Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Light

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Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Light A Harry Potter/The Dark Is Rising Sequence Fusion By: Gramarye

Chapter Twenty - Finding The Way

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Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

    -- W. H. Auden

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Fortunately for Harry, Fred and George got to Ron first. They cornered him in the common room immediately after leaving the fifth-year boys' dormitory to tell him of their captain's decision. They had spared Harry the nigh-impossible task of breaking the bad news to his once- best friend.

Unfortunately, the entire house had to listen to the shouting match that ensued.

Harry didn't need to go down to the common room to know what was going on. He could hear the whole thing loud and clear from the relative comfort of his bed, even with a pillow jammed firmly over his head.

The argument quickly escalated. A series of thumps and bangs from below indicated that the quarrel was about to become violent, if it wasn't already. Harry had just made up his mind to get out of bed and go downstairs when he heard Professor McGonagall's voice, booming like the sound of divine retribution.

"I could hear you three corridors away!" their Head of House fumed, her words spiralling up the stairs and through the closed dormitory doors. "I will be taking thirty points from each of you for causing this disturbance. Now go to bed!"

There was another angry shout, one that thankfully was muffled by Harry's pillow.

McGonagall's voice, however, rang loud and clear. "ENOUGH! Extended detention, Ron Weasley! With me! Tomorrow night! And another ten points for your language--care to make it twenty?"

After a long moment, they heard the sound of feet pounding up stairs, and the door flew open as Ron stormed into the room. Harry froze under the bedclothes, holding his breath, but Ron didn't approach his bed. He was more interested in making sure that everyone in the room knew just how angry he was. He stomped around, flinging dirty clothing aside and making as much noise as possible until Seamus sat up in bed, rubbing his face.

"Could you please be a little louder?" he said acidly, his tongue thick with interrupted sleep. "I can't quite hear you."

"Sod you, Finnigan." Ron punctuated his rude remark with an equally rude gesture as he climbed into bed. Seamus rolled over, yanking his pillow over his head.

It took a very, very long time for Harry to fall asleep that night.

        *        *        *

Classes began the next day. The day itself was beautiful, crisp and sunny. This only served to make Harry even more depressed. At least, he thought, the weather could have cooperated to match his mood. Rain would have been nicely appropriate, with a little thunder and lightning tossed in for good measure. Perhaps even hail. Or a blizzard.

Potions was the first class of the day for the fifth-year Gryffindors, and a miserable time was had by all. Even Neville's new sense of self-confidence was shaken by Professor Snape's inexplicably foul mood. Poor Hermione was nearly driven to tears when the Potions Master pounced on a slight inaccuracy she had made in her measurements for the day's class potion and proceeded to explain her mistake to the entire class. Harry had to fight the urge to come her defence--Snape would probably give him detention for insubordination if he so much as opened his mouth.

But Snape's fit of temper was mild compared to a certain red-haired Gryffindor. In an open display of public shunning, Ron partnered himself with Neville when classwork required it, leaving Hermione to work with Harry. And since both Harry and Ron had nearly all their classes together--their schedule that day featured Potions, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Divination, all of which usually required partners or teamwork--Ron's conduct could hardly go unnoticed.

Hermione muttered a few words to herself about 'childish behaviour', but she sat in between the two boys during class. It seemed that even though she wasn't taking sides, she would at least attempt to keep the peace. Neville helped her, though he had little to no idea of the reason behind the dispute.

Harry informed Colin of the change in the team roster later that day, after a Quidditch practice from which Ron was conspicuously absent.

He could tell that Colin was overjoyed to hear the news. The younger boy hid his glee well--he showed genuine concern for Tommy, and didn't say a thing about Ron's decision. But he couldn't conceal the smile that threatened to split his face in two when Harry told him to be ready to play Keeper against Slytherin that Saturday.

The next day was Thursday. Just before lunch, Neville approached Harry outside the Charms classroom, a worried look on his face.

"Are we still on for...'studying' tonight?" he asked uncertainly.

Harry groaned softly. With everything else that had been on his mind, he hadn't stopped to think about how the quarrel with Ron (or Ron's quarrel with him, to be precise) would affect their sessions with Will.

It wasn't only the fact that Ron was deliberately avoiding him--though that would be an obvious problem. The four of them were working with complex spells that invoked ancient power they didn't fully understand. He had learned enough about magic to know that emotional fluctuations could have serious repercussions on the spell casting. And though Will was well aware of the awkward situation, Harry was well aware that the Old One would not be pleased if the falling out prevented the sessions from continuing.

"I don't know," he said. "Tonight's doubtful. Maybe Monday."

Neville nodded, and slipped away.

Even though he had no appetite, Harry headed to the Great Hall. He had to keep eating for the sake of the team. He couldn't faint from hunger in the middle of a game, especially not one against Slytherin.

He selected a steaming bowl of mock turtle soup, a chunk of freshly- baked bread, and an apple, and wandered over to the Gryffindor table. Ron, Hermione, and Natalie McDonald were eating together at one end of the long table, so he doggedly made his way toward the other, empty end.

He was nearly there when a person who had been sitting down at the adjacent table stood up without warning. They crashed into each other, and Harry found himself on the floor in a puddle of lukewarm mock turtle soup.

Rubbing his back, he looked up to see Draco Malfoy staring down at him. The young Slytherin looked faintly confused, as if he wasn't entirely sure what had happened.

Harry snarled, more in frustration than in true anger. Of all days and all people, it *would* have to be today and Draco Malfoy.

"Why can't you watch where you're going, Malfoy?" he snapped.

Draco pushed his chair in, the wooden legs scraping loudly on the floor.

"Out of my way, Potter," he mumbled, and brushed past Harry without a backward glance.

Crabbe and Goyle, who had been sitting on the opposite side of the table, got up and wordlessly followed their leader out of the hall.

"Clumsy git." Harry wrung the edge of his robe. Soup dripped onto the floor, only to be soaked up by other parts of his clothing and the already sodden piece of bread that had fallen nearby. His apple had rolled away to parts unknown.

With a grunt, he got to his feet and left the Great Hall. He'd have to change clothes if he didn't want to smell like sour soup for the rest of the day.

As he walked down the corridors to Gryffindor Tower, he started to wonder about Draco's reaction. There had been no snide remarks, no cutting comments. In Harry's opinion, this was beyond strange. At any other time, Draco would have used the opportunity for his own amusement. But this time, the other boy had seemed preoccupied; his mind was plainly elsewhere.

Harry wondered as he stripped off his soiled clothing and changed robes. He wondered as he wadded his old robe into a ball and left it on the edge of his bed for the house elves to find and clean. He wondered as he headed to Transfiguration, his next class. He simply could not shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

*You're being paranoid, Harry,* he scolded himself. *Just because Malfoy's got something on his mind doesn't mean that it's anything to do with you.*

But paranoid or not, the feeling wouldn't go away.

        *        *        *

The Quidditch match was well underway when Harry's mind began to wander. It was a stupid, not to say dangerous, thing for a Seeker to do, but he couldn't keep his thoughts focused on the game.

At the time, Gryffindor was fifty points ahead, and it looked like they were sure to stay that way. The Chasers were in tight formation, wheeling and turning and passing the Quaffle with practiced precision. The Beaters gauged each strike just right to deflect the Bludgers with easy grace. And the terrified replacement Keeper had let only three shots slip past him, which was remarkable when you considered that the Slytherin team had resorted to some rather vicious techniques in order to score.

After Katie and Alicia had scored two goals in under a minute, one of the Slytherin Beaters had timed his strike to coincide with a Chaser's shot on the Gryffindor goal. Colin almost had his head neatly removed from his shoulders as he tried to dodge both the speeding Bludger and the blur of the Quaffle. Ten points to Slytherin.

Fred Weasley had responded in true Weasley fashion--by coming up from underneath and whacking the tail of the Beater's broom with his bat, sending his opponent hurtling to the ground. This unorthodox tactic drew vindicated cheers from the Gryffindor side and angry shouts from the Slytherins. Madam Hooch's golden eyes were narrow slits as she blew her whistle, stopping the game.

A brief time out was called while Madam Pomfrey examined the stunned Slytherin. As Lee Jordan launched into a long, rambling discourse on various fouls perpetrated by dastardly Slytherin players of yore, Harry used the opportunity to call his team together.

"You all right, Colin?" he asked.

"Fine," Colin replied breathlessly. He was still a little dazed, but he was recovering. "Thanks, Fred."

"Not a problem," Fred said cheerfully. "Been wanting to do that to Bole all year."

Angelina pushed stringy, sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. "No sign of the Snitch?"

"None," Harry said. "Hang in there--I'll try to end this as quickly as I can."

"Don't kill yourself," quipped George, mopping his face with the sleeve of his robe. "You're no use to anyone if you're dead."

Madam Hooch's shrill whistle screamed across the pitch. The play began again.

Harry climbed quickly. Draco was at the far end of the pitch, looking for the Snitch on his own. He had been keeping his distance from the game, and only paid attention to Harry when the Gryffindor Seeker did something unexpected.

But Harry's mind wasn't on Draco, or the Snitch, or any other part of the game. For some strange reason, George's words would not leave his head.

*"You're no good to anyone if you're dead."*

Not entirely accurate, in his opinion. It was a cynical and terribly morbid outlook for a fifteen-year-old boy, but there certainly were enough people who wouldn't have minded him dead. The Dursleys, for one--wherever they were. No grief on their part. They would have been only too glad to have him gone for good, without the possibility of coming back.

*"You're no good to anyone if you're dead."*

He could have died any number of times. By all logic, he *should* have died on more than one occasion. He had been saved by everything from well-timed intervention to noble sacrifice to pure dumb luck. But he was still here. He hadn't died yet.

*"You're no good to anyone if you're dead."*

He hadn't died, true enough. But he couldn't say the same for his parents. Or Cedric Diggory. Or Dennis Creevey. Or Mr. Longbottom. Or Mrs. Weasley.

*"You're no good to anyone if you're dead."*

It was like having a shopping list in the back of his mind, one that he could pull out at any time if he wanted to tick off names. And Ron's mother had just been added to that list. Her death had been pointless, just like all the others.

*"You're no good to anyone...."*

Pointless. Without reason. A straightforward case of being in the absolute wrong place at the absolute wrong--

*"....if you're dead."*

Realisation hit him like a Bludger to the gut.

At that moment, he knew what had been plaguing his mind ever since Christmas. He knew the source of the nagging little voice that wouldn't let him alone, that kept insisting that he was partly to blame for Molly Weasley's death. If he hadn't been forced to stay at Hogwarts--

His head snapped up as the normal din of the crowd spiked in a thunderous roar. On the other side of the pitch, Draco was diving for the ground, a smear of moving green against the darker green grass.

Harry accelerated as fast as he could, pushing his Firebolt to the limits of its speed, but there would be no replay of the Ravenclaw game this time. He was fifty yards away when he saw the tiny golden form of the Snitch sparkling like a star. Draco snatched it a second later.

"AND MALFOY TAKES THE SNITCH!" Lee Jordan shouted. "SLYTHERIN WINS!"

Harry braked slowly, coasting across the field. The Slytherin side was a mass of screaming, cheering faces, while the red and gold of Gryffindor drooped dejectedly. He traced a wide, lazy spiral down to the ground to join the rest of his team.

The Gryffindor team had their best 'I'm-going-to-be-a-jolly-good- sport-and-an-honourable-loser-if-it-damn-near-kills-me" faces on as they congratulated the winners and shook hands, and trooped off to the showers.

Harry stood in the shower until the flow of water ran tepid. Before they left, Fred and George cautioned him about emulating Oliver Wood too closely ("Don't try to drown yourself that way, Harry--takes too bloody long"). Even Colin left him alone when it was clear that the older boy wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Alone with the running water, he turned the revelation over in his head. At the time, he would have been more than willing to dismiss it as irrational, the product of suspicion and overthinking. He could be reading too much into things. And even if he wasn't, if it really *was* true, there was no way to prove it.

But when he had fought his way through the ecstatic mob of Slytherins to shake Draco's hand, he had seen a faint expression cross the other boy's face. It was the same look he had seen for a split-second in Draco's eyes in the Great Hall, though at the time he hadn't noticed it.

It was the briefest hint of fear.

That fear confirmed his own fears. Ron's mother had died because he was supposed to have been at the Burrow on Christmas Eve...or more accurately, because he *hadn't been there*.

        *        *        *

Monday rolled around, and Harry knew they had to meet with Will that night. He persuaded Hermione to persuade Ron to come to the seven o'clock meeting, and told Neville that the evening's 'study session' was still on.

He spent the rest of the day in a losing battle to pay attention in classes, and arrived in the little room off the library at six-thirty. He lit the fire and spent the next fifteen minutes flipping through one of the books that had been on a nearby shelf. It was entirely in German, but then again it wasn't as though he was really reading it.

Neville showed up at quarter to seven, and together they waited in an uncomfortable silence. Five minutes before seven, Hermione darted into the room. Her hair was mussed from running, and she was having a hard time catching her breath.

"Studying...Natalie...lost track of time...awfully sorry..." she said in between gulps of air.

"It's all right," Harry reassured her. "Ron's not here yet."

"Should we wait?" Neville asked.

"He...promised me he'd be here," Hermione said. Her breathing had slowed down somewhat. "Maybe he got held up somewhere."

"Was he in the library?" asked Harry.

She frowned. "I don't know. I was in the common room...that's why I had to run all the way here."

Neville traced a squiggly pattern in the layer of dust that covered the long table. "We can wait for him, can't we?"

Harry sighed. "We don't have much choice."

Hermione and Neville sat down to wait. The minutes ticked past.

At a nerve-wracking twenty-three minutes past seven, the door opened and Ron breezed into the room.

"You're late," Hermione said icily, standing up.

Ron shrugged. "I was busy."

When she didn't question him further, he flopped down into one of the chairs and gave her a pointed stare. "I thought you'd have started by now," he said.

The force of Hermione's glare could have melted glass.

"We were waiting for you," she said waspishly. "It takes all four of us to activate the mirror, *remember*?"

"Well, I'm here now," Ron said, yawning.

"Obviously," Neville snapped.

Alarm flickered in Ron's eyes at the irritation in Neville's voice, but he quickly regained his nonchalant attitude.

"Are we going to start any time soon?" he asked airily. "I don't want to be here all night."

Harry counted ten to get himself under control, then counted twenty when that didn't work. He would *not* rise to the baiting. He would remain perfectly calm.

Without a word, he stood up, walked over to the mirror and touched the frame. Staring fixedly at the mirror, he waited for the mist to clear.

Will was in the process of putting on his overcoat. His briefcase was on the floor next to his desk, and it looked like he was getting ready to leave. Just before the last of the mist disappeared, he half-turned around and noticed that the mirror had been activated. He removed his coat, draping it over his desk chair, then approached the mirror.

"I see you've decided to come after all," he said, his voice eerily neutral.

"Good evening, sir," Neville said, straining to be polite.

Will did not respond to the pleasantries. He folded his arms across his chest and gave them all a stern, inhospitable stare.

"It has come to my attention that there are certain...differences of opinion amongst you at the moment." The calmness was gone, replaced by a formality that bordered on disdain. "Whatever disagreements you may have in your personal lives do not apply in this room. We have a duty to perform, and I will not permit any kind of distraction to interfere. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," they said in unison, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"At your convenience, then."

The four of them stepped up to the mirror. There was an awkward moment when Ron and Harry had to stand next to each other in order to touch the mirror frame, but the steely light in the Old One's eye quelled any argument before it could start.

"Enter, Watchman of the Light."

"Grant to us your inner sight."

"Enter, for the time draws near."

"Power will erase our fear."

Nothing happened. The mirror didn't react.

"No," Neville whispered, horrified.

Harry stared at the mirror, and felt the beginnings of sick laughter stir inside him. Of course. This *would* have happened today, on top of everything else.

Hermione cleared her throat nervously. "Should...should we try it again, sir?" she asked Will.

He shook his head. "Don't bother. I doubt if a second attempt would produce different results."

"Is it like the last time?" Harry asked anxiously. "Is it...do we need another person again?"

"I leave that for you to figure out, Mr. Potter." He picked up his coat from the back of his chair. "As it stands, I can be of no help to you. Now, if you four will be so good as to excuse me, I am late to an important appointment. I prefer to keep my word when it comes to punctuality."

Ron couldn't stifle a gasp--the Parthian shot had hit home.

If Will had heard him, he made no mention of it. He merely waved an indifferent hand at the mirror. The mist began to swirl over it, darkening the glass.

"When you've sorted things out, please let me know," he said abruptly. He gathered his briefcase and a furled umbrella, and walked over to the door of his office. "Good evening to you."

With that brusque dismissal, the mirror became ordinary glass again, and he was gone.

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Gramarye [email protected] http://gramarye.freehosting.net/ May 14th, 2002