Switched

(Mon 23 Sept)

It was like being dropped into the middle of a dream. Maybe a nightmare. Not like one of the 'nightmares' that plagued him on Dark Nights, though the sense of desperate urgency was the same. Dark Nights felt like being awake, almost, but buried alive, unable to move or speak, unable to entirely comprehend exactly what was happening, but with the awareness that it was real, the problem wasn't that it was only a dream, unrelated elements hazily connected by Harry's sleep-addled mind. The problem was that there was something between them, something making it impossible for Harry to understand her clearly, or even really hear her, holding him back from helping her, going to her, and keeping her away from him, no matter how she threw herself at the invisible barrier between them.

This, though...

This did feel like a dream — just conscious enough to be aware of the unreality of the forest he was fighting through. The sleet — cold, plastering his hair to his head, trickling down his spine — and mud squishing beneath his feet, briars and rose-thorns digging into his skin as he pushed blindly through the underbrush — those were all real enough.

Frigid wind cutting through his coat, chilling him to the bone.

Hot lines where unexpected branches had lashed his face with twigs.

His breathing loud in his ears and cold air burning his throat.

Heart pounding, every muscle tense, pushing him onward.

But looking around himself, the lack of detail, just knowing what was there rather than truly seeing it — he couldn't say what the details were that were missing, they were things he didn't consciously pay attention to, but he could tell they were missing — that gave it away. This wasn't real, it was bits and pieces of different memories, and the missing pieces were unimportant things he never remembered. Time was strange because the important things he did remember the details of were all smeared together to form an impression of a dreamscape, and time was one of the things he did notice.

If he looked at any of it too closely, poked at it too much, it would all fall apart.

He relaxed into it, the idea that he was fighting his way through a dark forest in the middle of a winter storm, letting the story his unconscious mind was telling carry him onward, struggling through the thick brush — which had something in common with the privet hedges of Little Whinging as well as the wild undergrowth of the Forbidden Forest — and slick terrain.

The scene was short, shifting quickly but without a proper transition — perhaps how an animated wizard in a portrait might feel stepping from frame to another — to a clearing, a tower keep like a giant chess rook looming over yet more trees, illuminated by a flash of lightning — Harry couldn't place the image at the moment, but he thought it was static, a picture in a book, the lightning out of place both because it should be caught in mid-strike, and also because winter storms didn't tend to have lightning.

That didn't stop a roll of thunder following it, though, or another flash, closer, simultaneously showing him the clearing and blinding him, allowing him an instant to perceive that he was no longer alone in this dream — the dying girl was here too, much more alive than Coco's version of her. In the next flash she was right in front of him, close enough he should be able to see her without the lightning but, of course, this was a dream, so it wasn't too surprising that it was inconsistent like that.

And then...then there was another flash, but not of lightning. Knowledge, bursting across his mind, brilliant and electric and entirely foreign — a memory.

Someone else's memory.

Harry wasn't sure exactly whose memory it was. There was an old man there, and a young girl. She looked enough like Harry, he had to assume this was Bellatrix, and probably closer to seven years old than five. They were standing in the middle of an altar of black stone, the Bellatrix directly in the centre with the man to her north, looking down on her with a forbidding glare. She didn't seem intimidated, though her eyes kept darting to the trio of crows circling the pair of them, magic growing thick in the air around them.

"Very well," the man said. "Then the Magic and I are of an accord. I hereby designate you as my chosen successor."

The crows circled closer to each other, until they met in a cloud of feathers and transformed into the dying girl, not yet dying (and perhaps not actually a girl? Harry wasn't sure anymore, and he wasn't sure how or why he wasn't sure), but happy, almost ecstatic, meeting this child individually and personally. They were, of course, already bound to each other, they knew each other, but they'd never spoken directly like this.

"Magic?" the old man said.

The crow-child didn't like him. They had, when he was younger, before he had fallen into madness and despair, back when he was rage and destruction incarnate. His vengeance against the foul human who murdered his children, who stole his love from him, had been a thing of beauty. Violent, deadly beauty. And before that, when he was younger yet, he had been clever and cruel, he'd had fire. Passion. Ambitions.

But that was long ago, and now he cared nothing for the crow-child or their Family. He did his duty by them, but that was all it was. Duty. Going through the motions. His beautiful vengeance had burned him out, leaving a hollow shell of a wizard at the head of their House — and worse yet, one still not weak enough to be usurped by any of his cousins. Or perhaps the problem was the cousins, weaker even than this burned-out man. The human children of the House had grown small and mean and petty over the centuries, as they sought to win a place among the humans on their own terms, their fire stifled rather than encouraged, each generation breaking the most promising children of the next, making them less than, by design.

This one, though...

They made a mistake with this one.

They made a mistake even earlier, bringing the thrice-blessed, still-sleeping fae-child into the House, duty and her freely given word binding her to them despite her fear and disgust, the nature of her being compelling her to give them the children she'd promised them — the children she had promised not to her husband or the shell of a wizard who led them, but to the House. She had fought them over the second child, her idea of perfection warring with theirs, but the first had been theirs to do with as they would.

And what they wanted, what they had conspired with the dreaming fae-child to create, was this one.

The small, mean humans, cruel but artless, had attempted to break her as they would any other unruly child. But the girl would not break.

When she could no longer resist, she turned to Magic in a way no one had done for a hundred years and more, giving herself over to it completely as only a desperate child could, reaching out to it and allowing it to transform her into something other than a desperate (half-)human child. Something with the potential to remake the House as the crow-spirit — the soul of the Family, Harry suddenly realised — remembered it, as they knew it ought to be. Something strong and powerful and fearless, like no human born to the House had been for far too long.

"Go, Arcturus. We would speak with her directly."

The old man hesitated, but after a moment, he obeyed with a small bow, his questions unspoken.

The crow-spirit turned to the younger girl, and the scene changed with another blinding flash of not-light.

Bellatrix was sitting on a bench-like sofa with a boy who looked uncannily like she had in the previous memory sleeping on her lap, a wand held loosely in her right hand, her left laid protectively on his head. She looked like she was maybe fourteen or fifteen (which probably meant she was sixteen or seventeen). There was another woman in the room too, who was clearly related to both of them. The Magic — the memories were those of the crow-spirit, Harry was almost sure — recognised her as the boy's mother. They were not, however, inclined to allow her to take him.

They had just come so close to losing him, they needed to stay with him. They needed Bella to stay with him. They would be with him anywhere, they were in his blood and his soul as they were in hers and his mother's, but they could not have saved him as she had, would not have known what was wrong, how to fix it — how to save his soul. They were watching his father now. They would be watching him now even if Arcturus had not asked them to, but they still wanted to stay near the child they had so nearly lost, physically. In a physical body. With hands to hold him.

"Piss off, Wally."

"He's my son, Bellatrix! At least let me see he's alright..."

The Magic bristled as the younger witch did, more of its power surging through her, starry blackness overtaking her eyes, though Harry was still fairly certain Bellatrix was the one in control, the one who said, "No. He's mine, and he's sleeping."

"Bella...please. Be– Be reasonable."

"Reasonable? You want me to be reasonable? I just put my bloody soul on the line for this boy, Walburga. The Family Magic is still riding me because we're not ready to let him out of our sight. Reasonable is you turning right back around and going back to Grimmauld and telling Orion that he's lucky he got the fuck out of here before I was done with Sirius, because if he hadn't I very well might have burned his soul completely out. Reasonable is leaving us alone until we're damn well ready to let him go. Reasonable is accepting the fact that Sirius is no longer your son without a fight."

She took two anxious, near panicked steps forward, only stopping when the tip of Bella's wand began to glow an ominous orange. "What the hell do you mean, he's no longer my son? What have you done to him?"

"I've saved his life and his soul. He's still a wizard. Beyond that, there's really no telling how much scarring there will be, or what the consequences of that scarring might be. And what I mean is, Archie begged me to save him. To salvage his heir, if there is any hope of doing so. I can't take custody of him at the moment, given that I'm still in school, but Arcturus has granted me veto power over every aspect of Siri's raising. As far as the House is concerned, he's my son now, you're just fostering him."

"What— I— You—!"

She wasn't leaving. If she didn't leave, if she tried to take him... The Magic gathered more energy, preparing to take control of Bella's body, if necessary.

It won't be necessary, she thought at it, very sharply. Why would it possibly be necessary?

You betrayed us, the Magic said back, silently. We do not trust you as we once did.

I betrayed you? The fuck I did... I won't let her take him, and what would you even do? You don't use magic like humans...

"Go. Away. Walburga," Bellatrix repeated, cold fury in every syllable — more directed at the accusation of betrayal from the Magic in her head than at Walburga. She had been annoyed with the older witch already, but now she wanted her to leave so she could direct her full attention to discussing that accusation. "I've directly channelled the Dark Itself twice in the past eight hours. As I'm sure you can imagine, my self-control is damn near shot, and I'm currently under partial active possession by a facet of the Family Magic which only grows more jealous and clingy the more you threaten to remove Sirius from our immediate presence. If you're not out that door in three seconds, I will force you out. And we both know you don't want me to do that."

Walburga was apparently very aware that Bellatrix was not screwing around. She stepped backward out of the room with a somewhat fearful look at the pair on the sofa. "Just... Just tell me, please— When can I come back? When can I see him?"

"Not before sunrise." The door slammed shut between them with a pulse of magic...from the crow-spirit? cutting off her response.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Little Crow?" Bella immediately asked the voice in her head aloud. "I didn't betray you!"

"You did." The magic forced itself to be seen and heard outside of her, drawing on her life and soul to let her see their hurt, furious glare. "You broke your promises!"

Bellatrix glared right back. "I did not."

"You swore to put the Family before all others! You promised that you would hold no external loyalties! And then you gave yourself to him!" They pointed accusingly at the intricate skull and serpent tattoo on her left forearm, at the brand anchored in her very soul. "The Heir to the House cannot swear fealty to an outsider!"

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "That's what this is about? I'm not the Heir anymore. Siri is." She pointed at the boy still unconscious on her lap. "You know that."

Little Crow pouted at her. "We didn't see Sirius making the sacrifice earlier this evening."

"Well, no, he's seven. Can you imagine how undignified he would look, trying to kill an adult human? In case you've forgotten, Cygnus performed the ritual nearly the entire time I was officially the Heir."

"You are still officially the Heir," the Magic insisted.

"No, I'm not. Arcturus released me from my vows as the Heir and designated Sirius four years ago."

"We never agreed to that! You are ours. We did not agree to give you up! The hollow old man cannot make us invest ourselves in the boy."

"Little Crow. We both know having a black mage at the head of this Family is a terrible idea. Sirius will be a better leader for the House than I ever would have been, and every indication suggests that he will be perfectly capable of supporting you when he comes into his power."

The Magic shook its head stubbornly. "But he's not now. We would hurt him like the Dark did tonight if we invested ourselves in him now. And he's not you! We wanted you! When the old man dies, we will come to you no matter what he wants!"

Bellatrix sighed. "Come here." She patted the sofa beside herself, on the other side from Sirius's curled up legs. The Magic did, stalking over and perching on the edge of the seat, still glaring at her. "I know you wanted me. I know you did something to Dru to get me, that I'm special to you. But I swore my vows to my Lady before I ever spoke to you directly. I was never fit to be your Heir."

"Yes, you were! You are! We will forgive you for him if you forsake him."

"I'm not going to forsake my Lord, Little Crow — he has been more family to me than any of the human Blacks. I will help you as best I can. I will do all I can to shape this one into a good replacement. If Arcturus dies before Sirius is strong enough to support you, I won't turn you away. But I'm not going to forsake my Lord and his Cause to come home and lead the House instead. If you choose to invest yourself in an unsuitable potential like me, rather than in the place-magics and the blood of the House while you wait for a true Heir to mature, that's your choice, not mine."

The Magic knew she was right, Harry could tell. They didn't want to admit it, though. "If you keep on as you have been, there will be no blood of the House left."

Bella grinned. "The Dark approves of my actions. It's not going to let the House die on us. And grumble all you like, but I know you do not like the direction the Family has grown these past generations. The only way to fix that is to prune it back and redirect future growth."

"I don't like pruning either," the crow-spirit pouted. "It hurts." They leaned into her, though, forcing her to raise her right arm and drape it over their shoulders, snuggling in closer as though they could physically hold her here, with them.

The teenaged Dark Lady looked down at them, bemused, but holstered her wand so she could lay a hand on their head, as though they were another younger cousin for whom she was responsible. "I know. But it's necessary."

Another flash, not of memory this time, but of pain.

Something was different, this time. Less stable. Dream-like.

They were alone, and hurt. Wounded to the core.

Someone had attacked their heir, attacked his mind so subtly and insidiously they hadn't seen it coming, made him betray the Dark, and the Dark tear itself away from them.

It had tried to help him, tried to stop it, but the magic he called in his madness was too strong.

The storm tore into them, breaking them, burning out and destroying the pact which had over the past five centuries become so integral to them, to their place in the world, leaving them...untethered.

Weak and vulnerable.

Fearful, in a way they had not been for five-hundred years, since the Two gave themselves and the future of their bloodline over to vengeance, defining the Dark and calling on it for aid.

The Darkness that had grown in them was still there, but the promises binding the Dark Itself to assure their future, those were so much shattered will, cutting them apart from the inside, and it hurt.

It hurt unlike anything they had ever known.

For all the House had been reduced to near-extinction many times, no one had ever attacked the Magic before. Not like this.

And the Dark...it laughed at them, mocking and cruel, as they fell into a timeless, unconscious state, hiding from the pain.

Another flash — lightning, this time.

It was springtime, a night of power, they were distantly aware of that. It had been some time since they were injured, they were aware of that, too.

Years, four of them. Three and some, anyway — four sacrifices.

They were not fully recovered — still weak, still limited, it was hard to remember, hard to think, hard to be a conscious thing, and every year there were fewer humans supporting it as they all died, one after the next, the grace of the Dark lost to them — but enough to know that their favourite was doing something, had been for some time. Enough to waken when they felt her leave Ancient House and slip through the wards of the Keep like a shadow, dragging a struggling, pregnant witch along with her.

Enough to manifest when she came to the Altar, calling out to them, laughing, "Little Crow, I've brought you a gift!"

She stripped herself and the pregnant witch, purifying the Circle and their bodies with spells of death and vanishing, rain quickly washing away the traces of the spells themselves.

It washed away the witch's tears too, but not her fear, sweet and sharp, growing stronger as they pulled themselves together, first as birds, then with a half-human face to speak aloud, as they dared not come too close to her, now, despite desperately wishing to do so. They had not been strong enough to fight the corruption which spread from him, infecting her mind and magic — not when she chose him over them, when she didn't want to be saved. They could not risk it spreading to them, if they should reach out to speak through her soul.

"What gift?"

"A life," she said, grinning, power flowing through her freely, almost too attractive to resist. Almost. "And a death."

"Wh– What's going on? What is that thing? Why am I— Why are you—" the pregnant witch stuttered, in the language the fae-child favoured. She even looked a bit like the fae-child's human host they realised. "You said I could go when the baby was born! You said you'd let me live — that you'd let me go free! You promised, Bellatrix!"

"I think you'll find I didn't, Auntie. I recall telling you that your debt to magic would be repaid if you did this for me. I might even have said that I would free you. I certainly didn't tell you I'd let you live, though. You killed a Seer. Not generally a punishment worthy of death, to be human and oblivious, especially since most people don't have the resources to save a Seer like little Adelaide anyway. But you did. In some universes, you saved her. In the rest, you're fucked, because Magic doesn't understand just lucking into saving someone's life. It sees that you could have, and you didn't. So you can see how you came to mind when I was considering potential surrogates."

The pregnant witch, who had already been backing away, shaking her head, slipped on the wet stones. "No. No! I— You're insane, Bellatrix! Adelaide—" Her voice caught, clearly distraught. "Addie wasn't a Seer! She was– She was ill! She couldn't keep food down— She couldn't even keep water down, by the end! We tried everything we could! There was nothing the Healers could do!" She continued to scuttle away on her hands as Bella advanced, still speaking. There was a scalpel in her hand, Harry noticed.

"She was a Seer, any half-competent legilimens could have told you as much. And you didn't try everything. You didn't ask me for help, when you knew I know people who can do all sorts of things law-abiding Healers won't. You didn't ask Dru, who really should have been your first resort, you didn't tell Uncle Luc and beg him to ask the rest of the Rosiers if anyone had ever heard of anything like Adelaide's mysterious so-called illness, you didn't even light a candle and pray for guidance. If you had, when I lit a candle and asked Magic whether it had an opinion on my little plan here, it wouldn't have suggested you. You owe it a child and a life, and I'm here to collect them."

"A child?" the crow-spirit repeated.

Bella threw a careless grin over her shoulder. Harry could almost have sworn her eyes caught his for a moment before flicking back to them. "The Dark will no longer guarantee the survival of the House, Little Crow. That doesn't mean we're done for. I told you, I brought you a gift."

They leapt into the air, circling excitedly, hope welling up in them as it had not for years now, watching closely as she advanced on the pregnant witch, ignoring her pleas, her struggles, her attempts to push Bella's hands away.

They were futile.

Lightning flashed, catching on the blade in her hand, and thunder rolled.

Blood spattered, the stones of the altar drinking it in faster than the rain could wash it away.

They held themselves back from the life they could feel beating in the witch's heart. They could not tear it from her yet, they must not — the child was still attached to her body, they had to wait—

But not for long. Bella was quick, cutting the babe from the witch's belly, and then the cord between them. The newborn's cry split the air, and their control failed, hot, sweet life pulled out of the woman into the circle, into them — strengthening them enough to hold the rain away, enough to make a body for themselves again, force enough will into it to let them reach out and touch the bloody child in Bella's arms when she looked up, surprised at the sudden lack of rain.

"It's...so small." They had forgotten that, in the many, many decades since they had been physically present for a human birth. It was hard to remember when their souls were so bright, more than any of the adults — choices, making choices, limited their potential throughout their lives, no matter how bright they started and what new potential they developed with new skills and alliances. Even Bella was less bright, now, than the child in her arms.

She laughed at them. "Yes, babies do tend to be. Especially in the first few weeks. Can you feel him?"

They nodded, kneeling beside her to stare at the tiny thing, fascinated. He was theirs, their blood, they knew it. They felt its spark take hold, a new star in the endless night, its flame reflected in the sea of the Dark. They reached out to it carefully, drawing it into the web of people and magic they were the face of, making a place for it in the pattern. "He needs a name."

"Eridanus," she said absently, most of her attention focused on feeding the child, with blood and magic like the fae — letting him suckle soulfire from fingertips still stained by the life of the witch who bore him. (In some ways, this one was far more a child of the Otherworld than her still-sleeping mother.)

"Eridanus," they repeated, the first ties — beyond the one to Bellatrix, of course, born of her role in its conception and delivery, and the magic she was feeding into it — growing between this spark and the others who once shared its name, binding it more securely into the fabric of the House.

"Mmm. Do you know I've relocated Narcissa to Ancient House with her son?"

"No. Most of the time we...sleep." There was no human word for the less-than-conscious state they existed in most of the time. "We are...still weak. We..." They hesitated, then decided they needed to know what she knew of the corruption which was spreading slowly but surely from the soul of her sworn Lord to her own, changing her. "We are surprised to see you, and more surprised to see him." They indicated the child, which seemed to be falling asleep. "We thought you were lost to us."

Now it was Bella's turn to hesitate. "I may be. Soon. There are...moments of clarity, when the Madness gives me enough distance to see the effects, to remember I have other priorities. But then the tynged overwhelms me again and I forget. I'm still motivated to find a way to break it, because I still serve my Lord under its thrall and I can see its effects on him, but little else. And the moments of clarity are becoming fewer and farther between. If we don't find a way out soon... I'll be trapped under it until it's broken, too. This, giving you a new heir, may be all I can do to save you. If the tynged takes me over entirely, it may be too late for me to do anything for you by the time I escape. Understand?"

They did. It was only a matter of time until she truly was lost, as they had already thought she was. But she had given them hope. When Arcturus died — and it would not be long now, they thought — they would hold on until the new child was old enough to support them, take refuge in the wards and the blood of the House and wait. They nodded, choosing to focus on the hope, rather than the slowly-but-surely-unfolding tragedy which would make that hope their last.

"I've relocated Narcissa to Ancient House to care for little Danny. The elves will help too, no doubt, and Zee will find a way to train him without breaking him. I have faith in her. But Cissy will have to actually teach him what he needs to know to take over the House, if I...can't. And that is a very real possibility. Her son is only eight months old, so she'll be able to nurse him properly, and I can't imagine she'll have much incentive to go elsewhere now that poor Lucy's manor has been razed to the ground." They giggled at the vicious smirk that accompanied that little fact. "If all goes according to plan, there's no reason he shouldn't be raised under your wards. And since my only part was to set it in motion, it shouldn't be affected by the tynged or any unanticipated chaotic influences. So it should be fine..."

Lightning flashed again and they were falling, the soul which had anchored them for decades now slipping across the veil. They reached out blindly, terrified and uncertain, seeking another human to invest themselves in, purely instinctively — they knew there was no one.

Bellatrix was still alive, and Sirius, but the worst had come to pass when her Lord failed. What little resistance she'd still had had faltered, and she had fallen entirely under the thrall of that insidious corruption. And Sirius had rejected them, under the influence of an even more insidious corruption of Light ideas. And in any case, they were both too far away, buried under a thick, numbing blanket of grey — perhaps for the best, they might have tried to seize onto Bella if she weren't, and then they would be infected too, and all would be lost.

Walburga was still alive, but she was weak — not in will, but in magic. She would not survive an attempt to invest themselves in her, she never would have. And little Eridanus, he had been taken, not to the same place as Bellatrix and Sirius but somewhere perhaps worse, surrounded by hateful light magic — their enemies could not sever the bond of Family entirely, but they could stifle it, hide him away where they could not reach.

He was beyond their reach, and even if they could reach him, they could not touch him, not yet. They would not risk harming him, no. They would wait.

They had to wait.

They clung desperately to the place-magics and blood wards that defined them, sinking into them and falling into an uneasy sleep.

That uneasy sleep didn't last. They woke not a handful of years later, startled back to consciousness as the last life sustaining them guttered out.

It did not take long for them to realise what had happened — they had been drawing on her too strongly in their unconscious need. They were dying, starving — Where were the sacrifices? Why had Walburga not—? — and their survival, the survival of the House, was paramount. Far more important than the life of any single human member of the House. With no other recourse — with the last children of the bloodline buried under the influence of the Soul Eaters and cut off from them by hateful light magic — they had unconsciously slowly subsumed the mind and soul of the weakest of them, the only one they could reach. She had died in pain, old before her time, and now there was no one, nothing to sustain them—

They were going to die.

The wards they could deactivate were long-since deactivated, even the elf-wards faltering — most of the elves had already moved on, they let those go too — but it wasn't enough. The wards had never been intended to support themselves. There were place-wards, of course, but many of them — far too many — were based in blood, living things, now starving and withering as they were cut off from magic, from life.

They had already grown too weak to do anything to save themselves, they realised, cold horror setting in with the realisation.

Bella had given them a last hope — he had been taken from them, but he would find his way back to them eventually, he must — but he was still far too young for them to dare draw on, even if he managed to find his way to them today, still a child in the nursery.

Fifteen years, they had thought — they could hold on for fifteen years. Thirteen, by the time Arcturus had died. Maybe less, if he came into his power early. The House had survived without a Head for longer.

But they could not survive without blood, without the strength of their children to draw upon, or the lives of the sacrifices—

Maybe seven years.

They might be able to hold on that long, without family or sacrifices. Maybe.

Not long enough.

It wouldn't be long enough for the boy to come into his power. It just wouldn't.

But it might be long enough to get through to him, to make him understand that he needed to come to them, that he needed to kill for them — somehow, find someone, lure them to the Keep, to the circle.

Come to me! they screamed at him, willing the sentiment to carry their meaning through the hateful, smothering light power through the blood and the magic they shared. Help me! Please! I will die without you!

You MUST come to me!

PLEASE!

He couldn't hear them.

Even on the night they were strongest, when the sacrifice should be made, the most he ever understood was that they were in pain, that they were starving, dying.

They tried so hard to make him understand what they needed, how to help them, every year. They could feel him trying to reach them too, trying to understand, they could feel his willingness, his desire to help them, to give them whatever they needed, but the light magic was too strong to teach him how, to show him the way—

The show ended there, with another flash, this one of darkness, like a door slammed in his face, returning him to the muddy, rain-soaked, trackless dream-forest, alone again.

"You could tell me now!" Harry shouted into the darkness, to no effect whatsoever. He hadn't entirely expected there to be any. It had been a memory, like all the others, the Dying Girl, the Little Crow, she — they — weren't really here, something else was showing him this, showing him everything, except the one thing he really, truly needed to know. "Where do I go?! Where is the tower?!"

He could make up the rest, he was sure of it. Hell, from the memory of his birth, all he really needed to do was get someone out to the black circle and spill their blood — maybe give them a mortal wound, but as desperate as the magic was, it could probably make do with a bloody paper cut if it had to, just— anything! He didn't even think it mattered who! If he understood everything he'd just seen, he actually could kill Aunt Petunia for it. He'd managed to pick up that the dying crow-spirit didn't want him to kill his family, but they weren't family the way the magic understood it. They didn't share blood. He wasn't sure he could bring himself to actually kill Aunt Petunia, not if he had any other alternative, but that was fine, because he did have alternatives. He could sacrifice Minerva bloody McGonagall to it, if he could get her to the Altar. Or anyone else, she was just the first person I wouldn't miss who came to mind.

"Aren't you supposed to tell me where to go, now?!" he tried. That was what the ritual was meant to do. Show you where you came from and where you're going, if you stay on your current path.

Listen to the little speech about knowledge and the impact knowing a thing could have on one's life, drink the potion, take a nap, have some revelation about yourself and your most likely future, wake up and go to Defence. Very straightforward. A little bit Christmas Carol-y, except he didn't even get a Ghost of Christmas Future to grill over what exactly the hell was going on here.

He didn't even seem to have a path, damn it! Earlier, when he'd been slogging through the mud and the dream-underbrush, he'd just been making it up as he went along — he had to keep moving, but he certainly hadn't been following a trail.

"Hello?! Anyone out there?"

There was another flash, not knowledge or darkness or lightning or pain, but like a jolt of adrenaline straight to the heart, and pure, blind, you're-under-attack panic.

He woke flailing for his wand purely on instinct, very nearly rolling off an all-white bed in a room made of all-white curtains, with a very anxious witch he didn't know, a very guilty-looking seventh-year Slytherin — the one who'd given the speech beforehand, Harry hadn't caught her name — and a very annoyed Professor Snape staring at him.

He was screaming, he realised. He should stop that. "What the hell?" he panted, heart racing, slightly out of breath from his sudden, startling awakening.

"Reviving Charm," Snape said shortly. "Poppy, please do try the obvious solution before dragging me up here in future, even if it isn't strictly medically advisable. Especially with Potter. And when I have a spare moment, I will be back to ascertain exactly how a peacefully sedated child with perfectly normal vitals constitutes an emergency. Sterling, I distinctly recall giving you the recipe for a neutralising antidote to be used in the event of an adverse reaction to the nightshade draught. For future reference, such antidotes neutralise all effects of the targeted potion, including, in this case, the sedative effect — a fact of which I presume you were unaware because I also recall approving your ritual only on the condition that you find a competent potions student to brew the antidote for you and keep it on hand to deal with exactly such an eventuality as this.

"Potter..." He hesitated, glaring at Harry as though trying to think of anything Harry might have done wrong in this situation (which he hadn't, as far as he knew). "My office, Potter, after dinner. And shore up your occlumency barrier before you leave this room, you're projecting half-articulated dream images and frustration all over the place. Now if you'll excuse me, I left the third-years under the supervision of the most responsible among them. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they haven't managed to set anything on fire in my absence."

He flicked the curtains back and stalked away without giving any of them a chance to respond. Harry, in any case, was busy trying to pull his thoughts back into some kind of order anyway — shite, Snape probably knows now... — but the matron — she must be the Healer in charge of the Hospital Wing, Harry thought (Sinistra had mentioned her. Comfrey, maybe? No, Pomfrey, that was it.) — muttered "Well, I never!" at his retreating back.

"Alright, Potter?" Sterling asked, somehow managing to seem both embarrassed and concerned.

"Er. Yeah? I mean, aside from that wake-up. Holy crap... Why am I in hospital? Did something happen in the ritual?"

"Well, no, everyone else woke up like they were supposed to. You weren't responding even when we tried to shake you or ennervate you — same charm Snape used— I swear, we tried it and it didn't work, Madam Pomfrey—"

"Oh, I believe you, love. Severus uses a dark variation with a touch of mind-magic to reinforce the physical reaction with visceral panic. Which is several steps beyond not medically advisable — smug lunatic thinks he's the one who wants to have a word with me..." She huffed. "In any case, that is why you're here, Mister Potter. In the general way of things, a student taking slightly too strong a sedative would not be considered an emergency or even a medical concern until several hours had passed, but in the context of a ritual which ought to have released you but for some reason didn't..."

"Um. Yeah. No idea what happened there. I got through the first half alright, you know, the where you came from," he told them — mostly Sterling, he didn't think Madam Pomfrey really knew what they'd been up to, but he was sort of hoping the seventh-year would know what the hell went wrong. "But then...nothing. I was just stuck in this weird dream-like place."

She shrugged. "Don't look at me, I don't know how the ritual works. Maybe Snape can tell you after dinner. He made my father send him a bunch of notes on the potion and what it does before he would approve it. But if you're okay, and there's nothing else you need from me?" Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "Ah, right. Then, I'm supposed to be in Runes right now..."

"Yes, dear, you can go." Harry tried to sit up and excuse himself as well, but apparently he wasn't allowed to go. "Where on Earth do you think you're going, Mister Potter?" she said, preventing him from standing with a firm hand on his shoulder.

Do not kick the Healer in the knee, Harry...

"Ah... It's still the first period after lunch, right?" he asked, shrugging off her hand. It didn't feel that late. "So, Defence?" Not that he really wanted to go to Defence and listen to Quirrell stutter at them, but he didn't want to stay here, either. Maybe the library, actually. Somewhere quiet he could be alone and think about what, exactly, Snape might already know from the memories that had been at the front of Harry's mind and what he wanted to tell him, when he got down to his office later.

"I think not, Mister Potter," Pomfrey said sternly. "You will be staying here through dinner, and possibly overnight if Professor Snape deems it necessary."

"Er...why? Now the shock of that wake-up's worn off, I'm fine..."

She huffed at him. "Because, Mister Potter, something went other than expected in that ritual, and since we don't know what it was, we must assume that your state was the result of an external force attempting to use the ritual to gain access to your mind. You will remain here, under observation, until he is free to examine your mind more thoroughly. I will escort you down to his office after dinner."

"So...you think I'm possessed or something?" Harry asked, trying to sound sceptical despite thinking that an external force — like the Little Crow, for example — trying to use the ritual to reach him sounded awfully plausible. He was sure it hadn't managed to get to him, though. If it had, he would know where the bloody tower was, and the altar, and he'd be coming up with some way to convince the witch in front of him to accompany him there, because the pain and fear and rage was right there, and they were actually dying, and he wasn't surprised Snape said he'd been projecting frustration — he'd never been this frustrated in his entire life. (He was actually frustrated enough he was a little bit surprised he was able to sit still and hadn't reflexively slapped the Healer's hand away. He might still be slightly drugged, he thought, because moving seemed to be taking significantly more effort than usual.)

Pomfrey sighed. "I don't believe it to be likely, but we can't take any chances in a situation like this. This is why I hate these traditional holiday rituals. There's still so much opportunity for something to go wrong, even when the actual purpose of the ritual is entirely benign..."

"I don't think Professor Snape thinks I'm possessed," Harry pointed out. "He said to come down to his office like he thought I was going back to lessons. And he obviously knows this happened during the ritual..."

Her eyes narrowed into a sharp glare, directed at the absent Potions professor, Harry suspected. "Severus may be an extraordinarily competent legilimens, but he is a young man, and like so many young men can be equally extraordinarily blasé about risks they consider to be insignificant, and neglectful of security protocols they consider pointless."

Snape didn't really strike Harry as the blasé or neglectful-of-security type, but he wasn't going to argue about it. Pomfrey had presumably known him much longer than Harry. And the idea of just making a run for it wasn't terribly appealing at the moment. And it wasn't as though he really had any other plans this afternoon. He could sit and think with a book in front of him as easily in her office or something as he could in the library. "Okay, fine, but I don't even have any books or anything. Can I at least borrow something to read?"

The witch considered this for a moment, but apparently could not think of a reason he shouldn't be allowed to read while he was stuck here for the next four or five hours. "Oh, very well. I'm sure I have something appropriate in my office. Let's go have a look..."