The Invisible Theo
They walked out of the forest, eyes and ears alert for prowling creatures and predatory plants. The trees were deep in shadows, lit eerily by the light of their wands. Malfoy kept banging into things.
“Point me,” Harry said softly, watching his wand swivel true north. He adjusted their direction. “I think we’re almost there.”
He winced as his scar gave another painful twinge. Theo noticed.
“Are you going to tell me what that’s about?” Theo asked, eyes tight with concern.
Harry sighed. “I get pains in my scar when Riddle is near, or when he touches me. The summer before fourth year I began getting visions from him. The only person I told was Sirius, until last winter. I had a vision of Mr. Weasley being attacked by Riddle’s snake, Nagini, and it was either tell Dumbledore about it or let him die.”
Harry moved a branch out of the way while a sleepy bowtruckle chattered at him in annoyance. “While visiting Mr. Weasley at St. Mungo’s, I learned Dumbledore had been expecting me to have visions from him. I don’t know why, I’m still trying to work it out. The Gryffindors think I’m some kind of Seer. Hermione and Ron know about the scar pain, and Hermione might work out on her own if it’s related to my supposed seer ability. I’ve intentionally kept them in the dark.”
“Occlumency helps,” Theo said, pulling Malfoy out of a bush. “That’s why Dumbledore ordered Snape to give you lessons. But you knew occlumency well before that.”
“I found a book the summer before third year on the mind arts. The thought of someone reading my mind made me paranoid, so I started learning.” He paused and looked at Theo. “I always thought Snape was reading my mind, he always knew when I was lying in first and second year. I didn’t know it was an actual kind of magic.”
Theo stepped closer and squeezed his hand. “He’s been sending you visions? Is that why you know where to go?”
“Yes,” Harry admitted. “It’s more than that, though. I feel his feelings, I can tell what he’s thinking. I know he’s been doing it intentionally since it’s been getting worse and more frequent. When I started lessons with Snape, he confirmed it. Only Sirius knows the extent of it.”
“Is he doing it now?”
“Yes,” Harry said, gritting his teeth against another pulse of pain. “I think he’s impatient.”
“At least he waited until after exams.”
Harry huffed a laugh. “He sent me a vision of Sirius being tortured during History of Magic. I ignored it. Maybe he didn’t know the exam schedule.”
They continued walking, finally leaving the trees and approaching Hagrid’s hut.
“Do you think here is fine?” Harry asked, looking around. “A rogue acromantula might snatch him up.”
“Remember when Hagrid tried to get the skrewts to hibernate? Malfoy and the rest hid in his cabin while you rounded them up.”
“So there’s a precedent,” Harry said. He glanced up at the castle, biting his lip. “Let’s get him inside.”
They entered the cabin through the back door. It hung off its hinges, damaged from the night before. Inside was not as bad as Harry had feared. Overturned furniture, burn marks, spilled drink and food. He positioned Malfoy on the one still-intact chair.
They stood for a moment, looking at Malfoy’s slumped form.
“You have to think about what he’s going to tell them,” Theo said. He took Harry’s hand again.
“I know.”
“He watched her use crucio on you,” Theo said.
“I know!” Harry froze, then looked at him. “You saw. You followed us into her office.”
“I did. Why did you let her?”
“I knew I could handle it,” Harry said. He could still feel his muscles quivering, nerves singing with the curse's lingering effect. “And it’s an Unforgivable. She’ll be sent to Azkaban.”
“It’s your word against hers,” Theo said, looking pointedly at Malfoy. “Do you think he would willingly tell?”
Harry didn’t need to answer that. “I’ll use his wand.”
Once Harry had found Malfoy’s wand in his robes—he hadn’t even drawn it—he stood back as Theo revived him from behind.
Malfoy’s unfocused eyes found Harry standing across from him. His head whipped back and forth, and he said, voice tinged with hysteria, “Potter? Where are we? Where’s the headmistress? The centaurs!” He looked at the wand being pointed at him. “Why do you have my wand? What’s the meaning of this? Wait until my father—”
He needed to want Malfoy to obey, more than he wanted anything else in that moment. His grip on Malfoy's wand tightened. He set his jaw.
“Imperio.”
Harry watched as Malfoy’s silvery blue eyes dimmed with complacency, his lips curled in a goofy smile. He could see the resemblance to the Black family in those eyes, though it was merely a pale reflection.
He said his orders aloud.
“Umbridge took me into her office to question me. You remember everything that happened there this evening. You saw her cast the Cruciatus Curse on me. You did nothing. If anyone asks what happened you will tell them everything you saw in that office tonight. I told Umbridge that Hagrid had left something in the Forbidden Forest. You went with us into the forest. The centaurs found us. You panicked and attempted to use the Imperius Curse on a centaur, but it didn’t work. You will try to hide this information if questioned. Your inability to cast the Imperius shames and angers you. A giant arrived and attacked the centaurs. In the confusion you ran away, leaving me behind. You broke into Hagrid’s hut to hide, where you passed out.”
Harry released the Imperius. Malfoy blinked, then scowled at him. “Potter? What are you doing here? How did you get away from those—”
Harry thought about him and Malfoy in the clearing after the centaurs had left, about Theo’s voice saying stupefy, of Malfoy seeing him with his wand casting imperio, and whispered, “Obliviate.”
They left Malfoy passed out on Hagrid’s table. Harry was under his invisibility cloak. No one would think anything of seeing Theo alone, but they would notice Harry Potter, and they would definitely remember them together.
“I can’t believe it’s still dinner,” Harry muttered as they passed the closed doors of the Great Hall. There was talking, laughter, the clatter of cutlery on plates. It was a normal evening for the rest of Hogwarts. “I can’t believe no one watched Umbridge march me out to the forest. She looked like she was going to execute me.”
“Snape knew,” Theo said. “And he left you in there with her.”
“He was friends with my mum,” Harry said quietly.
“And he treats you like that?”
Harry was surprised to hear that much emotion in Theo’s voice. “I’ve been asking myself that same question since I found out. I think he hated my dad more than he liked my mum. Get under the cloak, we don’t want any portraits to see us.”
Umbridge’s office door was still open. The second floor corridor was deserted. Theo had to hunch to fit, but they both made it into her office unnoticed. Harry cast an imperturbable charm at the door so the portraits wouldn’t hear anything either.
Harry stepped out from under the cloak. “We’ll go in together. You stay under the cloak.”
“You need it more than I do,” Theo said. “You’re the target.”
Harry handed him the pair of glasses in his pocket. “You’re the one living in the home of an active Death Eater, who sleeps in the same room as people who want to follow in their fathers' footsteps.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “Your secret weapon?”
“My secret boyfriend,” Harry said, smiling. “I’ve got something else I can use. I learned it because I can’t cram everyone I care about under an invisibility cloak.”
Harry tapped his head with his wand and disillusioned himself. The spell trickled down his head, and he shuddered. “Tonks used it on me last summer. It’s not perfect,” he said, holding his arm out to demonstrate. Instead of being a perfect image of the meowing cat plates on the wall, the cats were slightly distorted. Counterintuitively, it made the collectible plates more attractive.
“You’ve got the glasses on?” Harry asked, walking to the fireplace. He could feel it now, the adrenaline that had worn off on their way out of the forest kicking back into action. He was on edge. He thought, madly, that maybe Sirius had been captured. Sometime between when he had spoken to him after the History of Magic exam and his venture into the Forbidden Forest.
“What door were you talking about?” Theo asked. Harry could feel the swish of the cloak next to him.
“The door to the Department of Mysteries,” Harry said, grabbing a handful of floo powder. He threw it at the flames, and they roared up in vibrant emerald. “I hope Snape got the message. The Order has been staking out that door all year. That’s where Mr. Weasley was when he got attacked.”
“The Order of the Phoenix?” Theo asked.
“Dumbledore’s Overage Army,” Harry confirmed, not surprised Theo knew the name. He’d probably got it from his father.
“Snape is involved with them,” Theo said. “If he tells them, we have some indication of where his loyalties lie.”
“We might be dead before that information’s worth anything.” He found Theo’s arm, holding it through the cloak. Harry closed his eyes, strengthening his resolve. “No more talking now. They have to think I’m alone.”
Theo didn’t respond. Harry walked them into the flames. “Ministry Atrium.”
Harry let go of Theo as he was spun out of the Ministry fireplace. He kept his balance, wand out, moving quickly away lest anyone had been lying in wait. Voldemort knew he was hundreds of miles away in Scotland, and that there were only so many entrances to the Ministry. Harry knew about the toilets Mr. Weasley had mentioned, though not where they were, and he knew about the floo. Sirius had mentioned a telephone booth as well, but Harry wasn’t sure how that worked.
Harry stood still and looked around, wand at the ready. He couldn’t hear anything or see anything, but that didn’t eliminate the possibility of invisible, silent watchers. He looked to where he thought Theo was, suddenly worried his feet would be showing. Harry should have disillusioned him too. But he couldn’t see anything. He broke his own rule immediately.
He almost said Theo’s name, but stopped himself. “Where are you?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. Something touched his arm and he relaxed.
“It’s deader than a Saturday night in Salt Lake City,” Harry said, walking down the broad corridor, passing more fireplaces. They were all cold.
“Is that another quote from that television programme?” Theo whispered at his side.
“It’s brilliant, we need to watch it together.”
“You’ve only said that seventy-six times. Seventy-seven now.”
“I have not,” Harry whispered fiercely. “You did not count.”
The further they went, the more unsettling the silence became. Harry thought that, even after hours, there would be security, but the security desk was empty. No one would register their wands. There might have been aurors working the night shift, but none were in sight. Whatever Fudge might think about Riddle, Harry knew he was paranoid about Dumbledore. Why would the governing center of magical Britain be unprotected at any time of day? Anyone could stroll in and have their run of the place.
Harry's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Someone must have cleared it out, perhaps in anticipation of Harry's arrival. The only sound was from the fountain, spewing water from the orifices of lesser beings crawling at the feet of the gilded witch and wizard.
They walked through the golden gates to the lifts. Harry paused, knowing using them should alert someone, then pressed the down button. A lift clattered into sight, echoing loudly in the silence of the Atrium. Harry bit back irritation. Muggle lifts weren't nearly as noisy. He got on, felt Theo brush against him, then pressed the button for basement nine.
"Department of Mysteries," a cool voice announced as the lift clamored to a stop. The grille parted, and Harry stepped into the empty, torch lit corridor he had seen in his dreams. He walked to the plain black door and it opened for him, untouched. If anyone was watching or listening, they knew he was here.
"It can't be that easy," he said as he walked through, trusting Theo would follow. He looked at his hand, seeing the disillusionment was still holding up.
Everything in the circular room was black. The walls, the floor and ceiling, the doors with no handles he had to choose from. The only light came from the corridor they had just left, and blue flames that flickered on the walls.
The door slammed shut behind them.
"Shit!"
The walls started spinning.
"I didn't know which door it was, you stupid room," Harry said. The only thing stopping him from a full on panic was the stillness of his occluded mind. "Changing where the doors are doesn't make a difference."
"But it does keep us from knowing which one we came in through," Theo whispered.
"Fuck! I should have marked it!"
"I did," Theo said. "Good thing I always carry chalk."
Harry could have kissed him, so he did, with some difficulty given they were both invisible. The spinning room came to a stop.
"What if you didn't have chalk for your runes?"
"Then I would have used blood."
"Blood on black?"
"It would have been an active rune, Harry."
Harry huffed and walked to the door now facing him. "Should’ve brought a stick, too. I don't want to touch anything."
"I've got my ritual knife."
"Why am I not surprised? Of course you're prepared for a sporadic ritual. Go on, give it a stab, then."
A thin silver knife emerged out of nothing and Theo stabbed the door. It easily swung inward, revealing a room with swinging gold lights from above, a few desks, and a massive vat in the middle with grayish objects floating inside. Harry could make out other doors leading from the room.
"Are those brains?" Harry asked. "I'm not going into the brain-in-a-vat room."
Theo wrote brains on the door in chalk. "We never think of muggle solutions to things," Theo said.
"Yeah, just hire some snipers and we'd have it sorted? I'm sure anti-gun spells were developed when guns became a real threat, what, five hundred years ago? And they'd stop working in any highly magical area."
They backed away and the door swung shut with a click. The room began spinning again.
"I need the room with prophecies in it," Harry said. "Not a tour of the department."
An unmarked door appeared before them, and Theo stabbed it. It opened to what looked like a medical theater, or an amphitheater, with steps leading down to a raised stone dias. On it was an ancient stone archway. A tattered black veil hung down from it, moving in some unseen wind. He felt the cloak brush against him, fluttering as Theo moved closer.
“Do you hear something?” Theo asked.
Harry threw his arm out, blocking him. “Occlude. Now.”
He felt Theo stop moving. “It wants to draw us in. Tempting us.”
“Who could tempt us from behind that?” Harry asked, staring into the archway. He could see right through it, though he knew it must lead those who entered elsewhere.
“The ones we’ve lost,” Theo said softly. “It looks like an old funeral shroud.”
“Death,” Harry whispered. “They study death here.”
Theo wrote death on the door, and they backed away.
The next door didn’t open, even using alohomora.
“I don’t have my book with me,” Theo said, writing locked on it.
“Sirius said there are things down here the Unspeakables might not know about.”
“Perhaps we can discover them.”
Harry took a small step back. “I mistrust how drawn I feel to it.”
The room spun again. It was starting to make Harry sick.
The next door they tried was the one.
“I recognize this place,” Harry said, not entering yet. “In my vision I walked right through. I don’t know if that will be the case in reality.”
“Clocks,” Theo said. “Time.”
There were clocks on every surface, as if it were the workroom of a demented watchmaker. Grandfather clocks, carriage clocks, alarm clocks, pocket watches, sundials, and an immense crystal bell jar dominating the room which cast a bright light. Desks lined the room, leaving only a narrow space between, covered in clocks. All ticking.
“I’ve traveled through time,” Harry said. “Serpensortia.”
A small garter snake appeared, angry at being summoned. “Go into this room and I will give you a mouse.”
The snake hissed in annoyance, but slithered in.
“I forgot you could do that,” Theo said, watching the snake. “Wait.” His hand stuck out of the cloak to grab Harry’s arm. “You traveled through time?”
“All of third year. Me and Hermione had a Time-Turner to make it to our classes. We went back in time to save Sirius. I’ve never mentioned that?”
“No,” Theo said flatly. “You have not.”
Noting that the snake was fine, Harry conjured a mouse for it to chase down and they walked into the room.
“Everything in here draws the eye,” Theo said as they carefully made their way through. “Every room we have seen so far has its own enticement. Even the brains, if only out of morbid curiosity.”
They paused to look at a small egg hatch a hummingbird, which flew to the top of the jar only to fade and return to an egg.
“What the hell is that? A weird mutation of a phoenix?”
“Or something that was made,” Theo said.
Harry led them to the door he knew was there. “This should be it.” He felt for the ring hidden under his shirt. “You have the coin? It might not even work down here.”
“I do.”
“Keep your distance. If I’m attacked I don’t want you caught with me.”
“Agreed. What is behind this door?”
“A room with shelves. Hundreds, perhaps, maybe more. The vision took me to the ninety-seventh row. The shelves hold what look like glass orbs. Thousands? Millions? I’m not sure.”
“Should we aim to kill?”
“In the heart of the Ministry?” Harry asked, wiping his palms off. “Only if you get someone else’s wand.”
Harry was suddenly grabbed and turned around. Theo pressed lips to his forehead.
“What was that for?”
“Luck.”
“Do you think they study that down here too?”
Theo kissed him again, and released him.
Harry took a deep breath. “Open it, not all the way if you can help it. Let’s not speak anymore.”
The door annoyingly swung all the way open, revealing shelf after shelf of glimmering glass orbs.
Harry conjured several snakes, large constrictors, hunters angry at being brought to this place. “There is prey here,” Harry hissed to them, “magical humans. Remember our scents, do not attack us.”
The snakes weren’t convinced, but after more hissed promises and threats they moved away, if only out of boredom. Harry couldn’t conjure hundreds of snakes to search every aisle, but hopefully they would give some warning.
The shelf before him read 53 in the blue candle light. To the right he saw 54. He looked at his hands again, and started walking, holding his wand out. He noticed the orbs had yellowed labels beneath them. He read one, seeing names. Some of the orbs glowed, some were dim. Two states. Fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecies, perhaps, if prophecies they were.
Harry reached 97 and passed it, going down 98 instead, walking slowly and deliberately. Some of the orbs were of bright, clean glass. Others were dusty with age. All of the tags had names or initials. The Seer, Harry thought, and who the prophecy was made to, and the subject of that prophecy. It could be another name, or an event, or something else he couldn’t interpret.
If Bode could never retrieve it…
Harry reached the end of aisle 98 and paused, listening. He moved slowly to aisle 97, eyes scanning the shelves, and he finally saw it, on the top shelf. It was an orb smaller than the others.
S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D.
Dark Lord
and (?) Harry Potter
It might not even have been about me, Harry thought distantly, or him. He took the small orb and the slip of paper, dated almost sixteen years ago. Harry stared into its swirling liquid. It was warm to the touch, despite the chill in the air.
There was only one way to get it out.
He quietly cast a silencing charm around himself and crushed the glass sphere in his hand.
A small, ghostly apparition of Professor Trelawney rose from the shards of glass cutting into his palm.
He listened to her words.
He cast reparo on the shards, reforming the glass ball if not the prophecy, used aguamenti to refill it, and went to place it back on the shelf.
“Very good, Potter,” someone drawled from behind him, just as he'd set it back. Harry closed his eyes. “Now turn around, nice and slowly, and give that to me.”
Harry was still disillusioned. Someone stripped it away. He was surrounded and outnumbered by figures shrouded in black. Death Eaters. He wondered if Theo’s father was there. He avoided looking at the wands pointed at him, focusing on the only one showing his face.
Lucius Malfoy.
“I left your son bleeding in the forest after a centaur attack,” Harry said flatly. “He and Umbridge dragged me out there for some stupid reason, that’s why it took me so long to get here.” He smiled up at the adult Malfoy. “Hurt me and they’ll never find his body.”
Malfoy’s jaw tensed. “To me, Potter.” He held out his hand.
“He was crying,” Harry said, smiling wider. “Have you heard the sound an arrow makes when it strikes flesh? They’ll have to amputate the leg."
“To me!”
“I’ll give you this, and the last location I saw your son, if you let me through.”
“Give me the prophecy, Potter! This is not a negotiation!”
“Then your son will die, and you’ll fail your lord. Do you know he's a halfblood?”
“Lies!” someone shrieked. “The boy lies!”
“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry said louder. “With a muggle father!”
“Do it, Lucius!” It was a woman’s voice, somewhere to his left. Harry knew of only one woman who had broken out of Azkaban. Bellatrix Lestrange.
“You’d let your nephew die?” he asked loudly, looking at where her voice came from.
“I would do anything for the Dark Lord! I would kill the boy myself!”
Harry turned back to Malfoy. “Would you, Mr. Malfoy?”
“Yes,” the man bit out, though to Harry he looked like he was shaking with anger, or fear. “Now give me the prophecy or we’ll start using wands.”
“He was crying for you,” Harry said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Begging for his father. The centaurs carried Umbridge off, you know.”
Harry wasn’t going to die here. None of them made to actually use their wands.
“Hand it over and you won’t get hurt,” Malfoy said.
Harry took a step back.
“Accio Proph—” Bellatrix began.
“Protego!” he cast, tightening his grip on the orb. “Try that again and I’ll break it before you can finish the spell, Mrs. Lestrange.”
“Oh, he knows how to play,” Bellatrix said in sing-song, crazed eyes watching him avidly through her mask. “Little bitty baby Potter.”
“You married down, just like your sister Narcissa,” Harry said to her.
“I told you no!” Malfoy snapped at her. “If you smash it—” he cut himself off, glaring at Harry.
“Back to my original offer, then? Give me passage out of here, and you get this orb thing and the whereabouts of Draco Malfoy.”
Bellatrix stepped forward, pulling off her hood to reveal a gaunt, fanatical face.
“You need more persuasion?” She said, licking her lips. “A little torture…”
“I’d break it by accident if you did that,” Harry said. “I doubt Tom would be pleased.”
“Do not call him that!”
“Voldemort, then?”
The Death Eaters muttered and hissed. Harry rolled his eyes.
“You dare speak his name?” Bellatrix whispered, leaning in.
“I dare a lot,” Harry said. “He made up the name himself, why wouldn’t I use it? I mean, it is a stupid anagram of his muggle name…”
“Shut your mouth!” she shrieked. “You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your halfblood’s tongue, you dare—”
“He’s a halfblood too! Did Azkaban make you daft as well as mad?”
“Stupef—”
Malfoy blocked her spell, and both hit the shelves. Harry’s eyes widened. He wasn’t talking his way out of this.
"Do not attack! We need the—"
"Stupefy!"
Harry dropped to the ground, wand still up. Theo had followed right behind him, his voice had come from one aisle over. Harry pointed his wand in the other direction, right at the shelf. "Bombarda!"
He covered his head as glass exploded around him. He aimed at the opposite shelves, using reducto to blast a hole to crawl through. Someone grabbed him and pulled him up. Theo had taken off the cloak, though he didn't look like himself.
They ran, sprinting up aisle 98 and swinging right at the end. Shelves were still falling, destroying innumerable priceless prophecies. Shouts and spells in a dizzying kaleidoscope of color broke against the shelves, the walls, crashing and colliding.
They only had to get away.
The door to the time room was still wide open and Theo shoved Harry in first. "Colloportus!"
"They're still coming," Harry panted, hearing running footsteps and shouts. "Lucky we're younger and faster."
Theo hushed him, glaring at the door.
“Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott’s injuries as much as losing that prophecy.”
Theo looked at him with unreadable eyes. Harry smiled unapologetically.
“Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We’ll split into pairs and search, and don’t forget, be gentle with Potter until we’ve got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary. We don’t know how many he brought, they may all be disillusioned! Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left, Crabbe, Rabastan, go right. Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead. Macnair and Avery, through here. Rookwood, over there. Mulciber, come with me!”
Theo whipped out the cloak again and covered them both, dragging them under a desk. The Death Eaters tried to kick the door in, then just used alohomora. The door flew open, and Macnair and Avery walked in.
“They might’ve run straight through to the hall,” said a rough voice.
“Check under the desks,” said the other.
At Theo’s whisper the door slammed shut again. The two Death Eaters spun around to look.
“They ran out behind us!”
Harry waited until they got closer. “Stupefy. ”
Theo did the same, and the two men dropped. “Accio wands. Incarcerous.”
Harry handed Theo one of the wands, holstering his own holly wand. “Force it to work if you have to. You stay under the cloak. Destroy or abandon the wand after.”
Harry took a moment to disillusion himself again. Even if they knew that trick, it would buy him time. They crawled out and left the two Death Eaters tied up, moving quickly to the other end of the room, where the door stood open. Just as they got into the circular room, two more Death Eaters burst out of another door.
“Oculus ferventis.” Harry hissed at one. “Exintero.” One man’s eyes burst, and he started to scream, clawing at his face. The other’s intestines exploded out. It was hard to think through the pounding in his head. It was so much worse than the training dummies. Harry watched them writhing and leaking on the ground. "Stupefy. "
He heard Theo locking the doors. The walls started spinning.
"They have to know we would go for the exit," Theo said.
"As far as I know, the door we entered through is the only point of entry. I doubt they can get in here while the room is spinning. We'll have to move fast." He turned to Theo, reaching out for his cloaked shoulder. "Try your portkey."
After a moment, Theo said, held out the coin for Harry to touch. "Thestrals."
Nothing happened.
"They must block apparition too, otherwise it would be too easy to get in," Harry said. "Leave the wands." He tossed the one he used at the two Death Eaters, and Theo dropped the other. Harry got his holly wand out.
The walls stopped spinning and another door burst open. Harry dragged Theo to the ground, raising his wand.
"Sirius!" Harry hissed.
"Harry?"
He removed the disillusionment.
"Don't shut the door! We need to leave now!"
"What's going on?" someone asked. Tonks. Harry could see her spiky pink hair. He also spotted Lupin, Moody, and Kingsley.
People were trying to push in from behind Sirius, who was backing up. Harry hauled Theo up and ran forward. "Move! We're being chased!"
Thankfully, the adults retreated to the hallway and let Harry through.
"Is someone with you?" Sirius asked.
"Yes! The place is crawling with Death Eaters looking for us.”
Moody, insanely, tried to grab him. Harry whipped away. His head was killing him, scar ablaze.
“I don’t have time for your fucking questions! Move!”
Harry ran for the lifts, not caring what the others did, except for Tonks and Sirius. Sirius, thankfully, chased after him, as did Tonks, though she seemed confused. The cloak was fluttering behind Theo. He still didn’t look like himself, still had the glamored glasses on.
“Did you get the prophecy?” Sirius asked.
“The room with the prophecies in it was destroyed,” Harry said, pushing Theo into a lift. The others followed, cramming in. Someone hit the button for the Atrium just as a person ran out of the circular room. They spotted them and started casting vicious spells in sickly hues.
“Protego! ”
“Avis!”
Harry clutched his forehead, eyes watering from the pain.
They were sitting ducks for the Killing Curse. The lift rattled to lift and carried them up.
Harry pressed close to Theo. He tugged the cloak back over him.
“Who the hell is this?” One-Eye Moody demanded.
“My boyfriend,” Harry said.
“I thought that Skeeter article said you had a muggle girlfriend, Haz?” Tonks asked.
“Cover story,” Harry explained.
“What’s his name?” Kingsley asked.
“Rhys,” Theo said.
“Can the lifts be shut down?” Harry asked. “They could just take another one.”
"Not without authorization,” Lupin said softly.
"Then stop them some other way, block them off!"
The lift stopped at the Atrium and they tumbled out.
"You two run ahead," Sirius said. "We'll—"
Sirius stopped dead, eyes fixed on something.
"Going somewhere, Potter?"
Harry spun around, raising his wand.
Voldemort stood in the middle of the Atrium, wand pointed at Harry. "I believe you have something I want."
"Master!"
Bellatrix pranced out of a lift that had just arrived, twirling her wand and grinning at them madly. She faced them, backing up to join her lord.
"The prophecy, Potter."
Harry didn't look at his eyes. He didn't say a word. He pulled the glass orb out of his pocket. It looked nothing like a real prophecy orb, just a glass ball filled with water.
"Accio!"
It flew out of his hands.
"This is a fake," Voldemort hissed. "Where is the real one?"
"I used bombarda on the shelves to get away," Harry said. His scar burned, and burned, he could feel his rage growing.
"Destroyed? I can see the truth in your worthless mind…"
“Master, I am sorry, I tried, I tried! Don't punish me!"
Bellatrix threw herself at his feet, sobbing as she crawled toward him. Voldemort still had his wand aimed at Harry's heart.
“Be quiet, Bella,” Voldemort said. "I have nothing more to say to you, Potter."
"Well I have something to say to you!" Harry said, looking up at him. "You're an absolute fucking idiot for believing in—"
"Avada Kedavra!"
Sirius threw himself over Harry, knocking them both to the ground while Harry shoved the cloaked Theo away.
"Stay down!"
Tonks and Lupin were casting at Bellatrix, who was dancing around and laughing as she fought. Kingsley and Moody finally remembered they were aurors and engaged Voldemort, who batted their spells away dismissively.
Theo was tugging Harry under the cloak.
"Find a safe spot," Sirius was saying. "I need to help them." A stray spell came their way and Sirius blocked it. "This is bad, kid."
Sirius ran to join Lupin, who was standing over a bleeding Tonks and being beaten back. Moody was down on one knee, and Kingsley was struggling with something Harry couldn't see.
"He'll know where we are if you start casting spells," Theo said.
"I know," Harry said, watching Sirius who was now engaged one-on-one with Bellatrix.
"Enough!" Voldemort shouted. "Avada—"
There was a blinding burst of light, the cry of a phoenix, and Dumbledore appeared.
"He always shows up at the last minute," Harry said through gritted teeth. The fighting had come to a stop. Bellatrix was giggling and backing up slowly while Sirius watched her. Harry pointed his wand at her, tracking her movements.
“It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom,” Dumbledore said calmly. "The aurors are on their way…"
"Let's move while they're distracted," Theo said, tugging Harry's arm. They crept away from where Dumbledore and Voldemort faced off, to the safer option of Bellatrix.
“By which time I shall be gone, and you dead!”
The fountain statues sprang to life, one racing towards Bellatrix, the other blocking a Killing Curse. Bellatrix screamed, casting wildly at the golden witch even as the statue bore her down.
Voldemort and Dumbledore cast more spells. It was madness. Gouts of flame, rivers of water, ringing shields of silver. Harry watched in horrified fascination, not comprehending what was going on. He had no chance against either wizard, with decades of experience, knowledge of magic he hadn’t even heard of. He was only fifteen.
At some point the disabled aurors had been pushed away, Sirius and a wounded Tonks grimly working on whatever they had been cursed with. Objects flew across the Atrium in a dizzying whirlwind, blocking any spells Voldemort tried to aim at them. Harry and Theo had their wands out, useless in the face of the insanity before them. They couldn’t even escape.
“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?”
“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom.”
“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!”
“You are quite wrong.”
Voldemort vanished, replaced by a serpent of fire. He reappeared, casting another jet of green. Fawkes swooped in and swallowed it, bursting into flames as he died.
“I’m not the only known survivor of the Killing Curse,” Harry said, looking at the wrinkled chick struggling out of his own ashes.
Dumbledore cocooned Voldemort in water, a rippling, dark whirlpool.
“Master!”
“Stay where you are, Harry!”
Harry’s scar exploded. Harry shut his eyes, thinking about emptiness, nothingness, even as Voldemort tried to force his body to move, tried to force words through his lips.
Harry screamed in pain, anger, terror, as he crawled away, desperately clawing the floor. “Get out! Get out of me!”
“Harry!” Sirius’ voice called out.
Someone was shaking him, or they were shaking. He felt something wet on his forehead, tracing his scar, trickling down his face. “Harry,” a familiar voice said. “Please…”
And then he was gone.
Harry gasped, shivering, sprawled out on the Atrium floor. He was being propped up, his glasses pushed on his face, his wand into his hand.
“Are you all right, Harry?”
Harry opened his eyes and saw Dumbledore inches away.
“Of course he isn’t!” Sirius snapped, pulling Harry closer. Harry reached out his hand, searching for Theo. The Atrium had grown louder. Harry looked around, seeing it was filled with people now. The statues Dumbledore had animated were dragging Fudge forward.
“He was there!”
Dumbledore was reaching out for Harry but Sirius slapped him away. He felt Theo pressing close against him through the cool fabric of the invisibility cloak, taking his hand.
“I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and disapparated!”
Sirius wiped Harry’s forehead of whatever had been there, curled protectively around him. They watched as Fudge finally admitted Voldemort was back, then tried to arrest Dumbledore. Tonks, Lupin, Kingsley, and Moody were all up again, moving to join the headmaster.
“Dawlish! Williamson! Go down to the Department of Mysteries and see…”
“You need more than that!”
“...we can discuss that after I have sent Harry back to Hogwarts.”
“You haven’t got authorization for a portkey!”
“Do you want to go back?” Sirius whispered to him.
“You know at least one of us has to,” Harry said pointedly. He needed to get Theo out of here, and a portkey would be the fastest way.
Sirius’s hold tightened briefly. “I know we talked about this,” he said slowly. “But please don’t do this to me again. I thought…” He took a breath. “I thought I might be coming here to recover your body.”
Harry didn’t know what to say to that. Dumbledore approached them with the golden wizard’s head.
“Take this portkey, Harry.”
Harry took it quickly and set it on his lap. Sirius squeezed him again and backed away.
“I shall see you in half an hour,” said Dumbledore quietly. “One…two…three…”
Harry saw a flash of movement just as the hook sank in, jerking him out of the Atrium, stealing him away in a blinding blur of color and sound. He landed still seated, in the headmaster’s office.
“Ah, Harry Potter,” a silky voice said. It was Phineas Nigellus, stretching and yawning.
Harry jumped up and walked to the door, the golden head tumbling to the ground.
“And what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?”
“I was just leaving.” He reached for the doorknob. It was stuck. Or he was locked in.
“If this door doesn’t open in ten seconds, I will burn this office to the ground.”
The door stayed shut.
Harry still held his wand. "Alohomora!"
Nothing.
He miscalculated. He should have snuck Theo back in another way.
Theo put a hand on his shoulder.
The portraits were talking about Dumbledore, hoping he’d come back, how highly he thought of Harry. Harry laughed at that. It was a miracle no one had died. Rather, it seemed like it was because there were orders not to kill him, while he had been of some prophecy-retrieving use.
The empty fireplace burst into green flames and Dumbledore stepped out. He deposited baby Fawkes in a dish of fine ash. Harry watched him warily. Dumbledore was dangerous.
“Well, Harry,” he said, turning away from Fawkes, "you'll be pleased to hear there were no lasting injuries. Sirius is in perfectly good health, and Nymphadora Tonks is recovering at St. Mungo's. They're having some trouble stopping the bleeding. Alastor, Kingsley, and Remus are recovering there as well. Alastor tells me there was another young man there tonight…"
Dumbledore smiled, looking unerringly at where Theo was standing. Theo pulled off the cloak, holding it in his arms.
"And what's your name, young man?"
Harry stared at him. "You already know, don't you?"
Dumbledore looked at him, amused. "There's very little that happens in Hogwarts which I am unaware of."
"The bloody house-elves," Harry said, glasses pushed up as he rubbed his eyes. "We should have thought about that."
"Language, Mr. Potter."
Theo said nothing, taking off the glasses and handing them to Harry.
"Mr. Nott, what a surprise," Dumbledore said, eyes sparkling. Harry looked at the ceiling and sighed. Theo moved closer to him. "How are you this lovely morning?"
"I'm fine, headmaster."
Harry looked out the window. It was still dark.
"Can Theo go back to his dormitory?" Harry asked. "It's been a long night."
Dumbledore sighed genially. "That would be for the best. I have some things to discuss with you, Harry."
Theo stared at Harry for a long moment, then nodded. The door easily opened for him, which Harry noted with irritation. He wanted to go to sleep too.
"Please have a seat, Harry."
Harry sat in his bed in his dormitory, wrapped in silencing charms, laughing to himself.
Dumbledore had confirmed everything Harry had suspected. He had shown Harry his own memory of the prophecy. Snape had alerted the Order after he had been taken into the Forbidden Forest, though why they hadn't already been at the Ministry, Harry didn't know, nor why they were so few in number when they did finally show up.
He wondered if he had killed anyone. If he had killed Theo's father.
He wasn't chosen as prefect because Dumbledore thought he had too much going on.
He would be protected at Petunia's home if he returned there once a year for an unspecified period of time.
Either he or Voldemort had to die. One of them had to kill the other.
Harry had a power he knew not. Dumbledore claimed it was the capacity to love.
An eavesdropper had taken the words of the first half of the prophecy to Voldemort. Dumbledore wouldn't tell him who.
The prophecy could have been about Neville. That explained the question mark.
Harry laughed again, mirthlessly. He knew it, he had known for months, that he was trapped in a prophecy, a prophecy that made Voldemort want to kill him.
The specifics didn't matter. It was always going to be him or Voldemort.
It had been a perfectly adequate weekend.
Dumbledore hadn't asked Harry any questions about Theo, which made Harry worried but there wasn't anything he could do about that. Harry had used an Unforgivable Curse. Sirius was safely at home. Harry had boiled a man's eyes out of his skull and disembowled another. His friends were enjoying the end of O.W.L.s. They hadn't noticed Umbridge torturing him and forcing him at wand point into the woods. Umbridge had been personally recovered from the centaurs by Dumbledore and was in the hospital wing. Ron made funny little clip-clop noises and laughed. Voldemort would stop at nothing to kill him and everyone he loved. The weather was nice.
Then the Sunday Prophet came out.
"Harry! Harry, did you see this?"
"What is it, Hermione? I'm eating."
"Listen. 'Details of the events that led to the Ministry turn-around are still hazy, though it is believed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and a select band of followers (known as Death Eaters) gained entry to the Ministry of Magic itself on Thursday evening.'"
Harry made a non-committal noise, drinking his tea. "He must have tried getting whatever it was the Order was protecting."
Hermione looked around, alarmed.
"No one's listening."
Some people were already talking about it, passing papers around, shooting looks at him, though most students seemed unaware, looking forward to a sunny weekend day.
"They've dragged you into it too," she said, flipping through the paper. "They reprinted the interview, under Skeeter's name."
Harry finished his tea, not bothering with the dregs. "I'm going for a walk, this is…a lot."
Hermione nodded absently and kept reading. "The dementors revolted!"
Harry walked out of the Great Hall, no destination in mind. He was sure that, by now, the rest of the Order knew he had gone to the Department of Mysteries. That he'd been with another boy. He couldn't trust Dumbledore would hide that it had been Theo. Or that Hermione and Ron, and Ginny, Fred, and George would be kept in the dark. At least on his end Theo would be safe. None of the Death Eaters saw him, and he didn't think Voldemort or Bellatrix had been looking for stray teenagers under invisibility cloaks. And if they did, they didn't see his real face.
He was worrying about what was going to happen with Theo that summer when he came across Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.
"You're dead, Potter."
Harry snorted. "You should be more worried about what Voldemort's going to do to your father for failing him."
"You're going to pay. I'm going to make you pay…"
"Go on, then," Harry said. "If you can even draw your wand."
Malfoy fumbled in his robes while Harry watched.
"Potter!"
Harry turned to look at Snape approaching. "What?"
"What are you doing?"
"Minding my own business."
Snape stared at him.
Harry stared back.
"Let me guess, you're going to say that I'm just like my father? I think we both know—"
"Ten points from Gryff—"
"How fucking petty can you—"
Just then, McGonagall returned, walking with a cane, but otherwise looking fine.
"Good morning, gentlemen. What's going on here?"
"I was just questioning Professor Snape about vicariously drugging me with Veritaserum and condoning the use of the Cruciatus Curse on me."
"I beg your pardon?"
Harry spent the last day of school helping Luna find all her lost things.
On the train, Malfoy attempted to ambush. Harry disarmed him and his two hangers-on and left them sleeping in a compartment.
Ginny talked about her love life and Ron kept shooting Harry glances.
One-Eye, Lupin, and Tonks waited for him on the platform. They wanted to have a chat with Petunia and Vernon, which turned out to be threats. Luckily his aunt and uncle kept their mouths shut about Sirius, who was curiously absent.
To his surprise, Vernon silently drove them around London for a while, then dropped Harry off at the Leaky Cauldron. He watched them drive away, confused.
"Harry."
Harry turned around and saw Theo, a black dog smiling at his side.
"Father is in Azkaban," Theo said, dark eyes bright and unclouded. "May I stay over this summer?"