Disappear

Grim Places

Harry tried vainly to see something through the blinding charm placed on his eyes. His hands were tied behind his back and Dumbledore's strong hold on his arm kept him from running.

"Step," he heard Dumbledore say.

Harry carefully walked over it. He heard the sound of a door being opened and was pushed forward. Next second the background noise of the street had stopped and his blinding charm was removed.

Grimmauld Place.

Harry opened his mouth as if to speak but shut it quickly and looked down at the floor. Of course it was the most likely place Dumbledore would take him but all of a sudden he didn't want to be here ... this was Sirius' house ... and everything in it reminded Harry of him.

"You'll be staying here for the foreseeable future," Dumbledore was saying. "You are allowed anywhere in this house but never outside. No weapons or wands will be tolerated and neither will any violence or threats. If you fail to comply there are only too many wizards or witches who will be able to deal with you.

"Now, your room is upstairs, just follow me."

Harry woke up the next morning in one of the many grotty rooms of Grimmauld Place. The sun was streaming in and he smiled, basking in the warmth.

For a moment it felt like he was back in the summer before 5^th year, when he had shared a room with Ron.

Harry sighed and sat up, his happiness draining away as he remembered the current situation. He changed quickly and was about to leave before he heard a slight sound. He turned and looked quickly around.

His eyes alighted on a painting of a man surrounded by snakes. The man looked quite bored, his eyes were half-closed and he occasionally kicked a snake away when it crawled too close. But it wasn't the man that had caught Harry's interest.

Harry crept a little closer and stared at the snakes, who were bickering amongst themselves and hissing angrily whenever the man kicked one of them.

"Hello?" Harry said hesitantly.

The snakes instantly stopped arguing and the man in the painting sat up suddenly.

"You're a parselmouth?" the man said excitedly and bowed, flattening himself on the ground.

"A parselmouth..." said one of the snakes. "Are you a prisoner of the people here?"

"I don't think so," said Harry awkwardly. "I thought we were on the same side but..."

"This place is full of lightsiders," said a red snake. "They would never allow a parselmouth to join them, you must be their prisoner."

"Are you a messenger from the Dark Lord?" said the man, standing up. "Are you here to free me?"

"I'm not with Voldemort," Harry said, staring at the man. "But ... do I know you? You look like someone I used to know."

"I'm Regulus Black, or rather, his portrait," answered the man.

"Sirius wouldn't keep a picture of you in his house," Harry said, frowning.

"Oh, it's not like he has a choice," Regulus said, grinning. "Unbreakable sticking charm, just like mum downstairs..." his expression turned calculating suddenly and he asked, "So, whose side are you on? The Dark Lord's or Dumbledore's?"

"Right this moment? My own..." said Harry absently. "Listen, I'd better be getting down to breakfast."

"Go ahead," said Regulus and as Harry walked out he saw the man disappear from his portrait.

Harry frowned as he walked down the stairs. Why was there a portrait of Regulus Black in the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters? Hadn't Regulus been a Deatheater? Wouldn't it be dangerous to keep him here?

He was still thinking about it when he opened the door to the kitchen. Seated around the big wooden table were Lily and James Potter.

Harry turned around quicker than he thought possible and ran for the door. But his legs suddenly snapped together and he fell, banging his head heavily on the door. His immediate action was to try to hold his head and stop the pain but his arms wouldn't move. He had been hit with a full body bind.

The woman with red hair walked up and kneeled beside him, gently turning him over. Harry shut his eyes tightly, the only part of his body that he could move.

"Harry?" said a woman's voice. "You don't need to be scared."

"Why did you try to run?" said a man's voice and Harry recognized it from every time he went near a Dementor. He squeezed his eyes tighter and wished he could block his ears too.

"We know you don't remember us," said the woman. "But that's okay ... it's a chance for a new beginning, a new start..."

Harry shut his eyes tighter.

"Harry, we're your parents," she said, her voice thick with tears. "Can't you trust us?"

They're not my parents, they're not...

The man's voice said quieter, "Lily, maybe you should just leave it."

There was a pause and a man's voice said, "Finite Incantatem!"

Harry's limbs relaxed and he opened his eyes, staring at the two adults above him. He tried to calm his breathing down.

"Harry?" said the man carefully. "Why don't you have some breakfast?"

The woman grabbed Harry's arm and helped to pull him up. Harry grabbed a chair and sat down quickly, his legs felt like they wouldn't hold him up.

"Do you - do you want some bacon and eggs?" the woman asked hesitantly, pushing a plate towards him.

Before Harry could even think of answering, he suddenly saw a familiar surly looking house elf.

There was a second, during which Harry seemed to hear his heart beat in his chest before he suddenly flung his chair back and lunged at Kreacher.

For a minute, the man and woman seemed not to react before the man ran over and pulled Harry, kicking and screaming, off Kreacher. The woman quickly knelt over the battered house elf, muttering some healing spells.

"What the hell are you doing!" the man yelled at Harry, who was still fighting him.

Harry pushed away from the man that looked like his dad and ran up the stairs, anger pumping through his veins.

He could hear the man and woman shouting after him to stop, others had heard now and there was more yelling. He ran into his room and slammed the door.

He could hear pounding of footsteps as someone ran up the stairs, panicking, Harry looked around desperately for something to lock the door. His eyes stopped on the heavy wardrobe standing beside the door and in a second Harry had pushed it over, blocking the door.

"Hey! Open this door!" someone yelled and started banging on the door.

"It's the prisoner," someone hissed from the other side of the room and Harry spun around.

"Do you want to escape?" asked one of the snakes.

Harry nodded, glancing over at the door, which seemed near to breaking off its hinges.

The man, Regulus Black, seemed rather panicked by everything that was going on.

"What're the snakes saying to you?" he demanded.

"Go through," said the snakes and moments later the portrait swung open, revealing a dark passageway.

"Wait! Don't you even think about leaving here!" Regulus shouted, trying in vain to stop Harry.

But without any hesitation, Harry crawled through the portrait hole, ignoring Regulus.

The portrait hole shut behind him with a clunk and Harry found himself in total blackness. He stood up hesitantly and heard the door in his room finally give way. He moved quickly then, scared that one of the Order members might find their way into the passage.

After a few minutes the passage came to a point where it branched off in two directions. Harry stood there for a while, before taking the left one.

The passageway seemed to be inside the thick walls of Grimmauld Place, as Harry could hear snatches of conversation from rooms next to him. Specks of light were filtering in from tiny holes in the stonework, giving Harry just enough light to see.

He wandered the passages for well over an hour, before he found another portrait that seemed to lead back into the house.

Harry pressed his ear against the wall and tried to listen for any sound coming from in the room. Satisfied that no-one was in there he pushed the portrait and found himself face to face with Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore.

He had just enough time for a guilty smile and an "Er-" before he was knocked onto the floor by a stunning curse.

Harry tapped the desk in annoyance and kicked it, jangling the chains that tied his feet to the desk. He looked into the mirror in front of him and stared at Tonks, who was sitting on the bed behind him, her wand out in case Harry tried to escape again.

She caught him staring at her and grinned, her features slowly changing into a familiar Chinese girl with long black hair. Harry clenched his fists and stared down, ignoring Tonks' laughter as he tried not to think about Cho and the trial.

The door opened suddenly with a bang, making Harry jump. Snape strode in, Dumbledore following close behind. They appeared to be arguing.

"Albus, it isn't safe to keep Potter here, not with all these snake artefacts around."

"It's the safest place for him, we just simply have to remove anything to do with snakes."

"And what about this portrait?" Snape demanded, pointing to the one of Regulus Black.

Regulus sat up a bit, suddenly aware and started to say, "You better not be thinking-"

"Severus, you know perfectly well it's impossible to remove that-"

"Then we'll have to destroy it!" Snape yelled, levelling his wand at the painting. The snakes curled up in fear, calling out to Harry to help them.

"Don't hurt them!" he yelled.

The three adults in the room suddenly froze and their eyes swivelled over to Harry, staring at him.

"Are we safe?" a snake hissed and Harry's eyes darted over to it quickly, unwilling to take his eyes off the Order members in the room. He wanted to say something to try and reassure the snakes but something in everyone else's faces stopped him.

Snape was staring at Harry, breathing harshly, something approaching fear in his eyes.

Tonks spoke up finally. "Dumbledore, what's going on?"

Dumbledore hesitated a little, looking anywhere except Harry. "We have just discovered that Mr Potter is a parselmouth," he said bluntly.

Tonks gasped and immediately whipped out her wand to point at Harry, jumping off the bed.

"You could've told me that before you told me to guard him!" she yelled.

Harry froze, staring around warily at everyone, feeling that one wrong move would get him cursed.

"Dumbledore," he started carefully, trying to explain. "I'm not him, you know. I can speak to snakes like he can and I have-have some of his characteristics and - but I'm not Voldemort."

"You have some of his characteristics?" Dumbledore said sharply.

"I-I have part of his personality and some of his abilities but-but that's only 'cos the spell went wrong."

Dumbledore looked alarmed for a second but quickly turned away and started speaking to Tonks and Snape.

"Tonks, you will move Mr Potter to another room, preferable absent of anything snake-like. And Severus, no-one will be destroying Regulus' portrait, so please put your wand down."

Lily turned the page of her book absently, not really reading it, but thinking about her brief encounter with Harry at breakfast. He hadn't even wanted to talk to them. Ever since Harry had been found, her and James hadn't been able to talk to him, or even be in his presence. There was so much she wanted to ask him, how much he remembered of his parents, why he had turned, whether he really had lost his memory...

She looked up suddenly, just becoming aware of the noise outside. People were yelling, there were bangings and small explosions ... and an awful lot of hissing.

She stood up and pushed open the door into the hallway. For some reason, everyone seemed to be busy destroying Grimmauld Place; a statue of Isador Belling, the first recorded parselmouth, crashed by her feet and she jumped backwards quickly.

"What's going on?" she demanded of the nearest person.

"We have to get rid of anything to do with snakes," said Hestia Jones, a witch in the Order of the Phoenix that Lily was quite good friends with. "Or else he-"

Hestia finally glanced up from the carving of a snake she was trying to destroy and seemed to realise who she was talking to.

"Oh, Lily ... er - sorry I'm needed upstairs," she said quickly and ran away before Lily could call her back.

Frowning, Lily walked down the corridor and pushed open the door to the kitchen, looking for someone else to ask.

"James!" she started in relief. "What's going on? Why's everyone destroying everything?"

James looked up, slightly confused. "What?"

"People are destroying things outside, didn't you notice?" Lily demanded, in annoyance.

James expression stayed blank for a second before clearly in sudden understanding. "Oh! Oh right. Peter said something about a spring clean, said it didn't reflect well on the Order of the Phoenix having loads of dark items in its headquarters."

Lily frowned. "That doesn't make much sense, why now? We've had all those dark items for ages."

Before James could answer the door opened and Albus Dumbledore walked in.

"Albus! Finally someone we can get a straight answer from," Lily said, smiling. "Why's everyone decided now would be a nice time to vandalise the Headquarters?"

Dumbledore didn't smile back. "Sit down, Lily, James," he said gravely. "We have discovered some new information about Harry."

James sat down quickly with a bump. "What? What's happened this time?"

"I don't think I can take anymore surprises," said Lily in a distressed voice.

Dumbledore sighed and studied his hands for a second, before saying, "Harry is a parselmouth. He escaped his room earlier by opening a passage in a portrait containing snakes. No one else has been able to open it."

"But that's not-that's-" James stuttered and laughed a little nervously. "Harry's not a parselmouth, don't be stupid."

"I'm sorry," said Dumbledore. "I should've realised."

"No, it's not your fault," said Lily, faintly. "No one realised."

"He's not a parselmouth!" James yelled, angry at Lily's quick acceptance. "I don't believe it, Harry can't be ... parselmouths are ... they're-they're not even human, they're dark creatures ...Harry's not - he's not that."

"Regulus told us," Dumbledore said gently. "He said Harry spoke to the snakes in his portrait in parseltongue ... that's how he escaped."

"Do you have any proof?" James demanded in an aggressive tone.

"James..." Lily said, laying a reassuring hand on James' arm. "James, we can't do anything right now. Let's just trust Albus' word."

*

Harry lay face down on the bed, his hands clenched over his ears, trying desperately to block out the sounds from downstairs. Every hiss that may have seemed unintelligible to everyone else, was a plea for help or mercy to Harry.

Harry curled and uncurled reflexively on the bed, unable to bear the sound as the Order members destroyed the snake artefacts. Finally he sat up straight and yelled at Tonks;

"How can you just sit there! Don't you have even a shred of humanity? If-if you could hear-"

Tonks smirked. "Oh, you're one to talk," she said. "I wasn't aware parselmouths were even classed as human."

Harry flung himself back onto the bed and screamed in his pillow. He was about to punch the bed when he was interrupted by a loud bang and a scream from downstairs.

Tonks jumped up and hesitated, torn between the door and Harry, who she was supposed to be guarding. Anguished sobbing from below them decided her next move.

"Don't you dare move!" she warned Harry, "Or I might forget that Dumbledore told me to leave that snake portrait alone."

She ran out and slammed the door shut. Moments later a blue shield appeared, locking the door.

Harry sat up quickly, he didn't bother to try the door, he couldn't get out without a wand and besides, there was probably some sort of alarm attached to it.

Instead he jumped off the bed and started edging along the wall, tapped carefully on it. A hollow sound, he thought. A hollow sound means a passageway in the walls ... a passageway means my ticket out of here.

He stopped as one of his taps made a slightly different sound. He tapped again and grinned but a second later his grin vanished.

Great Potter. You've found your secret passageway but now what are you going to do? Knock the wall down?

Harry considered the idea for half a second before realising it would probably alert all the Order members straight away.

"Um-" he said unsurely before suddenly realising something. It wouldn't hurt to try, would it?

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a snake; the one he'd set on Dudley years ago, the one that had never seen Brazil.

"Open," he said.

There was a funny crunching sound and Harry's eyes flew open. Where a solid wall had once been was now a black hole, rapidly rearranging itself to form an archway. Harry stepped forward into the tunnel and turned around, saying "Close," having no need to imagine a snake now.

It's amazing, he thought, as he ran silently through the tunnel. It's like - it's like the whole house can be opened with parseltongue. Like - like it's tailored for parselmouth or something.

It probably wasn't really for a parselmouth though. Mr & Mrs Black probably only put it there for decoration, to seem even more like loyal followers of Voldemort. He could just imagine it:

"Well, if you think that's impressive, you should see our house. We have secret passageways that can be opened only by parselmouths."

"Oh, how charming. Perfect for the Dark Lord to come visit!"

Harry grinned but stopped the train of thought, which was getting weird way to quickly. He tried to get back to searching for an exit.

He sneaked along the labyrinth of passageways, until one particular conversation caught his interest.

"It's terrible, what's happened to Harry Potter," came a woman's voice.

"Do you remember when it first happened?" said another woman.

Harry went instantly still at the sound of his name and he carefully slid down to the floor, putting his ear to the walls, trying to hear better. He recognised the woman who had just spoken as Mrs Weasley.

"Yes, he was only 13, wasn't he?"

"And there was all that fuss, campaigns and everything. Do you remember the 'Free the Potter One' petition?"

A slight laugh.

"Oh, yes. I even signed it. We were all going to send it to You-Know-Who and ask him to free the poor boy. As if it would've made a difference."

"And then when-"

"Yeah."

"When he came out-"

"He was one of them."

"Only a child!"

"I was so scared for our Susan, I thought; if he can do that to Harry Potter, who's to say he can't to it to any other child?"

"Oh, Penny, don't think about that. What happened to the boy, he must have gone through so much, torture, you know? You-Know-Who wants us to be scared, that's why he did it...."

Harry moved away after that, his head buzzing with unanswered questions. Everything was so different, it was like - it was like this was all some weird dream he was having, that he would wake up from and soon forget.

He wished he could wake up.