Chapter 7: The Secret Crime

11 December 1994

Afternoon at Hogwarts

The Day After Crouch

Lunch was in progress in the Great Hall, but I didn't really feel like returning to school life just yet. After the insanity of the past few days – or months, rather – it felt as though everything was quieter, more subdued. The roar of an Elder Dragon had muted everything else.

Without really thinking about where I was going, I ended up wandering into the library. The silence and solitude suited my mood. To be truthful, I wasn't sure where my mind was. My long sleep at Potter Manor had helped, but I knew I was still a week or two away from feeling completely normal. The encounter with the Elder Dragon had left me shell-shocked and solemn.

"Oh. Hello," said a familiar voice. I turned to find Hermione standing behind me, a stack of books in her arms. "Well, if you're not doing anything, you can carry these." She dumped half the books on me, and I had no choice but to catch them or risk Madam Pince's ire.

We ended up at a table deep within the library. Hermione barely glanced at me as she bustled about, sorting the books and flicking through her notes. She used Muggle notebooks and binders instead of parchment, just like me. I didn't realise we had that in common.

"Slytherin table is looking a bit empty these days," she said, not looking up as she scribbled something down. "Poor Greengrass has to manage the house without you."

"She can manage," I said. "She's more than capable."

Brown eyes flicked up to meet my gaze for an instant before returning to her writing. "Where have you been?" Her tone was casual.

"Busy."

"With?"

"It would scare the shit out of you if I told you."

That brought her up short. She laid down her pen and gave me a scornful look. "I'm not as easily frightened as I was a few years ago. I'm sure I could handle whatever it is."

"Well, it scares the shit out me, so I guess you're tougher than I am."

Hermione let it go, returning to her work. "You've only given me one lesson in the Mind Arts so far."

"You should have been able to build on the advice I gave you and continue making corrections."

"I have, but that doesn't excuse your unreliability."

I spread my hands. "You haven't exactly fulfilled your side of the bargain either."

"That's because you're never here!" she hissed.

Madam Pince strode past, shutting us up with a glare. When she was out of range, Hermione heaved a sigh and shuffled some of her things.

"Fine," she said. "You want to know about fanes? I know a few interesting things about them. Where do you want to start?"

"Let's begin with a definition." Not for the first time, I wished I'd had time to assimilate Crouch's knowledge of fanes, since the man clearly knew a whole lot more than me.

Hermione cleared her throat. "According to Mallan's Dictionary of Uncommon Magical Terms, a 'fane' is a primitive shrine designed to bring about weak, simple effects, such as increasing the chance of rain during a drought, or helping crops grow stronger. They were also used to contain malevolent spirits, like poltergeists. However, due to how little we know about how fanes work, interfering with them is punishable by a life sentence in Azkaban."

"Seems a bit extreme, doesn't it?" I said. "The sentence for messing with them doesn't seem congruent with the benign description."

"I thought the same." She held up a finger. "That's why I tracked down an older magical dictionary and found this little footnote." A copied piece of parchment came out of her notebook with a flourish. I plucked it from her hand and scanned it quickly.

"'Updated as per Ministry guidelines'," I read aloud.

"They changed the definition," Hermione said, excitement growing in her voice as she finally got to share her discovery with someone who cared. "The book I took this from was published about two hundred and fifty years ago – not long after the Ministry itself was founded."

"And that wasn't long after the Statute of Secrecy began," I realised, putting it together. Her enthusiasm was infectious. "I remember one of the textbooks for History of Magic last year had a bit on the immediate post-statute era. There were plenty of crackdowns on sources of magical knowledge due to people trying to secretly maintain their old relationships with Muggles."

A flash of pure pleasure crossed Hermione's face, wiping the cynicism away. "Exactly! Those crackdowns could have just as easily been used to cover up and destroy any other texts deemed dangerous by the Ministry, or replace them with 'updated' editions."

I laid the copied footnote on the table, thoroughly engaged now. "Do you still have the book this came from?"

Hermione hesitated just briefly before shaking her head. "I couldn't hold on to it for very long."

"Where did it come from? Not the restricted section, surely?"

"Nothing that easy." Hermione's face was so blank and still that it was obvious she was hiding something, yet when I unveiled my senses, all I saw was amusement.

"Alright, what are you playing at?"

A hand rose to hide her smile. "Well… the book technically belongs to you. Or your godfather, I suppose."

"Did you rob our house?" I asked sternly.

Hermione coughed a laugh. "No. But I may have used my arrangement with your brother to get him to ask your godfather to send certain books to the school."

"I've spent a lot of time in that library. Uncle Padfoot moved the entire Black Library there from his old house."

"Yes, Jim mentioned that too. That's what piqued my interest. And really, Harry, I know you're studious, but even you can't have read every book in that place. Plus, you wouldn't have known what you were looking at if you had stumbled across this little titbit."

I leaned back in my chair and tried to hide my enjoyment at being outplayed once again. Some of it must have slipped through, because Hermione's smirk widened.

"Then tell me something, oh wise expert," I said. "Was 'fane' the only word whose definition had been updated?"

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it quickly. Her eyebrows drew together in a very irritated frown. "I didn't check."

Hungrily, like a shark tasting blood, I leaned on the table once more. "Tunnel vision," I said sombrely. "Don't feel bad. It happens to the best of us."

"Oh, shut up," she snapped.

I sniggered, glancing around to make sure we weren't being observed. "Shall we check now?"

Hermione blinked, her irritation forgotten. "What? You mean go to your house?"

"That's where the book is, right?"

"Yes, but… we're at school." I pushed as much conceit as possible into my expression. She sighed. "Can you get me back before lunch ends?"

"Probably not. Let's go."

Escaping from Hogwarts as a student was as simple as taking the secret passage to the cellar of Honeydukes and then Apparating to Potter Manor. I had a sneaking suspicion that if Dumbledore didn't want me leaving, it wouldn't be quite that simple.

It was obvious that despite her blasé persona, Hermione was actually quite nervous about skipping school. The casualness with which I led our out-of-bounds adventure seemed to embolden her, however, and she barely looked nauseous at all when we arrived at the manor.

I gave her a moment to collect herself as I breathed the chilly air of home. The large, H-shaped manor had changed little since I last saw it, having weathered the recent storms with good cheer. In the environs around it I could see forests that had been battered by the winds as they had made their way to Hogwarts, but nothing near the damage the Forbidden Forest had sustained.

Down the grassy slope that was our backyard, the cold, glittering lake Jim and I had learned to swim in was swollen from the recent downpour, lapping over its banks and turning the grassland into a mire. Above it, the rugged mountain that dominated the landscape fed even more water into the many streams flowing down into the lowlands like blood squeezed from a stone.

My eyes stuck on the mountain. I hadn't realised it until that moment, but I had been afraid that my experience in Rybagrad would soil my appreciation of our neighbouring peak. To my relief, the mountain didn't repulse me. Unlike the sick, desiccated giant in northern Russia, our mountain had shoots of green and was whole and unbroken.

"You told me my home was near one of the largest fanes in Britain," I said. Hermione stood nearby, openly checking out my house. "It wouldn't happen to be inside that mountain, would it?"

Sharp eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Don't tell me you just guessed that. You read Perkins, didn't you?"

A stone dropped into my stomach. "I was trying to rule it out," I mumbled. The mountain. Our mountain. "Why is it always mountains?"

"Always?" Hermione pounced. "Is that where you've been? You found a fane in another mountain?"

I tried to appear nonchalant. "What makes you ask that?"

"You disappear after a series of disasters, and come back suddenly eager to talk about fanes. Now, I'm just guessing too, but…" Smugness radiated from her like an aura. "It seems your guess is as good as mine."

"Maybe." I abandoned the doomed battle. "Who is Perkins? Is that the author of the book that told you about the fane?"

We went inside as we spoke. Sirius didn't appear to be home, so I led the way to the library without getting a single dog hair on my clothes.

"It was a travelogue, written a hundred and fifty years ago. A wizard named Perky Perkins decided that magical folk miss too much of the countryside by travelling by Floo or Apparition, so he went on a long, meandering journey across Great Britain to see what he could see." Hermione smiled at something. "I read it for pleasure. I hope to find my own copy someday."

She had, perhaps unconsciously, lowered her voice as we strolled through the library, even though we were the only ones home. When I opened my mouth to speak, I matched her volume without thinking.

"I'm surprised it was published." I ran a hand across the spines of a dozen books. "The location of a major fane seems like the sort of the thing that would get 'updated' by the Ministry."

Hermione copied me on the other side of the aisle, visibly delighting in touching so many old books. "He didn't even know what he was describing. Plus, it's not like it said, 'Go to these coordinates.' I had to infer a lot from descriptions of landmarks and compass bearings. It was actually quite fun. Like solving a mystery."

Darn it, that did sound fun. I wished I had found it first.

"I suppose," I said mildly.

We ended up at a little reading area beneath a large, arch-shaped window that looked out over the countryside – thankfully in the opposite direction of the mountain. A simple summoning spell brought forth the dictionary Hermione had taken the footnote from. We leafed through it, page after page, hunting for more signs of Ministry interference. It wasn't the largest book, only about the size of a pocket dictionary, so we were forced to huddle closely to make sure we could both read the page. We passed the entry for 'fane', which displayed the tell-tale footnote in all its curious mundanity.

The next time we saw those little words was under the entry for the word 'spirit'.

"What?" we said simultaneously. A quick scan showed that the definition closely matched what could be found in any modern magical dictionary.

"This dictionary is for 'uncommon' terms, isn't it?" I said.

Hermione nodded vigorously. "We learn about spirits at school. They would hardly qualify."

I glared at the page. Updated as per Ministry guidelines, it said. "So if the definition of 'spirit' was changed…"

"… then what did it mean before?" Hermione finished in a whisper.

Our eyes met. Excitement, burning curiosity, and something close to arousal played upon the flushed contours of her face. Something similar flickered and twisted inside my chest. We were too close. Our surface thoughts fed into each other, creating a positive feedback loop. The cycles intensified suddenly, and I pulled away in fear, my heart racing.

Hermione swayed forward for a split second, as though drawn by an invisible tether between our heads. Then she snapped backwards, sitting up straight and blinking rapidly. My skin felt hot and damp with sweat.

"What… What was that?" I said, out of breath. "What are you trying to do to me?"

Hermione had turned pink from her hairline to her neck, yet she was composed enough to glare at me. "What am I trying to do? You were the one thinking about 'positive feedback loops.'"

"Why were you reading my surface thoughts?" I demanded, getting to my feet.

"Why were you reading mine? I felt it, so don't try to deny it." She stood up as well.

I spluttered. "You were this close to me, how could I not?"

She flung her arms wide. "Same here!"

Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself. "I don't know how it started, but we almost got caught up in an emotional feedback loop. If I hadn't broken free of it when I did, who knows what could have happened?"

Hermione folded her arms and looked away. Anger bled from her posture until only bitter amusement remained. "Who knows," she repeated.

"We'll have to be careful not to get caught in that again."

"Yep," she said, popping the 'p'.

The library was silent for almost twenty seconds. I shuffled my feet awkwardly.

Hermione checked her watch. "I should really get back to Hogwarts. Do you mind if I borrow some Floo powder? I saw some in your living room."

"I can take you Side-Along," I offered quickly.

She grimaced. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same."

I searched for something to say, but by the time I had something, she was gone. I reached the living room just as the flames turned back to normal.

"Damn it," I groaned. The vivid gold-and-red rugs and wall hangings taunted me with their blatant Gryffindor-ness.

"Bad luck, kid," said Sirius, appearing out of nowhere holding a red apple. "Nobody's suave at first. It's something you learn."

I jumped, clutching my chest. "Jesus. Were you home the whole time?"

"Don't call me Jesus. And actually, I was having a nap when you arrived with your lady friend." Sirius wiggled his eyebrows. "Thought I'd make myself scarce in case you needed the privacy. Not one of the regulars, I noticed. Have your tastes changed?"

"Ha-ha," I said flatly. "Her name is Hermione. We were just doing some studying that couldn't be done at school."

"Forbidden knowledge?"

"Something like that."

"Sounds cool. Does this mean you're going back to school soon? Jim mentioned you've been skipping." asked Sirius, biting into the apple with a mighty crunch.

"Maybe," I replied absently, moving to stare out the window. The sight of the mountain had the effect of forcing me to put aside my hormonal fumblings for the moment.

Sirius swallowed and dropped onto a plush, maroon sofa with a sigh. "I don't know how you managed to get a free pass on skipping classes, but I wish I'd had one back in the day."

I turned just enough to grin at him. "I could probably graduate this year if I wanted to. The teachers all know it. The only reason I'm still at school is because of my friends."

"Show-off," Sirius said approvingly. "So? What's on the agenda? I'm up for some more graveyard forensics if you are."

I blinked. "Oh yeah, that. I still don't know what's up with that, but it was recently pointed out to me that I keep a lot of unnecessary secrets and try to handle everything myself."

"No," Sirius said in mock-disbelief.

I nodded soberly. "It's true. Let me fill you in on what I do know about that graveyard thing."

Sirius made an attentive listener, gasping at all the right moments, growling in anger when Jim's blood was stolen by an Imperiused Madam Pomfrey, and 'hmm'ing incessantly as I speculated what the cauldron in the graveyard had been intended for.

"So, basically, you don't have a clue," he summarised.

I drew myself up indignantly, then deflated as a counterargument failed to appear. "Basically."

"Well," Sirius brushed his nails on his shirt, "If only you had a genius detective ex-Auror uncle who could look into it for you."

"Your Auror days are behind you," I said dubiously.

"I saw the footprints in the shrapnel before you. Even caught the direction they were moving in."

Once again, I was silenced by a good point. "Alright," I shrugged. "Fine, go for it. Just don't do anything too crazy without me, alright?"

"Let it be known how much I approve of the 'without me' part of that sentence," Sirius said with a grin.

I leaned against the windowsill and chuckled. "What are you going to do?"

"Standard stuff. I've still got my fake Muggle police badge around here somewhere. I'll go door-to-door and see if anyone remembers seeing lights in the graveyard that night. If they do, I'll nab a copy of their memories, then cross-reference them all later, try and figure it out."

"Huh. You really were an Auror. I always thought that was just something you said to pick up women," I said with a smirk.

"Ex-Auror is sexier," Sirius said knowingly, waggling his apple core at me by the stem like a teacher's pointer. "It adds an element of danger. What did I do to lose my job? I'm a mystery, Harry."

"An enigma," I agreed. "And when they find out who you are, do they immediately realise you resigned to look after a couple of crying brats? I imagine that must cool the ardour fairly quickly."

"Oh, Harry," Sirius said, shaking his head with a benevolent smile. "You don't understand women at all."

I snorted and turned back to the window. "Clearly." The mountain once again consumed my vision. After a few minutes, I broke the comfortable silence. "Have you ever gone hiking up there?"

"You mean Mount James-Potter-Is-A-Lazy-Twat?"

"Huh?"

Sirius tossed his apple core into the fireplace and rose to join me at the window. "That's what Lily named it. I don't know its official name, but I've always wanted to get it changed to that."

"Why did she name it that?"

"Because James flat out refused to go hiking with her anymore."

"She spent a lot of time up there?" I asked, keeping my tone casual. Dumbledore had mentioned funding my mother's research into voidrope and other such things, but I hadn't followed him up on it. I preferred to do my digging a little less… directly.

"Every minute not spent fighting Death Eaters or snogging James. This was before they went into hiding at Godric's Hollow. Times were… well, I won't say good, but the dark just made the light seem brighter, you know? Any of us could die any time, so we did our best to not waste a moment. Lily loved working on her projects and hiking up the mountain, James loved sneaking out to see Quidditch games, even knowing Death Eaters could drop in at any moment. There were some good times around here." Sirius paused for a moment and cleared his throat. I didn't need to be psychically talented to sense the old grief that bubbled to the surface.

"What kind of projects did Mum work on?"

Sirius waved a hand. "No idea. Way over my head, and that's saying something. She took all her notes to Godric's Hollow, and… well, they're gone, in any case."

I looked at the floor, hope dwindling in my chest.

Sirius clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry," he murmured. "That was a bit blunt, wasn't it?"

"No, it's fine. Are you sure Mum took all of her notes?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. They made a point of not leaving anything valuable for the Death Eaters to play with if they raided this place. Honestly, when we left to set up the house at Godric's Hollow, we all thought the next time we saw Potter Manor it would be razed to the ground. It was a painful thought, especially when James had only commissioned this place a few years before, on his seventeenth birthday."

I started. "Wait, this place was built only a few years before I was born? I thought it was the Potter ancestral home."

Shrugging, Sirius rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Nah, the Potters never really went in for that sort of thing. James and Lily were just going to live with James's parents after getting married – their place was plenty big enough – but then Lily started getting ideas for great spots to build a house, and James never really stood a chance of resisting." He laughed. "I remember him telling me how he finally had access to the Potter fortune, but wasn't certain he'd survive long enough to really enjoy it. 'Spend big,' I told him. 'Don't look back'. Next thing you know, Lily picked out the spot, James picked out the décor, and bam, the Potters had a manor for the first time in generations."

If I hadn't known better, I probably would have just smiled along with the story and enjoyed the moment. But too many things were lining up in very specific patterns, and I couldn't shake the feeling that my mother was far too clever for her own good.

"I kinda want to go up there now. Is that okay?"

Sirius nodded cheerfully. "Sure. I've still got my hiking boots around here somewhere."

"Um… Do you mind if I go alone?" I said sheepishly.

Sirius's face softened in understanding. "No, go for it." He ruffled my hair, which I pretended to hate, and left me to prepare.

I decided to climb Mount James-Potter-Is-A-Lazy-Twat the Muggle way. No Featherlight Charms to ease my ascent, just good boots, a rucksack with some water and energy bars, and a sizeable stick I found in the woods below the mountain. I imagined my mother had picked up hiking sticks from the same area whenever she walked the faint trail through the pine trees. There were plenty to choose from, thanks to the winds tearing hundreds of branches loose. Occasionally, a long, windswept arm would groan and droop before snapping off and clattering to the ground.

The greenery thinned out after about half an hour, and soon vines and occasional shrubbery were the only signs of life. Or so I thought, until I spotted lizards crawling on the sides of boulders, zipping out of sight when they saw me. A fat adder sat motionless in its rocky den, too cold to even move. Above me, sparrowhawks flitted back and forth from their concealed nests, feeding their fledglings urgently in the face of such unpredictable weather.

The sight of nature comforted me. There had been nothing alive in Rybagrad, except perhaps one poor hermit who ended up caught between forces he had no way of resisting. The 'Satan' creature still held a frustrating place in my mind. Whatever it was, it had easily ensnared my entire team, and possibly killed Noam. I hated not knowing things, but it seemed like it was becoming a recurring pattern.

My legs were aching barely halfway up. I knew I should be grateful the mountain was climbable at all without equipment, but telling that to my thighs didn't soothe them at all. My breath misted in front of me as the day cooled down. I tried to imagine my mother dragging my father up this very trail; her, marching doggedly with a determined look on her face; him, puffing and panting, trying to make jokes while out of breath, fingering his wand and fantasising about summoning his broomstick.

The trail split and diverged through the house-sized rocky outcrops. I never pondered too long on which way to go, indeed, my feet never stopped moving as I was pulled upwards by my curiosity.

An ending came in the form of a cave opening shaped like an enormous eye socket. A cave-in had blocked the entrance quite thoroughly, leaving not even the smallest gap that led into whatever lay beyond.

I shrugged and turned to leave, my curiosity satisfied, thoughts of dinner floating through my mind, before spinning back to face the cave in, because what? My heart sped up. A very powerful repellent charm had laid its hooks into my mind.

I backed away, unveiling my senses, shucking off the creeping vines of compulsions that weren't my own. The whole cave entrance was lathered in both magical and psychic wards.

Kane's words yesterday came to the forefront of my mind.

"This is not the first time we have needed to permanently secure and monitor an anomalous area."

I grimaced at the sheer strength of the wards. I couldn't challenge them, even with my power. Perhaps if Jim and I worked together we could pull it off – or perhaps Dumbledore alone might be capable – but I had a feeling even attempting to break through would result in every combat-capable Unspeakable dropping their heaviest curses on this whole area.

Why did I come up here?

The question surprised me, despite being wholly mine and not the result of some insidious defensive measure. Where was that sense of expectation coming from? Something else was at work, something the Unspeakables had missed despite their meticulousness.

I saw it in the stones themselves. Psychic markers, keyed to a frustratingly familiar frequency that eluded my recognition, like a word on the tip of my tongue. The markers had dotted the path up to the mountain, subtly nudging me this way and that, and only if I hit every marker in precisely the order I had would this final, overt marker appear. It was among the most creative uses of the Mind Arts I had ever seen.

The ultimate marker took the form of a long stick, not dissimilar to the hiking stick I had picked up at the base, but older and more gnarled. I picked it up fearlessly, emboldened by an inexplicable certainty that it wasn't a trap. The stick was taller than me, with a smooth portion around where my hand naturally gripped.

Was this really yours?

The name had come to me, but I couldn't speak it. Unlike the name of the Dark Lord, it was pure, human awe that held my tongue. The awe of a child.

I examined the hiking stick, leaving mine behind like the useless piece of wood it had become in the face of this treasure. A knot of wood the size of a clenched fist topped the stick. The psychic marker had been placed specifically on that spot. I uncurled the hardened wood carefully, peeling back layer after layer.

In the heart, there was a crystal vial containing a swirling, glimmering silver substance.

I knew what the smart thing to do was. Taking the vial home, analysing it for malicious qualities, consulting a book or three, and then start thinking about interacting with it.

I opened the vial. Tentatively, like the first taste of hot soup, I touched the contents.

A new perspective unfolded around me. I felt dizzy as I saw two different images at once. Then, one of them replaced the other.

I remained where I stood at the mouth of the cave. Only, the cave was no longer blocked. I could see a dimly lit cavern within. If it weren't for the eerie, dreamlike sensation, I would have believed the vial had done nothing but open the way.

A woman stood a short distance from me, partway inside the cavern. She was taller than me, with long, vibrant red hair and bright green eyes. My breath caught in my throat.

Lily Potter turned her head and looked me straight in the eye.

"Hello, Harry," she said with a smile.

"Mum?" I whispered. I could sense no deception. As far as I could tell, the person in front of me was as real as any other person I had seen while inside a mindscape.

"It's me," Lily confirmed gently.

I couldn't move, couldn't think. "How?"

She winked at me. "You could say I had a Backup plan."

"This is your Backup function? How is it still working? Why would you remove it? How –"

"It's a Backup-Memory hybrid I designed. By adding copies of important memories, the function degrades at a slower rate." She waved me over. "Now, I believe you came here for a reason."

I followed her gesture like a fly-struck lamb. The ground cracked under my feet.

"Careful," Lily cautioned over her shoulder. "You're more powerful here. Keep yourself in check, or I'll be destroyed."

Immediately, I clamped down on my senses, stuffing away the racing thoughts that threatened to undo this fragile miracle.

We entered the cavern that had been sealed in the real world. It was like standing inside a gigantic iron maiden. I stared wonderingly at the drooling stalactites above us. No matter where on the cavernous ceiling they formed, they all pointed towards the centre of the room. Meltwater from tiny invisible channels in the roof flowed endlessly down each stalactite, making their uneven surfaces smooth and glossy. Where the many trickles of water met the floor, thin grooves had been bored into the ground. As the stalactites grew, the water falling off each tip moved, and over the millennia even these gentle streams could carve through solid rock.

The result was a series of narrow cracks below each stalactite, all leading towards the middle of the chamber. Only the most vertical of stalactites, the ones right above the centre, lacked corresponding trenches, instead possessing pinholes that took water away into the depths without a sound.

At the centre of all this geological attention, a halo-shaped stone altar sat close to the ground. Thin bars of water poked holes in the rocky floor around it, but none of the touched the altar itself, or fell inside it.

On the altar, arranged in a circle, were a number of wooden sculptures of a design that I had never encountered before. They followed a particular pattern: a footlong length of intricately carved alder; a small, rhombus-shaped piece of dark wood with an indecipherable symbol on one face; and a sheet of soft, flexible bark that almost resembled cloth, unmarked. One-two-three, one-two-three, around the entire altar. I couldn't make sense of it.

"This is a fane," Lily said quietly. She'd followed behind me, watching me take it all in. "It was built around six thousand years ago, though, as always, it's hard to be sure about these things."

"What is a fane?" I asked, squatting beside the altar to study the carvings closely.

"A shrine of sorts. This was long before the Statute of Secrecy, so magical folk still lived and worked alongside Muggles. It was before Hogwarts, before the Founders, before wands and brooms." Lily wandered over and crouched beside me. "These carvings are actually made from wand wood. We just utilised it differently back then. Instead of waving them around to cast spells, we carved them into shapes that represented different effects we were trying to achieve."

"And when combined like this, I suppose more complex, multilayered effects could be achieved," I guessed.

Lily nodded, her green eyes flashing with delight. "Yes, exactly."

"So what was the purpose of this fane? Why build it all the way up here?"

"Well, considering this is from before recorded history, it's doubtful we'll ever truly understand this place the way a local shaman might have. But thankfully, it's not the only fane to be discovered in Britain, and most of them follow the same format: big, dark caves; running water is involved somehow, and the wooden carvings are arranged on a ring-shaped altar, occasionally supplemented by voidrope. Through cross-referencing and… other methods, we've pieced together what appears to be part of a Neolithic creation myth."

"Did they summon proto-God with this thing?" I asked dryly.

"The opposite, actually," Lily said seriously. "These three recurring carvings were always found in fanes that were used for summoning or banishing malevolent spirits, which the early shamans likely framed as the adversaries in their vocal history and mythology."

"I take it angry ghosts were a lot more threatening back then."

Lily tutted at my light-hearted responses. I couldn't blame her. Here she was, trying to share some knowledge of ancient history, and I was too busy enjoying the simple fact I was able to banter with my mother, something that had been impossible before today. I decided to focus up. Clearly, Lily had a point to make.

"Spirits, not ghosts," she said. "The modern classification does ghosts a disservice. Peeves the Poltergeist, at Hogwarts, is closer to a true spirit than a ghost could ever be."

That caught my attention. My discovery with Hermione suddenly seemed very relevant. "I thought Poltergeists were a known species of spirit?" I said.

"What you need to understand is that the Ministry classification of what is and isn't a spirit is deliberately misleading. It's designed to stifle knowledge of true spirits, which have, at times, been referred to as demons. Banshees, Gytrashes, Caipora; none of these things are spirits. They are only categorised as such in order to shape public perception of spirits into something quite far removed from the truth."

I paused, digesting the new information.

"What are spirits, then?" I asked, opting for the direct route.

"Dementors, Boggarts, and Poltergeists, the three most commonly known Non-Beings in the Spirit category, began as three very dangerous spirits that were allowed to enter our world at places like this." Lily gestured at the altar.

"Began? So they've changed since then?"

"We don't know what happened to the original spirits, but we know they found a way to reproduce, or at least create lesser copies of themselves. But since their offspring were born in our world, they took on some of our qualities. The Dementor population is tied to the amount of fear and misery present in the human population of whatever region they're occupying. They are also weak to the Patronus Charm, which is the embodiment of a very happy memory bolstered by the caster's willpower. Boggarts hide in human dwellings and feed on the fear they incite when they are discovered, but can be beaten with a simple spell and an imaginative sense of humour. Poltergeists revel in young people and mischief, but can be settled down by a suitably old or clever person."

Lily met my eyes. "In short, they became fair."

"Meaning the original spirits weren't," I said in realisation.

"Exactly." Another flash of delight crossed Lily's eyes, and I tried to suppress the happiness I felt at the sight. "Imagine what the original spirits were like, Harry. The father of all Dementors, unkillable, unstoppable, inhaling souls with every breath while all who stood against it cowered in helpless fear before a force they had no comprehension of. Imagine the Boggart, a being that knows the fears of humans and can take their image, take any image, allowing it to hide within those early societies and do… whatever it pleased. And finally, imagine Peeves if his tricks and games were more sadistic than mischievous, and there's no headmaster on earth who can call him to order."

I couldn't even picture it. "How did those early shamans manage to survive?"

Lily wiggled her eyebrows playfully. "Nooobody knooows," she said spookily.

I tried not to smile, but I was pretty sure my mother noticed. I turned away so I wouldn't have to see her victorious grin. Every second I spent with her felt wonderful. Natural.

"So why hasn't anybody built a fane in Hogwarts and tried to banish Peeves once and for all? Or the Dementors and Boggarts?" I asked.

"Building, repairing, or trying to use a fane is a crime comparable to Utterance," Lily said simply. "And don't even talk about destroying one. The problem with these things having been used thousands of years ago is that we no longer know how to utilise this form of magic. The knowledge of how to summon spirits has been lost – or hidden – alongside the knowledge of how to banish them. Since we don't know how these fanes work, we can't tell if they are still in use."

I blinked, rocking back on my heels, forgetting it was a memory for a moment as I stared up at the stalactites. "You mean they might still be fulfilling their purpose?" My blood chilled at the thought. The Elder Dragon's roar echoed inside my skull. It was something I never wanted to experience again.

"There might be an evil spirit trapped in this very fane, and we wouldn't… even… know it!" Lily grabbed me by the shoulders, making me let out a startled yelp. I rounded on her furiously, my cheeks burning as she laughed.

Slowly, her mirth subsided into a warm smile. Impulsively, I hugged her, and she returned it.

"I wish," I whispered. "I wish…"

"I know," she murmured. "But really, Harry, stop acting like I'm dead. It's not very polite."

"You are dead. This is some kind of personality imprint combined with copies of the real Lily's memories."

Lily rolled her eyes as though I was being silly. "If you say so."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and deliberately stepped away from her. It was agonising.

"I've only seen one other fane," I said. Lily nodded pleasantly. "It was in northern Russia. It contained an Elder Dragon. With all this talk of 'original' spirits, is it possible…?"

Lily said nothing, urging me on with her gaze.

"It wasn't an Elder Dragon… it was the Elder Dragon," I said, my eyes widening. "It was one of the original spirits. Normal dragons are its descendants! That's why we can beat them – they became fair, just like the Dementors and the others! But the original Dragon was just like the original Boggart, and Dementor, and Poltergeist!"

Lily laughed and clasped her hands together. "That's exactly right!"

I plucked my glasses from my head and rubbed my eyes as the revelations washed over me. "I can hardly believe this." I replaced my glasses. "But if the original spirits weren't fair, why was I able to trap the Elder Dragon back in its fane? Shouldn't it have simply destroyed everything the moment it arrived?"

"I don't know, Harry. I never encountered any of the original spirits, as far as I know." She kneeled down and patted his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles. "But you have the chance to answer your own questions. It all depends on how far you're willing to go for the truth." Her green eyes, so similar to his own, held him transfixed. "I was ready to give my life for it. Apparently, I did. Don't let the sacrifices of those who came before us be in vain."

"You died protecting me and Jim, didn't you?" I asked quietly.

Lily cocked her head. "That doesn't sound like me." She grinned. "I always have a backup plan."

I didn't know what to say. I knew Lily Potter was dead. Sirius, Jim, and I always visited our parents on our birthday. Back when I had less control over my powers, I had accidentally sensed the bones lurking below the grave-dirt. Both sets had resonated with me in a way that could only happen if they were directly blood-related, the same way Lily's psychic markers drew my attention. The experience had been what began my pursuit of self-control, namely because feeling them, actually feeling them below the earth, along with the empathic connection, had driven it into me that my parents, my family, had been real, and were now dead. As a child, it had hurt so much to suddenly understand my parents as more than just other people's memories, and then realise I would never know them myself.

I withdrew from the Backup-Memory hybrid function, my mind whirling.

Only then did I think, Wait, what was that about 'Utterance'?

14 December 1994

Potter Manor

A few days had passed since my experience inside Mount James-Potter-Is-A-Lazy-Twat. I had spent much of the intervening time drifting through the corridors of Potter Manor like a ghost. Every time I tried to ask myself what the reasonable reaction should be, I came up blank.

Sirius had been popping in an out working on the Graveyard Case, as he called it. He seemed to understand I needed some time to myself. I don't know what I did to deserve such an excellent godfather.

I felt a flare of energy in the wards: someone wanted to Floo into the house. I took my time walking to the living room.

"Who is it?" I said into the flames.

"Kane," replied a distant, gravelly voice.

I sighed and let him through.

Kane was short and hard as a boulder. If he told me his face had been turned to stone in a freak encounter with a Basilisk many years ago, I would believe him.

"Harry," said Kane by way of greeting. "The situation in Rybagrad is secure."

"Great," I said with a shrug.

He eyed me. "You were more concerned about it a few days ago."

I blew out my cheeks and leaned against the brick fireplace. "Have you ever learned a lot of heavy secrets in quick succession? They take the sting out of each other. It's like mental indigestion, they just roll around inside your head, each one preventing the other from being fully processed."

"Yes, I have. During orientation."

I breathed a laugh. "I can't even imagine."

Kane cocked his head. "Are you ready for more?"

"Oh, God."

With a flap of his robes, Kane produced a handful of vials similar to the one my mother had left me, along with a scrap of parchment. "These are copies of the memories your team gave us of their time in Rybagrad. We've been unable to analyse them in too much detail, but perhaps a Mind Arts user of your potency will have better luck. There's also a written description of the hermit, like you asked."

I accepted the vials reluctantly. "How are they doing?"

"As you requested, we've left them with their memories, though I'm not certain how wise that is. They are each traumatised to different extents."

"What about Noam's family? Are they taken care of?"

Kane rolled his shoulders a little, one of the first times I've seen any discomfort from him. "He didn't have any family. In fact, we are struggling to find any records for him at all."

"How did he make it on the task force?"

"We're not sure. Every party that had representatives present at the staging area claims they have never heard of him." An intermittent tremor ran through the fingers of Kane's wand hand. "The mission may have been compromised from the start."

I cleaned my glasses on my shirt. "The question is, to what end?"

"I'll leave you to review the raw data." Kane turned to leave.

"Wait. There's something else. Can you define the term 'Utterance' for me? And I don't mean the mundane definition."

Slowly, Kane faced me once more. "May I ask how you came across that term?"

I thought about it. "No."

Kane nodded, apparently expecting that answer. "Utterance is an unwritten crime," he said. "If a person knows enough that they are capable of committing it, then they know enough to understand why it's a bad idea. For that reason, and to safeguard against public panic, Utterance is not known to the majority of Wizengamot members, or even the Minister for Magic himself."

"May I ask what the crime actually entails?"

Kane thought about it. "No."

I smiled grimly, unsurprised. "Then how about this. Did you find anything at the fane in Rybagrad?"

"We found what we expected to find at such a place." Kane's eyes were guarded; he wasn't sure what my angle was and didn't want to give me what I wanted for free. Old habits died hard.

"So all the usual things were present? Big cave – or at least it was in a cave before the top of the mountain blew off – running water, wooden carvings, voidrope?"

"…Yes."

"Good, good." I nodded mildly. "Alright, off you go."

Reluctantly, as he was clearly still unsure what I had been trying to do, Kane left by Floo.

So that fane did have wooden carvings. They must have fallen into the meltwater and froze beneath the surface when the Elder Dragon emerged. So far, at least, my mother's words were backed up by evidence.

It was time to review my team's memories. Considering the Unspeakables had been unable to make much progress, and the donors themselves were traumatised, I went into the family Pensieve with more than a little trepidation.

There was a reason the Unspeakables hadn't been able to penetrate far into the memories – a layer of accumulated, abject terror strongly dissuaded anyone from entering. To a lesser mind, the shock of such intense emotion served as kind of Protection function localised within the memory. For me, it meant an uncomfortable few minutes picking my way through terror signals shot from emulated synapse to emulated synapse; echoes of the minds the memories came from.

Misty surroundings resolved themselves as the tidal cavern my team had taken shelter in after the Elder Dragon emerged. I stepped into a scene of raw panic. Darya stood with her fist outstretched, her little cross necklace hanging between her fingers. Despite this, she was frozen with fear, her lips pulled back into a horrific grimace. Geoffrey clutched at his chest as though experiencing a heart attack, and though I knew he survived this particular encounter, I still had to suppress the urge to help him. The little German woman, Mia, curled into a ball on her side, eyes transfixed on the other side of the cavern. The villagers that had unnerved me so were wailing and screeching with utter abandon, the same word, over and over. Satana.

All of their eyes converged on a single point. The hell-pit was still there, burgeoning with unholy orange light and smoke through which a solitary figure emerged.

Oh my God, it's him, it's actually him, oh God, oh God, he's real, he's right there and he's real –

I stomped a mental foot down on the tail end of the fear-babbling. I could still feel more terrified exclamations plucking at my tongue, but I refused to voice them. In memories, the Mind Arts were more powerful, since memories are inherently products of the mind. That meant I was more powerful too, and no memory could be shocking enough to force me to stammer and whimper like a scaredy-cat.

I stared at 'Satan' and almost immediately picked up on the psychic energy blaring out of him like a foghorn. I leapt on the discovery like a cat on a mouse. Fallen angels, if they existed, wouldn't need the Mind Arts to do anything. If you ruled over Hell and commanded hordes of demons, you wouldn't bother dicking around in a cave in northern Russia either.

I allowed the memory to play out, slowly. Noam was closest to the apparition, but instead of screaming like the others, he stood stock-still, utterly expressionless. Being that close to Satan while the latter was blasting out mind-waves like it was going out of style could have stunned him, or otherwise rendered him insensate to current events. The shock might have even caused him to simply shut down. Either that, or…

Outside, the Elder Dragon returned to its containment. The shockwave was just as jarring as I remembered. But something curious happened to Satan at the same time. He wavered. The psychic energy, whatever it was being used for, faltered. The villagers flickered like the picture on a paused videotape. Only the bound man, who I now knew as the hermit Kane had mentioned, Noam, and the rest of the team were unaffected.

Satan vanished, as did the villagers and the entire hell-pit. Noam, caught in the middle of it, had time to stare in the direction of the mountain before popping out of existence as well. Not Apparition, mind you. He just… stopped.

I followed the memory for a while longer. Besides some crying and retching, nothing of note occurred. When I saw myself show up, I withdrew from the Pensieve.

What kind of entity had we unknowingly encountered? My laser-focus on killing Crouch and dealing with the Elder Dragon had caused my team to experience a psychic sandblasting they would never forget. That didn't mean I was wrong to focus on the main threats. It just meant that even the best choices come with consequences.

20 December 1994

Morning at Hogwarts

It was time to go back to school. Progress had ground to a halt in the absence of new leads, and I was falling into unhealthy behaviour patterns by stewing at home all day. Crouch was dead, the Elder Dragon was contained, and whatever Satan was, it was off the radar for the moment.

Plus, I really missed my friends.

And so, on a snowy Tuesday morning, I casually showed up in the Slytherin common room just before students began emerging. I parked myself in my usual corner on a sofa and breathed deeply the scents of the snake pit. Leather and polished wood. The mantel above the hearth was enriched by centuries of woodsmoke, and bore a little carved relief of a snake eating its own tail. Ouroboros. I wondered who had carved it, and why. I'd wondered it since my first year. It was a comfortable, nostalgic question that I knew I would never answer.

Students, yawning and heavy-footed, slowly trickled into the common room, many pausing to wait for friends in different dorms to catch up. Blaise appeared not long after the first student, and paused when he saw me. A smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth.

"About time," he murmured, clasping my hand briefly.

Pansy came out next, scanned the common room for Draco, then crossed her arms and faced back the way she came. She hadn't noticed me, but I was used to her tunnel-vision when Draco was involved. The blonde himself wasn't far behind, adding a few final touches to his slicked-back hair while ostentatiously holding a mirror using nothing but his mind. Crumbs of psychic frost fell from the handle.

He's kept up on his exercises. Good.

Draco paused mid-step when he saw me, accidentally ignoring Pansy who waved at him eagerly.

"So you're back, are you?" he said dismissively. Pansy tugged at his sleeve and he quickly pressed his lips to her temple, which seemed to mollify her for the moment.

"Oh." Pansy blinked at me. "Where did you come from?"

Blaise sniggered and I just smiled pleasantly.

Greg and Vince passed by, slowing when they noticed our gathering. I nodded to them, and they took it as a sign to keep on moving. They both looked a little happier, nonetheless. I knew they preferred each other's company to being in a group and didn't want to saddle them with unwanted socialisation.

Finally, the last member of our group glided out of the dormitory tunnel. Daphne had her shining, midnight-black hair parted on the left now, which was new. Ice-blue eyes widened as she saw me. Her brow furrowed; her lips pursed.

"Daphne," I said quickly, forestalling my well-deserved admonishment. "Will you be my date to the Yule Ball?"

Daphne closed her mouth. The frown remained, but her cheeks were a little rosy. "You ask me with only five days left?" she said archly. "What if I have already been asked?"

"I'll cry," I promised.

Her lips twitched. I saw her jaw work as she bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. "Very well," she sighed, stepping closer to me. "I'll spare you the embarrassment. I accept."

I leaned down and kissed Daphne on the lips. A commitment, Tracey had said, all those months ago. It's the only way to apologise that makes sure they know you mean it.

Author's Notes:

Maybe the quickest update I've done so far. A bit action-light, but after the craziness of last chapter, I think it fits to have a slower, lore-heavy chapter.

Please review if you're enjoying the story!