With that in mind, Molly braced herself as she looked through the crowd of disembarking students and their families. She spotted Percy first. He seemed likely to become as tall as Bill if he kept growing. Her prefect son was shouldering his way through the crowd, traces of an annoyed frown flitting over his features as he was jostled by the crowd. He’d never really been a people person. She caught his eye and he nodded and started moving toward her through the press of bodies.
“Mother,” he said coolly, straightening his shirt.
“Percy?” she asked. “Where are the others?”
-“I’m not sure,” he answered. “I rode in the Prefects’ car.”
+“I’m not sure,” he answered. “I rode in the Prefects car.”
Molly frowned. While her children didn’t always get along, she did hope they would take care of each other, especially after such a traumatic term. She opened her mouth, but Percy seemed to have anticipated her.
“Fred and George ride with their Quidditch mates,” he said quickly, “and Harry’s crew usually get their own compartment.”
“I see,” Molly said, though she really didn’t. “Did you have a good term, then?”
@@ -253,12 +253,12 @@Harry’s hand flashed toward the holster strapped to his forearm, but in an instant his body was frozen in place. He tried to speak, but his jaw was frozen as well.
“What you did was very foolish, Harry,” the old man said, his tone more sorrowful than chiding. “I can’t allow you to speak, for fear you might tell me things that I mustn’t know ahead of time. You have meddled with Causality, one of the pillars of reality, and you risk unmaking everything when you do that. Harry, I understand that Tom Riddle had been defeated… no matter what the cost, you should not have undone that. But even if you had lost, better a Dark Lord’s triumph than the utter destruction your actions have risked.”
Harry struggled to break the binding, much as he once had at the Astronomy Tower the night the man before him had been murdered. Though some books rattled on their shelves, it had just as little effect.
-“No, Harry,” Dumbledore murmured, “what you’ve done is beyond foolhardy. I even consulted Madam Poliakoff, one of the most skilful European Seers, a Seer who can actually control her gift. I was forced to Obliviate her afterward, but she said that she could trace the effects of your… manipulations of fate, as she called them. Every single branching she could trace ended in terrible devastation and war, with Voldemort winning in the end.”
+“No, Harry,” Dumbledore murmured, “what you’ve done is beyond foolhardy. I even consulted Madam Poliakoff, one of the most skilful European Seers, a Seer who can actually control her gift. I was forced to Obliviate her afterward, but she said that she could trace the effects of your… manipulations of fate, as she called them. Every single branching she could trace ended in terrible devastation and war, with Voldemort winning in the end.”
Harry’s rage spiked even higher. Madam Poliakoff wasn’t a Death Eater, but her son was, and she was certainly a sympathizer. After her son died at Durmstrang, she committed suicide. Her diaries revealed that she’d told Wormtail where he could find his old master, helping set the stage for that dark resurrection. He tried to open his mouth to shout this, but to no avail.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Dumbledore said, “but this is for the best. Obliviate.”
Harry couldn’t even cringe as the greyish beam of light struck his forehead with considerable force. Only the body-binding kept him from being knocked off his feet, or collapsing as he felt the future echoes of himself die away. Harry felt like half of his mind had been ripped away and discarded as his future history was wiped clean. He knew he shouldn’t even be conscious right now, but it was impossible to close his eyes as agony ripped through him.
The rattling became more pronounced and Professor Dumbledore stepped back, his eyes widening. Books flew from the shelves and the room’s furnishings began to shift around, moving faster and faster. The pain in Harry’s head and in his chest became even worse, making the Cruciatus Curse feel like a gentle caress. The body-bind snapped and he fell to his knees as the entire house began to rattle. His chest felt as if it were on fire, fire that was ready to explode.
-In the only part of his awareness unconsumed by the fiery torment, Harry heard doors open upstairs and voices call out in fear. Get out! he tried to scream, but all that escaped was an agonized moan. This pain could only be his magical core coming apart. He had no idea how closely it was bound to the memories he’d received from his future self, but without whatever piece Dumbledore had just erased, the merger wasn’t stable anymore.
+In the only part of his awareness unconsumed by the fiery torment, Harry heard doors open upstairs and voices call out in fear. ‘Get out!’ he tried to scream, but all that escaped was an agonized moan. This pain could only be his magical core coming apart. He had no idea how closely it was bound to the memories he’d received from his future self, but without whatever piece Dumbledore had just erased, the merger wasn’t stable anymore.
He opened his mouth to try screaming again, but no air escaped his closed-off throat. He heard Ginny’s voice calling his name as he looked up.
Dumbledore was raising his wand again, but slowly. Far too slowly.
A monstrous fireball of raging magical energy consumed The Burrow and its inhabitants.
@@ -277,7 +277,7 @@Harry darted toward the door, eased it open, and then slipped into the hallway. He nearly ran down the stairs, slowing only enough to keep his footfalls quiet on the risers. His wand was trembling in his hand as he carefully peered around the corner at the sitting room. It took a moment for his eyes to recognize the familiar shapes of the comfortable furniture, but once they did, his heartbeat began to slow. No old wizards with long beards, no meddling Headmasters, no well-meaning Obliviators.
But just the thought of his unleashed magic destroying The Burrow made him want to vomit. He dashed across the room, barely avoiding an end table with his shin, and opened the door to the back yard.
Once outside, he ran until he reached the far end of the garden. The grass was mercifully soft under his bare feet, so he dropped to his knees, and rolled onto his back. He stared up at the stars as his heartbeat slowed to normal and his breathing became more regular. He didn’t have to look at his hands to know they were trembling.
-He knew it had been just a dream, but it felt so real. He could still recall the indescribable agony as he exploded, and that detached awareness he’d had as he watched Neville and Hermione die. That horror stirred something from his future memories, perhaps from the timeless period that his awareness had passed through between the Avada Kedavra curse and its insertion into the mind of its younger counterpart.
+He knew it had been just a dream, but it felt so real. He could still recall the indescribable agony as he exploded, and that detached awareness he’d had as he watched Neville and Hermione die. That horror stirred something from his future memories, perhaps from the timeless period that his awareness had passed through between the Avada Kedavra curse and its insertion into the mind of its younger counterpart.
Was this a warning? He didn’t think he was a seer, but could he be getting echoes of warnings from his future self? But that never happened the first time around, how could his future self even know about it? Maybe the accumulation of temporal energy his spirit had acquired passing through the transit field was making him sensitive to possible fates?
Harry sighed. Or maybe he was becoming hopelessly paranoid. He’d almost had a panic attack after he agreed to let Mr. and Mrs. Weasley make the final decision about telling Dumbledore. He had a very bad feeling about that, but… they had the right to make up their own minds. If he refused them that, or tried to trap them into a binding agreement, was he any better than those he opposed? He suspected his own judgment was becoming warped, distorted by his knowledge of future events. He was responding to people as they would be, not as they were.
In Neville’s case, that had been a blessing. He saw what no one else could yet, and because of that, his friend was far more capable than he’d been at this point in his prior life. But with Draco he’d brought things to a head far faster than before. He didn’t really think there was any way of redeeming the spoiled Malfoy heir, but it unnerved him that he’d escalated things without really intending to. It made him wonder if his judgement was distorted in other ways.
@@ -316,13 +316,13 @@“Ouch,” Harry said, wincing. He hated the thought of causing an argument like that, but it was reassuring to know the dream couldn’t have happened.
“It wasn’t a bad row, Harry,” Ginny assured him, “not like when Charlie moved to Romania. They didn’t talk for nearly a week after Dad helped him move. Mum was dead set against it, but Dad said he needed to do what made him happy. I think Mum burned everything she tried to cook that week as well. Dad made a lot of sandwiches, as I recall.”
Harry chuckled in spite of himself. Ginny always seemed to be able to get him out of a bad mood. “All right, I believe you. It wasn’t something that could happen. Not here, anyway.”
-“Or anywhere else, Harry. Merlin, what about the rest of us? Five of your best friends know Occlumency, so it would be obvious that you’d told us as well. Is he going to Obliviate all of us?”
+“Or anywhere else, Harry. Merlin, what about the rest of us? Five of your best friends know Occlumency, so it would be obvious that you’d told us as well. Is he going to Obliviate all of us?”
“I think he would if he thought it was necessary,” Harry said darkly, “‘for the greater good’, you know.”
“Well,” she said, “it wouldn’t work. We’d know he’d done something. And if you want to recover a memory bad enough to risk damaging your mind, a mind healer can overcome a memory charm. At least that’s what Hermione said ‘after a bit of research’ at the end of the term.”
“But how would you know you’d been charmed?” Harry asked, curious.
“I still keep a diary, Harry,” Ginny said, looking down.
“A diary?” Harry gasped. “You wrote down what I told you? What if someone finds it? Ginny—”
-“I didn’t write that, you silly prat,” Ginny said, cutting him off. “But I did leave a few clues. I re-read sections of my diary when I get bored. Suppose I read a sentence in the middle of a paragraph that says: If Harry doesn’t remember why he has nightmares, then Dumbledore erased his memory. If you don’t remember, then he did the same to you. Knowing what I know now, I just keep reading. But if I was Obliviated, I’d know something was wrong. Hermione has similar statements buried in her old revision guides, and Luna wrote some in the margins of old copies of The Quibbler that she’s collected.”
+“I didn’t write that, you silly prat,” Ginny said, cutting him off. “But I did leave a few clues. I re-read sections of my diary when I get bored. Suppose I read a sentence in the middle of a paragraph that says: ‘If Harry doesn’t remember why he has nightmares, then Dumbledore erased his memory. If you don’t remember, then he did the same to you.’ Knowing what I know now, I just keep reading. But if I was Obliviated, I’d know something was wrong. Hermione has similar statements buried in her old revision guides, and Luna wrote some in the margins of old copies of The Quibbler that she’s collected.”
“And no one else would be able to understand the significance,” Harry said slowly. “At least, not in any way that could hurt us. Ginny, that’s utterly brilliant!”
She flushed. “Luna and Hermione actually came up with it,” she protested.
Harry gave her a disbelieving look. “I can’t believe they cooked up something that devious without any input from you.”
@@ -334,7 +334,7 @@Mrs. Weasley narrowed her eyes the moment she entered her kitchen and found breakfast already well under way.
Harry looked up from the bacon he was frying. “Good morning,” he said.
-“Morning, Mum,” Ginny added as she set some flowers in a vase on the table.
+“Morning Mum,” Ginny added as she set some flowers in a vase on the table.
She looked them up and down and Harry felt a little self-conscious in his dressing gown and bare feet. “Did you both sleep well?” she asked dubiously.
Harry decided to be blunt for a change. “Not at all,” he said shaking his head.
“I’ve gotten used to rising early at Hogwarts,” Ginny said breezily. “The showers are almost freezing if you get there too late.”
@@ -389,7 +389,19 @@“Oh, that,” Harry replied. “Well, three on one is hardly sporting, even if you are smarter, is it now?”
Harry stood up, stepped past a somewhat stunned Mrs. Weasley, rinsed off his plate and glass in the sink, and then kissed her on the cheek as he walked by her, following Ron and Ginny.
The silence behind him was thunderous as he walked toward the stairs.
+A/N:
+Welcome to Year 3: The Dementors of Azkaban.
+Many thanks to my Betas, the comely Runsamok and the brilliant, if twisted Kokopelli! (Funny how my author notes seem to get edited, isn’t it?)
+Sorry for the delays, my home computer was in the shop for a couple of weeks, and it’s the one I do ninety-five percent of my writing on.
+I was tempted to end the chapter after the scene with Hermione and Neville dying, but I really would get tired of the death threats I’d receive if I did that. *grin*
+Yes, reviews inspire me to write more often and for longer, and the ‘meatier’ the better. What did you like or dislike? What made you laugh out loud or gasp (if anything).
+A couple of issues seem to pop up every so often that I will address:
+Maturity level of the students: First, keep in mind that Wizarding children are born into a society where they are given access to deadly weapons at the age of eleven. Also, despite Wizarding life-spans, James and Lily getting married right after graduating from Hogwarts was not seen as anything unusual. Those two facts highlight that (well-adjusted) children grow up rather quickly in the Wizarding world.
+Second, Harry acts more mature than his apparent age for obvious reasons. When you have a group of children when one member acts much more mature than the others, one of two things will happen. The outlier will regress to match the cohort, or the cohort will progress to meet the higher standard of behaviour. When the abnormally mature outlier is also the social dominant of that group, the second outcome becomes far more likely. This is why you see Ron and the others act more mature the longer he’s been friends with Harry. (With the occasional backsliding, of course.)
+Romance/shipping: Yes, I am aware of the ages of the characters. Keep in mind the points raised above regarding Wizarding society, but relax for now. Harry hasn’t even definitely finished going through puberty yet. (He notices Cho Chang is pretty during the match in his third year, and that’s the first strong indicator of interest from canon-Harry. It also surprised him a bit.) So, while some characters are very aware of other characters, they haven’t forgotten what age they are either.
+Well, maybe in Luna’s case, but she’s a little odd.
+For most of them, call it “good friend for now, let’s wait and see what happens later on.”
+And of course, that doesn’t mean that other parties might not make assumptions…