Free Will and Fate

"Harry, what is wrong with you?" Hermione had followed him at a run after they'd left the Great Hall, reserving her lecture for when they'd reached the Headmistress's office.

"There's nothing wrong with me," he said. He walked behind McGonagall's desk and picked up the Pensieve box. "Did you hear what he said to me? He blamed me for what happened yesterday in front of everyone."

"I know, but you can't lose your temper like that," Hermione said.

"Why? What's he going to do to me that he hasn't already done?" Harry shouted. He threw the box onto the desk. "I'm already as good as dead. There's nothing for me to lose. Let him take his best shot."

With all the strength she could muster, Hermione slapped him. She screamed her frustration, shoving him away and slapping him again when he reached for her.

"Better you than me, Miss Granger," McGonagall said, stepping into her office. She turned to Harry, one arm out to hold Hermione back. "I have never seen a student put on such a silly display in this school. What have you got to say for yourself?"

Harry turned away from both pairs of censuring eyes. Neither of them could understand what it was like to have to live with this man doing his best to hurt them in two different lives. That was another thing he hadn't been able to escape. Harry turned back to Professor McGonagall where she stood angrily tapping her foot, one arm around Hermione who looked ready to hit him again.

"He blamed me for what happened yesterday, loud enough for everyone to hear. Knowing it was probably something he did to cause it." Before Professor McGonagall could speak, Harry added, "Plus, he's been lying to my mother about me, probably for years. He's trying to turn her against me. What am I supposed to do? I'm going to have to kill him and she'll blame me afterwards."

The Headmistress gasped and there was a general murmur of dissent from the portraits around the room. "You are not going to kill anyone," she said. "Further, you are not going to disrupt this school anymore. Do I have to lock you in this office day and night in order for you to get a hold of yourself?"

"No, but you can't expect me to just take it when he starts in on me like that."

"I can and I do," she said. "I am dealing with him. You will do whatever you can to save yourself and figure out what he is up to. I don't want you going anywhere near him again or I may not be able to intervene next time."

"But what if--"

"No, Mr. Potter." McGonagall's eyes shot up and she quickly aimed her wand at the portrait of Dumbledore behind her desk. "No more excuses. I've already told you how I feel about your personal grudge. If you can't control your attitude and your actions, I will not be able to help you," she said. She sighed and turned away from him briefly. "A change in the past has done nothing to alter your personality. You're still the same headstrong, temperamental child I've had to discipline more times than I like to remember."

"Then why am I still here?" Harry asked. "If I'm such a troublemaker at the school, why haven't I been expelled before now?"

"Because she cares about you," Hermione said. "Don't you get that? We both do." She wiped at her eyes with one sleeve. "I'm starting to question why. You've made me cry more in the last week than all the time I've known you. Harry, we both want to help you, but if you can't give us the chance to do that, if you keep going off and looking for a reason for him to hurt you, I'm not going to do it. I can't."

She swallowed hard and pulled her eyes away from his, staring at a point on the wall to his right. "I will not put myself through all of this for it to end in a battle in the middle of the school. This is the last time I'm going to argue with you about it. If you'd like us to give you up for dead now, just say the word."

"Of course I don't want you to do that." He brought one hand up to his face. His skin still stung where Hermione had slapped him. "I'm sorry I lost my temper, but I can't help it."

"Yes, you can," Hermione said. "You will or you'll die. It's that simple."

I might do that anyway, he thought.

McGonagall moved away from Hermione then, going to sit behind her desk as the two students glared at each other across the room. Hermione was nearly shaking in her anger and frustration; Harry had been enraged to the point of forgetting what they were fighting to save. Slowly, they both began to calm down as they realized the other did not want to continue the fight.

Harry turned to Professor McGonagall and said quietly, "I think it's time I show you what happened in the Chamber with Professor Quirrell and Voldemort." He turned to Hermione. "Whenever you're ready."

Hermione stared at him for another few seconds before saying, "That's fine." She turned to the Headmistress. "Do you mind telling us what you did earlier? To the portrait?"

McGonagall smiled. "The Minister has a tendency to pop into my office when he finds it convenient to listen in. I turned off his method of communication."

"Won't he be upset?" Hermione asked.

"I'm sure he will, Miss Granger, but he cannot do anything about it. He normally uses it when he is too busy to leave his own office. If he has something to say to me, he'll have to clear his schedule and come to the school." McGonagall smiled again. "This should assure you that all of your discussions here will be private. Any information or speculation discussed will remain between us until you decide to include the Minster. Also, no one will be able to enter this office while you are here, even if they have the password, without permission from me first."

She reached into the box then and put the Pensive onto her desk. Selecting the correct memory, she poured the vial's contents into the basin and watched them swirl. "Ready?" Both students nodded and they entered the memory of Harry retrieving the Philosopher's Stone.

Hours later, they emerged from the Pensieve. They sat in chairs around the desk, and Hermione was the first to speak. "What happened after you passed out?"

"When I woke up in the hospital wing a few days later, that memory there," he said, pointing, "Dumbledore told me he'd come back to the school before you could get your message to him. He'd realized something was wrong. He showed up not too long after I passed out, got Professor Quirrell away from me and the Stone. Then he had a talk with Nicholas Flamel and the Stone was destroyed."

"Professor Quirrell had a very strange reaction when he touched your skin," Professor McGonagall remarked.

"Yes, because of the blood protection my mother gave me," Harry said. "I mentioned it last night. I don't think even Dumbledore entirely understands it. Quirrell died after having contact with me down in the chamber. Voldemort wasn't able to touch me until fourth year when he found a way to create a new body with my blood."

"With a formula similar to the potion in the Minister's notes?" she asked.

Harry nodded. "I don't know if all of the ingredients are the same, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's pretty close. He wanted my blood to work with because he thought it would make it easier for him to kill me." Harry paused. "Do we need to get Neville involved in this? It seems like we might have to at some point."

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "Our collapse, what happened to his parents; he should have the same blood protection I do. If he took my place in the prophecy, Voldemort or his followers might come after him. We even have the same wand." At their look of confusion, Harry said, "When I bought my wand, Mr. Ollivander told me Voldemort had one with the same core, a tail feather from a phoenix that had only given two. It connects my wand to Voldemort's. After he dropped his yesterday, I noticed that Neville had been given the same one I have now. There's got be something to that connection."

"We should ask the Minister if there's something about Fawkes that draws him to either of you."

"Fawkes?" Hermione asked.

"That's right, Dumbledore's phoenix gave the feathers for both our wands," Harry said. "I had forgotten that."

"There's a lot of power in phoenix feathers," Hermione said. "It wouldn't surprise me if it helped you fight him."

"Hardly. When I had to fight Voldemort directly, our wands connected and it created Priori Incantatem."

"You can't fight each other," McGonagall said. "At least, not using your own wands."

"But what if it was me and Neville at the same time?" Harry asked. "Would we be able to overpower him together if we had to? That's a power Voldemort wouldn't know about."

"Do you really want to bring someone else into this?" McGonagall asked. "I don't want to involve another student if we don't have to. I am hoping to avoid Voldemort coming back at all, let alone a direct confrontation." She sat back in her desk and drummed her fingers on the top. "I'll tell the Minister to give Augusta Longbottom protection if the time comes, along with your mother and sister, Harry. In the meantime, I don't want to worry Mr. Longbottom about something that may not happen."

"He's already worried," Hermione said. "Lavender isn't helping. She's blaming Harry because she think he's hiding the truth. After what happened this morning, I think a few more people may question if he caused their collapse or something."

"It doesn't matter," the Headmistress said. "As long as Mr. Longbottom realizes you are not a danger to him, the other students can say what they will. I can talk to him personally if you wish. But the rumors will persist no matter what we do. And we won't be defending them physically anymore, will we?" she asked.

Harry shook his head. "I'm not going to be in the same room with Snape if I can help it. I'll avoid a confrontation if I am, though," he added, catching her questioning look.

"Good. Harry, can you work on the memories from your second year of school? I'm going to send a message down to the kitchens for lunch."

Harry nodded and pulled his wand from his pocket as McGonagall left the room. When she returned a few minutes later, a row of filled and labeled vials sat in a row across her desk, separated from the vials for first year. McGonagall stood behind her desk and conjured a table behind Harry. Within seconds, three place settings and several steaming dishes and drinks appeared on the table.

"Why don't you tell me what these memories are while we eat?"

As McGonagall and Hermione sat down and began fixing themselves plates, Harry said, "You'll probably find these a lot more disturbing than first year. Ginny Weasley was given a diary containing a memory of Tom Riddle and it possessed her, forced her to open the Chamber of Secrets and several students were attacked by a Basilisk."

McGonagall began coughing, choking on the drink she'd just attempted to swallow. "I have to remember to brace myself whenever you begin telling me about your past. The Minister warned me you had been attacked every year, but I didn't know how far it had gone with other students."
Harry nodded and began to fill his plate. "It's a lot to take in. A few of these memories are long. You're not neglecting your duties at the school, are you?"

She smiled. "No, I am not. Unless there is an emergency, the school runs itself for the most part. All of the professors know I am unavailable except for extreme cases while I am dealing with a particularly difficult student," she turned to Hermione, "and the star pupil he has corrupted."

Harry laughed. "Is that what I've done? Hermione's never been the kind of person to let someone else tell her what to do."

"She also never got into trouble until she got her first boyfriend," McGonagall said.

Hermione shook her head and blushed. Harry thought she was using her mouthful of food to avoid making a comment on the interesting nature of their relationship.

"The first memory is when I went to Flourish and Blotts with the Weasleys just before school started. Lucius Malfoy slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron before we left. I didn't even remember that until ages after it happened. We don't need to watch that one, but the Minister will want to see it."

"Do you think he'd have the diary now?" Hermione asked.

"I don't see why not," Harry said. "Though, if he tried it again, it would be easy enough to seal off the Chamber because I already know where it is. Finding the diary among the current students would be easy as well since I know what it looks like. The second memory is a meeting of the dueling club run by Professor Lockhart."

Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes. "The day I let that man teach at Hogwarts is the day I let students camp in the forest overnight. He couldn't teach defensive techniques to first years."

"You know his books are fake?" Harry asked. He was surprised. He'd thought everyone believed Lockhart's stories.

McGonagall stared at him, both eyebrows raised. "No, but it doesn't surprise me at all. The exaggerated wording, the lack of witnesses to any of these major events--it's a wonder no one has called him out on it before."

"Memory charms," Hermione said. "I don't know about the witnesses, but he Obliviates the witches and wizards who do the actual work."

McGonagall sighed. "Even the fools who only want attention can't be trusted. To say nothing of those who crave power. What comes next, Mr. Potter?"

"While we were dueling, Draco tried to attack me with a snake. That was how everyone discovered I speak Parseltongue and that's why I became a suspect, to the students at least, for opening the Chamber. The next few are memories I have of finding people who had been attacked, another reason I became a suspect. No one had looked at the Basilisk directly, so they were only Petrified. There's another of Ron and I finding out that Professor Hagrid never opened the Chamber, even though everyone thought he had caused Moaning Myrtle's death."

"Well, of course he didn't," the Headmistress stated. "I never believed it. He might have a predilection for dangerous creatures, but he'd never put anyone into any real danger."

Harry thought not-so-fondly of the Blast-Ended Skrewts Hagrid had bred. He decided not to contradict her. "There's a memory of me getting the diary and experiencing one of Tom Riddle's memories myself, when he had decided to frame Hagrid after Myrtle died. Then another of me and Ron using Polyjuice Potion to question Draco when we suspected him of opening the Chamber."

"Polyjuice Potion? Where'd you get that?" McGonagall asked. "Surely, Dumbledore didn't give it to you."

Harry smiled. "Hermione brewed it in the second floor girls' bathroom."

Hermione laughed and shook her head. "I'm going to have to see that one to believe it."

"It doesn't surprise me a bit, Miss Granger. Even in your second year, you were an exceptional student."

Hermione smiled at the compliment.

"Even if you are as attracted to breaking the rules as your boyfriend," she added.

Harry laughed. "Speaking of that, there's one of me and Ron listening to the teachers talk about Ginny being taken into the Chamber while hiding in the staff room." McGonagall looked surprised by this admission, but said nothing. "The last two, the ones you need to watch, are of me and Ron going into the Chamber with Lockhart to rescue Ginny and when Lucius Malfoy came to the school afterwards in a last attempt to make sure Ginny was blamed for what happened. I confronted him about giving her the diary. Dumbledore never turned him in for it."

"Why not?" McGonagall asked. "I don't recommend using memory extraction on a child, but you did have the proof that he'd given her the diary. Why didn't the Minister have you testify against him? He committed a criminal act that put the entire school in danger. Why didn't Dumbledore do anything? Why didn't the Ministry?"

"I never questioned him about it," Harry said. "I assumed he knew what he was doing." He shrugged. "Maybe it was because no one got any permanent injuries. He just warned Malfoy about sneaking anything else of Riddle's into the school and let it go. That's all I can remember. Maybe when you watch it, you'll pick up on more that was said."

"I hope so," she responded. "I'd hate to think Dumbledore would let someone get away with putting all those people in harm's way."

Harry pushed away his plate, no longer hungry. He couldn't help thinking of the way Dumbledore had ignored him his entire fifth year at Hogwarts, not giving him any information, even holding back that he'd suspected Harry's dreams were real visions from Voldemort until he'd had no choice but to tell him. He wasn't sure the older wizard wouldn't let someone get into danger if it served his purpose. After all, he was letting Harry and Hermione investigate known Death Eaters, even if they did have promised protection from the Ministry.

"Is everyone finished with lunch?" McGonagall asked. Both students nodded and she cleared the table. Afterwards, she rose and brought the Pensieve over, the last two memories in one hand. "Ready?" Hermione nodded, but Harry shook his head.

"I don't want to watch that again," he said. "I remember it very well."

"I...well, I can see why you would not want to relive some of it," McGonagall said. "Do you want to start on your memories from your third year?"

Harry shook his head. "Would it be possible for me to speak with the Minister? I want to know if I can go to the hospital."

McGonagall's eyes widened behind her spectacles, but she said nothing to Harry. She turned to a portrait to the left of the desk. "Everard?" An older man with short black hair smiled at her from his frame. "Would you please inform the Minister that Mr. Potter wishes to speak to him in person whenever he is available?" She pulled out her wand and flicked it quickly towards the fireplace. A minute later, the tall, thin form of the Minister stepped out of the green flames.

"Professor McGonagall, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter." He greeted them all with a nod. "I notice that my portrait has taken on a decidedly stiff air."

McGonagall smiled. "The children wished for privacy when conducting their research and I obliged. It's much easier to speak freely when you know everyone in the room can be fully trusted."

Dumbledore stared at her for a few seconds before deciding to ignore her comment and turn to Harry. "You wished to see me?"

"Would it be possible for me to go the hospital?" Harry asked. "I'd really like to see how bad my injuries are, what the symptoms are." He glanced at Hermione. "It might help us figure out what caused the curse."

"Fresh eyes on an old mystery?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry nodded. He hadn't thought of it that way, but the logic made sense. He'd seen Hermione figure out at least one puzzle that had baffled him. Namely, the clue to the memory she was going to view.

"I see you've been extracting your memories. I could take them all now if you're done."

"These are only the first two years," Harry said, motioning to the desk. "They're going to view the last two from my second year while we're gone. If we're going," Harry added. "Then you can have all of them. Unless you'd rather wait for me to write a report summarizing things for you and any connection with current events."

"No, I believe a report can wait," Dumbledore said. "I am anxious to see some of the things you described the other day. If you'd like to go to the hospital now, I can arrange that. Though, I do not wish you to be seen."

"I have my Invisibility Cloak." Harry walked over to his bag and fished through it until he pulled out the old cloak. "Won't someone find it strange that you're there?"

Dumbledore blinked hard. "No, Harry. I've visited you almost every day since you were admitted. The Healer overseeing your case will be expecting me either today or tomorrow."

Harry nodded. Before he could take a step towards the fireplace, Hermione came over and put her arms around him. "Write everything down," she said. "It's all important."

He nodded and watched as she and Professor McGonagall slipped into the Pensieve before he and the Minister left for his office, and then St. Mungo's.

When he walked into the room, Harry hadn't known what to expect. What he saw shocked him. It was himself, yes, but very different from the person he looked at in the mirror every morning. While his skin was normally fair, now it was unnaturally pale, near ghostly against the pristine hospital sheets. Looking around, he felt it was safe to slip off the Invisibility Cloak and take a closer look. The boy in the bed was thin, but that didn't strike him as remarkably different as the Dursleys had made a point of starving him every summer. He'd never seemed able to retain weight any other time of the year, either. His breathing was erratic and wheezy; Harry knew he was struggling to push each one in and out of his body. As he stood next to the bed, he felt a deep sense of unease radiating from the body before him. It was almost as if they shared the pain of this curse. In a way they did.

"You have been heavily sedated," Dumbledore said. "With the nature of this curse, it is not something they can do too often, but it is the only way you can sleep given the amount of pain you are in. Unless you fall unconscious."

Harry nodded and said nothing. There didn't seem to be anything he could say. He was looking down at himself, at the person his mother had raised who would be dead in weeks if they couldn't find a cure. He turned to find Dumbledore holding out a folder to him.

"Your medical charts."

Harry took the folder and copied each page the way Hermione had shown him, trying not to gag as he glanced over the detailed notes describing the growing list of physical ailments they had measured. He didn't care what Professor McGonagall had said, he would kill Snape before it was all over. If his father had gone through even half this agony for a year or more before his death, what Harry could do to him wasn't a fraction of what he deserved. He closed the folder and handed it back to Dumbledore, pocketing the copied pages.

"I'm ready," Harry said. The Minister took one last look at the pale boy in the bed before motioning for Harry to put his cloak back on and walking him outside.