Ripples in the Pond

The photos were still there on the bedside table when he woke up the next morning in Grimmauld Place. They lay there, face up, the images staring right back at him, even as a headache split his skull in two and he winced. “Oww,” he grumbled, fumbling to climb out of bed and sighing softly as he realised his shrinking had yet to cease.

Not for the first time, he wondered when exactly it would stop. He glanced down at his hands as he sat on the edge of his bed. They looked smaller than he remembered, which wasn’t that great of a surprise to him – he was shrinking, so why wouldn’t his hands and feet be as well? There was a slowly growing gap between his heel and the back of the shoe – and the same at its tip. It wouldn’t be long until he had to cast a shrinking charm to make them fit, if only because it was considerably difficult to walk in shoes that were a few too many sizes too big.

Slowly, he got to his feet, yawning and wincing as that ache continued to beat away at his temples, pervading beyond his hairline and just aching all around. Idly, he wondered if he was getting his first migraine. Then he wondered whether a Pepper-Up Potion or a Headache Reliever would be better, or whether a combination of them would work.

Though he would have to venture back to Hogwarts… or perhaps a Potioneer. Or wherever the Wizarding World sold over-the-counter pain relievers… It wasn’t like he’d ever needed anything of the sorts outside of Hogwarts and the school year, and yet Hogwarts was still dealing with the aftermath of war. Their entire community was coming out from under the shadow of Tom Riddle, but Madam Pomfrey was only one woman, and she was all Hogwarts had. It hardly seemed fair to take up more of her valuable time when he could go elsewhere and leave her to deal with the more important patients who were undoubtedly occupying the Hospital Wing.

Sighing quietly, he pulled on an old robe of Sirius’s and trudged out of his chosen room there, venturing down the stairs as quietly as possible, so as to not disturb Walburga Black’s painting hanging in the hallway there. “Morning,” he mumbled around a yawn as he entered the kitchen, sniffing the air as he smelt the distinctive scent of breakfast being cooked.

“Morning, Harry,” Ron muttered, yawning himself then, even as he tended to the bacon over the hob. “Coffee will be ready soon… along with breakfast. Hermione’s in the shower – she’ll be back down in a bit.”

Harry frowned, eyeing the window and spying just how light it was. “You didn’t wake me up?” he wondered, even as he glanced at the old grandfather clock and noted it to be nine o’clock already.

“You looked like you needed a lie-in,” Ron said matter-of-factly. “Hermione also said that it might have something to do with your body… changing, you know,” he added, eyeing him and his still-shrinking height. Or rather, his shrinking body in general. He didn’t quite understand it all still, nor the distinct lack of fear there was whenever he thought about the height he was shrinking down to—

He paused, thoughts grinding to a halt. Why was he so certain of the fact he was shrinking down to a height? He swallowed thickly, thoughts beginning to race once more until he realised Ron was looking at him in concern.

“You alright, mate?” he asked, and Harry smiled as best he could.

“I’m fine,” he answered – the same mantra he had been repeating for days on end after the shrinking had begun. His head throbbed in pain then, as if to tell him the contrary. “Well, I have been getting headaches… Don’t tell Hermione. It will only distract her. You know she worries too much,” he begged, watching cautiously as Ron’s expression softened at that. “Don’t suppose you’d know where I can go to get some Headache Reliever? Or maybe Pepper-Up?”

“You can go to Hogwarts—”

“Last I checked Madame Pomfrey was running low on potions… now that the resident brewer… is, well, deceased,” he said, the last words of Snape echoing in his ears whenever he thought of the dead potions master.

“Typical Snape,” Ron muttered lowly. “Causing problems for us even after death,” he grumbled, silence falling between them for a few moments. “Mum used to go to a place called Pernickety Parnell’s Potions – down Horizont Alley off Diagon… though there’s no guarantees it’s still, er, intact, after everything. Parnell is a pureblood name, last I checked, but who knows…”

“I’ll go there after breakfast,” he said decisively, glancing at the bacon longingly before putting some toast on. It would be better to go and return before Hermione finished in the shower and came down to find him.

Pain shot through his head once more, and he winced then, his hands went to his head, rubbing at the sensitive skin just within his hairline. His wandering hands froze, eyes widening as he felt strange bumps there where the skin was ever so tender. The ding from the rune sequence operating the toaster told him his toast was ready, and Harry wasted no time in spreading butter and jam on his breakfast before swiftly devouring his meal. He ignored the unease he felt at the fact that there were distinct bumps of skin hidden by his hairline which were too large to be able to be called spots.

“I can still hear the water running,” Ron said, glancing up at the ceiling and where Hermione was a ways above them in the house. “If you hurry, you should make it back before she even realises that you’ve gone out… You got money?”

“Yep,” he said, patting his moleskin pouch then where it was in the pocket of those robes. “See you in a bit,” he murmured, before hurrying to the floo, grabbing some powder, throwing it into the flames and declaring, “Diagon Alley.”

He stepped into the green flames, feeling himself spinning in that strange space between fireplaces, before he was spat out in Tom’s pub. The Leaky Cauldron was a far cry away from its barely existent splendour he had first seen when he had been eleven years old and hidden in the shadow of a friendly half-giant called Hagrid. There were only a couple of seats occupied by patrons instead of a full bar of them, and numerous broken chairs and tables were stacked together in one corner of the pub. Stares bore into his back, the few of those patrons inevitably curious as to the latest visitor to that old haunt, and Harry startled when Tom came out from behind the bar – carrying drinks, only to stop short when he caught sight of him.

“Kid,” he spoke, turning to him as he paused, hands and arms laden with plates and a tray of tankards. “Do your parents know you’re out?”

Harry blinked, remembering that he was currently slowly shrinking below five foot and beyond. He looked like a child. Tom the Bartender thought he was a child who needed his parents. Not that he had any amongst the living. “I’m fine,” he said, eyeing up the door he knew led to the entrance to Diagon Alley.

“Kid—”

Harry hurried towards the door, bustling through it and tapping the bricks in the same order as he’d seen Hagrid do the very first time they’d entered the Magical World. He wasn’t a child – hadn’t been a child in a long time, not truly. The few snippets he had learnt about Ron and Hermione’s childhoods had sounded strange to his ears. Then again, he had long since come to understand that the Dursleys had never truly been good to him throughout his childhood and teenage years. Yet those days, Dudley wasn’t quite the same as the one who had once gleefully changed him, and the cold, terrifying aunt had become just a little bit more understandable to him.

Not that he’d probably ever see them again. He let out a breath, sighing quietly to himself as he ventured into an incredibly quiet and still Diagon Alley. The news that Lord Voldemort was finally dead for once and all had yet to sink in, and people were yet to begin celebrating as apparently they had the night after the events of Godric’s Hollow. Though the damage was worse that time around, Harry thought – not that he had been witness to the aftermath of the previous war against him. He had gotten into the ministry that time around, and twisted the system of power that so many witches and wizards put blind faith in.

The sign for Horizont Alley caught his eye, black letters on white, and he hurried towards it – wanting nothing more than to hurry back to Grimmauld Place as soon as he’d finished stocking up on a couple of headache potions. He winced, head throbbing for what felt like the thousandth time that morning. Idly, he tried to come up with a logical explanation for those two strange bumps on his head. Pain stabbed through his temples once more, and his hands went to those strange two lumps. They almost felt larger, and yet that was impossible. Wasn’t it? He swallowed thickly, eyes catching on the bright pink storefront lettering of Pernickety Parnell’s Potions.

It was undamaged, he noted, all glass in the windows and door intact, and the placard on the handle was turned so the open was visible and clear. There was a market for potions in and just after war especially, he mused, listening to the bell jingle merrily as he pushed the door open and entered the pink parlour. On a shelf in the left corner, heart-shaped potion flasks seemed to bubble and fizz with brightly-coloured, sweet-smelling potions. Love potions, he hazarded a mental guess, looking at all the embossed hearts on the wall behind the display.

His feet carried him to the other side of the shop to those love potions, a shiver rolling down his spine as he remembered all the spiked chocolates he had been sent through the course of his Hogwarts years.

“Hello, dearie,” a lady came out from behind the screen of beads sectioning off the back of the shop, where the brewing room and stock room likely were. She was tall – as everyone seemed to his eyes those days – with a face which reminded him just a bit too much of his Aunt Petunia, though the soft smile on her lips was the furthest thing from any expression which had graced his aunt’s face whenever she had so much as looked at him. Honey blonde hair curled in ringlets, wide brown eyes looking at him even as the first hints of crows feet marred the corners of them. “Oh, aren’t you a bit young to be out by yourself?” the lady who could only be Pernickety Parnell asked. “Do your parents know you’re out…? Are they okay?” she questioned, and perhaps, if he had truly been a child whose parents were dead, injured, or otherwise impaired after the latest events then maybe he would have been able to find help there. As it was – he wasn’t.

Harry felt his eyebrow twitch ever so slightly at that as another jab at his height was unknowingly flung his way. “I’m after Headache Reliever,” he said, instead of trying to explain that he was actually seventeen going on eighteen instead of the apparent seven going on eight that he looked.

“Right—Okay,” Pernickety Parnell said, blinking rapidly before she strode over to the side of the store he had been heading towards. “Headache Relievers are here,” she said, lifting a bottle filled with a dark green potion that reminded him of the colours of ferns. “How many would you like, dearie?”

“Two, please,” he said, watching as she picked two stoppered flasks from the assortment before he delved into his pocket, pulling out his moleskin pouch. His eyes flickered over the pricing, and he pulled out the twelve needed galleons for two potions.

“I’ll take these to the counter then,” she informed him, and Harry winced as he felt a fresh wave of pain split his skull on both sides. Scowling through the pain, he hurried towards the counter, hairs on the back of his neck rising as he felt a stare on him. “Did someone hit you with a curse?” Harry blinked, finding Pernickety Parnell staring at him from behind the counter. She lifted her hand, tapping at her temple then just behind her hairline.

“What?” he murmured, lifting his free hand to prod at the tender bump – one of two, he knew. Something wet met his searching fingers, and Harry paused as he smelt a familiar coppery scent. The same scent of those Blood Lollipops in Honeydukes, and the same scent which had greeted him whenever he’d been injured enough to bleed.

“Here,” Pernickety said kindly, summoning a mirror into her waiting hand and showing him his reflection. “Looks like someone caught you with some sort of horn-growing curse,” she explained, and Harry blinked at his own reflection, eyes widening when he spotted the two bloodied tips of glistening black horns just about emerging from his nest of black hair. “Though this doesn’t look like a prank spell… not if they actually burst through your skin and caused bleeding. That’s a curse alright. Not much it can be… or at least a dark spell. At the minimum, I’d reckon.”

Numbly, as if on autopilot, Harry put his twelve galleons on the counter, sliding the potions into his moleskin pouch and tucking them back in his pocket, even as he stared and stared at his reflection. There had been no spells cast on him, and nothing in Sirius’s room had been cursed – that he knew for a fact. So why were their horns growing out of his head? Harry swallowed thickly. “Huh,” he croaked, his now free hands going to gently grasp at the horns growing out of his head.

“Looks like you didn’t know,” the shop owner continued, heedless to his growing discomfort and distress. Was that why his head had been hurting? he wondered, even as Pernickety Parnell lifted her wand. “Let me see if I can get rid of them for you.”

Harry didn’t have the chance to say no, a white bolt shooting towards him, and something in him – his apparent spidey senses for danger – surged, and he knew then that something was about to go terribly, disastrously wrong.

Anger surged up within him unbidden, those two spots of his head throbbing in pain, and something in his vision changed as that white spell hit him. How could she dare to try and rip his horns away from him? Harry blinked at the thought, eyes widening as he wondered just where that thought came from as something within him repulsed as that white de-horning spell hit him and then rebounded. It shot away from him, slamming into Pernickety Parnell and sending her sprawling backwards.

A loud clatter pulled him from the strange rabbit hole of thoughts, and Harry hurried around the counter, quickly spying the sprawled form of the shop owner. “Are you okay?” he asked hurriedly, completely and utterly perplexed at everything which was suddenly seeming to unfold around him. He hadn’t intended to repel that spell, and he didn’t quite know how such a thing was possible. “I don’t think you should try to—”

Brown eyes looked at him in fear, shock, and revulsion as she stared at him for a few moments in a thick, uncanny silence. “Demon!” she declared, pointing one shaking finger at him, and Harry could only stare at her in extreme confusion. Because, really, where the bloody hell had that come from? He frowned at her, pondering on what leap of logic had taken her there. Surely there were more logical conclusions in the Wizarding World for horns and weird magic repulsion powers…? It didn’t make sense to him, and he’d been knee-deep in the Wizarding World since his eleventh birthday.

“What?” he asked, brow furrowing in confusion, the skin of his forehead feeling strange and awfully tight as his face moved through a myriad of expressions in quick succession. Confusion became panic when Pernickety Parnell lifted her wand, syllables on her tongue, and Harry moved with the skill of someone who had spent months on the run watching his own back.

A sickly yellow spell slammed into the thick, rectangular table leg – one of the many display tables supporting the cases and casks of potions – and Harry had a split second to eye it as the wood as it fizzled and turned dark. He didn’t want to know what that spell did, he decided quickly, ducking and sprinting for the door, heart beating frantically in his chest. A hot pink curse sailed over his head, the bell of the store jingling merrily as he wrenched the store door open and sprinted out and away.

He ran out of the green flames of the floo at Grimmauld Place, eyes wide as he stumbled, losing control of his feet as he slammed face-first into the floor. The world spun for a few moments before his eyes, and a soft groan escaped him as he pushed himself to his hands and knees.

“Harry?” Ron called, and the sound of footsteps hurrying towards the living room graced his ears. “Harry, you made it back just in—” Ron’s voice cut off suddenly, and Harry looked up at his oldest friend. “What the bloody hell happened?” he demanded, rushing towards him, offering a hand.

Harry grabbed a hold of that hand, accepting the help to his feet as he struggled to catch his breath. He probably looked like a mess, what with the frayed edges of his robes which had caught on a few too many things on his sprint back to the Leaky Cauldron to get to the safety of his home. “Do I look that strange?” he questioned, belly squirming as he wondered just how awful he had to look to get called a demon of all things.

“Well…” Ron trailed off, shifting on his feet as he kept on staring at his friend. “I think you might need a mirror… are those horns?” he asked, peering down at him, squinting at the newest protrusions from his head.

“Yeah, I think,” he said, hands going to his head that wasn’t hurting quite as much as prior to leaving the house. Because those horns had come out from beneath his skin, which had undoubtedly been the cause of some of that pain, he realised with a start. “That’s what… well, I think I’d better start from the beginning,” he mumbled, wandering into the kitchen behind Ron and taking a seat at the bench, resting his elbows on the table as he sighed and wondered where exactly things had started going wrong. Ron remained silent, only pulling open one of the kitchen drawers and pulling out a honest-to-merlin silver plate which reflected the illumination of the lights above him well enough that he almost squinted.

“Here,” Ron said, sitting opposite him and sliding the plate across to him. “It’s not quite a mirror, but it’ll do.”

He lifted the plate, eyes widening when he caught sight of them in the mirror; a bright vivid green which almost seemed to glow – yet what caught his eyes the most were the slitted, unquestionably reptilian pupils which stared back at him from his own reflection. “What the bloody hell is going on?” he muttered, fighting the urge to slam his head into the table as he stared at that alien reflection which was unquestionably him.

“That’s what I want to know!” Ron declared, staring at him then. “You didn’t look like that when you left the house.”

“Tell me about it,” Harry grumbled. “That lady – Pernickety Parnell – she called me a demon, of all things. A demon! How ridiculous is that?”

Ron’s brow furrowed. “That’s not good…”

“I know,” Harry muttered. “Next thing you know there’ll be a front page on the Prophet telling everyone how I’m secretly a demon in disguise and that’s how I survived so long…”

“No, Harry – I mean it,” Ron said, looking uncharacteristically serious all of a sudden. “Paris Parnell was caught by the ICW twenty years ago on charges of contracting with demons,” he explained, and Harry could only blink.

“Who’s he?”

Ron blinked. “I keep forgetting you grew up in the muggle world. Mum used to tell us that Paris Parnell would take us away if we misbehaved… though it never worked on Fred and George…” Ron trailed off sighing softly. “But the point is – he was Pernickety Parnell’s father, and he made a contract with what the ICW considers to be demons – and Pernickety Parnell was a witness to his dealings with those dark spirits, demons – whatever you want to call them.”

It was Harry’s turn to blink. “Are you telling me that demons are real?” he demanded, swallowing thickly at the thought.

“Well, they’re not the demons from religion, I don’t think… maybe where the notion came from or something, but they’re malevolent spirits who usually take a specific appearance when summoned to the mortal world – don’t ask me any more. I don’t know anything besides that. You think mum would let me learn about stuff like that?” he asked, and Harry had to agree to the fact that Molly Weasley would have never let her son learn too much about malevolent spirits, or demons. The same thing that someone who seemingly had experience with those creatures had thought him to be.

Harry blinked once more, the information he had just learnt taking a moment or several to sink in fully as he sat there, wondering just what shitstorm was about to be upon them. “Do you think that nothing will happen?” he asked, feeling very much like he was tempting fate by only asking that very question.

“Hopefully,” Ron mumbled, not sounding one-hundred percent certain, and a familiar despair clawed at his belly.

The sound of the door creaking stirred him from his moping, and he blinked as he spotted Hermione in the doorway, yawning, her hair still ever so slightly damp from the shower. “Morning,” she said through another yawn. Then she blinked. “Harry, what the bloody hell happened while we were asleep?” she questioned, unknowingly mirroring Ron’s earlier response to his strange and new appearance. “Are those horns?” she queried, and Harry could only smile somewhat sheepishly, no matter the looming feeling of impending doom.

“Yep,” Harry said, hands going up to the horns growing up and out of his skull, the base of those protrusions just about hidden by his messy hair.

“Your hair’s growing too,” Hermione pointed out, sounding just as shocked as he was, and Harry pulled at a lock of his black hair, watching as it lengthened a good five centimetres under his gaze.

He sighed softly, fighting the urge to bury his head in his hands. “What even is going on with me anymore?” he wondered, fervently wishing then that he could have a proper answer as to exactly what was going on. “First I grow horns, then I get called a demon of all things, now my hair is growing, of all things…”

“A demon…?” Hermione echoed, and Harry could only watch as Ron explained what he had to him about the matter of demons and the Wizarding World to Hermione.

There was a mirror in his dream; a fancy ornate one with a wrought iron black frame. Yet instead of his reflection, all it showed was darkness. “Gladius Draconia,” a wispy voice called, beckoning him from behind a wall of thorns. The faint sound of hooves clacking against paving met his ears—

“Harry!”

His eyes shot open, meeting Hermione’s startled ones. “What?” he asked, feeling incredibly groggy as the memories of his dreams vanished into nothing but smoke in the wind. “Hermione, what’s the bloody time?” he grumbled, rubbing at the sleepy dust he could feel clogging up the corners of his eyes as he sat up in bed.

“It’s bad,” Hermione said, and Harry could only blink at her.

“Hermione, what are you on about?” he asked, scratching at his bedhead. The length of his hair was surprisingly making his bedhead slightly better, he mused, thoughts grinding to a halt as Hermione held up a newspaper.

The Dark Secret Behind the Man-Who-Conquered.

Harry blinked once more, dread welling up in his stomach as he remembered the iconic Boy-Who-Lies heading. “Let me guess, Rita Skeeter?” he grumbled, burying his head in his hands. “Don’t suppose you feel like trapping her in another glass jar, Hermione?” he asked, trying to muster up a glimmer of amusement, even as his mind went back to his hellish fifth year when everyone decried him as a liar. Hadn’t they learnt? he wondered, lips curling as he stared at the moving photo on the front page of the Daily Prophet depicting him, and then the second one showing a more destroyed shop front to Pernickety Parnell’s Potions.

“Ron says it’s serious,” Hermione said, looking more solemn than ever. “He wants to talk about what the bloody hell we’re supposed to do next.”

He pushed himself out of bed, looking up at Hermione. “Give me a moment to get changed,” he said, grabbing a fresh set of underwear and robes and hurrying behind the convenient screen in Sirius’s old room. It had to have been a pureblood thing, he decided, even as he pulled a set of simple black robes which had been shrunk down to size for him. Not that it had stopped him from shrinking yet another centimetre. Though he suppose it could have been two or three centimetres, and that would have been worse. “It can’t be that bad,” he said, reemerging from behind the screen fully dressed.

“Ron knows about these demons and what it means for you to be accused of being one better than either of us,” Hermione said somewhat reluctantly.

“How did they even trace that incident back to me?” he asked, glancing at the Daily Prophet once more, fully expecting Hermione to be as clueless as him on that front.

“The people in the Leaky spotted you… and your horns, and heard the floo address,” Hermione said, tapping the newspaper. “It’s all in there, and it’s not even the worst of it.” She closed her eyes. “Fudge used that information to get him re-elected into temporary office,” she explained, turning the paper so the next page was visible to him. “He claims he was the only one to see you for what you were back in fifth year,” she stated, clicking her tongue. “What a whole crock of shit,” she muttered, and Harry double-took at that, staring at his friend wide-eyed.

“Is it really that bad?” he asked, trudging down the stairs alongside her, the pair of them finding their way to the living room Ron was waiting in.

“Harry,” Ron said, sounding more serious than ever. “This is bad – this is really bad.”

“Hermione said that,” he added, glancing between the two of them, swallowing thickly as the latest problem arose to be dealt with. “How bad are we talking?”

“The ICW have sent their demon-related taskforce to England,” Ron said, looking incredibly grim as he held up a slip of torn parchment. “Mum sent this to us as soon as she heard,” he explained, holding out the piece of paper which told him—

Ron, stay where you are – DO NOT COME BACK TO HOGWARTS. Keep Harry with you, and whatever you do, don’t let him go outside. The ICW are here regarding what’s in the news (attached). Mum.

“Mrs Weasley sent us the paper,” Hermione said, letting the newspaper fall to the coffee table. “Demon related issues are apparently a very big deal to the wider Wizarding Community…”

“It’s hardly surprising… almost everyone who—well, those who grew up in the Wizarding World have generally heard tales about Paris Parnell and Greyham Gooseworth. Parnell didn’t get far, but back in the seventeen-hundreds Gooseworth caused an international-scale incident with his summoned malevolent spirits: demons, as they’re more commonly called now. Apparently a lot of people died, and many more would have, if he hadn’t been stopped by the ICW – which is why any mention of demons has their taskforce on the ground,” Ron explained, eyeing him and the horns on his head. “They’re—well, from what I’ve heard, anyway—they’re very curse first, ask questions later.”

“Great,” Harry muttered. “Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

“We’ll figure something—”

A silvery shape emerged through the wall, and Harry felt his heart leap in his chest as a familiar lynx patronus came to them, mouth opening to relay a message. “Harry, Ron, Hermione,” Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice greeted them. “You need to get out of there,” he told them, making no mention of Grimmauld Place. “The ICW have learnt the secret, and they will curse first and ask questions later. They mean business, and they have their own curse-breakers with them. They’re on their way there as I speak – hurry!” The sound of something being broken on Kingsley’s end was just about audible as the message cut off all of a sudden.

Ron swore, and Harry’s eyes widened as he heard the distinctive sound of a door being blasted off its hinges – and it wasn’t from Kingsley’s end.

“There’s our answer as to whether the Black’s family wards will hold out against a ICW curse-breaker,” Hermione said, reaching over to grab Ron firmly by the arm and him by one of his smaller hands. “We need to go,” she declared, steel glinting in her eyes, and Ron and him shared a nod, grabbing a hold of Hermione tightly.

A familiar crack rent the air, Hermione twisting sharply on her feet, and Harry was subject to the familiar, gut-wrenching sensation of side-along apparition.

One second they were in Grimmauld Place’s living room, the next they were in a familiar forest. Towering evergreen trees surrounded them, a myriad of other tree species whose leaves had turned green from the amber they had been the last he’d seen them. “Come on,” Hermione beckoned, breaking into a run, hurrying up the hill from the place he vaguely recognised as being their last campsite in the forest. “They’ll be able to track us – we need to get out of here.”

“She’s right,” Ron said, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him into a fast run. “These aren’t the bloody Death Eaters who find people via the taboo. These are the best of the ICW,” he muttered, nervousness written all across his face. “Never thought I’d be running from the actual law,” he declared, glancing down at him as they ran – Hermione already a considerable distance ahead of them and looking back at them worriedly. “Harry, mate, no offence, but your legs are tiny. Mind if I carry you?”

Harry blinked, eyes widening as he heard the familiar crack which sounded like a car backfiring – a sound he’d never be able to forget. “This is humiliating, but fine,” he agreed, grunting as Ron lifted him up and began sprinting in earnest.

Spellfire was the next thing he knew, peering over Ron’s shoulder to spy a bunch of white-robed witches and wizards pointing their wands at them and firing even as they hurried after them. His fingers curled around his wand, part of him debating on the merits of firing back. Or whether it would just make the situation worse? He frowned, wondering just how the situation could become any worse.

A bright yellow curse sailed over Ron’s head, narrowly missing him, and Harry could only look at the smoking wood of the tree it had hit.

“Bloody hell,” Ron panted, ducking behind the nearest tree as the volley of spells cast at them increased. Hermione’s back hit the tree beside them, and Harry blinked as he found himself shoved into Hermione’s arms. “We won’t get away like this – and neither of us two are the one they’re after,” Ron said matter-of-factly. “You take Harry, I’ll try to make a diversion,” he explained, pointing his wand at the nearest sizeable chunk of dead tree closest to them and transfiguring it into a human-like creation. “They saw me carrying him… but I don’t think it’ll fool them for long,” he declared, grinning at them despite the nervousness his eyes betrayed. “See you on the other side,” he said, and Harry could only clamp his lips together as Ron sprinted away, carrying his new burden.

“Let’s go,” Hermione muttered, grimacing beneath his weight, even as the flashes of spellfire followed Ron away, glimpses of white robes just about visible as the witches and wizards chased after his friend instead of the two of them. “Ron… he’s bought us time, and they won’t… they’re not Death Eaters… they won’t kill him,” she said, breathing heavily as she ran in the opposite direction to the way Ron had gone.

“You can put me down,” Harry said, watching as Hermione bit her lip and looked at him. “We’ve got time,” he said, praying then that Ron was okay as he was set down and started running of his own accord once more.

He scanned the forest ahead, looking out for familiar landmarks, peering between the dark bark of those tall trees for any hint of white. His wand was in his hand, the familiar weight of it a balm to his uneasy mind as he caught a glimpse of something pitch back and pulsating ahead.

“Gladius,” a voice called, and Harry stiffened as that strange name made something inside him squirm. His feet slowed for a moment, eyes fixing on the unnatural darkness he could see, even as a low, faint mist rolled out around them.

“Hermione, do you hear that?” he asked, running towards that spot of pitch black between two tree trunks, legs pulling him towards it through a strange volition which wasn’t quite his own.

“Hear what?” she asked, even as he came to a stop, staring at the tree which had a trunk which seemed to split in two, those thick branches curling upwards to form a perfectly wizard-sized oval between the two craggy trunk-like branches.

“A voice… it’s calling a name… a familiar name, though I don’t know why it’s familiar,” he murmured as Hermione glanced behind them worriedly. “Can’t you see that darkness?” he asked, pointing to that strange perfectly oval space.

“Harry… I can’t see whatever it is you’re seeing,” she said, looking incredibly confused and nervous. “We need to go, Harry…”

“Gladius Draconia,” the darkness called, and, transfixed, Harry edged closer to it, watching as the swirling darkness shifted like clouds of dark smoke. A mirror with a wrought-iron frame came into view, green fire seeming to crackle and burn within even as it stood there in a forest, between a tree, looking ever so out of place. “Ah, My dear beloved… Lovely and noble flower of evil,” the voice from the mirror beckoned to him.

“Harry,” Hermione pleaded, but he couldn’t look away from that swirling green flame which crackled within the surface of that mirror.

“Mirror, Mirror, on the wall…”

The faint sounds of horses whinnying, the sound of hooves clopping against hard-packed ground ringing in his ears as the sound of Hermione’s voice pleading with him faded to the background. Wheels creaked, a faint sensation of familiarity and comfort coming to him the longer he stared into that mirror.

“Those guided by the Dark Mirror… As long as thine heart desires, take the hand that appears in the mirror,” that voice commanded, and Harry blinked as the green fire vanished, replaced by a hand whose owner was shrouded in darkness. Yet even in the gloom he thought he saw black horns and green eyes which seemed to glow in that ominous darkness.

“Hermione,” he finally spoke, a strange certainty within him, even as a hand emerged from that mirror – an offer of something he wasn’t quite certain of. If he took that hand, he came to understand, he would get answers. Yet in the same vein he knew that taking that hand would take him away from that place. Forever. “I think if I go through this… if I take this hand, I’ll learn why the bloody hell I hatched from an egg,” he declared, knowing that he spoke the truth even as he gazed long and hard at the hand still waiting for him to take them up on their offer. “But I won’t be able to see you or Ron again…”

“Protego!” Hermione hissed, and Harry heard the sounds of spells being deflected. “Harry,” she murmured, not daring to take her eyes off the white-robed witches and wizards who had caught up with them. Undoubtedly thanks to him being transfixed by that strange darkness and standing there like a gormless moron. “If it gets you out of this bloody situation, then take that hand!” she told him, bellowing out another spell. “These bastards won’t listen to reason. Whatever happens, me and Ron have your back – wherever you end up. We’ll be with you in spirit,” she muttered, hissing another shield charm. “Go, hurry!”

Harry frowned, glancing at Hermione’s back as she shielded him from the people chasing him down. “Thanks, Hermione – for everything,” he said, wondering why he knew that she was smiling and somehow crying at the same time even as he grabbed a hold of that hand and felt himself be pulled into that darkness.

Sleep washed over him, the faint scent of lavender reaching him, even as he succumbed to unconsciousness, all the while uncertain of where he would next be waking up.