The Park

You-Know-Who: see Voldemort. Now, that was a creepy name: even Harry knew that mort meant death. If he'd been named Voldemort, he thought, he probably would have changed his name, too.

He flipped a few letters back.

Vampire. Too far back.

Veela. Closer.

Voldemort.

"Voldemort: also known as the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and You-Know-Who, this dark wizard rose to terrifying power during the 1970s, his influence growing to a peak between the Winter of Discontent (1979) and 1981."

His fingers trembling slightly, he turned the book over to check that it actually was the encyclopedia.

It was the encyclopedia, and everything he'd read before in it had been correct.

But this didn't even sound real. Dark wizards? Dark Lords? It was like fantasy.

Of course, the Wizarding World had always seemed like fantasy to him.

"Voldemort's agenda was based on pureblood supremacy: his followers, the Death Eaters, were known for their brutal attacks on Muggles, Muggle-born witches and wizards, and, increasingly, on any witches and wizards who opposed him. During Voldemort's era, fear and paranoia reigned in the wizarding world.

"Voldemort was often associated with Hogwarts' Slytherin house and its symbol, the serpent. His Dark Mark, which was placed in the sky over a home that had been attacked, consisted of a skull with a snake as its tongue.

"Voldemort's true name, age, and history are a blank to us. He was known merely as the most powerful wizard of the century, with the exception of Albus Dumbledore, who was said to be the only man Voldemort ever feared.

"However, Voldemort's downfall, when it came, was not at the hands of Dumbledore. He was defeated by a one-year-old baby boy named Harry Potter, by means that are to this day a mystery (for more information, see entry on Potter, Harry).

After his defeat on October 31, 1981, Voldemort's followers, including Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange and Sirius Black, were imprisoned in Azkaban."

Harry could feel his pulse thudding in his throat--not quickly, but slowly and steadily, his body's autonomic function keeping him alive.

Surely, they must be talking about some other Harry Potter. That must be it. It wasn't that unusual a name. And he'd never done any magic before in his life, so he couldn't have defeated this Voldemort person on . . . October 31, 1981 . . .

That was the day his parents had died.

"Oh, my God," said Harry, his hands covering his mouth. He must be going mad. It was the only possible explanation. How else could the date in this book and the date he knew so well be the same?

And then--Sirius Black? Sirius Black, the escaped prisoner from two summers ago, was Sirius Black, the follower of Voldemort.

For a moment, Harry stopped breathing altogether.

Sirius--his Sirius--had never told Harry his last name. And he'd been ill for . . . how long?

Since just after Harry's parents had died. Since just after Voldemort's defeat. And now Sirius was . . . better . . . but not well enough to go outside . . .

But Sirius had loved Harry's father. Sirius had loved Harry from the moment he'd met him for no better reason than that he was his best friend's son. Even if everything else he'd read was true--even if he had, somehow, incredibly, defeated this terrifying Dark Lord--Harry couldn't believe that Sirius had ever helped the wizard who had killed his parents.

Even if he believed everything else, Harry refused to believe that.

"All right," he told himself with shivering calm. "You're not going to believe anything about Sirius until you talk to him. You're just going to look at . . . you're going to look up Harry Potter." It felt weird saying his own name out loud, and it sounded different now. Harry Potter. The same sounds, but a different meaning.

He paged back through the huge book to Potter, Harry.

"Potter, Harry: Born July 31st, 1980, this wizard, also known as The Boy Who Lived, became famous at only one year of age for his defeat of Voldemort.

"On the night of October 31st, 1981, Voldemort attacked the home of Lily and James Potter, prominent opponents of his who had recently gone into hiding. The Dark Lord killed the adult Potters, but their infant son miraculously survived, marked only by a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead; instead of him, it was Voldemort who died. The method of Harry's victory remains unidentified.

"Harry began attending Hogwarts in 1991 and was sorted into Gryffindor, where he became the youngest Seeker on a Hogwarts Quidditch team for a century. Additional notable accomplishments of Harry Potter to date include his selection as a fourth Triwizard Champion in the 1994 revived Triwizard Tournament, despite the fact that a first Hogwarts Champion had already been selected. Harry went on to win the Tournament.

"Sirius Black, the wizard who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, escaped from Azkaban in 1993 with the rumoured goal of killing Harry. Black has not yet been re-captured."

Harry closed his eyes to keep his vision from greying.

This book was old. In Harry's hands, the leather binding felt cracked and aged. Of course, it was magically self-updating, so that meant nothing, but these were facts about his life printed in ancient-looking type on what seemed to be parchment in the house of a man who, less than two weeks ago, had been a stranger.

These were personal facts about him, not things that everyone should know. His birthday. His scar, which, up until now, he'd always liked. His parents' death. His mum and dad. His name. This was his life, him, summed up in a few paragraphs in a book.

But, of course, it wasn't his name or his life. Harry had lived with the Dursleys until this summer. He remembered it.

But little realizations, terrifying in their logic, were seeping in everywhere through his shock.

Attacks on any witches and wizards who opposed them. "They got married not long after your parents. The Longbottoms." All the missing friends whose names made Sirius' voice tight . . .

Voldemort killed the adult Potters. Hadn't Harry thought, over and over again, that a car crash shouldn't have killed a witch and wizard? But that was ridiculous. That would mean that this Harry Potter was him, and it couldn't be, because he hadn't been at Hogwarts. He'd been at Stonewall High. He didn't even know what a Triwizard Tournament was!

But . . . sorted into Gryffindor. Ron and Hermione: they were both in the same school year as him, and both Gryffindors. In fact, all the kids he'd been introduced to were in Gryffindor.

All of them but Luna, and she'd just wandered by.

Harry tried to think back to the night when Dumbledore, Lupin and Shacklebolt had come to pick him up from the Dursleys'. Hadn't they been acting as though Harry and his relatives should know them?

"Do you recognize me?" Mrs. Weasley had asked.

But he hadn't. That was the problem. Harry hadn't recognized her.

And now, sitting on the edge of his bed with his eyes closed, his full backpack leaning against his feet and the encyclopedia open across his pillow, Harry understood his choices.

Number one: He had gone mad. He was in an iron NHS bed, tied down, dribbling, and ranting about magic. He'd incorporated the name of the escaped prisoner, Sirius Black, into his fantasy, and he'd tried to find a better explanation for his parents' death. He'd imagined himself as someone important, famous, heroic . . . look at that encyclopedia entry. It was nauseating. Youngest Seeker in a century. Fourth Triwizard champion. The Boy Who Lived.

That was bad enough. But the other choice . . .

Number two: The encyclopedia was right. He had gone to Hogwarts and played as Gryffindor Seeker and won this Tournament thing. And then, sometime between then and now, he'd forgotten it all.

A lot of things were possible with magic, Harry thought. Maybe even changing someone's memory . . .

And that was worse. Four years of going to Hogwarts, that place he'd been dreaming of visiting ever since he'd heard it existed, and now he found out he had been there and forgotten?

If that was true, then he wanted those memories back. His fists clenched on his bedspread. How could anyone take that from him and leave him with what he had now?

Harry's toes began to get pins and needles, and he still sat there with his eyes closed. He wanted to cry. For the first time ever, he could actually picture someone to go to. He wanted to go to Sirius and shout and cry and be told it was all a mistake.

But he was going to be sensible.

He padded down the stairs again in his socks and found the white owl sitting in an open cage on the kitchen windowsill.

"All unpacked?" asked Lupin, looking up from a book.

"Not quite," said Harry, hating to lie to this man who'd always been so kind to him. "I'm just going to write to Hermione . . . I forgot one of my books at the Burrow."

"There's parchment in that drawer," Lupin pointed out helpfully before returning to his book.

It had taken barely any thought for him to decide on Hermione. She was the only one who could give him an answer that was fact. As Harry was now seriously considering the possibility that he might be insane, he needed someone grounded in reality.

Harry took the owl's cage and the guilty parchment upstairs and, with a fountain pen he'd found in the very bottom of his bookbag, he wrote To Hermione on the outside of the folded page.

He opened it, and his pen hovered over the cream-colored parchment. What could he possibly write? Dear Hermione, have I lost my mind, or did someone else take it?

In the end, he wrote just one sentence, folded the paper again, and offered it awkwardly to the white owl. "Will you take this to Hermione, please?" he asked it.

The owl took the letter from his fingers quite gently and, after pausing to hint that Harry should open the window, swooped off into the night with the message.

Am I the Boy who Lived?

"Letter all written?" said Sirius, poking his head around the edge of Harry's door. "Dinner's ready. I made it today, though, so . . ." He grinned.

"Great," said Harry, jumping down off the edge of the bed to follow Sirius to the kitchen. "I'm so tired from everything I did with the Weasleys, I think I might've fallen asleep if you hadn't come to get me."

"Then I'm glad I did," said Sirius, resting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "It's just omelettes," he said, slightly apologetically, "but we've got peas, too. And you can go to bed right after dinner if you want, Harry."

Acting tired during dinner was easy. It hadn't been untrue to say that living with the Weasleys was sort of exhausting, and staring at his omelette was easier than trying to talk to Sirius and Remus. He just let their conversation drift over his head; it didn't seem to have to do with anything interesting, anyway, as they were discussing the choice of host nation for the next Quidditch World Cup (controversially, France).

As soon as he'd eaten his omelette--which had tasted of nothing, as had the peas and his juice--he'd crawled back up to his bed and lain there on top of the covers in his jeans and t-shirt. Perhaps it was being back in London, but the night was hot. Had Hermione gotten his message? He'd really just been guessing about how owl post worked. Was his letter mad enough that she wouldn't reply?

At three a.m., late enough that even Sirius had gone to bed, Ron's tiny owl flapped through Harry's window and landed on Harry's face. Harry carefully moved it and took the scrap of paper from its claws.

Coming.

So Hermione had known who'd sent her the message, even though he hadn't signed it. And, by the look of her handwriting, she'd written back in a hurry.

Harry only knew one way to get from the Burrow to Grimmauld Place.

Very slowly, he moved down the stairs and back down to the kitchen, easing his weight off each step and floorboard with the skill he'd learned from fifteen years of having to sneak down to the Dursleys' kitchen at night for food (with the knowledge that, if he wasn't stealthy enough, the punishment would be severe). When he finally squeezed past the kitchen door, though, Hermione wasn't there.

The waning moon and the streetlights painted the kitchen even greyer than it usually was. The ceiling seemed to extend up into infinite shadow; the chairs and table looked fixed and vacant, as though the house had been abandoned for years. Hot as the night was, the flagstones were cold under Harry's feet, so he curled them underneath him in his chair, rested his head on the table, and waited.

He didn't feel mad. The kitchen table felt hard and boring and wooden under his arm. The night sky past the window, with its stars obscured by London's never-extinguished lights, looked real, not like an imagined sky with sparkling constellations and a big crescent moon. But, of course, mad people never thought they were mad.

He had no way of definitely knowing.

At least half an hour had gone by when Harry saw a blaze of green in the fireplace. He sat up at once to see Hermione stumbling out into the half-light.

Struck with last-minute awkwardness, Harry stared at his fingernails for a moment before he stood up to greet her. What could he possibly say?

But he never had to decide, because Hermione had thrown her arms around his neck and was now crying into his shoulder.

Feeling that it would be rude not to, Harry hugged her back.

"Oh, Harry," she wept into his T-shirt, hugging him more tightly, as though she wasn't sure he was real. "I've missed you so much. We've been trying so hard to help you--I've been looking and looking through the most advanced books on Memory Charms, and Ginny's been trying to work out which Death Eater could have done that to you, and the twins have been going through the whole last fifty year's records of anyone whose job it is to do Memory Charms at the Ministry, if you believe it, and we couldn't even find out what they'd used to do such a horrible thing, and--oh, Harry, what would we have done without you?" At last, she pulled back and looked at him. Her face was absolutely wrecked, swollen and red from crying, Harry saw with a shock. Her eyes, though, traced over his features with wonder and joy and love and intimate recognition, and he looked away, unable to reveal to her that he couldn't recognize her in the same way. He hadn't understood, before, that they must have been best friends.

"Harry, don't be embarrassed!" she told him, gripping his upper arm. "All that matters is that you're remembering now." Using her sleeve, she wiped away another wave of tears. "It was so awful. We didn't know what we were going to do to bring your memories back," she confessed, half-laughing with happiness. "But you managed it by yourself," she said affectionately, still weeping. "Typical."

"Hermione," said Harry, still unable to look at her, "I was Gryffindor Seeker in my first year, right? And last year I was a Triwizard Champion?"

"Yes, you were," said Hermione, still looking at him with that watery smile.

"Hermione," said Harry, now staring at his fingers again. He had to be brave. "I . . . I read that stuff in a book. I don't remember." And feeling how bitterly he must be disappointing her, and everyone else who knew him, he said, "I'm sorry."

The room was still. "No, I'm sorry," said Hermione after a moment. "I jumped to conclusions. Sirius was supposed to have gotten all the history books out of the house, so I didn't even think you might have read it."

"We were good friends, weren't we?" asked Harry suddenly.

"Yes," said Hermione simply.

For some reason, among all the questions he had, the one about the Patronus Charm bobbed up in his mind. "I did the Patronus Charm today," he told her, back again in the persona of the student he'd been at the Burrow. "But . . . I think it was wrong. I think it was the wrong animal," he realized.

"What animal was it?" asked Hermione. She pulled out a kitchen chair and sat in it tensely, her feet resting together on its lowest rung.

"It was a dog," said Harry. "A big dog." He sat down next to her, tracing the grain of the wooden table with his nail.

"It was supposed to be a stag," said Hermione quietly. "Your father was an Animagus, like Sirius, and his form was a stag. Your Patronus before was always a stag."

"God, I forgot Sirius was a--I forgot," said Harry, resting his forehead on the table in despair. "It was Sirus as a dog. Of course it was."

"Sirius!" said Hermione to herself. "Harry, what did the book say about Sirius?"

Harry sat up. "It said he betrayed my parents. That he was a . . . Death Eater," said Harry, not even wanting to say it.

"He was innocent," Hermione told him intensely. "Sirius was never a Death Eater, and he didn't escape to kill you."

"I thought so," said Harry, finally daring to look up at Hermione. For the first time tonight, he felt able to take a deep breath.

"You were right," Hermione said softly, putting her hand over his on the table.

A car honked outside, reminding Harry of the vast city around them, strange to him and to magic. Sirius' house was a bastion against it all, the half-alive night of London, but he was more aware than he'd ever been of how near the chaos and dark of the city was.

Hermione was just watching him; her hand was knuckly, he noticed, with short nails, but holding his like an anchor, and he thought he could sense a glimmer of the bond there had once been between them.

"Hermione, what am I going to do?" he asked at last. "I don't even know what I don't know."

Hermione took in a deep breath. "There's one more thing you should know that you probably don't," she said. "Voldemort isn't dead."

A siren wailed outside. "Okay," said Harry, swallowing.

"When he failed to kill you when you were a baby, he didn't die completely," said Hermione slowly. "He's been coming back to power for a few years now . . . and, at the end of last spring, he got his body back. Now he's rising even faster than he did before. Nobody imagined he'd be able to attack you like that. It seems as though he's ready now to start his war all over again."

"Like last time?"

"Like last time," said Hermione, "except . . . now we've got you to fight him. Harry, you're the Boy Who Lived. You're basically the wizarding world's hope of defeating Voldemort for good. Nobody else could do it last time, not even Dumbledore. That's why . . . when you lost your memories, we were terrified. If you had to learn magic from the beginning again . . . we were afraid that, by the time you were ready to face Voldemort, it would be too late."

"So the Death Eaters, or Voldemort, attacked me," said Harry. He tried to keep his voice sounding normal. "Why didn't they just . . . kill me?"

"Maybe they couldn't," said Hermione quietly. "Voldemort's tried to kill you more than once since that time when you were a baby, Harry. He's never been able to." She lowered her voice even more, as though she didn't want to keep talking. "I've wondered whether Voldemort gave up on killing you, and this was his idea of stopping you in a different way."

Harry's bones were aching with tension and exhaustion, but he had to ask. "Is there any way to get my memories back?"

"We haven't even been able to pinpoint the spell that was used on you," Hermione said, her eyes filling with tears. "That makes it a lot more difficult to reverse it. Professor Dumbledore has an idea . . . but he doesn't want to do it unless he has to. We were hoping your memories might come back on their own, somehow." She pulled her jumper's sleeves over her hands. "Dumbledore said he couldn't find any of your old memories when he looked in your mind, but he did feel . . . echoes. And you remembered your spells--or, you didn't consciously, but something in you remembered, because otherwise you wouldn't have been able to do something like a Patronus. That's OWL-level magic, you know.

"We'd hoped you might remember more."

"I've only remembered . . . dreams I used to have when I was little. A golden ball with wings--oh, that must be the Snitch," he realized with a tiny smile. Having never seen one, he hadn't made the connection between the Quidditch ball he'd read about and the thing in his childhood dreams. "I used to dream about a Snitch."

"What else?"

"A . . . a flying motorbike."

"I don't know about that," Hermione confessed. "But maybe your mum or dad had one."

"A . . . just a flash of green light," said Harry, feeling foolish.

Hermione, though, seemed to recognize the description. "That's the Avada Kedavra," she whispered. "The Killing Curse."

Harry felt sick.

"Sorry," said Hermione.

"Would you . . . will you stay here until Sirius and Remus wake up?" he asked her. "I've got to tell them, but I . . ." He didn't want to have to tell them alone.

"I'll stay," said Hermione. "I don't think I could sleep, anyway."

"Thank you," said Harry. Even though he was nearly as tall as Lupin, at this moment he felt very small. "Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"All that duelling stuff . . . that was for defending myself against Voldemort, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'd have to use something like . . . Avada Kedavra against him, then?"

"Yes," said Hermione again. "You see, Avada Kedavra can't be blocked. I mean, not only yours but--his, too."

Harry had never fought anyone before--at least, not that he remembered. Dudley's gang didn't count, because when he hadn't been running away he'd just been getting beaten up.

"I think we've got some Exploding Snap cards in one of these drawers," he said, standing up to look.

"Bit noisy."

"Oh. Right." He sat down again.

"I'm sorry, Harry," said Hermione, putting her hand over his again. "I know it's not fair. But . . . I know you. You've done some pretty amazing things. I mean, once, in first year, you and Ron took down a troll together without any help."

"Really?" He wished he remembered. It sounded like a memory worth keeping.

"Oh, yes," said Hermione. "And you learned the Patronus Charm all by yourself in third year. Professor Lupin taught you in special lessons. And you once rescued Ginny from a Basilisk all by yourself."

She went on, sounding almost like a mother making up fantasy stories about her child and his friends. Professor Lupin had once been his teacher, Harry thought. Harry was sure he'd liked that. And he'd rescued Ginny . . . it was difficult to imagine Ginny as a damsel in distress, needing to be rescued from a monster.

As the sun rose, it seemed to illuminate the connections between himself and all the people he'd met, like strands of web he hadn't seen before. Hermione was still talking at 6:10 a.m. when Lupin sleepily pushed the kitchen door open, still in his pajamas, dressing gown and slippers.

"Hermione!" he said in surprise. "Is something the matter?"

"No," she said, and then corrected herself. "But we'd like to talk to you and Sirius."

"I'll get Sirius up," said Lupin at once, hurrying worriedly out of the room. It seemed as though he was gone for hours as Hermione and Harry sat in silence, but eventually he returned with a haggard but very alert-looking Sirius in tow.

They both sat at the table across from Harry and Hermione. "Harry has something he wants to tell you," she said. Sirius' eyes, taking in Harry and Hermione together, bugged out, and Hermione quickly flushed and added, "No, no! It's just . . . go on, Harry."

"Um . . ." said Harry miserably. He didn't want to make the same mistake with Sirius and Lupin that he'd made with Hermione: making them think he'd gotten his memories back when he hadn't. To his humiliation, he felt the weight of tears above his lower lashes. "Basically, I know I've forgotten . . . everything. But I don't remember, I just . . . read it in a book, actually, so . . . I just thought you should know," he finished lamely.

Both Lupin and Sirius stood up at once, Sirius so quickly his chair fell over. "What. . . ?" he asked, eyes glancing to Harry, then to Hermione, then back again, black brows knotting in alarm. He looked torn, as though he wanted to rush over to Harry, but was afraid to--and Harry had never seen Sirius look even slightly afraid before. Now he was looking at Harry as though his godson was a bomb about to go off.

Then Harry got it. "It's all right," he tried to assure his godfather, his throat dry. "Hermione said what happened to you, how you were . . . innocent."

"We've been here talking half the night," said Hermione's voice at his side.

But he barely heard her; all at once, the fact of what had been done to Sirius was hitting Harry. Sirius had been imprisoned for something he hadn't done. He'd been called a Death Eater by the world when he'd never have betrayed Harry's father, whom he loved. How many years of Sirius' life had been taken?

Suddenly, Harry realized that Sirius' arms were clasped around him, trembling almost imperceptibly; the velvet lapel of Sirius' dressing-gown was crushed into his cheek, still carrying that hint of embers that was always Sirius' smell.

Burying his knuckles in the back of Sirius' dressing-gown, Harry sobbed for the time they had both lost.