The Alchemist's Cell
by SJR0301
Chapter Twenty-Six
Harry thought again, with hope, with relief, it's finished, and waited for the dark to take him. Instead of the dark though, he felt consumed by fire. His body where the sword had invaded was on fire, a pain more agonizing than the Cruciatus Curse. He sought oblivion; thought Mum, Dad, Sirius, I'm ready.
The fire kept him tied to his body. He wanted to soar out of it, to be released, but he was still chained to it, and his scar was searing with a new fire of its own. A white light, bright as the sun, flared across his vision, and he fled from the pain, soaring on the back of a great white owl, scudding in the air, and feeling the connection to his body was now only a thin golden rope of light.
He flew far, miles south, and circled down to see a familiar house. The front window of the Riddle House was cracked open as though someone had thrown some very large object through it and the tall trees that had once stood before the house were gone. Only a black, charred mess of ashes testified to where they had once thrown graceful shadows on the elegant old house. He swept through the window, but the house was empty. Ashes in the fireplace told that there had been people there not long ago. A cup was tipped over on a side table, and the silver picture frames that had adorned the piano were knocked askew.
He swept back out the window and soared high. There was a mouse running through the field below. The owl he rode dove down, but the mouse had gone, slipping down a grated hole that led deep down beneath the graves. The steps led into the mausoleum and he flew silently deeper and deeper into the very well of the crypt. Now he recognized the place. On the stone table, the chained man lay. The one who had cried out without words. The one who had been less than animal. The one they had poured stolen life and stolen magic and stolen minds into.
The man on the stone table opened his eyes. This time, the eyes were aware and awake. This time, the man sat up and swung his legs down. He ran long spidery white fingers across his arms and body. He sat up tall and stretched, and smiled at his strength. He was a handsome man, with dark, nearly black hair like all the Riddles before him. But unlike all the Riddles before him, his newly woken eyes were red and their pupils had slits like a cat's or a snake's. He laughed, a high, cold laugh. And Harry knew that it was not over at all. Not this time.
Harry sank back into the dark and waited for the fire in his scar and in his body to go out. Harry woke several times, and he knew they had moved him into the infirmary, but he couldn't muster the strength to open his eyes or to speak. He heard Mrs. Weasley's voice once demanding to know why his wound still bled and why they hadn't closed it up. Another time, he heard Madam Pomfrey saying, "Out! Out! You'll be the first to know when he wakes." And the protesting voices of Ron and Hermione and Ginny. Still another, he felt a cool hand laid over his forehead and felt grateful that it covered his scar, which still burned.
A dry voice said softly, "Has the wound closed at all?" and Dumbledore's voice replying, "No, Severus. It hasn't."
There was a pause then and Harry thought he ought to try to open his eyes, but his lids felt weighted and heavy and it was too much trouble to try.
"I may have...I may have a solution," Snape's voice said. The voice was unusally hesitant, and in a corner of his mind, Harry realized he had not seen Snape at the fight at all. He had not been with the Death Eaters, but he couldn't recall him being in the Castle either.
Dumbledore's voice said sharply, "Tell me. We have tried everything we know, but Poppy and I are in agreement, the sword's magic has poisoned the wound. He may linger, but we think he will likely die."
There was a swish of movement, the sound of someone's robes, and Dumbledore's voice said, "What is it?"
"A potion," Snape said. "Made from bloodflowers and the sap of mimbulus mimbletonia. Longbottom has one and lent me some of its sap for the potion."
Dumbledore said softly, "The bloodflowers? They were from him, weren't they?" Having gotten an affirmation, a wordless nod perhaps, Dumbledore said, "Go on! It can only help."
Hands touched him, unwrapping the bandages through which blood still flowed sluggishly. That woke him, and he made a sound of protest as the touch started the fire back up from a low heat to a full burn. Then something doused the fire completely and he fell again into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The next time Harry woke, the sun was shining, and he could hear a crowd cheering, Gyffindor! Gryffindor! Gryffindor! He tried to sit up, but a sharp pain wrung a gasp from him, and Madam Pomfrey was there scolding him, "Lay back, child. You'll open that wound up again, and we've had a terrible time getting it to begin healing."
He whispered, "What's the noise outside?"
She smiled and said, "Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. The last quidditch game of the season."
That made him try to sit up again, but she placed a cool hand on his head and said, "There'll be other Quidditch games, child, if you rest and do as you're told for once, instead of running after danger all the time." He didn't bother to answer that.
He listened and said, "Who's winning?"
She didn't answer, but handed him a potion to drink, and the pain in his chest faded down and he closed his eyes drowsily again. He heard, as he fell back to sleep, her voice saying,
"I think it'll be all right Professor. He woke up and wanted to know who was winning the quidditch game."
Dumbledore's voice said softly, "Thank Merlin for that."
In all, it took nearly a month for Harry to heal sufficiently to satisfy Madam Pomfrey. For though Snape's potion had counteracted the poisonous magic of Voldemort's sword, the physical injury itself was severe. For weeks after, there were times that simply breathing hurt.
For a while, Harry drifted in and out of consciousness. He dreamed of Voldemort's latest incarnation twice more. The first time, he sat drinking something that smoked unpleasantly. Some potion, perhaps, to help restore his powers and his health. The second was far scarier. Wormtail was there alone with his master. The rat transformed back into his human form and fearfully approached.
"Well," Voldemort said coldly, have you retreived it?" Tremblingly, Wormtail held out a broken wand of yew.
"It was that way when I found it," he squeaked. "Someone stepped on it."
"Very well," the cold voice said, "it will simply have to be replaced."
"But..but how will you do that?" Wormtail asked. The handsome dark haired man smiled and his red eyes glowed.
"It's very convenient being thought dead, Wormatil. I have only to walk into Ollivander's and buy a new wand. Who will know? And then, we shall see. Then my servants' true loyalty will be tested. Will they return once more? I am sure you will help persuade them, will you not?"
Mrs. Weasley came to visit him a few days after he first regained consciousness. She fussed over him, straightening his bedclothes, and looking a bit put out that she couldn't just wrap him up and take him home with her. She also brought him something unexpected.
"These came for you at the Burrow, dear," she said, "but I've been in and out so often on Order business that I kept putting them aside and forgetting to send them on." She handed him a small packet of letters addressed in a round, schoolgirlish hand. Hary said thanks, and tried to figure out why Mrs. Weasley looked embarassed-- or was that his imagination?-- and who might be writing him letters.
He opened one up and saw with pleasure that the letters were from Annie. The first one was dated just before Christmas and was full of holiday cheer.
"Dear Jamey," the letter read, "I know your proper name is really Harry, but I stil think of you as Jamey, so I hope you don't mind me writing you like that." Harry smiled. The opening sounded so like her and he felt a bit guilty that he hadn't written her himself. The letter continued:"I hope you have a really great holiday and that school is okay. I've been getting along with my acting. The Director gave me another part this fall, and we've been seeing each other quite a bit. Ken, that's him, is really sweet, and he got me a small part in a sitcom that's starting in January. It's lots of fun to do.
I don't know if you heard, but Davey got killed when some gang came in and shot up the Black Jack. Nora's okay. She cut out a few days after you left. She and Davey had a fight and she decided to go home.
Drop me a line sometime and be sure to watch my new show on the telly when you get a chance. It's called "Mayfair" and I play a maid in a toff household who's the only smart one in the house.
Have a Happy Christmas,
Annie
The other two letters were similar. More talk about Ken the Director and about her show. In the last one, she wrote rather plaintively at the end,
"I thought you would write me back by now. Please don't forget me, Jamey. Good friends are hard to come by, and I thought you were mine."
Harry really felt guilty now. He looked up to see Mrs. Weasley was watching him and said, "I ought to write back, you know. The first letter's from Christmas and it's already May."
"You really like her, this girl, Annie?" Mrs Weasley asked.
"She's my friend," Harry said simply. He looked at the last letter and added, "She got engaged to her boyfriend. He's a director and they're getting married in June. I should get her a present, don't you think?" Mrs. Weasley contrived to look happy and relieved at once.
"Well I can help you with that. You're not in any shape to be going shopping just now."
"Erm, that's okay," Harry, said hastily, "I'll just write and send on a gift later." He had a feeling that Annie might be more comfortable with something from a nice Muggle store than something from Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. While Mrs. Weasely was talking to Madam Pomfrey, Ginny sneaked by them and sat on the edge of his bed. For a minute she just looked at him.
"You left us out," she said. "You shouldn't have left us behind when you went to rescue Flamel."
"I thought I'd be getting that speech from Ron or Hermione," Harry answered.
"You will be," she said very seriously. "You had us all terrified." She looked at him critically and said, "You look just awful, you know. All pale and thin and sickly."
Harry snorted. "Now there's a surprise. I'm lucky just to be here."
She nodded gravely. "Yeah, you are." she looked at him again and said hesitantly, "I think you were very brave, what you did. Everyone else thinks you were mad because you nearly killed yourself along with him, but they won't admit it."
"But you don't think so?" Harry asked.
"No," she answered. "But I have a better idea than they do of what he really was. They know he was horrible and evil, of course, especially after this. But I don't think they really understand, even now, what he really was." Harry couldn't think of anything to say to that. How was he going to tell them that Voldemort wasn't really dead? Ginny had noticed his hesitation, though.
"What is it?" she asked. "You do know he's dead, don't you? You must have known that when you stabbed him, didn't you?" Harry opened his mouth to answer and shut it again.
He would have to tell Dumbledore about his dreams, but he was very afraid no one would believe him. Who would want to? And surely they'd think he was just mad, just looking to keep up his fame, like last year?
"Harry?" she asked, "He is dead. He is," she finished uncertainly, "Isn't he?" Harry shook his head.
"No," he whispered softly. "He's not. He had another body waiting. He simply possessed that one when I killed the body he was in." He shook his head wearily. "I don't know, Ginny, whether he can ever be truly killed. Maybe he really is so far from being human, that he can't ever be killed."
He waited to see her reaction. If anyone would believe him, he thought she might. She alone knew what it was like to be possessed by Voldemort. And even then, that had been a mere shadow of him. A magical impression left in a diary, which had fed on her life to try to create a new life for itself.
"I see," she said. She paused a moment and glanced across the room at her Mum and Madam Pomfrey. "I think you should be careful who you tell. I mean, it's in the papers and everything. Huge front page headlines that you killed him." She frowned thoughtfully and said,
"Have you told Professor Dumbledore yet?" He shook his head.
"I'll have to, though. Or else it'll be like last year, only worse. Because all those people thought they saw him die."
"How...how do you know he's still alive," Ginny asked hesitantly.
With a glance at Mrs. Weasley and Madam Pomfrey to be sure they weren't listening, he answered, "I dreamed it, saw it." Then deliberately changing the subject he asked, "So, how was the game? Who won?"
She glanced over at her Mum and said, "Great. We won. But it's a good thing we weren't playing Slytherin. I'm not sure I can beat Malfoy as a Seeker. I'm not as good a Seeker as you are." He smiled and she grinned back. Then she added with a wicked glint. "You should have seen Cho Chang. She went totally spare when I beat her to the Snitch. I think she wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, like."
"She's quite smart being in Ravenclaw and all," Harry answered, "but she's not the greatest Quidditch player."
"I know," Ginny replied. "You only had trouble with her because you were too busy looking at her pretty face to keep your eye on the Snitch." Harry flushed just a bit.
Ginny nodded at the letters stacked on the table next to the bed and asked, "Those are from your friend from London?" Harry nodded.
She turned slightly pink and said, "You really liked her, didn't you?"
" 'Course I did," Harry answered. "She's my friend."
"She looked like she was more than a friend when she kissed you goodbye," Ginny answered and she blushed bright red. Harry stared at her.
"She's my friend," he answered. "Like Hermione is my friend. She's getting married to her boyfriend in June." He kept his face as straight as he could. He was afraid if he laughed, his chest would hurt. Or worse, Ginny would be mad at him.
Harry woke again to find Dumbledore looking down at him with concern. His scar was hurting and his chest ached. He wished, with annoyance, that the pain would go away. He had come to loathe being in hospital and when he woke up enough to think, he worried that he might not pass Sixth year since he had missed so much class time now.
Dumbledore laid a hand on his forehead and said, "You are still in pain?" Harry wanted to say no, but that would be stupid.
Instead, he blurted out, "My scar hurts. He's upset about something."
Dumbledore stared at him, and for a moment Harry thought the elderly wizard would tell him to drink his potion and not to worry, that Voldemort was dead. The blue eyes seemed to grow more intense, and then to look far away, as if he were seeing things, making connections.
"He's still alive?" Dumbledore asked. Wordlessly, Harry nodded.
"How is that possible?" Dumbledore asked.
Harry told him of his dreams, of the man in the crypt, and how the creature had woken with Voldemort's eyes. "I undersstand it now," he added. "I dreamed of it a few times, and now I know why he was killing those other witches and wizards. Nancy Bell and Margaret Miller. The ones the Detective was investigating. He was stealing their magic and their life. Like when Riddle tried to do that to Ginny with the diary. He fed them into the body, and when I stabbed him, he didnt' die at all. He just left the body he was possessing and moved into the one he'd had ready and waiting. Just in case. I guess," he added, "that Voldemrot didn't want to be stuck without one again." Harry saw that the weight seemed to settle back on Dumbledore's shoulders and his face drooped with weariness.
"What are we going to do?" Harry asked. "The prophecy, it wasn't true at all. I didn't kill him and he didn't kill me. Maybe everyone's been mistaken about all of it."
It came to him that the whole of his life had been shaped by the one false prophecy. Without it, Voldemort would never have killed his parents, he would never have lived with the Dursleys, and even now, he would not be lying here in pain and dreading the next round with a perpetual enemy who no longer needed any reason beyond sheer hatred and the need to prove his superiority to continue the fight forever.
Dumbledore sighed softly and replied, "You are not going to do anything but get well just now."
"But Professor," Harry protested, "he has to be stopped now, before he can build his following back up again. People have to know!"
Dumbledore regarded Harry with a look of infinite sorrow. "No one will believe it," he replied. "Nearly a hundred people saw you kill Voldemort. They saw his dead body. They simply will not believe he is alive. And they will truly believe that you are mad if you insist on saying he is." Harry tried to sit up, but that was a mistake. The pain in his chest stabbed at him, and his eyes clouded over.
Dumbledore called for Madam Pomfrey, and she came running to give him another potion muttering about reckless fools who had no sense at all. Harry welcomed the darkness and the respite from thought. He sank into sleep almost wishing he needn't wake up again.
During his fourth week in the infirmary, Harry found his spirits as low as they'd ever been. Ron and Hermione had come by to visit and they brought with them a package that had arrived in the morning's post. Hermione eyed it with curiosity. It wasn't one of Mrs. Weasley's care packages and Harry really had no one else who would send him packages at all. He turned it over and over and shook it, trying to figure out whether he ought to open it at all.
"Well, go on," Ron said, "Open it." His long nose was twitching just a little, and he sounded like he was waiting for a Christmas present long wished for. Harry shrugged and handed it to his friend.
"Here," he said, "You open it. You can have it, too, whatever it is."
"Don't be a berk," Ron said. But he took the package just the same and tore at the wrapping.
Hermione said, "Be careful!" and Ron replied, "What...you don't think it's cursed or anything?"
Harry felt only mildly interested to know what was in it. He couldn't imagine it was anything that would be of much interest just now, unless it was the news that Voldemort had been recognized and killed off by somebody else, for real.
A small leather box fell out and inside of it was a round gold disk with tiny diamonds and rubies on it in the shape of a wand. Around the edge of the disk it read ORDER OF MERLIN, FIRST CLASS. There was a card enclosed that said, "This medal awarded to Harry James Potter for services above and beyond the call of duty to wizard-kind in the defeat of the dark wizard all knew as He Who Must Not Be Named."
"Wow!" Ron said. "Look at that! It is real, isn't it?"
Harry felt the bitterness boil over and he said, "Keep it. You were just as brave as I was, standing up to him like you did. You should get a medal. And Hermione. And Ginny. And everbody else who stood up to him and the Death Eaters."
He shoved it away and added, "I don't want it. I didn't defeat him. He'll come back again and they won't even believe he's coming. And then they'll blame me for messing up, won't they. And they'll blame me if I tell them he's not dead, won't they?" He covered his eyes with his hands so he wouldn't have to see their expressions -- astonishment from Ron; pity, and anxiety from Hermione.
Ron, however, wasn't putting up with that and he said, "So what if they got it a bit wrong. They should have given it to you First Year when you saved the Sorcerer's Stone. They should have given it to you Second Year, when you killed that basilisk. They should have given it to you Fourth Year, when you fought him and brought back Cedric's body. You deserve it." Harry shook his head. His face was damp, and he dragged his hand across it. Hermione leaned over and kissed his cheek.
She took his hand and said, "You do deserve it. Every bit of it.”
Harry looked up at them and said, "You do believe me, don't you, that he's not dead?"
"Of course, we believe it," Ron answered. "If you say it, we believe it."
Hermione nodded. She looked like she wanted to cry, but was trying hard not to. Harry stared at her and said, "So you don't think it's just a dream? You don't think I've had my brain rearranged by being nearly killed? You do believe me?"
Hermione said calmly, "Yes, Harry, we believe you."
"You're sure," he asked again.
She looked at him with a slight frown and said sadly, "You've been rubbing your scar again, like you do when it hurts. It could only hurt if he was alive. So he must be. Yes," she said again, "I know he must be."
He relaxed then and said, "That's good. I don't think I could bear it if you two didn't believe me."
He closed his eyes again, and let himself drift. Days later, when he had gotten out the infirmary, he found the box with the medal in it tucked neatly in his trunk. He shoved it down into a corner and deliberately forgot about it.
