Betaed and edited by rambkowalczyk.
If you wonder who 'Nicholas' is – Dumbledore is talking about Nicholas Flamel, his partner in research and the creator of the Philosopher's Stone.
Chapter 28 : A Daring Plan
During the night and the morning hours Tom hadn't been able to sleep. The faces of Harry's parents haunted him whenever he let his thoughts stray. It was only because he kept an iron control on his thoughts that he was able to keep sane. He focused on the most important thing at hand: getting Harry back safely. If only he could save Harry, it would feel as if he had saved a part of himself.
He resented Dumbledore's decision that they should eat before they started any kind of action, but it proved to be a good idea. After a few bites from his sandwich he felt stronger and more clear-minded than he had in hours. Dumbledore explained to him what had happened the night before. He told him about Aberforth's and Ollivander's little intrigue, that the information Ollivander had cunningly given Hermione about the Veil was wrong and that it had all been a plot to awaken Tom within Harry.
Tom didn't hide his anger at Ollivander and Aberforth well enough, for Dumbledore quickly tried to divert it by explaining that Harry could easily be brought back if they repeated the ritual once they had found a way to get Tom's soul out of Harry's body.
"It was of course very risky and I would never have given my assent if they had told me what they were planning. But Ollivander and Aberforth both have a lot more experience in these obscure fields of magic and it seems they were right about your soul being inside Harry," the headmaster said.
"You mean ancient magic?" Tom asked. 'Focus', he told himself, quelling his anger. 'Dumbledore isn’t going to let you do anything to the wand-maker and his brother anyway.'
"Yes, old magic that centres on the soul. It is a very arcane and dangerous branch of magic," Dumbledore clarified.
Tom noticed that Dumbledore was still talking to him like he would talk to Harry, as if he sometimes forgot that he was talking to a wizard whose power and knowledge rivalled his own and not a Muggle-raised schoolboy.
"Soul-bonding, wizard debts, astral projection, using your soul in a binding contract, that kind of magic?" he said, waving his left hand over his plate. It was a wide field, some of it rather obscure, but he had studied it all. Dumbledore looked up from his tea and then smiled amusedly.
"It seems you know quite a lot about these things yourself."
"I do. I studied a lot of the remaining texts about the subject. It was an integral part of… of what I did to become immortal."
He knew how little Dumbledore was impressed by his quest for immortality. This was the man who had declined the use of the Philosopher's Stone. So the curiosity he saw in the older man had to be purely intellectual, something Tom could understand. His own studies had always had a clearly defined aim, but some of the things he learned along the way had held this kind of fascination for him, too. The joy of knowing and learning things was one of the few parts of his life that had never been tainted by fear and hatred.
"Did you ever visit the Bibliotheca Obscura in Venice?" Tom asked animatedly. "Probably not, it contains almost solely texts about the Dark Arts, but some of them are incredibly old and rare."
"According to Nicholas I thought it had been lost, ," Dumbledore replied. There was a spark of fascination in his eyes. Tom sensed that here they were on common ground. He wondered what it would have been like if Dumbledore hadn't mistrusted him when they were still teacher and student. What could they have achieved as partners instead of enemies?
"The library was only very well hidden, I found it by chance. How did your brother and the wand-maker learn these things?"
"Ollivander knows about ancient magic because he's older than the texts you have read. I suppose you might say he has found the only other way to immortality besides the Philosopher's Stone."
Tom stared at the old wizard. Could Dumbledore really be meaning this? "Ollivander has no soul? You mean he managed to turn himself into a demon?"
Dumbledore was surprised by how quickly he had come to this conclusion. "Yes. How did you make that connection so quickly?" He looked sharply at Tom above his glasses. "You tried the same, did you? That is how you happened to split your essence in two."
For a moment, Tom forgot that he had given up on immortality. He had to know. "How did Ollivander manage it?"
Dumbledore hesitated with his answer, looking doubtfully at Tom. He sensed that the old man tried Legilimency on him and tried to show Dumbledore that he didn't intend to ever use this information, still it was hard to let go of his defences. But for Dumbledore it seemed enough.
"Ollivander made a deal with a very powerful demon and sold his soul. In return he got the ability and knowledge he needed to create the first wands. Before that, wizards could only do wandless magic. But he lost his humanity together with his soul. Since then he has been neither dead nor alive, he neither eats nor sleeps, neither loves nor hates. For two millennia his existence has centred solely on making wands. It isn't a desirable way of living, trust me."
Tom thought about how it had felt to have his soul severed from the rest of his essence and about the many years he had spent as a prisoner in his own body. "I know," he replied.
His appetite was gone now and he was very tired. Even the pain and guilt he felt was dulled by the deep exhaustion. But he couldn't allow himself sleep, not now when every hour counted. He picked up Harry's wand and cast a wordless spell on himself. Dumbledore frowned disapprovingly. But Tom felt refreshed and awake and he would rather have this disapproving frown than pity from Dumbledore.
"All we have to do to save Harry is to get me out of his body, so Harry can return, right?" Tom said with renewed vigour. He got up and paced a few steps into the room, then he turned back and looked out of the windows. A plan was starting to form in his mind, and even though it was dangerous, Tom knew he had already done much riskier things to himself to achieve his means.
"The easiest way to get a soul out of a body is to use the Killing Curse. The problem in my case is that it might not work. It would have to be a very powerful curse, the likes of which only a handful of wizards could perform, namely you and me and my copy. Anyone weaker than that might be unable to kill me. But even if you could be convinced to use an Unforgivable on me to save Harry, which I think you could, it still might not work for… for a man like you."
Dumbledore didn't look as appalled at the suggestion that he try an Unforgivable as Tom had expected, but his expression was dark and closed off.
"I fear you're right. As much as I see the logic in it, I don’t think I could use the Killing Curse." he said quietly. Tom nodded and put his hands on the back of the chair he had been sitting on.
"And even if you could it might not work because of the prophecy: 'One must die by the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.' So far, you interpreted this as meaning that only Voldemort can kill Harry or that only Harry can kill Voldemort. But there is a different interpretation of the prophecy. Voldemort and I are the same person; we share the same essence. But when I created him, I never meant for both of us to live. So I think this part of the prophecy refers to me and Voldemort, and that only he can kill me and only I can kill him."
"That is how Ollivander interpreted the prophecy," Dumbledore said slowly. An unhappy frown lined his old face. "But if only Voldemort can kill you and we have to kill you to get you out of Harry's body, that means we have the choice between saving Harry and killing the only person who can defeat Voldemort or effectively killing Harry based on our interpretation of a vague prophecy."
It was a horrible dilemma and Tom was glad that there was a way out. But Dumbledore didn't see it yet, and his voice sounded almost broken when he softly said: "I had so hoped it would never come to making this choice."
"It won't," Tom said coldly. He pushed his hair back, showing Dumbledore Harry's scar. Even now Tom could feel the faint tingle of pain coming from it and the magic connecting him with his copy. He saw the connection much clearer than Harry had been able to with his untrained mind. He could feel it pull tight and relax in long waves but it never gave away.
"I'm as good at possessing people as Voldemort is. I have a soul, so I can't exist in this world without a living body for longer than a few seconds before being pulled behind the Veil. But a few seconds will suffice. Voldemort will kill me with his own wand and I'll let him do it. The curse will eject my essence and soul from this body and in the few seconds I have left, I'll possess him. I'll fight him in his own body and I'll destroy him there until nothing is left." He spoke with a tone of vicious hatred without noticing it. "It might well destroy both of us, but I know I can do it. I have to. This is the only way a being like Voldemort can be defeated."
"Can you be sure?"
"I have created him."
There was a new respect in Dumbledore's look as he said this. Tom found that he liked it, much more than the fatherly pride with which Dumbledore sometimes regarded Harry.
He sat down again and started to list all the steps he had taken to create Voldemort. He told Dumbledore of the transformations his old body had undergone and of the night he had killed Alphard to sever his soul from the rest of himself. He explained that Voldemort was a copy of himself, not unlike his diary self had been yet more sophisticated.
He admitted his mistakes along with his triumphs for there was no way to deceive Dumbledore about this. He admitted that he had intended to become the soulless part of himself and not the one with a soul and that his copy had easily overpowered him.
Dumbledore made no comment; he only listened quietly, sometimes asking a question. Once or twice he nodded.
**
Harry watched the two boys for some time. Regulus grew more and more impatient with his brother, while Sirius was caught up in his own world. He was still drawing furiously and while it was the drawings of a child, Harry recognised a lot of the images. There were the marauders as animals, the house crests of the four Hogwarts houses, the Forbidden Forest unfolding around the marauders, filled with magical creatures of all kind. On one end of the sprawling drawing was Hogwarts, huge and complex, drawn with golden ink from the colour-changing quill. It reminded Harry of the way the Marauders' Map was drawn, although less skilfully. On the far end of the drawing was another castle, surrounded by a dark sea. It was far less detailed than Hogwarts, but its dark colours were of a surprising intensity. Harry thought that it might be Azkaban.
"He's drawing things that happened when he was a lot older than this," Harry observed in a whisper. "If Sirius' remembers Azkaban than he would remember me, too."
Alphard shrugged. "He might."
Suddenly Regulus jumped to his feet, red-faced and angry. He stomped across the parchment Sirius was drawing on, yelling, "I hate you and I'm going away now! I don't want to see you anymore!"
Alphard and Harry quickly stepped aside to let him through. They saw him walking down the corridor towards the staircase. As he did so, he seemed to grow, into a teenager and then a man. He dropped his quill at the top of the staircase, but when it reached the ground it had become a bottle that splintered and spilled its contents everywhere. Then he was gone.
Harry closed his eyes for a second. It was like being caught in a strange dream, but much worse, because usually when you're dreaming, even the weirdest things made sense because you were thinking with some kind of dream logic. But here nothing made sense.
When he looked back into the room, Sirius was still sitting on the ground and looking no older than before. But he was looking at the two of them with a mix of boredom and irritation.
"Sirius?" Harry asked. Sirius couldn't have forgotten him. They had been so important to each other.
"It's not my fault," Sirius complained. "He's just being stupid."
Harry stepped around the parchment on the floor and closer to Sirius. He knelt down. "Don't you recognise me?" He tried to be calm, but his stomach was churning with anxiety. "I'm Harry. Your godson. Don't you remember?"
Sirius stared at him and suddenly Harry was sure that, if only for a second, he was recognised. The look in the boy's eyes changed, it was no longer a child's expression. It grew dark and haunted, full of brittle fears, until it became dead and hollow. Sirius made a keening, painful sound and clutched his quill until it broke.
"Don't come here," he whispered, "Don't –"
He broke off and bolted to his feet, past Harry. Suddenly the child became a huge black dog, skirted Alphard and bounded down the corridor after his brother.
"Sirius!" Harry called, but he was gone. Harry clutched the discarded parchment. The coloured drawings blurred in front of his eyes. He felt torn in half and helpless, hungry for a thing he couldn't define but to weak to do anything about it. Something had been taken from him and he was naked to the world and hurting.
'I can't do this, I'm not strong enough,' he thought tiredly. He felt empty, yet the emptiness weighed him down like lead. Before he knew it, he lay on the floor. Earth and sand lay beneath his cheek, sticking to his hair. It smelled damp and of dying things.
Dementor like shadows were hovering around him, swooping over his lying form. They wanted to take something from him, but what they wanted was already gone.
"And just like this, you give up?" someone asked. Harry hated the voice and the speaker. He covered his ears trying to hide inside himself. He lay there a while before he realised he was waiting. But for what? He remembered being under the Imperius curse. A small voice coming from somewhere inside him had prompted him to fight it. Where was the voice now? Where was the instinctive knowledge of what he had to do? He felt very alone, still crushed by that emptiness, but part of him was thinking that his conscious wasn’t necessarily that small voice but something deeper within him. With great effort he removed his hands from his ears. Reluctantly he listened to Alphard knowing that he was trying to help him.
"This is how Sirius became that way," Alphard continued. "When he came here he was angry and upset and he desperately tried to get back to you. I talked to him then while he was still sane – as sane as any Black ever was. He told me about you. But after some time he realised that he couldn't go back to you; that he had died. And he gave in to his despair like you are doing now. He is driving himself deeper into madness and further away from salvation with every moment that passes. I'm not exactly sure what your godfather went through in life, but it is clear that it was enough for him to create a hell of his own making. Do you want to do the same?"
"What can I do?" Harry said, feeling grains of sand sticking to his lips. They tasted bitter and salty like ash. One of his hands was wet and cold; water was lapping at his fingers in tiny waves.
"Nothing, perhaps. It can be very hard to save people from what they do to themselves. So many things can't be cured by love and patience."
Harry imagined Sirius, mad and lost, forever. "No. I won't give him up like this," he said. "I can't give up." And some of his strength came back to him. This was something he simply had to do. He got up to his knees and looked around. The salty sand and the water were gone, and he was sitting on a patch of grass, surrounded by dark hedges on three sides. In front of him was a small building. Everything here looked distinctly Muggle. It could have been somewhere in Little Whinging, but Harry had never been here before.
He looked up at Alphard, who stood a few steps behind him, closer to the hedge, with his hands in his pockets, looking haughty and bored. When he caught Harry's look, he shrugged. "It definitely isn't my memory."
Suddenly someone came around the building, swaying slightly, and slumped down on the stairs leading to the backdoor. It was Sirius, looking very handsome but slightly ruffled in a black Muggle suit. Harry recognised it as the one he wore in the pictures of James' and Lily's wedding. But he didn't look happy at all.
Harry decided it was time for another attempt to get Sirius back to his senses. But as soon as he approached him, Sirius looked up and smiled – it looked like a smile that was supposed to be cool but ended up bleary and sad.
"James," he said. "What's up? Running away from your bride already?"
"I'm not James," Harry said, looking straight at Sirius. But there was no recognition in his godfather's eyes. "I'm Harry."
"You can't leave them now," Sirius mumbled. Then louder he said: "You're a respectable man. Married 'n all."
He leaned back against the wall and looked up, angry and unhappy. "Feels like everything's falling apart, James. We and the marauders and you and I and everybody. Everyone's dying and leaving and marrying and working and… and it feels like the best part of our lives is already over."
Harry couldn't stay calm anymore. He made a step forward and seized Sirius' shoulder hard. "Sirius, look at me! I'm Harry! This isn't my parent's wedding. You're thirty-six, you've been to Azkaban and escaped and you fell through the Veil in the Ministry!"
Their faces were close and Sirius looked straight at Harry. His eyes were bright and clear and full of pain. And beneath that there was a tiny flare of recognition.
"I hated him for marrying," Sirius whispered hoarsely. "Lily was great, really, but how could he do this? How could he just say, look, we're finished with school and there's a war and I'm marrying! It was like he said: they were fun times but now they're over and we're grown-ups. I hated him for doing this and everyone knew it. That's why they all believed it when Peter framed me…" He looked down at his hands, hatred twisting his handsome face.
Harry felt terribly helpless. He wasn't used to people telling him things like this and didn't know what to reply. He slid down next to Sirius on the doorstep, leaving his hand on his shoulder. It was warm and bony under his palm and he could feel Sirius shivering.
"It's okay," Harry said awkwardly. "I mean… it was long ago, wasn't it?"
Sirius shook his head slightly. His face was half obscured by his long dark hair. There were streaks of grey in it now and he looked as thin and pale as he had when Harry first met him. With one hand he grabbed Harry's hand on his shoulder and held on to it.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry for not being there so long… I have failed you and your father in every way. I could have tried harder to convince them of my innocence – but what for? It was all lost, wasn't it? I could have escaped earlier. I knew Peter was out there. I should have killed him when I had the chance to do so."
"I told you not to do it, so it's my fault as much as yours," Harry replied. He was glad that Sirius was finally talking to him and not to a figment of his mind. But he didn't want to hear Sirius saying sorry to him for things Harry didn't want to blame him for. He wanted Sirius to be strong and happy.
Sirius said nothing for a long time. Then he frowned at Harry. "What are you doing here?" he asked.
Harry's mouth was suddenly dry. He had imagined that Sirius would be happy to see him and glad that Harry had come to his rescue – even though he couldn't save him from death this time – like he had been when Harry had used the time turner to rescue him. But Sirius didn't sound happy at all to see him. Instead he suddenly bent forward and gripped Harry by his upper arms, staring wildly at him.
"Are you - ?"
"I'm not dead!" Harry quickly said. He gave a fast and jumbled explanation of how he had come here and why. "I thought I could maybe do something for you," he finished lamely. Sirius wore a dark scowl on his face. "Because Hermione said that this place was like hell and you don't deserve this. I guess… I guess I was wrong, because there are people like Cedric here and Cedric didn't fall through the Veil."
"You came here to save me." Sirius slumped back against the wall and looked at the gloomy sky. "Damn."
"You're feeling better now," Harry tried to defend his actions. "You're not, you know, mad anymore."
"You fought against the Dementors to save me. You ran to the Ministry because Kreacher told you some lie about Voldemort kidnapping me. And now you followed me to the underworld to help me? I'm your godfather! I'm supposed to look out for you, not the other way round!"
"I'm sorry," Harry said, but he didn't feel sorry. It didn't matter who was supposed to do what. The Dursleys hadn't looked out for him either.
Sirius sighed. "No, you're not. It's not that I don't appreciate what you do. But I love you, Harry, and I'm – I was supposed to protect you with my life, like your Mum and Dad did. Your life is much more important to me than mine. You have a future."
Harry didn't know why he suddenly said: "I have to kill Voldemort," but his chest was incredibly tight when he heard the word 'future' and he felt he would suffocate if he didn't tell Sirius about the prophecy. "The prophecy the Order protected in the Ministry was about me and Voldemort. It says that I have to kill him – or he kills me."
In the shocked silence that followed from Sirius, Alphard had come much closer and was listening curiously. But neither of them noticed.
Sirius exhaled with a broken sound coming from deep inside his chest. Then he swore under his breath. Of all the people who knew about the Prophecy, he was the first who reacted like this. Harry was grateful for that, for he didn't think he could have handled another person reacting with optimism and confidence that he himself couldn't feel.
Sirius awkwardly pulled him into an embrace, holding onto Harry much tighter than Harry did.
**
Harry didn't let go and after some time, he relaxed in Sirius arms. Sirius realised that he had fallen asleep. No one had ever fallen asleep in his arms. He felt strong and useful and protective, more so than he ever had. How could they expect this boy to fight Voldemort?
"You have to let him return," the man who had accompanied Harry said softly. Sirius looked him up and down and remembered his face. It was his uncle Alphard. He dimly recalled having seen him after he fell through the Veil.
"How is it your business?" he asked in a low growl, careful not to wake Harry.
Alphard smiled thinly, but didn't reply directly. "You said you're supposed to protect his life. As you know very well you've failed badly so far. Don't you think you should be a good godfather at least this once?"
If he hadn't had Harry in his arms, Sirius would have been at his uncle's throat in a second.
The way Alphard spoke coldly and sternly reminded Sirius of his father and that made it worse. "Be an adult, Sirius. Be strong for the boy. Show him that he doesn't need to worry about you. If you can't do that, at least pretend it. And then tell him to go back."
But his father had never said anything so reasonable to Sirius.