Chapter Twenty-Six of 'Casualties of Politics'- Ostentatious Displays

[lomonaaeren]

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Chapter Twenty-Six—Ostentatious Displays

“Wow! That’s wicked! Can I touch it?”

Harry was a little startled at the dislike that filled him at the thought. Felix was his brother, and he hadn’t even had the knife Belisarius had given him for one full day yet. He smiled and ignored the twinge in the back of his mind as he held out the knife.

Felix gently ran his fingers along the hilt, pausing when his hand was near the blade. Then he abruptly yelped and snatched it back.

“Felix? What happened?”

Harry almost expected to see a burn or a blister when Felix turned his hand over, if the stored elemental fire inside the blade had lashed out, but instead, there was a tiny wound in his finger. It looked like a bite. Harry stared back and forth between the knife and Felix, blinking.

“I—didn’t know it would do that.”

“Neither did I.” Felix took a step back and gave the knife a look of nervous respect. “I know there are some wands that don’t like being handled by anyone other than the wizard or witch they’re bonded to, but I never heard of any that bit. I don’t suppose that it’s like a normal wand, though.”

“No,” Harry said quietly, and pulled the knife a little closer to him. A current of warmth ran up his arm that might have been nothing more than the reflection of the fire he’d stored.

He knew better.

“So I just won’t try to touch it, then.”

Felix said something else, but the knife vibrated in Harry’s hand, and he turned his head. There was something nearby that the knife didn’t like. It didn’t want to bite, Harry thought. It wanted to destroy.

“Harry, are you all right?”

Felix was looking at him strangely. They were in Felix’s bedroom, with Harry standing near the door, and Harry found that the pull of the evil thing that the knife wanted to kill was stronger when he was facing away from Felix, towards the corridor.

At least it’s not my brother.

“Yes. There’s—something…”

Felix followed him as they went down the corridor, and then the knife began uttering shrill screams into Harry’s head, so suddenly that he flinched and stopped. When he looked up, the door to Lily and James’s bedroom was in front of him, and the knife was tugging at his hand. Harry swallowed.

“I think it senses that thing in the drawer,” he whispered.

“That makes sense,” Felix said. “It’s powerful, and it’s evil. I still don’t know exactly what it is. Does the knife?”

Harry tried to focus his mind and commune with the knife the way that he could sometimes commune with his magic when it took the form of a snarling beast on his shoulder. But the knife didn’t respond. It just kept screaming, short, focused pulses of hatred that made Harry sway on his feet.

“Boys? Are you all right?”

Felix turned to deal with James. Harry tucked the knife away and nodded, turning around so that he could give James a smile that had nothing to it, but the happy kind of nothing that the Potters were learning to expect from him. “Yes, sir. Just wondering which of our gifts we should play with first.”

“You don’t have to call me sir, Harry.”

James’s voice was soft, and so was his face, but there was a tight strain at the back of it that reminded Harry of all the things he reminded the Potters of. He nodded obediently. “Okay.”

“Could you call me Dad?”

Harry had had trouble saying it before. But right now, he was thinking about the knife and how he had to keep it concealed for the moment and what it would be like when he revealed his elemental magic in front of the school and how in the world he was going to sleep in the house tonight knowing there was something this evil locked in the drawer in his parents’ bedroom. As if it were nothing worse than a cursed necklace or something.

“If you want me to, Dad.”

James’s face lit up with such joy that Harry and even Felix stared at him. He leaned down and hugged Harry with the kind of tenderness that Harry had never noticed even last summer when he and Felix had had their birthday.

“Come on, son,” he said, sounding a little choked up. “Let’s go and see what your mum’s plans for dinner are. I’m sure that I can get her to change them to your favorite.”

Harry wondered what James would say if he knew that Harry’s favorite food for ten years had just been food. But he gave James a false smile that wasn’t obviously false and put out his hand. It turned out this wasn’t so hard, after all, and calling James by a name he didn’t mean wasn’t some huge, weighted thing.

It didn’t mean that he hated the Potters any less.

It just meant he was doing what he had to do to survive.

*

Felix watched Harry walk away with Dad and sighed. He knew exactly how false Harry’s apparent happiness was, and he thought less of Dad for not sensing it.

Then again, Dad and Mum had tossed Harry away for ten years. Why should he expect them to do the right thing now?

A soft rustle of wings distracted him from looking into Mum and Dad’s bedroom at the drawer with the thing locked in it. An owl landed next to him, and Felix swallowed as he saw the tattered edges of its feathers. It was the one he had sent with their next message to Mr. Lupin. He reached out and slowly took the message from its leg.

This message was a lot longer than the last one, and in different handwriting. Felix leaned against the wall as he read it.

Dear Felix,

Thank you for reaching out. I can’t make up for the years of silence and misunderstanding between us. I should have tried to speak to you sooner, but what happened to you and me that night was just too deep.

The first thing you should understand is that you absolutely can’t let your parents find out that you’re communicating with me. They wouldn’t take it well. They still think that I should have agreed with their mad plan to summon the unnamed thing and feed it its price. I understand that they were desperate to defeat Voldemort, but that’s no excuse.

So, please make sure that you’re hiding our letters from them. I don’t think that you need to hide them from your brother, but I’m not sure. He might be just as upset that we’re speaking.

Felix leaned back against the wall and bit his lip. He didn’t know what Lupin knew, or thought he knew, about Harry, but Felix knew that he absolutely wouldn’t keep this correspondence from Harry. Harry deserved to know, and in case something went wrong, where to look for clues.

Not that Felix intended for anything to go wrong. But something could.

I can tell you all about what your parents planned and why we’re no longer friends, but it’s not the sort of conversation that should be kept for a letter. Do you know about the Shrieking Shack? There’s a tunnel that leads to it under the Whomping Willow. I’ve put a drawing on the back of this letter about where you need to press to stop the Willow from, well, whomping.

Felix flipped the letter over. Yes, there was a sketch of the trunk, and it looked accurate. Felix frowned. There was something about it…it looked too accurate? Even as he thought that, though, he didn’t know what it meant.

He shook his head and looked at the signature.

Looking forward to meeting you,
Moony.

“What are you doing, Felix, dear?”

Felix didn’t immediately shove the letter out of sight, because that would be an amateur move. Instead, he looked up and smiled at Mum as he folded it. “Looking at a letter from the twins,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that it didn’t have any pranks attached to it.”

Mum made a faint noise of despair. “Those boys,” she said. “I don’t know how Molly does it. I’m so happy that my twins are much better behaved.” She came forwards and bent down to kiss Felix’s forehead, over his scar.

When you remember you have twins, Felix thought, but banished the thought, because saying it to Mum right now wouldn’t help.

“I think your father and—your brother are flying over the gardens. Should we go watch them?”

“Yes, Mum, that would be fun,” Felix said, and didn’t look in the direction of the bedroom door as he followed her away from it. It was hard, though.

*

“Mr. Potter, if I might talk to you for a moment?”

Harry sighed as he turned back to look at Professor Flitwick. The little professor had such an expressive face that you always knew what he was thinking even though he tried to hide it. Sometimes Harry wondered how he had survived to the age he was with that kind of face.

“All right, Harry?”

Harry absently nodded to Felix, and to Hermione, who had immediately began hovering as if she thought Flitwick wanted to talk to Harry about his marks and she wanted to hear. “Yeah, I’ll be along to lunch in a minute.”

Felix clapped Harry’s shoulder and herded Hermione out of the classroom, even though she was arguing with him in a low voice. Flitwick shut the door but didn’t lock it—Harry’s magic rippled a little—and then faced him.

“Mr. Potter,” Flitwick said, and his voice was soft and kind, “I think I’m right that you’re not using your wand at all, are you?”

Harry looked at Flitwick and thought about all the different things he could say. Then he took a deep breath and said, “No, sir.”

“Have you ever used it?”

He might know if I lie—I’m about to reveal my elemental magic to people anyway—I don’t think he would try to convince the Potters to kill me or exile me or send me back to the Dursleys—

“No, sir.”

Flitwick made a sad sort of snuffling sound, like a pig rooting under a tree. “Why did you pretend, then, Harry?”

“Why are you using my first name, sir?”

“I wanted—to express my concern. You may not be a Ravenclaw, but you are still my student, and if your hiding of your wandless talents had something to do with your—abrupt introduction to the magical world, or your brother’s fame…”

“I was told that wandless magic is childish, sir. Because it’s related to accidental magic, and that just bursts out of people when they don’t even want it to and it could hurt others.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. He was pretty sure that Flitwick had been one of the people in his first year encouraging him to use his wand and that he would get past the “impulse” to lash out wandlessly in time.

But that wasn’t the kind of thing he could say to his professor, so he just gave him a tremulous smile and said, “Are—would you say that to my parents if I asked you to, sir?”

“I certainly shall. I intend to owl them and ask for a meeting in the Headmaster’s office a week from today. Will that suit? That should give me some time to prepare my arguments and you some time to accept the public sharing of your talents.”

Flitwick’s voice had gone gentle. He probably interpreted the expression on Harry’s face as wild hope, which was fine. Harry ducked his head and mumbled his agreement shyly, and Flitwick waved him out of the classroom with a benevolent look on his face. Harry went, not surprised when he saw Theo next to the door, even though the Slytherins didn’t have Charms next.

“What did he say?” Theo asked, the minute they had gone around a corner and far enough to put any Listening Charms behind them.

“That he can tell my magic is wandless, and that it’s silly to think wandless magic is childish.”

Theo didn’t look smug, but Harry was sure that it took a lot out of him not to. Harry nudged him with a gentle shoulder. “Yes, yes, you’ve said for a long time that I should tell people about this. I’ll remind you that my parents are the ones who think it’s childish, and the Headmaster. They might not be receptive to this even if Flitwick is the one who raises it.”

“But this is the beginning,” Theo said, and his eyes went to the sheath that held Harry’s knife against his hip, invisible under the robes.

Harry acknowledged that with a thin smile.

*

“Okay, George, why did you want me to stay behind?”

George looked a little startled that Ginny had recognized him, but then smiled ruefully at her and shook his head. “Because you’re getting into dangerous waters,” he said, sitting down on the bench in front of the fireplace. Ginny did the same thing, ignoring the way that the tall house-elf who studied elemental magic with them stared at her. “And, well, Mum is the sort to interfere if she knows that.”

“So you would go against Mum for me?” Ginny hadn’t expected that. George and Fred didn’t obey the rules or anything, but they tended to just ignore Mum and do what they wanted. Standing up to her was—something else.

Especially standing up for Ginny’s right to fight or fly or practice dangerous magic, which they’d never done.

George nodded and leaned forwards, his face pale and serious. “It’s important, Gin. We know how important Luna is to you.”

“How?”

“We have eyes, you know. Even two pairs of them.”

“Why are you the only one here, then, instead of both you and Fred?”

George rubbed the back of his neck and looked embarrassed. “We—we thought that you might distrust us and decide it was a prank if both of us stayed back with you. This way, you know that I’m sincere.”

It touched Ginny, just a little. She sat up, though, and said, “And this isn’t a prank?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Ginny still eyed George warily as he drew his wand. There were so many spells the twins had cast to make her life miserable before. But he only waved his wand around in a slow, exaggerated crisscross pattern, muttering, “Mentem ligo.”

“What’s that?”

“A mild version of the Confundus Charm. You cast it on someone and it distracts them from whatever they were just thinking about. You can use it if Mum sees you performing a spell that’s Darker than she thinks you should have, or practicing your elemental magic, or—well, if someone accuses you of being a bully again.”

Ginny sat up. It was the kind of thing she wouldn’t have had any interest in before this year at Hogwarts. But even though some of the kids in Ottery St. Catchpole had thought Luna was weird, they hadn’t bullied her like this.

“Yeah. I want to learn it.”

George gave her a wink. “Thought you would. Be careful with your wand at first, you have to make the movement slowly the first few times you practice it…”

*

“Now, Harry, you know that your parents won’t hurt you.”

Albus sighed a little as Harry nodded, but kept his eyes downcast, aimed at his lap. The boy radiated dubious concern. Filius, sitting in the special, half-height chair Albus kept for him, laughed.

“Of course not! We’re here to discuss something that is going to make Mr. Potter a prodigy in his classes. What parent wouldn’t be proud of that?”

Harry’s hands clasped around each other, turning so white that Albus just smiled instead of responding. He was disturbed to realize how disturbed Harry was. Albus wanted the few years Harry had left to live to be happy ones.

The Floo flared green, and Lily and James stepped out. Lily smiled at Albus, but her gaze immediately went to Harry. James wasn’t even pretending to smile.

“Thank you for coming, Lily, James,” Albus said, and motioned for them to take the two chairs to the side of his desk, where they could see both Filius and Harry at once. “Now, Filius wants to request your permission to have Harry practice some magic without his wand. He knows that you think wandless magic is childish, but he intends to challenge that perception.”

“Wandless magic isn’t childish by itself,” Lily said at once. Her hands were clasped between her legs the way Harry’s were. Albus wondered if he should point out the similarity, if it would make them both feel better, and then decided it probably wouldn’t. “But when it’s combined with poor control of magic in general and an impulsive nature, it’s not a good idea. I would prefer it if Harry could wait a few years, until he’s got better at controlling his temper, before he starts practicing it.”

“I don’t think Mr. Potter is any more childish than most second-year students.” Filius smiled, but Albus could hear the confusion under the surface of his voice. “I believe he would do well. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it, for Harry to do well in his classes?”

If it gives him happiness, before the inevitable end.

“Of course I want him to do well,” said James, coughing a little to clear his throat. “But…”

“Yes?”

“There are more important things. Like getting him accustomed to a wand.”

“I thought,” Harry whispered.

“Yes?” Filius turned to the boy.

“I thought, well, maybe I had wandless magic because Felix is so good with a wand. Because we’re twins? We have different skills?”

Albus felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. He shivered, and shadows shifted in his mind, reminding him of the creature he had resolved to forget. From the look on Lily and James’s faces, they felt the same way.

And why not? After all, they had chosen Albus as their Lord, and while they might have to shift their allegiance to Felix, he was too young for that yet.

The thing Albus did remember was the boy who had whispered to him in the room of an orphanage about his command of wandless magic. The boy who had been dark-haired like Harry, and who had been Dark like Harry.

“That’s an old notion, and not one that’s really true, my boy,” Albus said as kindly as he could. “The one about twins having complementary skills, that is. I do think that you would be best served to find a wand that wants you.”

“But there’s not one.”

“Did you try all the wands in Ollivander’s shop, though, sweetheart?” Lily was smiling, but Albus could see how her heart was breaking behind her eyes. “No, of course not. There was no way to do that. We should have asked him to craft you a custom wand that would respond to your—unique challenges.”

“But Mr. Potter’s magic is simply wandless.” Filius was frowning at everyone in the room except Harry now, who kept his head bowed and his eyes focused on his hands in his lap. “A wand will never be able to channel it. And I cannot understand your resistance to the idea, Mrs. Potter. Most people would treat their children’s wandless magic as a gift!”

Lily choked on a rough sob, and James wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

Filius still looked as though he should have been a badger and not an eagle. Albus cleared his throat. It was up to him to speak for his followers when they could not, one of the responsibilities of a good Lord. “We—are afraid that Mr. Potter’s wandless magic is such because of the events of that night, Filius. It’s truly impossible to ask the Potters to countenance him continuing to use it.”

Filius blinked a few times. Then he said, “What does the origin matter? He still needs to be taught how to use it. And if you’re afraid that he might lash out when he’s in a temper, then that’s all the more reason to meet him on his own ground and teach him that way.”

Harry Potter died that night, was what Albus wanted to say. The boy before you is nothing more than a remnant of the Dark Lord we tried to give everything to conquer.

“I think Mr. Potter would prefer to use a wand. Wouldn’t you, Harry?” Albus turned to the boy with a coaxing smile. He knew Harry from their Potions tutoring, and Harry was a biddable child, a meek child, who had not deserved his treatment at the hands of his relatives. Albus was sure that Harry would agree with Albus and his parents and not Filius.

Surely.

But Harry looked up and said, “No, sir.”

*

I could go back to the way things were before. They would know that I wasn’t using the wand, but they would think I was trying.

But the knife in the sheath under his robe hummed, and for some reason, what Harry saw in his mind’s eye wasn’t the Potters’ disappointed faces if he didn’t do as they told him, but Theo’s and Ginny’s and Luna’s and Felix’s disappointed faces if he did.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, to look up and speak those words. It got worse when he saw the astonishment in the Headmaster’s eyes. He wanted to cower and turn away.

They could hurt him. They could still hurt him.

But Flitwick was beaming and nodding, and Dumbledore had controlled his immediate reaction. He leaned back in his chair and said calmly, “I’m not sure that we have the resources to train a wandless magic user at Hogwarts.”

They’re going to try and make me leave—

Harry’s magic spread clattering wings from his shoulder, but before he could speak, Flitwick snorted a little and said, “Nonsense, Albus. It used to be more common than it is now, especially when pureblood families wanted to train their children in magic before they turned eleven. We have the books of lessons here, and we have the time and resources to do it.”

“It would be unfair to ask you to do it, Filius. Or any of the other professors. Poor Minerva would seem like the natural choice because she’s the boy’s Head of House, but she’s so overworked—”

“It would only be extra work for the first few months, which I am more than willing to take on. After that, Mr. Potter could learn the spells alongside his classmates. It’s the teaching we have to learn, and the methods of controlling his magic that Mr. Potter has to learn. It’s doable.”

“I don’t know…”

“I think he should be allowed to try.”

Harry glanced over at Lily, the last person he had thought would speak. But she gave him a watery smile and a nod.

“I know now that you’re never going to be normal, Harry,” she murmured. “And it would be wrong to stunt your growth when you have to learn a different way.”

Harry didn’t trust that for a second, not from this woman who had helped to cast him back into the Dursleys’ house. But he had to pretend to believe it. And he didn’t think that she would be able to interfere with the lessons easily, not after giving her permission like this.

“Lils? Are you sure?”

“Yes, James.” Lily turned to look at James, and her face had some flat expression Harry didn’t understand on it. But it told him that he’d been right not to trust her. “Think about it. Do we really want Harry to suffer from the lack of a wand all his life?’

Emphasis on those words that Harry didn’t understand, either. But he remembered them to tell Theo and Gryffindor’s portrait. Maybe Felix, too, although it would hurt him if he heard the Potters talking about Harry this way.

“No,” James said with a gusty sigh. “I suppose not.”

“And his magic won’t get under control without that.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right.” James cast Harry a slightly nervous look. “You’re right that he should be able to—thrive…”

“Then it’s decided!” said Flitwick, with a glittering, steely smile that made Harry think he wasn’t the only one who had noticed the odd undertones. “As I said, I will be in charge of Mr. Potter’s tutoring, and the other professors can learn from me the few special methods we’ll need to instruct him.”

“You will tell me right away if it becomes too much for you, Filius.”

“Yes, of course, Albus,” said Flitwick, in a tone that made Harry pretty sure he would do no such thing.

Harry didn’t know why. He might be a good student in Charms if he managed to use wandless magic and have it accepted, or elemental magic and have that accepted. But he wasn’t now. And he wasn’t in Flitwick’s House.

It was a mystery.

*

“Sir? Can I ask why you told my parents that I should be able to use wandless magic?”

Mr. Potter’s words were so quiet that Filius had to strain to hear them. His heart panged when he made them out, and he turned around to consider the boy standing in the middle of the corridor outside his office, staring at him. They were of a height.

“I believe all children should have the best chance to thrive, Mr. Potter,” he said firmly. “And that includes children who have magic other than the traditional wanded kinds.”

“Have you—known many of them?”

The words were searching, and Filius wondered if Mr. Potter even knew it. But he nodded, because he didn’t believe in concealing the truth from his students. “My own brother. He was a half-goblin, too, and ran more strongly to the goblin side of our heritage, to the magics of metal and stone.”

“I—goblins could use wands, right?”

“Yes, but the wands would have to be attuned to their magic, and the Ministry has forbidden the making of such wands for a long time.” Filius smiled at the boy. It wasn’t often that someone asked that question instead of just assuming. “My brother and I both had wizard blood, but his magic was wandless, and that was the way it remained. I trained mine with a wand and let the magics of metal and stone wither.”

“The magics of metal and stone. Does that mean goblins are elemental wizards, sir?”

“Oh, well, not wizards, you understand. But elementalists, yes.”

The boy looked at him with big eyes. Filius wondered if his parents had trained him up on stories of elemental wizards and witches being dangerous, the way Filius had read when he was young. It seemed like the kind of thing the Potters would do.

Bewilderment sparked in him at the thought of them. Lily had been so much more open-minded when she was young, and James had never seemed like the kind of man who would deny reality when it came to his son.

Then again, they had taken Albus as their Lord, and people who followed Lords and Ladies did experience a certain dulling of thought. Filius had sometimes regretted that his own goblin heritage made it impossible for him to experience the sense of unity and purpose that bound a Lord’s followers, but not very often.

“I…”

“Yes, Mr. Potter?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Filius just nodded. He would try his best to be a helpful professor to Mr. Potter, and maybe in the end the boy would confide his secrets to him. “Please feel free to come speak to me at any time.”

“Yes, sir.”

*

“It’s happening, then.”

Sirius’s voice was flat. He saw the uncomfortable glance Lily and James exchanged, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He flung himself back on the couch near the fireplace in their largest sitting room and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the silence while he waited for his friends to speak.

Lily was the one who finally whispered, “It is.”

“And Albus couldn’t tell Filius to shut up?”

“Not without revealing…”

Sirius nodded gloomily. Of course. Of course he couldn’t.

Guilt stabbed him and raked him with long claws. If he had stood up to James and Lily the way Remus had years ago, he wouldn’t be lying here now and feeling as if someone had ripped the very heart out of him. He wouldn’t be feeling as though he had betrayed his godson.

But then again, look at what had happened to Remus. Sirius would have suffered that. And he would have been as useless to Harry now as Moony was useless to Felix.

“I thought we would have more time,” Lily whispered suddenly. “I thought when we reclaimed him from Petunia, we would have more time with him, before the thing inside him starts to devour him whole.”

Sirius rolled over. “What thing?” The thing that did the devouring, or would have done it if they had fulfilled their side of the bargain, was locked in the drawer in Lily and James’s bedroom.

Lily turned such a devastated look on him that Sirius got up from the couch and staggered over to comfort her. Lily hugged him back, but it was mechanical, her eyes fastened on the wall over his shoulder.

“The remnants of Voldemort. You know that Harry—he never had wandless magic before then. Never.”

“He must have,” Sirius said, startled into speaking. “All magical babies have accidental magic. I think I remember him floating a plush over to him.”

“Not like he does now. That was normal. This is.” Lily broke off and shook her head, burying her face in his shoulder.

Sirius held her and said nothing. There was nothing he could say that would make it better, he knew, nothing that would change the facts. They had failed Harry, and the only thing they could do was make sure that they didn’t fail Felix as well.

*

“And you trust the letter?”

“It was right about the place to tap on the Whomping Willow.”

Harry was quiet, but Felix could feel the warm push of his brother’s magic against his back as they followed the tunnel that led from beneath the willow to the Shrieking Shack. When Felix thought about it, he could sense people’s magic, although it took a lot of concentration and being with two other people at most.

Harry’s magic was always warm. Because he was good at calling fire, Felix supposed.

“And it’s not the full moon,” Felix added, when Harry didn’t say anything else.

“Yeah.”

“You’re not happy.”

“I can’t reconcile the letter that he sent the first time with this one. I don’t know how to trust which one’s real.”

Felix turned around and smiled at Harry. They were walking in the Lumos light of Felix’s wand and a ball of fire that hovered above the middle of Harry’s palm. “I think we should give him a chance. Maybe he wrote the last letter right after the full moon. You know that some werewolves can get violent when they’re too close to their wolf.”

Harry just moved his head, not agreeing or disagreeing. Felix turned around and saw the trapdoor that Lupin’s letter had talked about ahead of them. He reached up to draw the bolt that was right above his head.

“Felix!”

Harry’s shout got covered up by a horrific snarl from above the trapdoor. It burst open, and Felix went sprawling to the floor. He rolled over and forced his way back to his knees, only to stop there with his mouth open.

Harry was standing encased in what looked like a whirlwind made of fire, fighting something made of flickering dark radiance, which moved so quickly that Felix didn’t understand what he was seeing. He could feel the sick lurch in his belly, where it felt as though someone was trying to drown him.

I brought Harry here. He thought it was a trap, and he was right, and—

Part of the blurring dark thing cut towards Harry, traveling right into the middle of the fire. Harry stumbled back in turn, and the fire flared bright and turned into something that looked like razors, or shards of broken glass. They all spun inwards and latched onto the thick darkness, and the thing howled in pain.

“Run, Felix!”

Felix got back to his feet with a huge effort, clutching at the wall of the tunnel. “Not without you!”

“Damn it, run!”

Felix might have hesitated, but then the trapdoor shook, and something four-legged and grey and terribly gaunt leaped down through it. It carried an aura of terror with it that made Felix’s decision for him. He turned and he ran.

He heard the sound of pounding, pursuing footsteps for only a moment before there were twin howls of pain. Felix gritted his teeth and pushed himself faster, faster. He had to trust—he had to trust that Harry was going to be all right—

He would get in the way if he went back and tried to help his brother now.

It was the only thing that kept his legs moving.

*

Harry knew Felix was getting out of danger, and he smiled. It didn’t seem to affect the beast and the dark thing, whatever it was, in front of him, but what mattered was that now Harry could use the magic he wanted without getting Felix upset because it was too Dark for him.

He let his power go, all of it at once, the wandless and the elemental magic and the magic stored in the knife, and let it do exactly as it wanted.

It reared up and in between him and the beasts, a curling wave of black fire studded with shards of ice and small stones. The sides of it began to swing, back and forth, as if someone inside the wave clutched long chains in both hands.

Harry laughed.

The grey creature howled and sprang forwards. The silent dark one followed it.

Harry flicked his fingers, and the chains and the fire and the ice and the stones tore into the beasts.

They screamed in pain, horrible grinding noises. Harry saw legs and arms and pieces of fur and ears go flying. Something exploded as it was drawn into the wave of darkness, and while Harry didn’t dare to hope that either of his opponents was mortal enough to die, he hoped at least that they hurt.

They had lured him and Felix here. They had nearly hurt Felix. They deserved torture.

The grey creature broke first, scrambling back up and through the trapdoor. The dark thing followed, but slowly, and Harry had the impression of eyes staring at him for all that it looked like a shadow.

Then the shadow broke. Yellow eyes stared out of its face, eyes that were not a man’s but a wolf’s, and a mouth formed beneath them that was human, and someone cried in a soft voice, “Help me. Help me.”

Harry wasn’t about to be fooled by that. Sometimes Dudley’s gang would pretend to be hurt and cry out like that to get teachers or their parents to pay attention to him. He concentrated, and his magic slung forwards and smashed a chain of fire into the creature’s lying mouth.

The dark thing howled and fled.

Harry called his magic back, although with difficulty. Then he began slowly backing down the tunnel, letting the fire hover in front of him. He doubted that he had defeated the beasts, only hurt them.

But nothing had happened by the time he caught up with Felix, near the entrance of the tunnel. Felix flung his arms around Harry and hugged him with desperate strength. Harry hugged him back, gently patting his shoulder.

“What happened?” Felix whispered. “Do you think that was Lupin? Did—did whatever happened that night make him like that?”

“I don’t know,” Harry murmured. “The grey creature looked a little like a werewolf, but not completely. And I don’t know what that dark thing was.”

“We’ll find out.”

Harry nodded, and together they went back down the tunnel, watching over their shoulders, guarded by Harry’s hovering elements.

Only silence followed them.