Chapter Fifteen of 'The Dust of Water'- Images of a Hero
Chapter Fourteen.
Title: The Dust of Water (15/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Warnings: Heavy angst, some violence, amnesia
Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, eventual Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Summary: As far as Harry’s concerned, he’s woken from a weirdly deep sleep the day after the Battle of Hogwarts. It’s his friends who tell him that it’s ten years later, that he’s an Auror who got cursed while chasing a Dark wizard-and that his memory isn’t going to come back.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a heavily angsty fic, as you can see from the summary and warnings. There isn’t going to be a cure for Harry’s amnesia, either. Keep that in mind before you read.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fifteen-Images of a Hero
Harry opened his eyes, rubbing at his head. He stood inside a small, cramped room this time, so claustrophobic that he immediately thought of the cupboard. But it did seem to be a full-fledged room, although the window was as narrow as Uncle Vernon’s mind. There were even two chairs sitting close together, and the two people sitting on them leaned equally close together, whispering.
Harry moved over to the side. He already knew one of the people was Old Harry, but he was stunned when he saw the other one was Kingsley.
How could he talk to Old Harry about this and not remember it?
Glancing around in search of a date, Harry saw a calendar near the window that was dated the fifteenth of July, 1998. So a few months after the battle, then. Harry leaned an elbow on the wall and listened.
“...going to cost more than a thousand Galleons to rebuild,” Kingsley was saying gloomily. “And if the Ministry contributes funds to it, then they’re going to demand even more of a say in how the school runs than they do already.”
Old Harry’s face was set and pinched. “But can’t you do something about that, sir? Since you’re Acting Minister and all.”
Kingsley made a sound that was a laugh if Harry was feeling imaginative. “There are old and established interests here, Harry, operating on levels that I’ve hardly begun to understand. I can make all sorts of proclamations, and they’re going to nod and smile, and then go on and do things their own way regardless.”
“Someone should make them pay,” Old Harry said softly, his eyes focused on the window. “Someone should make them contribute their own money. They have it and to spare.”
Kingsley sighed. “Right, but they didn’t become as powerful as they are by giving it away to charity.”
Old Harry’s gaze drifted slowly back to Kingsley. “But it’s the school their own children attend.”
“And they think it’ll be all the better for them having a say in it.”
“I see.” The two words rang like an iron bar falling into place across a door, and made Harry shiver despite himself. Old Harry was sitting up like a lizard on his haunches. “Well. Someone has to do something about it.”
“You won’t do anything crazy, will you, Harry?” Kingsley sounded a bit worried. “Ever since you came back from St. Mungo’s a fortnight ago, you’ve been…different. I don’t want you to think that all the responsibility for clearing this up rests on your shoulders. It doesn’t.”
Harry shivered again. Those words flew towards Old Harry and clanged on his completely deaf ears. Harry knew that he wouldn’t have paid attention even if Kingsley had danced naked in front of him and shouted them, probably.
He’d already made up his mind.
“I’ll do what has to be done,” said Old Harry distantly, and smiled at Kingsley. The smile made Harry feel as though something was climbing his spine, something with long claws, but it must have looked different to Kingsley. “Thanks for inviting me here and telling me about this. The wizarding world needs more people who do what has to be done.”
Kingsley gave him a cautious smile back, as though he didn’t know exactly what to make of Old Harry. “Of course. You know you can come and discuss things with me.”
Old Harry nodded and stood. The memory was beginning to fall apart in clear, tinkling shards of crystal around Harry, and he had to focus.
What was the memory from St. Mungo’s a fortnight before this? That’s the one I want to see.
He felt kind of silly chanting that to himself, but the view turned around and around him, and then colors and images and figures did form out of it in response to the call he’d sent. Harry found himself in a room at what must be St. Mungo’s, although it didn’t look much like the ones he’d seen in the past.
When he glanced around, he saw iron bars on the windows and glowing runes on the walls. Harry had no idea what they meant.
Old Harry probably would have, Harry thought bitterly, and focused on the figure on the bed. It was huddled so small that Harry thought for a moment it must be curled almost in a fetal position. Then it moved a little more, and Harry saw it was a child.
Perhaps five or six years old, no more than that. There were long bloody strips of skin hanging off his-her?-shoulders, and no hair left on the bald head. More blood lay dried there. The child was breathing with a bubbling sound, as though they had broken ribs or blood in their lungs.
Harry stared with horror and pity. Then he turned around to the people in the room, Healers and Old Harry. Old Harry was standing bolt upright, not leaning on the wall, and he never took his eyes off the child even as the Healers spoke with him.
“She won’t ever be right again,” one of the Healers was saying, with a long, slow shake of her head. “The magic made by the branded runes went straight into her brain. That’s why we can’t clean the blood off her. The runes just make her bleed again when we try.”
“She can’t speak.” Old Harry’s voice was clipped, as if he was reciting information he’d already been told.
Maybe he was, since one of the Healers nodded. “That’s right, Mr. Potter.” She turned around and cast a small spell at the bed. It dissolved into yellow light before it so much as touched the child. “And she screams. We can hear that. She moans in pain…” The Healer shut her eyes. “I don’t know who did this, and we can’t actually confirm to check because they’re probably buried under all the gore, but I think a rune for permanence is carved somewhere into her bones. She’ll always be like this.”
Harry shivered. Old Harry took a step forwards and looked once more down at the bed with the child in it.
“Do we know this was an attack by Death Eaters?” he whispered. “Or is there any possibility that it could be something else?”
“We thought it was,” said the Healer nearest the bed, looking at Old Harry uncertainly, “because who else could do something this awful?”
Old Harry nodded once to her, and then once again in response to whatever thoughts he was hearing. Then he drew his wand and cast the Patronus Charm. The stag that pranced out of his wand in response looked around as though expecting to find Dementors, didn’t, and turned back and scraped a hoof on the floor.
The Healers gasped at the sight of it. Old Harry seemed to have turned to stone and didn’t hear them. “I want you to run through her,” he said. “Tell me what you see, if there’s runes.”
Harry hesitated, wondering what in the world had made Old Harry think a Patronus could do that, but then the stag turned and flashed through the child’s body, and he closed his mouth. Maybe it had been luck, or something he’d read in the Black library or something, but it did seem to be true.
The stag came trotting back out, and flashed through Old Harry in return. Old Harry closed his eyes and stood there moving his lips as if in response to some telepathic conversation. Then he opened them again and nodded.
“Thank you,” he called.
The Patronus faded. Old Harry looked at the child with a terrible expression on his face.
“She has runes on her bones,” he said. “The stag said they looked like this.” He swept his wand through the air, and glowing lines appeared.
Two of the Healers seemed paralyzed with indecisiveness, but the one nearest the bed moved forwards and studied those runes with intelligent eyes. “Yes,” she said a moment later. “Those are the runes for permanence that I feared were there when I saw her wounds.” She turned back to the bed. “She won’t recover.”
“Then I would ask that you leave me with her,” said Old Harry.
The other two Healers didn’t seem to need any arguments, and bolted for the door. But the third Healer turned around and frowned at him. “What are you going to do, Mr. Potter? You aren’t a Healer.”
“No, I’m not,” said Old Harry, and met her eyes. “And that means I’m not bound by your oath to struggle against death.”
For a moment, Harry felt as though the room was spinning around him, even though it was only a memory. He can’t seriously be suggesting what…it seems he’s suggesting.
It seemed as though the Healer didn’t think he could either, because she stood there with big eyes. Old Harry finally sighed and said, “If you stay here, then you’ll be part of it. I don’t want you to be part of it. Unless you think you can change your mind and tell me that she will get better sometime in the future?”
His voice held an indefinable hope. But the Healer shook her head. “Some of those runes are also for permanent nightmares,” she whispered. “Permanent, as in, they’ll happen all the time. She’s not able to wake up.”
“I see.” Old Harry was speaking as though he was the one with the runes carved on him and blood all over his body. “Then leave, please.”
At the door, the Healer paused one more time, apparently assuming she should say something. But she couldn’t think of anything to say, and finally she left.
That was tacit permission.
Harry thought the words in a kind of daze, and he turned to watch as Old Harry moved up beside the bed and stood next to the girl. He stroked her hair back from her tormented face and whispered words that Harry found himself not wanting to hear. He didn’t want to intrude.
Then he told himself this was a memory, and his memory, and he was being perfectly ridiculous, and it could be important, and he walked up beside them. But his feet still dragged.
“I’m sorry you have to suffer like this,” Old Harry whispered. “It’s not your fault. I’m going to catch the people who did this to you, and I’m going to make sure that all the senseless hatreds and idiotic wars stop. The Death Eaters will go to prison. People who think they can get away with crimes are going to pay for it even if I can’t find evidence of it right away. And I’m going to be-I’m going to live a good life, a life where no one can point at me and say that I’m the bad person. To make up for doing this.”
He pointed the wand at the little girl’s chest and whispered, “Interventus cordis.”
The spell that blossomed from the wand hit the little girl, and for a moment, Harry could hear a muffled sound like someone punching a pillow. Her heart, he realized. The spell seemed to make the sound of her heart audible.
And then it-stopped it. Interfered with it. The noise stopped, and at the same moment, so did the little whimpers that emerged from the child.
Old Harry waited as though he thought the heartbeat might start up again. Then he leaned over and closed the little girl’s eyes with one hand. His hand came away smeared with blood, but he didn’t seem to notice.
He just stared and stared. Harry’s own eyes stung, and he had to turn away to swipe at them, but Old Harry’s eyes were tearless.
I could see why this would mess someone up. But it didn’t seem to explain everything, so Harry concentrated on another memory.
I want to know where he learned the spell to stop a heart. That’s not normal.
The world eddied around him again.
*
When the potion settled, Harry stared around. He didn’t recognize where he was, but it still looked familiar, full of odd angles and shadows. Only when one of those shadows moved and bumped into a table did he realize it was the Burrow’s kitchen. But it was night and dark, only a little bit of starlight and moonlight coming in through the windows.
And there were dark shapes creeping through the kitchen, heading for the stairs that led up to the bedrooms.
Harry drew his wand instinctively, then shook his head. He didn’t think he would see this if the only witnesses had been the Death Eaters, which meant Old Harry had to be around somewhere. He turned his head back and forth, trying to see.
There he was, on the stairs. He sat as still as an owl, and the Death Eaters who’d started to climb seemed unaware of him. Harry moved over to the side where he could see more of the battle, and wondered if anyone else was there. Was Old Harry defending the house by himself, or had he told the others to clear out on purpose?
Then Old Harry raised his wand and lit the darkness with a gold and scarlet explosion, at the same time as Hermione’s voice yelled “Expelliarmus!” from behind a chair and Ron popped up from next to her and Stunned a Death Eater.
The battle that followed was frantic, but mostly for the Death Eaters. Even keyed up and ready to take on opponents, Harry thought, they were so surprised that they’d been caught, they couldn’t muster most of the necessary reserves to actually strike back effectively. They rolled and fell over things, and tripped on things, and cursed in a way that didn’t power incantations.
Ron Stunned two. Hermione Disarmed several and captured one with a net that she’d apparently Transfigured from a blanket.
And Old Harry leaped down the stairs and knocked over three of them that way, then landed and started fighting for his life.
Just because of the thick summer-looking grass out the window, Harry didn’t think he’d started Auror training yet. But maybe he had. He fought like he was crazy, like he was desperate. He slammed people’s heads together and kneed men in the groin and used one spell that almost cut off a woman’s breast. He flicked something nonverbal at one of the remaining Death Eaters that started him convulsing on the ground. Harry didn’t think it was the Cruciatus Curse, but it looked pretty close.
Was that the way I looked, towards the end of the war? It would have been only a few weeks or months back, Harry thought, that Old Harry had used the Unforgivable on Amycus Carrow for his disrespect to McGonagall.
The battle seemed to be over. The adults were all down and groaning. Old Harry leaned forwards and shook Hermione and Ron’s hands. His cheeks and eyes were glowing. When he wasn’t fighting, Harry thought, he didn’t look desperate.
But then one of the Death Eaters they’d overlooked rose up from behind a couch, aimed his wand, and hissed, “Interventus Cordis!”
It looked like he was aiming the spell at Hermione. Old Harry pushed her into the table, out of the way, and turned around and lifted a shield before himself, lightning-quick.
Not quick enough to catch all of the spell, though, or maybe this shield wasn’t one that would actually block that spell. A flicker of green light caught Old Harry on the chest, and he screamed and clutched his heart.
The Death Eater laughed until Hermione Disarmed him and Ron took him down with a Stunner. Then they ran over and knelt beside Old Harry.
Harry moved off to the side so he could see better. Hermione was pumping frantically at Old Harry’s ribs and blowing into his mouth, while Ron cast spells that Harry recognized as minor Healing charms. Of course Harry knew Old Harry had survived this, but it made him feel sick anyway as he stood there. He wondered why the memories he’d asked Hermione and Ron for, of the few weeks after the war, hadn’t included this.
Old Harry coughed and choked and got breathing again. Hermione burst out weeping and held him. Ron sat back and shook his head. He was trying to act casual, Harry thought, but his hand trembled until he put it behind his back.
“There’s a limit to the number of times you can scare us that way, mate,” he told Old Harry playfully. “Sooner or later no one’s going to want to come to your funeral anymore, you know.” He gave Old Harry a playful shove.
Old Harry smiled, but his eyes were sunken in a way they hadn’t been just a minute before. Or maybe they had been that way before and Harry hadn’t noticed because he was watching them glitter with battle.
“I wish there was a way I could make this stop happening,” Old Harry whispered. He was looking at the Death Eaters on the floor.
“You can,” Hermione said, and leaned on Old Harry with a smile. “It’ll take a few years, but you can.”
“I hope you’re right,” Old Harry said. He still hadn’t removed his eyes from the Death Eaters.
I think I’m starting to understand more, Harry decided slowly. He put everything together in his head, deaths and curses and stupid incompetent Ministry flunkies and Death Eaters. He didn’t see anyone else doing anything about them, so he did.
It was still hard to see, hard to bear, and Harry stepped back and said aloud, “I want to see the moment when he really chose to make some decisions he thought were wrong later. The one moment.”
The memories were slower to respond this time, maybe because the request was harder to answer. They danced so softly around Harry that he only noticed he wasn’t in the Burrow anymore when the ceiling disappeared from above him. But he stood in a place just as dim and dark, and when he moved, he found himself confronting shapes nearly as low as the kitchen chairs and table.
And then he recognized them, and more importantly the place around them. Headstones.
He was in the graveyard at Little Hangleton.
Two black-cloaked figures stood some distance away, softly arguing.
Harry shivered and moved towards them.
Chapter Sixteen.
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