Alchemy of the Human Mind

Alchemy of the Human Mind
by Muguet au Bois

There were times Harry had been confident he was experiencing a defining moment, something he'd never forget and something that would change him utterly. Eventually, of course, he would forget nearly every one. The urgency and sense of importance at the time would fade until he would remember it – if he remembered it at all – as something he'd intended to remember but couldn't.

Odd, he couldn't remember the first time Hedwig had trusted him enough to eat from his hand, but he could recall with perfect clarity the tang of strawberries and lemonade that one sunny day in June. His first words with Ginny were simply absent from his head (although Ginny later insisted he'd said nothing in reply to her "Good Luck"), but he remembered how the snow crunched under his feet as he walked to school a few months after his eighth birthday.

There were a few, though, a few special incidents that Harry recognized, in retrospect, as turning points. Road signs he'd read, and read correctly. The twisted, broken path he'd taken had led him here, to Tom's lifeless body, to a stunned and silent crowd of witnesses, to an unaccustomed warm, inner peace, and to the wand sputtering sparks, hanging limp from his own fingertips.

* * * * *

Privet Drive in late June was not the sort of place one expected pleasant surprises. Indeed, surprises of any kind tended to skulk around the corner somewhere until late July, stretching out the summer's anticipation of pre-school-year drama. It was for this reason Aunt Petunia's anger-trembled whisper of, "You're taking drugs now, are you?" caught Harry unawares.

"I'm doing what?" Harry asked, incredulous.

Petunia chuffed out a bitter snort of refusal. Clearly Harry's surprised response was an insufficient denial of wrongdoing. Of course, Harry hadn't ever managed to deliver a single convincing denial of misconduct, and his sixteenth birthday was fast approaching.

"Your drug dealer is at our door," Petunia growled. "I would be much obliged if you could keep your disgusting vices away from my home. Although you will be leaving this house the moment you are able, my family will still have to live here, and I would prefer not to have the neighbors assume we associate with degenerates."

"Ah," Harry sighed. "You're thinking of Dudley, then. His friends are the ones who smoke illicit substances. You might try asking him." At her gasp, he turned away and reopened the book he'd been reading. His eyes fixed firmly on the text, his voice carefully controlled, he added, "The people I associate with either care about me or attempt to kill me. Try to keep them straight."

Petunia's voice was icy. "He asked for you specifically. Now go downstairs and send him away before I call the authorities and have you both arrested." She turned on her heel and left the room.

He hadn't been concentrating on the book anyway, not really, so closing it with a nasty snap without marking his page was a satisfying act of only minor rebellion.

When he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he found the front door closed and no one in the foyer. Naturally Petunia would have left his guest outside, despite her protestations. When he opened the door, he at least understood the source of his aunt's misconception. That understanding fled quickly, however, in the face of the shock and near elation he felt when he realized who was standing there, calmly awaiting an invitation to enter.

The simple homespun tunic was not so much a surprise as the light, floppy linen pants, the rough sandals, or the long white braids. Beneath the even longer white beard, Harry could see a large purple crystal hanging on a leather thong about his guest's neck, and in his hand, inexplicably, a sombrero. This was not a respected man, the most powerful of his kind in the world; it was an aging hippie, and Harry's smile threatened to break before he remembered he was still angry with the secretive old wizard.

"Come in, Professor." Harry held the door open and stepped aside, attempting to project an aura of cool assuredness.

Dumbledore nodded, shared a small, private smile with him, and entered.

Harry had just closed the door behind him when Petunia returned to the foyer from the kitchen. "Harry Potter, I expect you will nev—"

"Good morning, Petunia," the old man offered in a gentle greeting.

The aunt's eyes narrowed, squinting nearly. "I told you very specifically what I expected from you. I want him out of my house and away from our neighborhood this instant! "The tips of her ears began to turn purple.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Hello? This is Professor Dumbledore. We'll be in the lounge." As he led the professor off into the other room, he threw over his shoulder, "Some tea for our guest would be nice."

When they sat, Dumbledore chuckled. "You shouldn't bait her like that, Harry."

Not knowing whom to resent more - his horrible aunt or the man delivering an entirely unwelcome lecture on how to treat his horrible aunt - Harry collapsed back into his chair. "She thought you were a drug dealer."

The old man looked down at his ensemble and nodded. "I can see how your aunt could arrive at that conclusion."

Refusing to respond, Harry sat stone-still and glared at his headmaster, refusing to be drawn in by the elderly wizard's sly cajolery.

"I take it my message failed to arrive," said Dumbledore.

Harry chuffed in annoyance. "Uncle Vernon's put one of those ultrasonic pest repellers up on the roof. Owls won't come near the place." He kicked the heel of his shoe against the chair leg. "I had to send Hedwig off to the Burrow for the summer."

Dumbledore nodded sadly. "I am sorry, Harry," he said in a soft voice. "Your blood is your protection, at least until you're of age."

Harry just looked at him, stunned that the implications of his upcoming birthday hadn't occurred to him fully. "You mean I only have a few more weeks of this and then I can leave?"

"In a few weeks," Dumbledore corrected, "your Aunt's biological protection will cease. It is not a happy turn of events, Harry. The only true safety you've known will simply blow away, like a puff of smoke."

Harry concentrated on breathing deeply. It wouldn't do to panic. "So Voldemort could come here." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. You will need to make arrangements to leave by the thirtieth of July if you are concerned about your family's security."

Harry nodded in understanding. He had no great interest in protecting the Dursleys, but leaving Privet Drive had its own appeal. He had no owl at the moment, but surely Dumbledore would be able to deliver a message to the Weasleys, asking them for shelter. He knew they wouldn't turn him down.

The idea had always been appealing to him, and he had spent countless lonely summer nights turning over the notion in his head, wondering how it would work, and delighting in the knowledge that once settled at The Burrow, he would be free to fly his Firebolt any time he liked and to sneak little necessities into their house; to refill the pot of floo powder when it was low, to quietly replace a broken broom or tattered garment, to slip a few extra galleons at a time into the money jar.

"I see the prospect is not so unpleasant."

Harry looked up and met his mentor's steady gaze.

"I am certain Arthur and Molly would be delighted to have you."

Harry gave in and smiled at the thought.

"If the situation becomes complicated, however, you have an alternative." The familiar twinkle in his eye brightened. "You will always be welcome at Hogwarts," he assured the young man," even when class is not in session."

Harry had never considered that his school could become his new home, but it did make sense. The place was a fortress, more heavily protected than any private home. But something Dumbledore had said made him squirm. "What do you mean, 'if the situation becomes complicated' ? Is something going on at the Ministry? Are the Weasleys in danger?"

Dumbledore rose. "Later, my boy. Right now we have somewhere to be."

Harry stood, surprised. "We're going someplace?"

"That is unless you have other plans."

Harry shook his head.

"Good, it's settled then. Come along. Bring something to shade your eyes if you have them. We will be out of doors for many hours today." With those words, the old wizard withdrew a small pair of dark glasses from a pants pocket and slid them on. The small, round, blue lenses matched his Muggle attire, but seemed hopelessly out of place on the man Harry knew as the quintessence of wizard society.

"I don't have any sunglasses, actually," Harry told him.

"Ah, no matter, no matter," Dumbledore muttered, and withdrew his wand from one long, loose sleeve. He aimed it at Harry's glasses and intoned in his characteristic scratchy lilt, "Occulus inficio." The lenses darkened into a strange shade of golden umber. "Come along now, no time to waste. The first matches have already begun."

"Matches?"

Dumbledore approached the fireplace and withdrew a small drawstring pouch. When he opened the pouch and reached inside, Harry knew – and dreaded – what was coming next. He hated using floo powder. "I do hope you like strawberries and cream."

The bright green flames from the powder flickered in the grate as the opening enlarged enough for him to climb in. "Where are we going, Professor?"

Dumbledore poured a small portion of powder into Harry's palm and walked into the flames. "Wimbledon," he stated before he vanished.

* * * * *

That explained the need for sunglasses and Muggle clothing, at least, although Harry wondered why Dumbledore didn't choose instead to wear the more traditional garb of Wimbledon spectators. That was, at least, until he saw how bad their seats were. They were nowhere near the posh few who sat within camera range, dressed for television -- and perhaps a ship christening.

No, their seats were far enough away to present concern that they might not actually be at a human tennis match at all and instead at some kind of strange insect sporting event. Little White Moths Flitting About on the Grass didn't have the same kind of ring to it, however, and Harry was pleased that at least the place wasn't as big as the World Cup grounds.

Later, settled in their seats, nibbling at punnets of fresh strawberries and cream, they spoke of trivia; if Sampras could win the title for his fourth consecutive year, what a lovely day it was, how Bulgaria's chances were for the World Cup (carefully omitting the word Quidditch). It wasn't until Dumbledore had returned with a second lemonade for each of them that Harry broached the subject of why the most respected wizard in the world would take the most imperiled young wizard in the world to the most prestigious Muggle sport tournament in the world.

Being Harry, however, he simplified his request to, "Why tennis, Professor?"

What he didn't expect was the profound change in his headmaster's comportment. Dumbledore edged closer to him, slouched just a touch, and told him softly, between rounds of applause and random shouts.

"My teacher brought me here when I was in second year," he confided.

Harry was stunned. Dumbledore had never shared any of his personal history in any of their prior discussions, and he was fascinated. He looked up into Dumbledore's eyes with an inquisitive expression, hoping the wizard would continue.

"I see so much of myself in you, Harry," he mumbled fondly. "My parents passed away when I was very small, and having no other family, I went to live with a distant cousin of my father's. His name was Montague Grawley, and he was a... defensse professor at our school."

It took Harry a moment to realize how carefully Dumbledore was avoiding specific terms and names that might give too much away to the Muggles surrounding them. He wondered idly if perhaps he should have borrowed Hermione's copy of "Hogwarts, A History", so he could have known the names of the other former Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.

"I lived with him at the school until it was time for me to attend and move in to the student dormitory. There was and continues to be a legacy clause to all instructor contracts that permit a professor's dependents to attend tuition-free, which was a great relief to my Uncle Monty, who received a very small stipend at the time, long before salary reform."

Harry nodded in encouragement.

"Should you choose to pursue a career in education, Harry, you would enjoy the same benefits."

Harry stilled. "You think I could be a teacher?"

Dumbledore turned and looked at him. "If I recall correctly, you already are."

Harry flushed.

Dumbledore moved on. "I had experienced the most terrible trouble in focusing my energy into a particular discipline. You understand every person in our community has his or her own potential for each specific ability."

Harry nodded. "You must have reached your potential in everything. You're the most powerful wiz--" he corrected himself quickly, "stronger than anyone I know, even Him."

"Power is not strength, lad," he said, "it is focus; the particular ability to concentrate well enough to make something happen. The words we use have no inherent power; they are merely tokens, identifiers we use to help us shape our innate ability into a particular task. Have you never wondered about our prolific use of Latin? Surely you don't think our special abilities were discovered so recently."

"No, I guess not. Professor Binns told us the origins are unknown and assumed to be as old as our species. Maybe older."

Dumbledore nodded. "So why do all our Latin phrases work, Harry?"

He thought about what his professor had asked him, and the meaning of his prior words, and realized he was being shown something very important, something perhaps very few wizards were lucky enough to learn: that no words are ever necessary ultimately; that power always comes from within, and that the sooner he separated himself from the illusions that dramatic style meant dramatic power, the better.

"They work," he thought aloud, "because...they're only a reference point? A verbal nickname for something intangible?"

The headmaster gave him a sunny smile. "Precisely. You could say 'green fuzzy lollipops' and it would work so long as you focus internally on what you are trying to accomplish. You will not grow strong enough to best Him if you cannot master this."

So that was why his Crucio on Bellatrix LaStrange didn't work, he realized. He hadn't tried to connect with his magic to perform the curse; rather he'd been depending solely on the word and his wand to do the work for him. But of course it still didn't explain the field trip. "What's the tennis about then?"

"Watch the next serve very carefully, Harry. Pay attention to what happens on the court."

He did. He watched the far player serve the ball so quickly and so accurately the near player was unable to respond quickly enough. The server scored.

"What did you see?"

Harry swatted at a biting fly. "An unreturnable serve. The serving player won the point because he hit the ball so hard."

Dumbledore put down his cup and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his knuckles. "That is not what I see. Watch again. Wait for the other player to return a serve."

Harry emulated his companion's position and waited for three more serves until there was a return. He saw nothing special about it. The ball was served, it went over the net, the other player reached the ball and he returned it.

"I don't understand. What am I supposed to be looking for, and what does it have to do with building my ability to handle you-know-who?"

"Watch a little more," he encouraged. "Consider who is in control of the exchange."

Harry reached down for his drink and sipped at it a little, his tongue stinging pleasantly from the sourness of the lemonade. He watched the match, wondering how there could be any question about who controlled a given serve. It's always the server. He holds the ball, he reaches back, and he hits it with his racquet. It's all up to him to do it right, so well his opponent can't return the serve. Where was the mystery to it? He hated it when Dumbledore was so intentionally vague.

It wasn't until they left the stadium and walked peacefully toward the pub that would lead them home that Harry gave in.

"I still don't get what you meant about who controls the game. It's always the player who's serving. He's the one who has the time to wind up, to choose his shot, and to use all his power in delivering it."

Dumbledore gave a very small "Tsk." He stopped walking for a moment and looked around to ensure there were no Muggles within earshot. "Do you really think the death curse is a death curse, Harry?"

"I don't understand."

"What we call the death curse can kill – and very effectively at that – but it is not specifically a spell that one wizard casts to kill another. You have seen what it does, particularly when its path is impeded by an inanimate object."

It began to dawn. "It destroys the first thing it hits."

"Yes."

"So how else is there to interpret how it works? He prepares the death blow, he throws it, and if there's nothing in the way, it hits me and I die. Where's the nuance?"

Dumbledore took a long, slow breath and released it. "The server can only hit the ball in the direction of his opponent. It is the receiver who decides whether the ball will hit the grass or his racquet. If he is very good, it will hit the racquet's sweet spot."

Harry stood on the street, dumbstruck. He had always assumed all the power lay in the wand of the wizard casting a spell.

"You must begin to think away from your books, my boy. If what you summon up is essentially intangible, then there is, theoretically, no limit to what you can either summon or re-direct, is there?"

Awareness swelled in him. "I have the power to decide what becomes of the magic cast against me?"

Dumbledore eyes twinkled. "And?"

Harry considered the other side of it. "And...any spell could work, so long as I know how to cast it, even if it's never been done before."

With a slow nod, Dumbledore told him, "Tom's greatest weakness is that when he sees a wall he considers it a barrier and focuses on tearing it down. Your strength needs to lie in looking at a wall and considering all its uses. From certain angles, a wall can be a very serviceable bridge."

He began to walk again and Harry followed him back into the pub. Dumbledore always called Voldemort by his given name, and Harry agreed with that choice. If magic was indeed an intangible then how he thought about his enemy did matter. Remove the implication of menace and the villain becomes just another man.

He considered this all the way back to Privet Drive.

* * * * *

Ultimately Dumbledore proved to be right about many things, not the least of which was Voldemort's unrelenting desire to remove his greatest obstacle, Dumbledore, from Harry's sphere. Ultimately all it took was a weak-willed launderer to cast Imperio on a susceptible house elf; the one who delivered luncheon daily to the headmaster's office. The man who could turn magic on its ear and compelled the world's most dangerous wizard to tremble in fear succumbed eventually to something as mundane as poison.

* * * * *

Given time to brood in the wake of Dumbledore's murder, Harry turned gloriously inward, and sulked with renewed zeal. With a passionate self-loathing he listed and re-listed every failing of his, every fault, every conceivable flaw that might have led to the disastrous events for which he was responsible.

His list became a mantra of sorts, something he recalled and rehearsed inwardly, something he expanded, ordered, and refined. When he looked over to the fire grate in the Gryffindor common room he thought of Sirius' dangerous visit and recited his litany of self-recrimination in silent fury. Every time he glanced into a mirror, he berated himself for his damnable self-pity and pride, failings that kept him from discovering and using the mirror Sirius had given him, the mirror that surely would have prevented Sirius' fatal trip to the Ministry.

When he made his daily journey to Headmistress McGonagall's office to tend Fawkes – Dumbledore's sole bequest to the young wizard – he considered his lack of foresight a necessary addition to his reasons for self-reproach and uttered his list again, softly, nothing more than a breath tickling the phoenix's deep red feathers.

Slowly his two best friends drifted from him, unable to reach him, and took comfort in each other. Every time he sneaked a glance at Ron's single-minded attention to doting over Hermione, he felt a twinge of envy, and added it to the list.

Two unlikely friends remained stalwart: Neville, stronger and more confident than Harry had ever seen him, and Ginny, brushing aside the attentions of even Dean Thomas to sit quietly by Harry's side and read, study the fire, or share a delicate line of body heat down the side of one thigh. It was enough to bring him up out of his funk, just enough to function, but not enough to separate himself entirely from the simmering rage.

Five months into his sixth year, Tom Riddle and his army of one hundred seventy eight wizards and witches gathered outside the front gates of Hogwarts.

The headmistress had seen the signs of a coming battle; news of unrest at the Ministry and of people disappearing from their homes, and called for reinforcements. Rather than send her students to their unprotected homes, she summoned the parents she knew to be unaffiliated with Voldemort to come to the school and protect their children. Teams of Aurors arrived as well, dozens of Ministry personnel, and even a few retired professors.

The battle was brutal. Scores of students, disobeying the Headmistress' orders, left the safety of the dungeons and fought, side by side with the adults. Scores fell; some injured, some insensible, many dead.

With a blaze of rage burning painfully in his gut, Harry cut a swathe through some of Tom's lesser soldiers and focused on the man in the center, the one on whom this battle balanced. His allies parted, his enemies cast only half-hearted curses in his direction, and it became clear everyone involved understood the battle would end the moment one of the two fell.

With the single-minded determination that Harry reserved these days only for his litany, he approached the one man who could end the destruction surrounding them.

When the first blow came, he was prepared. Tom had launched a lesser attack first, perhaps an attempt to injure Harry and thus demoralize his soldiers. But when the scream of blue lightning left Tom's wand and hurtled toward Harry in its arcless path to freeze some portion of his anatomy, Harry instead absorbed the intangible curse, carefully reinterpreting the freezing as cooling, and directing it toward the far more tangible burn in his stomach, the physical manifestation of his fury.

With a deep breath Harry calmed, his anger chilled by Tom's spell.

Tom stood stock-still, stunned that Harry appeared to be unaffected by the curse. Hardly hesitating, he bellowed "AVADA KEDAVRA!" and swung his wand sharply in Harry's direction.

Harry saw the blow coming, the seemingly unreturnable serve, but the lesser first attack had proven the wisdom of his mentor's teachings. With the flame of rage extinguished, his body blissfully relaxed, he focused on his litany, and when the blow came, he sent the fiery energy directly to his fear of failure, incinerating it.

He smiled, meeting Tom's glare with confidence, and lowered his wand.

"Again," he baited the wizard.

Another death blow came, but with his litany intact, he selected another failing, another flaw to destroy. This time, it was his envy for Ron and Hermione's burgeoning relationship. The next, his adolescent self-pity.

The crowd of others stilled, stunned into silence by the display by their generals, engaged in what appeared to be a pointless, one-sided duel.

Death blow after death blow flew across the grass toward Harry, and with each, he destroyed another entry on his list. And with every success, he became more self-assured, the fear, anger and uncertainty literally burning away.

Stopping to reconsider his tactics, Tom wiped his brow on one sleeve and breathed heavily, traces of fear beginning to make themselves known in creases between his eyes and a slight trembling in his hands.

Harry continued to watch him and continued to smile. "Thank you," he said with gentle sincerity.

Tom raised his wand and tried a different tack. "Crucio!" he shouted.

Harry just shook his head. "Crucio doesn't cause pain by its nature, Tom," he told his enemy with a soft voice. "It concentrates fear and transforms it into physical pain."

"Silencio!" It was a simple one to counter.

Harry spoke, "All you've done is quiet my need to fight my friends' battles for them, Tom." He approached Riddle and when he reached the man, put his hand on one stiff shoulder. "Will you surrender, or will I have to destroy you?"

Riddle straightened his spine, regained his sneer, and taunted Harry. "You cannot kill me, boy. If you destroy this body, my spirit will live on and I will find another vessel as I have before. You and your friends will pay an even higher price for your arrogance. It will never be over until you surrender to me."

"No, Tom," Harry corrected. "There is another way, but I won't do it unless I have to. Will you surrender yourself to the authorities?"

He sniggered. "You have learned some handy parlor tricks, Potter, but you cannot destroy me. If a spell cannot kill you, a clever knife can. Or perhaps...some poison?" he growled.

Harry stepped back, unburdened by fear that no longer existed within him. All that remained was calm self-assurance and a sad resignation. "No, Tom. Never again. I'm sorry."

He had never had any clear understanding that it would work, but he knew what he needed to try, so he raised his wand, aimed it at Tom's head, and said in a strong, clear voice, "Nullificatem Spiritus!" A fine stream of white sparks left Harry's wand and shot directly into Tom's forehead.

With a look of shock, Tom crumpled to the ground, dead.

More surprisingly, the remaining witches and wizards who had arrived with him dropped their wands with expressions of horror. In preparation for the coming war, Harry had performed only minimal research on dark magic, but he suspected none of the Death Eaters present had ever witnessed the annihilation of an immortal soul before. Perhaps no one ever had.

As a small shadow passed over him, Harry closed his eyes and smiled softly to himself, listening to the euphoric trills of the phoenix circling overhead.

Harry thought of a bright day only a few months before, of strawberries and wisdom, of long white braids and a fundamental shift in his perceptions. He thought again of the few special incidents that served as turning points, and discovered how many of them had involved mirrors, and how many more of them had involved Albus Dumbledore.

They were road signs he'd read, and read correctly. The twisted, broken path he'd taken had led him here, to Tom's lifeless body, to a stunned and silent crowd of witnesses, to an unaccustomed warm, inner peace, and to the wand sputtering sparks, hanging limp from his own fingertips.

=====

End.