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hells_half_acreTitle: Damned Demented Demons 20/32
Author: ME!
Fandoms: Supernatural/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, Spoilers up to 4x17 for Supernatural (but takes place around 4x11).
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean belong to Kripke, Harry Potter belongs to Rowling.
A/N: I thought that the Battle of Hogwarts took place in Spring 1997...so that's what I based my timeline on. Since then I've seen that most sources have it in 1998. Ah well. In this story it's 1997. The events of the story take place sometime in early 2009.
A/N to chapter 20: Surprise Monday update!
Summary: In which Harry shares some of his memories.
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
Dean watched as Harry touched his wand to his temple, then slowly pulled it away along with a shimmering thick blue substance that seemed part smoke and part liquid. He placed it in the stone bowl on the table, where it filled the bottom like water.
Dean really hoped that he didn't have to drink it.
"Ok," Harry said, "lean into the bowl. I'll be right behind you."
"What?" Dean asked, a little confused.
"Just...lean into the bowl," Harry repeated. "Look closely at the liquid, as you get close to it, you'll see some images...try to get as close as you can to them. There will be a tipping point - just go with it."
"What do you mean you'll be right behind me?" Dean asked.
"You'll see," Harry said. "Now would you just do it. I'm not exactly looking forward to this."
Dean shrugged and leaned over the bowl. The liquid shimmered nicely. Dean tried not to think about the fact that whatever it was had just come from inside Harry's head. It still just looked like water though, so Dean leaned in even closer. Then he started to see shapes, he couldn't really make them out. It sort of looked like a hallway. He leaned closer, and then he was falling.
His first instinct was to freak out, but he was distracted by the fact that he had landed in a very ornate stone hallway. Tapestries hung on the wall along with moving portraits. Dean guessed that wherever he was, it was obviously some wizard building.
Then Dean spotted Harry walking away from him down the hallway...only Harry hadn't been wearing those clothes a minute ago.
"Harry, man, wait up," Dean said, and jogged up behind Harry. Harry didn't turn around or acknowledge him. Dean was about to get pissed off, but then he saw Harry's face. He was only a kid. This Harry was a memory.
Suddenly, there was someone else beside him. Dean looked to see the older Harry.
"Sorry, had to calm Sam down," Harry said, "So, uh, you know that no one in the memory can hear you, right?"
"Figured, yeah," Dean mumbled, then pointed to the young Harry that they were keeping stride with. "Harry - you're just a kid."
The real Harry smiled sadly.
"Dean," Harry said. "I think you and I both know that some people are never just kids."
"Where are we?" Dean asked, purposefully changing the subject.
"Hogwarts," Harry answered. "Wizarding school. I'm 16. It's nearly two years since Voldemort returned. I suspect Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, and that he is up to something. I'm correct, of course, but...well, you'll see."
Dean looked to the young memory of Harry and realized that he had slowed and had pulled out an old piece of paper. It seemed to be a map of the building. Just as Dean was trying to see what it said, the memory of Harry walked right into a suit of armor, which clattered in the empty hall. Dean couldn't help but laugh. The real Harry just shook his head at himself, before the young-Harry took off running down a nearby staircase.
Suddenly they were all by a door. With the younger Harry pressing his ear to it.
"The map told me where people were in the school..." Harry said, just as the younger Harry slowly opened the door. Dean slipped in beside him and took in the scene. It was a bathroom, and there was a young blonde kid by the sinks, crying...
"No one can help me," he was saying to someone. "I can't do it...I can't...it won't work...and unless I do it soon...he says he'll kill me..."
Dean realized that this was Draco. God, he was just a kid too. Dean saw the moment that Malfoy noticed Harry in the mirror. He instinctively dunked when the first spell flew towards him, but when the shards of glass from the shattered lamp rained down right through him, he realized that he wasn't in danger. Dean was amazed at the spells being thrown back and forth. He didn't know what any of them were, but the amount of destruction to bathroom whenever a spell missed was insane. He suddenly understood why wizards didn't have much muscle to them - why work out when you can destroy a toilet with a single word.
There was a voice screaming for them to stop, a female voice from inside the bathroom. Dean looked and saw a ghost of a young girl perched on a cistern. Then one of Harry's spells hit the cistern and sprayed water everywhere.
"Cruci-" Draco said.
"SECTUMSEMPRA" Harry yelled, and Dean watched in horror as large deep cuts instantly slashed across Draco's face and chest. It reminded Dean of the way the Yellow-Eyed Demon had cut him while it was wearing his father...pinned him to the wall and sliced him open. Only this was quicker. He watched as Draco fell to the floor, going limp, his hands trying to stop his own bleeding, but it was futile and he was shaking far too much.
"No - I didn't - " Young-Harry was saying, both Young-Harry and Dean ran over to where Malfoy lay shaking uncontrollably on the wet floor. Then the ghost started screaming murder. Dean had to clench his fist to stop himself from trying to help, he knew it was pointless...that somehow Draco survived. He had just seen him last night.
The door banged open and a tall man in black came running into the room.
"Enough," said the real Harry, who still stood by the door. Suddenly the walls of the castle swirled in inky lines around hm, and Dean was outside by a lake. The real Harry stood beside him.
"I often wonder what could have happened if that had gone differently," Harry said. "I didn't even know what that spell did when I used it, you have to understand. I didn't know it was so...I hadn't meant to kill him."
"How did he survive?" Dean asked.
"The man who came in saved him," Harry said, "As far as I know, he doesn't even have any scars. Mind you, I've never asked to see his chest."
"Well, he did fire the first shot," Dean said.
"Still," Harry said, "sometimes I wonder if I could have done something differently. If I could have helped him sooner. At the very least, I wish I hadn't used that spell."
"I thought you would show me the time you used the torturing spell," Dean admitted.
"You wanted a regret," Harry explained, "I don't regret the time I used that spell. I used it on someone who had been torturing students, who spat in the face of a woman I greatly admired. I understand why it is an unforgivable - hell, I've been on the receiving end of it more than once - and I'll never use it again - but I don't regret using then."
"I do," Dean said under his breath, and then cursed himself for saying anything at all. The last thing he wanted to do was tell a complete stranger about what he had done in Hell. He only hoped Harry hadn't heard him.
"Then you're a better man than I," Harry said softly, looking over the lake instead of at Dean. Just as he spoke, something broke the surface of the lake. Dean felt his jaw drop open as he realized it was an extremely large tentacle.
"What the hell is that?" Dean said.
"Oh, that's the giant squid," Harry said shrugging. Dean looked around then. They were standing by a lake surrounded by mountains, and there was an ominous looking castle behind them.
"Where the hell are we?" Dean asked bewildered.
"Still Hogwarts - my school," Harry said. "I needed a memory to talk to you in...in case you had any questions about what you had seen. That's me doing homework over there." Harry pointed towards the shade of a nearby tree, and Dean saw a younger version of Harry bent over a roll of parchment with a feathered pen. There were other kids with him, a taller red-headed boy and a bushy-haired girl. The girl was seemingly reading five books at once, while the redhead appeared to be asleep.
"You were a skinny kid," Dean said.
"I was malnourished," Harry stated plainly. "It's always surprised me that no one ever commented on it, not openly anyway. Ron's mother - that's Ron there - would get this look on her face when she saw me at the end of the summer. I realize now that she must have known, but at the time I'm not sure I really knew...you know? When you are a kid, you tend to just accept things as normal, even when they aren't...even when they should never be."
"Your family did that to you?" Dean asked, still staring at the young skinny Harry.
"Yeah, they didn't like me much," Harry said dismissively. Then he seemed to brace himself, "So, besides what I just showed you: There's the time I decided to let Cedric grab the Goblet of Fire at the same time I did, so that we could both win the Tri-Wizard Tournament - only it was a trick by Voldemort and Cedric ended up dead. Then there was the time Voldemort tricked me into going to the Department of Mysteries - made me think I had to rescue my Godfather...and really I only succeeded in getting him killed. And I could show you those memories if you wanted. I could...but I really don't want to. I don't want to see them die again...I don't know if I can...but, if you want..."
Dean stood in shock, the gravity of what he had asked of Harry finally hitting him. Harry just stood there, waiting for Dean to give word on whether or not he wanted to see more. And Dean pictured reliving his father's death...or Sammy's...in 3D technicolour with surround-sound, and paled at the thought of anyone asking that of him.
Dean shook his head numbly and swallowed, "No...no, I don't....what you showed me is enough. Thanks."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean said.
"Did I pass?" Harry asked. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, pretending to not know what he was talking about. He knew he could have asked Harry to show him the time he tortured someone, it was what he had expected Harry to show him - he had expected that Harry would regret it, would feel as ashamed of himself as Dean felt. The truth was, Dean was kind of glad that Harry hadn't shown him that. He wasn't sure he wanted to see it. What Harry had shown him instead...well...
Harry was smiling in a way that told Dean that he knew full well that it had been a test, and that he wasn't buying Dean's pretend confusion. Dean shrugged, and glanced back over at the Younger-Harry.
"Yeah," Dean said, "I guess so."
Dean felt Harry put a hand on his arm, and the next thing he was back in the motel room, with a very concerned Sam giving him a wide-eyed stare.
"Dude! Where'd you go?" Sam asked.
"Uh...in the bowl?" Dean answered.
"I know! But...where...how..." Sam trailed off, trying to pick a question. Harry laughed from beside Dean.
"Your turn Sam," Harry said. "Just let me get it set up for you."
Harry removed the liquid that was in the bowl with a wave of his wand, and then started drawing out new silver-blue memories from his temple. He drew out far more than he had for Dean.
"Uh, aren't you going to ask me what I want to see?" Sam asked, "or show me the same as you showed Dean?"
"No," Harry answered. "I already know what I'm showing you, though, I suppose if there is something in particular you want to see, I could add it. Did you have something in mind?"
"Um, no, not really," Sam answered. "What are you showing me?"
"Something I'm hoping will help," Harry stated, then gave the contents of the bowl a small stir with his wand. "Alright, lean in."
Dean watched as Sam cautiously stood and looked down into the bowl, then hesitantly bent closer and closer, until his face was nearly touching the shimmering surface. Then, suddenly, a flash of blue light, and Sam's feet disappeared into the bowl. Dean couldn't believe it. Harry's explanation of being late because he had to calm Sam down suddenly made a whole lot of sense. Sammy must have freaked if Dean had disappeared into a bowl like that.
Harry threw a smirk at Dean as if reading his mind, and then he too disappeared into the liquid.
*
Sam was standing in a zoo. There was a large fat man and a skinny blond woman ambling away from him, presumably following a chubby kid that appeared to be their offspring. Sam did not understand why he was in a zoo. Sam wondered if the bowl people could see him, but had his question answered as a very small skinny kid walked through his right leg.
"So, this is a zoo," Harry stated as he suddenly appeared beside him.
"I gathered," Sam said.
"That's me there," Harry said, pointing to the small skinny kid, who was trailing after the family that Sam had seen when he arrived.
He watched as the family approached a glass cage with a snake in it. The chubby kid started whining about the snake not moving, and the fat father rapped sharply on the glass to try to get a response. Sam couldn't help but think of his own father, who would have rapped sharply on him if he had ever whined like that.
When the snake didn't respond, the chubby kid and his family wandered off, and left just Harry by the glass cage. Sam was just about to ask why this was important, when Harry started hissing at the snake, and the snake started hissing back. The really odd thing was that Sam could hear the conversation in English too, as if he were listening to EVP. There was the hissing, but over top of that, there was a simple conversation - with Harry apparently asking the snake about itself.
Suddenly a boy behind Harry took notice of what was happening, and the chubby boy and his family came back over. The chubby boy punched Harry in the ribs and suddenly the glass vanished, the snake escaped, people were screaming, and Sam actually heard the snake thank Harry as it slithered out the door.
Speaking over top of the bedlam, the older Harry began to explain.
"That's my cousin, and my Aunt and Uncle," Harry pointed to the family. "They lock me in the cupboard for weeks because of this, but I still think of it as a fairly good day, all things considered."
"Wizards can talk to snakes?" Sam asked, wondering why this was important.
"Not quite," Harry said. "You read about me in those books, yeah? About how Voldemort killed my parents?" Sam nodded, and Harry continued. "Well, growing up, I didn't know any of that. My Aunt and Uncle were Muggles. They hated magic. They told me that my parents died in a car crash. I didn't find out until I was eleven about all that Boy-Who-Lived stuff. Anyway, when I learned about being a wizard, I figured...like you just did, that talking to snakes was just part of the whole Wizard thing."
The scene changed around Sam, and now they were standing in a room surrounded by children in school uniforms and robes. There was a tall greasy haired man and a blond man in the centre of the room. The greasy man was all in black and looked very annoyed, and Sam could guess it probably had something to do with the blond guy being a pompous ass - if the way he dressed and his cheesy smile were anything to go by.
"Second-year, dueling demonstration," Harry said from beside him. Sam watched as the greasy haired man suggested that Malfoy and Harry do a demonstration. The Memory-Harry seemed a bit older than the Harry at the zoo, and had a bit more of a healthy look to him, though he was still a little smaller and skinnier than his classmates.
Sam watched amazed as a young version of Malfoy faced Harry. Sam could tell by the way that Harry and Malfoy looked at each other that they absolutely despised each other.
The duel began and Sam watched as the young boys fired spells at each other with determination. Malfoy actually shot a snake right at Harry. The pompous blond man said he'd get rid of it, but only made it fly into the air and come back down angrier, then take off towards one of the students threateningly. Sam watched as Memory-Harry commanded the snake. Hissing again, with the English over top like a bad dubbing - yet judging by the looks of the people around the room, Sam was beginning to suspect that they couldn't hear the English.
"We hear the English, because I remember it as English. I didn't even know I was hissing," the real Harry spoke from beside him. "It's bizarre for me to watch it now, to hear how I sounded."
Then there was a red-haired boy pulling Harry fearfully from the room, and a bushy-haired girl quickly running after them. Sam and the real Harry followed, while the scene shifted just slightly and Sam found himself in an ornate room decorated in red and gold.
"You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?" The red-haired boy said.
"I'm a what?" Harry said.
"A Parselmouth!" the red-haired boy said again, "You can talk to snakes!"
Harry told the red-haired boy about the boa-constrictor in the zoo, and then said what Sam had thought, that probably lots of wizards could do it.
"Oh no they can't," the other boy said, "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad."
Sam was as confused as the young-Harry looked. Then the scene changed yet again. This time Sam and the real Harry were following the younger-Harry down the hallways, as the other students gave him a wide-berth, terrified of him.
"I'm revealing events to you, as they were revealed to me," the real Harry said from beside him.
"Why is talking to snakes so bad?" Sam asked.
"It's not, in and of itself," Harry answered. "It just so happens that usually, well...up until me, it had really only been Dark Wizards that were Parselmouths. Salazar Slytherin being the most famous, the second most famous was Voldemort." Harry paused, and sighed sadly at the younger version of himself. "Now, this next memory is going to be a bit strange. I'm not entirely sure how it will come out."
Harry waved a hand and the scene changed. This time they were in a darkened corridor, but things were blurry around the edges. Sam glanced around to look for the memory-Harry they were following, but couldn't see anything, well, anything besides the huge snake that was slithering down the corridor. The real Harry breathed deeply from beside him.
"Oh god," Harry said, "I don't want to see this again."
Then Sam saw the man come into focus, a red-haired man sitting against the wall, he spotted the snake and stood, withdrawing a wand, but it was too late. The snake struck leaving the man bleeding on the floor.
The memory blurred further, then looked momentarily like a three dimensional double exposure, and someone was yelling Harry's name. Everything came back into focus suddenly, but Sam and the real Harry were now standing in a bedroom, next to a bed surrounded by scared kids. The same redhaired boy as before tried to help a flailing younger Harry out of twisted sheets, and then the younger Harry threw-up over the side of the bed. Then held his forehead as if his brains had been trying to escape.
"A vision," Sam breathed the word. "You had a vision."
The scared and concerned look on the red-haired boy's face was the same as Sam saw in Dean's face whenever Sam returned from his own visions. Sam realized that both Harry and the red-haired boy were a little bit older than in the last memory, a couple of years at least. They were now fully teenagers, not children. Sam saw the real Harry give him a surprised look, but Sam didn't divert his attention away from the memory.
"Your dad," the teenaged-Harry said desperately to the red-haired boy, "you're dad's been attacked."
Sam felt the dread coil in his stomach - oh god, Harry had known the man.
Harry repeated himself when the red-haired boy didn't seem to understand him, and one of the kids ran to get help.
"Harry, mate," the red-haired boy said, "you...you were just dreaming..."
Sam had flashbacks to Dean's own arguments that night they had sped to Max Miller's house.
"No!" the Memory-Harry said, "It wasn't a dream...not an ordinary dream...I was there...I saw it...I did it..."
"You were the snake," Sam said aghast. "You dreamt you were the snake."
"It wasn't a dream," the real Harry said softly. "My consciousness was in the snake."
Sam watched as a stern looking woman came into the room, and Harry repeated himself to her.
"I don't understand," Sam said. "It's not the same as my visions..."
"So you have visions too?" Harry asked, and Sam realized what he had just given away.
"I...not for a while," Sam answered, "not since we killed the demon."
"Interesting," Harry said.
The scene changed again. Now Sam and Harry were standing in a hospital corridor. The teenage-Harry and the red-haired boy were with two older red-haired twins and a younger red-haired girl. All siblings, obviously, thought Sam. One of the twins pulled out an odd coloured mess of string from his pocket. There were five strings, which all joined together and attached to a fleshy ear, which seemed to wiggle itself under the hospital room door beside the group on command.
Sam watched as the teenage-Harry placed the end of the string he help into his ear, and then Sam could hear whatever the teenage-Harry could hear inside the room. There was a woman whispering about the snake, about how they couldn't find it. A gruff man's voice stated that it must have been a lookout for Voldemort, and then they started talking about how Harry had seen it all happen...
"...the boy's seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake," the gruff voice continued. "Obviously, Potter doesn't realize what this means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him..."
The sound abruptly cut off as the teenage Harry yanked the string out of his ear. The red-haired siblings were all looking at him with that look...the look Dean had given him from time to time, the look he absolutely hated.
And then Sam was in a field overlooking a lake in the daylight.
"Do you know what a Horcrux is Sam?" Harry asked him.
"I read about it," Sam answered. "The book said that Voldemort used them to stay alive. Separated his soul into different parts so that he could resurrect himself. The book said you destroyed them all."
"My friends and I did, yeah," Harry said. "It was the only way Voldemort could be defeated."
"The snake was one of them," Sam said, realizing that all this was a puzzle that Harry wanted him to put together. "The book said that Neville Longbottom destroyed the final Horcrux when he slew the snake Nagini - that was the snake in your vision, right?"
"Yes it was, and yes, it was the last Horcrux to be destroyed," Harry answered. Sam tried to figure out the significance of that.
"When I had my visions," Sam thought out loud, "they were always only visions of events connected to the demon - to the yellow-eyed demon. They were about places he would be, or other people like me, other people that he had fed his blood to..."
Sam looked to Harry to see if he was on the right track. Harry's face was unreadable, but somehow Sam felt that Harry still thought he could put all the pieces together.
"You...could talk to snakes," Sam started again, stating what he had learnt, "which is something Voldemort could do. Then you had a vision-"
"More than one, inevitably," Harry muttered.
"You had visions, and they were connected to him in some way," Sam continued, seeing Harry nod. "The snake was a Horcrux." Suddenly a slow wave of comprehension washed over Sam, "Harry...how many Horcruxes were there?"
Sam knew before Harry spoke that he had gotten it right. He knew by the small knowing smile that graced Harry's lips briefly. He wondered why no one had put it together before.
"There were seven," Harry said. "Six of which were made intentionally. Voldemort had planned to split his soul into seven pieces, not eight."
"You were a Horcrux," Sam said. "But, how can...you're still..."
"I told you already - I died once," Harry said smiling. "Seriously, I'm beginning to think that you and I should start a club or something, we have so much in common."
Sam felt a little dumbfounded. "But how and what does this mean?"
"Sam, I wanted to show you this, because I wanted you to know that I understand," Harry said.
"But does this mean that Voldemort can still come back...does this mean that I'm some sort of Horcrux?" Sam's mind reeled.
"No, it doesn't. In the final battle, I allowed Voldemort to use the killing curse on me," Harry explained. "It only killed me momentarily, but it destroyed the piece of his soul inside me completely...which meant that once Neville slew the snake, Voldemort was mortal."
Sam nodded, relieved on Harry's behalf that Harry was no longer carrying around a piece of Voldemort. "So, can you still talk to snakes?"
"No," Harry said.
"But I can still...I mean, we killed the yellow-eyed demon, but I can still...so, what if...?" Sam stuttered out.
"You aren't a horcrux Sam, you're...something else," Harry said. "Listen, and this is really important...there's another reason I showed you all this."
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"There was always a chance that I would turn Dark," Harry stated. "People expected it of me more than once in my life. I had all the markings of a Dark wizard, all the abilities, and even - for at least one horrible year - the temper for it. There was more than one time in my life when everyone I knew was afraid to be in the same room with me."
"We really should start a club..." Sam muttered. Harry smiled.
"The point, Sam, is that I didn't go Dark," Harry said. "It's very important for you to understand that It's not our abilities that make us who we are, it's our choices."
"So, you don't think I'll go darkside?" Sam said.
"I think that's up to you," Harry replied.
Something broke the surface of the lake water, and Sam was surprised to realize it was a large tentacle.
"What the hell is that?" Sam said.
"The giant-squid," Harry replied. "We're at my school. I'm doing homework over there with my mates Ron and Hermione."
Sam looked over and spotted a younger Harry beneath a shade tree, with the red-haired boy and the bushy-haired girl.
"Who knew remembering homework would come in so handy," Harry said beside him.
"Well, I think that's why they assign it," Sam said, confused. Harry laughed.
"Shall we go back and see your brother? Or is there anything else you would like to know?" Harry asked.
"Your friends..." Sam said, and watched as Harry's brow furrowed slightly. "Did they...ever leave you?"
Sam watched as Harry glanced back over his shoulder at where the memory of himself sat with his friends.
"No," he said, "they never did." Then he seemed to reconsider, "Well...Ron took off for a bit, but...that wasn't because of...what I was."
"Hm," Sam replied.
"Sam?" Harry said, but Sam knew what he was trying to ask.
"Alright, let's go then," Sam replied, smiling in a way he hoped was convincing. "See if Dean's discovered anything interesting in that file. Thanks for showing me this, Harry. I appreciate it."
"Sam..."
"How do you get out of here anyway? Do we have to look up?" Sam said, staring up into the blue sky.
He heard Harry sigh, and then a hand was on his arm and he was pulled up and out and found himself back in the motel room. Dean glanced up slightly concerned.
"And?" Dean said.
"Wizards, man," Sam shrugged, giving a glance to Harry, "trippy school they have...there's a giant squid in the lake. Did you find anything while I was...um...in the memory bowl?"
Dean looked down at the papers spread out in front of him, threw a measuring glance at Harry, and then leveled a significant look at Sam...and Sam already knew that this wasn't going to be good news.
"They know about the seals."
Chapter 21
Masterpost
Author: ME!
Fandoms: Supernatural/Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13 (for swearing)
Warnings: Spoilers for all Harry Potter books, Spoilers up to 4x17 for Supernatural (but takes place around 4x11).
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean belong to Kripke, Harry Potter belongs to Rowling.
A/N: I thought that the Battle of Hogwarts took place in Spring 1997...so that's what I based my timeline on. Since then I've seen that most sources have it in 1998. Ah well. In this story it's 1997. The events of the story take place sometime in early 2009.
A/N to chapter 20: Surprise Monday update!
Summary: In which Harry shares some of his memories.
Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19
Dean watched as Harry touched his wand to his temple, then slowly pulled it away along with a shimmering thick blue substance that seemed part smoke and part liquid. He placed it in the stone bowl on the table, where it filled the bottom like water.
Dean really hoped that he didn't have to drink it.
"Ok," Harry said, "lean into the bowl. I'll be right behind you."
"What?" Dean asked, a little confused.
"Just...lean into the bowl," Harry repeated. "Look closely at the liquid, as you get close to it, you'll see some images...try to get as close as you can to them. There will be a tipping point - just go with it."
"What do you mean you'll be right behind me?" Dean asked.
"You'll see," Harry said. "Now would you just do it. I'm not exactly looking forward to this."
Dean shrugged and leaned over the bowl. The liquid shimmered nicely. Dean tried not to think about the fact that whatever it was had just come from inside Harry's head. It still just looked like water though, so Dean leaned in even closer. Then he started to see shapes, he couldn't really make them out. It sort of looked like a hallway. He leaned closer, and then he was falling.
His first instinct was to freak out, but he was distracted by the fact that he had landed in a very ornate stone hallway. Tapestries hung on the wall along with moving portraits. Dean guessed that wherever he was, it was obviously some wizard building.
Then Dean spotted Harry walking away from him down the hallway...only Harry hadn't been wearing those clothes a minute ago.
"Harry, man, wait up," Dean said, and jogged up behind Harry. Harry didn't turn around or acknowledge him. Dean was about to get pissed off, but then he saw Harry's face. He was only a kid. This Harry was a memory.
Suddenly, there was someone else beside him. Dean looked to see the older Harry.
"Sorry, had to calm Sam down," Harry said, "So, uh, you know that no one in the memory can hear you, right?"
"Figured, yeah," Dean mumbled, then pointed to the young Harry that they were keeping stride with. "Harry - you're just a kid."
The real Harry smiled sadly.
"Dean," Harry said. "I think you and I both know that some people are never just kids."
"Where are we?" Dean asked, purposefully changing the subject.
"Hogwarts," Harry answered. "Wizarding school. I'm 16. It's nearly two years since Voldemort returned. I suspect Draco Malfoy is a Death Eater, and that he is up to something. I'm correct, of course, but...well, you'll see."
Dean looked to the young memory of Harry and realized that he had slowed and had pulled out an old piece of paper. It seemed to be a map of the building. Just as Dean was trying to see what it said, the memory of Harry walked right into a suit of armor, which clattered in the empty hall. Dean couldn't help but laugh. The real Harry just shook his head at himself, before the young-Harry took off running down a nearby staircase.
Suddenly they were all by a door. With the younger Harry pressing his ear to it.
"The map told me where people were in the school..." Harry said, just as the younger Harry slowly opened the door. Dean slipped in beside him and took in the scene. It was a bathroom, and there was a young blonde kid by the sinks, crying...
"No one can help me," he was saying to someone. "I can't do it...I can't...it won't work...and unless I do it soon...he says he'll kill me..."
Dean realized that this was Draco. God, he was just a kid too. Dean saw the moment that Malfoy noticed Harry in the mirror. He instinctively dunked when the first spell flew towards him, but when the shards of glass from the shattered lamp rained down right through him, he realized that he wasn't in danger. Dean was amazed at the spells being thrown back and forth. He didn't know what any of them were, but the amount of destruction to bathroom whenever a spell missed was insane. He suddenly understood why wizards didn't have much muscle to them - why work out when you can destroy a toilet with a single word.
There was a voice screaming for them to stop, a female voice from inside the bathroom. Dean looked and saw a ghost of a young girl perched on a cistern. Then one of Harry's spells hit the cistern and sprayed water everywhere.
"Cruci-" Draco said.
"SECTUMSEMPRA" Harry yelled, and Dean watched in horror as large deep cuts instantly slashed across Draco's face and chest. It reminded Dean of the way the Yellow-Eyed Demon had cut him while it was wearing his father...pinned him to the wall and sliced him open. Only this was quicker. He watched as Draco fell to the floor, going limp, his hands trying to stop his own bleeding, but it was futile and he was shaking far too much.
"No - I didn't - " Young-Harry was saying, both Young-Harry and Dean ran over to where Malfoy lay shaking uncontrollably on the wet floor. Then the ghost started screaming murder. Dean had to clench his fist to stop himself from trying to help, he knew it was pointless...that somehow Draco survived. He had just seen him last night.
The door banged open and a tall man in black came running into the room.
"Enough," said the real Harry, who still stood by the door. Suddenly the walls of the castle swirled in inky lines around hm, and Dean was outside by a lake. The real Harry stood beside him.
"I often wonder what could have happened if that had gone differently," Harry said. "I didn't even know what that spell did when I used it, you have to understand. I didn't know it was so...I hadn't meant to kill him."
"How did he survive?" Dean asked.
"The man who came in saved him," Harry said, "As far as I know, he doesn't even have any scars. Mind you, I've never asked to see his chest."
"Well, he did fire the first shot," Dean said.
"Still," Harry said, "sometimes I wonder if I could have done something differently. If I could have helped him sooner. At the very least, I wish I hadn't used that spell."
"I thought you would show me the time you used the torturing spell," Dean admitted.
"You wanted a regret," Harry explained, "I don't regret the time I used that spell. I used it on someone who had been torturing students, who spat in the face of a woman I greatly admired. I understand why it is an unforgivable - hell, I've been on the receiving end of it more than once - and I'll never use it again - but I don't regret using then."
"I do," Dean said under his breath, and then cursed himself for saying anything at all. The last thing he wanted to do was tell a complete stranger about what he had done in Hell. He only hoped Harry hadn't heard him.
"Then you're a better man than I," Harry said softly, looking over the lake instead of at Dean. Just as he spoke, something broke the surface of the lake. Dean felt his jaw drop open as he realized it was an extremely large tentacle.
"What the hell is that?" Dean said.
"Oh, that's the giant squid," Harry said shrugging. Dean looked around then. They were standing by a lake surrounded by mountains, and there was an ominous looking castle behind them.
"Where the hell are we?" Dean asked bewildered.
"Still Hogwarts - my school," Harry said. "I needed a memory to talk to you in...in case you had any questions about what you had seen. That's me doing homework over there." Harry pointed towards the shade of a nearby tree, and Dean saw a younger version of Harry bent over a roll of parchment with a feathered pen. There were other kids with him, a taller red-headed boy and a bushy-haired girl. The girl was seemingly reading five books at once, while the redhead appeared to be asleep.
"You were a skinny kid," Dean said.
"I was malnourished," Harry stated plainly. "It's always surprised me that no one ever commented on it, not openly anyway. Ron's mother - that's Ron there - would get this look on her face when she saw me at the end of the summer. I realize now that she must have known, but at the time I'm not sure I really knew...you know? When you are a kid, you tend to just accept things as normal, even when they aren't...even when they should never be."
"Your family did that to you?" Dean asked, still staring at the young skinny Harry.
"Yeah, they didn't like me much," Harry said dismissively. Then he seemed to brace himself, "So, besides what I just showed you: There's the time I decided to let Cedric grab the Goblet of Fire at the same time I did, so that we could both win the Tri-Wizard Tournament - only it was a trick by Voldemort and Cedric ended up dead. Then there was the time Voldemort tricked me into going to the Department of Mysteries - made me think I had to rescue my Godfather...and really I only succeeded in getting him killed. And I could show you those memories if you wanted. I could...but I really don't want to. I don't want to see them die again...I don't know if I can...but, if you want..."
Dean stood in shock, the gravity of what he had asked of Harry finally hitting him. Harry just stood there, waiting for Dean to give word on whether or not he wanted to see more. And Dean pictured reliving his father's death...or Sammy's...in 3D technicolour with surround-sound, and paled at the thought of anyone asking that of him.
Dean shook his head numbly and swallowed, "No...no, I don't....what you showed me is enough. Thanks."
"Are you sure?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Dean said.
"Did I pass?" Harry asked. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, pretending to not know what he was talking about. He knew he could have asked Harry to show him the time he tortured someone, it was what he had expected Harry to show him - he had expected that Harry would regret it, would feel as ashamed of himself as Dean felt. The truth was, Dean was kind of glad that Harry hadn't shown him that. He wasn't sure he wanted to see it. What Harry had shown him instead...well...
Harry was smiling in a way that told Dean that he knew full well that it had been a test, and that he wasn't buying Dean's pretend confusion. Dean shrugged, and glanced back over at the Younger-Harry.
"Yeah," Dean said, "I guess so."
Dean felt Harry put a hand on his arm, and the next thing he was back in the motel room, with a very concerned Sam giving him a wide-eyed stare.
"Dude! Where'd you go?" Sam asked.
"Uh...in the bowl?" Dean answered.
"I know! But...where...how..." Sam trailed off, trying to pick a question. Harry laughed from beside Dean.
"Your turn Sam," Harry said. "Just let me get it set up for you."
Harry removed the liquid that was in the bowl with a wave of his wand, and then started drawing out new silver-blue memories from his temple. He drew out far more than he had for Dean.
"Uh, aren't you going to ask me what I want to see?" Sam asked, "or show me the same as you showed Dean?"
"No," Harry answered. "I already know what I'm showing you, though, I suppose if there is something in particular you want to see, I could add it. Did you have something in mind?"
"Um, no, not really," Sam answered. "What are you showing me?"
"Something I'm hoping will help," Harry stated, then gave the contents of the bowl a small stir with his wand. "Alright, lean in."
Dean watched as Sam cautiously stood and looked down into the bowl, then hesitantly bent closer and closer, until his face was nearly touching the shimmering surface. Then, suddenly, a flash of blue light, and Sam's feet disappeared into the bowl. Dean couldn't believe it. Harry's explanation of being late because he had to calm Sam down suddenly made a whole lot of sense. Sammy must have freaked if Dean had disappeared into a bowl like that.
Harry threw a smirk at Dean as if reading his mind, and then he too disappeared into the liquid.
*
Sam was standing in a zoo. There was a large fat man and a skinny blond woman ambling away from him, presumably following a chubby kid that appeared to be their offspring. Sam did not understand why he was in a zoo. Sam wondered if the bowl people could see him, but had his question answered as a very small skinny kid walked through his right leg.
"So, this is a zoo," Harry stated as he suddenly appeared beside him.
"I gathered," Sam said.
"That's me there," Harry said, pointing to the small skinny kid, who was trailing after the family that Sam had seen when he arrived.
He watched as the family approached a glass cage with a snake in it. The chubby kid started whining about the snake not moving, and the fat father rapped sharply on the glass to try to get a response. Sam couldn't help but think of his own father, who would have rapped sharply on him if he had ever whined like that.
When the snake didn't respond, the chubby kid and his family wandered off, and left just Harry by the glass cage. Sam was just about to ask why this was important, when Harry started hissing at the snake, and the snake started hissing back. The really odd thing was that Sam could hear the conversation in English too, as if he were listening to EVP. There was the hissing, but over top of that, there was a simple conversation - with Harry apparently asking the snake about itself.
Suddenly a boy behind Harry took notice of what was happening, and the chubby boy and his family came back over. The chubby boy punched Harry in the ribs and suddenly the glass vanished, the snake escaped, people were screaming, and Sam actually heard the snake thank Harry as it slithered out the door.
Speaking over top of the bedlam, the older Harry began to explain.
"That's my cousin, and my Aunt and Uncle," Harry pointed to the family. "They lock me in the cupboard for weeks because of this, but I still think of it as a fairly good day, all things considered."
"Wizards can talk to snakes?" Sam asked, wondering why this was important.
"Not quite," Harry said. "You read about me in those books, yeah? About how Voldemort killed my parents?" Sam nodded, and Harry continued. "Well, growing up, I didn't know any of that. My Aunt and Uncle were Muggles. They hated magic. They told me that my parents died in a car crash. I didn't find out until I was eleven about all that Boy-Who-Lived stuff. Anyway, when I learned about being a wizard, I figured...like you just did, that talking to snakes was just part of the whole Wizard thing."
The scene changed around Sam, and now they were standing in a room surrounded by children in school uniforms and robes. There was a tall greasy haired man and a blond man in the centre of the room. The greasy man was all in black and looked very annoyed, and Sam could guess it probably had something to do with the blond guy being a pompous ass - if the way he dressed and his cheesy smile were anything to go by.
"Second-year, dueling demonstration," Harry said from beside him. Sam watched as the greasy haired man suggested that Malfoy and Harry do a demonstration. The Memory-Harry seemed a bit older than the Harry at the zoo, and had a bit more of a healthy look to him, though he was still a little smaller and skinnier than his classmates.
Sam watched amazed as a young version of Malfoy faced Harry. Sam could tell by the way that Harry and Malfoy looked at each other that they absolutely despised each other.
The duel began and Sam watched as the young boys fired spells at each other with determination. Malfoy actually shot a snake right at Harry. The pompous blond man said he'd get rid of it, but only made it fly into the air and come back down angrier, then take off towards one of the students threateningly. Sam watched as Memory-Harry commanded the snake. Hissing again, with the English over top like a bad dubbing - yet judging by the looks of the people around the room, Sam was beginning to suspect that they couldn't hear the English.
"We hear the English, because I remember it as English. I didn't even know I was hissing," the real Harry spoke from beside him. "It's bizarre for me to watch it now, to hear how I sounded."
Then there was a red-haired boy pulling Harry fearfully from the room, and a bushy-haired girl quickly running after them. Sam and the real Harry followed, while the scene shifted just slightly and Sam found himself in an ornate room decorated in red and gold.
"You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?" The red-haired boy said.
"I'm a what?" Harry said.
"A Parselmouth!" the red-haired boy said again, "You can talk to snakes!"
Harry told the red-haired boy about the boa-constrictor in the zoo, and then said what Sam had thought, that probably lots of wizards could do it.
"Oh no they can't," the other boy said, "It's not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad."
Sam was as confused as the young-Harry looked. Then the scene changed yet again. This time Sam and the real Harry were following the younger-Harry down the hallways, as the other students gave him a wide-berth, terrified of him.
"I'm revealing events to you, as they were revealed to me," the real Harry said from beside him.
"Why is talking to snakes so bad?" Sam asked.
"It's not, in and of itself," Harry answered. "It just so happens that usually, well...up until me, it had really only been Dark Wizards that were Parselmouths. Salazar Slytherin being the most famous, the second most famous was Voldemort." Harry paused, and sighed sadly at the younger version of himself. "Now, this next memory is going to be a bit strange. I'm not entirely sure how it will come out."
Harry waved a hand and the scene changed. This time they were in a darkened corridor, but things were blurry around the edges. Sam glanced around to look for the memory-Harry they were following, but couldn't see anything, well, anything besides the huge snake that was slithering down the corridor. The real Harry breathed deeply from beside him.
"Oh god," Harry said, "I don't want to see this again."
Then Sam saw the man come into focus, a red-haired man sitting against the wall, he spotted the snake and stood, withdrawing a wand, but it was too late. The snake struck leaving the man bleeding on the floor.
The memory blurred further, then looked momentarily like a three dimensional double exposure, and someone was yelling Harry's name. Everything came back into focus suddenly, but Sam and the real Harry were now standing in a bedroom, next to a bed surrounded by scared kids. The same redhaired boy as before tried to help a flailing younger Harry out of twisted sheets, and then the younger Harry threw-up over the side of the bed. Then held his forehead as if his brains had been trying to escape.
"A vision," Sam breathed the word. "You had a vision."
The scared and concerned look on the red-haired boy's face was the same as Sam saw in Dean's face whenever Sam returned from his own visions. Sam realized that both Harry and the red-haired boy were a little bit older than in the last memory, a couple of years at least. They were now fully teenagers, not children. Sam saw the real Harry give him a surprised look, but Sam didn't divert his attention away from the memory.
"Your dad," the teenaged-Harry said desperately to the red-haired boy, "you're dad's been attacked."
Sam felt the dread coil in his stomach - oh god, Harry had known the man.
Harry repeated himself when the red-haired boy didn't seem to understand him, and one of the kids ran to get help.
"Harry, mate," the red-haired boy said, "you...you were just dreaming..."
Sam had flashbacks to Dean's own arguments that night they had sped to Max Miller's house.
"No!" the Memory-Harry said, "It wasn't a dream...not an ordinary dream...I was there...I saw it...I did it..."
"You were the snake," Sam said aghast. "You dreamt you were the snake."
"It wasn't a dream," the real Harry said softly. "My consciousness was in the snake."
Sam watched as a stern looking woman came into the room, and Harry repeated himself to her.
"I don't understand," Sam said. "It's not the same as my visions..."
"So you have visions too?" Harry asked, and Sam realized what he had just given away.
"I...not for a while," Sam answered, "not since we killed the demon."
"Interesting," Harry said.
The scene changed again. Now Sam and Harry were standing in a hospital corridor. The teenage-Harry and the red-haired boy were with two older red-haired twins and a younger red-haired girl. All siblings, obviously, thought Sam. One of the twins pulled out an odd coloured mess of string from his pocket. There were five strings, which all joined together and attached to a fleshy ear, which seemed to wiggle itself under the hospital room door beside the group on command.
Sam watched as the teenage-Harry placed the end of the string he help into his ear, and then Sam could hear whatever the teenage-Harry could hear inside the room. There was a woman whispering about the snake, about how they couldn't find it. A gruff man's voice stated that it must have been a lookout for Voldemort, and then they started talking about how Harry had seen it all happen...
"...the boy's seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake," the gruff voice continued. "Obviously, Potter doesn't realize what this means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him..."
The sound abruptly cut off as the teenage Harry yanked the string out of his ear. The red-haired siblings were all looking at him with that look...the look Dean had given him from time to time, the look he absolutely hated.
And then Sam was in a field overlooking a lake in the daylight.
"Do you know what a Horcrux is Sam?" Harry asked him.
"I read about it," Sam answered. "The book said that Voldemort used them to stay alive. Separated his soul into different parts so that he could resurrect himself. The book said you destroyed them all."
"My friends and I did, yeah," Harry said. "It was the only way Voldemort could be defeated."
"The snake was one of them," Sam said, realizing that all this was a puzzle that Harry wanted him to put together. "The book said that Neville Longbottom destroyed the final Horcrux when he slew the snake Nagini - that was the snake in your vision, right?"
"Yes it was, and yes, it was the last Horcrux to be destroyed," Harry answered. Sam tried to figure out the significance of that.
"When I had my visions," Sam thought out loud, "they were always only visions of events connected to the demon - to the yellow-eyed demon. They were about places he would be, or other people like me, other people that he had fed his blood to..."
Sam looked to Harry to see if he was on the right track. Harry's face was unreadable, but somehow Sam felt that Harry still thought he could put all the pieces together.
"You...could talk to snakes," Sam started again, stating what he had learnt, "which is something Voldemort could do. Then you had a vision-"
"More than one, inevitably," Harry muttered.
"You had visions, and they were connected to him in some way," Sam continued, seeing Harry nod. "The snake was a Horcrux." Suddenly a slow wave of comprehension washed over Sam, "Harry...how many Horcruxes were there?"
Sam knew before Harry spoke that he had gotten it right. He knew by the small knowing smile that graced Harry's lips briefly. He wondered why no one had put it together before.
"There were seven," Harry said. "Six of which were made intentionally. Voldemort had planned to split his soul into seven pieces, not eight."
"You were a Horcrux," Sam said. "But, how can...you're still..."
"I told you already - I died once," Harry said smiling. "Seriously, I'm beginning to think that you and I should start a club or something, we have so much in common."
Sam felt a little dumbfounded. "But how and what does this mean?"
"Sam, I wanted to show you this, because I wanted you to know that I understand," Harry said.
"But does this mean that Voldemort can still come back...does this mean that I'm some sort of Horcrux?" Sam's mind reeled.
"No, it doesn't. In the final battle, I allowed Voldemort to use the killing curse on me," Harry explained. "It only killed me momentarily, but it destroyed the piece of his soul inside me completely...which meant that once Neville slew the snake, Voldemort was mortal."
Sam nodded, relieved on Harry's behalf that Harry was no longer carrying around a piece of Voldemort. "So, can you still talk to snakes?"
"No," Harry said.
"But I can still...I mean, we killed the yellow-eyed demon, but I can still...so, what if...?" Sam stuttered out.
"You aren't a horcrux Sam, you're...something else," Harry said. "Listen, and this is really important...there's another reason I showed you all this."
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"There was always a chance that I would turn Dark," Harry stated. "People expected it of me more than once in my life. I had all the markings of a Dark wizard, all the abilities, and even - for at least one horrible year - the temper for it. There was more than one time in my life when everyone I knew was afraid to be in the same room with me."
"We really should start a club..." Sam muttered. Harry smiled.
"The point, Sam, is that I didn't go Dark," Harry said. "It's very important for you to understand that It's not our abilities that make us who we are, it's our choices."
"So, you don't think I'll go darkside?" Sam said.
"I think that's up to you," Harry replied.
Something broke the surface of the lake water, and Sam was surprised to realize it was a large tentacle.
"What the hell is that?" Sam said.
"The giant-squid," Harry replied. "We're at my school. I'm doing homework over there with my mates Ron and Hermione."
Sam looked over and spotted a younger Harry beneath a shade tree, with the red-haired boy and the bushy-haired girl.
"Who knew remembering homework would come in so handy," Harry said beside him.
"Well, I think that's why they assign it," Sam said, confused. Harry laughed.
"Shall we go back and see your brother? Or is there anything else you would like to know?" Harry asked.
"Your friends..." Sam said, and watched as Harry's brow furrowed slightly. "Did they...ever leave you?"
Sam watched as Harry glanced back over his shoulder at where the memory of himself sat with his friends.
"No," he said, "they never did." Then he seemed to reconsider, "Well...Ron took off for a bit, but...that wasn't because of...what I was."
"Hm," Sam replied.
"Sam?" Harry said, but Sam knew what he was trying to ask.
"Alright, let's go then," Sam replied, smiling in a way he hoped was convincing. "See if Dean's discovered anything interesting in that file. Thanks for showing me this, Harry. I appreciate it."
"Sam..."
"How do you get out of here anyway? Do we have to look up?" Sam said, staring up into the blue sky.
He heard Harry sigh, and then a hand was on his arm and he was pulled up and out and found himself back in the motel room. Dean glanced up slightly concerned.
"And?" Dean said.
"Wizards, man," Sam shrugged, giving a glance to Harry, "trippy school they have...there's a giant squid in the lake. Did you find anything while I was...um...in the memory bowl?"
Dean looked down at the papers spread out in front of him, threw a measuring glance at Harry, and then leveled a significant look at Sam...and Sam already knew that this wasn't going to be good news.
"They know about the seals."
Chapter 21
Masterpost
