Harry Potter and His New Standards

* Chapter 19 - A Dream Of Heartless Planning, Ron's Unneeded Testimony, Predictions, & Sweets *

All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.

*()%()*

Harry was looking at a dark study, lit only by four levitating lamps in each corner of the room. The windows (all tall and situated side-by-side on the far wall) had elaborate lines carved into the glass, two with a design of snakes on either side of another picturing a griffin.

One of the shiny black doubledoors opened, pushed by a house-elf wearing a greenish pillowcase. Inside walked Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort. "Out, Wobry." The elf bowed low and scuttled outside of the room, pulling the door, that looked as though it were made of hematite, shut as it went.

"This is an impressive living space in which you reside, Malfoy," Voldemort said, glancing quickly around the room as though to check for eavesdroppers.

"Thank you, my lord," replied Malfoy, bowing his head slightly. "It's been sorted out with the goblins, we are going to be Transported at the beginning of the year." Voldemort waved a long-fingered hand.

"Yes, yes, I know this already. The location has been given to me," he said. His tone was indifferent, although his voice still cut into Harry like the harshest of winter winds. "Your hospitality is appreciated, Lucius." Harry was slightly curious as to why Voldemort had switched from referring to the tall, blond man by his well-known last name to his first.

"It isn't a problem, my lord, you are always welcome at the mansion," replied Lucius with another incline of his head. Harry knew that Lucius Malfoy must be at least five years older than Sirius or Lupin (or Snape, he supposed), but he didn't look it. Harry wasn't sure if it was his unconscious mind altering his perception, but at the time Lucius just looked exactly like Draco, except taller, with hair an inch shorter than his son's. "Why did you not contact me? I could have Retrieved you from that forest ages ago..."

"Do not question my motives, Malfoy," Voldemort said coolly. Back to the last name. "Finding my way into that forest was an accident, but it certainly had its advantages. Although my plan wasn't carried out to the extent I wish it could have been, it put some fear back inside the eyes of Harry Potter."

"How is that, my lord?"

"I destroyed the boy's entire family years back, and now he can see I know what's left of his so called "family". I've known what's left of it for... for years." Voldemort's tone was smooth, but now his face looked hardened and distant. This was possibly the most human expression Harry had seen cross the man's face, even if he was talking about killing moments before.

"What are you going to do?" Lucius asked, his tone suspicious.

"What else, Lucius?" Voldemort smiled. On the face of young Tom Riddle, his smooth, contoured face, dark hair with the tendrils that fell into his eyes, long eyelashes, and deep, metallic blue eyes would have made girls stay up for hours talking about the Slytherin. Now, it was simply a cold and ruthless thing, reflecting the transformed man's pleasure in evil. "I'm going to get to Harry Potter where it hurts most."

After this line, Harry found himself looking at the dark curtains hanging down from the top of his four-poster, hiding his dormitory from view. His scar throbbed at what was near heartbeat-timed intervals, and his eyes were wide with shock. He could remember the dream perfectly... the room, the voices, and what was said.

*()%()*

Oftentimes, Harry hated being himself. It put every person he loved in peril, whether they loved him in return or not. He brought so much pain to the world; sometimes he wondered whether he should just surrender to Voldemort and let himself be killed. This was, of course, only when Harry was in such a horrible mood about being the object of the Dark Lord's sinister wish it made him take leave of his senses for a while. In everyone's efforts to keep Harry secure from Voldemort, Harry couldn't keep all those sheltering him safe. No one could.

And now, it looked as though Voldemort were after the only 'family' Harry had left - Holly and Sirius It looked dark, as though he would murder the two Blacks and let Harry suffer for six months before finishing him off. Or maybe his guardian and godsister were going to be used as bait... just another piece of his plan. Harry would have been able to merge Voldemort's self that lives in him with the creativity he picked up everywhere else to better visualize what would be happening to those two loved ones if the Dark Lord's plan was successful - but the fear of being violently sick in doing so stopped him.

But, it wasn't only because Harry was Voldemort's first "downfall" that the man wanted him dead... and Harry still didn't know the second reason. Desperately he had searched for clues. Anything to give him a push in the right direction, any hint of why he was special. Why his mother had only been an obstacle in Voldemort's attempts to kill him. In fact, his mum would still be alive if it hadn't been for Harry. Then again, Harry wouldn't be living to see his mother alive if that was the case either.

After at least forty-five minutes of struggling to fall back into slumber, Harry gave up. His body was quite aware, his mind alert and ready for anything coming at him. After putting on his glasses, he looked at his watch - 2:34 a.m. He slipped out of bed, the stone cold on his bare feet, and walked out of the dormitory.

Harry made his way into the common room, thinking that in there he'd find something to look at until his eyes became tired again. And, just to top off his thoughts, he found Holly sitting against the back of the sofa, her eyes shut.

Holly's knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms around her legs to keep them there. Her head was lying on her knees, dark hair falling out of it's half-pony and all around her face and shoulders. She had probably been down there long before him, but doing the same thing: trying to find something to focus on until she drifted off. Midday naps were never worth it at a quarter to midnight, and visions while you slept were never good at 2:30 in the morning.

He wondered vaguely if Holly knew. If anyone knew. He wondered if a soul realized what the price might be for being an ally of Harry Potter. Even worse, as such in her case, being loved by him. The girl was the only 'sibling' he had ever known, and she was his friend. The one he promised to keep an eye on. She had already seen the affects of Voldemort's hatred, but Holly wouldn't blame him. Of course she wouldn't blame him for something he didn't do. But at the same time... he did do it. What, about Harry, was so special, that every person that stood by him was endangered?

Harry sat down on the opposite end of the davenport, gazing at the designs in the rug. He had only been there a moment before he heard the portrait door open, and the voice of the Fat Lady - who didn't sound happy. He quickly slipped down and hid behind the other arm of the sofa and behind Holly, gazing past her arm with one eye.

Hermione and Ron walked in, At... let's see... 2:38 in the morning. I will be talking with them tomorrow!, whispering to each other. Straining his eye, he saw their fingers intertwined. Again? Oh my. As Hermione's eyes traveled over to Holly, Harry ducked down so he wouldn't be seen, and tried hard to listen.

"What's she doing down here?" she asked. There was a moment of silence, in which Ron was probably looking at the person Hermione was indicating.

"Dunno," he whispered, so quiet Harry only scarcely heard him. "We'd better hurry into our dormitories before she wakes up..."

"Yes, we better. Good-night, Ron," Hermione said. There was a short pause, in which Harry had the inkling that they must have kissed.

"'Night, Hermione." He listened as the footsteps died away, going up their separate staircases, before he emerged. Remembering the he had left the curtains around his bed wide open, he figured he might as well talk to Ron now.

After casting a last look at Holly, who seemed to be asleep, he went up to his dormitory.

*()%()*

Harry slipped into the dormitory, and found Ron pulling on his pajama top. After his head appeared through the hole, his red hair ruffled and eyes tired, he looked at Harry.

"Harry!" he said in a startled whisper, "Where did you come from?"

"If we start from the beginning, a teeny tiny egg," replied Harry quietly; walking over to the table on which sat the pitcher of ice water and goblets.

"Really, Harry, where were you?" Harry teetered on the line of saying something about the Ravenclaw girls' dormitory, but decided against it.

"Crouching behind Holly next to the sofa in the common room," he answered, trying to keep his tone cool and unsolicitous. Harry cast a glance at Ron over his shoulder and saw that he was gaping at him.

"You were spying!" Ron hissed in an unmanned whisper.

"Oh no," Harry muttered back, "I was just sitting in the common room, trying not to be seen. You could have been anybody..."

"You were spying," Ron repeated, but this time in a more matter-of-fact key. Harry shrugged.

"Pretty much." He felt the corners of his mouth twitch as Ron looked horrified, much exaggerating the scene. "It wasn't on purpose," he assured his friend. "It's not my fault that I just happened to be trying to find something to do until exhaustion took me over when you and Hermione walked into the common room. At 2:38 in the morning, I might add."

"Can you keep a secret?" Ron asked after a moment. Harry, who had gulped down the water he had poured himself previously, stood to get some more. Perhaps if his stomach were sloshing with the liquid he'd fall asleep!

"Do you have one to tell me?" Harry rejoined, raising his eyebrows just to hinder Ron a little bit more.

"Hermione and I are together," he stated, as though this weren't clear to Harry already. So, in return, Harry overdid his reaction with a huge gasp, swinging his arms in the air (sending water all over the curtains of Ron's four-poster) and saliently overbalancing. "Shh! Quit it, Harry! You're such a nuisance when you're tired!"

Harry grinned half-heartedly. "Sorry, Ronald." But, Neville was still snoring and there was no sign of movement from Dean or Seamus' bed. Ron scowled more than he already was. "So you and Hermione are to-geth-er... who asked who?"

"I asked."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Where?"

"Nose out." This was becoming far too much fun.

"Ooh, not telling me where? Astronomy Tower!"

"No."

"Trophy room!"

"No."

"In bed!"

"No."

"Prefect's bath!"

"Yup!"

"Really!?"

"No." Harry screwed up his face in the mental search for the next place to suggest. When this failed, he continued to whisper a new question.

"Why are you keeping it a secret?" he questioned. Ron paused here, giving Harry a hard look.

"Just 'cause." Harry decided to stop here and simply nodded silently, then crawled into his four-poster, drawing the curtains. "Hey, Harry?" came Ron's voice from by his bed.

"Mmhmm?"

"Why were you awake anyway?" his friend inquired quietly. Harry plopped his head down onto his pillow and pulled the blankets up closer to his shoulders.

"Just 'cause," he replied slowly, feeling that the last rejoinder from his final query was a good answer to Ron's. There was a brief silence from the other side of his curtains.

"Oh... okay," responded Ron, suspicion, doubt, and caring all evident in his voice.

*()%()*

In Harry's second class the next day, Divination, he had found himself falling asleep over the tarot cards. The cause of this was both lack of sleep and Divination itself. Suits of wands, cups, swords, and pentacles were swimming before him, the symbols joining together in his vision. They were to be playing some sort of game with this "uniquely 56 suit card deck" and by the end of it, when all cards were laid down, your partner was supposed to read some sort of fortune off of them.

Ron's cards looked up at him, the numbers and shapes swiftly changing into portrait-like illustrations of different oracle divinities. He blinked at them, trying to find some familiar pattern in the cards, but they were simply colorful little slips of paper to him.

"Well," said Ron, who was just as sleepy as Harry, "all I can pick up from this is that one day you're going to be either a prostitute or a shepherd." His eyes were slowly sweeping from one of Harry's cards to the next. "Either that or a tree of some sort."

Harry would have laughed, but found it hard, so just gave him a weak smile. "I'm seeing love in your future. Then here is heartbreak, or something, and there's something about downfalls right here," stated Harry, finishing by pointing to a card depicting a quill on parchment. Ron yawned.

"When's class over?" he asked through it. Harry looked at his watch.

"Five minutes..." he replied, yawning to Ron in return. Those things are contagious. Ron nodded, and then looked over Harry's shoulder, his deadened expression changing to one of dread.

"Have you interpreted the patterns and symbols of your cards, yet, dears?" floated the quavering and misty voice of Professor Trelawney. Harry winced.

"Oh, yes, we're doing fine," lied Ron. The professor, wearing shimmering blue robes today, glided over to Ron's side of the table and looked over his shoulder at Harry's cards. He braced himself, ready for the gasp.

"My, Mr. Potter, your cards are certainly laid out with many predictable combinations. May I read them?" Harry, seeing that he had no choice, nodded, bested. Professor Trelawney took Ron's seat, and Ron collapsed into another pouf, his face in his hands.

Trelawney tapped her fingers on certain cards, an expression of hard concentration. "I see trials," she said, "many trials in your days." By now, most of the class had stopped looking at their own cards and were listening. "Fighting... war, perhaps. Deceivers, dark magic... love...." Now Harry considered that he just might have something on the good side of the line.

"Visiting of your memories," she moved her hands over the deck, "new persons being introduced to you... they seem to be very youthful individuals." Her brow furrowed as she looked in between two cards. "Capture and... and... oh no..." Professor Trelawney closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

"What is it, Professor?" asked Lavender, her voice hardly higher than a whisper, looking terrified. Trelawney pressed her finger onto a card bearing crossed bars and a torch then to a card two away picturing a figure wearing a black coat. Lavender gasped and turned to Parvati. Parvati stood up and looked over the professor's shoulder, suddenly looking horror-struck.

'Wonder if I'm dying again... thought Harry, even his mind monotone.

"It's here... at your capture, Harry, you will meet your end," whispered Trelawney, her magnified eyes filling with tears. After a moment she said, "I'm so very sorry that I had to read this for you, Harry, I'm so sorry..." Harry opened his mouth to automatically say that it was all right but she continued. "Often I wish I could not See what is to come, and that I had no experience in the field, as I ask that I not see the horrors to come."

She went on in this vein for some time, apologizing to Harry about telling him his fateful future (which she had never done before), and telling them all that it was not her choice to be skilled in such a branch of magic in which you could discover most horrible things.

By the time she was finished, class was over. Trelawney was so worked up over this next death omen concerning Harry that they were assigned no homework.

As Harry and Ron walked down the stairs of the tower after descending the silver stepladder, he told his friend what he was going to do next. "I need to go talk to Dumbledore," Harry said.

"About what?" inquired Ron, "Don't take Trelawney's-"

"No, no it's not about that," injected Harry, shaking his head. Ron raised his eyebrows.

"What is it about, then?"

"Just... never mind. Don't worry about it," he added hastily at how Ron looked about to say something more, "I have to take this corridor now... see you in the Great Hall in a bit." Ron nodded slowly as Harry turned to the left and the rest of his class went to the right.

He found his way to the gargoyle as he had done several times before, and stood in front of it. "Sherbet lemon." Nothing. "Cockroach Cluster." The gargoyle still stood, unmoved.

Harry sort of knew that these wouldn't work, and so he opened his bag and pulled out the piece of parchment that he had put in there this morning, which he had received only for this occasion that he needed to figure out what the password into Dumbledore's office was.

A list of all the candy sold at Honeydukes.

"Acid Pop," he began, pointing at the top of the list. Nothing. He skipped over 'Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans' and went on to "Blood Lolly." There was still no activity from the office guardian. "Cauldron Cake. Chocolate Frog. Droobles Best Blowing Gum. Exploding Bon-Bons. Fizzing Whizbees. Ice Mice. Jelly Slug. Licorice Wand!" This looked hopeless. After going through the entire list of sweets sold at the Hogsmeade candy shop, he tried a few drinks he knew were sold at The Three Broomsticks. After standing there breathing loudly and angrily, he gritted his teeth.

"Ton-Tongue Toffee," he experimented. "Mothball Munchy." Nothing new happened: the gargoyle still sat stationary. "Damn it! Canary Cream!" The gargoyle stepped aside and Harry's mouth dropped open.

"It worked!" he panted, practically falling over in joy. The fact that Dumbledore had a password modeled after a sweet invented by the Weasleys was also something Harry found rather cool. He stepped onto the spiral staircase and allowed it to take him to Dumbledore's office door.