chapter 15

Harry found that by trying to think of the events that occurred immediately after one of his memories caused that sphere to come to him. In this way he was able to piece together certain events. For example, his first trip to Diagon Alley, the wizards shopping district in London, was not just contained in one sphere. Each shop he went into had its own memory sphere, with the events in between occupying slightly smaller spheres. There was a large sphere for his first time in The Leaky Cauldron. This was followed by a smaller sphere containing the memory of the little area behind the pub that held the entrance to Diagon Alley. Naturally his first walk along the alley towards the bank was a large memory, and his time in the bank was a large one to. The small conversation with Hagrid outside the bank was a smaller sphere, and his visit to Madam Malkins was a larger memory, with the following walk towards Flourish and Blott's was a little smaller, but not by much as it contained a long conversation with Hagrid. And on it went in that fashion.

Also Harry found that the spheres could alter themselves and split apart. In this way, if he wanted to remember his first meeting with school bully Draco Malfoy, that part would break off from the rest of the "First Trip to Madam Malkins'" sphere and become its own separate sphere. In this way Harry could watch his first meeting with Draco without having to watch the rest of his visit to the wizarding clothes shop.

As Harry continued to make his way further away from his starting point however, it slowly began to dawn on him that the memories and thoughts surrounding him were getting less and less pleasant. In other words, they were memories and thoughts he had been trying to push away and forget about, for years in some cases.

He came across one where his six year old self was forced to desperately scramble up a tree in order to get away from the pointed teeth of Marge Dursley's dog, Ripper. The rest of his so called "family" were laughing in the background.

Another memory showed himself being pushed violently down into a pile of mud by Dudley and Piers. Dudley then stomped on Harry's glasses to break them as Piers delivered a kick to Harry's stomach, causing him to be sick. The memory ended with Dudley and Piers hurrying off laughing uproariously as Harry lay winded in a mixed pool of mud and his own vomit.

Unbidden by Harry came the smaller memory containing his struggle to get home before he was locked out. This was followed by the memory of what happened once he was inside the house. Aunt Petunia screaming at him for daring to come home all muddy and then proceeding to make her disapproval absolutely clear by throwing a saucer she had been washing at him. The memory ended as the saucer smashed apart against Harry's forehead, knocking him out.

Harry pulled away from those memories before more had a chance to join the chain.

He was suddenly aware of an intense desire to wake up. He had done what he had intended and found his way into his mindscape. Now he needed to get out.

He began to move, looking for the middle point again and hoping that once there he would be able to leave. But he quickly found himself going the wrong way; the faint memory of his mother begging Voldemort to spare her son in the last seconds before he murdered her told Harry that much.

He changed direction, but that way appeared to be wrong as well, as a memory in that direction showed the Dementor that attacked him on the Hogwarts Express before the start of his third year at the school. Naturally that memory led to the one of his mother begging for mercy from Voldemort coming forward again.

Harry pulled himself away and stumbled backwards, right into a thought sphere that contained a line of thought he had one evening recently when he was blaming himself for the death of Cedric Diggory.

Harry wrenched himself away from the through and began to run. Given how there were spheres both above and below him as well as around him, Harry began to wonder if perhaps his starting position had been in one of those directions. Had he been walking up a gradual slope and not realised? When the memories began to form lines the spheres appeared to move towards him, but what if he had been moved towards them without his realising it? Had he been dragged slowly downwards?

"Hhhhhaaaaarrrrrrrryyyyyyy."

He froze, his eyes wide and his breaths coming in a fearful pant. He knew that voice, even if it was weak. But why would it be here? He hadn't touched a memory, so why would he hear it?

The answer came to him. Every single sphere rushed past him, vanishing into the inky blackness in the distance behind him. For a moment Harry was surrounded by nothingness. Complete and absolute nothingness.

And then it came from the shadows.

It was small in size, and appeared rather infant like. But there was no mistaking what it was. Harry had last seen something like this being dumped into a bubbling cauldron in the graveyard of Little Hangleton a little under two months ago. However, the two were not exactly the name. Though the one in the graveyard had been creepy, this one was covered in a thick red slime that may well have been half-dried blood.

Harry tried to back away, but the thing kept coming for him, bounding along on all fours like a dog.

Harry stopped, and a moment later so did the thing. It was less than six feet from him.

It raised his head and Harry saw its evil, snakelike face, red eyes and twisted mouth.

"Harry Potter," it snarled in the same cold voice that had attempted to murder him so many times.

"I have seen your heart, and it is MINE!"

Without warning the thing sprang at him. Harry tried to fight it off, but he felt its long, grasping fingers slip around his throat.

It was trying to choke him.

Everything began to fade as Harry felt himself falling backwards and down… down… down…

'No, not Harry. Please, not Harry. Have mercy.'

'Kill the spare!'

'… and servant and master shall be reunited once more…'

'You're nothing but a worthless, good for nothing freak!'

'… See what I have become? See what I must do to survive?'

'There's Potter, the cheat…'

'He's a parselmouth, everyone knows they're evil…'

'Pettigrew escaped…'

'…maybe I am the heir of Slytherin…'

'… and the blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. You will resurrect your foe.'

'…And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him…'

'…bow to death, Harry…'

'Harry, wake up…'

"Come on Harry, you need to wake up now. Just follow the sound of my voice."

"Is he responding?" asked Amelia, raising her voice to make herself heard over the frantic screams that were coming from the person on the bed.

"Signs are good," replied Cyrus "And he's stopped thrashing about. Keep it up Sarah."

"Keep following my voice Harry," Sarah continued, caressing her hand gently over his forehead, though carefully so as to avoid the scar that had turned an angry red "Come on now. It's time to wake up."

Finally Harry's screams ended, and his emerald eyes fluttered open, to find that he was lying on his back.

Sarah Abbott was smiling down at him, though she had tears in her eyes that showed that she had been very worried "Welcome back, Harry."

Shakily Harry pushed himself up into a sitting position, and Sarah helped him to move back to sit against the pillows and the headboard of the bed.

Harry could feel himself shaking all over. Sweat was running off of him, with his clothes and the bed sheets soaked in the stuff. His throat hurt badly as well. Had there been a mirror nearby he would have seen that he was extremely pale.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice croaky.

"We were going to ask you that," replied Madam Bones "You started screaming about an hour ago, and we've only just been able to wake you up."

"So, what was it Harry?" asked Greengrass "What is it that you saw in your mind."

Harry swallowed, through it was uncomfortable as his mouth was very dry. A moment later he summoned up the courage to reply.

"Voldemort. It was Voldemort. I encountered the part of him that lives within me."

At that there was a gasp from over by the door. All eyes turned just in time to see Susan disappear from the slight gap left open between the door and the frame.

Madam Bones got up and went to deal with her eavesdropping niece.

Sarah and Greengrass both turned their attentions back to Harry.

"So you encountered Voldemort in your mind?" asked Greengrass "What happened then."

"He attacked me," replied Harry, his voice now becoming oddly hollow "he tried to kill me. And I was forced to relive some of my worst memories…" he trailed off looking, for lack of a better word, lost.

"All the more reason to get that thing out of you then," replied Greengrass.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Susan protested.

"Some of the worst things imaginable have been done by those who "didn't mean to,"" replied Amelia "In future when I ask you to stay out of the way I expect you to do so."

"Fine, but it's hard ignore that amount of screaming in your own home," retorted Susan.

Amelia sighed and replied "I know it is. But Harry was probably embarrassed enough without you seeing him in that state as well."

"What's wrong with him?" asked Susan.

"Too much," replied Amelia "Though most of that either stems from people poking their nose in where it does not belong, or ignoring things for far too long."

"That's why he's here, isn't it?" asked Susan "You want to help him?"

"It's time someone did," answered Amelia "For now though, I need one thing from you."

Susan gave a nod of understanding. What with her living with the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, this wasn't the first time she had been subjected to something she should not have either seen or heard.

She drew her wand, held it straight up before her and proclaimed "I, Susan Amelia Bones to hereby swear to not reveal any knowledge about Harry Potter that I have learnt in the past hour."

There was a glow that surrounded her before quickly fading out. Amelia gave a satisfied nod and told Susan to head up to bed. Thankfully she had already squared it with the Ministry so that her niece could use her wand to swear an oath of silence on any given matter. This way secrets were kept, and the Ministry did not waste time sending out owls.

She returned to Harry's room to find both Sarah and Cyrus leaving it.

"He's fallen asleep," explained Sarah "I've cast a warning charm around his bed, which will awaken him should he start having nightmares."

"Thank you," replied Amelia "Both of you. You didn't have to come on such short notice."

"Glad we could help," replied Cyrus "I'm just happy we didn't have to resort to drastic measures."

Amelia knew that he was referring to the collection of strange instruments he had brought with him.

"Should I have him continue his occlumency training?" she asked.

"No," replied Cyrus "It's probably for the best that he stays away from that thing in his scar until we know exactly what it is and, preferably, get rid of it."

Amelia nodded in understanding, and bade her two guests' goodnight.

As the pair made their way downstairs to use the floo in the kitchen to return to the respective homes, Amelia pushed open the door to Harry's room.

He was sleeping soundlessly, wrapped in sheets that one of the House Elves must have provided, and he had either changed into his pyjamas or Sarah had dried the clothes he had already been wearing and then transfigured them into appropriate bed wear.

She closed the door and began to make her way to her own room, all the while hoping that whatever that thing in Harry's scar turned out to be, there would be an easy and pain free way to get rid of it. Unfortunately bitter experience told her that life rarely worked out that way.

Many miles away, Lord Voldemort was glad that he had instructed all his minions, devoted or otherwise, to leave him for the evening. It would not have done to collapse in pain like that in front of those bloody-minded sycophants.

With a groan he pulled himself off the floor and slumped back into his black throne-like chair. For the first time in a long time he felt vulnerable, and that was a feeling that Lord Voldemort did not like. He did not like it in the slightest.

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