Harry Potter and the Final Prophecy

-- Chapter Four --

     Premonitions

Harry had expected the common room to be deserted at this hour, but as he climbed in through the portrait hole he saw Ron and Hermione sitting by the fire, moving very rapidly apart in panic from what had unmistakably been an embrace ... they both instantly blushed in guilt as he stared open-mouthed in stunned disbelief at them. Backing away, he crashed into a table, sending books and ink flying. 'Uh, well, see you tomorrow then,' he managed to mumble before closing the door to the dormitory behind him with relief. He climbed the spiral stairs, shaking his head in amazement; seemingly ever since they'd met they had been endlessly bickering and arguing with each other, and yet now ... It was like his own parents, he realised. Still dazed, he almost got into Ron's bed by mistake, lost in bewildered thoughts of what on earth he could say to them in the morning. He couldn't pretend he hadn't seen anything ...

Harry lay awake for a long time, a strange sense of loss nagged at him, mixed with feelings of jealousy he didn't want to examine too closely. He realised he did care about Hermione a lot, but of course, not in the same way he'd felt about Cho. It was deeper in a sense, but also they were just friends. It was the same way that he was friends with Ron, so really shouldn't he be happy that the two of them were together? Looking back, all the signs had been there before, he just hadn't wanted to comprehend their meaning.

He overslept the next morning, the dormitory was deserted and the bright September sunshine was already filling the room as Ron prodded him awake. They hurried downstairs to the great hall, Ron hastily pinning his head boy badge on, upside down, as they passed groups of students already on their way to the first lessons. Hermione and Ginny were still at the Gryffindor table however when they entered. Hermione frowned at Ron as he sat down opposite her and Ginny convulsed in silent giggles. Harry followed their stares and realised that Ron still had a smear of Hermione's lipstick on his face.

'Er, maybe you should take a look in a mirror before we go to Snape's class,' Harry suggested diplomatically, trying to stop himself laughing at Ron's mystified expression.

'I wonder who put it there,' said Ginny innocently.

'What?' Ron mumbled thickly through a mouthful of porridge, 'put what where?' Cottoning on he wiped his cheek with his hand and stared at the beige smear. 'It's none of your business,' he said shortly.

'Fine, you've been trying to control who I go out with for the last three years, but as soon as you, finally, get yourself a girlfriend, it's none of my business!'

'What d'you mean, ''finally"!' Ron spluttered in disbelief, as Hermione also struggled to suppress a smile at his dumbfounded expression. 'How can you ... I ...' He was saved from further interrogation as the bell for class went.

They rushed down the stairs to the potions dungeon. Although they entered just behind Crabbe and Goyle, Snape loudly reprimanded them as they attempted to sidle unnoticed to free seats at the back, 'So our new head boy obviously doesn't consider it important to be in time for lessons, ten points from Gryffindor, Weasley, for setting such a bad example. And five each from Potter and Granger as well.'

The Slytherins smirked at them as Snape swept towards them with a predatory expression on his sharp face. 'And I see you have been busy with things other than lessons, Weasley,' he sneered. Harry realised with horror that some of the lipstick was still stuck to Ron's face. Ron scrubbed furiously at the mark, blushing vividly as the Slytherins laughed. 'I think we'll use you as our volunteer tester at the end of the lesson,' Snape announced maliciously, 'you should have some interesting things to tell us. Today we'll be developing truth serums ...'

Ron looked aghast and Hermione didn't look too pleased either. Harry could see she was doing some quick thinking as Snape explained the potion and how to prepare it. As the class started chopping and marinating ingredients, she urgently whispered instructions in Ron's ear.

Harry did his best to look as if he was trying to follow the recipe as Snape prowled past their desk, glaring malevolently at them, but he adjusted the contents of the potion in a way that he hoped would render it ineffective, omitting the key ingredient, minced jobberknoll brains, while not turning it into a poison. Hermione was obviously planning something more subtle. Although her mixture was frothing in the prescribed manner, he'd noticed her putting in scarab beetle wings and ground sard in deliberately the wrong order, and adding the jobberknoll brains before simmering instead of after.

Snape went from desk to desk at the end of the lesson inspecting each cauldron. As he bent over Malfoy's, Hermione slipped Ron a test tube of her own potion, which he gulped down with a revolted expression on his face, trying hard not to gag. Snape selected Malfoy's and Pansy Parkinson's potions to test on Ron, and made him stand at the front of the class as he decanted the thick white mixtures into two flagons. 'This potion, if made correctly, forces the subject to regurgitate their memories of the last twenty-four hours in a rapid succession, in reverse order. As a truth serum it therefore has some limitations, but it should be sufficient to elicit some entertaining revelations from Mr Weasley.' The Slytherins sniggered as Ron reluctantly swallowed Malfoy's potion. A glazed expression came over his eyes and his mouth moved seemingly automatically, unsynchronised at first with words which came out in a jumbled rush. 'Breakfast; waking too late; dream, beating Slytherin at Quidditch; very late; kissed by ...' Harry could see Ron fighting very hard to stop himself saying the name, as half the class willed him to do so. Beside him Hermione was maintaining a carefully composed neutral expression. '... ; Quidditch practice; dinner, pork chops ...'

'Ok, that's enough,' Snape cut in, snarling with contempt, 'let's see if Miss Parkinson's potion has more effect.'

He dosed Ron with the second flask. Again Ron seemed to slip into a semiconscious trance. 'Too inquisitive for her own good; bright sunlight, everyone gone; dream, winning match; late night; Harry interrupts us; Quidditch; ...'

Mercifully the recitation was halted by the bell for lunch and they finally managed to escape from Snape's clutches. 'Thanks for that,' Ron muttered to Hermione as they hurried out of the dungeons.

'What did you do?' asked Harry.

'I made an antidote to the potion instead of the potion itself, so Ron wouldn't be affected by it,' she said grimly. 'What a foul thing to do to someone, he's got even worse this year.'

'It's only an act,' Harry pointed out quietly as they sat down beside Ginny and Dean, 'he can't be friendly to us, Malfoy would tell tales to his parents and it'd get back to Voldemort.'

'There's a big difference between not being friendly and being an outright sadist,' said Ron, still pale and shaking from his humiliation. 'Don't tell me that ******* doesn't enjoy treating us like dirt. He's simply evil, there's no other word for it.'

Ron and Hermione hurried through their lunch and got up to go before Harry had even started on the pudding. 'We'll see you later, Harry, ok?' said Hermione nervously.

They left the hall deep in conversation. Ginny gave him a sympathetic smile, but this didn't lessen Harry's feelings of being abandoned. He realised with a pang of sadness that their life at school was nearly over, whatever the outcome of the war with Voldemort ... From now on Ron and Hermione would be spending more and more time together, without him ... He gulped down the dessert without tasting it and left the hall quickly, wanting to spend the rest of lunch hour alone in Gryffindor tower. He climbed the entrance hall stairs lost in melancholy reflections and memories.

As Harry reached the top of the staircase everything suddenly changed around him, the polished marble steps transformed instantly into rough slabs of stone, the paintings and torches vanished from the walls, and all sounds, of lessons and movement and voices, ceased. He halted in shock, noticing the sinister coldness in the dead air. Harry was used to staircases at Hogwarts leading to unexpected places and sometimes even changing their destinations while he climbed them, but always before they had stayed within the castle. This didn't look like Hogwarts at all ... or rather it was like a deserted and abandoned Hogwarts, uninhabited and desolate. Only the pounding of blood in his ears broke the oppressive silence as he stared around at the scarred and cracked bare walls. Thick heaps of dust cloaked the passageway floor ahead, as if no-one had passed this way for decades. Thinking he might somehow reverse this spell by retracing his steps, he started descending the staircase, backwards at first, then when this had no effect, normally. The windows of the entrance hall were broken, and icy drafts lanced through it, the floor piled with leaves and debris from a dozen autumns. The doors to the great hall were ajar, and he peered inside, feeling an eerie sensation looking at the vast cavernous deserted space, devoid of any tables or decoration, the ceiling now merely an inert stone vault.

He turned away, chilled by an increasing sense of foreboding as he started to climb the crumbling staircases up to Gryffindor tower. Surely not even Dumbledore or Voldemort had the power to make such an absolute transformation, he thought, noticing that all of the familiar statues and suits of armour were missing. But perhaps instead he had travelled in time, abruptly propelled into some terrible future, where Hogwarts had been closed ... a future where Voldemort had won ... He climbed faster up the narrow stone stairways, leaving a trail of shoeprints behind in the thick dust, listening for any sound beyond the dismal echoes of his own steps, rebounding into the distance from wall to wall in the cold stale air.

Or maybe, he wondered with even greater alarm, as he reached the passageway to the common room, he had finally cracked and all this was an hallucination? The events of the last six years, so many narrow escapes from death, the loss of Sirius ... perhaps all that had finally pushed him over the edge into madness? But this world somehow seemed too complete, too real, to be simply his imagination. He paused and touched the stone wall beside him, it felt as solid as ever. His hand came away coated in fine grey dust. Finally at the end of the corridor he reached the portrait hole, as he'd expected, the painting had gone and the circular doorway was open. Inside, the common room was dark and derelict, a few broken pieces of furniture scattered across the dust and ash-littered floor.

Harry shivered with cold and despair. He realised he couldn't stay in this ruined castle for much longer. Gathering up courage, he climbed into the common room, the air was musty and damp, all the familiar things he had known for six years vanished or destroyed. A cat skeleton lay in fragments by the fireplace. He stared disconsolately at the blackened empty hearth, then turned and started to climb the final winding steps up to his dormitory. Inside only a few remnants of the beds remained, shredded scraps of cloth from the hangings, and broken splinters of wood, the mouldering carpet layered with thick swathes of dust. In a daze of disbelief and exhaustion he slumped against the wall of the room, as the daylight dimmed and retreated across the grounds far below. He was feeling intense thirst now, and tried to get water from the taps, but only a thin dribble of black noxious fluid emerged.

'This can't be real,' he thought to himself in desperation, wondering if it was some trick of Voldemort's, a vision somehow imposed on his mind. 'Perhaps if I disbelieve in it strongly enough I can escape from it.' He forced himself to concentrate, to imagine the real Hogwarts. At this time he would be struggling with his homework in the common room with Ron and Hermione, trying to understand some hideously complex potion recipe of Snape's or transfiguration spell of McGonagall's, as well as keeping the peace between his friends ... or perhaps, now, trying hard not to interfere as their hesitant and uncomfortable romance developed ... As he imagined the scene more vividly he managed for a moment to shut out the gloomy dead surroundings of the ruined tower, he felt reality dissolving and fought an instinct to cling to it, instead he tried to wipe it altogether from his mind. The world spun around him, fragments flying apart into a formless mist of white light, he felt hurled from side to side as if he was falling down some endless shaft. Abruptly all sense of motion ceased, he was lying flat on his back and intense light blazed into his eyes. As he closed his eyes against the brightness voices suddenly burst out around him.

'He moved, he's come round at last,' said a worried voice he recognised as Madam Pomfrey's.

'Harry, don't slip away again, you must stay awake,' came Dumbledore's voice as a hand shook his shoulder and Harry opened his eyes to see both of them peering down at him with concern. Looking round he could see he was back in the hospital wing again. Only one other bed seemed to be occupied, by a pupil recovering from some unpleasant curse. A strong smell of festering manure drifted across the ward from the unfortunate victim. Dumbledore smiled as Harry held his nose.

'What happened? Where was I?' Harry asked, still very disorientated.

'You were found some hours ago, by two Ravenclaw prefects, lying unconscious on the entrance hall staircase, and brought here. Madam Pomfrey has been trying to revive you but it seems the vision that held you was very strong ... I was unable to enter the illusion myself to help you escape ... you had to find your own way to break its hold over you.'

'It was so real,' Harry shuddered, 'it felt so solid ... but I couldn't believe it in the end, I didn't want to believe it, a deserted, ruined Hogwarts ...'

'It seems Voldemort has found a way to circumvent the Occlumency protections,' Dumbledore said, 'as I suspected he would, eventually. Undoubtedly his aim was to ensnare you in a world where you would lose the will to resist him, where you would be lost in despair. But you managed to fight him off again. In the end your own strength of mind is our only sure defence against Voldemort.'

'But I can't keep fighting him off,' Harry protested, not sharing at all Dumbledore's confidence in his ability to resist Voldemort's interference. 'If he keeps attacking my mind, I _will_ go mad.' He dreaded the times when his awareness must inevitably relax its guard, dreading when he must sleep.

'Harry, your mind is stronger than his,' Dumbledore said firmly, peering seriously at him over his glasses, 'remember how you forced Voldemort's wand to recapitulate its spells during your duel? He is ruled by fear and hate, he is terrified of death, afraid of all the murders and evil he has committed, consumed by hatred for his own part-Muggle origins, and even for his Death Eaters ... you do not have such weaknesses, you have a perfectly normal, human, fear of death, but that has not stopped you risking death to save your friends. Voldemort will not even risk death to save himself ...'

He smiled as Harry stared at him in amazement. 'Poppy, please ask Ron and Hermione to come in, and then bring some potion for dreamless sleep for Harry.'

Ron and Hermione rushed over to him as soon as Madam Pomfrey let them in, their noses wrinkling as they passed the cloaca curse victim. Dumbledore bid him goodnight and left as they sat down beside his bed. 'Harry!' Hermione exclaimed, 'we thought you'd really had it this time, everyone was so worried, even Dumbledore ...'

'I thought I'd had it as well,' joked Harry, and told them about the vision and the horrific sensation he'd had of being trapped in Voldemort's nightmare world. He explained a little of what Firenze had told him the previous evening, but still kept the secret of the first prophecy, that he must murder or be murdered, to himself. It struck him as they questioned him that he hadn't heard them arguing once all day -- which must surely be a first.

Madam Pomfrey returned clasping a huge dark bottle and a glass, and hovered near the end of the bed. He felt a wave of fear rise in him at the thought of losing consciousness again, losing control ... 'Look, if I don't see you again,' he began.

They let out exclamations of protest. 'Don't be stupid, of course we'll see you again!' said Ron.

'No, I'm being serious. If something happens to me this year, I just want both of you to know that, well, what I mean is, good luck ... you know ... for the future ... your future ...' He struggled to pin down what he felt and express it, but they seemed to understand; at least Hermione did, Ron still looked perplexed as Madam Pomfrey closed in with the glass of sleeping potion.

He watched them exchange a concerned look as he quickly drank the thick purple liquid. A drugged numbness spread throughout his body; making a final effort he gave them a thumbs up sign. Their smiles were the last things he saw as utter blackness folded around him.