p4
– –– –
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. JKRowling does.
First
Beta Pass
by Clemex
– –
"Fleur, can we talk?" Harry said as he caught up to the gaggle of French girls walking across the courtyard. Fleur looked back at him and the sadness in her eyes was obvious, even from ten feet away. She said a few quiet words to some of her friends and they dispersed.
"'arry, I swear I didn't say a word to anyone," she began the instant they were alone.
Harry gave her a soft smile, but didn't waste anytime slipping into her mind. He skimmed through her thoughts and saw a glimpse of her reading Skeeter's article that morning. She was infuriated, especially by the bits accusing Harry of 'toying with the poor little French girl's heart'.
She really had no idea how Skeeter had come across her information. Fleur definitely wasn't the one who told her.
Harry pulled back out and continued the smile; only more genuine now. "I believe you," he said simply with a calm shrug.
"Oh 'arry! Zat woman iz a disgusting wretch! She writes lies and fabrications! In France, she would be liable for writing such slander!"
Harry smirked and shrugged. "Yeah... you know, you've got a point. Wonder if maybe I should get myself a solicitor and sue the Prophet."
"You should!" she said as she folded her arms across her chest, haughtily.
Harry chuckled. "Although in this one instance, she didn't lie or exaggerate, nearly as much as in her previous articles about me..."
"Well she lied about me! Insinuating that you mislead me and broke my heart. Stupid woman."
"Well, I did sort of mislead you. I mean... I didn't tell you I was gay."
"You didn't have to. I knew already," Fleur said dismissively. "I knew before I even accepted. I am not some stupid, naive little girl who allows boys to toy with my heart. Her insinuations about my character were offensive
to me."
"Well then maybe
you
should sue for slander," Harry said chuckling mildly.
Fleur sighed, and the fire of her anger extinguished slightly. "I cannot understand how you are not more angry 'arry. If it were me that she had written such garbage about, I would be utterly furious!"
Harry shrugged. "I'm getting used to it. Public opinion is a fickle monster. One day they love me, the next day they hate me, and then the following week they expect me to be their savior. It was a roller coaster head trip that I realized I didn't have to ride. So I got off. To hell with what they all think. I can try and do damage control, but freaking out over it isn't going to help matters."
Fleur scrutinized Harry for a long minute before shaking her head and grinning weakly. "You are remarkably mature for zomeone who is only fourteen, 'arry."
He laughed. "Thanks... I think."
She smiled brightly, took a step forward and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a friendly hug. Harry blinked in startled surprise. He was frozen for a minute, but forced himself to wrap his arms weakly around her waist and return the hug.
Finally she let go and took a step back. "If anyone gives you a hard time, I will defend your 'onor, 'arry. You were a fantastic date and I am glad I went with you to zee ball."
"Thanks," he said chuckling.
They said goodbye and parted ways after that. He cast a quick tempus and saw that lunch was about over. He grimaced. He had divination next. Oh how he
hated
divination.
– –
"Hey Poofer! Running off to meet with your boyfriend, Weasley?" an annoying voice called out as Harry made his way down the corridor after staying behind in Charms, later the next day. Harry turned around to face Draco Malfoy, leaning against the wall several feet away. A quick glance around was all he needed to determine that they were alone. Not even Malfoy's two cronies were around. A mischievous grin spread across his lips.
"Me, date
Ron? Are you mad? I
do
have standard's Draco. Really, now," Harry said, rolling his eyes dramatically and making a mockingly effeminate gesture with his hand.
Draco gaped at him and looked amusingly confused. Harry snickered and began to strut his way closer to the blond, who noticeably tensed up at the unexpected behavior.
"And seriously?
Poofer? Is that supposed to be a play on Potter? Is that the best you can come up with? I thought you were more clever than that,
Draco."
"Shut up, Potter," the blond spat, taking another step back as Harry continued to approach.
"Tsk, tsk, Draco. Where are those clever retorts your so famous for?" Harry said as he began to dig into his magic and pull some of his power to the surface. It was absolutely delicious and he grinned wider.
He raised one hand slightly, causing the other boy's eyes to lock on it, and his whole body to tense up. He saw Draco's hand clench his wand, held there, and begin to rise.
§Don't move,§ Harry hissed as he cast the magic out and encircled the blond boy. Draco froze in place and his eyes widened in horror. "So," Harry said as he extended one hand and placed it on the wall beside Malfoy's head and leaned forward, pressing the other boy against the wall completely. Malfoy's eyes were wide with panic as it became more and more obvious that he couldn't move, "what did you want," Harry said in a whispery sort of voice, with his face only inches away from Malfoy's. "W-what?" Malfoy stuttered. "You called to me. What did you want?" Harry explained, smirking and pressing their chests together further. Malfoy breathed in a sharp hiss of surprise as he was pressed against more intimately than he hadever expected. "What the bloody hell are you doing, Potter!" Malfoy said, but his voice was surprisingly weak and clearly filled with panic. "Well you did call out to me, Draco. Asking me if I was running off to a boyfriend or something. I thought maybe you were jealous. Interested in some fun, Draco?" "You're mad! What are you doing to me? Why can't I move?" "You can't move, because I told you not to," Harry smirked as he swirled up some of his magic and gathered it into his fingertips. He reached out and lightly traced his knuckles over Malfoy's cheek and the blond boy gasped and his body involuntarily arched off the wall. "What is that?" Malfoy gasped. "It's magic," Harry whispered into Malfoy's ear. He let his breath fan out across Malfoy's ear and neck and pushed more of his magic towards the other boy; swirling it around him tantalizingly. Malfoy's breathing became labored and his eyes rolled back into his sockets. "That's not just magic," he panted as his body began to spasm and buck against his own will. More and more of Harry's magic was beginning to dance over the surface of the other boy's skin, and he reveled in how intense the blond boy's reaction was to such a small tease of his magic. It was glorious andeasy, and Merlin it was fun! "Oh? Not just magic?" Harry asked with a playfully curious tone. "That's... that's dark magic," Malfoy gasped out before a small moan escaped from deep in his throat. Harry paused and pulled back slightly, frowning. Some of his magic retreated with him, and Malfoy whimpered at the loss, but it was apparently enough for him to regain some of his senses. His eyes opened and were filled with a look of shock and horror. "Get off me!" He growled angrily. Harry looked back down at Malfoy, with a mildly disinterested mask pulled on. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. You're no fun," He said as he stepped away completely and waved his fingers, releasing the parselmagic that had been holding Malfoy in place. The moment his body was free, Malfoy darted several feet away from Harry and stood facing him in a defensive stance, and tightly gripping his wand. "What in Merlin's name do you think you're playing at, Potter?" the blond spat angrily, but the fear was still evident in his eyes. "Just having a bit of fun Draco. Don't be so uptight," Harry said, dismissively. "What... what was that? What... how did you do
"Just a bit of magic, Draco. And as for how? I just
did.
It's
easy," Harry said smirking.
"When did Dumbledore's golden-boy start tinkering in
dark magic?"
Harry growled and took a harsh step forward, causing Malfoy to flinch and raise his wand.
"I'm
no one's
golden-boy!" he hissed. "Lease of all,
Dumbledore's," he sneered.
Malfoy blinked. His expression began as startled surprise; morphed into confusion, and then into something approaching intrigue.
He nodded his head and smirked slightly. "Alright Potter. If you say so."
Harry sneered again, but it was diminished when he rolled his eyes. "I'm done here," he said, waving his hand at Draco and turning back down the hall the way he'd been heading before he was interrupted. Draco called something out after him, but Harry was already gone.
He turned around a corner and then ducked behind a tapestry into a hidden corridor. He pressed his back to the wall, closed his eyes tightly, and pressed his fists into his eye sockets.
"What the hell was that!"
He thought to himself in mild panic. Where had that... that
rage, come from? He was mildly disconcerted at how easy it had been to screw with Malfoy, but that was nothing compared to the
fury
that had filled him at the thought of Dumbledore.
Why?
He had never felt so much hate towards the man, as he had in that moment, and he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out
why
he felt it.
And what of that comment from Malfoy about
dark
magic? He hadn't tried to draw on any kind of magic at all, he was just drawing from his own magic. Commanding it consciously, but not using any specific spells or incantations. Could magic have an er... affinity, even if a specific spell wasn't being used? It was just
raw magic.
How could it be
dark?
Harry sighed and let his legs slide out in front of him, and slowly slid his body down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. He needed to think. He needed to understand aligned magic better. His knowledge of the fundamental theory of different types of magic was spotty at best. As he thought about it, it
was
rather odd that it wasn't something covered in classes more.
It was the foundation of magical theory and they'd barely even skimmed the topic in his classes.
He shook his head and shifted back to the other matter. The
hate
he had felt.
Harry had barely thought about Dumbledore at all lately. He had only thought of the man in passing at the task, and basically not at all since. Now, when he let himself linger on the idea of his headmaster, it left a fowl taste in his mouth and a scowl on his face. The idea that anyone thought of him as Dumbledore's golden-boy pissed him off.
Why?
It hadn't pissed him off before. Not really. The whole 'golden-boy' thing had always been rather annoying, but even Harry had to admit it was fairly obvious to the rest of the school that the headmaster had showed him favoritism on several occasions, so he could see where people got the idea.
But he does a lot more to me besides show me the occasional favoritism.
Harry thought, bitterly. Every year it seemed like there was some new
test. Some new challenge set up to mess with Harry. To push his limits, and to push him in some designed direction. And these things could always be linked back to Albus Dumbledore.
But that was hardly enough to warrant the raging inferno of fury that filled him at the mere thought of his headmaster. His anger wasn't all his. It couldn't be.
Why can't it be?
His companion's voice whispered through his mind and he sighed happily at the sudden presence. He felt the tension release from his shoulders and he relaxed back against the wall.
"What do you mean?"
Why... do you feel that this... anger... cannot wholly be... yours?
"He... he hasn't really done enough to me to warrant so much anger,"
Harry thought with a grumble.
He has done plenty. And now... he has abandoned you.
"Huh?"
He... could have stopped this. This tournament. You are young... Harry. Too young...
"But Mr. Crouch said I had to participate. That the rules were clear, or whatever."
Dumbledore could have stopped it. You... are underage.
"Crouch said that the Goblet of Fire was like a magically binding contract,"
Harry said, as he scowled down at his hands, thinking over the memories of Halloween night when his world was turned upside down... again. "If it's magically binding, doesn't that mean I lose my magic if I break it?"
You are too young for a... magically binding... contract. Your magical... guardian... could have intervened. You can not be bound... not without your... guardian's consent. "Magical guardian?" Dumbledore. "How is he my magical guardian?" Harry asked, dubiously. He is... your headmaster. You have no... wizard guardians... so he gains your guardianship... while you are in his school. It is how... it works. Harry blinked and tried to wrap his mind around that statement. "How do you know this?" I just do. Harry rolled his eyes, but didn't inquire further. "Okay... but I didn't really know all of that stuff, so how could it have made me angry?" Perhaps... because I am... angered... by it. I knew. I knew he could... have stopped this. But he has not. He... is testing you... again. Always testing you. Manipulative old man... tricky...bastard... Harry blinked in surprise at the anger he heard in his companion's whispy voice. He never really heard emotion in his companion's voice. Not really. He thought over what he had just learned and scowled. If it were true, it could only mean that this was another one of Dumbledore's ridiculous tests. Hell, maybe it was Dumbledore that put his name in the bloody cup! But no... Voldemort clearly had something to do with Harry being in the tournament. Plus that man, 'Barty' seemed somehow involved in the whole thing. Like it was his job to somehow collect Harry and bring him to the Dark Lord. He growled in frustration and shook his head. Okay, he definitely felt justified in his serious distrust and dislike of his headmaster, and realizing that his companion had a deep seeded hatred for the man did help explain Harry's sudden bout of unexpected emotion. It was still strange to think that his emotions had been overridden so easily by his companion's... but he trusted his companion, so it didn't bother him too much. Finally he sighed and stood to his feet. He had been heading towards the chamber before he was interrupted. He pulled his cloak and map out of his bag, readied them, and began to make his way towards the second floor. – – Harry climbed through the portrait hold later that night exhausted and more than eager for some relaxation time in bed. He couldn't believe it was only Tuesday night. How could only two days of term passed, when it had felt like so much longer than that? Of course his days were pretty packed with classes, combined with his personal training regimen down in the chamber. He had so many things going on at once, he barely had time for homework and sleep. He heard Seamus's and Dean's voices and glanced up to see the pair of them disappearing at the top of the stairs, just as he entered the common room. Neville was no where to be seen, and Ron was hunched over one of the common room tables with his transfiguration textbook open and a pile of parchment beside it. Hermione was sitting opposite him, and it looked like she was attempting to explain something to him, and getting frustrated by his inability to get it. Pretty common situation for him to find the two of them in. Ron's head rose and when his eyes caught sight of Harry he grinned in relief. "Harry!" Harry rose a single eyebrow questioningly and made his way over, cautiously. "Hey Ron, what's up?" "You done with that essay for transfiguration yet?" "Ronald Weasley!" Hermione's scolding voice sounded immediately. "What?" Ron exclaimed defensively. "Do your own work!" "I haven't even asked him for anything yet! I just asked him if he'd done it!" "I'm not an idiot Ron. I refused to let you copy mine for a reason! You need to learn this, Ron! It's important!" Harry looked at the pair of them bickering and chuckled. Ron scowled but shifted his expression to a desperately hopeful one instead. "So... have you?" "Hmm?" Harry asked. "Finished it," Ron reiterated. "Oh. Yeah, I got it done last night," Harry said dismissively. "Can I –" "RON!" Hermione growled. Harry laughed openly now and began to shake his head. "No, Ron. Do your own work." Ron's face fell immediately and he slouched back into his chair and pouted. Harry turned away and began to head for the stairs. "Where you going?" Ron asked as he sat up straighter, looking disappointed. "Bed. I want to get some reading in, and I'm exhausted," Harry called over his shoulder as he kept going. "Yeah.. me too. I mean, I'm exhausted too. I think I'll head up to bed." Hermione made a frustrated growling sort of noise and slammed her own book shut rather roughly. Harry didn't bother to wait and just kept heading up the stairs. He entered the boy's 4th year dormitory and made his way over to his bed. Neville was already in bed, but his hangings weren't drawn shut. He was propped up in bed against his pillows, and reading a book. Dean was standing beside his own bed, digging around in his trunk, and Seamus looked to be sorting through his school bag. Seamus and Dean both paused in their actions and watched Harry as he entered the room. He could feel their eyes trained on him and scowled, but chose not to acknowledge it until one of them got the balls to say something. He opened his wardrobe and pulled out his cotton pajama pants and a loose t-shirt. He disrobed down to his boxers and slipped into his bed clothes. The room was eerily silent, and he could still feel their eyes on his back. He climbed into bed and propped himself up against his pillows. He assumed the same basic arrangement as Neville, and pulled out the book, Tip-Toeing Through the Mind of the Unaware by Clair Videre. He'd only had the time to read a little of it so far, and was hoping to get a little reading in before he finally went to sleep. "Er... Harry?" Seamus's voice called out from across the room. Harry looked up at them with a single arched brow. "Yeah?" "You uh... need to use the loo, or anything?" Harry blinked. "What?" he responded, in utter bewilderment. "Or, you could just close your bed hangings," Dean offered quickly. Harry looked between the two of them, trying to work out what the bloody hell they were on about. He saw that they were both standing by their respective beds with their own bed clothes laid out and ready to change. And yet they were both still standing there, fully dressed. Suspicion dawned on him and he narrowed his eyes at them. Ron walked in and interrupted the moment. He was grumbling about 'stupid bossy know-it-alls' and made his way straight over to his bed, beside Harry's. Ron wasted no time at all disrobing and slipping into a set of maroon flannel pajamas. Still Dean and Seamus stood awkwardly beside their beds, fidgeting uncomfortably. "You don't want to get undressed with me here, do you?" Harry asked in an airy voice, while looking down at his book. Both boys looked sheepish for a minute. Ron looked up, clearly confused by the sudden statement. He looked at Harry, and then at the two of their dorm mates who were still standing. "What?" was Ron's eloquent response. "Dean and Seamus," Harry said, tilting his chin towards the two boys, but then resuming his focus back onto the book in his lap. "They're uncomfortable getting undressed with me here." "What? Why?" Ron responded, looking back at the other two boys in confusion. Dean turned away, clearly embarrassed, and ran is hand through his short, tight brown curls. Seamus growled in frustration and folded his arms across his chest. "Well, because he's... you know!" he said, jabbing his hand in Harry's general direction. Ron, the blessed idiot, still looked confused. Harry, however, understood exactly what was going on, and actually began to chuckle. "No, I don't. He's what?" Ron exclaimed, getting frustrated by both not getting it, and the insinuation that there was something wrong with Harry. "They don't want to get naked in front of me 'cause I'm queer, Ron," Harry explained in a flat, dismissive tone as he turned the page in his book. A startled choking sound emanated from Neville's side of the room, and Harry could see that Seamus had turned beat red, from out of the corner of his eye. Ron turned to face Seamus and Dean with a furious expression on his face. "Is that true?" he shrieked. "Oh, come on Ron!" Seamus said defensively. "No! How can you... I mean... he's just Harry! How... Errrgh!" Ron growled in frustration and Harry actually laughed. They all turned to look at him, incredulously. Harry rolled his eyes and closed the book. "Look you guys," he started in an exasperated tone, "yes, I fancy blokes. Big deal. I don't fancy any one of you though, so get over yourselves. I've seen every one of you starkers in the shower dozens of times over the last three and a half years; I haven't done anything weird during that time, and I'm not about to start doing anything weird now that I've been outed by that stupid cow Skeeter. "Bloody hell, Seamus – what do you think – that I'm gonna start beating off to fantasies of you in your black and red Ballycastle Bats briefs?" he asked, barely restraining his laughter. "I'm not into any of you. Get over it." And with that, he waved his hand, and hissed a quiet close command under his breath, causing the hangings around his bed to fly closed and stick shut. He picked his book back up, and resumed reading. – – Harry's weak remained excessively full. As he had more classes, his homework load steadily rose, and by the end of the week, he was having trouble finding time to head down into the chamber to work on his transformation. So far, the most he had managed to do was make his eyes go slitted, and make a few scales appear in scattered patches along his skin. He was starting to feel a tingling feeling in his limbs, but nothing had actually happened yet. He knew the next big step would involve his arms shrinking away to nothing – which was honestly a bit unnerving to think about. He wondered if his nerves were hindering his progress. On Saturday, Hermione and Ron set out to help him with the locator spells. The first one he was going to try required him to actually know what the thing taken was. They took the Sneak-o-Scope that Ron had given Harry for his birthday a few years prior, and disappeared from the common room to go hide it somewhere in the school. Considering how enormous the black lake was, Harry figured if he couldn't find the sneak-o-scope where ever they put it in the school, then the spell wouldn't be any use to him during the task. Harry sat in the common room, waiting for them to return, and reading notes he had taken from the parselmagic book on the locator spells. He hadn't wanted to risk pulling that book out in the company of others, so he had left the actual book down in the chamber. Most of it was cerebral. The incantation was actually incredibly simple. He just spoke find and whatever the object was, in parseltongue. The hard part was how he focused, and how he controlled and directed his magical energy. He mulled over the ideas in his head, and did a few simple practice runs by locating his quill, set on the table in front of him, and then locating a book that was placed on one of the little tables beside the fireplace. He felt the pull on his magic in the proper direction each time, and the magic felt like it was cooperating properly. Finally Hermione and Ron appeared in the portrait hole looking mildly flushed, as if they had run back to the common room from where ever they had hidden the object. "Alright, mate! It's done," Ron said with a wide grin. Harry chuckled at Ron's enthusiasm and thanked them for their help. "Alright guys, thanks," Harry said standing up and heading towards the portrait hole. "Can't we come with?" Ron asked, looking disappointed at Harry's retreating form. "I don't think that would be a good idea... I mean, you two already know where it is. That could somehow influence the spell. I'll be on my own in the lake. It'd be best if I practice under the same circumstances," Harry explained easily. Ron pouted but nodded. "Yeah, I guess so." "I'll come find you two if the spell fails me and I can't manage to find it within the hour." "Okay, mate." "Thanks again," Harry said, giving them a bright, convincing smile before he turned and jogged out the portrait hole. He cast a quick tempus and made note of the time. One hour. If he couldn't find the sneak-o-scope in one hour with this spell, he was going to have to figure something else out. And of course, after this, he needed to try out the spell that would find a hidden object, even if you didn't know exactly what the object was. That one was bound to be a tremendous amount more difficult to pull off. Harry took a deep breath and calmed himself a bit. He focused on a mental image of a great black serpent, coiling and slithering. He felt the build of his parselmagic and called it forth, coiling it around him like the great black snake in his mind. Then he focused on the image of the Sneak-o-Scope. Once he was positive he had the correct image and focus established, he hissed out §find theSneak-o-Scope§. When he opened his eyes, a hazy, distorted image of the great black serpent filled his vision. It was like smoke flowing through liquid, but with form. It was slithering in mid-air in front of him, turning it's head from side-to-side, as if it were searching for something. Suddenly the snake took off through the air like a bullet. Harry quickly began to race after it and willed it to slow down so as to not lose sight of it. He tensed whenever he came across any students, even though he knew that none of them could see the snake. It was an apparition that only he could see. Still, being around anyone else while he did this made him nervous. The snake quickly made it's way down the grand staircase and through the forth floor corridor. Finally it made it's way to one of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that lined the walls in this wing and slipped right through it and disappeared. Harry blinked at the sight in surprise before memory dawned on him. This mirror was the secret entrance to one of the passageways that led out of the school. Fred and George had informed him that it caved in during his second year, so Harry had never really bothered to explore it. He grinned widely. He had to admit, every now and then Ron actually came up with a bright idea. He doubted that Hermione was behind this because he didn't think she actually knew about this passageway. Fred and George had probably told Ron about it. Harry ran his fingers along the edges of the mirror trying to figure out how to get past it. He felt magic thrumming from it, and wondered if there was a password for this one, like there was a password for the statue of the one-eyed witch, on the second floor that covered the tunnel that lead to Honeydukes. Dissendium was used to reveal the hidden entrance to that tunnel, but he doubted that would work here since the mirror was most likely a door, and not something he would descend. He took a step back and pulled out his wand. He tapped the mirror and thought "cantio revelio." The magical energy he felt respond from the mirror didn't have a word He heard a faint click sound, and then the mirror swung open like a door. He slipped inside and saw the black serpent waiting inside the small room on the other side. It was on the ground now, coiling and slithering in a circle around the Sneak-o-Scope, that was currently placed on the floor in the center of the room. Harry grinned, walked over, and picked it up. He cast another tempus and saw that it had only been about 18 minutes. He would definitely consider that a success. Now to see if he could do it, even if he had no idea what had been taken from him. – – Harry fell into bed that night tired and moody. Despite his first success with the locator spell, all of his subsequent attempts had failed miserably. It looked like, if he had no idea what he was looking for, he had no way of finding it. But surely they wouldn't actually tell him to just jump in the lake and 'find something that's yours'. Would they? He hoped not. But even aside from his crummy afternoon, he was currently extra moody because he was only about an hour away from heading back down to the chamber to take his next dose of the accelerant potion. And even with his ability to go into his mindscape to escape the excruciating pain, it didn't change the fact that he would get no sleep, and would end up horribly sore afterwards. He lay in bed, fighting the urge to just fall asleep, for about an hour until he was positive that all of his dorm mates were asleep. He had his cloak, map, and bag ready, and, after casting a quick silencing spell upon himself, he slipped from the room, down into the common room, and out the portrait hole. Harry was making his way down the grand staircase and checking the map frequently for any signs of Filch or Peeves when something odd caught his attention. Bartemius Crouch. What was Mr. Crouch doing at Hogwarts after midnight? But, even more curious, was the fact that Bartemius Crouch was currently digging through Snape's potion stores. The little dot with Crouch's name floating beside it was moving to and fro inside the small store room; pausing here and there for a few moments at a time. Harry's curiosity was peaked. He picked up his pace and hurried down the stairs and towards the entrance to the dungeons. He slipped down the hall and around a corner, and came to a stop a short distance from the potion storehouse. The door was closed but the light was still on inside. Harry tapped his wand against the map and canceled the spell before slipping it into his pocket. He was just about to take a few steps closer when the door swung open. Harry instantly pressed himself back against the wall and into a shadowed alcove, even though he was already invisible. What he saw made his jaw drop. 'Mad-Eye' Moody came striding quickly down the hallway with some things tucked under his arm. He looked around suspiciously and Harry felt his blood run cold. He knew that eye could see through invisibility cloaks. All he could do at this point was hope that Moody wouldn't look his way. The defense professor looked shifty-eyed down the hallway towards the Slytherin common room, and Snape's office, then quickly turned on his heels and walked briskly towards the dungeon's exit. Harry stayed there, pressed up against the cold stone wall, holding his breath until several minutes after the man had left. Finally he felt like it was safe to breath again and he raced out of the dungeons and towards the grand staircase. He reactivated the map en route, and headed straight for Myrtle's bathroom. Five minutes later and Harry came to rest inside Slytherin's study. He sat down heavily on the chaise and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. What the hell did it mean? There had been no dot that said Alastor Moody anywhere near the dungeon. In fact, after Harry had reactivated the map he saw the Moody's name was inside his office, while Bartemius Crouch was still wandering the halls for a minute more. But he had seen
Harry decided to start paying closer attention to Alastor Moody's location on the map, and keep a watchful eye open for Bartemius Crouch.
– –
Harry stumbled to his feet awkwardly. To say that his whole body hurt, would be an understatement. He now had come up with an effective way to describe what it felt like while under the effects of the accelerant potion. It felt like having searing hot barbed wire pulled through every vein in his body.
How the hell could anyone endure this potion without the escape that Harry was using? Surely anyone doing it would go mad from the pain alone...
Harry shook his head, but instantly regretted it as his head began to spin dizzily and he felt nauseous. A moment later he had collected himself and made his way over to the full length standing mirror to one side of the study.
Once again his skin was mottled in quickly fading bruises, but aside from the mild discoloration, he had to admit he was rather pleased with what he saw.
He was filling out rather nicely. His shoulders looked a tad more broad, he had gained two more inches in height, his skin looked healthier than ever, and his muscle definition was increasing in leaps and bounds.
Gone, were any signs of his bones. He was filling out in all the right places, and looked
solid
now, instead of flimsy and breakable.
This had been his forth dose of the accelerant, so he was half way done, yet he was already thrilled with the results.
He reached up and ran his fingers through his raven black hair. Even it looked healthier. It had a lustrous shine to it that it never really had before. It felt thicker and softer too. It didn't seem nearly as untamable and it once was and Harry wondered if he should actually start making some attempts at styling it in the mornings.
He shrugged off his own though, stretched his stiff, sore muscles, and gathered up his things. He'd catch the tail end of lunch, and then head straight to bed. Hopefully he wouldn't encounter too much curious intervention from Ron or Hermione. He needed sleep, damn it, and if they tried to interrogate him, he was likely to get snippy with them.
He'd done a remarkably good job of playing nice with the two tag-alongs, and didn't want to screw it up now after all the effort that had gone into reestablishing a cordial relationship with the two of them.
Since 'making-up' with them, his house-mates had begun laid off the accusations of him going dark. Since his forced public outing, the Hufflepuffs had actually laid off him a bit too. Why that was, exactly, he really couldn't even begin to fathom. He had just seen the results and was thankful for them.
The Slytherins had, of course, had their fair share of queer jokes to throw at him, but Draco Malfoy hadn't said a single word to Harry since their encounter outside the charms corridor the day after he was outed.
Malfoy
had
shot Harry any number of subtle, curious looks. Several times, when other Slytherin students
near
Malfoy took to openly mocking Harry, Malfoy actually put a stop to it. He would elbow the offender in the ribs and glare at them, or he'd just pull them away from Harry.
Harry wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, but he wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth. He'd take what he could get.
Right now, however, what he
needed, was sleep.
– –
Monday morning Harry was finally feeling recovered from his ordeal with the accelerant potion. The weariness and the sore muscles had fully subsided, and he was left feeling stronger and more energetic than ever. His body just felt
good.
He had never realized how many minor aches and pains his body suffered from until he got rid of them.
He had never fully appreciated the full extent of the damage a decade of malnutrition had done to him. It had left him with weak and brittle bones, achy muscles, and he was easily tired. He was thrilled to know he was finally going to be rid of all of that.
Harry followed Ron to breakfast and they were greeted by Hermione, who was already there, and sitting beside Neville and Ginny. He and Ron joined them, and a casual conversation settled in around them. Harry didn't actually contribute much, but he nodded his head and appropriate times, and chuckled when it was expected, even though he found their conversation to be mostly aimless drivel.
About half-way through the meal the post owls arrived and Harry was greeted with a medium sized parcel being carried by a pair of brown owls. Harry eagerly relieved them of their burden and gave them each a piece of ham.
"What's that?" Ginny asked, looking at it curiously.
"Books, probably," Ron grumbled, rolling his eyes in apparent disgust.
Ginny looked at Harry expectantly, silently asking for confirmation. Harry just nodded his head. "Books," he said with a grin.
"What sort of books?" Neville asked between bites of sausage.
"A variety. I recently started ordering books from a publisher's owl-order catalog. It started with a potions book, but after they sent me the catalog, I found that they had a
ton
of really interesting books on loads of different subjects. I've just been getting anything that peaked my interest."
"He's
always
reading now. He's as bad as Hermione," Ron grumbled, scowling.
"Harry's been amassing quite a book collection," Hermione said with a proud little smile, choosing to act deaf of Ron's remarks.
Harry snorted. "Yeah, but at this rate, I'm not sure how the hell I'm going to take any of it back to Privet Drive with me. I've already got too many to fit inside my trunk." Harry paused and looked over at Hermione curiously. "How do you do it?"
"Hmm?"
"You've got
loads
of books. More than I have. How do you store them all?"
"Oh! Well I've got a special trunk with a expanded book compartment."
Harry blinked at her. "Huh?"
"Well back during the summer before my first year when my parents took me to Diagon Alley for the first time, we spent
ages
in Flourish and Blotts, of course, and I found
so many books
that I wanted to get to try and understand magic better. When we got to the luggage store to purchase my trunk, the shop keeper saw the bags and bags of books my dad was carrying and recommended a special 'library trunk' that he offered. It has two compartments. The normal one that opens when you turn the key clockwise, and a second one that opens if you turn the key in a counter-clockwise direction. The second compartment is magically expanded and designed specifically for holding books. I don't know what I would have done all these years without it."
"Huh. That sounds brilliant," Harry said looking thoughtful. "I may have to look into getting one of those. Hey, isn't there a Hogsmeade weekend coming up?"
"This weekend, actually," Ginny said nodding.
He hummed in thought and turned back to Hermione. "Does Hogsmeade have a magical luggage store?"
"I think so."
"Well, I think I'll pay the place a visit then," Harry said with a small grin as he refocused on his food and resumed his meal.
– –
Lafole and Pokeby's Storage and Travel was a shop that looked exceedingly small from the outside, and yet was surprisingly large on the inside. The proprietors apparently specialized in space extension charms for the sake of storing a great many things, in very small places.
It was Harry's first stop during his visit to Hogsmeade that Saturday, while Ron made his way to Honeydukes, and Hermione paid Scrivenshaft's a visit. He made his way directly to the luggage section and started browsing around the trunks. He was quickly assaulted by a large set man who he learned was Mr. Lafole.
Harry got straight to business since he didn't know how much time he would have before Ron or Hermione came back to find him, and he was curious as to what sorts of enchantments could be built into a trunk.
As it turned out, a
great many things
could be put into them. Lafole even offered custom services. Harry could make a list of exactly what he wanted, and he large older wizard could make him exactly what he needed. He got a list of different features offered, which included notations on which charms couldn't be used together because they were compatible, or would counteract each other in some way.
He went down the list, marking off exactly what he wanted, opting not to worry himself with the final price tag. If this worked out as well as he hoped, he would likely be keeping this trunk for many years after Hogwarts.
When he was done with his selection, Mr. Lafole had him choose which of the trunks designs from his selection that Harry wanted all of the charms and spells applied to. He went with a plain, nondescript brown one. He saw no reason to go with something overly extravagant on the outside. It would only draw attention to the trunk. The more plain and simple it appeared, the less conspicuous it would be.
Lafole told him he could have all of the charms applied in three hours and Harry was thrilled that he would be getting it back the same day. He paid half the price up front, and would pay the rest when he came back to pick it up.
He left the shop just in time to see Hermione coming out of Scrivenshaft's with a bag filled with various supplies and writing utensils. Together, they went in search of Ron, and then the three of them made their way to the Three Broomsticks.
When they got there, Harry's eye was caught by an odd sight. In the back corner of the pub was a group of rather shifty looking goblins, surrounding Ludo Bagman. Hermione and Ron were both incredibly curious as to why on earth Ludo Bagman might be surrounded by goblins, but Harry knew
exactly
why.
He was already aware that Bagman had a bit of a gambling problem. The fact that Bagman was in debt to the goblins was why the man had been willing to give Harry the information on how the dragon's were assigned to each contestant, back in November.
A light went on in Harry's mind at that moment and a grin spread its way across Harry's face. The problem was, how to ditch Ron and Hermione – and how to get Ludo away from the goblins – so that Harry could speak with the man.
The three began to make their way towards one of the tables when Ludo turned slightly and caught sight of Harry. His eyes lit up with relief and he quickly said something to his companions before standing up and making his way towards the trio.
"Well hello there, Mr. Potter!" Ludo exclaimed while nervously glancing back at the goblins.
"Hello Mr. Bagman," Harry replied politely. Ron and Hermione both looked a bit dubious.
"I was wondering if I might have a word with you," he began and hesitated before glancing at Harry's two companions, "alone."
Harry tried to look confused, and mildly concerned, but inside he was jumping for joy. He gave Ron and Hermione a look that told them that it was alright to leave him and they both shrugged and left, still looking mildly bewildered.
"Let's head on over here, shall we?" Bagman said as he began to guide Harry to a deserted side of the pub. "I wanted to congratulate you on your remarkable performance with the dragons, Harry," Bagman began.
"Thanks Mr. Bagman. Your tip on how the dragons were selected actually helped me a lot," Harry said giving the other man a smirk.
"Oh? Did it now?" Bagman replied, with a surprised look on his face. "Well, I'm glad it did. While we're on that matter, Harry, I was wondering how you were doing with that clue for the next task?"
"Oh I've had it all worked out for a while now. I'm working on a few different strategies."
Bagman's face lit up with an expression of relieved hope for a moment before he got it under control a bit.
"Ah, well, that's... that's great to hear, my boy. If there's anything you need help with, anything at all –"
"Actually, now that you mention it, I was wondering if perhaps you could answer a question I have."
"Oh? What is it?"
"The clue says that something will be taken from me, and hidden somewhere in the Black Lake. I was wondering if you have any idea what is going to be taken? And will they tell me what it is when the task begins, or do I have to do a blind search?"
"Oh! Oh, that. That's easy."
Harry's eyebrows rose expectantly, waiting for the retired quidditch star to answer the damn question. "Well?"
Bagman looked around shiftily for a moment before leaning in and speaking in a more hushed voice. "They won't be taking something,
they'll be taking someone."
Harry's brow furrowed in confusion. "Someone?"
"That's right. Someone you consider very important to you will be taken, just before the task. He, or she, will be put into a magical stasis, and hidden somewhere at the bottom of the lake. Inside the merfolk's village or something, as I understand it."
Harry looked at the man incredulously. Someone!
"How is the person they take determined?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"The cup determines it. The name of the person will come out of the cup in a ceremony held with the headmasters a few days before the actual task."
Harry nodded his head slowly and lowered his head as he thought over this newest development. He was going to have to test his locator charm to see if it worked on finding
people, and not just an object.
"Oh! Will they tell me who they've taken?" Harry asked suddenly.
"I don't think so. No," Bagman said, shaking his head slowly.
Harry groaned, inwardly.
Great,
he thought, bitterly.
He huffed a bit in annoyance before covering it up with an expression of gratitude.
"Oh, one more thing."
"Yes, Mr. Potter?"
"Are people going to be able to see what we're doing down there in the lake? I mean, does Dumbledore have some sort of monitoring setup so the spectators can watch?"
"No, no... nothing like that. We really won't be able to see much of anything while you lot are down there. Doesn't make for much of a spectator event. I had argued for a different task because of it – something that people could actually
watch, but no one really gave me much mind."
Harry grinned with relief and nodded his head. "Ah, well, that's too bad I guess. Anyway, thanks a load, Mr. Bagman."
"Oh, don't mention it, Mr. Potter," he said with a genial grin, then he hesitated and looked a bit more worried. "I, er... mean that. Don't mention it."
Harry chuckled and gave the other man a mischievous grin. "Oh don't worry. This conversation will stay between the two of us. Good luck with the goblins, by the way."
Bagman grimaced and glanced back at the group of intimidating looking creatures still sitting towards the other side of the room, eying Bagman with varying degrees of disgust.
The two said their goodbyes and parted ways. Harry made his way over to the table Hermione and Ron had acquired and placed an order for lunch with Madam Rosmerta.
"So what was that all about?" Hermione asked.
Harry snorted. "Bagman's got some nasty debts with the goblins. He's in bad for gold, so he's bet on the long-shot in the tournament. Namely
me.
He was offering to give me any hints or tips in figuring out the egg clue, in case I hadn't worked it out yet."
Hermione gasped and looked horribly indignant. "That's cheating!" she shrieked.
Harry gave her a hard glare that told her to keep her voice down, and she ducked her head in embarrassment.
"I
know
that Hermione. It's not like I took him up on it. I mean, I had the egg worked out ages ago, so I certainly don't need help with it anyway."
Hermione was still frowning, but she eventually seemed to let it go once their meals showed up.
Once done with lunch, Harry busied himself with some window shopping at several stores, and then paid a visit to a clothing boutique called Schott's Casual Clothing and Attire. Harry had never bothered to come into this shop before, since he never really gave a lot of thought to the quality of the clothes he wore under his school robes in previous years.
In addition to a nice selection of casual robes and other wizarding clothing styles, they had a small selection of muggle clothes. Much like the luggage shop, the proprietor offered custom charms on clothing for a fee. Self-cleaning, warming, cooling, dirt-repellent, water-repellent, and automatic resizing were just a few of the charms offered.
Harry got the automatic resizing charms placed on every pair of pants he purchased, since he expected he might still grow another few inches before he was done with the accelerant potion, and didn't feel particularly fond of the idea of his ankles showing at the bottom of his pant legs.
He purchased five pairs of jeans, a couple pairs of khaki's, ten different t-shirts in various colors. He wasn't aiming for anything extravagant. Just a wardrobe that fit and wasn't full of holes.
By the time he was done there, enough time had passed that his trunk was ready and he made his way back to Lafole and Pokeby's.
Among the charms he had placed on the trunk was the ability to shrink it down to size automatically with the tap of his wand in a specific spot on the lid. This would be especially useful since he couldn't shrink or un-shrink his trunk himself when outside of school. He could slip it into his pocket on the train, and not have to worry about Vernon stealing it from him and locking it away in the cupboard.
He put his new clothing inside the trunk, tapped his wand on the shrinking spot and it instantly became the size of a matchbox. Harry grinned.
He paid Mr. Lafole the remaining balance and headed back to school. Once he got past the main entrance to the school he hurried his way into an empty classroom and began the locator spell with the large black serpent, but this time, focused on finding Hermione, instead of finding an object.
He felt the magic begin to work, and saw the snake begin to slither off through the air towards the grand staircase.
The issue of
not knowing
who was taken would still pose a problem, but perhaps he could narrow it down before the task started. Basically, whoever was missing from attending the actual task was probably someone who had been taken. He could just find
that person.
Hopefully it would work.
He followed the great black snake through the castle and up to the seventh floor, and directly to the portrait hole. Upon entering the room, he saw the enormous black apparition coiling in circles in the air around an utterly oblivious Hermione. It was a very strange sight, but it made him extra thankful that he was the only one who could actually see the snake. If anyone else could see it, he could only imagine the panic that would be ensuing in the common room at that instant. He snickered at the though, and ended the spell, causing the serpent to vanish from his vision.
– –
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. JKRowling does.
First
Beta Pass
by Clemex
– –
Harry entered the chamber, pulled his matchbox-sized trunk out of his front pocket and set it down on the floor. He tapped his wand on the top of it, and it instantly enlarged to full size.
The trunk had three latches on the front; two with keyholes and a spoken password, and depending on which one you turned before opening the trunk, you would find one of three different compartments. The two with the extra security features were book compartments, and the way they worked was really quite fascinating.
When you opened the trunk to one of the book compartments, there were two rows worth of 'shelves' facing up, but they slide from side to side as if they were on rollers. The space was magically expanded on each side of the trunk so even though the books appeared to be sliding into the side of the trunk and vanishing, they were actually disappearing into a magically expanded space. The shelves also looped, so you could keep sliding it to the right for what seemed like forever, and it would just keep repeating the same set of books.
He didn't know how it worked, but he was definitely interested in finding out. He added 'expansion charms' to his list of 'things that are safe to ask the teachers' in a bound notebook he had been keeping for his extracurricular learning activities.
He sat down on the floor in front of his trunk and began to empty it of all of his books. He had amassed quite a nice collection during the past month and a half of owl-ordering from Crespus Publishing's catalog. In fact, the collection had got so large that he hadn't had enough room for them in his old trunk and that was becoming a problem since quite a few of them were of a substantially questionable nature and he couldn't exactly leave them laying on the desk beside his bed for his dorm mates to spot.
He had stuffed them, haphazardly, into his new trunk rather quickly, but now he wanted to organize them. He also wanted to sort through which books from Salazar's Study he was going to...
borrow.
The first thing he did was separate his 'safe' books from his more questionable ones. The organized the safe books and put them into the second compartment and gave it the password 'Quidditch'. If Hermione or Ron ever needed to get a book from his trunk for him, he could just tell them that the second compartment was his book compartment and tell them the password. Nice and safe and a good way to avoid suspicion.
All of the
other
books, he organized by subject and then alphabetically, and then placed them in the third compartment. On that one he assigned a parseltongue password. He used
§Notechus§,
which was the Latin name for the tiger snake and was the alias he had been using when ordering from Crespus Publishing.
As he was sorting through them, he set a few aside a couple that he he had skimmed through recently and had been meaning to actually
practice. He hadn't gotten a lot of time to read many of the books he'd bought from Crespus since none of them were safe to read in the common room, and he had had even less time to actually practice any of it, since most of his time in the chamber had been reserved for practicing the serpentine transformation. Now, however, he thought was probably a good time to try some of them out.
He stretched an arm over his head and twisted a crick out of his back that had formed from sitting on the floor for the last hour. He was relatively satisfied with his book sorting. Most of the books that he had added to his collection, from the Slytherin's library, were books that had probably been left there by Riddle since none of them were old enough to have been left by Slytherin. Some small part of him worried about just
how many
of Tom Riddle's books sparked a strong pull of curiosity and intrigue in him, but he squashed the concern quickly and pressed on.
He also keep two of Slytherin's parselmagic books.
He looked at the two books he had set aside to practice from and frowned. He was waging a bit of an internal struggle over this. It was so easy to say he was okay with it when it was just a matter of ordering a book from a list, but now that he was legitimately planning on
practicing
what was contained in the book, he could feel a bit of a queasy unsettled knot in his gut.
This was a book entirely on
dark magic.
It certainly wasn't the nastiest of the dark magic books he'd bought. It was sort of an introduction to lesser dark curses. He had already read through several dark magic theory books, but this was the first time he was going to actually try using some real spells.
For a while he hadn't been sure how exactly he
would
try out the spells. Most were rather destructive, obviously, but he didn't want to start throwing off spells at the walls. The last thing he wanted to do was cause a cave-in down in the chamber and end up getting trapped.
But then he was walking through the chamber one day and looked over at the great, enormous basilisk corpse and was struck with an epiphany.
That beast was magically resistant. Most of his spells would get absorbed right into it's scales, so there was no risk of blasting the ceiling of the chamber in on himself.
He took a deep breath and picked the book up.
It was just magic. Damned useful magic at that. That was all. There was no point in ignoring an entire branch of magic just because it scared those too weak to handle it. Harry was
not weak.
Having sufficiently steeled himself, Harry stood to his feet and made his way out into the basilisk chamber. He had the book open in one hand while he skimmed several of the spells and walked, and he had his bound notebook in the other.
The book was called 'Sceadwian's Tome of Shadow Vol. 1; Dark Magic that really really hurts, but won't quite kill.'
In his notebook he had already made notes of a few of the spells he wanted to practice, and what page to find them on.
He had two lists. One was a list of environment spells. Things that effected the surroundings. These were spells he figured he could easily practice on the basilisk corpse. The second list was a collection of spells he thought would be useful, but were specifically intended for attacking a live human being with.
He could still practice casting them, but he wouldn't be able to tell if they were cast properly and actually working without an actual person to test them on.
He flipped through his notebook to the page of the environment effecting spells and read through his notes.
Scateren glaesum - Makes any inanimate surface crack and shatter like glass. See pg 98.
Khnwos -
Scrambles the matter of an object chaotically. See pg 142.
Dimoliri - Tears down a small structure to rubble. See pg 52. Collabi - Collapses everything within a sphere of space into a crunched mass. See pg 151. Quassare - Makes a black point of void and sucks immediate surroundings into it. See pg 172. Screade - Dark cutting curse that can slice through most anything. See pg 208. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he debated what he wanted to try first. He wondered ofScreade, that cut through 'most anything' would be able to cut through basilisk skin? A cutting curse was always useful, and if this dark cutting curse could actually cut through basilisk skin, it would definitely be useful in other situations. More useful than diffindo, that was for sure.. He decided to focus on it first, and opened his book to page 208 to re-read the section on the curse. A few minutes later he felt prepared and stood before the corpse and pointed his wand. He figured he could work up to non-verbal after some practice actually saying the incantation aloud, since he had never actually performed any spells like this before. He aimed at a portion of the basilisk's underbelly, focused his magic and drawing it out and around him and shouted out "Screade!" He felt a sudden and enormous surge of a certain, neglected portion of his magic flow through him, and out his wand. A black beam of color with jagged twirls of deep purple intertwined with it, shot out of his wand and hit the corpse. Harry gasped and felt his knees give out as he suddenly found himself a few feet lower and blinking in stunned surprise. The magic that had coursed through him had been so utterly raw and intense. It had felt... it had felt incredible! He hadn't been prepared for it to feel like that. It wasn't anything like using neutral magic. If anything, it felt a lot closer to what his parselmagic felt like. Only... more. Harry collected himself and stood back up. His eyes were blazing with a weird sort of ecstatic glee. His whole body felt like it was on fire with white hot amazing. He couldn't comprehend any other way to describe it. He pointed his wand at the corpse and cast the spell again. He gasped and wobbled slightly at the intensity, but didn't lose his footing this time. He threw the spell again, and again and again, and before he knew what was happening, he was cackling madly at the top of his lungs. The more magic he pulled out of himself and threw into the spell, the more incredible it felt. He finally began to feel so light-headed that he began to waver slightly from side to side and his cackle morphed into a subdued titter. He lowered his wand arm and blinked in surprise. His first few attacks on the basilisk had left it unmarred, but at some point during his barrage, his attacks had apparently begun to do some actual damage. The small section of snake belly that he had focused his attacks on was criss-crossed with shallow gouges. Another little giggle escaped his throat at the shock of it. Power. So much unbelievable, raw, delicious power. It was incredible. He could still feel it. It was coursing through his veins and making his head feel foggy, leaving him in an odd euphoric haze. But he loved it. Oh Merlin, he loved it. More. Harry looked down at the book that lay discarded on the floor beside his notepad. He moved over to it in a few quick strides with wide, hungry eyes. He glanced at his notebook first and decided upon one of the spells. Quassare - Makes a black point of void and sucks immediate surroundings into it. Sounds interesting... he said with a twisted little grin spreading across his lips. He opened the dark arts spell book to the proper page and quickly read through the passages on the spell. He had a feeling he was rushing it, but he just felt so damned eager to try it out. To feel that rush again. He set the book back down and returned his focus to the basilisk. He pointed his wand, aiming at the same section of scarred flesh he had already assaulted. He pulled forth that intoxicating dark magic that came to him so deliciously easily and let it course through his every limb. His eyes nearly rolled back into his head and another little chortle escaped his mouth before he blinked and refocused on the corpse. Aiming his wand, he called out "Quassare!" The first time it didn't seem to do anything at all, but he felt the rush of magic. It wasn't nearly as powerful as the cutting curse had been though and he scowled. He refocused his magic, pulling more of it out and leaving it at easy access to him. He tried to control his heavy excited breaths and pointed his wand again. "Quassare!" A tiny black ball appeared in space where he was focusing his aim and popped big and then small, and then big again for a split second before disappearing with a Bang! He felt more of the fantastic tingling vibrating all through him that time and had a better idea of what he might be doing wrong. He walked back over to the book and re-read a passage before returning to the snake. Once again, he pointed his wand, focused the incredible dark magic just so and called out"Quassare!" The black sphere appeared again, right at the point where all the criss-crossed scars littered the snake's skin. It grew in size by about two feet in diameter, and during that brief moment Harry was consumed with tremendous euphoria and called out in stunned pleasure. The black sphere then shrunk down into nothing, disappearing completely with a pop! Where the black sphere had been, now existed nothing. There was a perfect hemisphere-shaped chunk now absent from the side of the basilisk. He could see the layers of skin, muscle, and bone that had been vanished with the black magical ball. And this is a bloody basilisk! Harry thought with excited glee. Basilisks, that were so incredibly powerful, and supposed to be 'magic resistant.' Not very resistant to powerful dark magic. Harry mentally chuckled with unrestrained glee. He closed his eyes and shivered as he let out a slow, shuddering breath. His whole body felt so indescribably amazing. It was like the most powerful endorphins known to man were flooding his entire nervous system, setting every nerve on fire with pleasure. Harry let out a slow breath and opened his eyes slowly as a wicked nasty grin spread across his face. He felt insane with glee. Too insane to rationally analyze his own thoughts or actions. Everything was about this feeling. Feeling encouraged by his results, he threw another ball of dark magic at the corpse, with similar results. The insane cackled began to escape from his chest again and he began to send off a barrage of the spell. One after another, he pointed his wand and cast the Quassare He began to mix in Screade
Anything to give him an excuse to keep firing off the glorious, amazing magic.
Sometime around three in the morning, after Harry had been laying on the floor in a giggling mindless heap for about two hours, Harry blinked his eyes and began to feel his head clear.
He pushed himself up slowly until he came to sit, cross-legged, on the dirty floor in front of the mutilated basilisk corpse. It was a right mess and it took him a few confused blinks to realize thathe
had done it all. It didn't seem possible.
Like it had to be some impossible dream.
It just didn't seem possible for
Harry
to be powerful enough to do that level of damage to a thousand-year-old magical creature. It also didn't seem possible for anything to have ever felt that good. It was like it
had
to be a dream. It just couldn't be real.
But it had been real.
He had done that. He had utterly lost himself to the magic, and the indescribable pleasure it had brought him. As his mind slowly began to work it's way around what had happened, more and more of him began to grow horrified by the whole thing.
Had that really been him?
Yes.
He couldn't put the blame for this on his companion. That had been all Harry. He knew that. The dark magic had been so good that he had utterly given in to it. He had wanted it to take over.
He still did.
A shuddering breath escaped him and he felt a shudder shoot down his spine, to land in the pit of his stomach with a delicious warm curling sensation, as the memory of the way the magic had
feltfilled him again.
He lowered his head into his hands and fisted his hair tightly while he clenched his eyes shut.
What the hell was happening to him?
– –
Harry had tried to stay away from the Chamber for the next few days. He had really tried. He had even neglected his transformation exercises. He knew if he went back down there he would have to look at the basilisk corpse, and that would only remind him of how the dark magic had felt.
Was it supposed to do that to people? Supposed to have that strong an effect on a person? He had read a few summaries on dark magic in a few of his text books that made reference to dark magic addiction, but he had never expected it to be so strong, so instantly. And these weren't even very nasty spells. They were kind of mild in comparison to some of the others he'd seen in that book.
Despite all of Harry's efforts of will power, he now stood down in the chamber, looking at the devastated section of snake corpse, and yearning desperately to do it again, while also being absolutely terrified to do it.
You must... face this... do not fear... it.
His companion's voice whispered in the back of Harry's mind. Harry flinched in surprise at it's sudden appearance.
His companion had been completely absent during his 'training session' a few nights previous. When Harry had escaped into his mindscape the previous night, he had wanted to steer clear of the whole incident. He was trying to relax and calm down, not dredge up his freaked out worries about the whole thing. And his companion had acquiesced to his desires and had not mentioned the event at all.
"What do you mean?"
Harry though in a shaky voice.
The magic only... controls you... because it is new... you are unaccustomed... to it. It will control you... as long as you remain... this way...
Harry bit his lip and looked down at the corpse that was currently tempting him.
"But it was like I was insane... I... what do I do if I ever use that sort of magic out in a real battle and I lose myself? I'll end up killing someone and enjoy the whole damned thing... until I come down from my high later on and hate myself forever."
That is why... you must practice... you must gain control of it. To master the darkness within you... you must use the power. You must use it... learn to harness it's... intricacies... and make the power yours.
Practicing it here... where you can harm no one... It is ideal, Harry. You... you can master your power here. Become master of your darkness... Make it thrive... inside you. Wield it and bend it... to YOUR will.
Harry was slowly nodding his head. He saw reason in that argument, and if it was true that practice would bring control, then it was worth it. He had to admit that another part of him was rejoicing with this new, valid excuse to keep using the magic. To keep feeling that thrill.
Harry tried to shove that insane gleefulness down and closed his eyes.
I can help you...
His companion's voice whispered through his mind, sending a shudder through him.
Slowly, Harry opened his eyes and nodded his head. The corners of his mouth turned up, and a fire lit behind his eyes. He was committed. He would do this.
And damn it. He was excited.
– –
Harry had begun to make a habit of checking for Moody and Crouch on the map, every time he used it. It didn't take long to determine that there was obviously something very screwy going on.
First and foremost, Moody
never
left his office.
Literally. The dot beside the name Alastor Moody never moved an inch. The dot beside the name Bartemius Crouch, however was in the school almost all the time, which honestly, made no sense since the man was supposed to be a high-up ministry worker with a full-time job that did
notinvolve the school.
Bartemius Crouch spent an awful lot of time with Moody in his office, and also in Moody's classes.
Was Crouch pretending to be Moody? If he was, he was obviously using Polyjuice potion, which would explain why the man had been raiding Snape's storage room. But why the hell would Crouch be doing such a thing? Harry just couldn't work it out. It made no sense!
In any case, Harry was more than aware that the man he was looking at in class each week, was most likely
not
Alastor Moody.
One day in class, the next week Harry even pulled out the map from under the lip of his desk, activated it, and checked. He looked up and at the head of the room, lecturing, was was
looked
like 'Mad-Eye' Moody. But the dot on the map in the exact same spot said Bartemius Crouch.
It was just... bizarre! What was going on? And did anyone else know?
– –
It was now three weeks until the second task. That week would be his last dose of the accelerant potion, and Harry was looking forward to being done with all the potion nonsense.
Neville had spotted him taking his morning potions several times, since Neville had a similar morning schedule, and had no qualms about being in the bathroom at the same time as Harry. Dean and Seamus were still rather skittish about the whole thing, as far as bathroom time was considered, but at least they weren't being obnoxious about it.
Mostly just awkward.
Harry had been making considerable progress in his serpentine transformation. He'd managed to transform both of his legs into a single mass that melded together and then shifted into an extension of his spine, instead of hips and leg bones.
That had been an undeniably bizarre sensation, but he'd done it every day for the last four days and was beginning to feel accustomed to it.
He still hadn't completely absorbed his collarbone and arms, although they did get very small now. He was sure he was getting incredibly close to having the transformation complete.
Harry's dark arts practice had been going great. He'd managed to control his irrational
need
to do it, as long as he was regular about it. He dedicated a whole hour to it every night, but no more than that. He even charmed a wrist watch so that when the hour was up, it began to get very very hot. If he didn't
stop, the watch would continue to get hot until he
did
stop. If he didn't stop soon enough, it would literally burn him. And quite badly.
But it had been effective at breaking him from his hazy intoxicated state the first few weeks of practice. Now he didn't need it, and as soon as the alarm sounded, he was able to regain control of himself and stop of his own will.
His companion stayed with him during most of his dark arts practice sessions. He didn't say much most of the time, but he would occasionally contribute little hints, or use some strong words or urges to get Harry to calm himself.
Harry still found that he absolutely
loved
the way the magic felt when he used it. The feel of his dark magic well was just so much more delicious than his neutral magic well. It was also growing stronger.
His companion had been right when he had said that Harry needed to practice. The stronger his dark magic grew, the greater control he had over it.
He also noticed that his gray mottled mindscape was quickly changing it's appearance again. It now had a nights sky. Or at least that's how he imagined it. The ground plane was still gray, but much of the walls and the non-existent ceiling had begun to fade to pitch black.
The darkness was soothing.
His companion seemed to appreciate the change as well. He was able to spend longer periods of time in Harry's aware mind during the days now. He said it was much easier for him to tap into Harry's magic now.
Harry wasn't an idiot.
He knew what this meant.
His affinity had switched. Had his magical affinity really been so light before this all started, though? He had a hard time believing that. But his mindscape had been pure white. Wasn't that a representation of his affinity?
He was really only theorizing, but it seemed pretty glaringly obvious to him.
His magical affinity, which for some reason he couldn't fathom had already aligned with the light before, had managed to switch to the dark, during the last four months.
And he couldn't quite find it in himself to care.
He liked it better this way.
–
Harry made his way to breakfast following behind Ron and Neville. It was Friday and he was both looking forward to, and dreading his last dose of the potion the next night. His mind was busy mulling over the spells he planned to practice that night in the chamber, so he sat down at the Gryffindor table and began to pile food onto his plate on auto-pilot.
"Hermione...? Are... are you alright?" Ginny's voice broke in through Harry's haze and he glanced up, looking between the two with a blank, confused face.
Hermione sniffed once, before quickly mastering her expression, sticking her nose into the air and locking her jaw.
"I'm fine," she said, tersely.
Harry was
reallyconfused now. He looked back and forth between Ginny and Hermione, trying to figure out what was going on. It was at that point that he saw the two copies of Witch Weekly that were lain out on the table in front of Ginny and Hermione. He scowled down at the magazine. He couldn't make out the cover, but he clearly saw a picture of Krum from the last task, scowling and then ducking out of the border. The byline also clearly said "Rita Skeeter" under the article's title.
"What has Skeeter done now?" Harry asked in a tightly restrained growl.
Ginny glanced over at Harry and then back at Hermione, hesitantly, as if she was afraid to answer the question.
"She, er... wrote a pretty nasty story about Hermione and Krum," Ginny said, giving Hermione an apologetic look.
Ron's head came up now and he looked at the group of them with an annoyed scowl. "What aboutKrum," Ron said through a mouthful of food.
"Don't even start, Ron," Ginny hissed angrily. "Not now."
He shot his sister an indignant expression and narrowed his eyes down at the newspaper. He literally sneered down at the photo of Krum before returning his focus to his food.
Harry heard Hermione stifle another sniffle and could see the masked pain in her eyes. He looked down at the offending paper and he felt his anger beginning to boil. He was actually surprised by the intensity of the emotion, considering how little he actually
liked
any of his once-friends' company these days. They had become a means to a goal, and the goal was was to remain under the radar of the general student populace, and the faculty. As long as he was friendly and he socialized on occasion, and he seemed outwardly happy more often than not, people wouldn't suspect that he'd begun practicing dark magic in Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber.
But still, he hadn't lost all of his old protectiveness of them. Besides, they were
his, and anything that the vile Skeeter whore did that was in some way tied to him, made him angry. He would protect what was his.
Harry reached out and made to grab Ginny's copy of Witch Weekly, but Hermione reached out and snatched it away first, causing Harry to growl and glare angrily at her for a moment before he managed to mask his reaction. Fortunately, Hermione was refusing to make eye contact, so she didn't see the fury that flashed across his face.
"You don't need to read it," she said sharply, while staring at the table.
Harry's fumed internally and the angry monster in his gut began to growl and hiss loudly, but he held it in check.
"What. Did. She. Say?" Harry said in slow, controlled words as he fought to keep the beast at bay.
"It doesn't matter," Hermione said as she finally made eye contact.
Harry held her gaze for a long uncomfortable minute. Finally Harry forced himself to push the anger away. He could just get a hold of the paper later on his own to find out what the cow had said. Hermione was clearly embarrassed by it.
"Fine," he said as he turned his attention down to his plate and stabbed his eggs with his fork rather forcefully.
–
"Harry? Can I talk to you?" Hermione's voice called out to him as he entered the portrait hole that night. At that moment, Harry was in the process of coming down from his dark magic high, and usually begged off from 'exhaustion' the second he got back from the chamber. His temper was always a bit skewed after his training and he didn't think he could keep his mask on properly in that state.
So, understandably, Harry was considerably hesitant to agree to her request. However something in Hermione's tone made him sigh – mostly in frustration – and concede.
"Yeah, sure, 'Mione. What's up?" He said as he turned to face her and pulled on the most convincing caring mask he could muster, given his current mental state.
"You know how you couldn't figure out how Rita Skeeter managed to find out about you being... gay?"
"Yeah?" Harry said with mild exasperation.
"You and Fleur talked about it after the ball, but there was no one there, right?"
"Right," Harry replied shortly. He really didn't have the patience for her to be beating around the bush like this. If she didn't get to the point soon, he was liable to snap at her.
"Well some of the things that she said in that... article about... me... there's no way she could have known those things. No way. No one else was there, and I've asked Viktor and he has no idea how she found out either. He was incredibly furious. I
know
he wouldn't have said anything."
"So what you're saying is that Skeeter must have some secret way of eavesdropping on us?" Harry said impatiently, trying to get this over with quickly.
"Exactly!"
Harry took a moment to breath, trying to push away his irritation with her. He had already figured this, but she had a point. He would have to keep his eye on it more.
"Well, she's banned from the castle. Dumbledore banned her after the first task. But I'll start checking for her name on the map. See if she's sneaking into the castle under an invisibility cloak, or a disillusionment charm. But she might be using someone else to do her spying for her."
"Do you think she could be using the paintings or a ghost as well?"
Harry shook his head. "The paintings wouldn't help her. They're loyal to the headmaster. The ghosts too, except for Peeves, but I would have spotted him if he had been anywhere around when Fleur and I were talking."
"And Viktor and I weren't even in the school for one of the times that she would have had to eavesdrop on us."
"Where were you?"
She blushed. "Out by the lake. Under that willow tree."
"Ah," Harry said, nodding his head in understanding. That was a pretty well known location to go for a good snogging. "Well the map doesn't show me the grounds, only inside the castle, but I'll keep my eyes open."
Hermione bobbed her head in agreement. "Alright. I'll keep my eyes open too," she hesitated for a moment before looking back up at Harry. "Thank you Harry."
"Don't mention it."
– –
Sunday afternoon at half past noon, Harry 'woke' from his final session with the accelerant potion. He stood in front of the full-length standing mirror and admired the results of his hard work and suffering.
In comparison to what he looked like at the start of the school year, he was now a solid seven inches taller. His shoulders were considerably broader and firmly muscled with surprisingly defined deltoids. His forearms felt and looked solid now instead of the frail bony appendages he once had. His legs were similarly well defined now, as well.
His ribcage, hip bones, and spine were no longer visible on casual inspection. He was lithe and he liked what he saw.
He smirked into the mirror as he turned from side to side eying his reflection.
"Well, I'd fuck me," he said, jokingly to his reflection before snickering loudly. He looked older than fourteen now. He could easily pass for sixteen, in fact.
The changes had happened gradually over the last two months, and as far as he could tell, no one at school had made note of the rather drastic changes. However, he was pretty sure that anyone who hadn't seen him on a day to day basis would notice how extreme his 'growth spurt' had been.
Still, he didn't care. Magical growth spurts weren't unheard of. And he could always argue that he was well past due for one.
Finally, he sighed happily and pulled on a shirt and then his robes. As a reward, he was going to head straight up to Gryffindor Tower and go take a much needed nap.
– –
He drew his wand and aimed it at the target dummy he had conjured. It was getting easier and easier to access his magic, even in his ridiculously pathetic vessel. His power was growing in leaps and bounds and he was becoming more and more anxious and excited for his final resurrection. He called forth his magic and it responded with growing ease. It was still reluctant to answer the his call with this pathetic body as the intermediate, but he was strong. It would answer his will. He mentally incanted the spell and the orange jagged light shot out of the tip of his wand and exploded against the dummy. He cackled at the dark euphoria. He had missed this feeling. Almost as much as his books. He threw another curse, and then another and another in fast succession. The magic flowed through him and around him as he effortlessly commanded it to suit his will. His endurance was still rather pathetic, and his vessel grew weary far too soon for his liking, but he had made progress. He called his levitating chair to him, climbed up into it, and sighed as he finally allowed his limbs to relax. He guided the chair into the study but instead of heading to the desk, he went over to the large windows and with a flick of his hand, the curtains were drawn back and bright sunlight beamed inside. The warmth against his skin was a relief. The manor was too drafty, more often than not. There was a great yard and an untended, overgrown garden below the window. He was on the second floor, and the manor was atop a hill. From his vantage point he could look out and see Little Hangleton in the distance. A hissing sound from behind him brought a smile curling upon his lipless face. Nagini climbed up onto the sill of the window and he shifted in his chair so that his small bony hand could reach out and touch her. He hummed in contentment at the soft feel of her scales beneath her fingers. She hissed back in pleasure, happy to be at her master's side and told him so. She also told him that she was hungry and wished he would allow her to visit the local town's park so she could eat one of the younglings who played there. He chuckled, but told her that she would have to limit her diet to the creatures in the nearby woods. She sulked but didn't press the matter. §Ah, love, I know you are bored and frustrated here. I am as well. But soon, we will be free to leave this place and I can finally resume my work,§ he hissed to her as he lovingly ran his fingers over her head. – – It was three weeks until the task and Harry was currently racing from the second floor corridor, down the grand staircase, and towards the entry hall. He had a triumphant grin across his face as he ran. He had done it. He had finally completely succeeded at his first serpentine transformation. He could turn into a huge sea snake, and do it at will with ease. He'd got the transformation time down to less than a minute and finally felt like he was ready to try it out in the water. He had three weeks to practice actually swimming in that damned freezing lake, and making use of the warming and bubble-head charms. He was fairly confident that it would be enough time, but he was anxious to get started. He escaped the castle and began to jog down the grounds towards the lake when he came across Hagrid coming out of the forbidden forest followed immediately by young golden-colored unicorn foal. Harry grinned, feeling a wave of relief that his Care of Magical Creature's course had finally started covering creatures that weren't constantly trying to eat him. He wasn't sure how much longer he could stand the blast-ended skrewts. Hagrid grinned at him and waved cheerily. Harry chuckled and waved back but kept on running. He reached the shore of the lake and began to make his way around it until he had reached a section far enough away from the castle, and with a thick enough collection of trees nearby to hide him from anyone who might be watching. He reached out with his magic, searching for any nearby magical auras, just in case that Skeeter whore was around under an invisibility cloak or something, but he sensed nothing. He stripped down to his boxers, which was horrifying since it was bloody February, and it wasCOLD! He quickly cast a warming spell on himself and instantly sighed in relief as a magical barrier surrounded his whole body, creating a small pocket of warmth. Next he swirled his wand around his face, casting the bubble-head charm directly over his mouth and nose. He gave a few test breaths to make sure the bubble was actually working. When he was convinced the charm was performing as it should be, he steeled himself and jumped into the lake. Warming charm or no, it was still really bloody cold. But it was just cold, not the icy-freezing-suffering-pain that he was sure it would be without the charm. He let himself sink down as far as his body would allow, given natural buoyancy, and began to focus on the transformation. He held his legs down straight below him and felt as they magically melded together. His arms tingled uncomfortably as they shrunk down into nothing but vestigial limbs. His skull shrunk and streamlined, his jaw structure changed and he felt his hinged fangs grow in. A moment later, he was a long, large serpent. A streamlined mass of muscle and strength. He gave a quick test breath from the bubble and could tell it was still in place and still working. His lungs could hold enough oxygen to last him twenty minutes underwater, but he would still want to ration his air since he was using a small bubble over his smaller snake face, and would need it to last an hour during the actual task. He opened his eyes, but kept his secondary set of eyelids closed to protect his pupils. His underwater vision was impressive and he would have grinned smugly, if he had been capable of it in this form. He gave a few experimental swishes of his strong powerful body and began to practice swimming. There was a modicum of instinct that was working for him, but he was still going to have to learnmost of it the hard way. Which also meant practice. – The one-to-two hours each night that Harry had previously dedicated to trying to master his transformation was now moved to the afternoon and used to practice swimming. After a few days, he added in practice using the locator spell in his snake form, as well. Since he couldn't exactly hide things in the lake himself, he started using the spell to locate different creatures that he knew should be in the lake already. Most of the time he just located the giant squid, but he located the merfolk's village, and a large colony of grindylows, as well. Nothing down there was ever the slightest bit suspicious of him – although several things were quite wary and steered clear of him. As far as any could tell, he was just a very large water snake. While Harry would have thought that the present of a large snake would be an unlikely occurrence in a Scotland loch in the dead of winter, nothing else in the lake seemed to think so. But the more time he spent down there, the more he became aware that the Black Lake was filled with a large array of very strange and inexplicable things. His excursions down there were proving to be quite effective, and he was now able to zip his way through it's many nastier obstacles without any hindrance. He wasn't sure if it would really be that easy during the actual task, but at least he felt like he had a good handle on the lake's underwater terrain. After the first week of practice, he reduced his time spent in the lake to one hour, three times a week, just to keep in good form. He had been falling behind in his homework lately since he had been putting so much of his efforts towards his preparation for the task, and into his private studies of the dark arts. He had a lot to catch up on, and began to use his now increased free time to work on his back log. – – "I want to try something a little different today," Moody said as he came to stand beside his desk and leaned his weight on the corner to allow his fake leg to rest. He looked out over the class of forth year students and smirked. "Who can tell me the most important difference between an experienced dark wizard, and an inexperienced one?" The class looked around and quiet murmurs could be heard, but no one raised their hand at first. Hesitantly Seamus rose his. "Mr. Finnigan," Moody said, nodding his chin towards Seamus. "Uh, an inexperienced dark wizard won't know as many spells as an experienced one?" "Well, that is true, but it's not the most important difference. Anyone else?" "An inexperienced wizard will make more mistakes in an actual battle?" Hermione asked. "Again true, but that could be said for any experienced wizard versus an inexperienced one. I'm talking specifically about a dark wizard. Anyone?" Hesitantly, Harry rose his hand. "Mr. Potter," Moody called out. "An inexperienced dark wizard won't have control of the dark magic yet. The magic will still be controlling him." Moody looked impressed and smirked. "Correct, Mr. Potter!" Moody pushed himself up off the corner of the desk and began his rough pacing. "But is that truly an advantage, or a disadvantage?" "It depends on how powerful the dark wizard in question is," Harry said. "Oh?" Moody asked, curiosity and interest shining in his eyes. "Well... if the wizard had a really large magical power well to draw from, starts using dark spells, and gets lost in the dark madness, they may just go berserk and start blowing up and slaughtering everything in range. "They may be easier to take out because they're not necessarily thinking defensively, or using a strategy, but you have to be able to dodge and counter their spells to begin with, and you may not have the time or opportunity if they're already gone. At least an experienced dark wizard who has control of their dark magic won't be so wasteful of their power. But they'll also be thinking clearly enough to employ a strategy and counter any attacks you make. So... it depends." Moody grinned widely. "That's right, Mr. Potter! Twenty points to Gryffindor." – "Where did you learn that, Harry? None of that was in any of our defense text books," Hermione said in a flustered, frustrated tone as they walked down the corridor towards the grand staircase. "Er, it was in one of the books I owl-ordered on my own, I think," Harry said dismissively. "Really? Can I borrow it?" Hermione said, looking bright and excited. "Uhm... I'll see if I can remember which one it was from and dig it out sometime," Harry said, hoping that he could just put it off until she had forgotten about it. "That would be fantastic, Harry. I was really fascinated by Professor Moody's lecture today. I've never heard anyone explain the psychology behind a dark wizard, or the biology of how the magic effects their body, like that before," Hermione gushed. "Yeah, but what was all that rubbish about endolphins and stuff?" Ron asked. "I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it!" Harry and Hermione both looked at him with frustrated disbelief. "They're called endorphins Ron, not dolphins." Hermione said exasperatedly. "Yeah, well I don't know what that is either," Ron grumbled bitterly. Hermione turned to face Harry, apparently having decided to pretend Ron hadn't said something exceedingly idiotic... again. "Anyway, I thought it was an incredibly fascinating lesson. I'd never heard that using dark magic effected the nervous system like that before, but it's really useful to know, actually. The fact that the dynorphins and enkephalins in the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system that dampen and slow pain nerves are triggered by the dark magic is huge!" "Huh? How so? And what the ruddy hell does any of that even mean!" Ron said, cutting back in. "It means that using a lot of dark magic triggers the body's natural pain dampening systems. Whatthat means is that a dark wizard could get hit with some pretty nasty curses and hexes but not really feel a thing till much later. They'll be able to just keep on fighting." "Oh... that's... bad," Ron said looking painfully thoughtful. "But what I thought was really fascinating is the fact that repeated use of dark magic causes a surge of endorphins in the hypothalamus! It's no wonder that so many dark wizards are sadists! Theyliterally feel pleasure when they cast really nasty dark curses at people! The magic makes them feel a euphoric high. It's really kind of sick, but it's also really fascinating." Harry had to fight against the sneer that tried to pull itself across his lips, but managed to force it down into a grimace. "But what does that endolphins in the hypopotamus mean?" Ron asked in a frustrated whine. "Ron, please don't... don't even try to say it," Hermione said, shaking her head and rubbing her index fingers against her temple. "Well, you know what I mean!" Hermione huffed. "It stimulates the reward pathways of the brain, giving the person a sense of euphoria and pleasure." "Oh... well you could have just said that." "I did!" "No, you said –" After that, Harry just tuned them out. He was already aware of all this. He'd been reading up on dark magic for months now. It's not like it mattered anyway. He grumbled in annoyance and hurried his pace towards the great hall. Maybe some food would distract him. – – Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. JKRowling does. First Beta Pass by Clemex – – It was three days till the second task and Harry actually felt excited, He felt as ready as he could ever be, and was honestly just anxious to get it over with. He also wondered what the hell the third task was going to be, and whether or not it was going to require as much preparation time as the second task had. Harry was sitting in transfiguration, working on writing out his essay that was technically homework that he wasn't supposed to start working on until after class. But the rest of the class was practicing the current in-class practical spell, while he had performed it easily on his first try. He rarely saw any point in sitting around repeatedly transforming tea-cups into pillows or other such nonsense for a whole class period when he was in no need of the practice, and could be using that time to get some of his homework done instead. McGonagall had disapproved of his actions at first, but it had been about two months now, and she rarely made a fuss anymore. He could always prove that he could do the practical spell, the moment she asked him to demonstrate it, and he was getting his homework done. She could hardly fault him for that. Harry was scratching away at his parchment when he felt McGonagall's presence beside him. Expecting that she was going to ask him to demonstrate the spell, he set down his quill and picked up his wand and wordlessly transfigured the guinea fowl on his desk into a guinea pig. The moment he was done, he dropped his wand and picked his quill back up to resume his essay. "That's all well and good, Mr. Potter, but I was acting wanting to ask you to remain after class. I need to discuss something important with you," McGonagall said. Harry looked up at her and blinked in confusion. He nodded his head hesitantly and agreed. She walked away to continue making rounds and checking on everyone's progress. "What do you think she wants?" Hermione whispered as she leaned across the aisle towards Harry. He glanced up at her a shrugged. "No clue." Twenty minutes later, class was over and everyone had just finished evacuating the room. Harry and McGonagall were the only ones left, and Harry was in the process of packing up the last of his things. "My office, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said as she strode down the aisle towards the door. Harry frowned a bit, but quickly followed after her. "Have I done something wrong, Professor?" He asked, warily as he trailed after. She looked back at him with a moments confusion before her face softened. "Oh no. Not at all. But I have something important that we need to discuss and work out." Harry was filled with a moment of relief, but then he wondered what on earth they needed to 'work out'. They entered her office and McGonagall sat down in the straight-backed chair behind her desk and motioned for Harry to sit in the chair opposite it. "Tell me exactly what you have determined about the second task," she said as she folded her hands on her desk. Harry blinked. "Uh, well, it's going to be in the Black Lake. Something is going to be taken from me, and I'll have one hour to go find it." "Correct. Normally we would not disclose this detail, but we are in a bit of a conundrum at the moment and I feel I have little choice. The something that will be taken is supposed to be a person. Someone who is very close and important to you. We performed the ceremony last night with the goblet to determine who would be taken for each of the four champions." "Oh?" Harry responded, trying to mask his emotions. They were a mixture of excitement, curiosity, confusion, and a bit of concern as to why she was telling him this when Bagman had said that who they took from him was supposed to remain a secret. "Yes. We encountered a problem." "What is it?" "The cup would not return a name for you. The paper it sent out always remained blank." Harry frowned. "Oh...kay. So what does that mean?" "We theorize that perhaps whatever confundus spell was used to trick the cup into accepting your name in the first place has not been sufficient enough to also make it choose someone for you to save." Or maybe there isn't anyone at this stupid school that I give a damn about enough to go into the lake for them. And the goblet knows it. Harry thought sardonically. "In any case, we are left having to choose someone for it." Harry shrugged. "Alright. That doesn't seem to be a big deal. Just pick someone." "Miss Granger is unavailable because she has been chosen for Mr. Krum. As an alternative, we were going to choose Mr. Weasley," she finished with her words trailing off hesitantly. Harry looked thoughtful for a minute and then shook his head. "You can't use him. If Krum's person is Hermione, everyone will think that Ron is my person because I fancy him or something." "That is what we were concerned about as well," McGonagall said. "It would end up in the Prophet. No doubt about that. Skeeter would fabricate some huge best-mate boy-love nonsense. Ron would be teased mercilessly, and he would probably start getting all weird, wondering if I really do "Exactly," McGonagall said nodding her head. "So do you have an alternative suggestion?" "You're going to let me choose?" he asked in surprise. "You can make a suggestion," she said. For a brief moment, Harry considered asking for Malfoy, simply because it would be hilarious. The idea of Draco being pulled into his Daily Prophet gossip woes brought a wicked grin to his lips. And the taunting and teasing that Malfoy would receive from it would be worth every weird look Harry would get from his fellow Gryffindors. But he knew McGonagall would see through it, and never go for it. So he let his mind wander to other alternatives. It couldn't be a guy. Anyone taken who was male would immediately bring up the idea that Harry fancied them. End of story. So it had to be a girl, but Hermione was already taken by Krum. Harry's brow's rose and he grinned. "Ginny." "Miss Weasley?" Harry nodded. "Yup. Ginny." "Alright, Mr. Potter. Thank you for you time. You can go now." – – The next morning a familiar little owl showed up shortly after breakfast. It was unusual for a post owl to show up at any time outside of breakfast, but seeing as how Harry recognized this specific owl, he wasn't the least bit surprised. "Is that Sir – er, Snuffle's owl?" Ron gasped as he saw Harry removing the letter from the owl's leg. "It is," Harry nodded. He was wondering if Sirius's reply would respond to any of his observations about Snape and Karkaroff, and the dark mark, and suddenly realized that he had never actually told Ron or Hermione about any of it. They would probably expect him to read the letter to them, and if it didmention it, they would wonder why he had kept that hidden from them. However all of his worries were proved for naught when he opened the letter and found it only had a single line of text printed on it. "Send date of next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl." Harry blinked and then frowned at it. Hermione, who had been leaning over his shoulder to read the letter made a curious noise in her throat. "What do you think that's about?" Ron asked in a bewildered tone. "I don't know," Hermione said frowning. "Sounds to me like he plans to pay us a visit," Harry said looking dubiously down at the letter in his hands. Hermione gasped. "He wouldn't! It's not safe!" Harry shook his head and sighed. "I imagine he probably would, if he felt it was important enough. Anyway, I guess I'd better reply," he said as he looked over at Sirius's owl, that was sitting and waiting rather impatiently for a response. "The next Hogsmeade weekend is the weekend after next," Hermione supplied quickly as Harry dug into his bag for a piece of parchment and a quill. "Thanks," he said as he jotted down the quick response and attached it to the owl's leg. – – The morning of the task arrived. It would begin at 9:30am, and classes were canceled for the entire day. Harry and Ron went to breakfast together an hour before the task was scheduled to begin. Ron kept looking around with a curious frown on his face, and finally he turned to Harry and spoke. "Hey, Harry?" "Yeah, Ron?" Harry said, not looking up from the book he was currently reading while he ate. "Where's Hermione? And for that matter... where's Ginny?" Harry looked up blankly at Ron and shrugged. "Dunno." He quickly went back to the book. "Is that for the task or something?" Ron asked after a quiet minute. "Hmm?" "That book. Are you reading it for some last minute preparation?" "No. Just reading it," Harry said distractedly. "Are you joking?" Ron exclaimed. Harry looked up reluctantly and rose a single questioning eyebrow at the ginger. "How can you be just reading some book when you've got to go swim through the lake in forty minutes! And you're eating! You never had the stomach to eat before Quidditch matches before. You always said the nerves were too much. But here you are, sitting all calm, reading some bloody book, like it was any normal, boring day of the week." Harry sat there, shooting Ron a flat, slightly annoyed, look during the ginger's triad. "Are you done?" Ron scowled. "I've got the task handled. I'm not stressed out over it because I feel pretty damn prepared for this one. I've had months to prep for it, and I think I've got a good solid strategy. At this point, I'm feeling more annoyed impatience than nerves. I just want to get it over with. Reading is distracting me, and keeping my mind off of how frustrated I feel at having to do this at all." Ron grumbled and looked away, slightly abashed. They finished their breakfast and Harry went off to Gryffindor tower to change clothes. He had transfigured himself a pair of swimming trunks and then pulled his school robe on over top. By the time he left the castle and began to cross the grounds towards the lake, it was 9:15am. The stands that had been placed in a large circle around the dragon enclosure for the first task had now been placed all along one side of the shore of the Black Lake. They were also packed with people. Harry wondered how much of a show these people were expecting to get, since all four champions would be deep beneath the murky depths for an hour. Once again, he wondered if there was some sort of monitoring spell to allow the spectators to know what was going on in the lake, but Bagman had said that there wasn't going to be one, and he could only hope that was true. Harry walked over and joined the other three champions who were gathering near the judges table. The three headmasters were all seated there, but instead of Mr. Crouch, his assistant, Percy Weasley was seated there. Harry frowned at this. He darted his eyes around, looking for any sign of 'Moody', but didn't see him either. Thinking back, he had seen both Crouch and Moody at the first task though. So maybe Crouch didn't start impersonating Moody until more recently? Harry sighed and shook his head. He didn't like not knowing what was going on with that. Ludo Bagman came up, looking excitedly at the four champions. "Is everyone ready, then?" he asked, grinning. Harry looked over at the others for the first time then. Fleur looked nervous and when their eyes met he gave her a reassuring smile. She grinned at him, and it appeared that a small amount of tension left her for a moment. Cedric was giving off a determined air, but Harry could see the older boy's hands shake a bit before he clenched them into tight fists. Krum was glowering at the lake as if it were a beast he was set to tackle. Harry supposed it sort of was. It was certainly filled with beasts. "Alright then, lets get everyone lined up," Bagman said as he began to herd the four of them towards the shore. He placed them at ten foot intervals from each other, and they each began to prepare. Fleur took off her robes to reveal a one-piece swim suit, which illicited some rude catcalls from the stands. Fleur turned and glared angrily in the general direction the sound had come from. Krum was already standing in nothing more than a pair of swimming trunks, and looked perfectly fine with the temperature. Harry wondered if he had already cast a warming charm on himself. Cedric slipped off his outer robes to reveal a pair of trunks and a tank-top. He shivered visibly and ran his hands up and down his exposed arms. Harry sighed and pulled off his robes as well. Instantly the chill hit him, but he was pretty used to it by now. It was nicer that day than it had been for the previous week, however it was currently 9:25 am, and he usually did his swim training in the afternoon when the day had had some time to warm up. Fleur looked his way again with a soft smile, but it stilled and her eyes widened for a moment. Harry watched as her eyes trailed up and down his lithe form with a surprisingly appreciative look. Harry almost laughed. Instead he rose a single, cocky, questioning eyebrow at her. When she realized she'd been caught gawking, she actually blushed! Harry laughed and she rolled her eyes at him. But she was now smiling rather genuinely now, so if nothing else, he had at least distracted her from some of her nerves. Bagman returned to the stands by the judges table and brought his wand up to his neck, as he had at the Quidditch World Cup and said "Sonorus!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water towards the stands. "Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One... two... three!" The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air and the stands erupted with cheers and applause. Harry gripped his wand in his hand and cast the warming charm first. He was desperately relieved the moment it took effect and his shivers could stop. Next he cast the small bubble-head charm over his face, and then promptly dropped his wand on the folded pile of robes. He wouldn't need it and it would transform with him so he wouldn't even be able to hold it. Still, the abandonment of his wand apparently bewildered quite a few people because he could hear a lot of murmuring in the section of stands behind him. He ignored it and took off into the water at a quick pace. The lake had a gradual incline at this portion, instead of the steeper drop off he was used to from the side of the lake he usually trained from. This meant that he had to wait longer – until he reached a deep enough section of water to dive deep – to do his actual transformation. He waded his way as quickly as he could manage until it got deep enough that the water was up to his chest. Finally he plunged under the surface and began to swim forward. He had gotten a fair distance from the shore and had gone down into the muddy silt before he finally felt safe in performing his transformation. He'd done it so many times now that it felt like second nature and only took a few seconds to complete. As a sea snake Harry had a paddle-like tail at the very tip and his body was laterally compressed slightly, but not much. It almost gave him a slight eel-like appearance, except that he was extremely thick, and about 9 feet long. His body was black and white striped, with a mostly black head, except for a small area of white on the top of his head and snout. His bright silvery-white stripes didn't exactly provide him with good camouflage in the dark, green, murky depths of the lake, but his three weeks of training in it had taught him that most things would avoid him just because it was a great, thick, 9 foot long snake. The moment his transformation was complete he shot forward into the depths of the lake to get as far from the shore as he could manage, as fast as possible. He was soon calling forth his parselmagic and starting the locator spell. He grinned internally, thankful that he knew exactly who he was supposed to be looking for thanks to the cup's inability to provide the headmaster's with a name. He told the great black snake to find Ginny, and it quickly began to dart in the direction of the merfolk's village. Just as Harry was swimming through the long green weeds that he knew housed a large group of grindylows he heard the reverberated watery echoes of the nasty little water demons as they swarmed something. He was about to ignore it and move on, thankful that he wasn't the one being attacked, when he heard the garbled, bubbled yelp of Fleur. He called his locator snake to stop and wait for him and turned to swim in the direction he sensed the commotion from. Fleur was struggling in the long grassy weeds as a grindylow held on tight to her ankle. Another reached up and clutched it's long fingers around her other leg and bared it's pointed fangs. She was pointing her wand at them, and probably trying to cast some non-verbal spells, but it was obvious that she was having trouble focusing in her panicked state. Two more grindylows appeared out of the weeds and grabbed and clawed at her arms and hair. They began to amass around her and pull her down as she struggled and panicked. Harry darted through the water with his serpentine speed and opened his mouth, baring his fangs at the nasty little creatures. Once they spotted him coming, they began to panic and the first few dispersed within an instant. Fleur looked shocked and then relieved as she was released from some of her demonic captors... and then she saw Harry. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened to scream. The sound echoed strangely through her bubble-head charm. Two of the remaining grindylows saw Harry and squealed in terror. One bared it's fangs at Harry, and dug it's claws into Fleur's arm. She began to renew her struggle against the beasts, all the while keeping her terrified eyes trained on Harry's enormous serpentine form. Harry darted forward and snapped his jaws around one of the little monsters, sinking his short fangs into it's side. It screamed a horrible high-pitched noise and struggled against him. He tossed it aside with a flick of his head and set his sights on one of the others. One look from him, and the remaining grindylows gave up and ran. Fleur now had her wand trained on Harry and looked to be on the brink of sobs. Harry blinked at her and then turned away, swimming back in the direction he had left his locator spell. Harry renewed the spell and followed the black serpent that only he could see, directly towards the merfolk's village. He passed the large rock with 'painting's on it, depicting what looked like merfolk carrying spears, fighting the giant squid. He snickered at it and keep moving forward, towards the village. A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly and Harry could see faces peering out from the windows, hesitantly watching him. A few of the merfolk had seen him during his training the last tree weeks, but he doubted any of them realized he was actually one of the competitors. He swam his way through the center of town, still following his black locator snake until it came to stop, coiling around a great carved stone statue of a merperson with four people bound tightly to it's tail. Ginny was tied between Hermione and Cho Chang. The last person was a young girl – probably no older than eight or nine – with long silvery blond hair. Harry assumed she had to be Fleur's sister or something. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep, and a fine stream of bubbles kept issues from their mouths. The merpeople were gathering now, and surround the statue was a rather large group of them, all carry those unpleasantly sharp spears of theirs. Harry swam quickly, straight for the statue and the merfolk eyed him warily. They were all whispering to each other, animatedly, curiosity and concern in their eyes. Harry approached cautiously, half-expecting them to start attacking him. But they didn't. He went straight for Ginny and eyed her restraints. She was tied with a thick heavy rope, and he grumbled slightly. Not that it wasn't something he could handle, but he was probably going to have to transform back into a human to deal with it. Heaving an internal sigh, he began to revert his transformation. Seconds later, he was human again, and the merfolk seemed utterly stunned. He cautiously tested the bubble-head charm and was relieved to get reliable breath of air from it. It was shrinking through, so he couldn't stay in a human form for too long like this. He focused on the ropes and pointed his fingers at them while calling forth his parselmagic and hissing out a weak severing curse. He sliced through the bindings, one at a time until there was nothing left holding Ginny to the statue and she began to float freely. Harry paused and looked over at Hermione's floating form. He had no idea where the others were, but he was fairly confident that Krum would come for her. Even if the others didn't make in the hour time limit, he knew there was no way Dumbledore would actually allow anyone down here to drown. So he turned back to Ginny. He summoned a piece of long reedy grass and transfigured it into a rope, all through parselmagic. The merfolk were still watching him with intense fascination, as he worked at tying it around Ginny's waist. Finally, he transformed back into his sea serpent form, grabbed the end of the rope in his mouth and began to haul her out of the village. He knew his way back to the shore from here, so he didn't need to bother with the locator spell again. As the ground became closer to the surface, and Harry knew he was growing near the shore, he transformed back into his human form and started swimming up to the surface, with the unconscious Ginny still in tow behind him. He broke through the surface of the water, and pulled in a great gasp of breath. The moment they broke through the surface, whatever spell was on Ginny seemed to cease because she proceeded to cough out a mouth full of water and then blink at him owlishly. "Hey Gin, you alright?" Harry asked. "Uh... yeah?" she said weakly. He chuckled and began to paddle towards the shore with her, still in tow. They climbed out of the water, freezing and dripping wet. The stands were cheering uproariously, and a small crowd of people were heading their way. Madam Pomfrey was racing straight for them with large fluffy towels. Percy Weasley looked remarkably pale and stunned to see his baby sister coming out of the freezing water and he rushed over to her. Dumbledore was beaming at Harry, and Harry had for force a smile onto his face as he looked into his headmaster's eyes. The powerful, deep seeded loathing was still there, and still as powerful as ever, but he couldn't let it show. "Well done, Harry! Well done!" Ludo Bagman was saying as he came over and clapped Harry on the back. Harry grinned weakly at the man and walked over to the spot where he'd left his robes and his wand. Madam Pomfrey was forcing a towel on him while he gathered his things. He took it, but didn't bother wrapping himself with it at first. Instead he cast a non-verbal drying charm on himself, and then renewed the warming charm. Another charm later and his hair was dry too. He pulled his robes back on, looked at the towel, and then handed it to Ginny instead. "Thanks Harry," she said, ducking her head a little. "That was really brilliant. You saved me, and you came in first!" she exclaimed, looking up now. Harry shrugged. "Yeah, well, it's not like Dumbledore would have let any of you actually get hurt down there, so I don't see how I 'saved' you, per se. I'm sorry you had to get dragged into this actually." "Oh it's alright. It's kind of exciting, really. Although, admittedly, I am really really cold," she said, chuckling. Percy was standing beside her and frowning. Whenever he did bother a glance Harry's way, he actually scowled. Harry rolled his eyes. Stupid prat. "Here, let me help with that," Harry said as he raised his wand and pointed it at her. First he dried her clothes, which took two separate drying charms, and then a third for her hair. He finished it all off with another simple warming charm. She blinked and looked down at herself with obvious surprise. "Blimey, Harry! That was brilliant!" she beamed. "I didn't know you could perform wordless spells! What was all that?" "Just foveo and exaresco. Nothing special. And I've been practicing non-verbal spells for a while now." Percy actually looked mildly impressed, but clearly he didn't want Harry to know that because he turned his attention back to Ginny and asked her if she was really alright, for about the dozenth time in the last four minutes. Harry sighed and made his way to a small tent with some chairs that had been set up for the champions. He sat down to wait for the others to finish, and wished suddenly that he'd actually brought his book with him. Quite a few people in the stands were still quite animated with chatter about Harry's return, but many of them had reverted to a state of bored impatience. Harry snickered. Bagman was right about this not being a very entertaining event for spectators. He was relieved to see that there were no magical devices, or anything else set up to relay what the champions were doing under the water. Sure, it meant it was boring for those standing around waiting, but it also meant that no one would know about his sea snake transformation. Another ten minutes passed before Cedric Diggory broke the surface with a sputtering Cho Chang in toe. Five more minutes after them, and what looked like a shark exploded from the water. It turned out it was only a shark head, Harry was growing a tad worried that Fleur still hadn't made an appearance several minutes later when the French Veela finally showed up with her little sister in her arms. Harry watched as Dumbledore walked over to the waters edge to meet with one of the merpeople. She was a rather wild and ferocious-looking female, and the old headmaster actually started making the same ear piercing screechy sounds that she was, and the two of them were apparently talking. So, Harry supposed, that meant that Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Harry's heart stopped. Dumbledore could speak mermish. The merfolk had seen him transform to free Ginny. Shite! Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges and said, "A conference before we give the marks, I think." The judges went into a huddle and Harry found himself staring at them with a feeling of horror in his gut. What was he going to tell them if they asked him what he'd done? Could he admit that it was a parselmagic thing, or would he just claim to be an animagus and register the form with the ministry when he turned 17? "...it was the most remarkable thing. A great snake saved me from the grindylows!" Fleur was saying to one of her Beauxbatons friends. Harry turned around grinned a bit to himself. "I was sure I was doomed! Ze little water demons were pulling me down and I could do no'sing to stop zem! Zen dis huge serpent appears out of nowhere and bites one of zem! They all scattered, but I was afraid zen that it would come after me. But it didn't!" Harry found himself tempted to say something to her, but was distracted by Bagman's voice calling out again and drawing in everyone's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Mer-chieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions as follows..." Harry felt his blood go cold. 'Told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake.' Shite shite shite... "Fleur Delacour demonstrated an excellent use of the bubblehead charm, and was able to recover her hostage, but only in forth place and after one hour and seventeen minutes; outside the time-limit of an hour. Because of this, we award her twenty-five points." Applause from the stands. "Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was third to return with his hostage. We award him thirty-five points." Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, and a nice sized cheer roared from the stands. "Cedric Diggory, who also used the bubble-head charm, was the second to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the limit of an hour. Therefore we award him forty points." Another roar of cheers from the crowd, most notably from the Hufflepuffs in the crowd. "And finally, Harry Potter, who used a combination of magics, including the bubble-head charm, and a remarkable use of human-to-animal transfiguration, turned himself into a sea serpent! He was the first to return with his hostage, and well within the time limit. We award him, fifty points!" The stands erupted in cheers and Harry smiled brightly and waved up at them, all the while wondering if the headmasters really believed that line, or if they were just covering for him. Harry turned and saw Hermione standing beside him suddenly with wide eyes and her jaw hanging open slightly. "Is that true!" she gasped. "Is what true? That I was first and came in under the time limit?" Harry asked innocently. "No, not that, Harry! I already knew that! Did you really transfigure yourself? Human transfiguration is a NEWT level skill, Harry! And you're not supposed to do it to yourself! It's incredibly dangerous! How did you even turn yourself back?" "Hermione!" Harry called out, cutting off her rant. "I didn't transfigure myself." She screwed up her face and frowned. "What? Then why did they say that?" "If they think I transfigured myself, then they can go ahead and believe that. I'm not about to correct them, unless they come asking me specifically about it." "Well then what did you do?" "I –" Harry began but hesitated and then blinked as Viktor Krum came up, looking rather indignant. "You haff a water beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny," Krum said, and Harry had the impression that Krum was trying to draw her attention back to him, seeing as how he had been the one who just 'saved her' from the Black Lake. Harry smirked and reached up into Hermione's hair and snatched the little black beetle with a quick reach and reflexes honed by quidditch, and several months of mock dueling a dead snake with dark magic. He was about to release the little bug when a jolt went through his fingers. The little bug was fluttering it's wings and wiggling it's legs wildly, trying to get out of his hand. "Ew, Harry. Just toss it," Hermione said, looking down at the bug he was still holding in his hand. Instead Harry clasped his hand shut, trapping it in his fist. "Herm-own-ninny?" Krum said again and Hermione turned to see what he wanted. Harry looked down at his fist and frowned. He wasn't sure what it was he felt, but he was certain it wasn't just a bug. He focused all of his senses and was surprised to detect the faint magical aura of a wizardcoming from the bug." He turned his head away from Krum and Hermione and whispered a parselmagic hiss quietly while focusing his magic on encasing the bug in a small magical field. Once it was complete, he could only feel a cool sphere of magic in his hand, instead of the fluttering scraping of bug. He slipped the orb into his robe pockets and turned back just in time to find Hermione about to round on him again. "Well?" she said. "Huh?" "What did you do! If you didn't transfigure yourself, why did they think you did?" "It's... kind of a long story." "Oh, Harry, please! I hate all of these secrets you been keeping all term! You never tell Ron and me anything anymore," she said with a flustered pout. "The task is over, why can't you tell us what you've been doing all this time? You've dedicated so much time to your training, and I know there is no way that you spent all that time just working on the bubble-head charm! And what about those potions you brewed over the holidays? What were those for?" Harry restrained the urge to scowl and gripe at her that it was none of her damned concern and to just mind her own bloody business. "Look..." he said with some exasperation. "I'll... I'll talk to you about it later. Okay?" Harry decided that he would wait to figure out what to tell Ron and Hermione until after he was confronted by Dumbledore – which he was almost positive would happen sooner or later – so that he could keep his stories in sync. Hermione didn't seem pleased with this, but nodded her head and accepted it. Bagman's voice boomed through the air again and Harry refocused on it. "The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-forth of June. The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support." Madam Pomfrey then began herding the champions and hostages back to the castle to get looked over. Harry insisted to her that he was fine, but she then insisted that she didn't care and would make that determination herself up in the hospital wing. Reluctantly, he trudged up with the others so that the school's medi-witch could do her work-up on them, to make sure that no one had sustained any injuries that needed her attention. It was over. June twenty-forth. He wouldn't even find out what the last task was until May twenty-forth. That meant he now had three whole months before he even found out what it was. He grimaced. He would have preferred to have all this time to prepare. Now he was going to have to prepare blindly. He would just continue teaching himself as much as possible and hope it would be applicable. He was probably going to have to learn some more neutral attacks and defenses. He had learned loads of dark ones that would be helpful in lots of different situations, but he doubted that he would be in a position where he could safely use any of those. As it was, he had believed himself relatively safe from prying eyes in regards to her sea snake transformation, but Dumbledore had found out about it anyway. No. He definitely couldn't risk using any dark magic in the tournament. He sighed in resignation. He had seen a dark-ish-neutral-magic defense book on the Crespus Publishing book list, but had ignored it at the time. He would order it once he was back in the dormitory and focus on it for a while. Just as Madam Pomfrey finally released him from her care, Albus Dumbledore strode into the hospital wing with eyes trained directly upon Harry. Harry froze up and felt a mixture of dread and hatred course through him, but held it in check. "Mr. Potter, I was wondering if perhaps I could have a brief word with you," Dumbledore said with a gentle smile and his usual twinkle in his eye. Harry forced a look of confused innocence on his face and quickly made his way over to his headmaster. "Of course, sir." Dumbledore smiled, turned, and began to stride quickly out of the hospital wing and towards the grand staircase. Harry didn't bother to ask where they were going. He had no doubt that he was heading up to Dumbledore's office. He was not surprised then, when they reached the seventh floor and headed straight down the corridor towards the gargoyle that stood in front of the entrance to the headmaster's office. "Ice mice," Dumbledore said to the gargoyle, and it leapt aside. The two of them stepped onto the rising turning staircase and moments later Harry found himself in an overstuffed armchair and being offered a lemon drop, which he politely declined. "So, Harry," Dumbledore began genially as he clasped his hands on his desk. "Can you tell me exactly what it is that you did, in the lake? I heard some rather interesting things from their Chieftainess." "Um... what sorts of things?" "It's the most curious thing, actually. Mer-chieftainess Murcus told me that there was a very large serpent that entered their village. She said that this serpent had been seen a few times before during the last few weeks, but none of her people had given it much thought since it had not been aggressive at all. Her people watched as the snake approached the hostages, but were then quite started to witness it transform into... you. "After freeing Miss Weasley, you then apparently transformed back and left. I must admit, Harry, I am quite curious as to what exactly you did, as I doubt somewhat that you actually transfigured yourself... especially taking into account how you discarded your wand before entering the lake." Harry paused... was a wand necessary for the animagus transformation? Crap, he should have looked that up. If he told the truth – that it was a parselmagic transformation – the headmaster would want to know where Harry learned it. And even if Harry lied – which he would, there was no way he was telling anyone about his visits to the chamber – the best he could do was claim he found some old rare book somehow. But that would still make Dumbledore wonder as to why Harry would go to the trouble to try finding out more about the 'dark and dangerous' skill that Harry inherited from the Dark Lord. If he realized that Harry was interested enough in his parselmagic to start investigating it enough to learn the transformation, he would probably start worrying about Harry looking into otherdark magics... which, you know, is exactly what happened. But he didn't want to let Dumbledore know that. And there was no way he was going to risk some idealist, barmy old codger keep him from learning a powerful and useful skill, no matter how 'dark and evil' it was socially perceived to be. So... the lesser of two evils was... animagus. He could claim to have been working on it since the previous year. He could say that he started working on it after he found out about his dad being an animagus. The fact that his 'animagus form' was a snake would cause some curiosity, but you can't choose your animagus form, so no one could pin it on him. And he could always try to shrug it off as one of those things caused by his 'weird connection to Voldemort'. Plus he could also use the fact that his 'form' was a snake as the excuse for why he had kept it hidden. But then there was that whole 'did you need a wand to do the animagus transformation' problem. It didn't seem likely. Afterall – how would you turn back? Then he remembered – Sirius had transformed while in Azkaban! He didn't have a wand in prison! So he was safe. No wand was needed to perform the animagus transformation. Harry had spent all of a second contemplating all of this. He cleared his mind and expression and replaced it with the a sheepish, guilty look. "Um... I didn't think anyone would find out," he said in a quiet voice, as he ducked his head down and looked at his hands, which he was now wringing nervously in his lap. "You're not in trouble, Harry. I just want to know what technique you used," Dumbledore said in a calming, reassuring voice. Internally, Harry rolled his eyes and made a derisive remark. Externally, he looked up through his eyelashes at his headmaster with apologetic, puppy-dog eyes. "Um... I know I'm not registered, but I read that it's not mandatory to register it until a wizard reaches 17, so I thought it would be okay... and I didn't expect anyone to be able to see it either... so..." "Unregistered?" Dumbledore asked, curiously. "Er... yeah... last year, pretty early on, I started trying to do the animagus transformation..." Harry said, looking back into his lap, and his voice growing more quiet and meek as he went. Dumbledore's large bushy white eyebrows moved up into his forehead a bit in surprise. Harry cleared his throat and squared his shoulders a bit – as if he were trying to regroup his courage – although they instantly hunched back down a moment later. "Anyway, I didn't really know if I was going to get it completed in time for the task. I only mastered the transformation about three weeks ago. My backup plan was to just swim the hard way, and rely on the bubble-head charm, completely." Dumbledore blinked at him for a moment before sitting forward a bit. "Harry, are you saying that you mastered the animagus transformation in less than a year?" Harry looked up and gaped for a moment before ducking his head bashfully. "Er... I guess so." "What, exactly, possessed you to try it, if I may ask?" "I heard that my dad and his friends were animagus. I thought it would... I don't know... bring me closer to him if I went through the same thing that he did." Harry stole a peak up at his headmaster, trying to gauge how well the old man was taking this. Dumbledore's eyes grew sad and understanding, and a soft smile spread across his lips. "I must say Harry; I am quite surprised... but also very impressed. That is quite an impressive accomplishment, especially for someone only in their forth year. I believe that your father and his friends didn't begin their training till their fifth, and even then, they didn't successfully complete it until seventh." Harry looked up at Dumbledore with wide, hopeful, and awe-filled eyes. Details on James and Lily used to be more precious than gold to him, and any indication that he might learn something new about either of them had always garnered this sort of response in Harry, and he knew Dumbledore would expect it. "So!" Dumbledore said sitting back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap again. "What is your form, exactly?" "Er... a Sea Krait." "Ah, the sea krait. Genus Laticuada, family Hydrophiidae. The only sea serpent to retain enough of the traits from it's terrestrial cousins to still be adapted to live both on land an in water. Fascinating." Harry's jaw dropped slightly in legitimate surprise. Bloody hell, the man was a dictionary for both magical and non-magical information! He would almost expect that sort of response out of Hermione, but he hadn't expected it from the headmaster. "Uh... yeah. That," Harry responded ineloquently. "That's a rather curious form for you to take on, don't you think?" Dumbledore asked. Harry shrugged and looked down into his lap again. "Yeah, I suppose... I guess that's why I never told Ron or Hermione. The whole... snake thing. It would... weird them out." "Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger don't know?" Dumbledore said, with obvious surprise. Harry shrugged one shoulder and kept his head bowed. "Like I said... it would weird them out. You know how Ron is about the whole parseltongue thing. Any relationship or connection with snakes and a person is instantly labeled as dark by him." "Ah, yes. I can understand your fears. However I am sure that Mr. Weasley will find it in himself to move beyond such petty prejudices. He is your friend and I think that it is important that we have people near us that we can confide in." Harry kept his head bowed, appearing thoroughly cowed. "Yes, sir." "Good. Now, I would assume that there may be a bit of a celebration waiting for you back in the common room." Harry looked up with wide surprised eyes. Internally, he was snickering about how fickle his classmates were, if that were true. If they did all suddenly start worshiping the ground he walked on, just because he was in the lead of this ruddy tournament, it would just prove how idiotic the lot of them were. "You really think so, sir?" Harry asked with faux hope oozing from him. "I do, Harry." Finally Harry was dismissed and allowed to escape his headmaster's office. He slipped past the gargoyle and down the hall with a smug smirk on his face. He was really becoming an extremely accomplished actor. Even he would have believed that performance. Well... maybe not. But Harry had become a very un-trusting person. While Dumbledore wanted nothing more that to believe the best in everyone, and was, therefore, an idiotically trusting person. Harry's hand slipped into his pocket and fingered the magical orb that contained the strange little beetle he had picked from Hermione's hair. His curiosity was peaked about it, but if Dumbledore was right, and his fellow Gryffindors were setting up some sort of stupid celebration in the common room, then he probably wasn't going to get a chance to examine it anytime soon. That was annoying, but he'd just have to be patient and play nice with his house mates. Harry made his way to the portrait of the Fat Lady, spoke the password and pulled it open. As soon as he stepped through the portrait hole, a roar of cheers and applause echoed through the room and he was instantly greeted by Hermione, Ron, and Ginny, who were all beaming at him and spouting congratulations. Harry smiled, and laughed, and blushed, and acted sheepish and bashful in the appropriate instances. All the while, he kept impatiently fingering the magical ball in his pocket and wishing anxiously that the damned party would end already so he could find somewhere private to investigate it. The party, however, seemed like it would never end. It was still in full swing later that afternoon. Harry managed to beg off by telling the others that he really wanted to shower and clean up before dinner and escaped up to his dorm room alone. Once inside, he flicked his wand towards the door and cast a locking spell. He pulled the magical ball out of his pocket and examined it. It looked like a glass orb, and while it had no actual physical form, it felt solid. And of course, inside it was a hysterically fluttering little black beetle. The magical barrier he was using to contain it was masking some of his ability to sense the magic he detected from the bug when he first picked it up, so he looked around the room for an alternative container. On the desk beside Harry's bed was a glass jar that he used to hold old quills. He walked over, emptied it's contents into a drawer and examined the jar. It was an old jam jar that he had nicked from his aunt a few summers ago, and he didn't have the lid to it. But that certainly wasn't a real problem. He could have used a rock and transfigured it into an aquarium if he really felt like going all out, after all. He lowered the little magical containment ball into the jar and then waved his wand over the jar, transfiguring it so that it had no opening at all, but was instead a solid continuous glass all around. With a quiet hiss and a wave of his fingers, the magical ball vanished and the beetle was released from it, only to find itself just as trapped inside the jar with no opening. It fluttered angrily around the jar, ramming itself at the sides. Now that the parselmagic barrier was gone and the beetle was left in an entirely non-magical container, there was nothing blocking his senses. He set the jar on his desk, sat down in his chair, and stared intently at it. He could definitely feel a wizard's aura. "You're a wizard, aren't you?" he asked at the little bug and it froze suddenly. He smirked and quirked a single eyebrow. "Not very subtle are you?" he chuckled. "Let's see... you could be someone who has been transfigured into a bug, but then it's unlikely that you'd retain enough sense to understand English. Alternately... you could be an animagus...?" The bug was holding still and he would swear it was staring straight at him. Suddenly it began fluttering around crazily again. "Well, if you are an animagus, I know one quick way to tell," he mused as he stood up, grabbed his bag from beside his bed and pulled the Marauder's Map out of it's front pocket. He tapped his wand on it and spoke the incantation to activate it. The ink appeared on the page and he quickly found his location in Gryffindor Tower. What he saw there made him nearly choke. Inside the forth year dormitory of Gryffindor Tower were two dots. One said Harry Potter. The other one said Rita Skeeter. Harry narrowed his eyes and turned back to the bug in the jar. He growled and tapped the map again, deactivating it. He folded it up, and slid it back into his bag before striding back to the desk, sitting down in the chair and coming eye level with the jar. He stared straight into it and pierced the beetle with a deathly glare. "Well, hello Rita," he said as a dangerously wicked grin spread across his lips. The bug froze for a second before resuming it's furious flight in circles inside it's confined space. Harry quickly pulled out his wand and cast an unbreakable charm on the jar, to make sure she could break the jar by transforming. "I suppose this explains how you were able to spy on me inside the school," he mused as he bent down and brought his nose right up to the side of the glass. "Now, what to do with you... I wonder..." the evil, sadistic grin that was plastered across his face, and the powerful waves of magic – dark magic – that was rolling off him would have terrified the strongest of wizards. Rita actually fainted. He cackled lightly before opening his trunk to the expanded book compartment that had the parseltongue password. He slid the jar in between several books and closed the trunk with a giggle. Oh this was going to be entertaining... he just needed to find an appropriate block of time to have his fun. Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. JKRowling does. First Beta Pass by Clemex – – "Harry!" Hermione exclaimed the following afternoon as Harry tried to slip from the common room unnoticed. Clearly, he had failed. He turned around to face her and gave her an innocent smile. "Yeah, Hermione?" "Where do you think you're going!" "Er... for a walk?" "And what happened to your promise to explain what you did in the task?" she asked in a hushed voice as she came up to his side. "Did you, or did you not, transfigure yourself? And what was it that Professor Dumbledore wanted to talk to you about, yesterday after the task?" Harry scowled slightly and gave her a brief glare before masking his expression to one of hesitant worry. He knew he couldn't dodge this forever. Although, admittedly, he had hoped for more than a day to pass before he was interrogated again. "Alright," he mumbled. "But if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it with both you and Ron, in one go. I don't want to have to explain it again. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. "Alright, I go get him." He rolled his eyes at her back and sighed. "Let's do this up in me and Ron's room. The other guys are all down here, so we'll have some privacy up there." She nodded over her shoulder and quickly hurried across the common room to the table where Ron was engaged in a game of chess with one of the second years who had been gullible enough to agree to play him. Ron looked annoyed at being interrupted, but Hermione was clearly being rather insistent. Harry stood there and tried to go over in his mind exactly how he was going to approach this situation. It wasn't like he actually cared if they were offended that he had kept secrets from them, but he wanted to avoid some sort of conflict if he could manage it. Finally Hermione came back with Ron in tow. Harry sighed, but mostly in exasperation and annoyance at having to deal with this. The three made their way up the stairs to the boy's dormitory and positioned themselves around Harry's bed and desk. Harry took out his wand and pointed it at the door. A few simple flicks and swishes later and the door was locked, and a privacy ward had been put up. Hermione and Ron were both looking at him with wide, curious and slightly confused eyes. He ducked his head in mock bashfulness and rubbed the back of his neck as he took a seat on his bed. "I er... don't want this getting out. Theoretically, I could get into real trouble for it," Harry said, looking up at them and giving them a weak grin. "Get into trouble for what!" Hermione asked as her eyes suddenly grew extremely wide with worry. "Well... okay, so you know how you asked me two questions? You asked if I really did transfigure myself, and what the headmaster had wanted to talk to me about after the task?" "Yes," Hermione said nodding her head. Ron just looked a bit lost, and watched the two of them curiously. "Well, they're sort of linked. The headmaster wanted to know what it was I did too. I told him, and he's okay with it, so I'm not in trouble with him. I just can't risk it getting out to anyone at the ministry." "What did you do, Harry!" Hermione asked in an exasperated tone. "I er... became an animagus," he said with a sheepish grin and a shrug. Ron looked stunned, but Hermione looked down-right flabbergasted. "You what! How? When! Becoming an animagus takes years! How –" "I started it last year. Early-on, actually," Harry mumbled, looking down at his hands and fingering at his wand. "What! But... wait, when? And why didn't you say anything about it?" Hermione asked, her tone shifting to hurt, rather than surprised or disapproving. Ron was frowning and looking equally upset. "I... I just couldn't. I mean... okay, do you know much about how one becomes an animagus?" Ron shook his head, but Hermione, as expected, had an answer. "First you have to brew a rather complicated potion. The potion reveals whether or not you have an animal form, and what it will be. And then you have to go through months of meditative practice, followed by many months of gradual partial transformations of each of your individual limbs and body parts. Then –" "Right," Harry said, cutting her off. "So the first thing I did was discover if I could even do it, and what my form would be." "Right," Hermione said with a curt nod, prodding him on. "Well, I sort of... freaked out, when I saw what my form was." "What is your form?" Ron asked, finally speaking up for the first time. "Er... a snake," Harry mumbled. Ron's eyes went wide and his skin went pale. Hermione had apparently already figured this out and didn't really seem surprised. "Yeah... so, anyway, when I realized what my form would be I... I guess I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want to say anything before then because I didn't want to get my hopes up on the whole thing working only to discover I didn't have an animagus form at all. And then I go and find out my animagus form is a great bloody snake and I knew that it would weird you out," he said, looking straight at Ron. Ron looked like he was about to protest, but Harry cut him off by continuing. "I did the meditation and breathing exercises at night before bed, just... I don't know, just for the hell of it. I wasn't even trying that hard at it the first few months. It was mostly something to just keep my mind off other things. "But during the summer, when I was stuck back at the Dursley's, I worked on it a lot more. I mean, I had nothing else to do. They locked up all my school things in the cupboard, and wouldn't let me leave my ruddy room most of the time. So I just laid in bed, practicing the animagus transformation." Hermione gasped. "But Harry! We're not supposed to practice magic outside of school!" "Yeah, but this doesn't require a wand, and I don't think it registers with the magical trace the way normal magic does. It's not actually cast the way normal spells are cast. In any case, nothing that I did ever resulted in a howler from the Ministry, so they obviously didn't catch on to anything. "I didn't practice an awful lot the first month or so of school, but after I got dragged into the tournament, and you two ditched me, I had a lot more free time on my hands, so I refocused on my training. And then, after I got the clue for the second task and realized that I would need to go into the Black Lake, I figured that my animagus form could help me out a lot with the task, so I started working really really hard on it. I only mastered it three weeks ago, actually." "I... I can't believe you didn't trust us with this, Harry," Hermione said as she looked over at him sadly. Harry huffed. "It's not about trust. I just... I mean, yeah, I was pretty sure that you guys would freak out a bit about the snake thing, although I also figured that you'd get over it at some point. But mostly I just... I don't know why, but I just wanted to keep this to myself. It was like... this was something that my dad did. Sure, I found out later that he did it with his friends, but originally I just wanted to do it on my own. And after the way the two of you turned on me after Halloween I didn't really.. want to share it with either of you. And even after we made up, I had kept it secret for so long I just didn't know how to tell either of you." "Oh Harry..." Hermione said, giving him that sad, understanding look that made him want to sneer and scowl at her. He managed to restrain himself, and kept his head bowed and began to finger the hem of his robes nervously. "It was incredibly reckless of you to do it alone though," Hermione said with a long sigh. "It can be so dangerous, Harry! There are so many things that can go wrong when attempting the animagus transformation!" Harry just shrugged and kept his head ducked sheepishly. An awkward silence fell heavy in the room for a minute. "So... you can't like... pick your animagus form or anything?" Ron's voice said, breaking the silence. Hermione gave an exasperated huff and glared at Ron. "No, Ron. You cannot pick your own animagus form. Not everyone even has one. Most people don't." "Well... How is your animal form chosen, exactly?" Ron asked. "This animal form is not chosen by the wizard, but determined by their personality and inner traits. Thus, one's Animagus form is a reflection of one's inner nature," Hermione said in her 'I'm repeating something I read' voice. Ron's eyes widened and he gave Harry a scrutinizing look. Harry looked up and scowled slightly. "See? That's why I didn't want to tell you." "What!" Ron said, defensively. "I didn't say anything!" "Maybe not, but I can tell from the look on your face what your thinking. You're wondering what about my 'inner nature' could result in me ending up as a snake," Harry said, grumbling and scowling in a rather immature looking pout. He hoped it was convincing. "I was not!" Ron exclaimed, but his voice wobbled a bit that told Harry that his statement had been right. Not that he had doubted it any. He had a pretty good understanding on how the ginger's mind worked. "Harry, it's alright. You don't have to hid this sort of thing from us. We're your friends," Hermione said, as she shot a rather scathing glare at Ron, who pouted. "Yeah, Harry. I mean... yeah, it's kind of... weird, but so what? It's still cool that you can turn into an animal, right?" Harry looked up and let a small sheepish grin curve up the corner of his mouth. "It is pretty cool. And I can still cast parselmagic while in my sea krait form. It's brilliant." Hermione gasped as her hand flew up to her mouth. "That's impossible! You're kidding!" "Nope. A normal animagus can't perform magic while in their animal form because they can't hold a wand or speak, but all I need to do to perform parselmagic is speak in parseltongue, which I can still do as a snake. You know that locator spell I taught myself for the task, but wouldn't show you guys? It was actually a parseltongue spell. That was why I really didn't want to practice it in front of you. I knew you'd ask why I was learning a parselmagic locator spell, instead of learning a normal magic one, and then I would have had to explain about the sea krait thing." "Wait... what's a sea krait?" Ron asked, looking confused. "It's the kind of snake I turn into." "Oh..." Ron replied, still looking confused. "It's the only sea snake that retained enough traits from normal land snakes to live on both land and in the sea. So it was really convenient for the task. I can swim wicked fast underwater." "Wow..." Ron paused and looked thoughtful for a moment – which meant he looked constipated. "Can... can I see?" Harry blinked in honest surprise. He glanced over and saw excited curiosity burning behind Hermione's eyes too. "Uh... I guess so. Yeah, sure," Harry said as he stood up and walked awkwardly into the center of the room. It had been more than three weeks since the last time he had performed the transformation while above water, so he felt a little weird about it at first. Down in the chamber he had found that it worked best if he did it while kneeling, so he did that know. He took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused on the process of transforming his body. He felt the tingles of his magic like pins and needles across every bit of skin, and the strange sensation that came with his legs magically melding together, and his arms shrinking into nothing. He heard a gasp from Hermione, and a whimpering noise from Ron, but ignored it as his body sunk down and elongated across the floor. He opened his eyes and flicked out his tongue, tasking the air around him. He slithered across the floor to the base of the chair Ron was sitting in. The redhead looked as if he were about to faint. In fact, as Harry got closer, Ron actually lifted his feet off the floor and grabbed hold of his knees. Harry 'laughed' which came out as a series of hisses. He raised head up off the ground with ease, until his head was now almost eye level with Ron's. Harry was a very large snake, after all, so this was quite a simple task. "Blimey," Ron squeaked in a comically high pitched voice. "Wow..." Hermione said in a hushed voice. Harry lowered himself back to the ground and slithered around the space for a minute before coming back to the spot of floor right in front of the two of them and coiling into a large heap in front of Hermione. Again, he rose his head up high so that he was now about level with her lap. Hesitantly, she reached out and pet his head. He hissed out another chuckle, and her eyes widened for a moment before her face broke out into a smile. She pet her hand down his head and a bit down his 'neck', smiling more and more with each subsequent stroke. "You're so soft... I never expected a snake to feel like this," she mused quietly. Harry looked at her with a bit of surprise, but then he supposed it shouldn't be that surprising that Hermione had never touched a snake before. "You want to feel, Ron?" She asked turning to the redhead, who still looked mildly horrified. "What!" he squeaked. "Uh, no... er, that would probably be a bit... weird." Hermione rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Harry. "Well, Harry, I have to admit that the snake bit was a little weird at first, but I think it's brilliant now." Ron gave her a look that told Harry that he thought it was anything but 'brilliant', but he remained silent. Harry grinned, internally, and slithered back to the open center of the room where he quickly transformed back into himself. "That is just... it's just incredible, Harry!" she beamed, standing up and rushing over to him. Much to his surprise, she pulled him into a tight hug. "I'm so proud of you!" She pulled back and the smile on her face was so bright and happy that he actually felt a spark of guilt surge through him, suddenly, for lying to the two of them so much. Well... not the two of them. Just Hermione. "Er, thanks," Harry said, ducking his head and reaching up to rub the back of his neck nervously. "So are you going to tell Sirius?" she asked excitedly and Harry just blinked at her in surprised shock. "Oh, I er... I... don't know. I hadn't really thought about it much." "Hadn't thought about it!" Hermione echoed in disbelief. "Well, I mean, I sort of thought he might have the same sort of response as er... Ron," he said, shooting Ron an apologetic look. Ron's ears turned a bit pink and he looked slightly embarrassed. "Don't be silly, Harry! Sirius will never think any less of you for having a snake as your animagus form. I'm sure he'll be so impressed to discover that you've managed to learn such an complex and difficult piece of magic, when you're still only fourteen! I mean, honestly Harry, this is truly an incredible accomplishment! I don't think you realize just how huge a deal this is!" Hermione ranted. "Yeah... I guess, I'll tell him then... if we really do see him in person, that is. I'm not going to risk writing about this in a letter." "Why not?" Ron asked. "I don't want to risk the Ministry finding out," Harry explained, looking back to Ron. "Huh? Why not?" Hermione gave an exasperated huff. "Because then he would have to register, of course," she said before pausing and looking back at Harry. "What did professor Dumbledore say about that, anyway?" "Not much, honestly. It's not actually required by law to register a person's animagus form until they turn 17, so I can't be prosecuted for not telling them, before then. But I'd like to stay unregistered for as long as possible, if I can manage." "Why not just register?" Ron asked. "Because then it's a matter of public record, and anyone and everyone will know that my animagus form is to turn into a great, huge, snake." "Oh... yeah, I guess that would be a good reason to keep it quiet," Ron said. "Anyway, I agree that it might be for the best not to register if you don't have you. But you should definitely tell Sirius if we see him next weekend," Hermione said in a rather bossy tone that Harry had long since grown used to. He rolled his eyes but gave her a genial smile. "Fine, fine. I'll figure out how to tell him. Anyway... I really was wanting to take a walk around the castle to clear my head, so I'm going to head out for a bit." "Want some company, mate?" Ron asked, looking hopeful. "Nah, thanks Ron, but I was hoping for some peace and quiet. I'll be back in an hour, okay?" Ron frowned but sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, sure," he grumbled. Harry removed the locking charm, and the privacy ward with a flick of his wand, picked his bag back up and escaped from the common room. He was quite impressed with himself. Not only had he managed a pretty impressive bit of acting, but he had barely felt the urge to strangle either of them. Which really was quite the feat considering that they were keeping him from his dark arts training. Any excessive delay in his daily dark arts practice, and he would get edgy and snappy quite quickly. He was starting to feel more secure in his control over the dark magic that was growing ever stronger inside him. He controlled it with greater and greater ease as more time passed, and it didn't leave him nearly as mindlessly crazed as it once did. It still felt unbelievably amazing though. The power truly was addictive and he loved every minute of it. There were some days – usually days where he had to attend History of Magic or Divination – where he spent the whole bloody day desperately looking forward to his time in the chamber. He ducked behind a tapestry, slipped on his cloak and pulled out the Marauder's Map to check to make sure there wasn't anyone to worry about before making the quick trek to Myrtle's bathroom on the second floor. He really needed it tonight. He was itching to blow off some steam, and he could feel his whole body vibrating with anticipation of what was to come. With a wicked grin plastered across his face, he headed for the chamber, and the basilisk corpse that lay within. – – §Ahh, Nagini. Just what I needed. All of this time alone is giving my mind too much time to wander.§ §What troubles you, my master?§ Nagini hissed as she slithered up the back of the armchair he was perched in beside the large window of the study. She continued down to lay her head upon the armrest and his hand came up to begin lightly stroking her soft, smooth scales. §Many things trouble me, pet... Things I have been unable to do anything about for so long, that they trouble me greatly as I try to plan how to tackle them now. The time draws near that I will finally be able to resume my work, but I fear it may be too much, even for me. I have lost so much time... and even before the unfathomable mishap that left me in my pathetic half-life for over a decade, I had wasted so much time, and missed so many opportunities. I really should not let my mind dwell on these things, but on nights like this, I find myself unable to stop.§ §I'm not sssure that I understand, my masster. Can you tell me more? I wisssh to understand. I wissshh to help.§ He looked away with distant eyes, unfocused, and sighed, relaxing further into his seat as he trailed his fingers gently over her head. §In my youth I was so naïve,§ he began quietly. §Thought I could save the world from itself,§ he chuckled humorlessly. §I didn't see the point in waiting until the End-Of-Days, to stop the coming doom. Why wait to stop the muggles when it happens? Why not just begin working on it now? Eradicate the worthless little monsters. Destroy them before they can destroy all of us. Ah... if only it were that easy. §I long ago saw the error of my ways. My less than stellar upbringing by the wretched muggles at that orphanage clouded my judgment. I fell from my path, and I was sloppy. By the time I began to realize what I had done, I felt like I had wasted so much time... And then I heard that damned prophecy. I must admit I panicked. The prospect of having someone who would 'vanquish' me before I was able to make up for my mistakes and wasted time... Before I could truly set what needed to be done in motion... I couldn't allow it. I had to remove the threat before it could be fully realized. If that meant killing an infant, then so be it. It wasn't how I usually preferred to operate, but it was what needed to be done. §But of course all my efforts accomplished was to delay me substantially further because of how it all blew up in my face... quite literally," he scoffed, bitterly. "I was left in nothingness for more than a decade. A decade where I was not dead, but not quite alive either. I could not continue my work, but Magic could not deem a new Lord to take over my role because I was still somewhat alive, and therefore retained my title and it's powers. §Thus the Light's power flourished, and the balance was upset even further. What's worse, that damned fool Dumbledore has been in control of educating Britain's wizards, almost entirely unopposed, all this time, and he has pushed his skewed ideals into the minds of an entire generation of wizards. §I fear the End is nearer than I ever thought possible. The more I learn about the advances the muggles have made while I was... away, the greater my concern grows. Their science had become powerful, my love. Too powerful. If they were to discover us... to discover magic, I think they just might have the tools to steal it from us. If not now, they will soon. Less than a decade or two, I imagine. Once upon a time I sought out immortality to guarantee I could stay in the land of the living long enough to personally fight the battle that is to come, and now I wonder if that was ever even necessary. I think I just might see it during my natural life span. Then again, if I had not taken such steps, I would not have survived the incident with the Potters.§ he added bitterly with a scowl. §I suppose one of my greatest fears is that my idiotic mistakes may have brought us closer to The End, sooner than we would have otherwise. Although the blame still lies almost entirely in that great fool Dumbledore's hands. I fear that there is not nearly enough time for me to set things right. That things have gone beyond even what I can control.§ §You are sssstrong masster. If anyone can do it... it isssss you.§ He chuckled and rubbed his tiny bony thumb along the top of her head. She turned her head into the massaging motion and hissed out in pleasure. §My only consolation is that the wizarding world is so set in it's ways that it has changed very little since my idiotic mistake with the Potter brat. They are stubborn and slow to adapt. But now that will work against me. I must gain control of the Ministry, and quickly so that I can enact the changes that need to be made. Control must be attained with haste, so I am not sure I have time to set my people for a slow infiltration and a subtle take-over. My methods may need to be quite violent to succeed in time. However the more violence I must resort to, the stronger the Light will fight back.§ §But their own survival depends on what you must do, my masster! They are foolsss to fight againssst you!§ He snickered. §Yes, love, they are foolsss. But they are mostly ignorant and gullible. They believe what that old goat tells them, and nothing of what I would say.§ §Can you not simply explain it to them?§ He scoffed. §They would never believe the word of a Dark Lord. The old ways have been long lost to the lesser wizards. They have all been brainwashed into believing that dark equals evil, and light equals good. The good could only ever want what is right and just, and that could only ever lead to greater happiness and easier lives. But life is not easy, and survival requires sacrifices. They have forgotten where our magic comes from. They have forgotten the price we will have to pay, should the Light's current goals succeed. They are mindless fools, and the they must be controlled by force to bring about what is needed. They will never willingly go along with it because they do not understand the consequences.§ §All those who opposssse you will perish, my massster. None possess the power necesssary to stand againssst you.§ He smirked, §Ah love, you flatter me. But even I am not all powerful, no matter what I would have the rest of the world believe. It will be a great task to gain control over the wizarding world of Britain and then Europe. But no matter the importance of the Ministry, true success would be found in full control over the schools. After all... the children are our future. Only through re-education of the wizarding world's youth can we hope that those of Magic will survive the muggle's End-of-Days.§ he said and sighed heavily as he ran his tiny hand over his face and back over his bald head. §I am so tired, Nagini... but I cannot let anyone see my weakness. If I am seen as weak, I will lose them, and that is not something that I can afford.§ §You are ssstrong, my masster. I know that you will prevail! The Magicssss themssselves chose you. You will sssshow the world your ssstrength and all of the wizardssss will cower at your feet!§ He chuckled and grinned. §Ah, Nagini... you always know how to cheer me up. You are right. I am being far too sentimental, and worrying on things that I can not yet control. I have been too distanced from my magic lately.§ §You time of return approachesssss... Your power only growss greater with each day.§ §Yes... yes it does,§ he said as a wicked grin spread across his face. §When I am fully returned I will show them all what true fear is, and I will force them all to see just how weak their reliance on the Light has made them. We will reign, and protect only those of magical blood from the doom that the muggles will bring down upon themselves.§ – Harry woke up very... confused. It had all made perfect sense... last night. When he was Voldemort, every word he had said and thought made sense and he understood the greater meanings behind all of it. Now, however, it made almost no sense at all. The memories necessary to gave context to the conversation that Voldemort had had with his familiar, Nagini, did not come with the vision. And now that Harry was just Harry again, he had trouble making heads or tail of what he had experienced the night before. It was also quite odd to experience such a contemplative and pensive mood as the Dark Lord. The man was so surprisingly... human. He had felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. A huge task and monumental responsibilities that he felt bound to take care of. It didn't matter what was necessary in order to complete his task, it was worth it. The task was too important for anyone to stand in his way... But what was the task? It wasn't the first time that Voldemort had mentioned this task Harry sat up in his bed and chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. Then, suddenly, he swing his legs over the side and went over to his desk. He pulled out a quill and a piece of parchment and sat down in his simple wooden desk chair. He decided he really needed to start making some sense of these visions he had, and the best way to do that was to write some of it down. Where: Harry wrote the word on the parchment and then stuck the end of his quill into his mouth as he scrunched up his face, and sifted through his memories of all the visions he had had, thus far. Large, grand, manor house on a hill outside a small town. Muggle village He paused again, trying to remember what the town was called. He'd thought it several times... and Wormtail had even brought the local paper to him... It was... little? Little something... Little Hangleton! He wrote it down. Who is with him/helping him: Peter Pettigrew - 'Wormtail' Barty -? Nagini (snake) Harry paused again and looked down at the parchment. He decided that he needed to just write down everything that he did know about what it was that Voldemort was trying to do. He had utterly discarded the idea that Voldemort was just out for world domination and muggle eradication. He had clearly held a powerful hatred for muggles when he was younger, and at that time, he hadthought that wiping out all the muggles would help him in this... task, whatever it was... but he had apparently given up on that plan. But muggle killing had never been the goal, it had merely been something that he had though was a means to the goal, and had since changed his mind. So what was the goal? His task: He talks about the 'End-of-Days' Muggle Apocalypse? It sounds like he's trying to stop it? Or prevent it? If he fails, everyone dies... if he succeeds, wizards survive. The muggles will die no matter what. There is no saving them. They're doomed no matter what we do. Harry stopped and stared down at the parchment in bewilderment. He didn't even know where that had come from. He didn't recall Voldemort specifically thinking that, and he hadn't actually said it to Nagini either... and yet, Harry somehow knew it was true. But how? Was it just because he had been in the man's head so much, and Voldemort knew it? Were the muggles seriously doomed? What the hell was going to happen to cause all this, and why in Merlin's name was Voldemort of all people the one tasked to stop it? Voldemort blames it on Dumbledore Harry wrote the words and sat back in his chair to look down at them. He nibbled aimlessly on the end of his quill as he tried to search his memories for some clue as to why Voldemort blamed Dumbledore... A spark flashed through his mind and the instant later, his quill was back onto the parchment. Dumbledore wants to save the muggles. He doesn't realize he can't. If he tries, we all die. We can only save ourselves. Again, Harry didn't know where the knowledge came from, only that he knew inside him that it was true. It made some sort of sense too. He could totally imagine Dumbledore doing something absolutely idiotic, in an attempt to save the muggles. Even if it meant putting us all at risk. Did Dumbledore know the same things that Voldemort did? Obviously not all of it... at least not the part about it being impossible to save the muggles. Or perhaps he knew, but wanted to have faith that he could save them somehow anyway. But save them from what? Harry grumbled in frustration. He only knew bits and pieces of information and it was all out of context. In any case, it was now blatantly obvious to Harry that there was a whole hell of a lot more to the last war than Voldemort killing muggles and wanting to rule the wizarding world. He wasn't just a megalomaniac. There was a much deeper motive behind the scenes that either, no one knew about, or no one was talking about. Harry refocused on the parchment, deciding to move onto the next topic. Why did he come after me as a child? This was another point that obviously had some history to it. Several times Voldemort had made reference to a 'prophecy' but it had always been in passing before. Last night he had gone into more detail when speaking to Nagini. Whatever this prophecy was, it sounded like it had said that someone would 'vanquish' Voldemort... and that someone was... Harry? That was an extremely difficult thought to process, and an even harder thought for Harry to put down on parchment. It would explain why Voldemort had come after Harry, specifically; why he had come himself, instead of sending his Death Eaters to do it for him. Voldemort had theorized that Harry's mum had used some old blood magic to protect Harry from Voldemort's killing curse. Harry's parents had known that Voldemort was after them. They had gone under the Fidelius, after all, to hide from the Dark Lord. And his mum knew that Voldemort was after Harry, specifically, if she had been researching ways to protect him with old blood magic. He huffed and put his quill to parchment. A prophecy was made that said I would defeat him. -? (Hard to believe, but okay...) He set out to kill me when I was an infant - before I became a 'threat' He paused again and frowned. Why didn't I die? Mum's dark blood magic? He sat back and reread everything he'd written so far. His task: He talks about the 'End-of-Days' Muggle apocalypse? It sounds like he's trying to stop it? Or prevent it? If he fails, everyone dies... if he succeeds, wizards survive. Muggles will die no matter what. There is no saving them. They're doomed no matter what we do. Voldemort blames it on Dumbledore Dumbledore wants to save the muggles. He doesn't realize he can't. If he tries, we all die. We can only save ourselves. He paused there and ran his hand through his hair. His thoughts on it were more organized now, and he felt like he had a slightly better grasp on things, but he also felt like he had a mountain of new questions, and no idea where to find answers. For a split second, he considered asking Dumbledore, but instantly snorted and scoffed the idea away. Dumbledore would never tell him. He was too young, Harry thought with a sneer. And even if he wasn't 'too young', he doubted the old goat would ever be that honest with him. The man was a sneaky, manipulative old fart and Harry didn't trust him at all. He wondered suddenly how much of that distrust was really his own. He knew some of it was from his companion, but that was mostly because his companion disapproved of how Dumbledore had handled Harry. But Harry knew, on some level at least, that a great deal of his distrust for Dumbledore had absolutely nothing to do with how he had been treated by his headmaster. Was this a feeling that had bled over from his visions as Voldemort? It didn't seem like he had had enough of the visions for emotions and opinions of Voldemort to have 'bled' into his own through them. But then again, he had to admit that he didn't really understand the strange connection he shared with the Dark Lord. And he hadn't exactly been fighting against the visions or the Dark Lord's influence either. Harry had a few theories as to why his visions were no longer painful for him. His first theory was that it was because his magical affinity had been changing. He was no longer a light wizard. In fact, Harry had come to fully accept the fact that he was quickly on his way to being a dark wizard, and no matter how badly he knew it should Still, that didn't fully explain it. His affinity had only recently really gone dark, but the visions hadn't hurt since... Since he pulled down the barriers around his companion and accepted him... Harry frowned and twisted up his mouth in thought. He really wasn't sure if he was comfortable exploring this line of thought, but he also knew he had been avoiding it for too long. He knew that his companion was the source of his parseltongue ability. He knew that his parseltongue ability came from the power that Voldemort had left in him when he was a baby. But he also knew that his companion was a sentient entity. A separate personalty from his own. A separate person, inside him. A separate person that came from Voldemort. No... a piece of Voldemort. Harry clenched his eyes shut, forcefully, momentarily wishing the thought had never actually crossed through his mind. 'Oh, come on, Harry. You can't pretend you didn't already know.' he thought to himself, as he sighed and sank back in his chair. He decided not to dwell on it just yet. He would... he would discuss it with his companion that night when he went to bed. As it was, it was still very early and his dorm mates would be waking up soon and expecting him to go to breakfast with them. He picked up the parchment and folded it in half. He moved over to his trunk and hissed the password for the third compartment. He checked on Rita's jar and gave it a quick, violent shake, jarring the fatigued beetle awake and probably scaring the crap out of her. He snickered as she quickly cowered along the bottom and then put the jar back in his trunk. It had been a week and a half since the task and other then conjuring a small amount of water into the jar, he hadn't given her a thing, and had left her in the pitch black of his trunk the whole time. He picked out one of the parselmagic books he had taken from the chamber and placed the folded parchment inside it and then put the book back inside his trunk. After making sure that it was locked securely, he grabbed his toiletries and made his way to the loo. – – That day was Friday and the past week and a half had been quiet and boring, up until his vision that previous night. Since the task he had spent an hour each afternoon down in the chamber doing his dark magic training, but without the need to practice swimming in the lake, or any other training related to a tournament, he found he had a surprising amount of free time. Thanks to the tournament and his overloaded schedule, he had gotten into the habit of getting his homework done quickly and efficiently as possible, and that habit had not changed. Of course, the fact that Harry didn't have all this stuff occupying his time, all of a sudden, or the tournament, as an excuse for ditching Ron and Hermione, they both expected him to spend all this new found free time with them. He had another thing on his mind that day though. The following day was the Hogsmeade visit that Sirius had asked for the date of, but he still had yet to hear back from his godfather since he had replied. Ron and Harry left their dorm room and headed down to the common room to find Hermione there waiting for them. The three of them then made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. As soon as the post owls began arriving, the small brown owl that Harry recognized as Sirius's appeared in the air, and soared straight for Harry. He looked at in with a mixture of stunned surprise, excitement, and considerable worry. Sirius visiting in person would bring about a number of potential problems, and some real, legitimate concerns. Harry reached out and took the letter from the bird's leg and unrolled it. "Be at stile at end of road out of Hogsmeade (past Dervish and Banges) at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Bring as much food as you can." Harry turned the parchment over to make sure he hadn't missed anything on the back. There was nothing else. Just that one bit of text. He sighed in slight exasperation and shook his head. "He's out of his mind," he quietly moaned. "I just hope he knows what he's doing. Coming to visit me isn't worth the risk of getting caught," he grumbled as he rolled the letter back up and gave the owl a bit of bacon. Harry resumed his meal and began to mull over what the next day would likely entail. One thing he would have to worry about was the fact that Hermione and Ron would undoubtedly expect to come with him. In fact they were already making plans, in hushed whispers while he ate quietly beside them. Sirius would expect to discuss what Harry had seen and observed about Snape and Karkaroff, but Harry hadn't told Ron or Hermione about any of his suspicions that Snape might actually be an ex-Death Eater. Maybe not even 'ex'. Then there was his concerns about the Moody-Crouch thing. It was definitely really weird that Mr. Crouch was at Hogwarts all the time, and that he was doing it disguised as Moody. The old man had struck Harry as a bit odd, during the Goblet of Fire selection thing... but... Harry shook his head. It was weird, and confusing, and he knew there was a lot more going on than he had figured out yet. But he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Sirius about any of it until he had a better idea of what was going on. There was one other rather significant weight of guilt pressing against the back of his mind though. Harry knew where Wormtail was. Or at least, he knew enough that the traitor could easily be found. A big mansion on a hill outside Little Hangleton. Wormtail was there almost constantly, except for when Voldemort sent him out on little errands into town. If they caught Wormtail, then Sirius could be exonerated. He could be a free man and wouldn't have to be on the run anymore. But Harry couldn't give away Wormtail's location without
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