He's a goddamn centaur!
Theo, as Harry would tell anyone, was a genius.
They had found time to meet the evening they returned to Hogwarts, the day before his unnecessary occlumency lessons would begin.
If Harry had turned the lessons down, he would have to explain why. Disliking Snape was not a good enough reason to reject such a useful tool. Revealing his own forays into the mind arts would open him up to too many questions, with too revealing answers. The simple solution was to go to the lessons. Displaying any proficiency in occlumency would immediately return him to the initial problem: how had he learned it, and why hadn't he told anyone? That left him with the choice of not using occlumency at all, something so against his instincts after years of practicing it that he felt sickened by the thought. It would leave him too vulnerable.
Theo resolved this dilemma readily.
"Use the lessons to test your occlumency. Create false memories, show him specific ones. You can test your legilimency as well, against a master occlumens"
Harry buried his face in his hands. “Why didn’t I think about that?”
“You can’t think of everything,” Theo said, tracing the line of Harry’s scar.
“Don’t throw my own words back at me!”
“Too late.” Theo paused with his hand on Harry’s cheek, looking into his eyes. “It would help to know why you need to learn occlumency now of all times.”
Harry looked back at him. “You draw an unnerving number of conclusions from the smallest amount of information.”
“Then I won’t think about it.” Theo sat back, wearing a slight smile that made it hard for Harry to breathe.
“You can think about what Dumbledore and Snape get out of the lessons,” Harry said, watching him. “Even if teaching me occlumency is their goal, it isn’t the only consequence.”
“Information,” Theo said immediately. “It’s been years and no one knows where you went the summer before third year. This holiday, when you were with Sirius. If someone saw one or both of us come into the Room of Requirement. What you do in your Dumbledore’s Army meetings.”
“Gross, don’t call it that.”
“Fine, DA meetings. Other secrets of yours. Details of your childhood. What happened to you during the third task. How you managed the second task. Things I don’t even know to mention because I don’t know them.”
“You know more than almost anyone,” Harry said gently. “You know things about me no one else does. I’m afraid of some of the things I know. I’m afraid of what I’m not being told.”
“Two more years,” Theo said, a distant look in his eyes. “Just a little over a year, really…”
“He’ll die, or we’ll kill him—”
“You would help me commit patricide?”
“I would do a lot of things for you, Theo,” Harry said. It was a matter of fact.
Theo took a shaky breath, then focused back on Harry. “What will Snape do with any information he learns?”
Harry picked up Theo’s hand, idly tracing the lines on his palm. “Sirius tried to get him to agree to some kind of privacy guarantee, but Snape slimed out of it and told him to talk to Dumbledore.”
“Dumbledore would love to have unfettered access to your mind,” Theo said darkly. “He isn’t the only one.”
“And we know Snape was, or is, a Death Eater,” Harry said. “So we assume he is passing information to Dumbledore, Riddle, or both.”
“And while you’re using these lessons to test and improve your occlumency, you tailor the memories, thoughts, and feelings you present to either counter Snape’s information gathering, or guide it.”
“Or fuck with him,” Harry said with an impish smile.
“Yes,” Theo said, pulling him closer. “Or fuck with him.”
Smiling like an idiot after their diversion, Harry asked, “You said you had something to give me when we got back to school?”
“Didn’t I already?”
“Theo!”
Theo left off his teasing and stood up. “I want to qualify this by saying you didn’t tell me either.”
“Theo, what—”
Theo turned into a bird.
“What!”
Theo turned back into a human. “Well? What do you think?”
“When? How? Wait, I know how. I’m not even going to bother asking why. This is amazing. You’re amazing! Do it again!”
Theo turned into a bird again and cawed at him.
“Are you a crow or a raven? No one seems to know the difference.”
“Caw!”
Harry spent his first day back alternatively smiling about Theo being an animagus—it would be much easier to run away to the woods together—and thinking about what sort of things he’d let Snape see in his first occlumency lesson that evening. Mundane memories from Hogwarts seemed the safest. Sitting in classes, doing homework, reading in the library, playing card games in the common room, and so on. Juvenile, quotidian. He’d have to bury anything to do with Theo.
Harry knew there was some proof they spent time together. Snape saw them on Halloween in third year. The note Harry had left with Hagrid about the thestrals. Luna greeting them when they visited the herd, then the kelpies. Theo carrying him out of Arithmancy before the third task. It wasn’t a lot, Harry knew. He’d spent more time talking to Malfoy in public. And no one really knew Theo, other than as the quiet Slytherin whose name they didn’t know. Theo purposefully cultivated that persona, possibly hoping his family, his father, would forget about him too.
Harry had developed a number of lies to cover up spending time with Theo. Going to the library, going for a walk to cool down, practicing advanced defense, quidditch practice, losing track of time, exploring the castle, visiting Dobby, visiting Hagrid, going to the hospital wing… It was a lot, and he churned out more when he needed to. It’s none of your business had been on the tip of his tongue so, so many times.
Suffice to say, there were many things he’d done while at Hogwarts he didn’t want Snape, Dumbledore, or Voldemort to know, chief among them anything to do with Theo.
People from DA approached him throughout the day asking when the next meeting would be.
“I’ll let you know when the next one is,” he said to all of them, “but I can’t do it tonight. I’ve got Remedial Potions.”
Harry paused while saying this to Zacharias Smith, who looked like he’d just won the lottery. If Harry could get out of occlumency with Snape, he could use that time to see Theo and tell everyone he was still taking the lessons. Distracted, he barely heard Smith saying he must be terrible at potions.
“Snape doesn’t usually give extra lessons, does he?” Smith said while literally looking down on Harry.
“It’s an honor,” Harry said to him, passion filling his voice. “Professor Snape is one of the youngest Potions Masters and Heads of House Hogwarts has ever seen. It is a privilege, and an opportunity afforded to only a select few, to study under him.”
Duly chastened, Smith whirled away and strode down the hallway, clinging to what little dignity he retained.
“What are you on about?” Ron said, watching Smith hurry around a corner. “You’re actually happy to get extra lessons with Snape?”
“Of course not—”
“Hi, Harry.”
Harry squeezed his eyes shut, then turned around. “Greetings, Cho.”
Hermione looked between them, then dragged Ron off to the library.
“Had a good Christmas?” Cho asked.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”
“Oh, well, mine was pretty quiet. Have you seen there’s a Hogsmeade trip next month?”
“No,” Harry said, wanting this to end.
“It’s on Valentine’s Day.”
“Right,” Harry said. Why was she telling him this? He made a whole fake person to avoid this. “I suppose you want to—”
“Only if you do!”
“—know when the next DA meeting is. I’ve got Remedial Potions every Monday, so not tonight. I’ll let everyone know as soon as possible.”
“Oh, alright,” she said, looking mortified. Harry watched her walk away, wondering what was going on.
Harry entered Snape’s office and thought the man was really putting it on. It was dark, the walls were packed with specimen jars with eerie lighting, and he had Dumbledore’s Pensieve on the table. Harry had a brief moment of hope that he’d be able to pull memories he didn’t want to be shared directly from his head and store them away.
“Shut the door behind you, Potter.”
Harry waved his wand and shut it, rolling his eyes. Snape was really setting the tone for these lessons. Snape silently pointed at a chair, so Harry sat in it. Snape sat across from him, staring at him without blinking. He looked like he wanted to be here about as much as Harry did, but knowing Snape was an occlumens Harry couldn’t trust any overt display of emotion. Plus, the man always looked like he hated everything.
“What?”
“You know why you are here. I can only hope that you prove more adept at learning occlumency than potions.”
Harry tilted his head back. “That’s how it’s going to be, then? I hope you’re more adept at teaching occlumency than teaching potions.”
Snape narrowed his eyes. “This may not be an ordinary class, Potter, but I am still your teacher and you will therefore call me sir or professor and demonstrate some capacity for respect.”
“Apologies, sir. I didn’t realize so much of your self-worth was wrapped up in how teenagers treated you. I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”
“Watch your mouth, Potter!”
Snape explained what occlumency and legilimency were, insulted Harry, told him Voldemort was a legilimens, insulted Harry, said there was some kind of connection between Harry and Voldemort, insulted Harry, said Voldemort had been possessing Nagini, insulted Harry, then screamed about Harry using Voldemort’s name.
“So you’re saying that he knows I was there with Nagini because he was too?”
“It seems so.”
“How do you know that?”
“I told you,” Snape said through his teeth, “to call me sir.”
“I don’t care,” Harry said, annoyed. “If you’re giving me these lessons based on whether I call you sir every other word, we may as well stop now. Give me a book and I’ll learn on my own. You can explain to Dumbledore what happened.” Harry started to get up.
“Sit down, Potter!”
Harry sat, a little put out.
“It is enough that we know…the Dark Lord is now aware…the process is likely to work in reverse…”
Harry was unsurprised. He had deduced what Snape was telling him months ago, and had taken measures on his own, but tried to look suitably horrorstruck.
Snape began removing memories to place in the Pensieve.
“Why am I not doing that?” Harry asked.
“I doubt your feeble mind contains much worth hiding,” Snape said, still pulling memories out. It made Harry curious, then suspicious. Was Snape baiting him?
“Stand up and take out your wand, Potter.”
Harry did so, wondering why he needed a wand for this. Occlumency was wandless magic by its very nature.
“You may use your wand to attempt to disarm me, or defend yourself in any other way you can think of,” Snape said.
“Is this another defense to legilimency? A physical or magical attack on the legilimens?”
“The Dark Lord’s legilimency will not be overcome by such methods,” Snape said. “This is for our lesson. I am about to attempt to break into your mind.”
Harry was ready. He’d been preparing all day. He had lessons from the day, his interactions with Smith and Cho, at the forefront of his mind.
“We are going to see how well you resist,” Snape said softly. “Brace yourself. Legilimens! ”
Snape really was awful. He hadn’t bothered explaining how to resist, just slammed into Harry’s mind with all the grace of a rampaging hippogriff. Harry made himself think of the past day, Hermione, Ron, Smith, Cho, letting the images run through his mind, before flinging a mild hex at Snape.
Snape rubbed his wrist. “Did you intend to use a stinging hex?”
Harry shook his head. It was easier to lie without words.
“I thought not. You let me get in too far. You lost control.”
“Did you see all of that?” Harry asked, rubbing his head.
“Flashes of it,” Snape said. “‘An opportunity afforded to only a select few,’ is it?”
“Unfortunately,” Harry said.
Snape told Harry to close his eyes and clear his mind, without explaining what the latter meant or how to do it. Was Snape setting him up for failure, or was he merely incompetent?
Harry recalled things that happened during the tournament and let Snape rifle through. He watched with him as Voldemort approached him in the graveyard, dozens of Death Eaters standing around them. The fear Harry felt was real, and he fell to the floor, hiding his face in his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t want to remember that!”
“Get up! Get up! You are not trying!”
It went on for some time. Harry thinking of things Snape already knew, or that he didn’t overly mind sharing, Snape brutally ransacking his mind. Later, Harry recalled what Sirius had told him, how his godfather had learned occlumency. It was just as terrible as Sirius had made it out to be.
When it was over, Snape told him to be back on Wednesday. He’d now have lessons twice a week.
Harry, amazed to have got away with playing the man, got his bag and left without complaint. He knew Hermione and Ron were in the library, so he didn’t go there. He went back to Gryffindor Tower, where the twins were displaying hats that made one’s head invisible—they put one on him and he walked off with it—and to his own bed, finding a headache potion. He’d have to brew more, or start going to Madam Pomfrey.
There was a new, sharp pain in his head, and he grabbed his scar, bending over. Maniacal laughter rang in his ears. Something wonderful had just happened to Riddle, something he had been waiting for, hoping for, planning for months. Did Riddle want him to feel this? Harry couldn’t know what it was, but he feared he would find out soon. He quickly found the solace of his empty mind and laid down, hoping he’d be able to sleep through the night.
It was a mass breakout from Azkaban.
Antonin Dolohov, who had killed Mrs. Weasley’s brothers. Bellatrix Lestrange, who had tortured Alice and Frank Longbottom. It was mentioned that Bellatrix was Sirius’ cousin, ignoring the facts that Sirius was innocent, had been disowned by his family, and loathed Bellatrix.
Harry sat next to Neville, who was shaking but trying to hold himself together. They also learned an Unspeakable hospitalized at St. Mungo’s, Bode, had been killed by a potted Devil’s Snare. Hermione went to write a letter to someone, Harry wasn’t sure who or why, and Hagrid came in to tell everyone in the Great Hall he was on probation. No one was surprised, and barely anyone was upset.
Word spread about the breakout. People whose relatives had been killed by the escapees were the center of gossip. Susan Bones asked how he could stand it. Harry wondered why they thought he could, or thought he deserved it, or didn’t think of him as a person at all.
Umbridge banned teachers from talking about anything unrelated to the subjects they taught. Harry saw students with bleeding hands; the blood quill was back in play. Umbridge was harsher, sat in every Divination and Care class, ready to sack Trelawney and Hagrid at the drop of a hat. Trelawney was hitting the sherry hard, and Hagrid was suspiciously jumpy, gathering mysterious wounds and forbidding visits after dark.
Harry really didn’t want to touch that.
Harry started meeting Theo after his occlumency lessons, since he could easily excuse being late by saying his lessons had gone long. He felt he was getting closer to creating memories out of whole cloth, making what he imagined more detailed, more complicated, more real.
Neville had a fire lit under him in DA, and seeing this Harry moved them on to jinxes, hexes, and their counters, testing them against their shields.
Whenever Harry stopped occluding, he noticed Riddle constantly broadcasting his emotions. He no longer stopped occluding, working instead on acting normal when he did so. It made everything so distant, so fake, like he was the only real person. Theo noticed what was going on. No one else did. He felt like he was puppeting his own body.
On nights he didn’t take time to meditate before sleeping, or when his sleep was broken by nightmares, sometimes he’d dream of a corridor that ended in a black door, a door he knew led to the Department of Mysteries. Harry had known since summer Riddle was obsessed with it. Unless he left a note about what he wanted in there, Harry wished Riddle would stop trying to get him interested. He wasn’t above sending a school owl to ask, but knew Umbridge would likely kill the bird to read the message.
Hermione and Ron would ask him how his Remedial Potions lessons were going and he would say he was doing better in potions, not sure what the lie was.
It was February and Hogsmeade weekend was upon them. Harry had plans to meet Theo, so he got dressed in green robes that matched his eyes, patterned with white lilies that reminded him of his mother.
At breakfast Hermione received a letter, and after reading it asked Harry to meet her in the Three Broomsticks around midday.
“It’s really important,” she said. “I haven’t got time to tell you why, I’ve got to answer this!”
As Harry watched her run off, he thought back on all the time he had spent playing into her need to have total knowledge and control before agreeing to do anything. He was expected to just drop his plans and show up when she wanted, like he was a doll on a shelf waiting to be remembered.
“Are you going to Hogsmeade?” he asked Ron.
Ron shook his head. "Angelina wants a full day's training…"
Harry queued up in the entrance hall to be signed out by Filch, watching the Gryffindor team practicing over the pitch.
"Alone for Valentine's Day, Potter?" Pansy shouted at him, accompanied by giggling. "It's no wonder no one would want to date you with that ugly scar!"
He smiled at them, catching Theo's eye where he was hidden among his housemates. "I don't acknowledge Valentine's Day, Parkinson. If you recall, it's a Christian saint's day, the same people who burned us at the stake." He looked her over. "You'd think someone of your…breeding would have more respect for our heritage."
With that, he gave his name to Filch and began the walk to Hogsmeade. Once he got to the main street, Harry paused near one window display, then went into the store. A few minutes later he was joined by a tall, sandy-haired teenager.
“This is a bad idea,” Theo said, adjusting the glasses he had borrowed. “We’re lucky I won’t be missed. Everyone’s paired off.”
“You remember our story?”
“Recently graduated from Beauxbatons, traveling wizarding villages before settling down, met at the quidditch shop and got to talking, you’re showing me around,” Theo dutifully recited.
They started walking through the village, standing close, Harry fighting to not hold Theo’s hand. It was a monumental effort. “Funny how they haven’t emptied Azkaban of dementors,” he said, spotting another wanted poster for the escapees.
“Hilarious.”
They paused in front of Madam Puddifoot's.
“No,” they both said.
“I kind of want to go in, just to see what happens,” Harry said.
Theo dragged him away.
Of course, he was Harry Potter, so people spotted him. He couldn’t fathom what stories they were telling each other about him going around with a strange boy.
“Do you speak any French?” he asked Theo. Surely this was the fatal flaw.
“Not a word.”
“Maybe we should say you did home education. From Wales. You were raised by a hedgewitch. You follow the Old Ways, but no one knows what those are and you don’t explain.”
Theo pushed him into Dervish and Banges, taking off the glasses and kissing him against the crowded shelves.
“Calm down,” Theo said, leaning over him. “It’s going to be fine. This was your idea, after all.”
Theo put the glasses back on and they looked around a while before leaving.
Harry checked his watch. “It’s almost lunch. Hermione wants me to meet her at the Three Broomsticks. You’ll come along?”
“Am I a recently graduated Beauxbatons student or Welsh?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ll think of something.”
With that alarming thought, Harry and Theo went to the Three Broomsticks. It had started to rain, and they were glad to see empty seats inside. Harry spotted Hagrid drunk, with even more injuries, and looked for a seat on the opposite side of the room.
“Harry! Harry, over here!”
Hermione was happily seated far from Hagrid, and Harry went to join her, Theo trailing behind. As they got closer, he noticed she was sitting with Rita Skeeter and Luna Lovegood.
“Who’s this with you?” Hermione asked as they sat.
“Rhys Davies,” Theo said smoothly, startling Harry.
“He's the nephew of one of Sirius’ friends,” Harry hastily explained.
“I was taught at home. Harry was kind enough to show me around after we ran into each other.”
“Is it okay if he sits with us?” Harry asked anxiously. “It’s just started to rain and he’s not meeting with his aunt until later.”
Rita was watching them, which was never a good sign.
“If you wanted me to do another interview, you could have asked me, Hermione,” Harry said. “I know the last one was heavily redacted. Since Luna’s here, you want to publish it in the Quibbler?”
Rita smiled at Hermione. “I told you he would be amenable.”
“Yes, well,” Hermione said. “Given your history…”
“No Valentine’s date, dear?” Rita said, jeweled spectacles flashing. She looked at Theo, then dismissed him.
“I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day,” Harry said. “And I’ve got a muggle girlfriend. You can publish that.”
Theo admirably didn’t move a muscle.
“Do you?” Rita asked, leaning in. “What’s her name? Where does she go to school? How long have you been dating?”
“No more questions about Harry’s love life,” Hermione snapped. “That’s not why we’re here!”
Harry wasn’t upset anymore about how Rita had spun that article at the end of the Tournament. He doubted she would still have a job if she had written what he had said verbatim, and treated it like it was the truth.
He listened to Hermione and Rita go back and forth for a bit, could tell Theo was growing incredibly bored, and finally cut in.
“I’ll pay triple your regular fee for the article,” Harry said. “If you want to write it pseudonymously that’s fine. You can always take the credit later.”
Rita considered him for a moment, then took out parchment and quill.
“So, Harry, tell me…”
The interview was long and arduous. Theo ended up leaving on his own, claiming a dinner with family. Harry was newly annoyed with Hermione for not telling him. He didn’t have to be tricked into doing things.
A week after Ron lost them a quidditch match, the article came out. Harry was swarmed by owls, his housemates opening the letters before he could stop them. Umbridge materialized behind them to see what was going on. Unconcerned, he showed her the interview.
A ban from Hogsmeade, fifty points from Gryffindor, and a week of detention later, a new Educational Decree promised expulsion for anyone with the Quibbler. Umbridge didn't understand teenagers at all. By the end of the day the whole school had read the article.
The school's opinion of him shifted again. Professors gave him points and gifts left and right, Trelawney no longer predicted he would die an early death, Seamus Finnegan personally apologized to him.
One downside, one he had considered and which no one else seemed to care about, was that he had named the parents of a number of Slytherin students. He saw Theo trapped at a library table with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.
"Who's that with Malfoy?" he asked Hermione, heart in his throat.
"Theodore Nott," she whispered. "He's in Arithmancy with us."
"Hm, I've never noticed him."
"He took you to the hospital wing that one time."
"That was him?"
He was Gryffindor's hero again. People kept asking him to relive that night in the graveyard, so he avoided the common room entirely.
One night he couldn't get away fast enough. Fred and George had made a poster that boomed, "Eat Dung, Umbridge," and the spell wore down to an atrocious shriek. Harry escaped to his dormitory, digging through his trunk for another headache potion, but he was out. He threw himself onto his bed, squeezing his eyes against the pounding in his head…
Harry jerked awake, fighting out of his bedding. He had been Voldemort this time. That was how the man thought of himself, Voldemort. Lucius Malfoy had Imperiused Bode to get something he could never retrieve. From a department Rookwood used to work in. A Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries.
Harry laughed to himself bitterly. Nothing useful came from this strange connection to Voldemort, only questions without answers and pain.
After two months of Snape belittling him during occlumency lessons, lessons in which Snape somehow didn't notice Harry feeding him both real and false memories, Harry was getting annoyed. He decided to push back.
Another weakness of the legilimens was that entering someone's mind opened the door to one's own. Harry raised his wand.
—a hook-nosed man was shouting at a cowering woman, while a small dark-haired boy cried in a corner…A greasy-haired teenager sat alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies…A girl was laughing as a scrawny boy tried to mount a bucking broomstick—
"Enough!"
Snape violently threw Harry out of his mind. Harry staggered back, amazed it even worked on a superb occlumens, as Lupin had called Snape. If a fifteen-year-old who had only tried legilimency on his boyfriend could break into Snape's mind, why not his Dark Lord? Or perhaps it was simply Snape's active use of legilimency that left him vulnerable, and he would never dare use it on Voldemort.
Harry was still puzzling over this when Snape looked to the ceiling.
Someone was screaming.
Snape left first, Harry rushing after. In the entrance hall he pushed through a ring of students and saw Trelawney getting kicked out by Umbridge, trunks and scarves scattered around her.
Harry hadn't seen Dumbledore for what felt like months, and it was a shock to see him now. He insisted the inebriated Trelawney was to continue living at the castle. Harry watched the exchange closely, but Trelawney was as mystified by this turn of events as everyone else. Harry knew she was related to Cassandra Trelawney somehow, based on her name alone. Was Sibyll Trelawney a true Seer, for all her antics? Was that why Dumbledore wanted to keep her around? And what kind of Seer showed such little facility in the myriad areas of her art?
Harry backed away into the crowd. He needed to look into this.
A few days later his housemates were discussing the aesthetics of their new Divination teacher, a centaur named Firenze who Harry had met years ago.
"How long has Trelawney worked here?" he asked Lavender, who had just berated Hermione for calling a centaur a horse. Harry agreed it was rather racist of Hermione to conflate centaurs with mundane animals. She was capricious when it came to the rights of non-human magical peoples.
"About sixteen years she told us," Lavender said.
"Isn't it a shame?" added Parvati. "Kicked out of your home…"
Harry sat back. Sixteen years. Trelawney had started the year he was born.
Dumbledore's agenda, since the first iteration of the Order of the Phoenix in the late 70s, had been the defeat of Voldemort. Voldemort had tracked down Harry's parents. His mother begged for him to kill her instead. Voldemort had wanted to kill Harry specifically. Why? Why target a baby, unless you knew something about that baby? Something that meant you needed him to never grow up. Something someone had Seen.
Harry stood up.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I forgot to revise my Potions essay," Harry said numbly. "Snape gave me another D. He's going to kill me after all these extra lessons." Harry grabbed his bag and ran out of the Great Hall.
"But we have Ancient Runes!"
This was bad. This was very, very bad. Harry knew from his research that most forms of divination required the Seer to interact directly with their subject. Tea leaf reading, tarot, palmistry. Trelawney seemed to be unaware of whatever she had done, or certainly she would have been more afraid. But Dumbledore knew, he had to, why else keep her so close, in his own domain, constantly under watch for sixteen years?
Dumbledore had heard something, something the Seer herself was blissfully unaware of, caught in a trance, the words wrenched from her very soul.
He had heard a prophecy.
Harry slammed into his dormitory and threw open his trunk, nearly breaking the mirror in his haste to get to it.
"Sirius Black!"
Minutes passed. His heart was trying to rip out of his chest. He knew, he knew, prophecies were often self-fulfilling. And if Voldemort had acted on it, he was trapped. They both were.
"Harry? What is it? What happened?"
"Prophecy," he said, the mirror shaking in his hands.
"Calm down. Breathe. What prophecy? What are you talking about?"
Harry stumbled through his explanation, the facts, the connections he had made, Sirius' face growing darker with each word.
"That isn't the only conclusion—"
"But it makes sense!"
"I know," Sirius said soothingly. "I'll look into it. I'm not sure what happens to prophecies after they are given…"
"I asked Dumbledore at the end of first year why he tried to kill me. He said I wasn't ready to know," Harry said in a rush. "It fits. It all fits. Sirius—"
"I'm going to look into it. Maybe you can try asking Trelawney—discreetly!—yourself." Sirius rubbed his face. "Don't you have class right now?"
"As if I could go," Harry said. He felt so cold. What did the prophecy say? What would it force him to do? "It's only Ancient Runes."
Sirius laughed, sounding almost forced. "You may as well sit the N.E.W.T. now with all the extra studying you do."
"We do study together, you know." Harry smiled a little, but it felt fake. "Prophecies are a bit mysterious…"
Sirius' expression fell. "I'm not sure how anyone would keep a prophecy, or record it, but the Department of Mysteries is the sort of place they would do it. Arthur almost died. Bode is dead. Podmore is in Azkaban. I just…if Voldemort knows the prophecy, why would he need to get a record of it?"
"Unless he doesn't know the words, but knows it exists. And that it's about me. Rookwood said Bode wasn't capable of retrieving it, whatever it is."
"There are a lot of missing pieces, Harry," Sirius said.
"And Dumbledore has all of them," Harry added darkly. "The dreams he has sent me, the corridors, he wants to lure me there."
"Because it's something you can retrieve," Sirius concluded. "If he wanted to draw you out to kill you, inside the most protected area of the Ministry is a poor choice. He could just send one of his Death Eaters to a Hogsmeade weekend."
Harry put his face in his hands. He wanted to confront Dumbledore, demand answers, but he doubted he would even be able to access the man. Dumbledore didn't trust him. He wanted Harry ignorant. How far would he go to ensure that?
"I don't know what to do," he finally said.
"There isn't much you can do," Sirius said apologetically. "You should just be focusing on your school work, sneaking off with your boyfriend, playing quidditch, manipulating the Gryffindors, plotting to overthrow the Ministry. You know, the usual."
"I don't manipulate them," Harry said. "I just…guide them."
Sirius snorted. "The most Slytherin thing you did was convince the Hat to put you in Gryffindor."
Harry didn't go to class that day. Every idea he had ran headfirst into a dead-end. Confronting Dumbledore. Using spells or potions to force the truth out of him. Breaking into the Department of Mysteries. Owling Voldemort. He felt like he was drowning.
He finally thought to write to Theo and met him that evening in the Room of Requirement. At first he didn't recognize the space, it wasn't the room the castle normally created. Then he noticed the broken toys, the broken bed, the locked owl cage thick with feathers and droppings, the bars on the window. He turned and saw the stack of locks on the door. The cat flap. A half eaten tin of soup.
Theo came in and looked around impassively.
"It's Dudley's second bedroom," Harry explained, voice flat, empty. "They locked me in here, after I got my Hogwarts letter. They used to lock me in the cupboard under the stairs."
Theo said nothing, just pulled him into a hug.
"It's bad," he said, voice muffled. "It's really, really bad and there is nothing I can do."
"I watched you run out of breakfast," Theo said. "I wanted to follow."
Harry took a shuddering breath. "I had a revelation."
"I could tell."
Harry held him tighter.
"There's a prophecy about me."
"Then you need to learn what it is before he does."
Harry looked up at Theo. "I don't know how. I'm not even completely sure it exists. I can't prove it, only theorize."
They sat down on the lumpy bed.
"He used to make me help," Theo said. "When he hurt her. He made me help so I wouldn't tell."
Harry closed his eyes tight, pulling Theo closer. "Why are you telling me?"
"Because I don't know what to do either."
Harry slipped into March and stumbled into April. The routine of school dulled the panic of some prophecy about him being out in the world. Sirius wasn’t having any luck getting information out of Dumbledore, or any of the Ministry employees guarding the entrance to the Department of Mysteries. No one knew what exactly was kept down there, or who was an Unspeakable except posthumously, as with Bode. Sirius didn’t work for the Ministry and had no access. They discussed Harry letting himself be lured, but not knowing what was contained in the Department made such a venture too high risk. If Harry went there, he might never leave. The question was, was the knowledge worth the price? If Voldemort believed so, perhaps it was.
Firenze had given Ron some warning to pass on to Hagrid, for him to stop attempting something. Harry imagined it was connected to Hagrid looking like a battered spouse, and his thoughts returned to when Hagrid had first returned with injuries likely received from a giant. Firenze was a member of a centaur group in the forest. Was there a giant in the forest? Harry certainly wasn’t going in there to find out.
As O.W.L.s approached, the breakdowns Fred and George had promised had begun. Harry was not concerned with his O.W.L.s. He knew he would be academically fine, whatever happened on the exams.
After months of begging, he finally caved and taught DA the Patronus Charm. It wasn’t much use outside of driving away dementors, and sending messages in a flashy yet fast way. Against another witch or wizard, or a magical creature, it was useless. But it was a pretty charm, and they were entertained. Neville struggled more than most. Harry took him aside and explained how he personally performed one when he lacked happy enough memories. He needed the patronus, so it came. He thought maybe Neville picturing a happier future for himself, one where he wasn’t beaten down by his grandmother, where his mother and father could live in relative comfort, perhaps some breakthrough in mind healing…
Something tugged at his legs.
“What is it, Dobby?”
They were in the dungeon room, behind their imperturbable and silencing charms. It was the riskier location, to some extent, but also the place a mixed group of non-Slytherins would be least likely to meet up.
“Harry Potter, sir…Dobby has come to warn you…but the house-elves have been warned not to tell…”
Harry grabbed him before he could hurt himself.
“She…she…she…”
Harry immediately understood.
“Wands away! Everyone grab their Slinkhard books! Third and fourth years out first! Take the passageway up to the second floor. Fifth years…”
They left in waves, scattering through the dungeons and taking the paths he had made them memorize. “Dobby, I order you back to the kitchens. I order you not to hurt yourself.”
Dobby vanished.
“Harry!”
Hermione and Ron were last. “Go, I’ll be fine.”
With one last look, they ran down the corridor, disappearing in the depths of the dungeon. Harry took a few deep breaths, emptying his mind. He slung his bag over his head, made sure his wand was holstered, and had the Slinkhard book in his arms. He took down the charms and stepped out of the classroom, walking towards the Slytherin common room.
“Professor! Professor! I see one!”
Harry passed by Dobby’s portrait of him, which he affixed opposite the entrance to the Slytherin common room with a permanent sticking charm and spelled impervious. No one could get it down or destroy the image. Filch kept putting a cloth over it, which someone—Harry—kept removing.
He spotted a flash of pink under the torchlight.
“It’s him!” Umbridge cried, hastening forward.
“Good evening, professor,” Harry said amiably.
“Excellent, Draco, fifty points for Slytherin.” She seized Harry’s arm in a painful grip. “Draco, Miss Parkinson, sweep the area. Look in bathrooms, classrooms, the library, anyone who’s out of breath…”
Harry knew they were all back in their common rooms. The castle liked them and made it easy to get from the dungeons to the seventh floor.
“You can come with me to the headmaster’s office, Potter.”
The castle did not like Umbridge, and their trip to the headmaster’s office was thwarted by noncompliant staircases, suits of armor tipping over, Peeves, flooding toilets, and a niffler rampaging in a classroom.
When they arrived at the gargoyle Umbridge was in a state, and Harry’s arm was throbbing with pain.
“Fizzing Whizbee,” Umbridge panted. The gargoyle put a finger in his ear. “Fizzing Whizbee!”
Rolling his eyes, the gargoyle slowly moved aside. They rode the staircase and Umbridge marched Harry straight through the door.
There was an audience. Dumbledore sitting at his desk, McGonagall looking tense, Fudge ecstatic, Kingsley next to another auror, and Percy Weasley, a blood-traitor-traitor or something. And all the portraits.
“Could you please let go of me, professor?” Harry asked. “You’re hurting my arm.”
Fudge spun around to glare at him. “Well. Well, well, well…”
“I’m not sure what’s going on, I was—”
“He was heading back to Gryffindor Tower,” Umbridge said.
“I was, it was nearing curfew…”
“The Malfoy boy cornered him!”
“I was stopped in the corridor on my way back.”
“Did he, did he?” Fudge said. “I must remember to tell Lucius. Well, Potter…I expect you know why you are here?”
“I haven’t the faintest. I was taking a walk before curfew and Professor Umbridge grabbed my arm and brought me here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t know why I’m here, Minister.”
“You don’t?”
“I believe I’ve made that clear.”
Harry could see Dumbledore trying to signal him by winking or something. He ignored it.
“So you have no idea,” Fudge said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “why Professor Umbridge has brought you to this office? You are not aware that you have broken any school rules?”
“No.”
“Or Ministry decrees?”
“No.” Harry rubbed at his arm. “Could someone please explain what this is about?”
“So it’s news to you, is it,” Fudge said, growing angry, “that an illegal student organization has been discovered within this school?”
“Yes, it is.”
Umbridge left to get the informant, returning with Cho Chang’s friend Marietta Edgecombe, hiding her face in her hands. When she was made to look up, SNEAK was written across her cheeks in purple pustules. Harry had been curious about Hermione’s jinx, though it was a rather roundabout way of finding out.
Marietta had gone to Umbridge and told her about a secret meeting in the dungeon. She stopped talking once the jinx took effect. Umbridge had known of the meeting in Hog’s Head, and had reported it to Fudge. The bandaged man had told her about it. He got off on some charge about regurgitating toilets, and McGonagall and the portraits railed about corruption.
Harry stood back to watch it all. Dumbledore saying their group was legal at the time of the Hog’s Head meeting, Percy laughing at Fudge’s rants, the lack of proof regarding the meetings they had over the past six months. Harry felt something move past him. Marietta kept shaking her head, denying what Umbridge said, and Umbridge began throttling her until Dumbledore stood and Kingsley pointed his wand.
“I cannot allow you to manhandle my students, Dolores.”
“She’s been using a blood quill for ages,” Harry said. “You can and did allow her to manhandle us.”
Dumbledore didn’t look at him, but he could see the man tense. Harry looked at Marietta, and saw her eyes were strangely blank. Someone had obliviated her, likely the only person in the room with his wand drawn. Harry felt sick.
Harry had been the only one caught, so to speak. When they had arrived at the dungeon room everyone else was long gone.
Umbridge pulled out a list of names.
“The moment I saw the names on the list, I knew what we were dealing with.”
Harry leaned over. “My name isn’t on there.”
“Hermione Granger! Ron Weasley!”
“That’s circumstantial evidence, professor.”
“See what they call themselves!” Fudge exclaimed. “Dumbledore’s Army!”
“What a stupid name,” Harry said. McGonagall shot him a look.
Dumbledore took the list. “Well, the game is up.”
Harry watched Dumbledore take credit for the creation of an army of school children, and Fudge swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
“Then you have been plotting against me!”
“That’s right,” Dumbledore said cheerfully.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Harry said to Fudge. “The fish rots from the head.”
“Be quiet, Harry, or I am afraid you will have to leave my office,” Dumbledore said calmly.
“Can I? I’m not involved in any of this.”
“Yes, shut up, Potter!”
Percy was eagerly writing everything down. He was, Harry decided, the stupid Weasley. He’d have to think of a new name for Ron.
Dumbledore declared that he would not be arrested, and the other auror, Dawlish, thought he actually stood a chance, until he was reminded he didn’t.
“Enough of this rubbish! Dawlish! Shacklebolt! Take him!”
There was a flash of light, Fawkes was making a racket, portraits were screaming, an explosion, dust, and Harry was dragged to the ground. It sucked. Harry saw McGonagall had covered both him and Marietta. The only person still standing was Dumbledore.
“Unfortunately, I had to hex Kingsley too, or it would have looked very suspicious.”
Dumbledore confirmed Kingsley had altered Marietta’s memory. These were the good guys.
“This whole situation is suspicious,” Harry said, sitting up. “Was this planned? Or did you simply take advantage of an opportunity to abandon the school?”
Dumbledore ignored him, busy plotting with McGonagall. Then he seized Harry’s wrist and told him to close his mind, that he would understand. Harry did understand, he just needed to know what the bloody prophecy said. But Dumbledore was gone, spirited away by Fawkes in a flash of fire, off to do whatever it was Dumbledores did.
The others gradually woke, frantic to find Dumbledore. Harry and Marietta were pushed out of the wrecked office and told to go to bed. Sadly, Harry had been unable to raid the bookshelf.