bits from the side that lodged in his food.

The headline reads: BOY WHO LIVED—ATTACKED!

"You imbecile," Malfoy hisses. "What were you thinking, if you were thinking at all?"

"Nice to see you too," Harry says dryly. "How was your summer?"

"Move." Roughly, he shoves aside a startled second year, paying no attention to the affronted student as he settles himself into the now-vacant seat with a dignified huff. "What drove you to pick a fight with Lestrange, of all people? I thought you had more sense than that!"

Harry unfolds the newspaper and scans it. Then he frowns. "I never picked a fight with her. She attacked me. Half the information on this isn't correct."

The bell rings.

"Don't think you're off the hook. Come on, we have Potions. You better tell it to me straight, if you know what's good for you."

[x]

Two days later, the headline of the Daily Prophet reads: SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN!

"Well," says Malfoy, looking like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry (or neither, because it wasn't dignified enough, and Malfoys don't have emotions blablabla). "Now you have two convicts after you."

"My lucky number is eight."

[x]

Divination, Harry's first elective, is with the Gryffindors. On the way there, they are joined by a group of them, who are equally lost. Eventually, a painting of a fat man on a donkey —Sir Cadbury, Cardigan, something like that— points them in the right direction.

"What did you do this summer?" Granger asks politely. Weasley shrugs. He holds himself stiffer before, and he is more prone to spacing out in the middle of conversation. Harry wonders what had happened to him after Lockhart had...

"Nothin' much. What about you, Potter?"

Harry blinks slowly. "I blew up my aunt."

Weasley snorts. After a minute, and Harry's expression is still fixed in bland neutrality, the smile slips off his face. "You're not joking, are you."

"No."

"Bloody hell, that's awesome. I wish I could—"

"Ronald!"

"Hey, Ron," says another boy, one with dark brown hair and gives Harry a cautious, curious glance. He is pinching what seems to be a very fat rat's tail between his index finger and thumb. "Can you keep your rat out of my clothes? It's gross, man."

"Scabbers!" Weasley perks up. He holds his cupped hands out, and the other boy drops it in obligingly. "I thought Hermione's awful cat had eaten you."

Granger crosses her arms with a scowl. "Crookshanks is not awful."

"You have a cat?"

"I got him this summer from the pound." She softens slightly. "I wanted to get an owl, but the saleslady said that he's been there a long time, and I thought he'd be lonely."

"His face's been pounded, alright," Weasley says. He drops his rat into his threadbare pocket. Granger wrinkles her nose.

"You're just saying that because you have no taste in pets. Or names. What kind of name is Scabbers?"

Weasley flushes. "What kind of name is Crookshanks?"

"Don't think I don't know what you call that stuffed doll you keep under your blankets," Granger says nastily. She puckers up her face like she is giving a kiss, "Ickle little—"

"Oh, look, we're here!" Weasley says in a very loud voice and races ahead. He opens the door to the tower. All of them are assaulted by a nauseous wave of stiflingly sweet perfume. It reminds Harry of rotting flesh. "Eeugh, that's putrid."

It only gets stronger the closer they get. Finally, when they finish climbing the last of the stairs and reach the classroom itself, they step into a long, spacious room liberally draped in gauzy silks and tapestries and dangling beaded scarves. Circular tables are set up along the perimeter of the room, a crystal ball on each, and beneath their feet swirling white smoke rises.

Just then, the professor swoops out of one of the many drapes. She is dressed so similarly that Harry wonders if it is camouflage of some sort; if she holds still enough, no one can possibly pick her out. Beaded strings dangle from her long, loose sleeves and pool on the ground. Her large, round glasses enlarge her eyes almost comically.

"Welcome, my dears. My inner eye told me to prepare for you all today."

A few of the Gryffindor girls gasp in wonder. Granger scowls. "Or maybe you checked the class schedule," she grumbles.

The professor's eyes swivel to Granger, narrowed. "Non-believers will never be able to access their divination ability," she says airily. "Now, students, take a seat."

The class does not get better from there.

They start with tessomancy. Harry drinks his tea and passes it to Granger, and she does the same.

"Alright. What do you see in mine?"

Harry frowns at the cup. "A lot of soggy brown stuff." He angles his head to the side. "Or maybe a pine cone. A car?"

"I don't think wizards know what cars are, Harry."

"A beetle, then."

"Beetles aren't in the book."

"An acorn."

"Windfall; unexpected gold. Sounds nice. I could do with a little pocket money. Here, let me try now." Granger squints at the dainty china cup. "I guess if I turn it this way it kind of looks like a bird? Or a cross. That means…" She traces down Deciphering the Divine with one finger until she gets to the desired line. "...dangerous enemies. Trials and suffering."

"Well, that's one you got right, at least."

Professor Trelawney swoops in. "Having trouble, dears?" Without waiting for an answer, she plucks the teacup from Granger's hands and sets it close to her nose. "Hmm—oh!" Dramatically, she gazes at Harry with wide eyes and presses one hand to her bosom. "My poor, poor child. A falcon! A dangerous enemy in your path." She spins it ninety degrees clockwise. "A club, you will be attacked. The skull—danger awaits you. And…" She drops the cup. Dregs of tea fly across the floor, but she pays it no mind. With a trembling finger, Professor Trelawney points directly at Harry.

"The Grim!" she wails. "The beast that haunts the graveyards of night. The omen of death!"

And swoons on a conveniently placed couch.

Harry stands up, aware of thirty eyes on him.

"Well," he says blandly. "That was enlightening." He gathers his books and makes to go. After a second's hesitation, Granger joins him. Longbottom catches up moments later.

"My… my Uncle Algie says my Aunt Mellie saw a Grim. Harry—she died the next day."

Granger scowls. "Your Uncle Algie also threw you out of a window."

"Yes, but—"

"Don't believe any of that rubbish, Harry," she says briskly. "Now, then. Nev and I have Charms class and you have Defence. We'll meet in the Great Hall for lunch."

"As long as I don't get eaten by a Grim in the interim."

"D-Don't even joke about that!"

Granger rolls her eyes. "It's just superstition. Most people probably die of fright than anything else."

"They still die!"

"Correlation is not the same as causation!"

They disappear down a corridor. Harry huffs in amusement and makes his way to Professor Lupin's office. To his surprise, the professor is not teaching a class. Seeing Harry lurking by the door, he breaks into a smile and says warmly, "Come in, Harry. How are you feeling?"

Harry sets his bag down on a desk. "Better. Thanks."

"I was meaning to drop by, but by the time I had a chance, you were already gone." He pauses. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes, actually. I wanted to ask how you drove the Dementor away."

"Ahh. I was wondering when you would ask. Your mother had the same insatiable curiosity."

"Not curiosity as much as necessity. You knew my parents?"

"I was friends with them. They were the best people I have ever known." His eyes gain a far-off quality, haunting and nostalgic. Then he snaps out of it and looks at Harry. "You look like them, you know. You have your mother's…"

(But Lily's eyes were only ever filled with passion and love, whereas Harry's were cold and wary).

The bell rings. Both of them jump. As students begin to stream in, Lupin says, "It's called the Patronus Charm."

"Will we be learning it in class?"

"No, I'm afraid not. It's not on the curriculum, as most adults cannot form one."

"Then how are we supposed to protect ourselves from the Dementors?"

"They won't get that close to you."

"I think the train proved otherwise."

Lupin is silent. Finally, he says, "If you have time next week, I can show you. But for now, take a seat. Class is about to begin."

The bell rings again. When the noise of shuffling books and chairs fall silent, thirty pairs of eyes stare expectantly at the front.

The first instruction he gives the class is to put their books away.

"This will be largely a practical lesson. Can anyone tell me what a boggart is?"

Several hands shoot up.

"Yes, Ms. Edgecomb."

"It's a creature that manifests as our greatest fear."

"Very good. Five points to Ravenclaw."

The lesson continues in this tangent. Lupin teaches them about boggarts, where they were most likely to be found, and how they were defeated. Then he asks the class to gather around the shaking wardrobe situated at the front of the room.

"Now, class," says Lupin, his wand out. "Remember, think of something funny. The incantation is Riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus," the class repeats dutifully.

"Very good. Are you ready, Mr. Corner?" The boy had brashly volunteered to be first before he had even known what he was volunteering for.

"I—uh, yes. I am."

Lupin blasts open the wardrobe door.

A formless black mist oozes out, nebulous, until it catches sight of Corner, who is several paces ahead of everyone else. Then it begins to change shape, hissing with pallid white luminescence, snaking around to form feet, then legs, a torso of cruel muscle and bone. Finally, eyes that glow amber-red, cold and snake slitted.

With a burst of light, all is still.

The figure that stands before them wears Hogwarts robes, the sleeves rolled back to the elbows. Black cloth obscures the rest of the body. Blood is splattered over the curve of its pale wrist, caked beneath the fingernails, dried between the knuckles. The face would have been familiar, if not for cruel sneer twisting his face into something dangerous and beyond reason, the eyes that were red instead of green. (And in that face Harry sees another boy, one who embraced his intrinsic cruelty instead of pushing it away, one in Slytherin green instead of blue.)

Harry Potter holds a knife in one hand and whispers, loud enough for the others to hear, "Don't go starting a war you can't win."

(I am his biggest fear, he thinks, and it brings a tang of satisfaction to his mouth).

Corner is frozen in place, eyes wide enough to show the whites. A disquieting murmur shifts through the students like an endless tide, "Potter? He's afraid of Potter?"

And the thought begins, what am I most scared of?

He steps away from the wall. The boggart focuses on him. Immediately, its form begins to shift again, but to Harry's surprise it does not change much. Its body shrinks, clothing changing from school robes into rags, and the blood is now smeared over its face and neck as well. It is a small boy, curled up in the corner of the classroom, shaking with fear. Birdlike arms are wrapped around skinny little legs, and as Harry watches, his stomach beginning to churn with disgust (and fear), he raises large, pleading eyes to the crowd.

"Don't let him hurt me anymore," it begs in a plaintive, childish voice. Harry grinds his teeth hard enough to break his jaw. Behind him, he hears Lupin's breath catch in his chest. "I'm not a freak. I'm not."

"Dear Merlin…" someone whispers.

Harry smooths his face into an expression of impassive disregard and raises his wand to point straight at the boy. The spell riddikulus echoes obediently in his memory, but how can he make light of this? He wants to destroy its existence, excise it from his memory. This way, it will never have existed.

"Bombarda," he says coldly.

The boggart shrieks. Blood splatters over the wound in its torso, and it falls to the ground, body curled like a dying spider, spasming wildly.

"Help me, please!" it cries out. "I didn't do anything to deserve this!"

He takes one step closer. The boggart shrinks back, reaching one hand out to the others. Harry sees some of the students shift nervously on their feet, caught in indecision.

The spell catches its shoulder this time. Snot and tears run down its face, a smear of blood swiped across pale lips. Harry approaches, kneels in front of it (his fear of being weak and used and thrown away like a bloody bruised broken toy).

"I won't be you ever again," he tells it softly.

A hand comes down on his wand, deflecting it to the side. Harry glares into Lupin's sad, sad eyes.

"Don't kill it, Harry," he says.

The boggart changes again. Now it is a large, black beast, eyes white and shining. It is either a very large dog or a very small bear. At first, Harry thinks it is some kind of large wolf, but someone behind them whimpers. "The Grim…"

Lupin's jaw clenches. "Riddikulus."

Crack. Its long, shaggy fur is now braided into pigtails with little pink bows. With a flourish of his wand, he forces it back into the wardrobe, where it thumps once, then is still.

They are all staring at him; some with pity, some with horrified understanding, and others with fear. Harry drags the back of his hand over his mouth roughly. It comes away red from the boggart's illusory blood. As he watches, it darkens to black, then evaporates.

"Class is dismissed. Mr. Potter, a word, if you will."

The students leave. Some cast him glances behind their backs as they go. When the last are gone. Lupin approaches him and says, in a soft voice more suitable for wounded animals, "Mr. Potter—Harry. Please know that I am here if you wish to talk. Not as your professor, but as a friend."

"Thank you," he says transiently. "May I go?"

(You do not have Lily's eyes.)

"Yes," he says, weary and tired. He looks like he has aged ten years in the last minute. "You may go."

As Harry crosses the threshold, he looks back. Lupin is slouched against his chair, staring woefully at a picture frame clutched in his hands. It is angled away, but when he leaves the classroom and hears a faint, stifled sob arise from behind him, he knows who it is.

[x]

By dinnertime, the entire school knows of Harry's Defence class. Of course, the tales spread as wild as they were fast.

Malfoy says, "You are your worst fear? How disgustingly pathetic. Maybe you should be a Gryffindor instead."

But his eyes, belying his tone, are concerned, and he is asking Harry if he is alright in the only way he knows how.

Harry hums under his breath. "I was Corner's worst fear too. I'm quite impressed." I'll be fine.

"What did you do?" says Granger, intrigued.

"I put dead animals in his bed."

Instead of reprimanding him, Granger only heaves a sigh. "I was wondering why he kept avoiding you after last year."

"Perhaps you should have been a Slytherin instead, Potter," says Malfoy, raising an eyebrow.

(Put me somewhere where I can be forgotten.)

"The best Slytherin is one who is not in the House." Harry leans forward and smirks, to Malfoy's sudden consternation. "Wouldn't you agree?" After a moment's thoughtful contemplation, he adds, "Oh, by the way. I saw the Grim today."

Longbottom drops his cup.

[x]

He kills his first girl the way he kills the bird—ruthless, efficient, and without mercy.

She was a long-time bully of his and mistook his quiet demeanor, his predilection for keeping his eyes averted, as a sign of weakness. In reality it is to hide himself from the rest of the world, to assuage the sheep that no predators lie in their midst. It is easy, almost disappointingly so, to lure her into the trap. He's always been able to do things with his mind. It makes him special. If he concentrates enough he can make anything happen, and he tests the limits of what he can do on the girl until she dissolves into a slobbering mess and is of no more use to him, save for a body he will eventually need to clean up.

He doesn't quite kill her —they find her five weeks after she is taken, rocking back and forth and sobbing wretchedly into her knees, gnawing on her wrists— but she is dead inside, and at the end of the day, it is the same thing.

[x]

Harry does not work up the courage to talk to Lupin for a long time. He does search up the Patronus charm in the library, but what information there is is very limited and practically useless. 'A spirit of positive thought?' Pah. It could have said, add toe pickle jam to a marble slab in the middle of the full moon for all the help it was.

But when weeks pass and he is still unable to produce anything, he reluctantly goes to Lupin for help. The man is surprised to see Harry there, but graciously upholds his promise.

"We don't have a Dementor to practice on, unfortunately, though I can help you with the spell itself."

"Thank you."

They decide to meet the day of the first Hogsmeade trip. It is the only day Lupin has open, and Harry does not care much about going to walk around in some city anyway. When he tells his friends, they react with varying levels of chagrin.

"I take back what I said about you not being a Ravenclaw," Malfoy proclaims. "You are mad. I have been looking forward to this weekend since the beginning of the year. You couldn't possibly stop me."

"We'll bring back sweets for you," Longbottom promises.

"Let us know how it goes."

"I will. Have fun."

The practice itself does not go well. Harry has never had this much trouble with spells before. While he was not arrogant enough to assume that he would be able to get it perfectly on the first try, he expected to be able to make some wisps of smoke, at least. Nothing.

He tries every memory he has that is remotely happy. The first time he climbs a tree and listens to the birds sing—the day he found out about magic—meeting Hermione and Neville. Seeing his badly disguised frustration, Professor Lupin smiles softly and says, "It is alright, Harry. Most wizards never learn to make a patronus."

"That's because they never tried hard enough," Harry grumbles.

Lupin shuffles a few papers, marks a "B" down on the corner of an essay and circles it with red ink.

"Some things come with time, or perhaps not at all. Do not be too hard with yourself. We can meet again in two weeks, if it works for you."

"Could I see your Patronus? I'm still having trouble with mine."

The professor raises his wand; a stream of silver light shoots out of the tip, coalescing into a dog with a shaggy black mane, eyes glowing white and happy. In the ethereal luminescence, his face is pensive and sad.

"I thought your worst fear was the Grim."

With a flick of his wand, the Grim dissolves into the air. "The Patronus is fuelled by strong emotions. Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell which are positive, and which are not. There is a fine line between the two." He pauses, takes a swig of tea. "Sometimes I'm not even sure it exists."

"That's not all."

Lupin grins and it is not a happy expression, full of loss and solitude. "Very astute. Sometimes, it is our fear that protects us, because it shows that we have something to lose."

[x]

Christmas holidays.

Someone sends him a broom. Frowning, Harry checks it for a tag, but there is none. He peels back the paper to reveal a glistening handle, each bristle hand-straightened and perfect. For a moment Harry feels the irrational compulsion to mount it and dive out the window—how difficult can it be? But then he shakes his head and stows it under his bed.

He has never been fond of heights. Not because he is afraid of them, but because he often feels the insensate, yet non-suicidal urge to jump, to fall, to feel the air tear him into two. An insane brand of curiosity. Sometimes Harry wonders if the avada kedavra had touched him in the head in more ways than one—if being close to death is the only way he can feel alive (because he has lived with this fate, this pain and chaos and war in his blood for so long that it has replaced love and warmth and safety in his chest, until he knows not what to do with himself otherwise).

There are some people who feel the call of the void stronger than others, where the endless chasms beckon.

[x]

The patronus does not come after two weeks, either. Or the month after. Soon, winter holidays pass. It is almost February, and Harry still has not been able to make anything come out of his wand.

Then, the whole matter is pushed to the side, because Sirius Black breaks into Gryffindor Tower and almost kills Weasley. The whole school is placed under lockdown. All students are gathered in the Great Hall and the Dementors are allowed to roam the courtyards. Whenever they passed too close, the students closest to them would shiver uncontrollably. Older students soothed younger ones.

Weasley is surrounded by other students. Once the shock of his near-death experience had worn off, he began to milk it for all it was worth.

"I was having a dream when I heard a sound, like ripping cloth. I woke up and there's this bloke —shaggy black hair and crazy eyes—standing over me with a wicked knife. I threw my pillow and attacked him—"

Seamus Finnegan, who lived in the same dorm, snorted and rolled his eyes. "Please, Ron, ya screamed like a little girl and he ran away."

"I almost died."

"But he coulda killed ya," says Finnegan, furrowing his brow."Woulda been real easy to. Why didn't he?"

No one knows the answer.

Harry finds out three days later, entirely by coincidence. He is going through his trinkets when he finds the photo album Granger gave him in First Year. Smiling softly, he caresses the cover. It is one of his most prized possessions.

The first picture is of his parents. Or rather, his father holding a flower out to his scowling mother. At the bottom of the picture, in a cursive font, James rejected for the fiftieth time.

He flips a few more pages. Eventually, he finds the wedding picture. His mother and father smiling, and—a grinning black haired man in the middle, one arm slung around either of his friends, dragging them both into the photo. Then a picture of Harry's birth, the same man holding him with awe and a little terror, an amused Lily watching from the background. There is unmistakable love in his eyes. James has one hand on his shoulder. He is not looking at the camera, but at his friend, smiling with lazy contentment.

It is Sirius Black. Younger, without the madness in his eyes and etched into his brow, but Harry would recognize the face anywhere. It is impossible to see the deception in him, but it is there nevertheless, dormant and waiting.

Family means nothing in war.

He thinks of Malfoy, Granger, Longbottom. He thinks about a knife in the back.

Even your friends will betray you.

He does not sleep that night.

[x]

"Nightmares? You don't look so good."

"No—no, they're not nightmares. It's fine. It's just…"

[x]

He hates children, even if he is one himself. He has never truly been a child. At least not an annoying loud pathetic asinine fool.

Just as he looks down upon the others for their lack of intellectual ability, they look down upon him for his breeding. (Half blood, they whisper, and he wants to rip the tongues out of their mouths because he is not half of anything.) They are pathetic if they think his blood will curb his power, and as he forces the magic down from his fingertips and abides by the cruel, cold smirks that promise pain (but their idea of pain is so superficial, compared to his), he waits for the day he will make them all pay. He will make them kneel, these proud, cold purebloods. He will bend their knees or slash them down. One way or another, they will be beneath him.

One day, he will be great.

[x]

He goes to see Lupin. "You knew my parents. You also knew Sirius Black." I recognize your writing in the photos.

Lupin closes his eyes. "We were trying to spare you of that knowledge."

Harry throws the album onto his desk. A few papers scatter. It falls open to the picture of Sirius Black holding little Harry in his arms. Lupin glances at it, then tears his eyes away as though burned.

"Who was he to me?" he demands.

Softly, "Your godfather."

Harry feels his legs go shaky. He finds a chair and sits down.

"And why… why is he in Azkaban?"

Even quieter, "Your parents were hiding under the Fidelius Charm. Sirius was the Secret Keeper, and he betrayed them to You-Know-Who. That's why he was able to find you."

But no good storyteller begins at the end of a story, so Lupin begins by telling him about the Marauders. Harry listens as his professor recounts tales of his father and mother's youth, their endless pranks and joy and laughter (a part of him eagerly drinks up the knowledge, and the other part is repulsed because his father is the kind of student he would dislike). He tells him about Peter Pettigrew, about their fourth member (the forgotten one, the hanger-on, the one with enough weariness in his heart to drown them all a thousand times). Sirius Black blew him up, and all that remained was a finger.

[x]

There is a dream he has forgotten. Or perhaps it is not a dream. With his soul separated (fractured), sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference.

Across the endless sands, an eternal sun blazes. There is a man prostrated at his feet, bones thin and fine as the bird he once kept as a pet. He crouches so that they are level, and over the still figure he gently probes its skull, its bony arms, each juncture in its vertebrae a hard and painful knot, the skin along its underbelly cracking, a croaking voice, "please master don't leave me don't leave i don't want to die…"

It stares at him with eyes clouded by blindness, the skin of its face cracked and peeling into angry red scores as if attacked by a rabid dog. Its swollen tongue darts out and wets its lips ineffectively. He lets his fingers trail around its delicate little neck, calculates the amount of pressure he would need to break it. It is easy to do so, but he does not, because he is no longer a child, and he no longer believes in death as an escape.

So he says in a deceptively kind voice, "Are you thirsty?" and when it nods and nods with such fervency he thinks its head will just pop off and sail into the distance, he summons a sparkling glass decanter and pours it into a clear glass cup. The man accepts with trembling hands. It freezes at the drifting scent of rust.

"Drink," he says, cruelly, mercilessly. "Drink the blood of your brothers and live."

It shakes. It raises the bowl to its lips.

It drinks.

[x]

Scabbers is gone.

"Your cat ate him!" Weasley roared, brandishing a clump of hair and a piece of torn linen with blood in Granger's face. "He—ate—Scabbers!"

Granger frowns. "A bit of blood and fur is hardly proof."

"He's had it in for Scabbers since the beginning!" Spittle was flying everywhere.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ron," Granger says primly. "Scabbers is probably just hiding out somewhere."

"Your rat was close to dying anyway, Weasley. It was looking progressively worse through the year."

"Shut up, Potter!"

"I don't see why you're so upset. You can ask your parents for a new pet now."

"It's not like you would understand. You've gotten everything you've ever wanted."

Granger flushes angrily, but Harry cuts her off, his voice calm and modulated as normal. "There's only one thing I want."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

And he smiles, slow and vicious and desolate. "The death of Sirius Black."

[x]

He is walking back with Granger and Longbottom from Herbology one day when he suddenly realizes that his wand is not where he left it. Frowning, he digs around in his bag, even though he never puts it there.

"You guys go without me," he says. "I'll catch up."

"What's wrong?"

"I can't find my wand..."

"We can help you look."

"No, it's fine. I had it last class, so I must have dropped it on the way."

"Well, alright. We'll save you a seat. Let us know if you need help, okay?"

It is not along the path or in the heavily-rimmed hedgerows on either side of it. It is not in the greenhouses. Harry flexes his fingers and tries to summon it to him, but it does not work. Growling in annoyance, he is about to find a professor to help him where a flash of black catches the corner of his eye.

A Grim.

That's not a Grim, a voice in his head says, sounding suspiciously like Granger. It's just a very large dog.

And in that very large dog's mouth was his wand.

"Blasted mutt," he breathes.

It cocks its head to the side, pink tongue lolling out between the wand and its sharp lower teeth, almost like it is laughing. Although it is of intimidating size, its fur is ragged and it seems to have fleas. Ribs jut out beneath its patchy pelt, each stretch of skin painful and knotted. If this is truly Death's Hellhound, then Death needs to take care of his pets better.

The Grim pants happily, then turns with a wave of its massive tail and begins to trot towards the Forbidden Forest.

"No, wait—"

Frowning, he considers that the dog may be a familiar of some sort, trying to lure him out of school perimeters. But he needs his wand. Swallowing what remains of his rationality, he starts to run.

It takes a winding route between the Black Lake, nose to the ground, following some kind of scent trail. Harry is red in the face and panting for breath by the time it slows down. When it finally comes to a stop, turning in a circle around a ring of mushrooms a few times before flopping in the centre, tail curled contentedly around its paws.

"You've had… your fun…" Harry manages to wheeze out between gasps for air. "Can I have… my wand back… now?"

That is when the cold hits. The dog barks in alarm.

Where did that come from?

He whirls around, face to face with a Dementor. Its hooded head is parallel to his, and bony, rotting fingers are already reaching out, digging themselves into his clavicle. Harry tries to break free, but it is too late—its cowl wrinkles gently as it grazes Harry's forehead, and now he stares into its smooth, eyeless sockets, the gaping mouth with no teeth, perpetually open in a rattling, hungry maw. A bit of morbid curiosity makes him wonder if this is what all Kiss victims see before they… he has no wand but he splays his hand against its chest, expecto patronum, expecto patro expatro numex peroexpectoexpecto

It inhales with a wet, rattling noise.

His head spins, he would have fallen but its fingers have gouged themselves underneath his shoulder blade and it pulls him close in a caricature of a lover's embrace—darkness, like the ink he uses to write his essays, splatters across his vision—he feels sick, nauseous, and it is too hard to keep his head up, keep breathing, it would be easiest to stop— and its lips close gently over his and sucks.

As his last breath, the bit of air he could never quite exhale properly, is seized from his lungs, something else is dragged out, sticky and clinging even as it disappears down the Dementor's gullet. It is like he is watching his memories in reverse, fast forwarded, losing each one to a cool, calm blankness as they go...

"—Lily, it's him! Take Harry and go!"

No… no…

And then something cracks apart, a monster birthed from a delicate shell that breaks in the onslaught of cold. The same overwhelming power liquefies his bones, burning through his blood, and he would scream except there is no air in his lungs, and he throws back his head, exhaling the scalding power into the Dementor's maw. For a second, its sucking falters.

In that instant his eyes snap open. They glow white, sclera and irises and all, like he is overflowing from within, and driven by a primal hunger, he grabs the Dementor's rotting face and yanks it down deeper into his own, and when he bites down and sucks he feels his lost memories flowing back into his mind, slotting neatly into their places. But even after his are fully restored he continues to pull, and eventually it is the Dementor's turn to wail and scrabble at his shoulders with breaking bones, making a sound of inhuman agony as he reaches deep into its essence and makes it his own. His magic flares around him, turning from its usual, neutral blue into something dark and twisted, phantom hooks gorging themselves into the Dementor's core, latching on and ripping it apart.

When he lets it drop to the ground, there is nothing more than a shrivelled husk.

When he finally comes to himself, he is sitting in a field scorched by frost, a blackened, stinking robe strewn across his feet. The ground is charred and when he inspects his arms, he realizes that his flesh is blue and strewn with thick fingers of hoarfrost.

In the west, the sun is setting.

Night falls. With glowing eyes he looks around him. The dog is gone. No one is there.

He pulls out his wand (it feels warm now because everything else about him is so cold) and casts a few scrougifys on the Dementor's robe. When it does nothing except emit puffs of dust, he shrinks it and quickly stuffs it into his pocket, trying to minimize contact. Even touching it makes him feel uncomfortable (though whether it was from the latent aura or from what he had done, he wasn't sure).

He makes his way back to the dorm just before curfew. Some of the other boys give him askance glances but say nothing. In the morning he will wake up gasping, but the dream fades away before lunch, and all is forgotten in the hazy aftermath.

[x]

He sees the dog again.

It is lurking at the edge of the Forest, staring at him with haunted eyes.

[x]

"Today," says Professor McGonagall. "We will be changing mice into teacups."

When Harry taps the tip of his wand halfheartedly against the squeaking mouse, for a moment a bright light emanates from it. It startles him enough that his grasp on the spell falters. Narrowing his eyes, he tries again. Again, the bright flash.

"Try again, Mr. Potter," comes a voice behind his shoulder. He almost jumps out of his seat in alarm.

"Professor?"

"Go on."

This time, he watches as a tiny, ovular shaped light the same size as a kernel of corn lights up within the mouse's stomach, and as he coaxes his magic to life, wisps of calm blue light wraps around the white, shining heart, and stifles it with a merciless clench.

A teacup clatters onto the table.

"Well done. Five points to Ravenclaw." She spares a terse, unusual smile in his direction. "It seems you have inherited your father's talent for transfiguration."

Trying to see the lights auras again only gives him a migraine. In Potions, he almost drops a whole lily bulb into their cauldron before Malfoy smacks his hand away with a startled, "What do you think you're doing!"

He blinks, feeling a bit dazed. Two Malfoys stand before him, swimming in and out of view. "Sorry."

"You look like hippogryff dung."

"I see you are working the infamous Malfoy charm." Blindly, he gropes for the edge of his stool, narrowly avoiding falling off the back. "I'll be fine."

Indeed, by the end of class, the pain in his head goes away almost completely. All that remains is a low, dull throb. That night, he excuses himself from dinner with the excuse of not feeling well, and escapes to the library. Madame Pince glares at him with suspicion when he asks her where the books on magic are stored.

"This is a magical institution, boy," she snaps. "You're going to have to be specific."

When he looks down at his hands, he can almost see a faint blue glow around them. There is a similar aura around Madame Pince, except it is dull orange. He thinks of the Dementor, its wheezing rasping breaths, the way something cold and alien shifted into his lungs as he sucked it dry.

"Souls," he finally says, and looks up. "Do you have any books on souls?"

[x]

There are eight books in total. A disappointingly small number, but considering that soul magic is heavily frowned upon (socially banned, even if it was not written in technical terms), he supposes it's eight more than he should have expected.

He also soon learns why there are still books in Hogwart's library about the subject—it is because they are absolutely useless. Every second word is a warning about dark magic. Those that do go into careful detail are limited to the theoretical. Frustrated, he slams the last one shut and throws it against the wall of his room.

Whatever is happening to him, he cannot tell anyone. At best, they would lock him in a hospital. At worst, he would disappear quietly and gracelessly from history, doomed to live out the rest of his short life in an underground lab. No, Harry will teach himself without the knowledge of anyone else. A part of him wonders if he should confide in his friends, at least, but then he thinks of Sirius Black and his fierce cruel tender eyes, and it no longer becomes much of an option at all.

[x]

In the first two weeks, he manipulates his ability to turn this "soul-seeking" sight on and off at will. Or tries to. It doesn't work out well. The only thing he manages is a blinding headache, which leads him to wonder if he even saw anything at all. Soon, he convinces himself that he must have been hallucinating during the class, even if there is a staunch part of him that knows he is deluding himself.

Then one day, he is walking to class when there is a click, and the world fizzles out to black, except for bright, glimmering auras. He stops dead in the hallway, breath catching in his chest. There is a thick, pulsing sensation in the base of his throat, a dry ache. He swallows thickly and tries to turn it off. After a few tries, it does. He shakes the grey fuzz from the corners of his vision and runs to class.

After that it becomes easier to reach into himself and find the switch. It never fails to disorient him, and several times he has crashed into people he could not see well, their outlines only a faint, trembling flicker in the distance. And as much as he wished he had it under control, it was not. Once, he was walking to Divination with Granger and Longbottom when the world clicks and shifts into the alternate plane. Suddenly walls and floors, other people's limbs, are impossible to see, and he stumbles into someone's back before they manage to steady him.

"Whoa, hey, you're bleeding!"

Weasley's voice.

"What?" he mutters thickly. He dabs his fingers against his upper lip and it comes away bloody.

"Merlin, you need the Hospital Wing? It's pretty bad."

"Let me see." Granger. She swats Weasley out of the way and presses her fingers to his face. He hisses a little. "Doesn't look like it was caused by a collision. Pinch your nose and keep your head down." She stuffs something soft in his other hand. "Here, tissues."

Little bubbles of colour start to prickle in his vision, his eyes smarting with tears. He cannot control these little episodes, and they always last between five and ten minutes. He keeps his eyes shut; once, he looked in the mirror as it was fading and saw his irises ringed with red, like Boggart Harry's (like Voldemort's). The last thing he needs are rumours about them.

Would it be so bad if I told her?

Another voice says, she would go to Dumbledore.

And he doesn't know when that became such an abhorrent thought. He never quite liked the Headmaster because of his insistence in being involved in Harry's business, but he respected the old man as a powerful wizard, perhaps the best in the era. But some part of his wariness and respect has mutated into disgust (into loathing that robs him of breath and makes his fingers curl into his palms). There is no real explanation for it.

He knows his eyes clear when the pins-and-needles feeling goes away, which is odd because only a minute had passed. Not that he will look a gift horse in the mouth. Grimacing in pain, he opens them slowly.

"I'm fine," he says. "Come on, we'll be late to class."

[x]

There are several things he learns about his new sight: intense emotion seems to be the trigger. The size of the aura he sees seems to correlate to magical power. Seventh years usually had larger auras than First Years—basketballs to golf balls. Powerful, older wizards and witches had much larger ones; indeed, Dumbledore's seems to make his entire body flare with painful intensity. Animals, on the other hand, had much smaller ones, as did muggles.

So when he is sitting in the courtyard near Hagrid's hut one day, and a rat scurries by with a soul the size of a large orange, he is surprised enough that he instinctively reaches for it, digging his fingers into the air and pulling. The soul thwangs like a ball on an elastic, and there is a horrible squeal. The rat's entire imagine wavers, a mirage evaporating into yellow desert air.

He is not prepared for the Grim (with a soul the size of a watermelon, but punctured and decayed in a way he has never seen before, almost as if the soul had become necrotic) to leap out of nowhere and grab the limp animal in its jowls. It races for the Whomping Willow. The first thick, knotted branch comes down at it.

"Wait a minute—"

It dodges with surprising agility. When it gets to the base of the tree, it presses its paw against a large, stubbly knot. The Willow locks in place, each branch quivering with sentient fury but unable to move. The dog looks back, almost as if pleading for him to follow, but he is not about to charge into certain death for the sake of satisfying his curiosity. After Harry stands motionless for a few seconds, its ears droop and it disappears into a hollow hidden by the Willow's roots.

That is when he hears the scream.

Then, "What are you doing here, Potter?"

Snape.

"...I was taking a walk…"

His sneer intensifies, face drawn into a rictus of stormy maleficence. "Go back."

"There was a scream." Although he doesn't really hate Snape, he possesses a healthy amount of wariness towards the professor. "A dog ran into the Whomping Willow...maybe that's what caused it?"

The last sentence is said casually, so it surprises him when Snape's head snaps up, sharp black eyes pinning him in place. "A dog?" he demands. "Describe it."

"Big, black. Shaggy fur... looked like the Grim. Had a rat in its mouth."

"Go back to the castle, Potter. I will deal with this."

"Sir?"

"Are you deaf as well as incompetent? Do as I say."

"Little Sevvy," a new voice cooes, its owner stepping out of the shadows. Snape spins around, and even in the dim light, Harry sees his skin turn a sickly, sour colour. "Are you a traitor as well as a coward?"

Harry does not know who throws the first curse, only that the two of them are suddenly whirling at each other, wands brandished. It is almost like a dance, their duelling styles clashing and merging all at the same time. Lestrange favours short, sharp jabs, guttural sounding spells that are designed to hurt. Snape's is more fluid, more intricate, and slower. But he knows it is not the first time they have fought against each other. No flashy spells. Only hatred. Only vengeance.

While Bellatrix is more vicious and unpredictable, her imprisonment has worn her down. Snape fights with the calculated mindset of a serpent, lashing out and retreating until she stumbles to one knee.

"The lord... will have your head... for your treachery!" she pants.

"The lord is dead," Snape says harshly. "You will follow."

And then her eyes narrow on Harry, who had retreated to the edge of the Whomping Willow's range, and was considering the best way to lure Bellatrix in. Her wand goes up—too late, Snape realizes, his head snapping back in horror—

The Grim slams into her, large claws tearing at her shoulders, fangs sinking into the flesh of her neck. She shrieks and the hissing purple spell collides with one of the Willow's branches, snapping it out of its frozen state. A branch wallops past Harry's head and sinks into the ground one meter away from the three of them. Snape takes the opportunity to send something sizzling with darkness in their direction, one hidden in the shadow of the other. The first catches Bellatrix in the chest; the second hits the Grim.

And the Grim's form changes, bones snapping, lengthening, fur disappearing on the arms and legs but growing into long, shaggy black hair. Bellatrix scrabbles weakly at the man who has his teeth sunk into her throat, wheezing, before Snape intones, "Incarcerous," and the ropes lash around her throat. Her eyes bulge, face turning purple, and when her flailing limbs stop moving she falls still.

"Black." It is spat like a curse.

"Snivelleus," says the man with blood smeared around his mouth and dripping down his neck into the ragged prisoner's clothing that clings to his skeletal frame. His eyes dart to Harry. "...it's been a long time..."

"Not long enough when you're back in Azkaban," he sneers.

"It wasn't me. I didn't kill them," says Black. "Not that you care. It was Peter... Peter the rat... the stinking, filthy—"

Snape levels his wand at the shaking, crumpled figure with a snarl. "I've heard enough of your lies. The Aurors are coming. You will face—"

"Professor!"

Too late.

A red light hits him in the back. He falls, unconscious.

"—Granger?!"

She blows a lock of hair out of her face, expression stony and determined. "Listen to what he has to say, Harry."

"What do you—where did you—"

Black suddenly barks a laugh. "I like this one. She your girlfriend?"

Instantly, Harry's bemusement turns into hostility. "That is not of your business," he spits. "It would have been if you hadn't killed my parents."

Bone weary, "I didn't. It was Peter."

"And what proof do you have?"

"All of us—your father, Peter, and I—we were Animagi. I am a dog. Your father was a stag. Peter is a rat. I think you better know him as Scabbers."

"Scabbers? Weasley's pet?"

"I had the slimy little vermin in my grasp, but Bella had—and I couldn't leave you there..." He deflates with a defeated sigh. "He is the proof I had. After Peter had—the Dark Lord came and I... I lost my head. I should have stayed, but I gave you to Hagrid and I went after him. He blew up the street, cut off a finger."

"Then why did you not plead innocent?"

Black smiles humorlessly. "I would have, if I had a trial in the first place."

Granger draws herself up, indignant despite herself. Kind, foolish, innocent Hermione. "You didn't get one? But surely, Dumbledore would have—"

"Dumbledore was the one who signed the warrant allowing for my imprisonment." Black's lips twist into a sickening leer. "So don't speak to me of that man."

"Swear an Unbreakable Oath now. Say that you did not kill my parents, or any of those Muggles, and you don't mean to harm me, Hermione, or Snape."

"I do wish you left off the last part."

"Black."

With an exaggerated sigh, Black says, "I have no wand. How will I perform it?"

Harry looks at Granger. She nods, lips pursed in determination. She raises hers to point between Black's eyes, and Harry flips his own over, offers it to Black.

"Make me regret this, and she'll put a hole through your head."

He takes it wordlessly and places the tip over his heart. "I, Sirius Orion Black, do swear that I am not the murderer of James Potter or Lily Potter, nee Evans. I currently have no intention to wilfully harm Harry James Potter..."

"Hermione Jean Granger," she supplies. Black nods to her.

"...Hermione Jean Granger, or Severus Snape. So mote it be."

A dark tendril of magic issues from the end and wraps around the three of them, then sinks over Black's heart. He drops his arm, holds the wand out. Harry takes it.

"Talk," he demands.

And Black does.

Granger is the first to notice the rat gnawing on the ropes constricting Lestrange's neck. Her eyes flare open in alarm, and she shouts, "Harry—!"

Harry aims a cutting curse at the rat, but it dodges nimbly out of the way, its task finished. Lestrange rolls to her feet fluidly, strangulation marks around her neck, veins purple blue. Although her breath is wheezy, she does not look like someone who was almost choked to death a second ago. She must have played dead for a long time.

Black stoops and plucks Snape's wand from between his stiff fingers. He grimaces. "Even his bloody wand feels oily." Then, to Harry. "I'll deal with her. You...get Pettigrew."

Harry's face sets into a stony expression. "Count on it. Granger?"

"I'm with you."

(And even though he knew this to be the case, hearing her say it with such blatant conviction loosens the tension winding in his chest).

They run.

"We need to make him human," she gasps out.

There is enough cold rage inside of him that he flicks his Sight on, no longer caring if Granger saw. The world flickers into dim, hazy colours. He hisses, "follow me," and dives into the underbrush after the dripping red aura. He reaches into himself and pulls. It is not nearly enough, but it does make Pettigrew falters, and Harry closes his fingers around the little beast. It scrabbles weakly at him. He only grits his teeth and presses tighter.

And then it begins to shift; a soft blue glow and its body elongates, torso narrowing and splitting into legs, arms, a weaselly, pointed face with beady eyes. One hand has a missing finger.

"He...wasn't lying," Granger breathes.

"No," he agrees softly. "He wasn't. Incarcerous!"

"Come on. The Aurors must be coming. Let's get him back to the castle."

Harry gently curves the tip of his wand down a frozen Pettigrew's neck, the sharp point of his bony shoulder where joints jut out. "They're always coming. Always too late. They'd let him escape. No..." He removes his wand from Pettigrew's trembling body and wipes it on his tattered robes, then points it at one knee. "No. I have learned. What I want, I must do on my own. That is the only way to succeed. Bombarda."

"Harry!"

"Ahh—urgk!"

And Harry smiles slowly, heedless of the blood splattered across his face, wetting his lips. Pettigrew's eyes roll at the stump of his missing leg, cut off at the knee, the edges unclean and rough with blood and sinew and ragged, oozing bone.

"Harry, no," says Granger, sounding shaken. "This isn't you."

"On the contrary, Granger, this is entirely me. Pettigrew is the reason why I have no parents—had to live with the Dursleys. He claims to be dead, so why should I not grant his wish?"

"Because you will lose yourself in the process."

"...but, no," Harry continues, as if he hadn't heard. "It would be too easy. I don't want him to die. I want him to suffer." Suddenly reversing his grip on his wand, he viciously jabs it into a trembling wrist, where he can see frantically pulsing blue veins beneath pale flesh. "Bombarda."

The left hand explodes.

"Harry!" Granger says, and she sounds angry (terrified). "Please, stop! Please! Listen to me!"

"Not until I make him regret ever hearing my name."

"Do you want to sink to his level?"

"I lost what remained of my morality a long time ago. Don't try that one with me."

She takes a deep breath, clenches her fists. "Your parents wouldn't have wanted you to do this."

"They're dead. They wouldn't have wanted to be that, either. And if it means I have to break every bone in this rat's body, then I will do it. Besides..." His eyes snap open, red and terrible and alluring. "...Sirius Black was wrongly imprisoned for his crimes. Do you want him to die instead?"

Granger gnaws on her lip in agitation, warring between her moral beliefs and trust in Harry. Finally, she closes her eyes in defeat.

"I... trust you. But Harry, please..."

He reaches up and softly touches her cheek. "I'm only making sure that justice is served."

There is a short, shrill cry from the direction they came. Harry looks over and sees the white mist spreading. Hissing in a breath, he says to Hermione, "Can you watch Pettigrew? I will go see what's happening." Her face is pale, streaked with grime, but she nods firmly and grips her wand tighter. Harry brushes the hair back from Pettigrew's sweaty face and leans down so his lips are caressing the shell of his ear. "It's going against every instinct to leave you alive. But I need you for the trial. Hurt Hermione and I will hurt you tenfold. I will break you. There will be nowhere you can hide, I will hunt you down like the rat you are to the ends of the earth and by god, not even Voldemort will protect you."

Pettigrew's only response is a whimper of pain. Harry stands up and wipes his palms on his soiled robes.

"Thank you, Hermione."

Her eyes soften. "Always."

He spares one last look at her. Then he begins to run into the mist, the coldness clinging to his arms, slithering down his spine. His preservation instincts scream at him to head back, but he grits his teeth and continues. He cannot leave Black and Snape there.

He bursts into the clearing.

Snape is still unconscious on the ground. Skirting around the two Blacks, who are wrestling with each other now, Harry casts a wingardium leviosa on his body and levitates him into the forest, far enough to be safe. Then he returns to see that the two are still fighting, both slow and weakened.

The Dementors are floating across the field. Soon, they are within distance, and it is too late.

"Black!"

Gasping, Harry holds his head in his arms, pressing his palms against his forehead as if he can force back the visions, the cold white mist that drips like soured milk down his throat, thick and clinging.

"Black—Black, we must go, come on—"

"Harry..."

Black throws himself in front of Harry, drawing him back, but he, too, is shaking and wild-eyed, and soon he is the Grim, quivering and keening. Bellatrix stumbles, falls to her knees. She drags herself up, crawls away. Amidst the pain in his head, Harry hooks his elbows beneath Black's bony ribcage and follows suit. Bellatrix reaches the forest's edge, crawls in. But before Harry reaches it, the Dementors close in a circle around them.

"Kinsla-ayer..." they moan. "Kin-n..."

White fills his vision. He feels himself become lost in it.

Then a scene begins to form.

He is small, helpless, an infant hastily swaddled in a blanket.

"Lily... take Har—go..."

Lips pressed to his forehead. His mother murmurs fervent prayers into his hair even as she rips her wrist open with a rusty nail and splashes her blood over the floors, igniting the runic circle engraved into the wood.

"Mummy loves you… Daddy loves you, baby, so much. So much."

The door blasts open.

I cannot… I must…

A high, cold voice.

"Step aside, girl."

Gasping, she whirls around, dropping Harry into the crib and throwing her arms out over it. "No—no, please—"

But her eyes are fixed above Voldemort's shoulder, on something she could not see, only feel with all the dread of her heart. Harry follows her gaze and feels his breath catch. It is not Voldemort she fears. The new presence crawls under his skin, a sickly, cloying touch that leaves fire in its wake, permanently silencing the sickening fear, instinctive and feral, that wraps its fingers around his heart.

Then the darkness in front of his eyes begins to warp, distorting into waves that reminds him of the heat of cars on pavement in the height of summer.

The dying glow of the lights downstairs throw the being into illumination.

It is tall, taller than any human could ever hope to be, and as Harry watches, the flesh withers away to leave sharp angulations and skin that flicker and evaporate like achromatic fire. Its expression is feral, face slowly cracking into a savage Glasgow grin, from ear to ear, revealing fangs sleek and thick as Harry's fingers. He can feel the whisper-thin aura brushed its fingers against his arms, murmuring songs of dread and loss and loathing, a forewarning mere second before—

The aura, unrestrained, explodes from him in a tangible shockwave, as though the empty yearning of the Dementor's kiss, the finality of the Veil, the translucency of the battlefield are the screams of the endlessly tormented, the bite of fire and brimstone. He cannot look away; there is a scene there, one of barren grey battlefields, an eternal wasteland of lost hope and the last vestiges of paradise that whisper on the wind—empty, phantasmagorical promises whose breaking sounds like fire and ash and the sick sound of metal sliding through flesh. The being's face is only centimeters away from Lily's, their noses almost touching, and he can make out the rings around the eyes, black and grey with a white pupil, enlarged in what he gathered to be excitement. Swallowing through a suddenly dry throat, Harry knows who this is. They have met too many times, even if he did not remember.

And even if this is a dream, he whispers, "Death."

It hears him.

If possible, those lips curl even farther back, until all he can see are the teeth. Its laugh is a dark rumble that shook the ground beneath their feet, which was already cracking and blackening in pitted craters. In the same tone of voice, which Harry didn't hear so much as feel, Death rumbles, "Child." There is a rattling breath, and Harry feels every cell in his body turn to stone when a hand grips his chin, forcing his eyes upwards. "Your mother betrayed me. Your life is mine to command. Do you understand?"

Lily's image is still frozen in the memory, hair splayed around her shoulders, eyes as green as the avada kedavra that engulfs her, and he sees guilt there (I have condemned you).

"No," he says breathlessly, because it is impossible to lie to this creature.

Instead of anger, its lips curve further up.

"You will," it promises. It splays its fingers; a mirage forms in the mist. It is a mirror reflection of Harry.

And before his eyes, the image shifts; taller, older, eyes red as blood and colder than an arctic wasteland. He wears a ragged black robe and gently turns a wand in one slender-fingered hand. His aura is black as the void, carrying the scent of a wounded, cornered predator that has nothing left to lose.

Death says, "This is what you will become."

Future Harry raises his wand, aims it at the horde of Dementors, and murmurs, "Expecto patronum."

The last thing Harry sees before darkness engulfs his vision once more is a molten black shape exploding from the end, eyes of hellfire and bringing with it the smell of ozone, of damnation.

[x]

He wakes in a hospital. The sheets are clean and crisp, and crumple when he clenches his fist into it. The ward is empty, and voices drift from the open hallway. Harry recognizes Snape, Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore.

"—will be given the Dementor's Kiss immediately."

"Now, Cornelius," Dumbledore says genially. "Surely, there is not so much of a rush."

Snape, sounding like he is one hair's-breadth from losing his vaunted control, "What lies has Black fed you to sway your judgement so?"

"Quite right, of course," Fudge blusters.

"I do believe," Dumbledore says suddenly. "That the bickering of old men has woken Harry up." He sweeps into the room in an eyesore of bright purple robes with neon orange and yellow planets swirling around the fabric. Even without his glasses, Harry sees him immediately. With a kind smile, the headmaster says, "And how are you, my boy?"

But Harry remembers the bitterness in Black's voice, I was cast off and discarded because he had no more use for me. Harry remembers Riddle's voice, he wishes to be more than your headmaster. That is why he is dangerous.

"I've been better."

There is a hunk of chocolate the size of a small boulder sitting on Harry's nightstand, along with a small hammer. Dumbledore breaks off a piece.

He says, "Professor..."

"Now, now. Nothing is more urgent than health. All of this can wait until you finish your chocolate."

He takes a bite and tries not to choke. Sickly sweetness lingers on his tongue. When he eats half of it and the other half has melted on his fingers, he wipes it away on a napkin and begins again, "Professor. Please know that I am in full control of my facilities. I saw Pettigrew, and I... I do not know if that makes Black innocent or guilty, but I do believe that nothing is as it seems."

Dumbledore raises a hand. "Harry..."

"I am not mad."

"I believe you."

"I do not think Fudge does."

"No, Cornelius has always been quite set in his own ways. And I am afraid Severus is blinded by his prejudices."

"It will take a small miracle for them to listen to reason."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkle. "Quite so. I do believe the solution lies with your young friend, Ms. Granger. Tell her that three turns ought to do it. And... good luck."

"I do not wish to involve her. I do not want to..." Put her in more danger because of me. "She was there. Is she alright? Pettigrew, did she...?"

But Dumbledore only smiles. "Your friends may surprise you."

With that cryptic message in mind, he sweeps himself off the chair, smoothing out the wrinkles in his eyesore robes before exiting the infirmary without a backwards glance. In his place, Hermione shoots into the room in a blur of black robes.

"Harry!"

He winces. "Not so loud, please."

"You idiot!"

"I get enough of that from Malfoy on a daily basis."

Then she embraces him, and he wraps his arms around her and closes his eyes.

"Trouble always seems to find you," she mutters, her voice muffled. "I think we meet too many times in the ward."

"I'm not the one who stunned the only defence we had against Black."

Her brow furrows. "What are you talking about?"

"You were there."

"No, I..." suddenly, her face clears. "I think you should start from the beginning."

With a deep breath, he tells her about Black, Pettigrew, Snape. To her credit, she only raises one eyebrow and listens attentively, hands clasped in her lap. When he gets to Dumbledore's message, she nods and pulls a necklace out from beneath her robes. It is a small golden hourglass.

"It's a time turner," she says in response to his inquisitive look. "Come on, it seems we have a godfather to save."

[x]

They land, feet first, in a broom closet.

"Urgh." Harry detaches himself from a row of broom handles and pulls a bucket (smelling suspicious) off his head. "That is not an experience I want to have again."

A dark shape sweeps by. Both fall silent. Then Granger peers out the door. "That was Professor Snape. Coast is clear. Come on, let's go."

"We'll have to split up. Follow Snape; he'll lead you to me. And Black. You'll have to stun Snape."

"And where will you go?"

"I know how to get Black out."

"Alright."

He goes to his dorms and crawls under the bed, retrieving the half-unwrapped package that he wedged between his suitcase and the wall. He stares at the words "Firebolt v.1" that gleams gold beneath the dust, and murmurs, "I swore to myself I would never ride a broom."

Then he pulls the Dementor's cloak from the pocket of his old cloak, unshrinks it. It smells faintly of death and decay. Wrinkling his nose, he wraps the broom in the cloak and sets off for the courtyard.

Once there, he looks around, makes sure no one is watching. Feeling rather stupid, he mounts the broom. He's never ridden one before. Sure, there were flying lessons in First Year, but it was optional so he never went. Now he's beginning to regret that decision. He pins the Dementor's cloak over his shoulders. It is big enough to fit over him, the broom, and drag on the ground.

Disguise in place. Now, the flying part...

He circles his hands over the front of the broom and pulls up cautiously. To his surprise, it begins to rise, albeit slowly. He pulls on it a little more and—

"Agh!"

It shoots into the sky. If not for his vice grip, he would have flipped right off the other end. By instinct, he clamps the front down, but then he plummets, faster and faster until the trees and surroundings are a dark blur. Swerve to the left, do a few barrel rolls, loops, spins that make him think he's going to throw up, until he finally manages to get control. He is dizzy and nauseous, and vaguely wonders if throwing up from a hundred meters in the air is socially acceptable. But there is a part of him that feels exhilarated, free, the wind forcing its way into his mouth when he breathes, choking him with it, filling his lungs until he feels like he will explode.

He angles the broom down and begins to make his way to the area. Already, Dementors are beginning to fly in. He tries to mimic their inhuman grace. Despite the cloak, some are already looking in his direction. He calls up his Sight, looks down at his hands, at the magic softly pulsing through his veins. This is going to hurt, he grimaces to himself, and pulls the magic out of his limbs, his chest, forcing it all into his stomach. His head begins to hurt, vision wavering, arms weak, an insatiable hunger beginning to rise. He lets his vision return to normal.

The Dementors stop focusing on him.

He feels incredibly sick, but he trails after them, his wand clamped in his hand.

Below him, he sees Bellatrix run into the woods. Black stumbles and falls in front of Harry, arms splayed open. Harry himself was unconscious on the ground, lips tinged blue and slightly parted, a faint white mist issuing from them. His eyes are glassy and half open, but he seems to be looking at something beside Harry... something he cannot truly see.

He remembers the apparition he saw clearly—his mother, Death, and...

He raises his wand. Thinks of happy things, bright summer days. "Expecto patronum."

Nothing happens.

The magic contained in his stomach begins to pulse in agitation, trying to return to its regular path. "Expecto patronum. Expecto... patronum."

There is a wheezing sound. One Dementor —bold, brash— has swept forward and caught Black into a close embrace. He shifts from the Grim into a human once more, his chin hooked between skeletal fingers. The Dementor pulls its hood back, revealing those horrible eye-less sockets closed over with tightly stretched flesh, a toothless, gaping hole, a void of a mouth, an empty abyss.

His magic, no longer contained, explodes out of him in a fiery, visible light. Anger, desperation, rage fuels him, and he throws his wand out at the Dementor and roars, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

And a sleek black shape shoots out of the end, something with claws of solid steel and eyes of liquid red hellfire, its body dripping and smoking in the grass as it leaps forward with a tensing of powerful muscles, tearing into the Dementor, driving it back. Where its claws rake, smoke rises from the stinking flesh. The Dementors begin to scatter reluctantly, survival instinct warring with their primal hunger. It slashes at their feet, their torsos, until they take to the skies and flee.

Harry lands from the broom. His legs are shaky. He raises one hand and calls the patronus back to him. It prowls closer with all of a predator's slow, loping gait. Its paws leave smoking imprints in the wet ground. He is only chest level with it, and as he watches, it lowers its great, majestic head and stares at him with one baleful red eye. There is nothing inside it, no rage or emotion, only an empty hole consumed with flame. He cups his palm against the side of its face; it leans into his touch with a heavy purr that makes his body vibrate. Its fangs are curved wickedly into its mouth and coated with thick, black tar —Dementor's blood— but when it bares them, Harry knows it is smiling. It curls its tail around Harry's wrist affectionately.

"I have waited long for you," he murmurs, letting his hand trail down the soft, silky fur of its neck, fire dripping onto the ground.

With a final, lingering breath that makes Harry's hair stand on end, it dissipates into fog.

Past Harry is still unconscious on the ground, but Black is already beginning to wake. He seems a Dementor-like creature standing over him, holding a broom, and says flatly, "Am I hallucinating, or did you suck my soul?"

Harry pushes back his hood. Black's eyes widen. "How about neither?"

"Harry!" He looks at the other Harry. "But..."

"Time is a mysterious thing," he says wryly. "Now come on, do you want to go or not?"

"It's the broom I got you..."

"Oh, that was you? I don't fly."

"And yet you did."

"Desperate times."

"Your father loved to..."

"I am not my father."

Black is silent. He observes Harry quietly, and then a bitter, dry smirk twists his lips. "No," he agrees softly. "You're not. I would still like to get to know you."

"I would like to keep in touch. But you really need to go."

A small, genuine smile breaks out on the man's haggard face. He mounts the broom. It is a shaky start, but ingrained confidence smooths his actions, and Black looks like this is the first breath of freedom he has had in twelve years. Harry clasps the Dementor's cloak around his thin shoulders, mutters, "You can disguise yourself until you get out of city limits. Then take it off."

"You know," Black says. "You may not be like your parents, but I know for a fact that they would be damned proud."

(My parents would be writhing in their graves if they knew what went on in my mind.)

Harry pauses, raises his hand in a final salute. Black returns the gesture, and Harry watches until he is nothing more than a speck in the distant horizon.

There is a short groan. Snape begins to stir. Harry hides behind a tree. Snape looks around for his wand, then sees the other Harry. There are many emotions on his face, and if Harry were not paying close attention he would not have been able to see it. Even so, it flashes by too fast for him to categorize them all. The predominant one is panic and fear (guilt). He scoops Harry into his arms, surprisingly gentle, and all but runs for the castle.

When he is out of sight, Harry picks his way back into the Forbidden Forest, towards Hermione. He almost gets lost a few times, and has to turn his Sight on to see where they are hidden. He stumbles over a log that is not a log because it lets out a pitiful moan, and there is a wand pressed beneath his chin.

"Who are you?" says Hermione coldly.

"Harry."

"Prove it. What's the password."

He frowns. "We never set a password."

She lets go. Harry turns around, freezing slightly when he catches sight of all the blood splattering across her face, her pink sweater, the icy, frightened gleam in her eyes. She must see his dark expression because she says, "It's not mine."

"Pettigrew tried to escape?" He kicks the prone man viciously.

"Tried to," she agreed. "I... I broke his other arm and leg."

"Good." With that, he points his wand in Pettigrew's bloody, swollen face, and hisses, "Stupefy. Wingardium leviosa."

The body rises slowly, bits of grass and leaves sticking to him until gravity takes over. Harry inspects the crooked leg, the out-of-place shoulder.

"For a pacifist, you did quite a number on him."

She flushes. "Do we have somewhere to be, or what?"

The journey back to the castle is spent in cautious silence. They stick to the shadows. When they reach the edge of the castle, Harry says, "Dumbledore's in the infirmary right now, talking to me."

"Then that's where we'll go."

She pushes open the door and mutters a polite, "Excuse me," to Filch, who is mopping the corridor, staring at her, then Harry with wide eyes when he levitates a bloody body after him. Harry is expecting Dumbledore to lecture him, to reprimand him about his use of violence, but the old man merely stares at him with sad, haunted eyes —and somehow his disappointment cuts deeper— and says, "Thank you, Harry. I'll take it from here."

"He's a rat animagus," Harry warns as he exchanges the spell. "That's how he escaped the first time."

"He will not escape again. Now, in you go." Dumbledore opens the infirmary door and shoos him in. "I daresay you have done something good today. And you, Ms. Granger. Well done."

[x]

In comparison, the end of the year is very anticlimatic. After exams, they climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express. Malfoy deigns to join the three of them; or rather, he bolts into the compartment and dives beneath the seat, only a muffled, "Hide me," as their explanation.

When the door opens again, it is to two Slytherin boys who look like they have half a brain between the two of them but try to make it up their density with muscle mass.

"You seen Draco?" one grunts.

The three of them look at each other. "No," they say simultaneously.

The door slams shut. After a moment, Malfoy climbs out with dignity, smoothing his hair down. "Merlin, I thought I had lost them."

"Paid goons?" Harry says in amusement. "Surely, they can't count as friends."

He grimaces. "My father..."

"Say no more."

Malfoy looks between Harry and Hermione. "What's with the two of you?" he says bluntly. "You've been calling her Hermione for the last few weeks. But I'm still Malfoy and he's still Longbottom."

"Is that jealousy I detect, Draco?"

Malfoy shudders a little. "I retract my statement."

They bicker goodnaturedly for a while, until there is a tap-tap-tap on the window. Harry looks up and there is a little ball of fluff slamming against it, struggling to keep up. He opens it and it tumbles into Longbottom's lap.

"There's a letter," he says, and pulls it off. "It's for you."

Harry takes it.

Dear Harry,

Just wanted you to know, everything's well. See you soon.

Love,

Snuffles

P.S. Keep the owl, if you'd like.

Reading over his shoulder, Hermione whispers, "What? They haven't cleared him yet!"

He folds it up and tucks it into his pocket. "I don't know, but we didn't go through all of that for nothing. I hope he knows what he's doing." He holds up the little owl perched on his finger, its big eyes taking up half of its body. Hermione practically melts. "I already have Hedwig. She's very territorial...sometimes I think she believes I'm her human. Do you want it?"

"Oh, but I have Crookshanks already."

"Crookshanks can't carry letters. It'll be easier for you to keep in contact with us." He quirks his lips wryly. "And maybe then Dudley will stop trying to steal my mail."

Malfoy looks between the two of them, perturbed. "There is definitely something going on between those two," he mutters into Longbottom's ear, sinking further into his seat. "Merlin help me, I don't want to witness this."

"Shut up, Malfoy." Harry gingerly unlatches the owl's claws from his finger and transfers it to Hermione, who immediately begins to coo over it, rubbing under its feathery chin until its eyes close into a happy crescent.

"Thank you, Harry. I think I'll name him Mercury."

When they reach the station, the four of them disembark, Malfoy still keeping a wary eye out for his two goons. "I guess I'll see you lot next year." To Harry, he says, "My father would like to invite you to the Manor sometime, if that is amenable. I will send arrangements via owl." Without waiting for an answer, he nods to them and leaves.

"I don't think no is an answer to Malfoys."

Longbottom looks at the two of them and says shyly, "You guys can come over too, if you want. There's not much to do, but..."

Hermione smiles brightly. "Thank you, Neville. I'll be sure to visit you sometime. My parents are here. I'll have to go, but keep in touch and take care of yourselves." She gives them both a hug and disappears into the crowd.

Soon, Harry is alone, his trunk by his feet, Hedwig's cage on top of it. He watches (wistfully) as parents greet their children with hugs and tears.

That is, until a big black dog tackles him and slobbers all over his face.

"Eeugh, what the hell—Si...er, Padfoot?"

The Grim pants happily. Lowering his voice, Harry whispers, "What are you doing here! It's dangerous! They still haven't gotten Pettigrew through the—ew, Sirius, stop licking me, you have dog breath, you're a full grown man and you're licking my face."

His godfather has the audacity to laugh at him with crinkled black eyes. Harry sighs, and reluctantly lets a small smile curl onto his mouth, and he scratches beneath his ear, making Sirius's tail flop against the ground.

"The Dursleys are not going to like this, but... come on, Padfoot."

Obediently, the dog trails after him, occasionally brushing against his leg and leaving copious amounts of black fur behind. While he waits for Uncle Vernon's car, he lets his hand fall to Padfoot's soft head, and thinks that this is the closest to home he's ever felt.

[x]

AN: What animal do you think Harry's not-patronus is?