The Devil On My Shoulder

His heart pounded in his ears, drowning out all other sounds. The dementor had Harry grasped in its skeletal hand. His wand lay on the floor, only a few feet out of his reach. A chill sunk deep within Harry, leaving him shivering and attempting to gasp for breath. Harry reached out desperately for his wand, and it shot into his hand.

“Expecto Patronum!” Harry gasped out, his voice sounding broken. Yet, the silver stag came prancing out. Chasing away the dementor that was too close to sucking out his soul for his liking. 

A desperate gasp a few feet from him had Harry whipping his head to where Dudley was only seconds away from becoming a pathetic vegetable-not that he would ever touch a vegetable. Harry shook his head and directed his patronus to the other dementor, causing it to screech and recoil away. Leaving the two boys shaking. 

“Dementors?! In Little Whinging! Oh, I am going to kill Mundungus when I get my hands on him!” Harry shoved his wand into his jeans and turned around to spot his neighbour, Mrs. Figg. Barking mad if you asked Harry and had way too many cats for his liking. “Oh no Harry! Keep your wand out! They may return after all.” 

Harry stared blankly at her. He had always assumed she was a muggle. He cocked his head and questioned her. “You’re a witch?” 

She shook her head. “No, I am a squib, Harry. You didn’t think Dumbledore left you all by your lonesome these years did you?” 

Harry reflected back on the past couple of years and the years before he even knew of magic and the wizarding world. He came to one conclusion, yes that is absolutely what he assumed. Because if the Headmaster had someone watching all these years, why didn’t he do something about the Dursleys? Why wouldn’t he let him stay at Hogwarts as he asked in his first and second years if he had someone watching him, no less his old babysitter? 

“Come on, let’s get you boys back home.” Mrs. Figg attempted to help Harry carry Dudley back to Privet Drive. As they finally arrived at the front door, carrying essentially deadweight, Mrs. Figg’s parting words soothed none of Harry’s worries. “Don’t leave the house, Harry, I expect they will be here soon.” 

Who was they and why would they be coming to get him? Why did Dumbledore stand idly by when he was living with the Dursleys in the conditions he was in? 

Harry yanked the door open and carted Dudley into the living room, heaving him onto the couch. Petunia’s screech for Vernon and her rushing over to her son did nothing to shock Harry out of his daze as he sat down at the kitchen table. 

“What happened? Who did this to my sweet boy?!” Petunia’s grating voice screeched through the house. 

Dudley pointed a shaking finger at the still silent Harry. Vernon immediately began screaming at Harry, but he barely heard a word. The only thing that drew him out of his stupor was an owl flying in, a letter dropped on the floor. Harry went to pick it up but the letter flew up and began speaking for itself. 

“Dear Mr. Potter, the ministry has received intelligence that at 6:23 this evening you performed the Patronus Charm in the presence of a muggle. As a clear violation of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of underage sorcery, you are hereby expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hoping you are well, Mafalda Hopkirk.” 

Harry was frozen in the spot. The only thing running through his brain was the word expelled. He had been expelled from Hogwarts. The only escape from this hellhole that was his relatives' house. He wanted to say something but he felt as though his tongue had become stone in his mouth. Harry wanted to get up but he was rooted to the chair.

Vernon yanked him by the hair, dragging him up the stairs. He was mumbling the whole way. Harry couldn’t hear a word. 

“Even those freaks don’t want you!” He screamed as he threw Harry into his room and slammed the door. 

Harry pulled himself up using his bed and climbed into it. No, they didn't want him either. Who would? Especially after last year's end of the year. It was his fault Cedric was dead.

A prick of pain yanked Harry out of his thoughts. Hedwig rested next to him on his bed. He stared at her for a few seconds before he lept up and grabbed some spare parchment and a quill. He pinned three letters. One for Sirius, one for Ron and one for Hermione. Harry explained as quickly as he could in his rushed letters what had happened. From the dementors to Mrs. Figg then the expulsion. 

He turned to Hedwig. “Hey girl I need you to take these to Sirius, Ron and Hermione. Don’t come back until you have a detailed reply from them. Peck their fingers, bother them until they write back.” He tied the letter to her and watched her fly off into the night. 

Harry slumped back into his bed, curling up and letting himself drift off into what he hoped would be a peaceful sleep. 

“You’re a freak! Stay away from us!” Harry whipped his head around and stared at the young boy and girl near him, but they weren’t talking to him. They seemed to be talking to another boy just in front of him. He looked about seven years old and his face had a look of devastation on it and he held an unmoving small garden snake in his hands. 

“No wonder no one will adopt you!” The little girl screamed at the boy holding the snake. “Everyone knows that snakes are the sign of the devil!” 

“His name was William! He wasn’t the devil! He was sweet to me..and-” The younger boy was cut off as the other boy screamed at him. 

“Snakes can’t talk you idiot! Either the snake was a demon and it is a good thing I killed it or you’re a nutter!” The boy stepped forward, slapped the snake out of his hand and pushed the devastated boy down to the grass. 

Harry shot up in his bed. He glanced around in confusion and reached for his glasses on his rickety bedside table. The dream felt oddly real like he was truly there watching the scene go down. 

“That’s because you just witnessed my own memory it seems, probably why it felt so real.” Harry heard a deep voice echo in his head. 

He whipped around and shot up from his bed. When he saw no one he quietly whispered into the night.

 “Who said that…?” 

“Me, obviously.” The rich baritone echoed once more. 

“Oh god, now I am hearing things? I must be losing it. Oh wait maybe I am still dreaming!” 

“Oh for Salazar’s sake, this is real life and you are very much awake and not hallucinating you imbecile.”  The voice sounded exasperated and short on patience. 

“If I am not hallucinating then what are you? My conscious?” Harry asked out loud in confusion. 

“Think for once in your miserable life Potter. I told you that you just saw one of MY memories, which in the memory I explicitly say that a snake was nice to me. Even had a name! Now is there anyone you are aware of that can speak to snakes Harry Potter? Other than yourself obviously.” 

“Voldemort…” Harry whispered in a low tone then shook his head “No! Voldemort is not in my head and very much NOT that little boy! He was too sweet, poor thing was being bullied!” 

“Well don’t you just love living in denial. Yes, Harry Potter, I am in your head. Lord Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle himself. I am well aware that you know my true name and that I am also an orphan. What happens to orphans Potter? They go to an orphanage. Now how do you think someone with magical abilities was treated in 1930s London in an orphanage?” He seemed greatly aggravated with an almost threatening undertone to his words. 

“Well I still am pretty confident you are a hallucination, but I will believe that I am hallucinating Tom Riddle’s voice in my head. I mean I did have that small infatuation with him in my second year.” Harry nodded like the answer to all his problems were solved by the idea he was hallucinating his enemy's voice in his head. 

“Severus is right…you are an idiot.” He seemed resigned and exasperated as if rolling his metaphorical eyes. 

“Well! Might as well work on some homework, I definitely feel too awake to go back to bed now.” 

Riddle debated on pointing out that Potter just got expelled but didn’t think that would prove very useful in this situation. He mentally sighed as he watched that atrocious handwriting fill up a foot of parchment on Herbology. 

Later in the evening, Harry was out weeding the garden, which was one of the few things he was allowed to leave his room for so Harry was grateful. 

“I can’t believe those horrendous muggles make you do all their work for them. I have had to watch you be lowered to nothing more than a servant all these years! Honestly, happy I can complain about it now. Funny how grateful one is to have a voice when they have been denied it for so long.” Riddle seemed oddly wistful at the end of it. 

“Ah yes, my internal monologue has taken the form of Tom Riddle to complain about muggles. Seems about right.” Harry mumbled to himself as he yanked a weed out of the dirt. 

“I truly don’t understand why you refuse to accept the fact that I am a separate entity. Just cause I am in your head doesn’t mean I am you.” 

“That actually made about zero sense. Hermione would say that has zero grounds based in logic.” Harry seemed slightly sad when thinking of his friends. They hadn’t contacted him all summer and even now that he had apparently been expelled no one has sent anything. 

“Potter I know you seem to be lacking in situational awareness but there is an owl about a foot aware from you holding a letter and has been hooting at you. Grab the useless letter before I lose my mental capacity to think!” Riddle somehow managed to yell at Harry in a louder voice, which he reckoned shouldn’t be possible for a voice in his head. 

Nonetheless, there was an owl hooting at him with a letter, which Harry eagerly grabbed. The letter itself was a disappointment, even if it was from Dumbledore. 

Stay at the Dursley’s and don’t do anything rash. Some friends of mine will come to take you to a safer location, and no you are not expelled from Hogwarts. 

Albus Dumbledore 

Truly it wasn’t even a letter, it was a note that had almost no information within it. 

“ Wow that was truly the most inspiring and well-informed letter I have ever seen in my whole life wouldn’t you agree? Such a kind man Dumbledore is. I would dare say he is greatness and kindness personified wouldn’t you agree dear Harry?” The endless amounts of sarcasm that flowed from Riddle’s words were certainly not missed by Harry. 

“Shut up! I don’t want to talk about Dumbledore!” Harry had screamed out the words, seemingly too loud as Petunia marched out the door. 

“Boy! Shut your blathering mouth before we take away your meals for this week!” 

“Sorry Aunt Petunia.” Harry muttered weakly with his head down and eyes focused on the flowers. 

Later that night Harry was staring up at the ceiling, wishing for something to change. Even though Dumbledore had said in his note that someone was going to pick him up he wondered truly how long it would take for them to come. 

“If you are going to honestly blankly stare at the ceiling for a ridiculously long amount of time why don’t you finish up the homework you started on last night? Especially since there is actually a reason to, as dear wonderful Dumbledore said you’re not expelled.”  Riddle prompted Harry. 

“Yeah..you’re right that is a good idea.” Harry grudgingly admitted as he rolled off his bed, bending down to drag his trunk back out from under his bed. 

“It is my belief that you should get a headstart on a draft for your potions assignment. I may even be inclined to give you a few pointers…if you don’t annoy me.” The way Riddle said the last sentence made Harry believe that he annoyed him quite often. 

“Snape is gonna give me a bad grade anyway, I don’t even see a point in trying these days.” He grumbled to himself as he dragged out his potions textbook and a piece of parchment.

“You should try in potions even if Severus doesn’t give you good marks because potions are an incredibly valuable aspect of magic. When I attended Hogwarts I found myself researching it quite thoroughly due to my close relationship with the professor at the time. Even after leaving Hogwarts, having the knowledge to brew your own potions is truly wonderfully helpful. So yes, do try in potions Harry.” 

Harry grumbled but dragged his stuff to his small desk which was uneven on one leg and rocked when he set down his textbook. “I’m not even that good at writing stupid essays, I don’t know why I am doing this in the middle of the night,” Harry grumbled under his breath as he unrolled the parchment. 

“Because I suggested it of course. After all Harry, didn’t I tell you I can be very persuasive?” Riddle seemed smug at his suggestion.  

Harry rolled his eyes at the memory of Tom Riddle saying the same thing in his second year. “See only a hallucination would have such a comeback that is literally just my own memory!” 

“Your logic is flawed but I won’t argue with you for now. Isn’t your essay just a review of  the Pepperup Potion?” 

Harry scoffed but nodded, “Yeah it is, but I don’t know what in the world I am supposed to even write about! A whole 2 feet on the Pepperup Potion? That’s pretty much impossible!” 

“Dear Merlin don’t be so dramatic Potter! All you have to do is map out the essay and then just explain everything in lengthy detail. Make a rough model of what you want in the actual essay. An introduction, multiple paragraphs, and a conclusion are what you’re going to need. For this length, I would recommend at least three middle paragraphs, maybe four if you need more content.”  Somehow Riddle’s explanation seemed to make the task a lot less daunting. 

“So three different sections about different things about the potion? Like the different ingredients and maybe when it was made?” Harry suggested, scribbling down on the parchment. 

“Good start. An introduction with an overview of the potion. One section about the ingredients. Another about who made the potion and when. Essentially the history of the potion. Then, the characteristics of the potion and the side effects. Finally, a conclusion which will be similar to the introduction and a sum of all the information in the essay. The information you have for the Pepperup Potion in your textbook should be sufficient to compose an assignment with these core components, also adding your personal experience brewing it.” Riddle explained to Harry. He reminded Harry of Professor McGonagall with the way he pretty much laid out a flawless structure. 

Harry began to create a rough draft, something Hermione always told him to do but never actually bothered until now. He wondered if his hallucination of Riddle also held some of Hermione’s personality. As he wrote out some of the information, Riddle chimed in once more. 

“An interesting tidbit of information pertaining to you Harry is actually the potioneer who created the early version of the Pepperup Potion.” 

Harry glanced back down at his textbook and asked questioningly, “This Linfred of Stinchcombe guy?” 

“Linfred of Stinchcombe was also known by the name of The Potterer. He is essentially the beginning of the Potter family. Which makes your family date back to the 12th century, your family has always been well known. He lived amongst muggles, supplying them with medicinal potions throughout the years. Not that they actually knew he was a wizard and thought he was just an extremely eccentric man. He also tended to experiment a lot. His experiments led to him creating many different potions, including the early version Skele-gro and obviously the Pepperup. All of that ended up making him fairly wealthy. He went on to marry and had seven kids. His eldest son, Hardwin is your direct ancestor, your too many times great-grandfather. Even though the Potters were once a larger family, now there is only one.” 

“Back to the essay…” Harry muttered, now feeling more depressed about his family. “WAIT! If you’re a hallucination of mine I must have already known that.” 

“Salazar spare me…how many times have I said I am not a hallucination? You did NOT know that!”  Riddle seemed exasperated and now fairly aggravated. 

“Nope, I refuse to entertain that possibility. Any other random information that could somehow help me with my potions assignment?” Harry picked up his quill and resumed writing, adamantly refusing to even contemplate Riddle actually being in his head. 

Riddle mentally sighed and grumbled, “Put a sentence about the Bicorn Horn needing to be properly ground into a fine powder or the potion will be at risk due to it not correctly combining with the other ingredients.” 

Harry nodded and added a few extra notes to the draft. He glanced up and spotted the moon outside his window. It reminded him of Professor Lupin, who honestly hadn’t spoken to Harry much in any way since his third year. The moon was half full and the sky was cloudy. Nothing remarkable about the sky on this night but it brought Harry a modicum of peace. He slowly closed his textbook and set it back into his school trunk, leaving the parchment out so the ink could dry undisturbed. He slowly slid into his bed, closing his eyes and hoping for an easy pass into the world of dreams. 

When Harry blinked open his eyes he noticed that it was dark outside, which would make sense if not for the fact that he was somehow now outside. The sky was clear, the stars bright and the moon full. It was beautiful outside, even a light breeze dancing between the leaves of the lone tree that stood just a few feet from him. Harry spun around, spotting the same bleak-looking building that was in the background of his previous dream. 

In the distance, Harry noticed a small figure clutching at something. As he slowly wandered closer he realized it was a boy, holding something that was moving. The moonlight illuminated the scene once the boy turned around and faced Harry. There was a rabbit in the boy’s hands. Now that Harry thought about it, the young boy looked very similar to the same poor boy from the last dream. 

With that same thought in mind, he noticed the rope also held in the boy’s hands. One end of it held a noose. 

“Hmm maybe now Stubbs will finally understand what it is like to lose a pet.” The boy smirked as he yanked the noose over the fearful rabbit's head. 

Harry stood in shocked silence as the boy tightened the noose on the frantic rabbit attempting to squirm out of his arms. He followed him into the derelict building in an almost trance-like state. The rabbit had finally stopped moving. The boy grabbed a chair and climbed onto it. He held out the rabbit, as if it was an offering, and closed his eyes. The rope and rabbit began to float up. The other end of the rope began to tie itself around an exposed beam in the ceiling. Harry stood stock still, eyes wide in shock at the scene he was witnessing. 

The boy smirked as he climbed off the chair. He seemed remarkably proud of himself. “This will show those idiots.”

Harry shot up from his bed, sweat dripping down him and feeling sick. 

 “For a ten year old I demonstrated fairly good control of wandless magic.” The voice of Riddle commented in an impressed-sounding tone. 

“What in the bloody hell was that? Did he just HANG a rabbit? Oh god is it possible to obliviate yourself?” Harry began muttering as he held his head in his hands.

“It is not possible, not really? I mean I guess that bubbling fool, Lockhart, managed it just fine. But, a normal obliviate doesn’t exactly work like that. So no, you will not be forgetting the image of me killing a boy's rabbit and hanging it. I would say sorry but I truly don’t care. I mean honestly, I should be mad as you’re the one invading my memories of my wonderful childhood.” 

Harry shook his head and stared blankly at the bare wall in front of him. The sun was barely peaking through the sky. He couldn’t decide what was worse, the nightmares about Cedric or these new dreams that felt oh so real. 

Riddle’s voice was softer than usual when he spoke, but it was by no means kind. “Come on Potter, get yourself started on today. Don’t obsess over what you see in your dreams. Plus the kid who owned that rabbit? That was the imbecile from the first dream you had. His name was Billy Stubbs, a couple of years older than me. Honestly killing his rabbit was payback for him killing William.”

Harry thought back to the first dream where a young boy was devastated as he held the small snake named William. A pounding on the door yanked Harry out of his melancholy thoughts. 

“Up you get boy! Make a good and full breakfast. And quickly! We don’t want to see your freakish face any more than we have to!” Aunt Petunia’s grating voice rang out. 

“If I ever get a body or somehow merge with my other self I will be killing those muggles. Just a warning for the future. I can’t stand their existence, I could rant about them for hours honestly. They are literally everything wrong with muggles and are a perfect example of why wizards and muggles don’t mix. They prove my point in a most-”

“Please just shut up, you pretty much went on the same rant yesterday in the garden.” Harry interrupted him in a tired huff. 

He trudged down the stairs, now feeling exhausted and drained, even though he just had woken up a few minutes prior. Harry glanced around the kitchen and began pulling out everything he would need for a full English breakfast. Maybe the Dursleys would be more lenient if they had a good breakfast. Even as the thought crossed his mind he knew it was in vain. The dementor attack had just happened and he was pretty sure Dudley was still pretty traumatized from the whole experience. A more interesting thought would be what Dudley saw when the dementor was going to suck out his soul for dinner. 

Riddle was silent as Harry fried up the bacon and also managed to cook a few eggs simultaneously. For as long as he had known he was essentially the live-in servant for the Dursley family. It made no difference to them that he had lived there for fourteen years and was blood-related to them. They believed him some type of freak of nature. Something unnatural to be hidden and locked away from the outside world. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia spread rumors to all the neighbors about Harry’s imaginary misdeeds. How he had managed to do so many mischievous things while he was locked in his cupboard was always a fascinating question to Harry. Of course, he knew that it was mostly Dudley’s horrible behavior just getting blamed on him but sometimes the question wandered into his thoughts. 

As he finished setting out the rest of the breakfast, Dudley and Uncle Vernon came bumbling down the stairs. Somehow making the act of simply walking down the stairs the most obnoxious behavior. Harry clenched his jaw yet ducked when Uncle Vernon went to slap him over the head. 

“Get your filth out of here boy! Can’t have you contaminating our good food!” Vernon exclaimed as he took a seat and began overfilling his plate with too much sausage. 

“I’m surprised he even knows what the word contaminating is or that he can even use it properly in a sentence. I had always just assumed his brain struggled with processing everything he has come across in life, much less words with more than two syllables.” Riddle commented, almost sounding truly surprised. 

Harry snorted as he went back into his room, gently closing the door behind him. A glance at his desk showed the potions assignment’s draft laying out. The thought of his ancestor brought him back to thinking about the graveyard and how his parents appeared from the collision of his wand with Voldemort’s. So many people had died for him, Cedric now adding to that list. He shouldn’t have encouraged them to grab the cup together, then Cedric would still be alive. The reaction of his father, Amos Diggory, flashed in his mind. Him clutching his only son, who lay there completely still, eyes forever frozen in time from when he took the Killing Curse to the chest. 

“You think too much Potter. Let’s make a polished version of your Pepperup Potion assignment. I will even tell you about the time one of my first followers, Ambrose Avery, managed to botch a Pepperup Potion. He was overheating and drenched in sweat for hours afterwards.”

Riddle’s voice pulled Harry out of his musings. He laughed lightly while picturing the scene Riddle had laid out as he collected his parchment and quill. 

With his now fully completed potions essay set aside in his trunk, Harry glanced out the window. He and Riddle had chatted the whole day, taking long breaks for Riddle to tell stories, mostly botched potions stories about old purebloods. It was now almost ten at night and Harry was knackered. The meagre warmth his blanket provided was not enough to make him fully comfortable but he lulled off to sleep anyway. 

When his eyes opened again he was sitting on a bed. The room was slightly smaller than his own bedroom, with a small desk in the corner and a wardrobe on one of the walls. Sitting at the desk was the same boy from before. He looked slightly older than before and even held himself taller. A knock at the door jolted Harry out of his thoughts. 

“Tom, you have a visitor.” An older woman, dressed in an outdated dress pushed the door to the room open. 

“How do you do, Tom?” A man with flaming ginger hair and an eccentric purple robe asked. 

It was then Harry realized just who that ginger-haired man was. It was Dumbledore… but well he looked much younger than Harry had ever seen him. The robes were very much the Headmaster’s preferred state of dress. As he walked into the room he slid his hand down the wardrobe. 

“Don’t.” Said the boy. 

As Harry took in the situation he wondered if maybe now he would be given irrefutable proof that he really was dreaming up a younger Riddle. The younger Dumbledore sat down, unknowingly, right next to Harry. 

“You’re the doctor aren’t you?” The tiny version of Riddle questioned. 

“No. I am a professor.” Dumbledore assured him. 

“I don’t believe you. She wants me looked at. They think I’m..different.” 

“Well, perhaps they’re right.” Dumbledore shrugged. 

Harry stared in blank shock at the Headmaster. He could barely believe how horrible of an introduction he was giving young Tom Riddle to the wizarding world. 

“I’m not mad!” Riddle said indignantly.

“Hogwarts is not a place for mad people. Hogwarts is a school, a school of magic,” 

Dumbledore said calmly, yet Riddle stared at him with a blank face. Harry could still see the slight widening of his eyes. “You can do things, can’t you Tom? Things other children can’t.”

The smallest of smiles graced the delicate boy’s face. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me. I can make them hurt…if I want. Who are you?” He questioned Dumbledore in suspicion. 

The expression that graced the Headmaster’s was slight concern but he masked it quickly. “Well, I’m like you Tom. I’m different.”

Young Riddle was in disbelief and scoffed. “Prove it.”

Harry yelped as the wardrobe lit on fire. “See now that’s actually mad! Who lights a child’s wardrobe on fire to prove the existence of magic. I mean to be fair Hagrid did perform transfiguration on a muggle, which is most certainly illegal, especially considering he shouldn’t even have a wand.”

“I think there is something in your wardrobe trying to get out Tom,” Dumbledore stated, staring blankly at the young boy.

As Riddle pulled out a box the fire stopped. He opened the box and laid out little trinkets from within. Harry was reminded of the broken toys he had taken from Dudley and hid in his cupboard as a child. 

“Thievery is not tolerated at Hogwarts, Tom. At Hogwarts you’ll be taught not only how to use magic but how to control it. You understand me?” 

The boy nodded, clenching his jaw in anger. Dumbledore then began to explain about Diagon Alley and how funds would be provided for the young orphan throughout his seven years at Hogwarts. 

“You’ll be coming with me?” Riddle asked as he admired the letter and supply list Dumbledore handed him. 

“Certainly, if you-” 

Riddle cut him off sharply. “I don’t need you to. I am used to doing things on my own. I travel around London myself all the time. Just tell me how to get there.” 

Harry was once again in shock at the way Dumbledore just shrugged and explained how to enter Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron. Finally, when he began to leave, Riddle interrupted him at the door.

“I can speak to snakes too, they find me. Whisper things. Is that normal for someone like me?”

“No…it isn’t normal at all,” Harry muttered as he sat up. 

“Well, I didn’t know that at the time now did I? I was eleven and just had some barmy ginger in purple robes set my wardrobe on fire.” Riddle snarked to Harry. 

“Sorry, sorry. I was more thinking about how everyone reacts to my parseltongue abilities.” Harry muttered as he glanced out the window, noticing is was still late in the night, the moon high in the sky. 

“Ah yes, right. You should use those more. Maybe I will teach you parselmagic one day. But skipping over that, do you now believe you are truly dreaming of me? I know you read the name on the letter. Not even accounting for the fact I am one of the only known parselmouths in recent history, excluding you. Which I feel like I don’t need to mention that the dream memory ended with me admitting to being a parselmouth?”  Riddle’s voice became snarky at the end, as if doubting Harry’s intelligence. 

“Okay maybe, just maybe there is a part of you in my head for the past fourteen years and now you can speak to me. Oh and I am dreaming of the childhood of my parent’s murderer!”

A noise from downstairs shook Harry out of his minor argument. 

“Grab your wand Potter!” Riddle yelled in his mind. 

Normally Harry would have a sarcastic retort or some such nonsense, but in this case, grabbing his wand sounded like a great idea. The doorknob began to jiggle and Harry held his breath, pointing his wand at the door. Slowly the door creaked open, yet he was unable to see anything. 

“Lumos!” A voice whispered shouted, illuminating the room and the hallway. 

“Professor Lupin? Professor Moody?” Harry asked, staring incredulously at the two men he recognized. The other three were unknown to him, but the woman holding up her wand with the Lumos certainly grabbed his attention, she had bubblegum pink hair!

“Hello Harry,” Professor Lupin said, pushing up next to the pink-haired woman and waving. 

Harry glanced at Moody and thought about the polyjuice potioned death eater who was an impersonator all last year. He raised his wand higher and shook his head. 

“How do I know you guys are who you look like, after all, a death eater was impersonating Moody all last year.” 

“Smart lad,” Moody grunted. “Ask Lupin only something he would know and we can get on with all this. Have to get you to a secure location, quickly now we don’t have time to waste!”

Harry contemplated for a moment but nodded, “What is my boggart and what did you tell me about what it means?”

A smile graced the werewolf’s face at Harry’s questions, “It is a dementor, we used it to practice your patronus. I explained that it meant the thing you fear is fear itself. Also your patronus takes the form of a stag, like Prongs.” He winked to Harry when he said the last comment. 

“So what’s the deal then? What are we doing?” 

“We are taking you out of here. Pack up your things quickly. Everything but your broom, we will be flying. Oh and this is Hestia Jones, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Nymphadora Tonks but-” 

“Just Tonks please!” The girl herself chimed in.

“Yes, she goes by Tonks but anyway you know Mad-eye kind of. Anyway, gather everything quickly we must be leaving.” Lupin finished. 

Harry began to pack all of his things together, which wasn’t hard considering he kept most of his stuff in his trunk anyway. He made sure to take gentle care with the potions essay that him and Riddle worked on. 

Professor Lupin grabbed Harry’s trunk and dragged it downstairs while Harry fetched his broom. His beautiful firebolt that Sirius had gotten him in third year. It was a gorgeous broom, top-of-the-line and one of the best the market had ever seen. The broom was one of Harry’s most prized possessions. He made his way downstairs and outside with the rest of the people who had come to take him to apparent safety. They all lined up with their own brooms and Harry watched Professor Lupin shrink down his trunk and put it in his pocket. 

“Alright everyone, no breaking ranks for any reason, even if one of us is killed! Focus on not being spotted by anyone!” Moody barked out to everyone as they mounted the brooms. 

As they flew through the night sky, Harry smiled. The wind whipping in his face and the freedom that came with flying filled him with elation. Nothing could compare to the joy that flying brought him. 

“I don’t even need a broom to fly.” Riddle grumbled. 

Harry giggled, “The big bad dark lord in my head in complaining. You sound so put out Riddle, what’s the deal? Don’t like brooms?”

“No, I don’t.”

Harry laughed as he soared through London, the sights were beautiful from this vantage point. Everything seemed magical. Sadly, the world deemed his adventure as coming to an end as he noticed the others descending to the ground. They landed in a gated park and Harry was dragged to the gate and onto the street. Moody grabbed his arm and shoved a scrap of paper at him. 

Number 12 Grimmauld Place is the Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix