The Song of the Trees

Chapter Eight: Changing

And the trees quivered and murmured in the swirling wind, unaffected by the slow [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:25:00 2006 ]dyin[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ]g of nature all around them as [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ]a[Author ID1: at Mon Jan 1 10:52:00 2007 ]utumn came upon Hogwart[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ]s. They remained[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:27:00 2006 ] indifferent [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ]to the biting cold of the white[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ] w[Author ID1: at Mon Jan 1 10:52:00 2007 ]inter[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:26:00 2006 ] and[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:30:00 2006 ] to the childish joy of [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:27:00 2006 ]s[Author ID1: at Mon Jan 1 10:52:00 2007 ]pring, and the heat of [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:30:00 2006 ]s[Author ID1: at Mon Jan 1 10:52:00 2007 ]ummer glided [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:30:00 2006 ]over their dark bark without warming up their ancient hearts.[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:31:00 2006 ] For over a year,[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:28:00 2006 ] [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:32:00 2006 ]undiscovered,[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:31:00 2006 ] they murmured their secret in the darkness of the Forbidden Forest.[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:28:00 2006 ][Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:28:00 2006 ]

[Author ID256: at ]

***[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:28:00 2006 ][Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:24:00 2006 ]

[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:24:00 2006 ]

Professor McGonagall glared down at the student standing in front of her desk. The boy, after a feeble attempt to hold her gaze, finally blushed and looked down. Professor McGonagall gave an imperious nod of approval. No Hogwarts student stood up to her. The last boy who had had the nerve to do so had been a genius at Transfiguration, and a Marauder to boot; hence the exception. But exceptions are meant to stay single.

"I should give you two weeks' detention," she said coldly.

The boy's head jerked up, his eyes widened in horror.

"But Professor--"

"And that's exactly what I'm going to do," she went on, so sharply the boy fell silent at once and seemed to shrink a little on the spot. "You'll start your detentions with Professor Snape, Saturday at eight in the evening."

The boy visibly relaxed and even ventured a timid smile.

"Right after the Quidditch match, Professor?" he asked hesitantly.

"Of course," Professor McGonagall snapped--she hated when students guessed the reason hiding behind her decisions. "That is, if your team is able to end the match before the time of your detention! And in the meantime, I suggest you use your free evenings until Saturday to train extra hard."

The boy's grin grew wider.

"Don't worry, Professor," he said confidently. "We'll flatten Slytherin."

Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed dangerously at these words. Merlin, was the boy thick. If he hadn't been a good Seeker--not outstanding, but a really good player all the same--she would certainly not have encouraged his Head of House to pick him as Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team.

"Are you suggesting I am favouring a team over another, Scrubb?" she asked in a clipped voice.

"N-not at all, Professor, I just thought--"

"Then you thought wrong. You may go now, Scrubb."

Scrubb's weak mumbles died away and he gladly walked out of the Headmistress's office, looking as if he was trying very hard not to run as fast as his legs would carry him.

Professor McGonagall lay back in her armchair with a sigh. Her taking over the position of Headmistress hadn't diminished in the least the competition still existing between her and Severus Snape. The new Head of Gryffindor House was good as far as his teaching job was concerned, but he didn't weight an ounce when it came to dealing with the Potions Master; so much so that Gryffindors still came to her whenever they had problems, even though she hadn't been Head of their house for years.

She was almost ashamed of how badly she wanted Gryffindor to win the Quidditch Cup. The previous year, when the new Head of Gryffindor had handed it over to Snape with a gracious smile on his face, she had been inwardly boiling with frustration. She hoped Scrubb would not disappoint her; he was a decent player, but nothing in the like of Charlie Weasley, or James and Harry Potter.

She couldn't but smile when thinking of the latter's ardour at Quidditch, in his Hogwarts years. Seeing Harry Potter act so passionate in a futile matter such as a Quidditch match, when he already had the weight of the wizarding community on his shoulders, had been reassuring to her. It had been the very few moments in his late years at Hogwarts when he had behaved like a teenage boy.

Of course, it had changed since. Drastically.

A knot seemed to tighten in her chest at the thought of him. She was losing him, she could tell. They were all losing him. And the worst was that she seemed to be the only one to be aware of that.

Minerva McGonagall leaned forward, her elbows resting on her desk, and briefly buried her face in her long, dry hands.

"Something on your mind, Minerva?"

Albus Dumbledore's cheerful voice rang through the office, and it seemed to Professor McGonagall that the walls shivered slightly at the sound of this voice--as if they could still remember a time when it didn't come from a portrait, but from one of the greatest wizards alive. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had what it took to be Headmistress of Hogwarts--Dumbledore's memory was still so present in everybody's mind.

"Yes," she answered rather briskly, while dismissing with an irritated wave the depressed thoughts running through her mind. "I'm worried about the boy."

There was a collective sigh from the portraits; some sounded weary, other annoyed, and a majority simply held their breaths. They all knew who the boy was. Even though the Auror who now worked at the Ministry could hardly be called a boy.

"What again?" moaned Phineas Nigellus' voice. "I feel like all we've talked about for ages is that boy... Ever since he set foot in this school..."

"What happened this time, Minerva?" asked Dippet with the patronizing tone he liked to use with her--which annoyed her greatly.

She abruptly spun her seat around, so that she faced all the portraits. A few squeaked at her sudden move; she ignored them.

"Haven't you noticed?" she hissed. "Haven't any of you noticed? How he's falling apart since the end of the war? How he's been changing, until he's[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 15:59:00 2006 ] barely recognisable? How he's distancing himself from all of those he used to care for?"

"Come on, Minerva," said Dippet soothingly. "The aftermaths of the war are traumatic enough to--"

"It is not about the aftermaths of the war," snapped Professor McGonagall, with a quick prayer so that the heavens would grant her patience. "He was actually recovering from those. He was in touch again with the Weasleys, with Miss Granger and Remus Lupin... Miss Granger did say he was acting quite like himself. And then--it all collapsed..."

"What does Miss Granger say on the subject?" said a witch, two portraits away from Dippet.

Professor McGonagall heaved a sigh.

"Nothing," she said in a low voice. "She evades my questions and dodges the few visits I manage to pay her."

"Well, maybe that's because there's nothing to say!" said another former Headmaster jovially.

Or maybe that's because she doesn't want to hear anything about Harry Potter, thought Professor McGonagall as she bit back a scathing reply.

She could feel Dumbledore's eyes on her, and she turned her head to him, seeking his advice as she had always done since she had first entered Hogwarts as Transfiguration teacher.

"Albus?"

Dumbledore slowly shook his head, a great sadness etched in all the lines of his old face.

"Harry is no longer ours to care for, Minerva," he said softly. "Maybe you should just let him go..."

Several nods and approbating exclamations greeted this answer; among those, Phineas Nigellus' sonorous "And maybe we can have peace now!" was perfectly heard by the Headmistress. Suddenly infuriated by all these pictures blabbering from their wall, Professor McGonagall suddenly[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:00:00 2006 ] rose, went round her office and strode across the circular room to the darkening window. She opened the window with an annoyed wave of her wand and leaned forward, her hands clutching the windowsill, gladly drowning the distant mumble of voices in the hissing October wind.

They did not care. Not even Dumbledore. It was no longer his problem. Now all they wanted was rule Hogwarts in the best way possible. Nobody cared if Hogwarts' saviour was alive or dead, sane or mad.

But she still cared. She still wondered;[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:01:00 2006 ],[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:01:00 2006 ] she still worried. Harry Potter was her problem; only, he had become more than a problem lately. He was now an undecipherable riddle.

When she had heard about Weasley's strange accident, Professor McGonagall had feared that the loss of his best friend would harm Harry Potter beyond any possible healing. But it merely seemed to have cut short the thin thread still joining him to his peers, his equals--to his fellow wizards. Harry Potter hadn't seemed devastated. He hadn't seemed shocked. His curiosity hadn't even been aroused by the weirdness of the accident.

Since that day, he seemed to have stopped struggling against the power[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:02:00 2006 ]strength[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:02:00 2006 ] that pulled him further and further away from the wizarding community. Almost imperceptibly, month after month, he had changed. And those changes had edged him apart from everything he used to know; everything he used to be. He was now so far away that Professor McGonagall felt he couldn't be brought back amongst normal wizards--unless he wanted to.

And nobody else noticed. Nobody else saw. Nobody cared.

And it had lasted for fourteen months already.

***

A slender branch caressed Harry's face as he entered Professor's Parletoo's office. There, too, the trees were growing everywhere, covering armchairs, shelves and tables with dense nets of knobbly roots... Their upper branches brushed against the ceiling, which was now barely visible between the dark green leaves...

And the trees murmured... An inaudible song rose all around Harry as he pushed back the branches blocking his way; a merry and soft singing. Harry distinguished words in their song, and he tried to understand them. He knew that language... He could almost catch the meaning of the whispered words... But then it escaped him again, as elusive as a puff of wind he would have tried to hold in his hands...

"Professor Parletoo?"

He was now in sight of the Healer's desk; ivy had crept up the desk and coiled up around the tall candle standing on the smooth wooden surface... Professor Parletoo was sitting in a wide armchair behind the desk, mumbling and sighing softly, his chin resting on his chest... Harry approached him, still followed by the soft laughter of the trees invading Parletoo's house.

"Professor?"

Harry reached the ivy-covered desk and outstretched his hand to touch Parletoo's shoulder. The Healer raised his head in response to the slight contact, but his eyes never met Harry's: he was staring right through him, his eyes misty and his gaze unfocused, an expression of vague contentment upon his usually excited features...

Harry's fingers curled around the Healer's shoulder and he started shaking him. Parletoo had to wake up... He had to answer Harry's questions... But Parletoo's body was limp, and as Harry shook him almost violently, the Healer slumped forward, face-down on his desk.

And there, sticking out of his back between the shoulder blades--as Harry somehow knew there would be--there was a long and thin arrow. Its tail of bright green feathers stood quivering in the air full of the trees' singing; and its head was no longer visible, having completely sunk into the flesh... And Harry knew the metal point could never be pulled out of the Healer's body, for it had melted into the flesh...

Leaving the Healer where he had collapsed on his desk, Harry straightened up and turned around. Ron's body was lying at his feet, sprawled across the extricated roots; and another arrow stuck out of his back, its metallic point inserted exactly between two vertebras... It had already melted, just as Parletoo's arrow, it[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:04:00 2006 ] had melted into his flesh...

Luna wasn't very far away. She was kneeling on the floor, her arms limp, her body slumped forward and her head hanging... She was mumbling incoherently too, and a third arrow was planted between her shoulder blades...

Harry turned on the spot, trying to find a way to escape the dark room, but the trees had blocked the door and the windows... They were closing around him...

A twig creaked under a foot and Harry spun around again, to find Hermione standing between two tall trees. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Ron's inanimate body, and her mouth was open in horror... And the ivy was now slyly creeping up her legs, encircling her tighter and tighter...

I have seen all this way too many times, suddenly said a tired voice in Harry's head. Enough of this nonsense. Open your eyes! Now!

Harry's eyes flung open, and he was instantly dazzled by the immaculate whiteness of the ceiling of his ward in St. Mungo's. His vision was oddly darkened at the edges, as if his dream had only been temporarily blocked out and threatened to engulf him again any minute. Harry slightly shook his head to clarify his thoughts.

The Dream-Injecter... Yes... Disconnect it...

He raised his right hand with some difficulty and felt the crook of his left arm, which was lying limply on the sheets at his side. His fingers soon found the needle piercing his skin and plunging into the blue vein below. An ethereal thread, as inconsistent as a wisp of smoke, linked the needle to a bluish sphere full of mist that revolved slowly in the air next to Harry's bed.

Harry seized the needle between two fingernails and roughly pulled it out of his arm. At once, his vision cleared and the last remains of his dream faded into the distance.

Grabbing his glasses on the bedside table with his right hand--as his left arm pointedly refused to obey him at the moment--Harry swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and sat up. His mouth was dry and his brain seemed to work in slow motion, as if he had been sleeping under the influence of heavy sedatives. He inwardly groaned; it would take a few hours before he was fully functional again. The Dream-Injecter always left him a bit groggy, but today it seemed even worse than usual. Probably because he had willingly interrupted the session... He was going to be in trouble for that; as a matter of fact, he was surprised no one had burst in the room yet, shrieking in horror--

The door banged against the wall as it was forcefully pushed from the outside and a nurse rushed in, panic etched in every feature of her usually debonair face. Harry heaved a resigned sigh.

"Mr. Potter!" squealed the old nurse. "What happened? Did that wretched machine break down again?"

"No, I disconnected it myself," Harry answered heavily. "I think the session's over for today, Mrs. Walkins."

The nurse let out an outraged exclamation.

"Over!" she repeated. "You rested only for a half an hour! One session requires--"

"--three hours spent under the influence of this damned thing," Harry completed dully, with a jerk of his head in the direction of the blue sphere; it had stopped revolving when Harry had pulled the needle off his arm, and it now lay on the bedside table, as innocently transparent as a harmless glass ball.

The nurse looked about to reply, but when Harry stood up, staggering slightly as vertigo made his head spin, a panicky expression replaced once more the reprobating frown on her face.

"You're not going to leave now, are you?" she anxiously asked. "You need to stay here! You need to resume the session! You--"

But Harry passed by her and got out of the room without paying attention to her hysterical protests. Acting as if he couldn't hear what was said around him had become a habit of his in the past months--it saved him from sudden outbursts of anger at the world's stupidity, very likely to drain out of him every last shred of energy he still possessed.

"--the Head Healer won't be pleased by this, oh no, Mr. Potter, he won't," moaned the old nurse, trotting behind Harry who was now walking along the corridor and towards the staircase. "He'll be furious and I'll be responsible for this, don't think he will hesitate to fire me..."

Harry exhaled exasperatedly. Were there still people in this world who thought he was capable of any kind of sympathy? The entire hospital could get sacked for all he cared. He was done with dealing with other people's problems.

"--and then who will support my niece? The poor girl's an orphan, and I'm the only one who can pay for her studies in Hog--Professor Ravens!"

The nurse's blabbering ended on a squeaky, strangely high-pitched note as a Healer, who had been discussing in the corridor with several interns, turned around at their approach; and indeed, Harry found himself face to face with Professor Ravens' young and determined face. Ravens had been the Head Healer of St. Mungo's Hospital since Parletoo's strange "accident".

"We'll continue this discussion later," he shot carelessly at the three giggling female interns who had been rapturously listening to him. Then, delicately smoothing the front of his lime green robes, he closed in two steps the gap separating him from Harry, efficiently blocking his way.

"Mr. Potter," he said briskly. "Is the session already over? I thought you were supposed to stay at St. Mungo's until midnight."

"I was," said Harry in a monotonous voice. "But I'm sick of having the same dream over and over again. That Dream-Injecter tires me more than it rests me. I interrupted the session."

"You can't do that," said the Head Healer sternly. "You're supposed to spend at least twenty hours a week under the Dream-Injecter, and you're already falling far below that limit."

"Too bad," retorted Harry, a little impatiently. "Now please move over. I need to get out of here."

To his annoyance, the Head Healer didn't step aside, but cast a quick glance all around him as if to check nobody was eavesdropping; but the corridor was empty. The giggling interns had backed away in one of the rooms when they had caught sight of Harry--he had become less and less popular in the past years[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:36:00 2006 ]months[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:36:00 2006 ]--and the old nurse had discreetly slipped away, probably in the hope of being unnoticed by the Head Healer.

Reassured, Ravens moved even closer to Harry and whispered, "Do I have to remind you what will happen if you don't get enough rest? Your body is about to give way, Mr. Potter. It needs to rest every night, and as you can't sleep, we have to find another way to give it the rest it craves for. The Dream-Injecter doesn't provide you with all the rest you need, but it's the best we can do. It's the only thing that will work, do you understand me?"

Harry stared down at the Healer, who was looking straight in his eyes with a very serious expression. He was irritated by the man's confidential tone, as if he and Harry shared a vital secret. Harry almost snorted at this thought; the whole wizarding community, including himself, was waiting for the moment when he would finally collapse.

"Work?" he snapped. "Postpone my death, you mean."

"Well, yes," said coldly [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:36:00 2006 ]the Healer [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:36:00 2006 ]coldly[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:36:00 2006 ]. "That's what we do all the time, Mr. Potter. Every man has to die one day, don't they? We keep putting back that day."

"Don't give me the lecture," Harry [Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:09:00 2006 ]said brusquely Harry[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:09:00 2006 ]. "How much time can I last, supposing that I don't use the Dream-Injecter?"

A flicker of uneasiness briefly altered the Healer's features at Harry's words; it only lasted a second, though, before his face automatically set into that honeyed, would-be reassuring expression he wore every time he was about to blurt out a comforting lie.

"Now, Mr. Potter, that's not a relev--"

"Given that it's my health we're talking about, I'd think I'm the one to decide which questions are relevant and which are not," said Harry coolly. "Don't try to reassure me, Professor, one more bad piece of news won't kill me. How long will I survive without the Dream-Injecter?"

Healer Ravens sighed noisily and rubbed his temple with a weary hand.

"What you must understand," he said at last, his voice suddenly lacking in the cheerful energy it was filled with only seconds before, "is that I can only estimate roughly the state of exhaustion you're in... And you seem quite more robust than most of my patients..."

"How long?" interrupted Harry loudly. God, why was it so difficult to wrench a simple answer from those charlatans in green robes?

The Healer shook his head with sadness--though whether it was genuine or faked, Harry couldn't tell. It didn't really matter, anyway. "For any normal wizard, I'd say six months, give or take a week or two," he answered gravely. "Taking into account your remarkable resistance--I believe you survived two years without sleeping a minute--I'd say nine to ten months, but no more."

Harry nodded to acknowledge the answer. Six months... Maybe nine or ten... The strange thing was that he couldn't tell whether he was happy or not about it. It could be all over in six months... All he had to do was stop fighting...

"Mr. Potter?"

The Healer's hesitant voice cut in Harry's meditation, bringing him back to reality.

"Thanks, Professor," Harry hurriedly said. "That's all I needed to know."

He took advantage of Healer Ravens' obvious stupefaction at his reaction to go round him and reach the staircase in a few quick strides.

"I'll be waiting for you at nine o'clock tomorrow evening for the next session!" Ravens called behind him.

Harry didn't answer; at the moment, he was very busy trying to keep his balance as he walked down the stairs. His gestures were oddly imprecise, as if he didn't have a total control over his muscles, and he had to grip the banister quite hard to steady himself. He cursed under his breath at the lasting effects of the Dream-Injecter. It was a relatively recent magical discovery, designed to artificially activate the production of dreams by the patient's brain. Meanwhile, the rest of the body was resting--perhaps not as fully as if the patient was asleep, but close enough. The Injecter presented several inconveniences: it couldn't be used longer than three hours in a row, for fear the blue sphere would overheat and explode, and there were, of course, the nasty side-effects...

Harry had often thought that the good thing about his permanent insomnia was that at least, he was rid of the disturbing dreams which had infected his nights since he was fourteen. The irony of the obligation to use a Dream-Injecter hadn't escaped him: he hadn't got the sleep, but he had got the nightmares back. Dreams about the last war against Voldemort haunted the sessions of Dream-Injecting, forcing him to relive all the horrors he had witnessed then; and naturally, more than once the Forbidden Forest had come and invaded his mind with its strange whispering.

The dream about Parletoo's "accident"--as the other Healers put it--was the most frequent; almost every night, he relived the moment when, fourteen months ago, he had entered the old Healer's house with the intention to ask him some of the questions he, Hermione [Author ID1: at Sat Sep 9 23:42:00 2006 ] [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:38:00 2006 ],[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:11:00 2006 ][Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:38:00 2006 ]and Ron had been discussing in Hermione's living room. He had found the Healer sitting behind his desk and mumbling vaguely, a long arrow stuck between his shoulder blades. That same day, Ron and Luna Lovegood had also been shot with arrows of the same kind.

The weirdest thing was that nobody had been able to pull the arrows out of the victims' backs: the metallic point had sunk into them, slotting into the spine between two vertebras, and had melted into the bodies. The Healers had had to cut the wooden arrows level with the skin. Ever since, Merlin Parletoo, Ron Weasley and Luna Lovegood had remained in St. Mungo's, alive [Author ID1: at Sat Sep 9 23:42:00 2006 ],[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:12:00 2006 ] [Author ID1: at Sat Sep 9 23:42:00 2006 ]but unable to recognise anybody.

It was roughly around the same time that Harry had collapsed: after two years of surviving without getting any rest, his body had suddenly given up. One day, Harry had abruptly fainted, falling into a coma so deep,[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:12:00 2006 ] nobody thought he would ever wake up.

But he had. The Healers had bustled about around his bed for two days, finally succeeding in wrenching him away from the black nothingness he had fallen into. All the Healers who had studied his case had concluded that the lack of sleep had exhausted his body beyond the viable limits. Most of them were opposed to Harry working as an Auror, or working at all; in fact, they had wanted him to stay in St. Mungo's, in a ward for wizards permanently damaged by magic. When Harry had pointedly refused, they had opted for a treatment by Dream-Injecting--which they hadn't dared to consider at first since that recent invention had not been tested yet.

Well, they've had all the time to test it, since I've been using the damned thing for over a year, Harry thought snappishly as he reached the reception hall. They need a guinea-pig for their products? I'm here!

Actually, the only moments when he had felt like himself again, the only moments he had truly enjoyed in the years [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:38:00 2006 ]months [Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:38:00 2006 ]following the arrows "incident", were his monthly transformations. Whenever he took the shape of the big white wolf, his worries seemed to dissolve miraculously, and the mere idea of his collapsing out of exhaustion became absolutely ludicrous.

At first, Remus had kept him company; but he was now too old to keep up with Harry's indefatigable runs in the country, and he had finally come back to the old system--Wolfsbane Potion and closed rooms. But Harry didn't mind; true, it was nice to transform with Remus, but he had had to keep an eye on him the whole time their transformation lasted. Now, at last, he was completely free...

The lingering nausea that had been blurring his thoughts and numbing his limbs since he had disconnected the Dream-Injecter eased when Harry finally stepped out of the Hospital and into the fresh air of October, with a sigh of relief. London was plunged into darkness, and if the sky hadn't been hidden behind a thick layer of grey clouds, he would have been able to see the first stars lighting up. Harry slowly began to walk along the street, allowing the cold breeze to wash away the last remains of the Dream-Injecter effects before he would Apparate home.

Six months... Maybe nine, maybe ten... How would it happen? Most likely, he would fall in a coma again. He would just have to make sure nobody was around him at the time, and it would be all over. All over.

Then why did he feel so reluctant? There was nothing there that was worth living for, though. Family? He didn't have one. The Weasleys weren't as comfortable around him as they used to be; he was too weird. Besides, even though they had never missed an opportunity to claim the contrary, he knew they couldn't help resenting him for what had happened to Ron. After all, Harry had Disapparated right before Ron was shot. If he h[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:14:00 2006 ]H[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:14:00 2006 ]adn't he[Author ID1: at Sat Sep 9 23:42:00 2006 ] been that eager to leave, he could have prevented it from happening. He could have saved him... It had always been his job to save everybody, hadn't it?...

Friends? What friends did he have? Remus was too busy with his new-found family to care about him, even if he kept telling Harry he was welcome at his and Tonks' house.

Hermione... There was no Hermione anymore. All that was left was Miss Granger, Unspeakable. And especially unspeakable towards Harry.

Neither Harry nor Hermione had failed to link the three attacks to the conversation they had had earlier in Hermione's living room. Parletoo may have been able, when examining Harry, to find signs of his belonging to another kind--whatever it was. Luna seemed to know a great deal about a time when werewolves could control themselves. Both had been shot. Ron, on the other hand, didn't know anything; but he had been put in charge of finding out about dryads in the Wizardkind History. As they hadn't specified who he would ask for information, it was much simpler to neutralise him before he had even started his research.

Hermione could add two and two; she had quickly come to the conclusion that someone seemed really eager to prevent them from finding anything about Harry's condition. Between this statement and concluding that the aggression on Ron was Harry's fault, there was a very thin line, and Harry was pretty sure Hermione had crossed it. He had scarcely seen her after that, and he wasn't one to force his company upon people who clearly didn't seek it.

What would be her reaction if he died?... She would probably become even more embittered by her status as the ex-best mate of the Boy-Who-No-Longer-Lived. Maybe she would feel a little guilty for refusing to speak to him, or in the contrary, maybe she would resent him for not trying to justify himself. Or maybe she wouldn't give a damn.

He thought the Weasleys would sincerely regret him--well, not exactly him, but the kid they used to know. He had seen them three or four times since the end of the war, more than three years ago; they couldn't possibly know how much he had changed in those years. They probably still remembered him as Ginny's boyfriend... And it was a fair bet Ginny wasn't doing anything to convince them of the contrary: he somehow felt she still wouldn't give up on him. There was the way she always tried to make him talk about the past, or about Hermione, whenever he came across her--which happened surprisingly often; she actually seemed to haunt Harry's footsteps--, and most of all, the way she looked at him with a mixture of deep understanding and--and a sort of certainty.

As if she was sure he would come back to her in the end.

Harry gritted his teeth and his right hand clenched and unclenched nervously at his side. Understanding. Now that was comical. He felt so different from them that it was as if he belonged to another kind. Which is probably the case, he thought sardonically. Those people had come through the war and the loss of three of them--Percy during the war, Charlie in the months following Voldemort's downfall, and now Ron--totally unchanged. He used to admire that strength of will, which made them cope so bravely with all the horrors they had been through; now he found it positively maddening. He had stopped understanding them, but at least he had had the decency to realise that,[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:18:00 2006 ] and to stop trying. They didn't understand a thing about him either, but they couldn't or wouldn't admit it...

Of course, he should marry Ginny. That was everyone expected him to do. Ginny had decided he was perfect for her at the age of ten, and all her brothers agreed with her. As for her parents, they would just welcome an opportunity to make him officially their son. Fleur was the only one to contradict them on that point--Harry had actually overheard her at the Ministry, advising Ginny at the top of her voice to find a man as quickly as possible, as "she was not getting any younger"--but he strongly suspected it had only been another result of the mutual animosity reigning between the two sisters-in-law, rather than a surge of lucidity.

Oh yes, everyone expected him to marry Ginny. It was the right thing to do; he had saved her life, he had protected her, he had always been treated as a seventh son by her parents... Next step was logically marriage.

Harry pulled a hand through his hair, gripping it tightly in exasperation. He was sick of following paths that had been drawn for him by others. He was no longer interested in Ginny; he hadn't been for over three years, couldn't they just grasp that simple concept?...

At first, he had ended things between them because he thought himself too deeply wounded to start a healthy relationship with anybody; but now, Ginny simply irked him.

He used to find her beautiful; now the sight of her knowing smile inevitably made his hand twitch near his wand-pocket. That expression she wore, as if she knew exactly what was going through his mind... As if all she had to do was waiting calmly until he got a grip on himself, after which he would undoubtedly fall at her feet with adoring eyes... Oh, how he longed to shake that everlasting self-confidence of hers...

How would she react to his death? Probably cry her eyes out and introduce herself as Harry Potter's true love, he thought savagely. Then she would take to explain to everyone what sort of man I was and how she knew how much I had been hurt during the war and blah blah blah...

All those people... They were not worth living for. But they were not worth dying for either. The entire wizarding community was holding their breath, waiting for him to die, or go so utterly crazy that the Ministry would gladly seize the opportunity to lock him away. Ginny probably had her widow's expression ready for use, just as Malfoy and his other enemies had the bottles of champagne ready. He was certainly not going to give them this satisfaction; he would live, even if it meant spending hours under the influence of the Dream-Injecter. He would live, because he hadn't survived all these murder attempts only to let himself die out of spite and exhaustion at the end. He would live just for the sake of making Snape's, Malfoy's and Scrimgeour's bile boil.

And he would make sure to enjoy every single minute of his contradicting their wishes.

Harry smirked at the thought. The fresh air had cleared his mind and freed his limbs of the clumsiness that always came with the sessions of Dream-Injecter. It was safe for him to Apparate now. Stepping into the shadows of a porch, he prepared to go home.

The wind enveloped him at once, coiling around him like a fresh, airy tentacle, and making his Muggle coat swirl around his body; next second, Harry felt himself literally dissolving into the wind, his whole body losing its consistence as he was pulled off the ground. Harry smiled blissfully: now his favourite part was beginning...

He was hovering miles above the ground, as light and inconsistent as vapour; the wind kept swirling him around, almost playfully, and going faster and faster until he could see nothing but light blurs that were stars, spinning around in the black sky. Then he started going down; he went slowly at first, like a dead leaf falling from a tree, but as his body started to regain its consistence, his speed increased until he was dropping like a stone.

His feet soon met the hard stone ground of the courtyard of his building, and it was all over. Harry instinctively looked up, as if trying to find a mark of his travelling through the sky; but the grey, heavy mass of clouds hanging above his head looked so solid he wondered how he could have fallen through them without realising it. All of it had lasted perhaps a quarter of second, but it had felt so much longer...

Harry didn't know when he had stopped Apparating normally. He used to Apparate and Disapparate at least four times a day as an apprentice, and this number had considerably increased when he had finally been qualified as an Auror; young Aurors were often used as couriers by their elder colleagues. Splinching accidents often occurred at the end of the day, when the exhausted Aurors had to Disapparate for the tenth time. Harry, on the other hand, had soon come to notice that he never splinched himself when he was tired; but just before the world went black around him, there was a puff of wind coiling around his legs. The wind had gradually become stronger with each passing day--until Harry had felt himself being lifted in the airs instead of being forced into a sort of metallic straitjacket.

Harry hadn't failed to conclude that this must have been another sign of his "weirdness", which seemed to be showing more and more as year[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:41:00 2006 ]month[Author ID1: at Thu Dec 21 19:41:00 2006 ]s passed. But he was surprised to find out it didn't bother him in the slightest: after all, regular Apparition was extremely uncomfortable and he didn't have so many pleasant moments that he could afford to throw away one of them, just because it was unusual.

As long as he kept quiet about his newfound abilities, there was no reason why he shouldn't fully enjoy them...

Harry smiled to himself as he climbed the stairs two at a time. Of course, he still wondered what he was--though he didn't try too hard to find out, as he was quite busy with his Auror's life and he incidentally didn't fancy having an arrow striking him in the back. But he was wondering out of mere curiosity, not in order to try to come back to his former self. He was far more enduring than his fellow Aurors, he had the possibility to change into a powerful wolf once a month and to Apparate absolutely painlessly; he really wasn't complaining.

He reached the sixth floor and opened his door with a quick flick of his wand. The apartment was dark and silent; obviously, Lance wasn't there, and Amy had found someone else to spend the night with.

Harry had only just allowed his coat to fall to the floor and was reaching for a bottle, standing on the coffee table between two piles of reports and forms--that kind of tedious, boring work young Aurors were required to do--when a sharp tapping noise resounded in the sultry air of the closed apartment. Harry froze and slowly straightened up.

The tap-tap-tap came again; it seemed to be coming from the closed window, and now, he could also hear a rustling of feathers against the shutters. An owl. But who could possibly write to him in the middle of the night...?

Harry quickly went around the coffee table and walked to the window, his wand in his hand--just in case.

I swear, if it's from Ginny I'll hex the bird.

He had not received any owl from Ginny, and he doubted she would go so low as to send him love letters so late at night, like a lovesick puppy; nevertheless, the prospect was alarming enough to justify an owl-plucking.

He turned the catch and tugged quite violently on it, forcing the old and neglected window to open with a squeak of protest. He then slightly pushed the right shutter and peered through the narrow opening. A very familiar-looking tawny owl was fluttering in front of him, maintaining itself level with the window by quick battings of its wide wings.

He couldn't help it: his heart leaped in his chest when he recognised a Hogwarts owl. How strange that was... Of all things, the thought of a school--a mere castle--was enough to awaken what was left of his old self. He hadn't been to Hogwarts in ages; not since his first transformation, as a matter of facts...

Harry opened the window wider and the owl gratefully flew inside the room. It perched itself on top of the back of a chair and obligingly extended its leg, to which was tied a letter bearing the words, To Mr. Harry J. Potter. And that was it.

Harry untied the letter and brought it closer to his face, frowning. His name was written in Professor McGonagall's dry, narrow handwriting that. Breaking the wax seal, he finally ripped open the envelope and took out a sheet of parchment on which ran a few lines of the Headmistress's handwriting.

Dear Mr. Potter,

I wish to talk to you about a matter of some importance. Since most of your nights are, from what I heard, relatively unoccupied, I'd like to see you at Hogwarts castle some evening this week--tonight if it's possible. This letter will allow you to go through the gates; just slip it between the two sides of the gates and you will be granted entrance.

The password to my office is Loch Ness.

M. McGonagall.

Harry's eyebrows rose higher and higher as he read on. Why on earth would McGonagall want to see him...? Was there a problem with the protective wards around the school? Usually, he would have been annoyed at being asked for help again, when he was already working quite hard all day--but this was about Hogwarts. It was different.

Harry rolled back the letter and, pointing at his bedroom the wand he had never dropped, said, "Accio cloak!"

His long travelling cloak went instantly flying towards him from inside the bedroom; Harry caught it easily and flung it across his shoulders in one mechanical and fluid gesture. Having stuffed the letter in an inner pocket and slid his wand in his belt, he headed for the door of his apartment again. He was really curious to know what McGonagall wanted with him; besides, he had been wanting to go back to the school for a long time--he had a request to submit to his former teacher.

A knot tightened unexpectedly in the pit of his stomach at the thought of going back to Hogwarts.

...Was there something left here that was worth living for?

There was Hogwarts.

***

"Potter."

Professor McGonagall was standing in the doorway of her office, having just answered Harry's knock on her door. She seemed so deeply relieved to see him that Harry wondered again what had made her summon him.

"Everything's all right, Professor?" he enquired with a questioning look.

"Yes, quite all right, thank you," she answered quickly, her tone betraying an unusual nervousness. "Do come in."

Harry followed her inside the office, puzzled a little further by Professor McGonagall's attitude. It was so strange to see her nervous that it made him slightly ill-at-ease; and his hand wandered unconsciously at his waist, near his wand.

The room was roughly as he remembered it--the portraits still pretended to be asleep in their frames, even Dumbledore. The few tables here and there were heavily loaded with books, parchments and strange instruments--though there weren't quite as many of those as in Dumbledore's time--and the Headmistress's desk was just as overloaded with what looked like essays.

"You're still correcting essays?" Harry asked incredulously. He knew that, as the Headmistress, Professor McGonagall didn't have to teach or correct essays anymore; even if she had wanted to, she would probably have lacked the time to do so.

"Well, yes," Professor McGonagall admitted grudgingly as she sat behind the desk. "The new Transfiguration Teacher is a nice man, but he does need to work harder on his corrections--and in the meantime, I'd rather have a look at the students' essays before he hands them back. He sometimes overlooks huge mistakes... Another teacher fresh from these schools where they teach them the "new ways"!"

She punctuated her answer with a disdainful sniff,[Author ID2: at Sat Sep 9 16:25:00 2006 ] and Harry smiled in spite of himself. Some things will never change...

"So why did you want to see me, Professor?" he finally asked.

Professor McGonagall put her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands together as she peered at him over the edge of her square glasses.

"There are some matters I want to discuss with you, Harry," she began slowly; and she sounded as if she was carefully choosing her words. "But before that, I wanted to ask you--is there something you wish to tell me about?"

Harry stared at her; he was strongly reminded of Dumbledore, who had asked him a very similar question in his second year. But at the time he had been a twelve-year-old overwhelmed with a fame he had never sought and problems that weren't all his. Now...

"No, thank you, Professor," he said, a little intrigued. She hadn't sounded annoyingly understanding as Ginny often did; she actually sounded worried. He suddenly wondered how much she suspected about his recent evolution.

Professor McGonagall sighed again and rose to her feet.

"Very well then. Would you mind going with me on a walk around the grounds?"

His sentiment of puzzlement increasing, Harry only nodded and followed her out of her office.

They went down staircase after staircase, sometimes meeting a prefect patrolling here and there or a ghost drifting serenely in the air along a corridor. Professor McGonagall was keeping up a rather boring conversation, about his new job, his colleagues and his boss; and Harry felt she was reserving the information she wanted to share with him for when they would be in the grounds--away from the ears of ghosts, prefects and portraits.

Professor McGonagall shivered slightly when they stepped out of the castle at last; and she drew closer around her the cloak she had picked up in her office before leaving. Harry, who didn't quite feel the cold, let the wind rush in his cloak and make it swirl around his shoulders. He liked that feeling of being enveloped in moving air...

"Now, what went wrong, Harry?"

Harry's head snapped to the left side in order to look at Professor McGonagall.

"Nothing," he repeated. "Why are you asking?"

"Don't tell me there's nothing wrong, Potter," snapped Professor McGonagall. "Why aren't you seeing Miss Granger anymore? Why is she so reluctant to talk about you? Why are you... so different, all of sudden?"

At her last words, Harry stopped dead in his tracks and considered the old teacher with something like astonishment, and a new form of esteem. That was the last thing he had been expecting. No one had asked... No one had seen... No one had pronounced the word 'different' in front of him before she had; and yet, he hadn't seen her in such a long time...

"You noticed?" he blurted out.

That wasn't quite what he had intended to say, but it summed up his thoughts decently enough.

"Of course I did," she said curtly. "Even if I seem to be the only one realising you've stopped being the boy I used to teach. Even Dumbledore..."

Her voice trailed away, and a heavy silence settled between the pair of them.

"I did change," said Harry in a low voice. "But I can't explain it. And I don't need anyone's help. I am not sick, Professor."

He had said the last words[Author ID1: at Sat Sep 9 23:44:00 2006 ] with a final, determined tone that clearly showed he had no intention to elaborate. Professor McGonagall wasn't looking at him; her gaze was fixed in front of her, lingering on the tall hoops that stood at both ends of the Quidditch pitch. When she finally spoke, she had dropped the clipped tone she so often used and her voice was slightly hushed.

"I understand that, Potter. I just wanted to make sure you were well. But be careful not to lose yourself."

Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "Lose himself"? What could she possibly mean...?

"By the way, I've been thinking that you can't have had much occasions to fly lately," she went on in her normal voice, and Harry was so surprised by this abrupt change of subject that he slightly jumped. "If you feel like coming here to fly for a few hours during your spare time, feel free to do so. I can give you free access to the school and its grounds."

"Thanks, Professor," said Harry, taken unawares by this sudden proposition. Then, abruptly remembering what he had intended to ask her when he had first left his apartment, he went on, "Will I have free access to the library as well?"

She turned to face him, her expression both surprised and a little mocking.

"The library?" she repeated.

Harry smiled. "Yes," he said. "I feel like reading when I don't have anything else to do..."

The hint of a smile flickered across her face as she drew her cloak closer still around her body against the biting wind.

"Access granted," she said. "That includes, of course, the Restricted Section."

Harry's smile widened. She had understood him better than he had expected.

He would undoubtedly get some interesting reads in the following nights. And he would make sure to profit from them as much as he could.