A Year Like None Other

aspeninthesunlight

Story Summary:
A letter from home? A letter from family? Well, Harry Potter knows he has neither, but all the same, it starts with a letter from Surrey. A letter that sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. It will be a year of big changes, a year of great pain, and a year of confronting worst fears. It will be a year of surprising discoveries, of finding true strength, of finding out that first impressions of a person's true colours do not always ring true. It will be a year of paradigm shifts. And from the most unexpected sources, Harry will have a chance to have that which he has never known: a home ... and a family. (A Snape adopts Harry fic.)
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Chapter 26 - Burning

Posted:
05/15/2006
Hits:
6,681
Author's Note:
Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or this fictional universe. JK Rowling, some publishers, and some film companies own everything. I'm not making anything from this except a hobby.

Summary: A letter from home sends Harry down a path he'd never have walked on his own. A sixth year fic, this story follows Order of the Phoenix and disregards any canon events that occur after Book 5. Spoilers for the first five books. Have fun!

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A Year Like None Other

by Aspen in the Sunlight

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Chapter Twenty-Six: Burning

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Harry surfaced to an awareness of pain coursing through his entire body, though after a moment or two he realised that the needles were all gone. He was upright, which was a strange, disorienting position to be in just upon waking, wasn't it? Perhaps not; he could feel magic all around him, holding him up, supporting muscles that on their own, were little better than puddles of tired silk. His mind felt the same way. Woozy, wavering. Almost blank.

Harry shook his head to clear it, his hair so lank and sweat-soaked that it remained plastered to his head, and blinking fiercely through the agony that used to be his eyes, tried to adjust to the fact that the whole world had gone formless and black. It was too much to take, too much to believe. He kept expecting each blink to bring the world into focus.

The expectation was pointless, though. All he was managing to do was make himself sick to his stomach, the fierce stinging in his eyes roiling down the back of his skull and straight through his spine until he thought he would pass out again.

Tempting option, but even through his blazing headache he was beginning to think more clearly now, and knew that giving in to pain and fear wasn't in his best interests. He had to be ready to flee, didn't he? Even blind, he had to be ready to seize the chance that was coming.

What must be, what must be...

It was getting harder to believe that he was really going to get out of this, though, divining dreams or no, an impression that was bolstered when the magic holding him upright began to fade away and with maddening slowness, he was left to stand on his own.

He tried to take a step forward, and couldn't, and only then did he realise his position -- in more ways than one. Heavy, rough manacles encompassed his wrists, which were held behind some sort of pillar. Stone, he thought, from the cold scraping feel of it on his bare back and buttocks. He was naked still, breezes brushing his knees, and all around him he could hear the murmur of voices as somewhere below him, Voldemort held court with his Death Eaters.

Below...

He must be on the raised platform, then.

He must be on display, for the sacrifice.

Harry began Occluding, again, though this time not so much to protect his thoughts as to protect his sanity. Fear like he'd never known was clawing up from his guts, but he'd learned by then that submerging himself in mental fire did help him be more stoic. At least, sometimes.

And what helped, too, was thinking about something other than himself.

Fire danced atop his mind as he let his private thoughts wander. Dudley. What has happened to Dudley? Did he survive the destruction of Uncle Vernon's house? Did he just stand out there on the lawn like a dolt, until some Death Eater noticed his mouth hanging open? And what of Sals, and Remus? Sals was sick, Sals felt awful in my hand. So chilled, so cold, far more than she should have been, even down in that cellar. Did she make it up the stairs and back to Remus? But what if she did? What was I thinking, sending Sals to warn him? He's no Parselmouth. And anyway, what if there was no upstairs left for Sals to get to? I don't know how Malfoy got to me, though it seemed the whole building was destroyed right on top of my head! What if Remus is gone--

A voice outside himself roused him from his thoughts. Lucius' voice.

"My Lord, my most precious Lord. The hour approaches."

It seemed to Harry that Voldemort must have Apparated directly next to him, for one second he felt himself entirely alone on the dais, and in the next, a rush of frigid air snaked its way around him as an evil voice hissed straight in his ear.

"So it does," Voldemort crooned, his voice bursting with anticipation. "Wormtail. The knife."

The flat edge of a cool, smooth blade caressed Harry's cheek. "You remember this knife, don't you, my sweet, dear child? You've seen it before--" Soft laughter broke the sentence into parts. "Ah, but you can't see, can you. Such a pity. No magic, no sight."

Harry shuddered. He'd have been only too pleased to spit in Voldemort's face--or at least in his general direction--but the lack of moisture in his mouth nixed that plan. His voice came, hoarse, croaking, weaker than before. So weak it disgusted him, actually, but at least he didn't quail. "Fuck.... you.... Tom."

"My Lord," Lucius' smooth tones came though, far closer than before. "I should be honoured to be the one to bleed him for you, if you so desire."

Sound of robes brushing wood, and someone's hair being tousled. His hearing was unnaturally acute, almost preternatural, Harry thought. That was supposed to happen when you were blind, he'd heard, but wasn't it supposed to take a while to develop? All he could think was that his magic was at play, amplifying the slightest noise until it filled the limits of his universe. The sensation was strange, but helpful in a way.

"Severus, the potions," Voldemort said, as Harry heard steps approaching, boots on dirt, then someone climbing the platform.

He thought about yelling a few more insults about treachery and such, but really didn't have the energy. Or maybe it was something else. Snape's mere presence near him made him shudder violently. Images spilled through his mind, the feeling of being held tightly down, being restrained so that Lucius might ply the needles. A roaring in his head made him almost pass out before he forced it back by sucking a huge, harsh gasp of air into his lungs.

More breaths, coming faster. The feeling that he was hyperventilating, blended with a feeling that he wasn't breathing at all. He forced himself to stop it, to slow, to think beneath the fire burning in his mind. To listen, and stay aware.

Clink of glass as a vial was opened, and a smell wafted through the air. Cinnamon, clove, and other things he couldn't identify, though Merlin only knew he'd smelled them at least a hundred times during Potions class. "It merely awaits the finishing touch," Snape was explaining, the position of his voice making Harry suspect a kneel, as well. It was all he could do not to kick out in Snape's general direction, and this time, the violence wouldn't be a feint to fool Voldemort.

"Ah yes, fresh blood." Was Voldemort actually licking his lips? Sounds like it, Harry thought, managing to get his mind off Snape. He found to his disgust that he could actually smell the blade on that knife, could smell his own blood from last time still coating it in dried flakes. Or was that Wormtail's blood as well? Another vision flashed through his mind, an older one. Wormtail, cutting off his own hand, the sight so gruesome that even as a memory it made Harry ill. Had Wormtail used the same knife, though, the same one he'd used to bleed Harry?

At that moment, Harry couldn't actually remember, but decided that the idea of his blood and Pettigrew's being mingled was the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard.

It was almost a mercy that nobody gave him any longer to hold the thought. Someone moved behind him--Lucius, he guessed--and without any further ceremony at all, the manacle was shoved up towards his forearm and his left wrist was slashed. Strange that it didn't hurt much at all. Were his arms gone numb from being pinioned so long behind him? Or was it just the fact that after all those needles, his nerve endings had had about as much as they could take? Either way, it was a mercy that the vicious cut felt no worse, really, than when he'd stabbed himself with his quill.

He felt blood dripping down his fingers, though that sensation seemed muted, too, and realised only slowly that his fingers were touching something made of glass. He was bleeding into the vial, completing the Potion. He heard it froth as his blood hit it, smelled the spicy odour once again, though this time it seemed the spices had gone rank and sour. How long they let him bleed, he didn't know. It seemed like hours, but it also seemed like it passed in just a moment. Harry let his head loll forward, his jaw slack, and wished like hell that even if they were going burn him as they'd said, somebody would give him a fucking drink of water, first.

Another clink of glass, the potion capped, though Harry felt the blood continue to drip down his fingers. He heard it spilling onto the platform, splashing against the wood.

"Enemy's Bane," Voldemort murmured in tones of ecstasy as the liquid in the vial sloshed slightly, as though he was holding the Potion up to the moonlight to examine it this way and that. "But more potent than the last few batches you've made up for me, Severus."

"No doubt, my Lord," came the Potions Master's voice.

"Burn him. Now," was the answering command, ringing out in the darkness that was Harry's mind.

No wood at his feet, no kindling carefully arranged, but these were wizards. They didn't need props to their theatrical. "Incendio Conflagare," Lucius' voice calmly intoned.

And Harry began to burn from the inside out, his magical core lighting like a torch, the fire blazing all the way to the bottom of his soul.

Strangely enough, it was a familiar sensation, one not so very different from the mental fire he could create himself. Without conscious thought or decision, he felt himself snapping fully into the image of his fire, more completely than ever before. Fire burning, fire raging, fire chasing demons from his mind, from his core.

Firefirefirefire...

Dark powers engulfed him until he was drowning in the flames. But these were his flames, or rather, these flames were himself; they couldn't harm him. These flames existed at the very core of his magical being, that core that had never quite burned itself through, that had come alive in dreams, and Parseltongue, and fire itself.

His core was burning now, but it didn't matter. When it came to fire inside him, Harry was in control. Fire battled fire as Harry fought off Malfoy's spells. He fought the intrusion into his core, forced it back, as images of Snape began to play inside his mind. Harsh images from the year before. Force me out, Potter. Force me out.

He hadn't known how to, not then, but he did now. He could push thought with thought; it wasn't much different to push fire with fire.

So Harry pushed, his consciousness bound up in the fight, his body straining with effort, his head coming up, blind eyes blazing with power, though the fight was purely mental.

A pulse of power cracked in half inside him, a shock wave so fierce he thought it would rip him apart as it tore through his muscles and blasted through his skin. He felt it ripple through the clearing much as it had rippled through the stones before, only this surge of magic was far more powerful. Screams shot out from every direction, the Death Eaters scattering, though Voldemort was still issuing curses. Even his voice though, sounded as though it were coming from farther away. Had he been flung back by the blast of magic?

Harry tried to fathom that, but the content of the curses caught his attention instead. Fire curses again, but these were literal, designed to set him ablaze from the outside in.

"Fuegarum diablare! Infierno!"

Smoke began to curl at his feet, heating his toes, filling his nostrils with its acrid scent.

And then, it seemed that everything happened all at once. Someone tall and hard was wrapping his arms completely around him, encircling the pillar, too, pressing the entire length of his body into soft robes that smelled vaguely of wormwood, and lavender, and oil of clove.

He knew who it was even before he heard the voice, or felt the sweep of hair close against his cheek. Hair he'd felt before, when Snape had cradled him in the hospital, or pulled him close to practice Occlumency.

Healing waters doused him again, the instant he was pulled into that embrace, and he heard his teacher's voice close against his ear, but warm, so warm. Not cold like Voldemort's. A rush of warmth to ply the waters in his soul through every limb, every aching bone.

"Hold tight, Harry."

That was all he said, just those three words, before something blazing hot was pushed against his shoulder, connecting with both Snape's finger and his own skin.

The familiar jerk behind his navel yanked him from the meeting site, yanked his hands free of the manacles, and sent him crashing down into a damp meadow that smelled strongly of clover. A robe was wrapped around him, and he was lifted, cradled firmly against Snape's warm chest, and carried forward. No merciful numbness, not now. Every step jarred his wounds, and Harry cried out softly, but then he was lowered to some sort of pallet, his limbs carefully arranged when he could not move them on his own.

He felt a hand come up to stroke his brow, though it stayed well clear of his eyes.

He heard a spell, felt a wand touching lightly here and there, fleeting like a feather. Was that a spell being incanted? A long spell... or maybe there were several, overlapping in his ears. He tried to make them out, but his head was full of cotton wool, and anyway, they didn't make sense. That didn't matter, though. He felt his belly fill with something warm and wet that washed across his veins, felt the pain tracing every nerve begin to fade.

"...--mire," was the last thing he heard before he was sent slowly spinning into a great vat of drowsiness that pulled him underneath the healing waters in his soul.

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The next thing he knew, he was in the hospital wing, familiar smells surrounding him, and someone's hands were tightly grasping his. Gnarled hands, knobby with age. Harry pulled his own hands away, and rolled awkwardly onto his side, pain coursing through him, though it was manageable. Even his eyes were just a dull ache, assuming he still had eyes. He didn't know, didn't want to touch them to find out, and certainly didn't want to ask.

So instead he asked, "Remus?"

"No, it's Albus," the headmaster softly replied.

I'm blind, not an idiot, Harry wanted to snarl back, but he wasn't quite so far gone as to actually do it. "I was asking for him, not saying you were him," he groaned instead.

"I'm sorry, Harry," came the headmaster's muted voice. "Remus Lupin can't be here."

"Is. He. Safe?" Harry enunciated with staggering precision, just so there'd be no more room for misunderstanding.

"Oh yes, of course," Dumbledore murmured.

"There's no 'of course' to it, not from my viewpoint!" Harry shouted, just before his last word sent him into near hysterics that emerged as mad laughter, until with a furious scream, he forced himself to cut it out. He wasn't going to fall apart over this; he just wasn't. "I bloody well don't have a clue what's happened! To anybody! Is Snape safe?"

"Professor Snape will be back shortly with some potions he's been brewing for you," Dumbledore replied, calm in the face of the storm. "To restore your sight. They may take some little while to work, though. We aren't sure how long."

"Are you going to tell me what the eff happened at my supposed safe house, or not?"

"You left it," the headmaster sighed, a hand reaching out again to touch Harry, this time lightly on the arm.

"Don't," Harry said shortly. "Don't. I don't want anybody laying a hand on me, is that clear? It... reminds me."

"All right." Robes rustled as Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. "Is there anything you need, Harry?"

"I need to know about Remus! And Sals! And Dudley! And what do you mean, I left? I'm not as daft as that! And if Snape had a Portkey on him, why'd he wait so bloody long to get me out of that hellhole? Do you know what that arsehole had done to me? What the fuck is wrong with everybody? Talk, damn it!"

Another voice echoed from the direction of the doorway. Pretty much the last voice Harry was expecting to hear--well, short of Voldemort's, anyway.

"Oh, come now, Headmaster." Draco Malfoy's smooth tones, so much like his father's drifted into the ward. "You've got to take points from Gryffindor for language like that."

Dumbledore didn't have to tell Malfoy to get out. Before the headmaster could say a word, Harry had sat bolt upright in bed, the pain be damned, and was screaming in incoherent rage, his hands reaching blindly out to grab whatever was handy and fling it toward that hateful voice. A vase of flowers, something fruity, and then several vials of potion went flying, judging from the sounds and smells as they crashed against the walls.

"Too bad you missed me," Malfoy said, his tone a smirk, but then, his entire attitude changed completely. "Oh, shit. Look, I didn't mean to say that, Potter. I just came to... oh, fuck it. I'll talk to you when you're feeling better. Here, catch."

A small package landed on Harry's bed just as he heard Malfoy walking away.

"Ten points from Slytherin for language," the headmaster murmured, a tiny bit of humour lurking in his voice. "Ah... Mr Malfoy appears to have given you something, Harry. Would you like to unwrap it? Or shall I?"

"Ha. Not likely," Harry retorted, laying back down. "Check it for curses. Or maybe just consign it to deepest hell on principle. Whatever. Just get it away from me."

"As you wish." More rustling sounds, robes, footsteps, and the noise of cleaning spells to wipe away the mess near the door. Then the door was closed, and locked, though Harry didn't think it had been warded. That was rather odd. Then again, Voldemort knew his magic was messed up, and he sure as hell knew that Harry had been blinded, and unless his fuzzy memories were playing tricks on him, he also knew by now that Snape was loyal to Dumbledore. And Harry. So maybe, there weren't really any secrets left to keep.

"I think perhaps it would be better if we weren't disturbed again," the headmaster said as he settled back down into his chair. "I have quite a lot to tell you, though I'm sure you won't understand the full story until Professor Snape's brewing reaches a point where he can join us."

"When's that going to be?" Harry groaned, not sure if the emotion pressing in on him was fear, or reluctance, or worry, or anger, or hope, even. He cut the feeling off by filling his mind with fire for a few seconds. Useful trick, and he was glad to know he could still pull it off, even though some part of him was warning him that he couldn't resort to it every time his emotions became overwhelming. It isn't healthy, he could almost hear Remus saying.

And it wasn't, he could tell that in the next instant, because he just began shivering, violent shudders wracking him from head to toe as the fire consumed him and he remembered what it had been like to stand there chained, naked, helpless, while Lucius Malfoy tried to set him afire from the inside out, while Voldemort tried to burn him with physical flames...

Harry stopped all efforts to Occlude, all efforts to protect his thoughts and mind and self, and that was when it struck him.

"What's this about Remus Lupin can't be here?" he pressed, sudden panic washing over him, because the answer to his question was obvious, wasn't it. "Can't be here!" he gasped out. "That's the most baldfaced lie I've ever heard! Remus would move heaven and earth to be here with me, Remus would kill anybody who stood in his way, Remus would never, ever, not in a hundred billion eons let me wake up alone after what I've been through! He's dead, isn't he? Dead, dead, dead like Sirius---"

"He's incapacitated!" the headmaster interrupted, raising his voice to him. That was so unusual that it quieted Harry at once. "When you went missing, Professor Snape disregarded everything else, to search for you and devise a means of rescue. Everything else, Harry. Do you understand?"

Oh, dear Merlin. "Yes," Harry moaned, guilt welling up in him, though surely it wasn't his fault, the things that had happened. "You mean the Wolfsbane... Snape said he'd ruined a batch and had to start over, he was going to be working on it that day, the day Malfoy found me." Panic crowded in on him, again. Blind panic that actually had him trying desperately to see the headmaster's expression. "Incapacitated, you said. But you said he was safe...?"

"He's in bad shape. Rather... torn up, and not recovering as well as he used to. It's been years, you understand, since Professor Lupin had to endure his moon time without the help of the Wolfsbane Potion. But he will be fine, Harry, he will. He just needs time. I'm sure he'll come to see you the instant he's able."

"Yeah, okay," Harry said, swallowing back the rest of his panic. "So how did Lucius Malfoy get into my house? 'Cause I didn't leave it."

"Are you sure you wish to hear everything just now, Harry? Miss Granger and Mr Weasley have expressed a strong desire--though demand would be more the word, I should think--to be informed the instant you wake. They'd be here now, missing all their classes and meals as well, if we hadn't chased them out." Dumbledore chuckled slightly. "Repeatedly. I'm afraid I had to confiscate your Invisibility Cloak, Harry. But never fear; I shall return it. I doubt you're feeling up to wandering, just yet."

The truth was, he didn't feel up to visitors, either, not even his friends. Besides, he recognised the misdirection for what it was. He was being managed, just like he'd been managed all along, strung along by Dumbledore like some sort of puppet dancing to his tune. The headmaster was seeking to distract him, probably hoping he would lay back and rest. But Harry needed to hear the truth. He needed to understand.

"Please," he sighed, sinking back into the pillows. "Explain what happened. No more secrets. Just tell me. Everything you know. And don't leave out Dudley." Exhaustion began to swamp him, though he felt awake enough to listen for hours, if need be. "Um, he's my cousin. Not sure if you knew that. Go on, talk. I need to know."

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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Explanations

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Comments very welcome,

Aspen in the Sunlight


Betaed by the Fabulous Mercredi.
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